A Newt and a Human, but One Story

by AuthorofLemuria

And Andrias saw past something. Until now, he had seen this girl as a new coming of Leif, his new chance to be with his old friend. Now, now he saw something of a young newt that had died in spirit a long time ago, betrayed by someone that he had held dear. (Crossposted from Ao3)

18. Battle of Wills

Yunan had hunted many monsters, amphibians and even some that were both at the same time. She had eradicated elusive electric eels, fettered furious fire ferrets and slain savage sand snakes.

None of the enemies she had ever faced had ever stopped her. They might have been stronger, smarter, hardier, crueler or more monstrous than her, but, as her sister had always told her after a scrap, her strength was her determination. General Yunan was an awesome hero, a figure of legend capable of striking awe and fear in friends and foes because she willed it so.

It had been her will, her desire to triumph and become the greatest that had allowed her to become mightier than the strong, more cunning than the smart, more enduring than the hardy and more terrifying than the monstrous.

Which was why the hunt she was on, Yunan couldn't help but think as walked towards the village her sources had pointed her towards, would most likely be both the easier and most difficult quest she had ever embarked on.

What could motivate her more, after all?

The one she was hunting, the human, Sasha Waybright, was just like Grendel. A manipulative monster that would only hurt Marcy, something she would, no, that she could never allow. Yunan knew better than anyone that sometimes people needed to die to protect those she was tasked to protect and she would do her duty, not only because Andrias ordered her to, but because she had grown to care for Marcy.

If what Andrias had told her was true (and she didn't doubt the old salamander for a second, not after all the years she had worked for him and particularly not for something concerning Marcy), then she would be only helping Marcy by striking down Sasha Waybright.

Yet there laid the problem. She had to kill Sasha Waybright. Just a child.

How could she come back and look at Lady Olivia knowing she had killed a child, someone just as old as Marcy?

How could she look at Marcy? What would she do when she would bawl her eyes out over not being able to find her friend?

She shut down the questions. It was the King's orders. Good soldiers follow orders.

But that hadn't been an order, her own mind answered. He had given her a choice and she had taken it.

It was for Marcy's own good.

She could be hurt by Waybright's death, but she would also be free of her.

Marcy may even grow to hate her, but she would be happy and that was what mattered.

She was ready to take that risk and, if necessary, to make that sacrifice.

General Yunan strode through the village's streets. It had taken a lot of shakedowns of her contacts, but she had gotten a lead on the disgraced Captain Grime's location.

The local tavern could be a good place to start, Yunan figured, but, just as she was striving towards it, two toads came out from it. Thanks to her well-honed reflexes, Yunan was able to leap over the roof of a nearby house, out of view, but still in hearshot

The purple one patted her stomach, satisfied "Those fries were certainly something, uh, Percy?"

"Shame we didn't get any for the Lieutenant" Percy pointed out, his hand reaching for the other toad's "Sasha's been in such a bad mood lately! They would surely cheer her up"

Yunan allowed herself a predatory smirk. Seems like she had gotten it right, Waybright and Captain Grime were hiding here. She just had to get the precise location out of those two an-

"Yup, and now we gotta go back to the abandoned mill on the hill just out of town to spar with her"

"Why did you phrase it like that, Braddock?"

"Like what?"

…okay, they were idiots.

She still had a job to do. Even if they had just given her Waybright's location, it would have been safer to take them out.

Normally Yunan would allow them to return, maybe even ambush them along the way and allow them to escape, to warn the others and make things fun, but this time she wasn't on this mission for fun.

She had a duty.

Said duty required her to make sure Waybright couldn't escape.

Yunan followed the two toads, jumping from roof to roof, and, when they arrived at the edge of town, she used the trees to get ahead of them. In the middle of the small forest between the town and the hill, she made her play.

Yunan jumped down, landing in the middle of the narrow road and just in front of her prey. She unsheated her claws and slashed before leaping once more into the air and behind them, touching the ground with enough force to create a crater at the same time the two trees she had cut down did the same behind the two toads, blocking their path.

Surprised by the sudden arrival of this unknown figure, the two turned around and brandished their axes. "Who are you?" Percy yelled out.

Yunan smirked with her usual confidence "I am…"

"GENERAL YUNAN!" She proclaimed loudly as she posed, finding solace in her usual spiel. "SCOURGE OF THE SAND WARS! DEFEATER OF RAGNAR THE WRETCHED! AND…" Once more, Yunan leapt through the air, getting closer to the two toads and slashing at their axes, severing their blades from the handle and rendering them useless. "YOUNGEST NEWT TO EVER ACHIEVE THE TITLE OF GENERAL IN THE GREAT NEWTOPIAN ARMY!"

Braddock's eyes widened in understanding as she and Percy backed off instinctively from the threatening newt "You're from the Newtopian military!"

Yunan chuckled "I suppose you're one of the smart toads, aren't you?"

"H-hey, back off, Newtopian scum!" Percy exclaimed as he got in front of Braddock protectively "We know you're here for the bounty on Captain Grime's head, but you'll never take him alive!"

"Oh, I wasn't intending to" Yunan reassured the toad "He and his Lieutenant are not coming to Newtopia alive anyways"

"Sasha?" Braddock asked, confused "What does the King have against her? She ain't done nothing wrong!"

"Let us say it is a… precaution" Yunan reluctantly answered the toad's question, eluding her gaze and looking sideways before once more turning towards them "The matter is, you two aren't on the list of people I gotta whack. So, you can go on. Pretend you were never here. Captain Grime and the human won't live long enough to blame you anyways."

The two toads exchanged a look, asking each other a wordless question. A heartbeat later, Percy threw his handle at Yunan while Braddock dropped and rolled towards her fallen blade.

Yunan's reflexes made her slice the first wooden projectile, but it was her training that allowed her to duck under the blade Braddock tossed at her immediately after, which went on and lodged itself into a tree.

"WE WON'T ALLOW YOU TO HURT THE CAPTAIN!" Braddock yelled out as she ran towards the last blade "AND NOT SASHA EITHER!"

Yunan, however, had recovered from the surprise attack, was faster than the toad and as she was on her as quick as lightning. She kicked Braddock in the chest, sending her flying and making her impact the trees she had blocked the road with, then caught the axe blade that had slipped from the toad's hand with her mouth, shattering it with a powerful bite.

"BRADDOCK!" Percy yelled out, distraught.

"I'm… fine" The purple toad let out a muffled whine of pain as she held her arm "I'll run to warn the Captain, can you buy me some time?"

Percy nodded and lifted one of the trees blocking the way, allowing Braddock to hop over it and run towards the old mill.

"HEY, NEWTOPIA!" Percy yelled as he winded up, the tree still in his hands, and threw it to a rapidly approaching Yunan "DODGE THIS!"

Without slowing down, Yunan fell to her knees, sliding on the armored kneepads, and extracted her blades, limboing under the tree and lodging the hooked ends of her blades in the trunk. Instead of slowing it down, however, Yunan spun it, using the tree as an enormous bat to hit a dumbfounded Percy, sending him flying through the forest, most likely out of the fight.

Without allowing herself a one liner to celebrate an admittedly very cool takedown, Yunan went on all fours and leapt over the fallen trees, quickly catching on on Braddock and grabbing her by the back of her shirt, then tossing her up in the air and finally holding her by the neck.

"I gave you an opportunity." Yunan hissed at the toad, uselessly kicking the air and squirming to try and get out of Yunan's iron grip. "That is very rare. You threw it away. For what?"

"We would never betray the Captain and Sasha!" Braddock protested, trying to tear Yunan's hand from her neck without any success "They care for us, they support us and we won't let them down!"

Yunan scoffed "Please. I know how toad commanders are. Tough sons of britches who don't give a flying frog about their soldiers. And I've also heard how Sasha Waybright is. A manipulative girl who only cares for hersel-"

Yunan was interrupted by a punch in the face from the toad, which most likely hurt Braddock's hand more than Yunan, but succeeded in stopping the newt in her tracks.

"That's not true!" Braddock roared. "Maybe Grime used to be like that, but he cares about us now! And it was Sasha that changed him, that is trying to help him!"

The newt general let out a low growl, baring her teeth. "You've wasted enough of my time" She declared before suddenly turning the toad upside down and slamming her into the ground, K. her instantly.

The two were no longer able to interfere.

They had not been impressive opponents. She was sure Marcy or another bounty hunter Andrias could have chosen would have been more than capable to deal with them.

Yet, the purple toad's words had had an effect on the undefeated newt general.

Sasha cared for them? Surely a deception, another manipulation from the human, just like the ones she had used on Marcy.

Those two had seemed so certain, though. What if Andrias was wrong?

Yunan shook her head. The seed of doubt had been planted in her head, giving strength to the part of her that was unsure about what she was about to do, but she hadn't become General Yunan by being unsure.

She just had to will herself to do it, hold against the small but slowly growing doubt in her mind until the deed was done, until Sasha Waybright was dead and there was nothing she could do about it.

Yunan looked up, over the trees and to the abandoned mill the human was hiding in.

"Let's get to it, then" She whispered to herself as she began to walk up the road.

After much nagging and threatening to take back her phone from him, Grime had agreed to at least move out of the abandoned mill and watch her train.

If he didn't want to move his toady butt, he could at least give her pointers on her form, Sasha reasoned, and she could train while she tried to motivate him, ensuring it wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

"Look, Grime, I just have a few issues with you. You don't even have to listen, I can just point at them" She began, in a diplomatic tone.

Grime shrugged his shoulders as he ate some more beetles "Sure thing, at least I can watch Suspicion Island as you do it"

Sasha brought her hands together under her nose and inhaled deeply, suffocating her desire to kick the toad's ass. She knew she most likely could, at this point, and the fact that she could just not worry about Grime being a worthwhile adversary made her even angrier. It could even motivate him to move his lazy bum, attacking what little pride he had left or just by making him fear another buttkicking.

She also knew that she wouldn't do it, though. Her collaboration with Grime had started out firstly as a way to get out of a cell, then to find a way home, but it had grown… further. She would have hardly stuck with him after he had lost everything else if it hadn't, wouldn't she, Sasha thought to herself.

Which was precisely why she had to get him out of this… whatever sad wallowing it was.

"Alrighty then" Sasha confirmed, stretching out her hand and making it arch from top to bottom.

"…you just pointed to all of me." Grime deadpanned.

"Precisely." Sasha agreed "Look, Grimesy, we had a deal: I help you, you help me. Unlike most of your army, I stuck around, even if without them you're much less useful to me. But if you want that to still be a thing, you gotta straighten things out. I mean, the burping, the drinking, the lazing about and particularly the beard! Unacceptable!" She knew that her threat was an empty one, even if she knew how to read amphibian or, frog, anything about this strange world she was trapped in, she still wouldn't leave the old toad behind. She just hoped that Grime didn't realize that and that it would be enough to get him to his feet.

The toad seemed to take issue with Sasha's words, as his good eye narrowed and a scowl formed on his face, reminding Sasha that under the defeated amphibian there still was the tyrant of Frog Valley, who for years had ruled over toads and frogs with fear "At least I do not lie to myself, like you do" He spat out.

"What did you say?" Sasha asked, dropping the training mannequins she was arranging back into place to replace the ones she had destroyed earlier. Grime may have been a military commander, but she was Sasha Waybright. When she spoke, people listened and, most important of all, they did not talk back.

At least, that had been the case until An-

She threw out the mere thought. She couldn't allow herself to think about that. Not yet. Not until she could fix everything.

Just like Sasha, it seemed Grime didn't want to back down either "Oh please. Don't you think I know why you are training? Or that you know it?"

"I'm training" Sasha answered with venom in her voice "because I lost. We were humiliated, by those slimy frogs and by Anne. I had one thing to do, one fight to win and I couldn't do even that!" To accentuate her words, she threw her sword towards the Anne shaped mannequin, skewering it and pinning it to the ground "So yeah, I'm training because next time I don't want to lose. Because next time I want to win, because I won't accept being beaten by frogs, unlike someone else here!"

"Oh, don't try and fool me, Sasha!" Grime replied "Because you want to win? Because you don't want to be beaten by frogs again? Yes, a frog is the only one stupid enough to believe something like that."

"So why am I training, Mr Smartypants?" Sasha asked, now worked up because of Grime's insinuations. She was training to win the fight she had lost, what the Frog was he thinking? "If not to win, then why!?"

"IT'S A DISTRACTION!" Grime roared back at Sasha, who, for once, was taken aback by the sudden vocal onslaught "You've thrown yourself into fighting because you want to forget what happened at Toad Tower and not because you 'lost a fight', but because you lost your friend!"

That last word, 'friend', seemed to awaken something in the human teen, who had been until then almost paralyzed by the toad's speech, something akin to anger. "The heck are you saying, old toad?" She asked, irritated and putting her hand where the handle of her heron sword would have been, had she not thrown it away earlier, her teeth gritted and her glare angered, almost murderous.

Just like her protege before him, however, that didn't seem to deter Grime, who continued "Oh, sure, continue trying to solve all your problems by slashing at anything that reminds you of them!" He yelled as he pointed at the Anne mannequin, still pinned on the ground by Sasha's sword "Even if you refuse to admit it, Anne stood up to you. She chose those frogs over you, she stood up to you and it eats at you!"

Before Sasha could do as much as reply or even threaten violence on the toad, both her and Grime's well honed senses picked up a sound, the stomping of metal boots on the ground. Their quarrel interrupted, they both turned towards the road that from the town led to their hiding place, to find a slowly approaching figure, an ironclad pink newt with a billowing cape and no apparent weapon.

"That armor…" Grime whispered "Newtopian military, for sure."

"I take that it is bad?" Sasha whispered back, before adding in a cutting tone "You should know, given that you know so much about other people"

Grime grumbled under his breath at the human's remark "You do not need my help to figure it out. She's trouble"

During their small conversation, the pink newt had rapidly closed the distance, even if she was still walking. She stopped and gave a good look at the two. "Captain Grime and Sasha Waybright, I presume."

One of Sasha's eyebrows rose in puzzlement. How did this newt know her name? Grime was the wanted one, she even doubted Newtopia knew of her, given Grime had explicitly said he hadn't reported her as part of their deal. So how? "That's my name. And who in the heck are you?"

The newt gave her an intense glare of hatred she wouldn't expect from a bounty hunter, especially one she had never met before, before smirking "I am… General Yunan! Scourge of the Sand Wars! Defeater of Ragnar the Wretcher! The youngest newt to even achieve the rank of General in the Great Newtopia army!" She ended her proclamation accompanied with numerous poses before giving a somewhat morbid smile "Also, the one who's gonna kill you"

"That still remains to be seen." Sasha announced with bravado as she stepped forward.

"Sasha, what are you doing!?" Grime hissed to her "We're in no shape to take on her!"

Yunan looked like she was about to reply to Sasha's provocation, when she seemed to finally take full notice of the toad and recognise his conditions "Wait" She said, putting her hand forward in a gesture of pause as she did a double take "You really are Grime? Fiercest fighter of the Colosseum?"

"In the flesh. If you know about him, you'll also know the sheer magnitude of the buttkicking he could unleash on you" Sasha proclaimed with a confident smirk, her hyping Grime slightly undermined by the hint of pudge under the toad's beetle-powder-encrusted armor and by him scratching his beard and pulling out of it a beetle he quickly threw in his mouth "You are alone and we are two. I thought newts were supposed to be smart?"

"Sasha, I believe this is not a great idea and quite possibly you putting trying to further distract yourself from your issues by getting us killed"

"Some General that you are!" Sasha laughed mockingly, disregarding Grime's improvised psychotherapy "Where's your army?"

Yunan chuckled, not mockingly like Sasha, but with gusto, almost… relieved? "You're just like I imagined you, Waybright. This will be much, much easier" She stretched out, her arms reaching for the sky as her widening smile and long neck made her look to the stuck in place human and toad like a psychotic snake "And to answer your question, I did use to have an army."

Just as slowly as her arms had slithered upwards, they quickly came downwards, the blades coming out of their scabbards, the lightning-fast slash cutting through several trees with such velocity that Yunan was beginning to step forward with a slow, but inexorable pace when gravity realized it had a job to do and the cut down trees fell to the ground where Yunan had stood, cutting off the road.

"They slowed me down."

"Oh." Was Grime's only reaction, outside of his yellow eye widening to match in size his glass one and his mouth shrinking to a size where a grape would find it hard to pass through. Once his brain put together what happened and what he needed to, Yunan had already closed half the distance between them. "Lieutenant!" He called out as he tugged the frustratingly-not-budging teen. "We gotta go!"

Much to his surprise, Sasha made no signal she wanted to heed his advice. "She's going down." She hissed and, before Grime could do anything to dissuade her from her foolish intentions, she was off, sprinting towards her discarded saber.

As she saw the human going for her weapon, Yunan suddenly went on all fours and changed at the drop of a hat from a slow inexorable walk to a shockingly fast crawl, her still extracted metal claws tearing holes in the ground and propelling her forward in a series of leaps that had her on Sasha in no time.

It was only thanks to her relentless training that Sasha was able to drop to the ground right as Yunan blades pierced the spot she had been a millisecond before. Without losing an instant, she rolled on her side, avoiding several stabs meant for her throat and stomach, until she got to the blade, which she used as leverage to get up quickly then extracted, right on time to parry a slash.

Even with a weapon, any of the three fighters could quickly see that Sasha was outmatched, forced on the defensive as her single sword struggled to block the flurry of blows General Yunan unleashed on her with her claws, each impact forcing the teen back.

"Lieutenant!" Grime cried out as he rushed to her assistance, his previous concerns forgotten as he had to save the human from a suicide attempt for the second time. He picked up a shovel as he ran, cursing under his breath having left his sword in the shed.

He wasn't exactly subtle in his approach and Yunan noticed the approaching toad quite easily, which prompted her to switch her strategy. Her next attack turned into a feint midway, but with too much force, the momentum causing Yunan to fall to the ground, the surprisingly flexible newt rolling into a ball to avoid Sasha's parry and barrelling between Sasha's legs, causing her opponent to fall just as she sprang to her feet with a jump and turned in the air, returning down with her blades in an X right on the fallen human.

For a second Sasha feared for her life, but, where her sword was too slow to block the General's attack, Grime's shovel came to the rescue, the toad struggling with both his hands on the tool to stop the blades as they dug into the wooden handle before giving a strong push that launched her back several meters.

Sasha was quickly back on her feet thanks to the pause Grime had provided her "Not bad, old timer." She complimented him with a smirk "Didn't know you still had it in you."

"Yeah, me neither" Grime answered, already breathing heavily for the effort. "And I don't think I have a lot more either"

"It just means we'll have to finish off this punk quicker"

Before Grime could even attempt to suggest an escape or to question Sasha on why she was hellbent on fighting the psychotic devil-newt, Yunan was on them again with a bellow Grime was sure a newt shouldn't be able to produce.

She might have been one newt against two, but she fought as if she had been the army she had left behind, Grime couldn't help but think as blow after blow of her blades fell on his shovel, denting the metal head and cutting away at the wooden handle.

Slowly but surely, Yunan advanced between the two, like a sculptor's chisel opening a ridge into a solid surface of rock, until she was between them, in what most would regard as a disadvantageous situation, the one where Sasha and Grime would be able to make their superior numbers matter the most.

Not in this case.

Like a whirlwind, the newt spun around and lashed out each and every time with a rapid couple of slashes, staggering her opponent once he or she parried her, giving her time to turn around and do the same to the other.

She was trying to break them, Grime realized. The General was fighting them once at a time, but at the same time, sparing just enough time for each of them to keep them on the defensive and unable to counterattack, tiring them out. Once one of them broke, the old warrior was certain, she would leap on them like a spiderwolf on a wounded lambeetle, gut her unfortunate victim and get to butchering the survivor.

The General's twirling assault continued, Grime's understanding of its purpose doing nothing for his ability to stop it, and between the monstrous newt, the driven creature from another world and the out of shape toad in the end the first to break was Grime's shovel.

Maybe the blades had hit the same spot several times, deepening the cut until it couldn't bear it anymore, or maybe it was the hooked ends that dealt the final blow to the wooden handle, what it was certain was that her wicked blades cleaved the old gardening tool in twain, Grime staggering backwards as his only mean of defense exploded in front of him.

Just as he had predicted, the newt went in for the kill. After the swipe with her right claw had destroyed Grime's shovel, she went in with a direct strike with the left, her hand balled in a fist and her blades pointed forward, to skewer the toad right in his chest.

Just as the huntress didn't waste any second to make her play, though, so Sasha didn't hesitate for a heartbeat. Still reeling after the newt's latest strike, knowing that she'd be unable to strike with enough force to deal damage to the newt, Sasha put all of her weight forward, leaping to try and intercept the blow meant for Grime.

In the millisecond he noticed it, Grime's heart stopped beating. The newt would kill Sasha, she would die because of the hunter sent from him.

However, something none of them saw coming happened.

Instead of continuing with her attack, Yunan twirled on herself, the blades missing Sasha and only scratching Grime's armor, hitting Sasha with her tail straight on her back, sending her flying in the forest.

"Sasha!" Grime yelled as he reached out with a hand, before letting the remains of his improvised weapon fall to the ground and running after her, foolishly giving his back to the huntress, too distraught to think of how he was exposing himself to an attack from behind.

But, as Grime disappeared between the trees, Yunan did not lunge on him, nor did she give pursuit or even move at all, staying still where she was instead, heavily breathing after her stunt.

She had jumped in front of her blade.

Yunan knew what she should have done. Frog, there were probably ten thousand ways she should have done to achieve what she had set out to do, the simplest of which was to turn Sasha Waybright into stick insect kebab. She had delivered herself on a silver platter, Yunan couldn't have killed her more easily if the human had taken her blades, pointed them on her throat and nodded.

But Sasha Waybright had jumped in front of her blade.

Yunan had taken an instant too long to react, not because she hadn't noticed her, but because she had refused to believe it.

Sasha Waybright was not supposed to take a stab for someone else.

She was a manipulator, someone who used people and enjoyed having control over them, making them dance on the puppet strings she pulled.

Yet Sasha Waybright had jumped in front of her blade.

Yunan had panicked, not understanding if this was a ploy of some kind, if it was a trick, a game, a way to get under her skin, into her head or, much more terrifying, if she had been wrong.

Because if she was, everything crashed to the ground. All her motivations for killing a child would become nothing. She would just be the one that killed Marcy's friend, a monster no different than the one she was trying to protect Marcy from.

She could always lie, her mind whispered to her, she could say that she thought she had killed the girl, that her tailstrike should have killed Sasha. Leave her go. Not kill her.

But what if she was right?

What if Waybright really was a manipulator, someone who only wished to use Marcy, discard her when she grew bored of her or, perhaps even worse, keep her under her control indefinitely?

What if Andrias was right about her?

And why wouldn't he be? Yunan found herself asking. Andrias was not exactly wise, even she knew it, but he cared for Marcy. If she had to choose someone she could trust with Marcy's wellbeing, she'd pick Andrias, perhaps even over herself and Olivia. He wouldn't take chances with harm coming to Marcy.

And perhaps that was the problem, the part of her that had been emboldened by Sasha's unforeseen action desperately tried to claim. He was overzealous, he would choose to protect Marcy even if there was nothing to protect her from.

Perhaps, Yunan conceded. But she ought to be the same.

It was true, she didn't know if she could live with the guilt of having killed an innocent child, Marcy's friend at that, or, even worse, with Olivia's and Marcy's scorn and hatred if they ever found out.

She was certain, though, that she would prefer that one thousand times over any harm coming to Marcy.

She killed. That was who she was.

With that, the impasse was broken, for the moment at least. Slowly yet surely, Yunan began to walk towards the woods she had sent her prey flying in, the toad mostly forgotten about.

She would use that to protect her loved ones.

Grime lost count of the shattered trees he passed after the third, his brain refusing to count them because yes, Sasha was a creature from another world, strong enough to put a toad warrior to shame, but she was also a child and no child could survive something like thi-, no, she was alive!

She had to be, Grime thought as he pushed on, his heart beating in his years like war drums.

Finally, he caught a glimpse of her iconic blonde hair. The girl was embedded in a tree. He felt a cold blade of fear pierce his chest as he saw her, limp and with her face looking down, but let out a small sigh of relief as he noticed the slow rising and falling of her chest.

Grime arrived at her side and grabbed her by the shoulder and under the legs to put her on the ground, the powerful warrior still light for him, reminding him that she was a child, just a child.

This was enough to wake Sasha from her unconsciousness and, judging by her groans, it didn't seem a pleasant experience.

"Anne…" Sasha moaned, her eyes still closed as she shifted around uncomfortably, each position seemingly more painful than the previous one. "Did you get the license plate of the car that ran me over?" Still not opening her eyes, she tried to sit up, quickly helped by Grime, who put a hand on her back to support her.

"Your hand is way colder than usual, Boonchuy. Say, I had the weirdest dream. We were stuck in a different world, with, like, toads and frogs and stuff."

"Not a dream, Lieutenant" Grime interrupted her, the notion that there was still a bloodthirsty Newtopian hound on their tracks making him just a bit anxious.

Sasha froze for a second as she realized that, yes, it was real, her shoulders sinking almost instantly. "Frog." She whispered in a tone halfway between dejected and spiteful.

"Yes, it is great to see you alive as well" Grime said "And I'd like that to continue being the case, which will be difficult if that psycho catches up to us. Can you stand up?"

"Right." Sasha nodded, acknowledging Grime's words. With a swift movement, she jumped up, trying, but failing, to hide the grimace of pain on her face as she did so. "Ow. How many trees did I go through?"

The cold-blooded amphibian could feel his blood begin to boil "Why did you do that!?" He shouted, pointing a finger at Sasha "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"That's a funny way to say 'thanks for saving my lazy bum', old man" Sasha growled at him.

"Oh, don't pretend that charging the clearly insane and insanely dangerous Newtopian General with a list of titles longer than the list of war crimes I've committed has got anything to do with saving my life!" The toad didn't back down. "It's just like training, you can't accept that you lost your friend and want to distract yourself from it, except that unlike training this is gonna get us both killed!"

This was apparently enough to tip over Sasha, who looked at Grime with a look that, for a second, chilled the veteran to the bone, before, surprisingly, her gaze fell to the ground. "Yes" Sasha admitted "I lost Anne. And that's…"

"Frustrating?" Grime suggested, his rage mostly evaporated now thanks to Sasha's unexpected opening up. "Enraging?"

The girl shook her head.

"Scary." Sasha corrected him. "Since I met Anne and Marcy, I was the one that protected them. I tried to do that, here, but Anne…" she left what happened at Toad Tower unsaid. "Something changed. And I'm scared that it's never going to be the same again. Now both Marcy and her are somewhere, in this world, and I can't do anything to help them… or if I can help them."

Grime nodded, feeling a bit guilty at having pushed the girl. He was so used to the ruthless warrior Sasha genuinely was that he had, once more, completely disregarded that Sasha was a child, one who's friends could (and, seeing what Sasha had told him about that Marsha friend of hers, likely would, honestly) be being eaten by various monsters in that same moment.

Unexpectedly, Sasha went on "So, I'm sticking to protecting the only person that can help me, that I know I can count on. You." Sasha looked away at that "I… already lost a friend. I don't want to lose another."

Shame filled him. She was a child, yet she had trained herself to the bone to protect him, a supposedly mighty toad warrior who had let himself wallow in self misery. Now, because of him, Sasha had almost been killed by a bounty hunter sent for him.

Before the two could speak further, however, they were interrupted by a slashing sound, followed by a tall tree on the edge of the clearing they were standing in being split heightwise and falling to the sides, revealing a stern-faced newt General standing with a foot where the tree had been bisected.

"Enough games" She growled, pointing at the two of them with her blades "This ends now."

"It does." Grime proclaimed, stepping forward. "You want me. You can take me. But leave my Lieutenant alone"

"Grime what the sh-"

"I'm not here for you." The newt nipped the argument in the bud, her words baffling both human and toad. She shrugged "I mean, I was also sent here for you, technically, with you being a traitor and all. But I'm here for her." As she said those last words, she pointed at Sasha with her blades. Then, without any warning, she jumped forwards, with her blades pointed towards Sasha, who barely managed to dodge her by moving to the side.

The assailer ended her flight in the tree Sasha had crashed into, skewering it, her blades blocked into the trunk.

The newt simply swung her blades sideways, shattering the tree for good, then kicked it, flipping through the air and landing on her feet facing Sasha and Grime.

Sasha had used those precious seconds to fetch her blade and once more she went straight for the newt.

This time, though, she had learned.

She had seen what had happened before, when the General had gained the initiative, and had no intention of it happening again.

Sasha began hammering at her with her sword, forcing the newt to focus more on the defense.

"Oh for Frog's sake, do you just HAVE TO TRY AND KILL YOURSELF BY INSANE NEWT?!" Grime yelled out as he broke a tree branch and joined the fray with the newly made club.

"I learned from the best." Sasha grunted as she parried another strike, then socked the newt on the mouth with her free hand.

"Aha! Take that, Newtopian spider!" Grime laughed in triumph as he swung his club into the back of the dazzled general's leg. "Tell that king of yours he should bring his A game against us!"

The newt gace him a grim look and, before Grime could even process what had happened, he had been thrown against a tree by a sudden tail slap.

"Okay, should probably not have said that" the toad groaned as he struggled to pick himself up.

Having temporarily rid herself of an opponent, the newt focused on Sasha.

It was a veritable barrage of slashes, left right under over under over left right over left under over right, Sasha struggled to keep up, slowly but surely being forced once again on the defensive as the General rained steel upon her, one of her hands on the handle and the other on the blade, the weapon beginning to cut through the protective leather and into her flesh with every time it rattled as her opponent's blades impacted it.

As she parried the latest downward slash, the newt delivered a tail blow on her hand that was holding the sword, sending the weapon flying and into a tree, high enough to be out of Sasha's reach for the time being.

"Piece of advice" The General mocked Sasha as she breathed heavily, the effort beginning to catch up to her "You might want not to lose that."

"What do you want with me?" Sasha tried to gain some time, backing up to put some distance between them. "I didn't do anything, except side with Grime!"

"You're right, you did nothing to the kingdom, nothing to warrant me being set upon the likes of you." The newt advanced, keeping up with Sasha's retreat, her outstretched blades scratching against trees as they passed them "But this isn't business. This is strictly personal"

Her following stride was just that bit longer, not enough for Sasha to notice but enough for her to sink to the ground and then jump back up like a spring, her blades retracting as she punched Sasha in the face, sending her tumbling to the ground.

"That was for earlier" Yunan clarified, extracting her weapons once again "But now, I'll end this."

Fear settled in Sasha's chest.

She was about to die.

She would never go back home, she would never be able to protect her girls, Anne would hate her forever.

It was over.

She tried to get away from the looming soldier before her, the harbinger of death, but it was no longer the careful retreat of a trained warrior looking to keep their distance from an enemy, but the fearful scrambling of an afraid child who didn't want to die.

The newt's foot stomping over her ankle put a stop to that, Sasha letting out a muffled cry of pain as the boot pressed on her leg.

The General raised her weapon up high, cutting off the setting sun into three strands of light, and the human did the same with her arms, held in an x shape over her head in a guard, however useless that was, shutting her eyes tightly in fear.

Seeing Sasha like that, Yunan hesitated. It couldn't be more evident how she was just a child, a child very much like Marcy. She wasn't supposed to do things like this, she was supposed to be the good guy, not the one who kills scared children.

'For Marcy's own good' She could hear Andrias' parting words playing in her head.

It was for Marcy's own good, it was, she had to believe it or she would break down, she would not be able to do it.

It was supposed to be so simple, wasn't it?

"She'll be happier without you" Yunan whispered, more for herself than for Sasha.

Hushed as it was, Sasha managed nonetheless to hear Yunan's words. Her mind quickly associated that she with Anne, the impossibility of this newt knowing about Anne forgotten about in the moment.

She… supposed it could be true, couldn't it?

'Hey Anne… maybe you're better off without me"

Her own words resounded into her mind. Maybe it was really true.

Why would Anne have hated her so much, if that hadn't been the case?

Her arms fell down a bit, her guard loosening as, finally, the newt's blades fell, like an executioner's blade.

Their trajectory, however, was thrown off at the last moment by a branch that had been tossed from someone.

The newt's head whipped around, a snarl on her face, towards that someone.

Grime, however, had never been one to back down "Hey, gloryhound. Why don't you fight against someone your size?"

For a second, the General seemed conflicted. She got over it quickly.

"Leave" She stated, plainly, no growl in her voice.

Grime tilted his head in puzzlement "What?"

"I do not care for you. You are not the first toad to desert your post, and you won't certainly be the last. I'll report that you slipped out of my grasp, I may not get all of the recognition I would have for this mission, but I hardly need to prove myself. Eventually someone else will come for you, presumably not me. I don't know and, as I said before, I don't care."

"You're asking me to run?" Grime asked, offended at the newt's suggestion "To desert a soldier under my command?"

"I'm giving you a choice." The General clarified. "You can die here, then I'll kill her as well. Or you can let me do what I need to do and you can live a bit longer." Sparing a side-eyed look at Sasha, both to see that she wasn't trying anything and to see how she was reacting. Her eyes were still closed, but it seemed she was listening. "If it means anything to you, it'll be quick. I do not want to see her suffer, I only need her gone."

If he had been offended before, Grime was now enraged. "Now, listen to me, you no good, water-dwelling, tail-having, moth-"

"You should go, Grimesy."

If the toad had shouted his defiance and the newt had laid out her proposal calmly, the human's words were little more than a whisper, yet they hit the two amphibian harder than any of theirs had.

"WHAT!?" Grime roared "LIEUTENANT, HAVE YOU GONE DAFT ON ME?"

Sasha had now opened her eyes, but had turned her head away, not wanting to look at Grime and change her mind. "We can't win this and it's better for one of us to walk out of this than the both of us dying" She let out a single chuckle, devoid of any joy laughter is supposed to have "You're better off without me, I guess."

Grime was still processing what his pupil had just said, halfway between flabbergasted and horrified, when Sasha felt it.

During their little exchange, since Sasha had said those four words, Yunan had stood still and silent. Suddenly, Sasha felt pain in her ankle, where the newt's foot had pinned her against the ground. Reflexively, she turned her head to look at the warrior towering over her, only to freeze in terror as she saw a mask of rage painted over her features, the blade of her right hand out and headed directly for her.

"NO!" If Grime had been slow to process words, he certainly wasn't with actions and he reacted immediately at the newt's sudden execution move, barreling straight into her and sending her flying into the woods.

"Grimes-" Sasha proceeded to ask, confused at what was going on. Why would the newt attack her? She was doing what she wanted, getting Grime out of there so that she could… do what she had come here to do. Before she had the chance to utter the first word, however, she was silenced by a resounding slap to the face from the toad.

"Grime, what the frog!?" She asked, enraged, getting up to a sitting position and shoving the toad "What the heck was that for?"

"For that nonsense you were yammering!" Grime roared back "I don't know what in the world you stuffed in your head while you were training, but you're anything but a burden! The first time I let you out of your cell, you basically saved me and my army from being eaten!"

"…I did somewhat cause that, getting Percy to pursue his dreams and making him attract the herons"

Grime rolled his eye "Oh please, you can hardly be faulted. Percy's an idiot. He's not a bad soldier and I even chuckle, internally, at some of his jokes, but he's an idiot. Staying on point, but I don't think you've noticed that you've been basically carrying this burping, drinking, lazy bearded toad through this fight!"

Sasha brightened up slightly as Grime repeated back her words from earlier "I… the only reason she's here is because of me. You should have taken her deal."

"Like heck I would!" Grime protested. Then, he sighed and stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder "Look, I… it's like you said ear- why is this stuff so complicated!" Still leaving his hand on Sasha's shoulder, he shook his fist towards the sky.

Sasha smiled slightly at that, reaching for Grime's hand, only to be swatted away.

"No, I need to do this!" The toad clarified. "Look, Sasha. I've been an awful commander. I was a tyrant with an idiot army in a tower, but you've shown me what I could be, with a little care: a tyrant in a tower with a slightly less idiotic army. Point is, you did a lot for me and I… neglected you."

"I don't pretend to know what happened with Boonchuy, nor do I know how to help you. What I do know is that the Sasha I know would not just surrender like that!"

"Why do you care all of a sudden!?" Sasha snapped "You sat on your ass for weeks as everything crumbled around us, leaving me to deal with everything, why are you pretending like you care, all of a sudden?!"

Grime seemed to shrink slightly under the teenager's harsh words, something Sasha realized only after her rant she didn't like at all, for some reason.

"…because I do" He finally admitted. "You said something, before, about not wanting to lose any more friends. Well, I do not want to either."

Sasha felt taken aback by those words and, for once, the mean queen of Saint James High and Lieutenant to Captain Grime, had no words to say. Instead, she just brang in Grime for a hug.

"…thanks Grimesy" She eventually muttered. By now the newt had probably gotten back, there was no chance she wasn't looking at them, hidden by the trees, they should run, they should hide, they should be getting ready, but she did not care.

"…say nothing of it, Lieutenant. It is only my duty" Grime answered with a sniff.

Sasha smiled a sly grin "Hold on, are you crying? Hard as nails Captain Grime is actually crying?" She jokingly teased him, knowing that, after what they had exchanged there was no chance of him mistaking her words.

"Any such question is an act of insubordination, Lieutenant" Grime answered, ugly crying all the while.

"Sure thing, old toad." Sasha rolled her eyes as she retracted from the hug and stood up. "Now, wanna kick that psycho's ass?"

Grime, wiped his eye from his tears, chuckled, handed a spareclub he had conjured from Frog knows where to Sasha and flashed a pointy-toothed grin to Sasha. "Boy, do I."

"And no sacrificial ploys" Sasha clarified "We'll simply gotta have each other's back"

For a second, something blotted out the sun. Both toad and human looked at the dark figure that had leaped from the top of a tree and they stood at the ready when they recognised the silhouette of a newt.

She came down with a thunderous crash, leaving a crater in the ground. She did not address them, she did not boast, she didn't even speak. Instead, she went instantly in for the kill, blades outstretched at her sides as she sprinted towards Sasha.

As she got to them, the General swung her claws in a wide arc, the blades hissing through the air as they tried to close on the toad and human like a pair of scissors.

Sasha and Grime, side by side, reacted on unison, their clubs smashing the blades from the top on their flat side, sending them to stab the ground uselessly, but it took all of Sasha's instincts to dodge the newt's following lunge of her maw, her pointy teeth slamming together just inches from her face.

"Take this!" Grime yelled as he went for a punch to the throat of the overextended newt, but she quickly retracted her left hand's blades, freeing them from the terrain, and used her other, still anchored to the ground arm to throw herself to the side, landing on all fours and sliding for half a second on the ground, before beginning to rapidly crawl towards them like a rampaging beast.

She was back on the offensive in no time, strategy forgotten, subtlety in her choice of target thrown to the wind: she was here to kill Sasha Waybright.

"Why- oof- are you- hey! So obsessed with me!" Sasha exclaimed, her question interrupted after the newt kicked her in the shin and attempted to skewer her in the leg, quickly avenged by Sasha swinging her club right into the newt's face.

The General did not seem bothered by this, and continued her assault, Sasha struggling more and more with dodging her, already unable to answer her barrage. She was growing tired, her options were narrowing

"Leave!" Grime exclaimed as he forcefully put himself between Sasha and her would be killer, swinging his club on the newt's slashes and successfully disrupting them. "My!" The sheer strength in his attacks was able to do the seemingly impossible, forcing the newt to block his attacks and actually driving her back "Lieutenant!" The newt however, did not accept it. She dug in, weathering the forceful strikes of Grime's club. Grime did not care. He swinged and swinged, until, finally, he saw a fragment of an opening and took it, swinging his club into her with all his strength "ALONE!" The mighty blow overpowered the newt's defenses, sending her sprawling to the ground and, for a second, the toad and human thought that, against all odds, they had won.

Then, the newt once more got up, her eyes made of brimstone and her teeth sharp and bared like that of a wild animal "Mar" She heaved, halfway between a beastly snarl and motivational mantra "cy."

Once more she went on the assault, this time aimed at Grime, who tried to parry her assault with his club, who, predictably, was sliced cleanly through after the first slash.

"Uh, probably should not have done that" He commented, right as the newt hit his jaw with an uppercut that sent him flying in the woods.

The annoyance dealt again with for the time being, the General turned towards her prey, hunger in her look.

Sasha, meanwhile, was frozen, eyes big, mouth slightly agape. She had been since the one hunting her had whispered those two syllables.

"What did you say?" She asked, in disbelief.

The newt did not answer, instead she pounced again towards Sasha, but the girl was definitely not satisfied with that.

"WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?!" She roared as she countercharged the incoming newt, her eyes a flaming pink, crashing into her and batting wildly with her club, trying to hurt her, because what had she just said?

The newt, pinned under her larger opponent, slashed at her weapon, cutting up Sasha's club in the same way she had with Grime's, but the human girl was too caught in her frenzy to care about such a thing.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?" One punch, two, three, four, until the human was bombarding the newt under a hailstorm of punches, a raging snarl on her face and hot tears beginning to come from her eyes "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MAR MAR?!"

The newt finally managed to wiggle her legs from under Sasha's frame and kicked her, sending her away from her. Sasha landed on her feet, crouched up to absorb the force of the impact and was preparing to charge again at the newt, when she caught a pink glint in the corner of her eye.

Changing her plans on the fly, she ran towards a tree and jumped on it, beginning to climb it.

Yunan had resumed the chase by that point, arriving at the base of the tree as Sasha was climbing, out of reach. "There's no escape there!" She made clear, before cutting down the tree with one sweep of her blades, making the large trunk begin to fall towards herself.

"I'm not planning to." Sasha answered, grabbing her sword from where it had ended up before. She gave a powerful kick to the tree trunk, extracting the sword from where it had been embedded in and sending her flying towards her opponent, both her hands on the sword's handle as she went for a stab.

The newt managed to jump back, avoiding being impaled by Sasha's sword, before jumping back towards the girl slashing with both her claws. Sasha parried her move and both fighters struggled, their weapons locked against the other's as the tree continued to fall over them, daring the other to retreat to avoid it and expose themselves.

In the end both of them disengaged at the last second, one jumping at the left of the tree, the other to the right. The tree's booming impact hadn't finished resounding before both leaped at each other once more, their blades meeting over the fallen tree, the newt's skill matched with the human's fury.

The newt had been hunting her, Sasha thought as steel crashed against steel, each blow creating a sound not too different from an ancient clocktower's bell. She was hunting her, a human and had mentioned Marcy.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MARCY!?" Once more she yelled, kicking the newt in the ribs as their blades met once more, sending her away.

The newt stabbed the ground to stop her flight, before growling at the human "Stop. Being. Like. This!"

She charged Sasha again, her blades going in for a stab to the face, and Sasha swung her sword upwards to deflect it, but at the last second the newt sank to the ground, sliding on it and tripping Sasha with a sweep of her tail.

"Like what!" Sasha grunted as she picked herself back up, only to once more throw herself to the ground to avoid a downward stab by the newt, rolling on the ground to put some distance between them and cartwheeling to get up without stopping "Not questioning if the crazy psycho that is trying to kill me KILLED MY FRIEND!?" Those three words made her blood boil. The mere thought… the newt would pay. If it was true, she would crush her.

It wasn't just Sasha that grew angry, though. As Sasha finished her sentence, the newt gritted her teeth and dashed towards the human, at a speed that shouldn't have been possible, her right arm raised to prepare a blow.

"She's NOT your"

The girl tried to parry her, her sword going to block the blade that was being swung towards her, but at the last second the claws retracted, leaving the sword parrying empty air and the newt's armored fist slipping through Sasha's defenses.

"FRIEND!" Yunan roared as her fist connected with Sasha's face with the force of a freight train, sending the teen tumbling to the ground.

"I know you" Yunan continued, walking over to Sasha and beginning to circle around her at a slow pace, a deep breath between each of her words. "I know what 'friends' mean to people like you"

"I never even- uff- met you" Sasha, equally panting, tried to get herself up, before a sudden stop and turn from the newt convinced her to not try that. She let herself drop to the ground once more, lulling her opponent in a false sense of security. The fight was beginning to tire both of them, that much was evident. Right now Yunan was in an advantageous position, able to strike down Sasha if she so much as tried to get up, but if their positions were the newt's advantage, Sasha's was that she was pissed off, and that gave her just that little bit of juice to turn the fight around.

She just had to bide her time, wait until she could strike without being cut down immediately, let the newt talk.

And talk she did. "And I didn't meet you before today." Yunan conceded "But I know what people like you are like. Which is why you must die, before you might even try to hurt Marcy"

Sasha's vow to let the newt speak, to let her distract herself shattered instantly once Yunan mentioned Marcy's name and, most importantly, how she'd spoken of her friend "She's… alive?" When the newt had mentioned Marcy's name, she had feared for the worst, but the newt had spoken of her like she wasn't…

Her question seemed to tick Yunan off "Stop" She raced to Sasha and kicked her in the stomach "DOING THAT!"

This time, though, Sasha had been ready for her sudden outburst and managed to tank the kick with her arms, using the momentum to launch herself into the air, far enough from the crazy newt that she couldn't kill her immediately.

It was the perfect chance, rush the newt and beat her down before she could do anything, use that last burst of energy to beat her.

But Sasha's mind was occupied on far different matters. "Stop doing what!?" She asked, angered at Yunan "What does Marcy have to do with any of this!"

"Stop pretending that you care!" If Sasha didn't seize the initiative, Yunan sure did. She rushed at Sasha, each of her words accompanied by her blades clashing against Sasha's sword "Stop lying!"

"I'm not!" Sasha replied, answering Yunan's attack with one of her own, the two fighting for the first time as equal, two unstoppable forces locked into a contest of wills. "And I do care!" She yelled as she delivered a thunderous blow on the two blades of her opponent, locked in an X-shaped block, that sent Yunan a meter away, sliding on the ground

"You're not supposed to!" Yunan yelled back as she rushed back into the fighting, her renewed assault putting Sasha on the defensive as Yunan slashed, moved to her left and attacked again, circling around the human as she spun around to parry her every attack with great effort. "All I heard about you, the menace you represent to her, you're not supposed to care about her, you're not supposed to be the one to make a sacrificial ploy!"

"She's MY FRIEND!" Sasha roared, swinging her blade in a wide arc to decapitate the salamander "Grime's MY FRIEND! Of course I am!"

"No," Yunan growled. "No, you're not! You only pretend to care, you only want to put people under your spell, make them dance on your puppet strings. I know that Marcy is not strong enough to do it herself, I know you would use her, so I will stand up to you, for her!"

'Something I should have done a long time ago, standing up to you!'

Sasha's eyes went wide as she heard those words, spoken by one of the two people she cared for the most in any world and any strategy, any rational approach was drowned by pure rage as she ran at Yunan with an inhuman scream, her sword raised high.

Her sudden outburst surprised the newt, who took a step back and had to struggle to parry the first few strikes, but the General was a hardened veteran of a thousand battles and quickly regained her standing, striking back at the blonde berserker, one of her claws meeting Sasha's sword, two blade against one.

Then, the sound of shattered metal filled the clearing the two had been clashing in.

Sasha's sword continued her arc in a wake of metal fragments, much to the girl's glee, managing to graze the newt on the cheek, enough for a shallow, oozing blood cut to form.

The fight began to shift in Sasha's favor, the weapon disparity evened and the still bloodthirsty girl cornering more and more the ever more struggling newt.

As a powerful blow forced the newt on her knee, Sasha raised her sword to the sky for a finishing blow, but, even after being beaten to within an inch of submission, General Yunan was still General Yunan.

She swept Sasha's legs with her tail sending the girl tumbling to the ground and she quickly was up, walking towards her with the last remainder of her forces, prepared to strike her down.

The newt, however, stopped in her tracks as she caught something in the corner of her eye, right on time as she barely managed to jump over the tree that swept over where she had been standing not a second before.

"You can't keep a good toad down" Grime announced as he prepared for another swipe with the uprooted tree he was using as an oversized club "And a bad one even less!"

The newt had survived one attack, but another would be harder, she knew it. She had to end this charade fast. And, she thought as a metallic glint hit her eye, she had an idea for the how.

The General ran away, towards the center of the clearing, and Grime cackled as he swung the tree once more. "You can't run from this!"

The newt rolled to the ground, picking up a piece of her broken blade and launched it at Grime, the piece of metal lodging itself in the toad's shoulder and making him drop his weapon and fall to the ground clutching his new wound. The tree, however, continued his movement and Yunan was not quick enough to dodge it, the trunk hitting her and blocking her under its weight.

"Grime!" Marcy yelled as she got up and frantically rushed towards the toad, but, before she could reach him, a crash echoed as one punch from the newt exploded the piece of wood that had pinned her to the ground and she ran at Sasha, the two rolling over each other as they wrestled, moving further and further away from the clearing until they found themselves at the end of the forest, at the edge of a precipice, where the newt finally managed to pin Sasha under her weight and raise a punch in the air, where it was held aloft for a second before it came crashing down, aimed at Sasha's face.

At the last possible moment, however, the punch changed direction, crashing into the ground and destroying a chunk of it, that fell down the precipice revealing the river that laid at its bottom.

For a second both were silent, the General heaving as she kept her punch in place, Sasha too confused by just what was going on to speak.

Finally, Yunan spoke "Why do you keep doing this!" She yelled in Sasha's face. "Why do you keep caring, why do you keep lying!? WHY!?"

"I'm… not lying." Sasha deadpanned, looking the newt in the eyes. "Why are you here?"

"Master Marcy… she's with the King." Yunan revealed. "She's spoken with him and, whatever she told him, he's sent me to hunt you down because of it."

"The King…?" Sasha wondered under her breath "But why?"

"Because he doesn't trust you with Marcy." The newt explained plain and simple "And, to be honest, even with what I saw, even with all you did that is so different from what I've heard of you from the King, neither do I. But… I no longer believe you have to die. So, I'm going to strike a deal with you, human"

Quick as a rattlesnake, Yunan's still aloft punch moved, opening to grab Sasha from her armored mail and suspended her above the precipice.

"Hey, put me down!"

"That's the plan" Yunan said, then, when Sasha started to struggle against her grip, she rolled her eyes "Oh, please, you'll survive. Also, I still gotta tell you the deal."

Sasha stopped lashing out at Yunan, both because she realized that it would only result in her dropping in the river anyways and to hear the newt out.

"Alright." Yunan went on "As I said, I still don't trust you enough to be around Marcy. But… I can see I was not totally right about you. Perhaps…" Yunan looked torn, for a second, before she shook her head and looked at Sasha with a determined glared "Listen. I'm going to give you this one chance. I will drop you."

"Already not off to a great start"

"Shut it!" Yunan growled at the teen, extracting her blades from the hand that still had them. "Or I'll just drop you and then it'll hunt you down, same as before."

Sasha harbored doubts that the newt's threat was sincere, but nodded anyway. She was insane, after all, who knew what she could do.

"As I said before, the fall should not kill you. After you swim to safety, you'll be free. I will report you as dead to the King and he won't send anyone after you or Grime, since you appear to care so much for him. I'll set up a way to deliver you money, enough to live comfortably for years. Once we figure out a way for you to return to Earth, I will look for you and help you return home, if you want to."

"That's it?" Sasha asked, slightly confused "Why not just let me go to begin with? Why this charade?"

"For your own safety. You? Nobody knows you, but Grime? He's a known fugitive. I can claim he's dead, give him a few weeks of a head start, perhaps even a month, but he will eventually be seen, he will eventually be reported and eventually a bounty hunter will be sent for him. And maybe you two can beat them, most likely after seeing what you did today, but they will see you and, before long, word of a creature with Grime gets to the King and it's back to square one, it's back to me getting sent to kill you, this time with no chance to leave you two alive."

Sasha's brow furrowed. The newt was making sense. Perhaps this would be the best for them, both her and Grime. "Just for me?"

"There is a limitation" Yunan admitted "And it's the main part of this deal, the one where you earn being left alive. You cannot come near Marcy, ever."

"WHAT!" Sasha exclaimed, squirming in Yunan's grip "You can forget it!"

Unbothered, Yunan continued "You say you care about Marcy. Well, without you, with the people she met, she's happier than ever. Maybe you really care, maybe you hurt only by accident, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt." Yunan brought Sasha closer to her, her rounded snout touching Sasha's face bump "Prove it. Prove you really care about Marcy by not coming near her."

For a second, Sasha was silent, her gaze sunk to the floor, her eyes darting left and right as she considered her options, the choice that had been presented to her.

Then, after what felt like eons, her shoulder went slack, the tension in her body disappeared as she came to a decision.

"Got an answer, Waybright?" Yunan asked, still keeping the human near. "Do you take the deal?"

"Nah." Sasha looked up, a pink glow of determination in her eyes and a smirk on her face "I think I'm gonna choose for myself"

Before Yunan could react, Sasha struck. She rapidly extracted a hidden dagger, which she used on her own chain mail, near where Yunan was holding her, damaging it enough that the old thing could no longer support her weight, breaking off and leaving Yunan with just a fistful of metal. While before she had been over the edge, now she was close enough that when she fell, she fell on the ground, her feet basically at the side of Yunan's.

"You-" Yunan tried to lunge at the girl with her blades, but she was too close, the blades too long and unwieldy in such close quarters. Sasha's arms had no similar limitations, though, and they quickly wrapped around the newt's torso, before the human lifted the newt over her head and threw her over the edge.

Sasha conceded herself a couple of deep breaths to recover, then she turned to look at the river. Sure enough, soon she saw a pink dot of color as Yunan reemerged. It looked like she hadn't been lying about the fall being survivable.

The two exchanged a look as the current dragged the newt away from the human.

"They're my friends, after all" Sasha whispered.

The pink newt shifted slightly on the log she sat on, getting nearer to the little campfire, and adjusted the now soaked blanket bearing the insignia of the Night Guard.

"Thanks" She finally said to the black and green newt on the log on the other side of the campfire from her.

Lord Commander Luther let out a chuckle and bowed his head "Any member of the Night Guard will always be rescued by their fellow Guards and, thanks to your little stunt, I think you qualify"

The pink newt rolled her eyes "I just want to point out, I only did that because my kid pushed for it. Would have been perfectly fine without joining your little circle"

Instead of replying sarcastically like their usual back-and-forth required, Luther smiled understandingly "We do do a lot for our kids, don't we?"

Before Yunan could speak further, the two were interrupted by a short green newt bringing over two metal mugs of a fuming liquid. "Lord Commander" She said as she passed one of them to the older newt.

"Speak of the devil!" Luther commented as he accepted the beverage "Thanks infinitely, Kettle. Pass the other to the good General, will you?"

Yunan accepted the mug and took a sip of the mulled wine, the warmth spreading to each corner of her still cold body.

Kettle quickly took her leave, but Yunan kept her gaze on the direction she had disappeared towards.

Luther let out a satisfied sound as he too took a gulp of the warm, fruity beverage. "Truly, a relief for my old bones."

"It's… nice" Yunan conceded, before inquiring about the small newt "Thought she got moved to the Rangers?"

"Oh, she has." Luther confirmed "And she's showing a lot of talent. I simply keep her close and, after a week of training in the wild, she likes to sneak glances on any traveler." The newt stroked his goatee "But enough chatter. Could I ask why the great General Yunan was taking an armored swim in a river? I had heard that the King had sent you on a 'special mission. Could the great General Yunan have failed?" He teased her "Surely that little wound of yours suggests it."

Yunan rolled her eyes, but her hand went to her cheek at Luther's last question.

She had refused to change out of her armor, even if it was soaked, but had reluctantly accepted a patch for the wound on her cheek. It would scar, she knew, a permanent reminder of her run in with Sasha Waybright.

Yunan knew when she accepted to stay at the Night Guard's campsite that Luther would hold it over her head forever. As she sipped on the mulled wine and she recalled the events that had transpired that day, she could tell that it had been the right choice anyways. Let the old newt have his victories.

"My mission was tracking down and killing a defector and his… companion. The tracking down was easy enough, the killing…"

"Not so much?" Luther completed her sequence, allowing himself a chuckle "Could it really be, General Yunan, having a problem in murdering her target?"

Yunan recalled what had transpired, since the first moment when that toad had planted the seeds of doubt to her proposal, since when the human had jumped in to try and block her attack to when Sasha Waybright had thrown her into the river.

"They… proved themselves to be worthy opponents in combat" She admitted, before trying to keep up the normal banter "Unlike you"

"Ow." Luther put a hand on his chest in mock hurting, pretending not to notice how Yunan's attempt at keeping up appearances was strained. "So, what happened next? Did those two worthy knaves best the great General Yunan?"

What had happened next.

What had happened next?

She did lose, if, arguably, not in a physical sense, in the moral one definitely.

She remembered how more and more frustrated she had grown as the toad and the human had covered for each other, how time and time again one saved the other and, while she could try and explain Grime saving Sasha as her manipulating him into a loyal servant, making him believe she was his friend, explaining why Sasha put her life on the line again and again for him had proved to be more and more difficult, until, finally, she had been down, at her mercy, after Grime had tossed that tree at her.

For a second, a precious instant, she had been trapped under that tree, easy pickings for anyone with a blade and the intent to use it, things Sasha had no shortage of. And what had Sasha Waybright done?

She had not hesitated for a second. She had dashed for Grime, without a second thought or a single moment of consideration for her temporarily restrained opponent. She had not stopped to decide between ending her or going to Grime's help, within a heartbeat she was already headed for him.

Yunan had tried, she had tried, with her last savage assault, to ignore it all, to push through it and kill her, but, when she had the perfect opportunity, when she could have exploded Waybright's head like a watermelon with a single punch, she hadn't been able to.

It was too hard to deny herself hope that killing Waybright might not be necessary, after all.

So, she had made, perhaps, the worst mistake of her life.

The deal.

"I… ended up in the river." She admitted "Lost my balance during the fight with the toad's companion and fell in."

She knew what she had to do now. She had given Waybright a choice, she had taken the wrong one, now it would only be a matter of who killed who and General Yunan had yet to lose that sort of contest.

Yet, she couldn't stop thinking about what the human had said.

'Nah' Waybright had said 'I think I'm gonna choose for myself' Waybright had said before overpowering her, before throwing her in the river.

In itself, it was not a refusal.

"Wait, you actually lost?" Luther asked, somewhat pleasantly surprised "Oh my Frog, you did lose! They threw you in the river! Man, that I'm gonna treasure forever! What happened to them?"

Waybright was proud, but she wasn't a fool, that much was evident. A fact more doubtful, but that Yunan's gut told her was true, Sasha cared about Marcy.

She refused her imposition, but, if she cared about Marcy, she would eventually understand.

There was a part of her that screamed that it wasn't the right thing to do, that if she hurried she might still be able to find Sasha at the old mill, that her fears were justified and she had to strike now, but that part had lost the battle somewhere in those woods.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Luther, but I left both Grime and her with a hole in the gut." Yunan lied. "They're likely dead by now and so I will report to the King once I return to the capital."

"Aw, disappointing. Tell you what, why don't we have a little spar here and now? I lost my opportunity to have you lose, I gotta try and make you."

"Bring it on, old newt" Yunan agreed to Luther's challenge "I need a little exercise before going to sleep anyways"

'I hope you care about Marcy as much as I do, Sasha Waybright.'

Sasha wobbled on unsteady feet through the forest. That last burst, throwing Yunan over the edge and into the river, had costed her the last of her strength and now the adrenaline was also wearing off, letting her body's signals of protest at the gauntlet it had been put through reach her brain.

She winced as she made a strange movement her chest did not like, something demonstrated by the angry stab of pain she felt. She must have broken a rib or two, back there, probably when the newt had thrown herself on top of her, she thought as she added it to the tally, alongside her aching ankle where the newt's boot had stomped down, her devastated back that had smashed through at least half a dozen of trees and her sore… well, everything.

At least the fight had been an exercise even better than her normal one, she thought, before spotting what she had been searching for.

Ignoring the pain, she sprinted forwards and knelt beside the toad's form, sitting with his back resting on a tree. "Grime!" She called out to him and, much to her relief he actually showed signs of having heard her.

"Lieutenant?" Grime asked, trying to get up, but failing when he felt the sting of pain coming from the half of a blade embedded in his shoulder, going all the way through and pinning him to the trunk behind him.

"Don't move, Captain" Sasha ordered, stopping his hands from going for the foreign object sticking out of him. If extracted carelessly, the hooked blade would do a lot of damage, she knew from her first aid course, united with a couple of weeks learning what blades could do back at Toad Tower. "Let me deal with this"

"Wait" Grime suddenly sprang forward a little as he realized something, hissing in pain as the blade in his shoulder made it clear why that was not a good idea "What about the newt!? Where-"

"I took care of her." Sasha cut him off as she put a hand on his other shoulder. "We should be fine."

"Took care of her? How?"

Sasha shrugged as she continued to tend to the wound "Threw her off a cliff, into the river."

"Oh yeah, that will do it."

An awkward silence fell as Sasha continued to work on the shard of metal embedded in the toad's flesh, only broken occasionally with hushed hisses of pain from Grime.

"Thanks for the save, anyways." Sasha eventually said without looking up.

"It was nothing really" The toad tried to blow it off with a half shrug. "Wanted to smash her face with a giant bat anyways."

"I'm serious, Grimesy."

"I am as well! This whole ordeal has me fired up!"

Sasha let out a tired chuckle at the toad's enthusiasm. "Alright, just don't give me a scare like that again, okay? Though I had lost you there, for a second." She sighed and for a second, tiredness made her slip up, her face displaying just a hint of sadness, before she suddenly pulled out the blade "All done here!" She proclaimed as she got up with her trademark cocky smile plastered on her face and extended her arm to help Grime up.

Grime accepted the hand and pulled himself to his feet with his uninjured arm. He spun his other arm a little, feeling it, before punching a tree with force. "AHAHA!" He laughed excitedly "Good as new!"

"Uh, that should have probably hurt." Sasha commented, confused.

"Oh, it did." Grime explained. "Like, a lot."

Sasha laughed in her hand and rolled her eyes. "Should have expected that. Better to put some bandages on it, no?"

She didn't care what Yunan had said. She wasn't leaving Grime behind, she had lost enough already.

About what she had said afterwards…

'Prove it. Prove you really care about Marcy by not coming near her.'

She cared about Marcy. She had taken care of her and Anne since they had been babies, since that day at the playground, all those years ago. Maybe Anne had taken care of trivial things like that Marcy did not get run over by a car, but she had always been the one to guard over her friends, to protect them from anyone that would harm them.

But what if the newt was right? What if it was best for Marcy if she wasn't there?

Anne certainly had seemed to think so.

"I meant it before, Sasha!" Grime loudly remarked, interrupting her train of thought. "I am fired up! The King wants us dead? Well, let's kill him before he can! Raise a frog damn army and storm the capital! It's high time a toad ruled around these parts, don't you think?"

"Glad you don't apparently want to wallow in self pity anymore," Sasha answered, her arm crossed and her tone skeptical. "but don't you think you're running a bit? I mean, we're just you and I, where the frog are we even gonna find an army good enough to conquer the world, let alone get them to fight by our side?"

"Let me think about that!" Grime exclaimed, his sudden enthusiasm and conviction after so long baffling and, honestly, contagious. "We're just you and I, you say? Well, I say that we're more than enough!"

Maybe they really could, Sasha found herself thinking. With a good enough army and the benefit of surprise… most of Amphibia didn't look that well defended. If they took out the capital, a lot of places would probably accept it.

The issue was another. The capital was Newtopia, where Marcy was.

'Prove it'

Why should she? Marcy wasn't just her friend, she was Marcy's friend as well. Who had decided that she wasn't good for Marcy, when it had been Sasha herself that had looked over her for years?

Yunan had mentioned the King of Amphibia as the one that had ordered her to take her out. Like Grime had said, why not take him out?

She had never even seen the newt, but the decision was certainly helped by the fact that when she tried to visualize him, all she saw was a little pink pipsqueak with a crown.

"You know what?" She asked, her smirk growing "Let's do it. Who says we can't take over the world?"

"That's the spirit!" Grime proclaimed with a wide grin. "C'mon, I gotta work off this fat! Let's race back to the mill and after that we can have a nice spar!"

With that, the toad headed for their hideout and Sasha followed suit. As she suddenly moved after standing still for so long, the pain in her everything decided to make itself manifest once again and she could do little to stifle the hiss of pain that followed suit.

Grime appeared to hear it, as he turned with an inquisitive look "Sasha?" He asked "Is something the matter?"

"It's fine, Captain" Sasha lied through her teeth as she forced herself to endure and walk forward with a light limp that, however, still didn't go unnoticed to the toad. "Really, everything's fine. C'mon, let's race, you slowpoke!"

Grime's hand went to his face as he gave himself a small slap on the forehead while mouthing the word 'stupid'. "You know" He addressed Sasha "We have a few weeks before we can enact my plan, more than enough for me to get back in shape. There's still a couple of seasons of Suspicion Island I haven't got around to watching…"

Sasha smiled at the toad's proposal. He was getting better with people, it seemed. "Alright, you lazy bum. I guess I trained enough to earn myself a couple of days of vacation" Sasha said as she crossed her arms behind her head and walked at a slower pace by Grime's side.

She would do it. Take over Newtopia, take out the King, General Yunan and anyone else that tried to put themselves between her and her friend.

And, speaking of 'friend', Anne of course came to mind.

Sasha knew this would be a detour, a big one at that, you didn't take over a government in a day or two, but she would still come for her. Anne needed her and, with enough time without her, with enough time to reflect over it, she would understand.

In case she didn't… Sasha would help her out.

She always did.

"Hey Grime" She called out to the toad. "Remember when we talked about fighting with two weapons?"

The Captain nodded "I do, yes. If I recall correctly you said that one single sword was more than enough, yes?"

Sasha nodded "I did say that, yes. But… after seeing that newt… I think I changed my mind."

Sasha turned her head to look back, in the direction of the precipice where she had rejected Yunan's proposal, where she had remarked to the defeated newt that she would decide over the fate of her friendship.

She would get Marcy and Anne

"I want both of them."