𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞- 𝐀𝐦𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐚 𝐨𝐜 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭

The Third Temple

"yeah, they do, actually, I took it," the girl admitted with a flick of her hair. She looked over Sasha's outfit curiously, before shrugging. "But you, oh my gosh, dude that armor is like- chef's kiss. But enough of that, how'd you find us?"

"Oh that's simple-- we heard you three were traveling together so we tracked you all here."

"Did you say..." Anne paused, actually processing her e̶n̶e̶m̶y̶'̶s̶ friend's words, blinking and lowering her tennis racket in confusion. "we?"

Suddenly the double doors burst open and psychotic laughter erupted from a green male toad-- that Valerie was able to recognize as Captain Grime. She'd seen his face on wanted posters before. "Even in this state, those things were no match for me!" he said with a strained voice.

I'm not surprised Sasha ended up crashing with him, somehow.

"woah," Sasha said as Anne and the Plantars seemed to raise their guard, walking around the group and towards Grime. "Cancel the red alert! Seriously we're not here to fight."

"Oh no?" Sprig asked.

"Nope." Sasha seemed smug, the kind of smug that would make one's stomach churn, smug like how someone would win an argument, even if they were wrong, by making the other person feel crazy. "the whole reason we've been stalking you is..."

There was a dramatic pause in the air.

Her face switched to sadness. Which was obviously fake, to Valerie's eyes, if her opinion even mattered. "So that I could tell Anne that everything that happened at Toad Tower was my fault."

Anne seemed to drop her guard completely as Sasha spoke. "really?"

"Yep, it was wrong of me to put your frog friends in danger. And undoubtedly wrong of me to push you around."

Valerie couldn't even hear the rest of the conversation over what Gold said next in her head.

I have nothing particularly against this pink friend of yours, but you know, in the thousands of years that I've been alive, I have to say that I have never once in my life heard an apology that's so fucking fake. It's so bad, it's funny.

The brunette would admit she was stifling her laughs now.

She should've taken me up on those acting classes I offered her. But noooo, she thought 'tHaT wAs FoR GeEkS'

Seriously?

Seriously.

Well she certainly needs them.

If you-- an all seeing being-- thinks so, then she has to need em!

The head conversation may or may not have continued, but before it could, she felt a familiar soft hand grip hers and a voice snap her out of her thoughts.

"Come on, Val, we gotta get moving- you alright there, though? You look all up in your head."

The two's eyes met, and Marcy's eyebrows were twitched up in concern, her lips that were usually in a big grin were in a smaller, more awkward smile. Plus the little flush that was spread across her face...

Valerie couldn't resist placing a little peck onto her cheek, trying to calm down the worriedness in her tone. "I'm alright, sunshine. Let's just keep moving."

You could almost hear Sasha clearly ahead of them, looking back with a grunt and saying softly "damn it, I owe Anne money."

-

Valerie, Marcy, Sasha and Grime currently walked up front of the rest of the group, with the two lovers holding hands, both of them seeming a little bit unaware of the eye-rolls the blonde was sending back towards Anne.