They'll fight any enemy, but especially each other
Due to dire circumstances concerning King Andrias, Grime is forced to train an apprentice to serve as his proxy in a duel with Captain Beatrix... and that apprentice happens to be Sprig.Tropes:
- Bee Afraid: Sprig accidentally walks right in the middle of a hive of creatures called hybeenas, which are as big as the larger of their namesake.
- Big Damn Heroes: Grime manages to track down Sprig and help him fight off a swarm of hybeenas.
- Call-Back:
- Sprig makes it very clear to Grime that he still has a grudge against him for making the town's residents pay taxes via protection racket and trying to kill Hop Pop, the latter of which Spig takes very personally.
- Grime's defeat by Sprig is mentioned many times, much to his annoyance.
- Combat by Champion: Sacred Law of Toad Challenge allows conflicts to be settled via Single Combat. The toad being challenged is honor-bound to accept and abide by the terms set by the challenger. Wartime bylaws permit the challenged to select any champion from among the challenger's party.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Sasha assigns Sprig and Grimes to meet Beatrix to show her that frogs and toads can work together. However, Anne points out that Sprig and Grime actually can't work together well, and have been at each other's throats ever since Sprig beat Grime. Sasha, realizing this mistake, rushes with Anne to try to stop the meeting.
- Grime invokes the Sacred Law of Toad Challenge to challenge Beatrix to Single Combat, so if she loses she and her army must join them, which she is honor-bound to accept. However, Beatrix turns this around on him by stating that Wartime bylaws allow her to select a champion of Grime's to fight, so instead of fighting Grime she chooses to fight Sprig. Grime admits he should have brushed up on his Toad laws before issuing the challenge.
- Drumroll Please: Sasha asks Anne to do this as the start of her announcement to Beatrix her plan on their rebellion. Anne simply does one from her phone.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: The episode starts with Sasha telling Anne how she sent Sprig and Grimes out to meet Beatrix, as a sign that frogs and toads can work together. Anne then points out that the two of them hate each other. Once it sinks in, they quickly run towards the duo to try and salvage things before it's too late.
- Fire-Forged Friends: After fighting side-by-side during the hybeena attack, Grime and Sprig start to gain genuine respect for each other's skills and, by the time of the actual match, they seem to have come to genuinely like each other.
- Football Fight Song: Before the cage match begins, Sasha tries to cheer Sprig on by performing her school's fight song in full cheerleading regalia. Hop Pop is annoyed that she didn't change the lyrics to fit their current situation, to which Sasha snaps that she has too much on her plate as it is.
- Fragile Speedster: Sprig, and by extension frogs in general, is highly agile in combat, but doesn't have much force behind his blows.
- Gathering Steam: Upon seeing Sprig agilely fighting the hybeenas, Grime works out that he needs to use this technique to stand a chance against a Toad combatant, using his agility to move around them faster and faster until his attacks have some real weight to them. Similarly, Grime also coaches him on how to summon his anger to gain greater strength in a pinch, allowing him to briefly break out of Beatrix's bear hug and deliver a wicked point-blank headbutt.
- Graceful Loser: Beatrix takes her defeat surprisingly well and quickly agrees to join the alliance.
- Groin Attack: Grimes claims that Sprig put poison ivy in his codpiece.
- Heinous Hyena: Combine this trope with Bee Afraid and you get the hybeenas.
- Ignored Aesop: Sprig and Grime learn to accept each other's strengths and weaknesses, but Grime, explicitly noting that he's undermining the moral, makes fun of Beatrix for being defeated by a frog.
- Insult Backfire: Sprig sarcastically refers to Grime's method as "Special Toad Tactics" only for Grime to tell him that's what they're actually called.
- Killer Bear Hug: Beatrix catches Sprig as he is about to spring on her, and she does this trope to try to defeat him. Sprig manages to get out of it.
- Lightning Bruiser: By combining frog and toad combat sensibilities, Sprig learns to use his agility to build up momentum enough to stagger seasoned toad warrior Beatrix.
- Loophole Abuse: To get Beatrix to join together with the frogs, Grime invokes a toad challenge where they have to fight in a cage. Beatrix is honor bound to fight, but remembers that during wartime she has the option of choosing which of Grime's champions to fight, and chooses little Sprig. Grime complains that he needs to read up on toad law.
- Manchild: Grime can’t help but make fun of his sister for being beaten by a frog once Sprig wins.
- Mighty Glacier: Toad style combat involves tanking damage and dealing it back two-fold, but it's not a fast acting strategy.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: While going off to train by himself, Sprig disturbs a nest of hybeenas, which as the name implies are half-bee, half-hyena.
- Noodle Incident: As part of his hatred toward Sprig, Grime accuses him of being the one who put poison ivy in his codpiece.
- Pom-Pom Girl: Sasha forms a cheerleading squad with Hop Pop, Sheriff Leatherleaf, Fern and a random toad to support Sprig during his battle.
- Recycled Lyrics: In-universe. When cheering for Sprig, Sasha uses a fight song she sang back at school on Earth.Sasha: Kicking butt and taking names,
We're the school they call St. James!Hop Pop: You didn't even re-write the song?!Sasha: I'm very busy, Hop Pop! - Restrained Revenge: While it's never confirmed that Sprig did put poison Ivy in Grime's codpiece, it would certainly count as this trope if he had, because as Sprig immediately retorts, a little poison ivy is nothing compared to what Grime has put Sprig through.
- Sibling Rivalry: Beatrix is thrilled to learn that her little brother has been beaten by a frog and enjoys rubbing it in. When Sprig defeats her, too, Grime returns the favor and taunts his big sister. She happily knocks him out.
- The Triple: Grime decides he needs to give Sprig a training regiment that builds up his advantages as a frog: "Speed, agility, [and] being annoying."
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: After Sprig defeats Beatrix, Grime cannot resist taunting her for getting beaten by a frog. She shuts him up by whacking him in the head.
- Unstoppable Rage: Grime summons his inner rage to withstand and repel a hybeena attack, then tells Sprig that he can do it as well. When Beatrix has Sprig in a stranglehold, he uses his rage to summon enough strength to knock her out with a headbutt.
- Use Your Head: Caught in a bear hug by Beatrix, Sprig musters the strength to rear back enough for a knockout via headbutt.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Sprig and Grime despise each other and give each other a very hard time.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Anne and Sasha both tell Grime off for betting the rebellion on a cage match and putting Sprig's life down as collateral.
