Fanfic / Break the Wheel

The story goes like this

In a marketplace far from Newtopia, a swordswoman saves a girl from a violent brute and comes to regret it, for the girl is Ivy Sundew, and she has come a long way to study swordplay under Sasha Waybright, the greatest master of the sword in the world. The swordswoman has no interest in teaching, but Ivy is persistent.

Break the Wheel is a Amphibia fanfic inspired by the webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons. Over a decade after the fall of the Core and its empire, the Calamity Trio are separated, spread across Amphibia. Sasha hides away in the hinterlands, unwilling to return to face her friends; Marcy travels the land in a carriage, blindfolded and guided by Maddie; and Anne is nowhere to be found.

The entire series can be found here, and consists of (at the moment) two parts; Sasha Waybright's Manual of the Sword and I Don't Trust My Future Self. The fics take place concurrently and follow Sasha and Marcy respectively.

Break the Wheel provides examples of the following tropes

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Going with Darcy's Adaptational Heroism, she and Sasha had a relationship at one point before Darcy was wholly absorbed into Marcy.
• Affectionate Nickname: Olivia calls Marcy "Little tadpole".
• The Alcoholic: Subverted. Sasha does drink, but not enough to be considered alcoholic. She remarks that she avoided it because Marcy would kill her if she didn't.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: When Sasha sees a vision of Marcy during her meditation, she goes on an angry rant about how she can't escape the memory of her because she's still in love with her and wants more than anything else to go back to her. Turns out it is the real Marcy.
• Ascended Extra: King Aldrich, to an extremely minor degree. In the show, he's a Greater-Scope Villain who only appears in a flashback episode and as an avatar used by the Core in the present. Here, he appears as a part of the Core that survived in Darcy, and became a great enough threat that Marcy had to absorb Darcy and overuse the Wit gem to the point of becoming The Omniscient to stop him.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: As part of her Establishing Character Moment, Sasha is aware enough during combat that she mentally remarks on the artistry of a slaver's swordswing before criticizing it as the swing of a fool.
• Badass Bookworm: According to Sasha, general Yunan used to train her students by alternating fighting and playing chess. Sasha is also no slouch in this department, though her intellect lies more in street smarts.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Sasha is primarily a master of the sword, but her mastery is such that she can use anything to cut, including her hands. She demonstrates this by cutting a rope with just a chopping motion of her hand. Ivy was also taught hand-to-hand combat by her mother, a more traditional example of this trope, though her skill is nowhere near Sasha's level.
• Bait-and-Switch: "I Don't Trust My Future Self" starts with Marcy and Maddie investigating a decapitated toad, just like the one Sasha killed in the first chapter of "Manual of the Sword". They are not the same toad, however, as Sasha was in a town far away from Newtopia while Marcy and Maddie are in Newtopia.
• Batman Gambit: The author implies that someone sent Ivy to train with Sasha as a gambit to give Sasha something to focus on other than getting drunk and fighting. Said person was Anne. There is supposedly another reason for this as well, though Ivy isn't willing to share it yet.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Marcy and Darcy had this back when they were originally freed from the Core. Darcy notes that millenia of combat prowess meant nothing in the face of how powerful Marcy was in the arena of the mind.
• Blind Seer: Of a kind. Marcy is The Omniscient so she doesn't actually need to see, but she has to wear a blindfold to avoid Sensory Overload.
• Break the Cutie: The trauma of the events of the war against the Core, along with seeing infinity, losing Darcy and waking up to find that there will be three years before she sees Sasha again, has left Marcy a very different person. When she finally sees Sasha again, she grabs and lifts her and screams at her.
• Breast Attack: When Ivy finally manages to hit Sasha in the chest, Sasha complains that Ivy bruised her tit. Given that amphibians don't have breasts like humans do, Ivy probably didn't even know that was an option, or how much it hurts.
• Cynical Mentor: Sasha never wanted to take on a student, since learning the art of Cutting from Grime never brought her any happiness, and she doesn't wish to inflict that on someone else. She does relent to Ivy's persistence, but puts her through Training from Hell and refuses to teach her Cutting until she's taught her every other skill that tires Ivy out. Privately, Sasha is also worried that Ivy will be irresponsible with the skill she's being taught and Sasha will have indirectly caused more pain to the world. She's not nearly as cynical as Maya ten Meti, though.
• The Cynic: Sasha. Nearly 20 years after the defeat of the Core and she has come to see her skill with the sword as useless and futile, and thinks her and her friends' efforts amounted to nothing but trauma caused by throwing three thirteen-year-olds into way more responsibility than they were ready for.
• Decomposite Character: In the show, Darcy is simply the name the Core goes by when possessing the body of Marcy Wu. Here, Darcy is a separate entity from both Marcy and the Core, one that even goes through a Heel–Face Turn.
• Dented Iron: Sasha is not old by any metric, but having spent her life since she was 13 in nearly constant battle has left her body broken and scarred, and she is far from as physically healthy as any other 30 year old.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Sasha is introduced eating noodles before getting up to save a girl from slavers, treating the whole thing like a tiresome chore. She makes a half-hearted attempt at de-escalating the situation before chopping one of the slavers' head of, before returning to her noodles. This establishes that she is an incredibly good fighter but also extremely world-weary and cynical, though not entirely devoid of emotion as she does let out a snort of amusement at Ivy breaking the slaver's leg.
  • Marcy is introduced doing a Sherlock Scan of a crime scene before declaring it a cold lead and coldly dismissing the corpse as "people die all the time". She then goes to the fwagon with Maddie and briefly takes off her blindfold, which Maddie remarks that "messes [her] up every time".
• Everyone Can See It: In the early days after she and Marcy were sepparated from the core, Darcy's romantic interest in Sasha was painfully obvious to everyone, as Sasha was the only one of the Calamity Trio they would refer to by name and at one point they stated in no uncertain terms that they trust Sasha more than anyone else.
  Anne: Hey, speaking of Sasha. Is it just me, or does Darcy…?
  Marcy: Oh. My. FROG I know!
• Expy: Of the two Calamity girls seen so far, each is an expy of one of the Demiurges from K6BD;
  • Sasha is Mathangi "Maya" Mantra, the rogue demiurge and greatest living master of the sword but also an immense cynic who considers their power useless and futile. They are even introduced the exact same way, eating noodles before intervening in a brawl and resolving it in a single strike.
  • Marcy is Jadis, the bearer of the SHAPE. Like Jadis, Marcy is The Omniscient, having seen infinity by overusing the Wit gem, but is completely crippled as a result.
  • While Anne hasn't been on-screen for long enough to know for sure, she could be Zoss, the Conquering King. The Paragon who has been missing for a long time, with many awaiting her return.
• Eye Color Change: Marcy's eyes are naturally brown, like in the show, but by the present they have turned green as a result of overusing the Wit gem when fighting the Core and merging with Darcy.
• Famed In-Story:
  • Anne, Sasha and Marcy have all gained renown as the saviors of Amphibia. Not that it stops gloryhounds from challenging Sasha to duels and innevitably losing limbs over it.
  • Tritonio, rather than just a conman and bandit, is here known to be a skilled swordsman and Darcy remarks that Anne having studied under him is notable.
• First-Name Basis: Darcy refers to the Calamity Trio by their attributes (Wit, Strength, Heart), except for Sasha, whom they often calls by her name.
• Freudian Slip: In a flashback shortly after the defeat of the Core, Darcy catches themselves calling Sasha by her name instead of by her calamity power, like they do with Anne and Marcy.
• Fusion Dance: Three years ago, Marcy absorbed Darcy completely. In effect, Darcy is gone, though her memories and traits remain as part of Marcy.
• The Ghost: Anne has yet to appear in the flesh until a dream in chapter 4 of I Don't Trust My Future Self. Chapter 7 of Manual of the Sword finally sheds light on where she has been.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Sasha uses a special tea to help Ivy connect better to enviroment and let her mentally speak to her memory of Grime, who has passed away. Ivy irreverently compares it to getting stoned.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Apparently Marcy absed her fighting in her battle with Darcy on Wuxia puppetry.
• Interrupted Intimacy: In a flashback to when the girls were 20, Sprig comes into Anne's room to wake her up for a fishing trip. Sasha and Anne had been spending the night together, and Sasha is the first to wake up. Sprig takes a second to process what's going on, but once he does he leaves quickly. Anne for her part would prefer to not think about her little brother catching an eyefull of her girlfriends' tits.
• Interspecies Romance: Between Sasha, a human, and Darcy, who could best be described as a mental human-newt hybrid.
• It's All My Fault: The reason Sasha is travelling alone at the beginning of the fic is that something happened to Marcy and Anne that Sasha blames herself for not having protected them from. In her guilt, she started undertaking lengthy missions away from Newtopia that eventually turned into not returning at all. The something in question is currently unknown, but it's implied to have to do with Aldrich returning and Marcy merging with Darcy.
• Jaded Professional: Sasha is the greatest swordsmaster in the world. She is also a very tired and jaded woman who thinks swords are worthless hunks of metal that cause nothing but suffering for both their victims and their wielders.
• Master Swordsman: Sasha. The greatest, in fact. Ivy seeks her out to study under, though Sasha herself is under the impression that swords are useless hunks of metal and mastering them ultimately amounts to nothing. Grime, her teacher, was presumably this before her.
• May–December Romance: Exaggerated. Darcy is the last remaining piece of a Mind Hive that is several thousand years old, whereas Sasha is around 30 in the present and her relationship with Darcy happened way before that.
• Meaningful Echo: In a flashback, Sasha returns from a mission and is kissed by Darcy, who apologizes for being a bit out of practice, and Sasha answers that so is she. When they finally reunite and kiss, Sasha apologizes for being out of practice, and the merged Marcy and Darcy answers that so are they.
• Mental World: Sasha can enter one by imbiding in certain herbs, which she uses to talk to the memory of her father, Grime. Marcy can do the same, albeit using a spell Darcy taught her. Then their respective mental worlds start crossing over.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Marcy. Having overused the Wit gem and seen Infinity when she merged with Darcy, she has so much knowledge that she has to wear a blindfold to avoid suffering sensory overload from seeing anything.
• Non-Linear Character: Marcy appears to be slightly unstuck in time. She mentions that the potions she takes keeps her grounded in time, and her blindfold prevents her from getting temporally confused, though what exactly this means is yet to be explained. A flashback shows her having a conversation with Andrias, who was long dead at that point.
• Not So Above It All: Marcy may be an omniscient sage, but her comment about missing Sasha's lung capacity implies that she still enjoys, ahem, what Sasha can do with her mouth.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: While it isn't seen much in the present, Darcy tells Sasha that she knows she (Sasha) is smarter than she lets people think.
• The Omniscient: Marcy can accurately predict events that happen years in the future and can gain perfect knowledge of something just by looking at it. She also appears to have some kind of Non-Linear Character going on, as she frequently appears to teleport. To stop the Core when it returned, she had to overuse the Wit gem, causing her and Darcy to see all of infinity. The downside is that she needs to wear a blindfold to avoid sensory overload from knowing everything around her.
• Parental Substitute: Grime was this for Sasha, to the point where she outright refers to him as her father. Yunan and Olivia are the same for Marcy.
• Polyamory: Sasha, Marcy, and Anne are (or were) in a relationship of course, with the addition that Sasha was also dating Darcy.
• Posthumous Character: Grime and Darcy are dead and kinda-dead by the present day, respectively. Andrias' death is also shown in a flashback, though he welcomed it.
• Predecessor Villain: King Aldrich Leviathan, Andrias' father, is long gone by the present, but his last act of spite against the Calamity Trio and Darcy is implied to have been part of the reason Sasha is now travelling alone and Darcy is gone.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: In a flashback, Sasha activates her Calamity powers, calmly declares "I'm sorry. I’m going to cause a bit of a scene," before vanquishing a room full of assassins in a single cut.
• The Reveal: Chapter 7 of Manual of the Sword finally reveals Anne's whereabouts. She's on Earth, sent there for her own protection after the Core's assassins nearly killed her, and Sasha stopped talking to her after a while for the same reason she stopped talking to Marcy; Guilt. Sasha also deduces that Anne is the person who sent Ivy to find her.
• Self-Deprecation: Sasha tells Ivy that the first lesson of the sword is that only complete dumbasses wants to learn the sword. Ivy asks what Sasha is then, and Sasha laughs and answers
  Sasha: Me? I’m queen dipshit of dumb fuck mountain.
• Shared Dream: More like shared meditation-induced Mental World, but Sasha and Marcy finally talk when Sasha, for whatever reason, ends up in Marcy's dream.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Aldrich only appears in flashbacks, but it's implied that his attempt at ruining the Calamity Trio's Happy Ending was what forced Marcy to absorb Darcy, and is what Sasha blames herself for failing to protect Marcy from.
• Spirit Advisor: The memory of Grime is one to Sasha, telling her to stop running away from her regrets.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Marcy apparently has a habit of doing this, though it might just be plain teleportation (or something that looks like teleportation to outside observers).
• Too Dumb to Live: The toad slaver in the first chapter of "Manual of the Sword" recognizes Sasha as a human and taunts her for it. Given that there are three humans and one of them is the greatest swordsmaster in the world, this is very stupid and he loses his head for it.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • At the end of the show, Sasha can be generously described as the best fighter in the show, but she is still far from the levels of badass she is in the fic. Admittedly, part of it can be chalked up to her age, as Sasha in the show is in her early to mid teens, while this version of her is around 30, the prime of her physical ability. It's mentioned that she didn't start learning the art of Cutting until she was 17.
  • In the show, Marcy was an extremely clever girl. In the fic, she's The Omniscient.
• Training from Hell: When it's not Wax On, Wax Off, Sasha's training of Ivy is this. Her first day of training starts with Sasha throwing a bucket of water in her (sleeping) face before telling her that she won't be much of a swordsmaster if she can't even dodge a bucket.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: The first time Sasha Cut, she was clearing a way through a group of assassins to reach the mortally wounded Grime.
• Two Beings, One Body: Marcy and Darcy shared Marcy's body until Darcy was absorbed. Sasha was in a relationship with both of them.
• Uncertain Doom: The fate of Anne Boonchuy is currently unknown, as Sasha and Marcy are both for whatever reason reluctant to talk about her. When asked if she is dead, the author has stated that, "It's complicated". Chapter 7 of Manual of the Sword finally reveals that Anne is alive, and on Earth, having been sent there for her own safety until Darcy gave the clear that the Core is dead. Darcy is gone, and Marcy has not given the clear in her place, so on Earth she remains. Sasha can't bring herself to contact her because of her guilt, though Sprig still talks to her.
• Wax On, Wax Off: When it's not Training from Hell, Sasha's training of Ivy consists of this. One of her lessons is about mastering Sweeping before one can master Cutting. Which consists of Ivy being given a broom and tasked to clear an area of any stone larger than a pea.

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The only sanctioned action of a swordsman is to cut.