Chapter Text
So, this was it.
The true end was finally getting to Wemmbu.
All the years of fighting for this universe, the decades of struggle he had to fight through, it crumbled apart all at once, all within the span of time he couldn’t picture for the life of him. Only the current vision reflects into his glossy eyes, the sight of foggy rubble, a grave that doesn’t shape his body whatsoever, nor leave him with the slightest amount of peace in those final moments.
“Wemmbu..?” A rough, yet familiar voice calls to him.
Take back that previous statement. This spot wasn’t meant to be his grave.. was it?
His body lifts itself up before he could even register it, his arm trembles attempting to carry the weight. It aches, burns, and stings at the slightest of muscle contractions, making it a task to even shift his gaze at the scene before him.
Despite the dryness of his throat, he manages to strain out a name. “Eggchan.”
Wemmbu can’t remember what happened for the life of him. Was it another negotiation? A reckless moment of faltering? Did he endanger everyone without considering the integrity of the structure first?
Did he just make this a suicide mission for both him and Eggchan?
Fuck.
It hurts to even stare, but he can’t seem to look away either. The lingering smoke in the distance, a snapped fishing rod at his feet, the sight of deep red leaving him with tunnel vision. Eggchan sat still against a straightened out pillar, wearing whatever remained of his armor– with a glimmering netherite sword that sat with a tremble on his legs. Beside him were his own wings, now stained with dried blood and passing asphalt.
Wemmbu feels his chest tighten. “Eggchan– dude, stay with–” He manages to choke out half a sentence before the surrounding environment slips right down his throat. He loses grip of the ground below him, slamming into the structure beside Eggchan. It fucking burns, this was more than just dust–
Unlike his dear friend, Eggchan doesn’t panic. He was definitely the calmer half of their companionship, but to see him this calm horrified Wemmbu beyond belief. “It’s over.” He says casually, tilting his head back. “We’ll be at peace soon enough. I can feel it.”
“You’re giving up just like that?” Wemmbu doesn’t understand the true meaning of Eggchan’s words, only that they sounded like words of defeat. “We need to send distress signals– We- we can get healing materials and be fine–”
“Wemmbu.” Eggchan interrupts with a harshness in his tone. It wasn’t on purpose, both of them knew that. “You n’ me.. We’ll meet again. I promise.”
His fists clench, breath hitching with it. “Don’t– don’t even joke like that–”
Eggchan’s body stiffens right before his eyes, unveiling a reddish, static surrounding him. It was then that he learned the tragic truths of life, angels knew of death better than anybody else– and his best friend was fucking gone.
Amidst the adrenaline of it all, he fails to notice his own blood gushing out of his chest. The last thing he sees is the droplets of his own red, bleeding fingertips meet the paleness of Eggchan’s skin. It doesn’t register correctly in his mind.
Nothing does.
Not even when he falls flat beside Eggchan, not when he coughs a waterfall of blood, not when he’s watching the world fade into a steady white.
The end of time, the end of it all..
..?
(“Hey, bro, you’ve been staring at that book for quite a while.” Wemmbu points out, biting down on his apple with a comedically timed slip. It drops to his lap.
Leaning against the countertop casually, he spots the angel in the corner of his eye. He held a book in his hand, and a stare that made Wemmbu swallow down every single word he ever considered saying in this short span of time. Eggchan looked serious, not the usual calm, as-a-matter-a-fact demeanor he always expressed– but dead serious.
“I’ve been.” He says, flipping through the pages of his book. “I’m just.. prepping for that battle.”
Wemmbu tilts his head. In confusion as to how a book counted towards combat prep– well, not that Eggchan was really the type to actually be in the conflict per se. “What’s it about?”
His exhale is slow, a deep breath that lands on the turning pages. “Afterlife.” He answers, simply.
That’s.. That’s definitely not how you plan for a battle– already leaning towards the possibility of your side losing? Your side dying?
“The end, the beginning, and– uhm, rebirth.” Eggchan pauses halfway through the page, whether that’d be him rereading or stilling at the words, that is unknown. “Even in the worst of ends, there’ll be chances for us to meet again. Isn’t that intriguing?"
Wemmbu opens his mouth to initially reply, but the words stay glued onto his tongue. He already knew how Eggchan was when it came to his reading, and he prepared for every possible scenario.. but the question lingers anyways.. “Why would you need that reassurance?”)
…
At the time, I got upset over him even implying it.
We weren’t quitters, and we weren’t going to die that easily.
Except, we sorta did quit. And we did die.
I know we did.. I watched his life fade away with whatever vision I had left. I was unfortunate enough to make witness to that just before my own final heart turned grey. And with that, I was unfortunate enough to live my last moments in this universe doubting Eggchan’s every word.
There would come chances for us to meet again
...
In another world...? Another universe?
“Wemmbu.. you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep throwing around the mace like that.” Someone reminds Wemmbu in the faint distance.
Wemmbu tightens the grip around his mace– a rubber mace – and bashes it directly into the cardboard walls that weren’t his creation, in a yard that wasn’t the one that he knew, surrounded by the people that were, well, his own people. Although that’s not really something he could directly say aloud, because, well, this universe was far different from the one he understood.
It wasn’t disordered in the way he witnessed prior, and the people around him weren’t constantly battling to the death. Well, unless he counts the ‘battles’ he had with Flamefrags and the fuckass television, then he had dozens of them.
He jolts himself upward, barely keeping at his feet as he peers over the last standing cut-out window. A taller man stands at the back porch with a gentle smile wiped along his face.
It was so familiar.
“C’mon dude, aren’t you the king of maces or something?” MinuteTech calls out, leaning against one of the pillars. The pause between them is gentle, nostalgic, paired with words that hold a far deeper meaning than what anyone else beyond these fenced borders could understand.
(“‘King of Maces’, they said. Seriously, how did you get hurt this bad?” Minute chuckles lightly, patting dry Wemmbu’s skin.
Wemmbu had always been the type to overtrain until he strained every drop of energy, but this time, he seriously put himself in a wreck. Even his wings were tangled up in the mess that was his entire body cramping up and ultimately knocking him straight into the ground– something that MinuteTech and just about everyone else around them had warned him about, and the exact advice that he chose to ignore.
In the corner was a less, but still partially scratched up Eggchan. He had been the one to carry Wemmbu to MinuteTech’s base when he discovered his wings fluttering in ways that wings absolutely shouldn’t.
“Can’t always have a 100% success rate.. as fucking awesome it’d be.” Wemmbu nods to himself. “I’ll be proud of my flat 99.”
MinuteTech finishes up with bandaging up his arm, giving him a hard pat on the shoulder. “Who knows, really. Maybe in another lifetime, you’ll be the God of Maces. 100% success.” He says.
Maybe in another lifetime. Wemmbu leans back on the chair, soft fabric, thick cotton. Looking over MinuteTech’s shoulder, he sees Eggchan looking at the both of them with an unreadable expression.
They were both thinking the same thing.
His breath slips out in one heavy exhale. “I’ll take that as a challenge.”)
Well, maybe Eggchan wasn’t bluffing after all.
In truth, Wemmbu had always thought that the one life he was given would be the only life he ever had. That’s what those years under Minute’s mentoring had taught him, he had always thought of it that way because that’s all he ever knew. Turns out, there’s more to life than the one life initially given, and the angels definitely knew better than everyone else.
Though.. he didn’t expect it in this fashion.
Everything felt so much brighter and welcoming. He could actually breathe for once without smelling smoke and dried blood. Life was finally that calm co-existence with the world beyond. It was all perfect, other than the fact Eggchan wasn’t here to experience this alongside him.
The same guy that Eggchan grew up with; the ally that stood by him for life, the best friend that died beside him, the companion that he missed as if it were his own brother torn from his grasp.
He thought about how different Eggchan would look like in this life– whether he’d still have that strip of red in his hair, or if his ghostly wings would be smaller than from what he recognized. Would he still be that dude who spends too much time in the library, or still be the unconfrontational funny guy that had horrifically comedic timing to this day?
The more he thinks of the possibilities, the more he thinks of the most daunting of realities..
..Wemmbu grew up wondering if Eggchan was even here at all.
Midnight was ironically the time the two of them were most awake throughout those days.
Between the stress of preparing for what may as well be labeled as their end by now, and the stress of having to carry this much tension between one another. It was never like this, they never felt their hearts so heavy in the company of the other, none of it seemed right.
Not that they had fought since then, actually, they never fought in any sort of sense.
It’s just confusing.
Eggchan scribbled into his book, like no tomorrow would come. Meanwhile Wemmbu stuffed materials into his bag, hoping for a tomorrow to come. Last time he checked, his best friend never had psychic capabilities, but the adamancy of his argument left Wemmbu with a painful churn in his gut.
For the first time in a while, he was genuinely scared of losing. “Eggchan,” There was too much on the line, and both of them knew that all too well. It didn’t matter how much he held his head up, or slammed his fist at the mention of ‘meeting again’. “Tell me something..”
Because Wemmbu never lived on potential, he thrived off facts.
In all honesty, Wemmbu didn’t care if he lived or died during this, he just wanted the reassurance of knowing Eggchan’s words came from legitimacy. A book all about tales of rebirth and reunitement wasn’t going to be his primary source, even if it came from the lips of his own friend.
He didn’t want to lose this battle and his dear friend in one go. He couldn’t afford that possibility.
But turning his back on Eggchan was the last thing he wanted to do, he was tired of trying to rebuttal or understand anything. He just wanted to close this predicament off, and cross all of his fingers together to hope for the best.
Wemmbu didn’t want anything to do with this, really. “Say that we do come back,” He starts, already feeling the bitterness in his throat as he speaks. Eggchan looks up a second too quickly for his own good. “Will you be the one finding me, or would I have to do all the work of finding you once more?”
.
.
.
Even brief silence felt like a century.
Eggchan’s quill freezes on the page, drawing the ink onto the edge of the paper. The silence is deafening, between Wemmbu’s god awful choice in moodlet words and the confusion drawn on Eggchan’s brow.
It’s like the entire room stilled in impatience.
Then, he simply shrugs. As if they were discussing the weather. “Guess we’ll find out when the time comes.” He’s so comically casual, it makes Wemmbu want to tear his hair out. “Or how I feel that day.”
The mood is everywhere by now. Wemmbu stammers to himself, trying to settle on something to say. “Are you—
—Fucking serious?”
Well, at least he could say his last few days with Eggchan were comedic, but it still didn’t make up for the fact it’s been damn near over two decades since he last saw his face. Many familiar people have taken over Wemmbu’s line of sight since the beginning of his new life, and yet his psychic, slightly strange best friend is nowhere to be found these days.
Not even in the one place MinuteTech had stated could ‘track down literally anyone on the planet’; the World Wide Web. And Wemmbu can confirm his screentime by the crease formed on his forehead, and the thousands of varied searches built up on an account history that wasn’t his own– but he could care less about that.
He wants a newer image of Eggchan– not that distorted, red image that has been engraved into his mind since the day he died. Something fresh. Something that will let Wemmbu finally relax his shoulders for once. Something that proves that his words were truthful.
[Sorry! This search could not be processed.]
[Sorry! This search could not be processed.]
[Sorry! This search could not be processed.]
[No results found.]
Wemmbu promptly slams his face into the keyboard in front of him, following that up with yet another sturdy slam to pause the application that he had accidentally opened in that process.
[These are results for Eggchan gggggggggggggggggggggggnjmt]
[Search instead for Eggs]
“This is a goddamn joke.”
He should’ve known, really.
Eggchan has always been someone who otherwise kept to himself, even going as far as to pop invisible potions just to revamp his armor. Of-fucking-course he would have zero trace on the internet– not even a semi-active Instagram page or a random YouTube channel he made back he was twelve with his full legal name on it. Absolutely nothing that could help Wemmbu out.
Somehow, it suddenly felt like a breeze to break through the borders of the universe to find this guy when compared to finding even one photo.
Wemmbu later walks through the hall, standing beside the frame of his own door for a moment, contemplating. Eggchan was never the type to tell white lies, he himself always said that those were just ‘nicer lies’. He's somewhere here, he wouldn’t promise something like that if he wasn’t going to come through with it.
“This guy is putting me on a manhunt again..” He grumbles to himself, kicking at the air like it had personally wrecked his search results and wiped Eggchan off the face of.. this planet.
It’s undoubtedly strange how things turned out.
He only ever went to the library for that small bit of nostalgia.
Studying wasn’t something that he ever bothered investing in, reading wasn’t his type of hobby, and libraries in general are too quiet for his constantly buzzing mind. He never had a real reason for being here, other than the fact he could.
The smell of paper simply reminded him of Eggchan. He always smelled it whenever he would sit on a that wooden chair beside him, mixed with oil essences and fresh ink. To think that he used to complain about that despite constantly smelling of bloodshed himself, it was beyond him– because paper wasn’t remotely as bad.
Maybe because Wemmbu was just never much of a reader, he was only there for Eggchan after all. It was simple, comfortable company. Being left to their own devices while in the presence of cool air and the ambiance of the civilization ahead of them, it was the timeless elements of peace that he experienced in his previous life, the permanent closure that somehow managed to wipe off the page of his journal.
God. He really did miss his best friend.
He takes a breath in front of the glass doors, tugging it open with a loose grip and sliding inside. The place could never compare to the library back at his base, given that it had more pictures than books along the walls, and catered to the visual over anything else. A cutout cartoon person greets him at the entrance, pointing him towards their ‘New and Revamped Fantasy Shelf!’, on the side hall.
This library doesn’t even come close. It didn’t have the nice, soothing air nor the familiar environment to justify lying there until sunset, but there was also just too much lingering on his mind, and he was sure the silence could let him doze off for a bit.
He walks past the collection of fantasy novels, glancing over at the covers of each one. There’s images of elaborate kingdoms, knights in full chain armor, softer-toned covers with magical designs and wizards in huge hats. In the corner of the display, there’s one with a massive dragon behind the main protagonist, a younger man with scruffed, white hair.
Huh..
There’s a brief pause before he grabs the book off the shelf.
(It had always been those quieter times of the day that Wemmbu always cherished. In a world so noisy, constantly active with conflict, it was always made up in the form of quieter nights.
The nights he’d spend in that library, shifting in his spot on the wooden chair, making idle conversation. “Wemmbu,” Eggchan pressed a palm to the book, keeping the page still. “Say, do you think there’d ever be stories written about us?”
He tugs at his sleeve, adjusting each ruffle idly. “I dunno, dude.” He answers with a shrug. “What makes you ask?”
“I was just thinking about all the books I have.” Eggchan leans back on his chair, nudging his head towards the shelves of books behind them. Filled to the brim, properly dusted before the sun’s glimmer could call out any possible error in Eggchan’s cleaning. “A lot of them are historical novels.. it just made me think, what if we were a later generation’s history?”
“That would mean making history first.” Wemmbu and Eggchan on the front cover of Unstable’s history book, wielding shining armor and fierce presences. A slow smirk appears on his face, now entertained by that mere thought. “Which isn’t too far-fetched for us, right, Eggchan? We’ll keep fighting for that.”
“We?” Eggchan laughed, “Bro, can’t I just stay by the sidelines? I can make history as your great companion or whatever.”
“Nah,” Wemmbu says. “I want my greatest companion right beside me—”)
“ ‘—.. and beside me, you’ll remain, because we are a pair who shall never depart.’ said the dragon, who despite his spikey wings, carried a careful flutter in the wind as he soared.” Wemmbu reads the line in a cracked whisper, admittedly too far into a stupid fantasy book for his liking, but far too intrigued into it to put it down.
It’s pathetic, truly. Because this fantasy book was stupid and filled with a bajillion tropes that make the shock value of it all basically nothing, but he kept it eye-level anyways. The protagonist was a passive, younger adventurer with a wooden sword to his possession, and the dragon was essentially a guardian to him. Protecting him throughout his journey, viciously irritable to everyone except his dearest friend, because, of course..
Despite its clear inaccuracies and boring plotline, it felt real. The story felt too real.
Maybe this is what Eggchan had meant by being able to feel while reading his books. Being able to put himself in the character’s shoes was something that Wemmbu wasn’t well-suited in, mainly due to the fact he had never been an invested reader, nor could relate to what men from a thousand years ago had endured.
And yet, he somehow finds this to be his connecting factor.
He flips to the next page, too distracted to notice the figure standing ahead of him. Too distracted to react as strongly as he should’ve when a voice reaches his ears. “Try not to get too deep into that novel.” Said voice tells him, deep and clear. “It ends on a permanent cliffhanger.”
It wasn’t often that he had people approach him in this library. Most interactions were brief, with people assuming that he was a regular who had the layout memorized in heart, or the occasional child who was intrigued at how his fingertips faded purple. Never someone who got straight to the point, never someone blunt enough to point out a book.
Wemmbu intended on glancing up and giving the voice a quick thanks before immediately turning back to the mess of a novel he was reading.
The very novel-esk existence that he couldn’t hide from for that long, as his eyes immediately met with a glistening blue gaze. A sight that shouldn’t have taken him so long to register, especially given that he should’ve absolutely recognized that voice first.
He sees Eggchan– and for a moment, he felt as if he could crush the book in his hands with the way his blood pressure rose.
Wemmbu was staring at Eggchan, and Eggchan was staring right back at him. There were slight changes to him in this world, as expected. He was still quite lean, wearing a thin pair of glasses, he also adorned faint blue and black streaks over his otherwise white hair, along with ends that faded away into that familiar red.
It felt too good to be true. He repeatedly blinks, as if the vision of his best friend would vanish right before his eyes. Obviously, he did not succeed. The guy in front of him only became clearer as he did, now curiously tilting his head, probably waiting for literally anything to come out of Wemmbu’s mouth.
But, really, what is there to say?
What could he possibly say after all these years? How could he face his best friend in this entirely new world and act casual?
He thought about laughing at him. Joking at how he had already read the very clearly new line of books in this library. Maybe even crying. Throw the book to the ground and tackle Eggchan down into a snotty hug.
Something. Anything but just staring.
Anything but waiting for Eggchan to make the first initiative.
Why isn’t he reacting..?
His lips part, as if he immediately knew what to say, but nothing initially came out. Instead, he’s fighting with his own words, his eyes now welling with tears. Not from emotion, he was in too much shock to do so, but rather from the lack of blinking he has done the past five seconds.
“Eggchan..?” He finally manages to say.
“Oh, um,” The voice– Eggchan immediately responds, looking back at Wemmbu in.. well, no less than confusion. He places a finger over his lip, thinking briefly. “Sorry, but, who are you?”