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Fighting in the dark was dirty, sure, but it was the only thing that kept him fighting. In the dead of night, blood was just a puddle, bodies were just rocks, and the blade weighing heavily in your hand wasn’t a blade. No, it was just a weight that you had to get used to, because you couldn’t be in a rebellion without a weapon.
Techno and Phil and, eventually, Tommy had all been the ones for bloodshed and killing and sparring. Wilbur was forgotten in the window, but that was fine. He was better off forgotten.
He remembered one of those long, lonely afternoons and remembers vowing that he would never kill people unless he had to and they deserved it. Looking at his kill count, his head was so turbulent that he couldn’t tell which kills were valiant and which ones were heartless.
His head was the one thing he could rely on. Phil had favorites and surprise surprise! It wasn’t him. Techno had had his blade and Phil’s undying fatherly love, something Wilbur ached and pushed for, reliant on the small snippets he was granted every now and then.
Tommy had Tubbo. They were best friends, and it was an odd sort of friendship. Tommy swore like a sailor starting at age 10, was the loudest person you would ever meet, and could annoy people into liking him. Tubbo was quieter, more reserved, but just as mischievous.
It worked, and they always had each other. And who did he have? No one. He had, long before the days of war and before L’Manberg was ever dreamed of, invited Dream over for dinner. It was hard to believe that they were friends. But in any case, Wilbur was friends with who Dream used to be and what he could have been, not what he was.
But Techno and Dream had hit it off, somehow, some way, and Wilbur was left in the dust. It seemed like every person he met was after his family, not him.
So, wasn’t it perfectly reasonable to assume that everyone was going to leave him, since no one in his past seemed to have a problem with it? That’s as the question the his mind screamed at him as he led Tommy into the ravine. “Pogtopia,” he had dramatically christened it, if only to see the look on Tommy’s face, the proud and determined look his younger brother wore all too often and all too well. But alas, what was a tortured leader without the ‘tortured’? And so the voices came again.
You know, Tommy will leave you.
Wasn’t he always closer to Tubbo?
He’s only here because he has to be.
He would much rather be anywhere else.
Can you do anything right?
And that last one managed to whizz past all his defense and strike an arrow deep into his heart. Because that answer was no. Not anything useful, anyway.
He could play the guitar, whoop-de-fucking-do. But useful things? Phil was the literal Angel of Death, Techno’s name sent shivers down people’s spines no matter the server or the stakes, and Tommy had the potential to be something great, another proud picture in the Minecraft family picture albums. And Wilbur played the guitar.
But now, he was the leader of the revolution. Would people remember that? Or would they remember the idiot who lost an election in his own country? Would they remember the kid who was left alone with his baby brother for months, the kid who was an adult far too soon! Which ‘Wilbur’ would the history books write about?
He didn’t know and his head was telling him not to care. It was telling him to forget about the prospect of ‘peaceful resolution’, one of the only pillars on which L’Manberg was founded. They told him to take stacks upon stacks of TNT and a redstone torch, they were telling him to light this motherfucker like a powder keg.
The rational part of him (funny, he had thought that that was the only part of him) told him to request a meeting, to try and reason, so sit down and formulate and scheme, to try and win this fight with careful planning and precision.
But this new part of him, voices trying to push him and sending him tumbling down a slipper slope that descended into madness, was gaining prominence.
Wilbur wasn’t an idiot. Things just tended to snowball. All too often, his right choice would catapult beyond his control into something new. Usually, Wilbur avoided making choices because he knew that something would come. He wasn’t ready to rush everything he had for the chance it was good.
But now, he felt himself on a precipice. He was eons away from Pogtopia. He turned and walked away, ignoring the voices clawing at him to come back. He took a breath. Then another. Then the last one that he would have as his own.
And he barreled over the edge.
The voices were the only part of him now. Everyone in his family had voices and has voices. Techno’s called for blood and violence, unquestionable bloodshed and death for all who crossed his path. Tommy’s called for justice and for peace and for order, and that was what made him a good person. Because when he gave to his voices, the world didn’t burn at his feet.
Wilbur’s voices were twisted and cunning. They manipulated and lied and feasted on his helpless terror when things went wrong, then delighted as he turned back to them, again and again and again.
So things moved forward. Things got worse and worse and Wilbur knew he was the catalyst, the thing that was starting everything, but for once, he showed no hesitation. He hesitated, sure; guilt and fear were the undercurrent to his every motion and thought. But he didn't let anyone see. He let his movements remain fluid, he let his anger get the best of him and he let his outbursts come naturally, in that passion filled way he had always spoke.
But now, he advocate for explosions. Death. Violence. Tommy looked at him in horror, but that didn't matter. His voices begged for destruction, and those voices were the only things left. They reminded him of someone, but he didn't know who. So he listened. He sharpened his blades and readied his TNT and practiced his fighting until he was something to rival maybe even Phil. He knew he was no match for the literal God of Death, but he had to believe in himself. It sounded corny, but his voices were telling them and he believed them he had to he had to know the voices and trust them otherwise he was nothing and everything would go wrong like the failure he was no just trust the voices trust the voices TRUST THE VOICES
So here he was. The button room. The words on the wall that used to mean something. But words couldn't do anything anymore, could they? Actions were the only thing that mattered now. Speeches were drowned out by explosions. Words were blinded and blocked out by smoke, by sparks, by wars and by fighting and by blood spilled on the ground, in dark crimson puddles that stained the earth with the lingering scent of death.
His hand lingered on the button. Everything seemed to speed up. No no no. The voices helped him control everything, and now, they were speeding up and the voices the voices were taking him and everything was gone. His mind latched onto some things that he didn't particularly care about. Phil's eyes, silver, unlike how they used to be. They used to be so, so blue. Now, they were silver, like the undertones of his sandy hair. The sword he carried heavily. It was diamond and had a pink tint to the blue stone, blood stains from battles fought before. The tiredness that seemed to cling to every bit of him. He didn't know where it had come from - usually, the voices dissipated the exhaustion just fine - but it was like the voices had gone. Silence, silence that carried so many words that didn't even matter, swooped in instead of the voices.
One sound managed to penetrate the silence that seemed to weigh his mind down. An explosion. Like the start to a cacophony, a song, a symphony. Yes, a symphony. With violins screeching battle cries and drums echoing the last words of fallen soldiers and people crying out at the carnage. that he had caused. Oh lord. He had caused this. He had done something. He heard Phil speaking, but at the moment he didn't care. Did Phil not understand. It was "My L'Manberg, Phil! My unfinished symphony, forever unfinished." He took a deep breath, taking in the destruction.
His mind whirred along, planning and charting and scheming, like it always did. His thoughts were so rapid that sometimes, he couldn't even tell what they were before they flew by, giving way to roe thoughts. It was like trying to read an entire library at once. Yet somehow, he managed okay. Maybe it was because this was the only mind he had ever known, one that worked all day and long into the night.
"If I can't have this nobody can, Phil," he promised. It was true. L'Manberg wasn't ever about the Camarvan, or the people, or the buildings. It was about what it was as a whole. It was liberty, and it was freedom. It was sticking it to the man; in this case, Dream. It wasn't a country, more so a symbolization of defying everyone and everything in his way. Even if the game was rigged for him, and even if he was destined to win, why not shake things up? Good or bad, chaos or peace, it was fun to be able to play with other people's lives like this. Being able to plot out the twists and turns and ups and downs before they happened. it was like being a god.
"Oh my God," Phil whispered, his eyes wide and his black wings quivering. Wilbur stared at Phil, not blinking. He must have looked insane. He felt insane. It was satisfying to see Phil like this, to see Phil paying attention to him at all. Phil had always left him with Tommy. He was Tommy's parent and Phil was Techno's, but no one was ever his. He had never, ever had a guiding figure that stuck around, someone to help him and pay attention to him. Now, he had Phil's attention. He had all the attention in the world.
He cast his wide eyes out to the crowd, to the rubble. Niki looked frightened. Good. Techno and Dream looked satisfied, proud. Heat burned in his stomach. His actions shouldn't bring them happiness; his actions should tear them down. They should look like Tubbo. Like Fundy. Like
Tommy. Tommy's blue eyes staring at him. Emotions tumbled through them, fear and sadness and guilt and shame and anger. But one emotion surfaced. Hate. Hate and determination shown as Tommy met his eyes. Wilbur blinked. Tommy's lips moved in a single word. Monster.
The voices went crazy, yelling at him and taking control like a marionette on cursed strings, fighting for control but forced to play into a sick dance. Because for the first time, Wilbur, the one that led L'Manberg, was there with the voices. It was like he was seeing clearly for the first time, but he couldn't move. They were moving for him. Wilbur wanted to scream, strangled, but instead, he heard himself say, Kill me Phil. Murder me, murder me with the sword." His arm threw a diamond sword, enchanted and shining (just like Tommy's eyes, tortured, Monster). "Kill me Phil, kill me right now-"
"You're my son!" Phil yelled, sword in hand. For the first time, he and the voices agree. Phil was never his parent. Phil had left him and Phil had abandoned him and Phil had chosen favorites. And the favorite was never him. He didn't know what a parent was, but it certainly wasn't Phil.
"Kill me!" he demanded again, voice climbing with insanity as he stepped closer, throwing his arms open wide. Wilbur, the real him, pounded at the walls he had let the voices build. Even after all this time, he just wanted a family, complete and whole. Where no explosions and no voices could trouble them and there was no war to speak of. But Wilbur was never lucky.
A sword easily sliced through him. He watched his own blood stain the stone, he watched Phil's eyes widen in horror, and he saw Tommy take a step back. The voices finally left, leaving just Wilbur. A shell of who he was and who he could have been. He hit the ground hard, and he could feel the life drain out of him. He heard Phil's retreating footsteps, he saw nothing as his eyelids crashed shut. No. There was so much more to do. So much more I had to do. I really, really, really... I'm so stupid.
His last breath left him unceremoniously. When he was younger, he thought that he would have the death of- well, someone important. Where people would cry over him. It was self-indulgent, it was selfish, it was dark and disgusting, but still, he thought that he might be celebrated post-mortem.
No. No all that was left was a dark void, one he had made himself and one he was being trapped in. He had no meaningful last words. All his words failed him. The thing he had used left him in the moment he could make a meaningful impression. "I'm sorry," he choked out, before his body froze and he died, alone. Just like he deserved.