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Jimmy was in Codland one moment, but, next thing he knew, he was somewhere unfamiliar to him. It seemed to be an island of sorts, for Jimmy could see the beachy areas off in the distance. Sand was usually found next to water, but he was unsure where the water started and the sky ended. It was too dark and too cloudy to tell.
The soft sound of wet grass sounded underneath his shoes and fireflies happily buzzed around him. Jimmy wandered around, taking his time as he appreciated the variety of tropical flowers and the clean air.
While it was beautiful, it wasn’t like any empire he ever knew or any biome he had visited personally. The closest to it may be his swamp, but Jimmy knew Codland like the back of his hand and he didn’t recognize this place.
Perhaps it was someplace secluded within his sister’s territory? Jimmy couldn’t recall The Ocean Empire having islands like this, but he could be wrong. He furrowed his eyebrows and swooshed his tail as he further observed where he was.
“Who are you?” a voice from behind him demanded as what felt like a sword prodded him from behind. “How did you get here?”
Jimmy tensed his muscles, anxiety gripping his chest. He caught his breath, slowly raising his arms up to show that he didn’t mean any harm. “I am Jimmy the, uh, also called The Codfather or Codfather Jimmy. I’m from Codland.”
There was a moment of silence before the voice ordered, “Turn around.”
He obeyed, spinning on his heel to face the other person. Jimmy’s eyes landed upon someone who vaguely reminded him of Sovereign Scott, Emperor of Rivendell. It wasn’t him, though. This person was like him; they weren’t an elf. They had red fins on the side of their head with purplish pinkish scales on his shoulders, under his red eyes, and likely other places, much like what Jimmy had. The other merfolk’s top was also red with cut outs allowing his shoulders to be exposed. His hair was long and braided off to the side, reaching past his waist. It was mostly blue, but a red streak ran from his bangs and spiraled down the braid.
Jimmy had similar features, but his were more brownish green toned. He also exposed his shoulder scales, but he had a black, sleeveless top paired with a white armband on instead. Jimmy’s hands were more clawlike though, only sporting three “fingers”, and he wore a pair of fingerless gloves. The stranger had five fingers with sharp nails.
So, yes, they were similar, but they were clearly not the same. Perhaps wherever he was currently was actually near The Ocean Empire? The person standing in front of him didn’t look like one of the axolotl hybrids typical of Lizzie’s empire, though.
With his hands still up, Jimmy brushed some of his long, blonde hair out of his face. They just stared at each other while the stranger’s eyes wandered Jimmy’s body like he was trying to assess his threat level. “Can I put my arms down? They’re getting tired.”
He nodded, giving him permission as he slowly lowered the sword. He tucked the sword away in his inventory before talking once more. “How are you here, Ji- Codfather? I don’t recognize you. I thought I was here alone.”
Jimmy awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around briefly before locking eyes with the stranger once more. “I’m not sure. I sort of just woke up here. What’s your name?”
“Scott,” he answered after a moment of hesitation. “Scott from the Coral Isles, I guess?”
“Is that where we are now? The Coral Isles?” Jimmy questioned. The stranger’s name hit him a second later. “Wait, Scott? I know a Scott too! He’s not… as fishy as we are though.”
“It’s a version of it, yes. It’s much bigger than the one I had before, which is nice.” Scott let out a bitter laugh, a smile briefly appearing on his lips. “I know a Jimmy too, you know. He’s also not very fishy. He’s part of The Bad Boys- or, he was. Limited Life ended, so I’m here, sort of in limbo until the next death game starts. The others are off in their own limbo worlds. I would be here with Martyn, since he was my fellow Mean Gill, my teammate, but he won, so he’s probably- why am I telling you this?”
“Because you’re lonely?” Jimmy guessed, curiosity starting to eat at him. Bad Boys? Limited Life? Death game? What did all of that mean? “And you need someone to talk to? If you don’t know how to send me back, we could just talk for a bit?”
“We’re really not from the same world, are we?” Scott’s voice was low in a mutter. Jimmy wasn’t sure if Scott meant for him to hear it. Still, he waited until Scott raised his voice to regular volume again. “Sure, why not? I don’t have anything better to do.”
Scott jutted his head vaguely to the side before walking further in-land. Jimmy’s green ear fins flicked around excitedly as he bounced after him. The moon was high in the sky above them with stars and dark clouds adding depth to the night sky using shades of white, silver, and gray.
It didn’t take long for them to reach a particularly comfortable looking patch of grass and sit down. As they sat down on the ground, Jimmy couldn’t help but close his eyes as the cool winds of the night hit his face and lightly lifted his hair. It was quiet and peaceful here as opposed to the loud Codlands. Don’t get him wrong, he loved the energy and spirit his fellow Codlanders had, but sometimes the calm was needed.
“What’s your Scott like?” his new friend (Jimmy chose to be optimistic) inquired, tilting his head slightly.
A light blush graced his cheeks and the ends of his lips twitched up as he thought about the elven emperor. “Well, he’s the sovereign of an empire located high up in the snowy mountains called Rivendell. He acts fairly closed off, composed, and formal, making you think he’s unfriendly, but he really isn’t. When you get him to open up, he can get fairly talkative! My Scott is very charismatic and good with his words. He likes to tease and joke around, and he’s always able to get me to smile after Fwhip or Sausage push me around. He’s just… he’s amazing.”
“You really like him, don’t you?” Scott looked up at him through his eyelashes. He had started taking the nearby flowers to create flower crowns so his head was tilted down to look at them.
Even though it was unintentional, Jimmy found it unnecessarily attractive and his face flushed. This Scott reminded him of his Scott more than he initially thought. He shoved his hands between his criss crossed legs and stiffened his arms straight. “Y-yeah. I do. What’s your Jimmy like?”
Scott snorted as if the question personally offended him. “Loud, obnoxious, and full of himself. He thinks he’s all cool and badass just because he wears a leather jacket and dark sunglasses.”
Jimmy blinked at him rapidly, put off by the irritation radiating off of Scott. What does one say to that? “Oh.”
The tension released from Scott’s shoulders as he completed the flower crown. He has weaved it together fairly quickly, likely experienced in the craft. Scott set it aside before starting to build another one. “We used to be something special to each other several games ago, but he’s decided he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I understand that we change each game– I wasn’t always fishy, for example– but I still wish to be friendly with him.”
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy sympathized. He wished he knew what was going on in this other Jimmy’s head. If this Scott was anything like his Scott, this other Jimmy was missing out on an amazing person.
“Why?” Scott furrowed his eyebrows. “You aren’t him.”
“Still.” Jimmy shrugged. “It doesn’t sound fun. I would be upset if someone decided they didn’t like me anymore too.”
Scott hummed noncommittally as a response, setting another flower crown to the side. “So you and your Scott get along then?”
“Mhm, we do,” Jimmy confirmed before changing the subject. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about his own life, but he was more interested in Scott from the Coral Isles. “Would you want to talk about it? The death games?”
Scott flicked his tail idly in consideration as he set another flower crown aside. “I suppose I could. Do you know anything about them?”
“Not anything more than what you said,” Jimmy answered honestly. “Back where I’m from, we don’t have death games. We have wars and battles sometimes, sure, but we have respawns. They’re painful and they’re limited, so we try not to die and use them unless we have to.”
“We have a limited amount of respawns too.” Scott turned his arm over to show what looked to be a tattoo spanning the entirety of his inner forearm, reading off “⩇⩇:⩇⩇:⩇⩇” in bright red ink. “Ours was more determined by how much time we had left on the clock. We started the game with twenty-four hours on the clock and it counted down the entire time, only stopping for the few breaks provided. Every time we died, we would lose an hour. Every time we killed someone else, we would gain thirty minutes.”
“Is the tattoo the clock you’re referring to?” Jimmy looked down at his own forearm which was number free before looking at Scott’s forearm again. “Is that why the games are called Limited Life?”
“Yes, we all had them. Martyn, my Jimmy, the other Bad Boys, Team T.I.E.S., the Clockers, the Noisy Neighbors, all of us.” Scott ran his finger against the red zeros back and forth before pressing his hand against as much of it as he could. “This function was specific to this game. The other games are sort of fuzzy now, but they were called other things with different ways our lives are measured. We live, we kill, and then we die. It’s all a sick game as we try to keep ourselves and our team alive as long as possible.”
Jimmy tried to keep his horrified expression off of his face, not being able to imagine how one could talk about that sort of trauma so casually. He’s faced plenty of hardships, yes, but their tragic, brutal deaths seemed inevitable.
“You don’t have to look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Scott snickered, more amused than Jimmy would have predicted. “Well, I suppose I am a ghost, of sorts. I am dead for now. I’ll live again to play another game so don’t feel too sorry for me. I don’t need your pity. I'd rather play and live for the fun moments during it than spend eternity alone like this. Like I was before you came.”
Jimmy thought the Coral Isles were quite lovely, but he could see how it would get lonely after some time. “You said that someone else was supposed to be joining you?”
Scott sighed loudly, shifting from his sitting position to lay on his stomach. He supported the majority of his head’s weight with his right arm, but he also rested his chin on Jimmy’s knee. Jimmy wasn’t bothered by it so he didn’t ask him to move. “Yes, I had a two person team this time around. Martyn and I were the Mean Gills, thinking it was a fun play on words since we were living over the ocean together on an island I created. I grew more and more fishy as the hours passed, and each time I died. Martyn also started to have changes, but he grew coral from his skin. He learned to swim better, could see underwater without irritating his eyes, and could breath longer than normal.”
Jimmy blinked at him as he tried to conceptualize the concept. He wasn’t used to respawns causing that sort of effect. He’s been a cod hybrid for as long as he could remember, the only things changing were related to him growing older.
“We call them ‘lore traits’ and they can be useful, but often, they aren’t or the effect is more neutral,” Scott grumbled. “They tend to stick around in usually minor ways as well! Like, during the last game, in Double Life, I was soulbound to Pearl. I don’t take her damage anymore, but I get this gut feeling that she’s hurting, and I temporarily but less severely experience respawn when she does. It gets so bad sometimes that I’ll have to go track her down and help her recover so the sensation will go away.”
Jimmy was extremely intrigued by everything Scott was telling him, so he continued to listen as Scott rambled and complained about the series of games he went to. They fell into a natural rhythm, exchanging questions and answering as honestly as they could. Being this open was strange, sure, but they were also from different worlds. Nothing they said to each other would affect them when they left this place and left each other. Besides, despite the strange scenarios and worlds they came from, they were still familiar. They were still Scott and Jimmy.
This Scott had traits and mannerisms Jimmy had observed in his Scott. Based on some of the comments and facial expressions Scott has expressed, Jimmy knew that he also resembled this other Jimmy as well.
Eventually the sun rose, painting the sky with beautiful shades of pink, orange, and yellow. They watched the sun rise together as sleep pulled at their eyelids. Jimmy felt content here, okay with the bizarre circumstance the gods have given him.
Scott trailed off from his words and went quiet not too long ago now. Soft snores and deep breathing informed Jimmy that he had slipped into sleep, prompting Jimmy to follow right after him. He was out like a blown out candle the moment he allowed himself to surrender to unconsciousness.
.
.
.
Jimmy’s eyes fluttered open as he awoke. He had expected to see the sky far above the Coral Isles, but, instead, he was greeted by a wooden roof typical of Codland. Jimmy propped himself up with his arms as he surveyed the room.
The room was his bedroom, everything exactly how he left it. Jimmy squinted his eyes, putting a hand to comb his fingers through his long, blonde hair. He was able to do so, but his hand brushed against some bandages wrapped around his head.
What had happened? Had his night with this other Scott a blunt trauma induced dream?
Jimmy had thought that with a tinge of disappointment until his hand came across the natural softness of a flower’s petals. He gently removed the flower crown from his head, not wanting to damage it. Jimmy recognized the flowers and the order they were woven in from the many flower crowns Scott had constructed the night before.
The flower crown was made of red poppies and various tulips, woven together with care and skill. Jimmy smiled warmly down at it, holding the flower crown to his chest. He wasn’t sure why he had visited where Scott was in limbo as he slept, but he was glad he had. Jimmy valued the time they spent talking judgment free and with equal respect, and he would remember it for as long as he lived.