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Possession is a fickle thing.
It’s difficult to remember the body you are in is not your own, that the red hair that keeps falling over your eyes now belongs to you, that there are claws tipping the ends of your fingers, scratching surfaces if you hold too deeply.
But it's even more difficult to remember that this body had once belonged to your best friend.
Zam isn’t sure if Pangi is dead or alive now.
The first few hours, he’d heard Pangi’s voice a lot - he probably looked insane, to Ro and Clown’s eyes, talking (arguing, occasionally) to the air. But it hadn’t been much of a conversation. Just rehashing the same points over and over - “you were going to ban me if I hadn’t called Minute”, “I didn’t betray, you betrayed first ” - it was exhausting . Honestly, Pangi could be -
The Pirate Empire, they’d called themselves at the start of the decision. Zam, finally ready to throw heroism behind him and live a life of reckless abandonment, gold tooth and scarred face a reminder to never let himself be weak again. Pangi, his best friend for so many years, excited at the opportunity for chaos, plans for builds and tricks and traps filling his brain and words. The Pirate Empire - first killers of the season, deadly and fun and enjoying Lifesteal for what it should be: chaos. They hadn’t won often, but they’d lost battles together, patched each other's wounds and made a new plan and it had never been a struggle because this was brotherhood .
Then Pangi had gone and thrown it all away. Voted Squiddo , Spoke’s puppet when he’d promised Zam he would vote for them. Trusted Ashswag over Zam, his own teammate - can you hear me, Pangi? I’m still annoyed about that, by the way. You threw me to the wolves. To Minutetech of all people .
There’s silence, of course. Nothing other than the ringing of his ears and the slow murmuring of villagers in the other room.
Zam shakes his head, flexes his fingers - his fingers, this is his body now, he is in control. He’s fine. This is fine.
Since when had Pangi’s ears been ringing, anyway? He’d never told Zam about that - it sucks, makes it difficult to think. Probably a result of one too many explosions, but… when? Pangi hadn’t really been involved in fights for a while, busy with other things - maybe the Presidency?
Gunfire, screams as the White House fell from the sky. Pangi glaring at him from the other end of a rifle as The Players ran into the room. Was that betrayal Zam saw in his eyes?
Yeah. The ringing was probably from the guns. It was probably after he betrayed. Pangi would have told him otherwise.
Gosh Zam is being introspective! Maybe it’s the being trapped in Pangi’s body - maybe that’s why Pangi betrayed, he was more skittish than Zam used to be. Paranoid, almost.
Zam remembers the way Pangi had laughed, when Zam held the sword to his throat. Resigned, afraid.
He was never supposed to be afraid of Zam .
Zam giggles. Now everyone is afraid of him. And he’s - he’s possessing Pangi’s body. That’s - awesome! Poetic, maybe? Zam doesn’t know, he doesn’t speak poetry - prefers not communicating at all, actually, according to all his old teammates.
But now he’s good at it! He apologised to Mapicc for his idiocy with the blessings, he listened when Clown told him what he’d done was wrong - Zam was better. More evil, sure, but that’s par for the course for Lifesteal.
It had only taken betraying his best friend.
Pangi wishes he could communicate with Zam. The possession doesn’t hurt, thankfully, but it’s alien - phantom strings pulling at his limbs, tugging at his thoughts until he’s not sure he’s a person anymore - a marionette, puppet dancing to Zam’s will.
Or was it Wemmbu’s? Pangi’s not sure how much control Wemmbu has over The Players - he had heard from Minute what they’d done to impeach him, but - this didn’t feel like a Wemmbu scheme. With its careless cruelty, disregard for anything other than causing pain, it feels like Zam. It feels like Mapicc, too - loyal and angry and lashing out. But Zam’s the dangerous one of the pair, Pangi knows.
Mapicc, when he is hurt, is smart. He focuses on his goal - revenge, bloodshed - and he generally achieves it. Zam - Zam spirals - but spirals outwards. If Zam is hurting, everyone must hurt.
And Pangi had accepted that. A precondition of their friendship. He’d known that Jumper’s betrayal had hurt his friend more than could be put into words, he’d been aware when he returned to Lifesteal after so long that Zam would be angry and upset and hurting - but Pangi hadn’t expected that pain to be focused on him .
You don’t know why this was unexpected. This was what Zam did, over and over again. Pangi was his friend until it suited him to find someone better - before, it had been pacifism, then Spoke and the wormhole - all more important than their friendship. Now, it was Mapicc and the Players . And you can’t exactly blame him for that - you were the one who left, this time.
The fact doesn’t make the betrayal easier to reckon with.
Pangi - Pangi knows, now, that voting for Squiddo hurt Zam more than he anticipated. He’d thought it would be funny, a joke - Zam would be half-heartedly annoyed, but they’d be okay.
That was what normally happened. Pangi messed up, goofed around, created some crazy scheme that got them both in trouble, Zam got them out of it - or the other way around, Pangi had saved Zam enough times - and they were okay .
Pangi hadn’t expected his decision to destroy them. Hadn’t expected a warning from Ash, a sword to the throat, an exit blocked off with obsidian. Hadn’t expected Zam, shaking, wide-eyed, grinning and crying and seemingly not even aware of the latter. Hadn’t expected the vitriol from Zam’s lips, the intentions to ban him and Pangi - hadn’t been able to respond properly, at the time. He’d argued back, laughed it off - then he’d fled to the Church, the only place he knew might be safe because Zam knew all his secrets - and he’d thought and he’d argued with himself and realised how deeply things had gone wrong.
But Pangi had never blamed Zam for this. He’d been angry at Jumper, at Minute, for sending his friend so far off the rails he was hurtling towards the cliff-drop of his own destruction. Because that was how this was gonna end, Pangi knew, staring at him across the hall of the Fallen Kingdom, rifle suddenly heavy in his hands.
Zam wasn’t planning on surviving this .
So Pangi hadn’t attacked him, had wasted his bullets on missed shots and let Zam pass, because what good was there in hastening Zam’s end? Pangi couldn’t save him, he’d missed his chance, but maybe he could keep Zam alive long enough that somebody else could. Maybe, by keeping Zam alive, Zam would be able to take his revenge and things would get better.
Pangi knew there was no saving him from the start. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to try.
Maybe it was his way of apologising .
And then Zam was gone.
It was Minute who told him, tiredness weighing down his shoulders, suit crumpled, a far cry from the confident President of a few weeks prior.
Zam’s dead , he said. Banned. He pushed too hard - threatened the Vitalasy Hole. We couldn’t let that slide .
And Pangi wanted to scream at him because weren’t they supposed to be heroes ? Minute, Pentar, Jumper , so convinced of their moral high ground - how far had they fallen that they thought this was good .
So Zam was gone. And Pangi was alone - Squiddo had left him soon enough, because she hadn’t even been able to become president, why would they hold any fondness for one of her few player voters? Squiddo didn’t know what Pangi had sacrificed to vote for them - why would she?
Pangi hadn’t told anyone.
He hadn’t told anyone, and he didn’t tell anyone when Zam started appearing in his dreams. They didn’t speak - Pangi wasn’t even sure Zam was aware he was there. It was always the same place - Lifesteal spawn, but as it was months ago. Zam, in that stupid purple suit he’d replaced his pirate outfit with - just another sign of how far they’d drifted, Pangi should have noticed at the time - pacing, muttering to himself, words Pangi couldn’t quite hear.
And the dreams continued until one day Zam stopped in his pacing and looked .
“Pangi,” he said, grinning far too widely. “I was hoping it would be you.”
“What do you mean?” Pangi had said. This wasn’t like dream-Zam at all - he’d known from the start this wasn’t a dream but he hadn’t wanted to believe it, or perhaps he’d known all along that this was how it was going to end and he was okay with that - but he’d play along. Because that’s what Pangi did - he followed the rules, played the game with a smile on his face because what was life without a bit of fun.
“I need a body,” Zam said.
Pangi took a step back. “ What ?”
“I’m dead , Pangi. But my teammates aren’t and they need me. Don’t you see that, Pangi?” As he spoke, Zam had stepped closer and closer, until his face was only a few inches away from Pangi, eyes wide and pleading and still with that terrifying manic glee, barely concealing the pain underneath. “They need me - I can’t let them get hurt, Pangi, don’t you understand? I’ve already messed up too much today.”
Pangi stared at him. “Well - sure, but - you can’t have my body - it’s mine , bro, I - I dunno we can - find you another one -”
“Who else, though?” Zam said, tilting his head. “There’s no one else I know as well as you. Don’t you see? It has to be you.”
Pangi protested, but Zam just laughed, grabbed his hand and -
that
was
it.
The next thing Pangi knew, his body was a puppet dancing to another’s strings, and he was yelling futilely, wordlessly, trying to get Zam to let him go because when he said he wanted Zam back it wasn’t like this, it wasn’t - the alien sensation of another’s thoughts in your head, being unable to even control your own vision, completely in thrall to another’s will.
Over time, Pangi’s not sure how long, his voice became quieter, his thoughts sluggish. He’s not gone - he’s not dead , not yet, though he’s sure with the reckless way Zam’s been acting it won’t be long.
He just wishes they could talk. Zam had responded, at first, to his yells and threats, his pleading, but it wasn’t - conversation, wasn’t even an argument. Pangi doesn’t know how many of his words Zam could hear but he was sure it wasn’t many.
So Pangi watches, silent, as the scales on his hands start to fade. In the brief mirror-flashes of a sword blade, he sees his own face, hair streaked with blonde. It’s Pangi’s body, but Zam is making it his own - Pangi’s not even sure he’s doing it, but in worlds like these reality is what you make of it - and obviously Zam is more and more comfortable in his body as the days pass by and it shows and -
Pangi just wants this to end. He wants Zam to find peace. Pangi wants to find peace. He wants them to wake up in a new season, where all the pains of these betrayals and mistakes will be lessened - still there, but lesser, less of an insurmountable obstacle, easier to move past - and he wants them to be friends, again. He wants them to be together.
So when he sees Zam creating the TNT machine that he distantly remembers from the Void Ponies days, he uses what little strength he has to move his body - his , not Zam’s, he has to remember that - just a little to the side. Just within reach of the blast.
Pangi blew up.
Pangi was banned, and cannot be revived.
Maybe now they can both find peace .