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"Thank you for your service. All of you — dismissed. Please, prepare the cell for our new guest."
Lettuce waved off the guards, who, in turn, saluted him as they would to the President and marched off in a straight, orchestrated line. All that's left behind them were the distant clacking of boots around the corridors, and a puddle of what once was the most powerful player on the server. One of the two. Considering the situation, maybe not the better one.
"C'mon, Wemmbu. Don't tell me you need me to lend you a hand."
Wemmbu could barely hear his voice over his own laboured breathing. He kneeled on the tiled floor, trying to freeze in a position that didn't hurt quite as much, but his stupid body kept wobbling back and forth, too exhausted to be still. He barely lifted his eyes, and the sight stung them. Lettuce's hand, right in his face — a merciless ray of sun to a desert dweller. Something that's better to hide away from, because if he reaches to take it, it'll burn.
But there was nowhere to hide. You can't hide from the sun; not in a long, empty corridor and certainly not with both your legs broken. No matter what he did, it was going to boil him alive.
Wemmbu stared down at Lettuce's paw and resorted to the only thing he could do.
He spat on it.
A bloody clot of snot with a sprinkle of crushed teeth in it landed on the future President's open palm and caught in his fur. While the mere motion of moving his mouth splashed Wemmbu with a wave of migraine, the satisfaction? It was so worth it.
"You really like doing things the hard way, don't you?" Lettuce sighed.
Wemmbu didn't get to revel in his win. That same hand shot out to grab a handful of his hair and twisted it around the knuckle in such a way that it made him grind his teeth, or else a scream would rip through. He almost tried to dodge it, almost. But all he managed was a slightly harder wobble.
"Now listen. You're gonna get up and go with me to my office. Understood?" Lettuce said, leaning down enough for his quiet words to hit Wemmbu's ears.
"Fuck off."
This time he didn't manage to stifle a hiss from crawling out — Lettuce wrenched even harder and yanked Wemmbu up. A bolt of pain shot up from his feet as they were forced to firmly meet the ground, and, inevitably, his legs folded. If it wasn't for the hand in his hair, his useless body would definitely sag back on the ground.
"Go."
"Dickhead," Wemmbu wheezed, "I can't."
"If you can talk back, you can walk."
Lettuce pulled forward. Broken and numb, Wemmbu's legs scrambled over the floor to find any footing, but every time they did, it only sent torturous fireworks up his spine. He tripped and tumbled, but Lettuce kept him on a tight leash. There wasn't much to do besides follow, until he was dragged in through the doorstep and shoved onto a chair in the middle of the room.
"Sit." Lettuce instructed.
Hell if Wemmbu was getting up after this.
The office was a little too humble in size to fit all of Lettuce's triumphant glee: a bookshelf, a table, a big window staring the whole room down. Unlocked and slightly ajar, letting fresh air slither in. It was such a nice day outside. Every wooden surface basked in the glimpse of the warm, cloudless summer sky, and if Wemmbu just pushed on the window frame, he could escape right into its embrace.
If only he could stand up. It would take five steps to go from one side of the office to another. That, along with the table and whatever this tall, black-clad thing in front of him was in the way, was enough to make the window absolutely unreachable. That had to be exactly why it wasn't shut. It was there simply to let Wemmbu bid his last goodbyes to the sky and his freedom.
"For future reference, if you just cooperate, I won't need to use force," Lettuce noted while leaning on the black-clad object. "I thought that had already been established."
Cooperate, his ass. He cooperated enough already, letting Lettuce revel in his win in front of thousands of players, all at his expense. If being a little difficult was all Wemmbu could do to get back at him, then he was going to.
"Oh, no need to look at me like that. We're not even at the good part yet," Lettuce smirked and tenderly tugged at the black cloth. It silked down on the floor to reveal Wemmbu's own battered face staring back at him.
It was a mirror. It took him a second to realise it, just because what he saw in it had such a vague resemblance to what Wemmbu thought himself to look like, he didn't recognise it. He immediately looked away.
Lettuce watched his reaction with a pleased smirk. What kind of humiliation ritual was this?
Wemmbu flinched away when Lettuce stepped closer, but a harsh hand on his shoulder shoved him back into the back of the chair. There had to be something broken or at least severely dislocated judging by the sharp jolt of pain that whirred his whole body up. Though, it's no surprise. Everything Wemmbu had was broken and dislocated in one way or another now.
He didn't want to look into the mirror. Lettuce stood behind him, hands on his shoulders — not gripping, but making sure he knows they're there. Unlike Wemmbu, he smiled at his own reflection. Because, unlike Wemmbu, he had his back upheld by a clean, crispy straight suit with a badge of the winning party sitting proudly amidst the green and gold on his chest. Wemmbu's back wasn't upheld even by his own bones.
His hands slid to Wemmbu's neck to unclick the button of his cape. It flowed down his shoulders and sagged on the carpet. Torn and useless.
"We won't be needing that," Lettuce cooed. "And this—"
He reached for the crown on Wemmbu's head. It sat firmly between two blackish hills of horns that barely protruded above his hair. It's been so long since he planted it there, and it never moved an inch, even during the worst of his battles. Even now, with a good part of it eaten through by rust and dimmed by blood splashes, it never budged.
Lettuce lifted it up.
"—will make a nice trophy. Do you want me to put it next to Zam's?" he mused, spinning the crown on his finger as he made his way to his table. All Wemmbu could do was glare into the muddy green back of his dumb general suit.
The crown now rested on the table, right atop some bright orange piece of cloth spread over it, twinkling its dim gems at its owner. It jumped a little as Lettuce yanked open a drawer and buried his hand in it.
"You're being awfully quiet, you know," he noted, fishing for something. "Has my power really left you this speechless?"
Wemmbu closed his eyes for a moment and released a deep, heavy breath. His chest rose and fell timidly as he tried to finally breathe without that awful stinging pain sparking in his lungs. Inhale, exhale. Just focus on that.
"You know I'm taking your silence as a yes."
That's exactly what Lettuce wanted: to get under his skin. Make him bark something back. Let his anger show, but only for as long as the barking didn't turn into biting.
That's why Wemmbu remained silent.
He watched Letucce pull a handkerchief out of the drawer and slam it closed. White clothing that, of course, bore the signature of the winning party. The buzz saw of a sun with a fringe of toothy sunrays. This damn sun was the blades in the meat grinder Wemmbu was shoved into.
"Sit still."
Lettuce marched behind him once again. The handkerchief turned out to be a fancy sheathing for an actual blade that glistened near Wemmbu’s neck.
So that's how it's going to be. Quietly stabbed to death by a tiny razor blade in Letucce's office. It did serve as a pretty nice coffin: cramped and wooden. And he could die looking out the window.
"Wow. I don't even deserve to be warned before my execution?" Wemmbu said, with a laugh that felt like sandpaper.
"Execution? Oh, oh no," Lettuce said, with a laugh that had to feel like bubbles and marshmallows. "It wouldn't be fair to save your death all for myself — an experience like that, it has to be shared. People of this server deserve a generous leader, don't you think?"
"I’m still technically people of the server."
"Oh, Wemmbu..."
The blade gently guided his chin up, just enough to have him meet his own eyes in the mirror.
"Look at yourself. Do you really see a person?"
Wemmbu's breath paused.
He looked at the being in the mirror, one with a silver glint pressed to its throat. It was alive, for sure. Its eyes twitched and searched for a way out, its chest heaved, forcing one pained breath after another, and its wounds bled, just like any living being's wounds would.
It was alive. Alive and, despite trying its hardest not to be, very scared. Pathetic, held down by a pair of hands coated in tender fur and a blade that never had a drip of blood stain its steel. Toothless.
The creature in front of him was alive and it was useless.
Was it worthy of being a person?
"I'll tell you what I see, Wemmbu. I'll tell you what the whole server sees: a threat. A ticking bomb that I had finally defused," Lettuce savoured his own words. "Did you not hear how loud they cheered over the prospect of your death?"
A defused bomb. Never a person, and no longer a weapon. Waste left to lay around on the battlefield until it's swallowed by the soil.
Wemmbu wished he could disagree.
"Now, please, don't move."
The blade slid from under his jaw. Lettuce brought it up to his head, and Wemmbu twitched away from it before it even managed to touch him again. Only a few of his purple hairs splashed on the carpet. It was nothing but an urge of reflex, one that any living being has: stay away from sharp objects. Especially objects so sharp they severed through hair with just a touch. Especially if said objects are in hands of a crazy dictator with unclear intentions.
Once again, his locks were twisted in Lettuce's knuckle: "I said don't move."
"What are you even doing?" Wemmbu hissed, shoulder pressed to his ear.
"What am I doing?"
The blade swished again, this time properly going through a whole braid on his temple.
"Preparing you for your stay at the prison, of course."
Wemmbu's horrified gaze flickered to the mirror, only to see an actual patch of his hair missing. It lay detached by his feet, a streak of purple on the white carpet with the signature of the winning party mocking him from beneath. The freak was actually going to shave his head.
No. This prison roleplay was going a little too far.
"This is the last time I'm telling you to sit still. Understood?" Lettuce threatened, slowly releasing his grip, ready to seize it again if Wemmbu dared to move.
"Fine, fine! Do your thing, shithead," Wemmbu complied. He waited in complete stillness until the painful tugging on his hair disappeared.
A defused bomb. Sure. Who's to decide when it's defused or not? If nobody considers him a person anymore, there's no point in trying to be one. He'll be a threat. Right until they chop his head off on the execution day.
Lettuce poised his arm to slice off another strand. As he lowered the blade, Wemmbu gathered all his remaining strength to latch onto his wrist and draw it to the only weapon he had left: his teeth. Every wound and broken bone in his body whined in unison, begging him to be the one to show this body some mercy, but he pushed through. Nobody shows mercy to a bomb; else, it will never go off.
He went off.
His impish fangs caught the bitter material of Lettuce's suit, ready to rip it and everything under to bloody shreds. Lettuce was going to regret thinking the bomb in his hands was defused when it blows up right into his smug face—
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
Bad idea. Worst idea that could've visited his head, actually.
The second his teeth clasped around the sleeve, his vision went white.
He could ignore a broken leg. A dislocated shoulder. A snapped rib poking at his lung. Sting of wounds ripping open as he moved. All of it — he pulled through.
But his teeth were way too shattered and loose to handle crashing against something as tough as a suit. A bunch of them snapped, at once, and were forced to grind into the raw nerves of his gums as his jaws compressed. Little, sharp-edged teeth shards, going straight into open wounds like needles. It shot such a bolt of mind-numbing pain up Wemmbu’s skull, it paralysed him.
Lettuce rolled his eyes. The blade in his hand didn't even twitch. He pressed on Wemmbu's forehead with the bottom of his palm, pushing his frozen body to slump back into the chair.
"Got it out of your system?" he sighed, watching Wemmbu fold in half and cradle his mouth, as if that could somehow ease the pain (it didn't).
All that, just to leave a bunch of saliva on his sleeve.
Luckily, Lettuce had a handkerchief. The white one, with the badge of the winning party on it. Maybe Wemmbu'd appreciate the irony, if he could lift his head to see it wiping away his snot.
"Fuck you," Wemmbu pulled through the remains of his teeth. Just breathing set his gums on fire.
"You did this to yourself," Lettuce shrugged. He reached to grab a hold of his hair again to pull him to sit straight. Just a bit gentler this time — Wemmbu would follow, regardless of how much force was used. "Are we cooperating now?"
God knows he wanted to spit into that smug fucker's face.
"You know I'm taking your silence as a yes."
He slithered his free hand between the thick, purple streaks of Wembu's hair, gathering a section and pulling it taut for a cleaner cut. The blade didn't feel cold when it pressed to his scalp — Lettuce held onto it long enough to warm it up. A gentle stroke whispered against his scalp, and the first strand joined the braid on the floor.
White clouding Wemmbu's vision ebbed away little by little, but Wemmbu couldn't stop the tremble that took over his body. He should not have done that, that's for sure. Besides the pulsating waves of agony going through his skull now, his previous injuries were a wasp nest he made the mistake of bothering. Everything buzzed with pain.
Another mistake was catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Shaking, battered, missing a patch of hair and wheezing for air as blood trickled down from his mouth.
If he was a threat to anything, it was himself.
His hair was already cut down to more than half of its original length back when Wemmbu was preparing the invisibility disguise. Egg gave him an ugly bob with uneven edges, and by now it grew out a little past his shoulders. The edges got much worse as it did, but he never bothered fixing them. Didn't exactly have a lot of time, fighting a thousand players, then one player worth another thousand, and then running from the Law...
Besides, every time his eyes caught on the ridiculously uneven levels it got to, it was a reason to think back to that day. A memento of sorts, one of those stupid sentimental things he used to keep in his e-chest. One he thought he'd get to keep no matter what. It's attached to his head after all, right?
Shears were a luxury they couldn't get their hands on in the End, where that beautiful idea of creating a new identity was born, without making a detour to the overworld. And a detour to the overworld was possible for neither of them, with Egg stuck and Wemmbu having to have "disappeared" off the face of the server.
They had to resort to improvised means. And just like that, half of Wemmbu’s luscious head of hair was chopped off by an axe, while another one was sawed with a sword, because, otherwise, their argument of which one is faster would not have been settled peacefully. Both turned out to be painfully slow, though, because it doesn't matter what method you use when your hairdresser is Eggchan. But that gave them more than enough time to go through all the details and brainrotted cover up stories as to what ended up being Wemmbu's demise and how many simultaneous individual mace hits it took to kill him.
A nice day it was.
Now the remains of it flew down Wemmbu's shoulders in a purple waterfall, sticking to his shirt before reluctantly sliding into a puddle on the carpet. The white one with the emblem of the winning party, hungrily soaking the hairs in its nap. Good luck Lettuce to clean it out.
Breeze from the window caressed Wemmbu's head, soothing the shaved parts with its cool and twirling in the locks that still remained in place, as if taking the last chance to bid its goodbye to them. Or maybe to cheer him up to make it through this humiliation ritual. Lettuce went slowly: the pace made Wemmbu feel him comb his fingers through each strand in a way that almost seemed affectionate, gently tug it straight and slice it off. He was careful, meticulously so. At no point has the blade actually touched his skin, or caught on his ear, or even chipped on his horns. It only glided around, baring and exposing them to the light of day.
"See? Wasn't that difficult, was it?" Lettuce scolded, wiping the blade and wrapping it up in the handkerchief. Yes, the white one, with the emblem of the winning party, the cruel, sharp-teethed sun. Wemmbu didn't see it. Feeling the wind mourn over his naked head, he knew he couldn't possibly risk seeing it in the mirror.
"C'mon. At least care to take a look at my efforts."
Lettuce dug his fingers into Wemmbu's jaw, gripping it tight, but mindful to not stick them between the teeth. Even now, Wemmbu would absolutely bite him through his own skin if given the chance. He tried to wrench his face out, as violently as his aching neck allowed, but in the end he was forced to meet what's before him.
The mirror.
"Oh, Wemmbu. Just look at yourself! You are a work of art. The beautiful art of justice."
Lettuce's perception of art was just as sick as his perception of justice. Not that Wemmbu was to judge either of those things.
But to call what he saw in front of him a work of art, one would have to genuinely despise his guts to a level that made a chill run through his spine.
This sad little creature was a chewed up, defiled version of him. Even stubble in place of hair, which now lay scraped off right next to the cape. Not even the crown was there to hide the shameful nakedness of its skull. Only two ashy stumps of horns, thin and vulnerable.
Its sunken eyes bore nothing but disappointment. Any anger the creature had at the hand that manhandled its face sunk in its depths.
Nothing bound it to the chair. Uncuffed, in a room with no locks and a window carelessly ajar. It's not a place to retain the strongest one. It's not a place to retain a weapon, even. A place for a defused bomb? Maybe.
Maybe... maybe this is what he deserved. Not in a sense of justice — no, justice and its senses were none of Wemmbu’s business.
This is just what he got. For letting himself get caught, for letting that army land so many hits on him. For letting his guard down around flame.
It was his own weakness that got him eating dirt once again. He allowed himself to get a little too human for someone who couldn't be considered a person. And failed at what he actually was, at his very core: a threat. Maybe, if he was better at being a threat, nobody would dare to lay a hand on him.
He'll get back to it, some day. He'll be a threat again, a deadly weapon of mass destruction, with no heart, no weakness and no morals.
But for now, he'll have to face the consequences of his own actions.
Lettuce finally let him go. Wemmbu’s head dropped down, unable neither to support its own weight anymore, nor withstand having to face the mirror.
It's done.
Or so he hoped.
"What now?" Wemmbu snarled when Lettuce stepped in front of him and reached for the buttons of his shirt. Blood soaked the white cotton right through, indicating exactly where all of his wounds were. At the very least, it kept them concealed.
Lettuce fumbled with his shirt, button after button exposing Wemmbu's injuries. He wanted to kick him off. Stop him from stripping away his last defence and the last shred of dignity. And the way he leaned down had Wemmbu's knee perfectly aligned for a kick in the balls. One good hit and the mighty dictator would be groveling on the floor.
Wemmbu didn't even consider actually moving.
Pointless. Best case, Lettuce will just catch his numb, clumsy limb before it even touches him; worst case, the hit lands and this office will actually become his coffin. He couldn't hide from the sun when stuck in its lair.
Blood had already begun to crust, the shirt sticking to his skin as if merging with it. Wemmbu couldn't help a hiss when it was ripped off. Cool air was no balm for his wounds, some of which now tore open.
Lettuce took a step back. His expression as he looked over his bare, bruised chest made Wemmbu regret not kicking him in the balls. He was probably imagining himself to be an artist, admiring a newly made masterpiece. A masterpiece of justice or whatever. Wemmbu didn't feel like a masterpiece. In the end, what he saw in the mirror was nothing but an empty sheath.
Without sliding his eyes off his prisoner, Lettuce reached back and snatched the orange cloth off his table. It turned out to be a prison uniform.
He grinned.
"Hands up, Wemmbu."