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The body exploded a few feet away, loot and gear spraying across the ground. Flame’s blood pulsed in time with the flames licking up the sides of his sword, a violent pyre to his enemies.
He tossed strength, regen, and various other colorful bottles he fumbled out of his inventory to the ground, smashing satisfyingly around him. Flame was enveloped in a hazy cloud of multicolored smoke, taking a deep breath as the potions warred within his body.
Flame charged headfirst through the cloud of effects with revived ferocity, slamming into another Lawman and exchanging neat, precise blows. It was more muscle memory than anything, plowing through the players efficiently and thoughtlessly.
Fragger sang a gorgeous melody, body whistling through the air and clamoring for blood. It ripped through armor, bit flesh, reduced players to a ban message and a pile of loot. Enveloped within the suffocating blur of swords and the sharp glare of diamond armor battering against him, Flame lashed Fragger with sharp, brutal swings.
Whenever Flame glanced above the chaos, he could occasionally spot another figure, long and lanky, windcharging above the masses he was fighting.
Wemmbu was lethal, long arms twirling a mace behind his head. At the apex of his jump, his eyes flashed wildly, wings pinning close to his sides. For a millisecond, he looked insane, a deity of chaos and violence. Then, he dived towards his victim, hair whipping like a snake behind him as he fluidly brought the mace over his head and down to strike his opponent.
Flame ripped his gaze away, cursing under his breath as a stray sword glanced off his armor. Wrenching an enderpearl from his inventory, he brought his arm back and threw it. It glinted wickedly in the air, and he felt the jerk as his body was ripped through space. Shaking away the dizziness, Flame stood at a higher vantage point, away from the epicenter of the crazed Lawmen crowds. He took a deep breath, repotting and smashing a couple dozen iridescent xp bottles at his feet. Without another thought, he let his feet carry him back into battle.
_________
Wemmbu alternated maces, claws digging into the metal of the handle. Gambit sparked against armor, the ridged spikes along its faces spraying fragments of armor and arcs of blood across the sky. Ban messages built up, his and Flame’s body counts steadily piling in a way that could only be described as satisfying. Wemmbu gritted his teeth, shooting down a few wind charges and swiping his bloody hair out of his eyes.
Gambit and Crucible were both vibrating softly, responding to the way his frame shuddered. His eyes dilated, pupils wide and breath puffing uncontrollably.
Wemmbu sighed, smacking the side of his head. If there was ever a bad time for this, it would be now, he thought to himself sullenly.
He pivoted, lashing his tail and spreading his wings to catch the updraft provided by the wind charges. Up in the air, he could better assess his injuries. His leg had been caught by a Lawman earlier, but it wasn’t too much to worry about. Gambit badly needed xp, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about it at the moment. He had minor scratches, and he was running low on gaps, but all in all, the fight wasn’t going too badly. As long as he could keep getting moments to breathe.
Wemmbu quickly targeted a player near the center of the crowd, diving close enough to hear the player’s startled gasp as they whipped around. Wemmbu smiled lazily as he brought the mace down, air pressure screaming in his ears. “Heyy, buddy.”
The player turned and ran after the first two hits, the rest of the swarming Lawmen making it stupidly hard to target them. Wemmbu groaned as he missed and struck a different player. “God, I hate macing on crowds!” he whined to no one in particular. Bodies blurred around him. The Law pressed inwards.
________
Flame sort of sensed it before he even saw anything. His head snapped up from the player he was exchanging blows with, staring over the jagged peaks of the ravine. In the distance, there was a player in full netherite, flying full-speed towards the battlefield.
Hanging from one of his hands, an ominous scepter, was a mace.
Flame blinked. Another mace user? Maces were generally rare on the server, so if a mace user was here, that could only mean Lettuce was serious about this battle. The previously overwhelming waves of Lawmen were thinning, and Flame had felt relieved, seeing no reinforcements. But something about this player made him tense. He watched as the player flew overhead, not seeming to notice him –
And flew straight to Wemmbu, who whipped around. They faced each other, and even from afar, Flame could recognize shock and then slow calculation spread across Wemmbu’s features. As if watching a mirror image, Flame watched them simultaneously lift their maces, and saw the moment their weapons made contact.
_______
Wemmbu circled the player, each of them attempting to secure high ground above the other. He swallowed. This mace user was annoying, seriously annoying, in how similarly he fought to Wemmbu.
Macing required distance, timing, aim. It meant caution and the element of surprise, sudden bursts of speed and enough space for the hit to deal real damage. It meant attacking and getting out of the way, only to dart out of the sky like a missile to attack again.
He and the other mace user had already exchanged a few hits, but Wemmbu doubted either of them had taken real damage yet. Narrowing his eyes, he windcharged above the other player and swung. His arms ached at the movement, irises flickering. Wemmbu growled, shaking his head hard.
The player leapt back, rearing towards Wemmbu more quickly than he could react. The fight quickly devolved into close-range pummeling, short bursts of height and armor steadily cracking.
At some point, lost in the cloud cover, Wemmbu loses sight of the other mace user. He instantly feels his gut bottom out in a chasm of panic, skin prickling like it’s stretched too far over his bones.
Reality weighs heavily at his clawtips, and he fights back the feeling, forcing measured breaths. He turns slowly, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. For a moment, it’s completely silent save for the quiet breeze humming in Wemmbu’s ears and the distant clanging of battle; a futile mockery of peace.
Ripping through the silence, there was a brutal scream. Not one of agony, the dying calls of war, but one lanced with desperation and familiarity. A voice closed the distance, reaching Wemmbu faintly: “Behind you!”
Wemmbu spun around fast enough for the air to blur around him, unable to think for even a second about who that voice belonged to. He lifted his mace to block his opponent’s crushing blow without even a handful of milliseconds to spare.
They exchanged another flurry of smashes, Gambit humming like a coiled wire in Wemmbu’s hands. He blinked the sweat away from his eyes, biceps and wing muscles searing with bright pain.
The world trembled around Wemmbu as his focus slipped, a rippling miasma that seemed to roll across the air between him and his opponent. As both their strikes became sloppy, guided by exhaustion and raw desperation rather than sharp skill, Gambit’s hum became a shrill scream, visibly quivering in Wemmbu’s grip.
Wemmbu cursed under his breath, vision blurring and heartbeat jacknifing as heat flooded his veins. The air was heavy, too heavy for him to breathe, a suffocating blanket–
What followed, like it always did, was the crushing rage. Wemmbu’s limbs twitched in barely suppressed motion, limbs tight and lithe like a jungle cat preparing to spring. His eyesight dimmed.
Wemmbu jetted forward like a silver arrow, aimed neat and true for the other player hovering in the air. He passed straight through the rippling space between them and reappeared, inches from the mace user’s chest, shimmering and devastating.
The mace user stared speechlessly into ink-black eyes as Wemmbu smiled. “Hey.” The word was hissed, a dangerous whisper that bordered on a growl. Cold sweat slid down the player’s temple. The arm not gripping Gambit shot up and locked around the player’s throat. Obsidian claws left long fissures along the armor. The player shook, beads of sweat like worthless mother-of-pearl at his temples.
There was the crunch of bone and a spray of scarlet.
The player stilled entirely. Their neck rolled back at an impossible angle, body twisted as they began to fall. Wemmbu shot towards the ground, a predator still streaking towards the limp body falling down towards the battlefield.
_______
Flame stared at what could only be some demon who had come down to Earth. He had raced towards the spot where the player and Wemmbu would fall, only to be met by an explosion of dust and earth. Through the hazy cloud of grit, he could see a figure hunched over the first.
Wemmbu was digging his claws down the player’s stomach, trailing rusty trails up and down their arms, cracking bone. Wemmbu was a glorious murderer, eyes shadowed by his wild hair, mutilating the corpse.
Flame sheathed Fragger and ran over to Wemmbu. He reached over and gently grabbed his pale, bony wrist, careful to avoid the clawtips still dripping with gore.
“Wemmbu. Wemmbu, bro, he’s almost dead. Bro, stop.”
Slowly, almost tremulously, like a child caught red-handed, Wemmbu tipped his head up to Flame. Wind ruffled his lilac hair, framing his bloody face.
Flame stepped back, slowly releasing Wemmbu.
The colors of Wemmbu’s eye had been inverted, scelera nonexistent. Huge and dark, a violet stain, with a single white iris milky-pale in the center. He looked deranged, a little lost.
Wemmbu stood, swaying a little. He staggered towards an object a few feet away and picked it up.
Gambit.
He turned towards Flame, and Flame swallowed heavily. There was no recognition on his face, features smoother and blanker than Flame had ever seen Wemmbu.
Wemmbu was always laughing, joking, dripping with sarcasm. His mouth was always twisted in mirth, offset by ego, set in frustration.
This faceless stranger was not Wemmbu.
Wemmbu lurched towards him, smooth and almost faster than Flame could blink. Within seconds, he was in the air right above Flame. Flame dodged the attack, feeling the force of the blow buffet his clothes and armor.
“Wemmbu, bro! It’s me, Flame. We just defeated Lettuce’s army.”
Flame barely managed to slide past each attack, chest heaving. That mace came down again and again, slamming down closer and closer to his head every time.
“Wemmbu, what the hell are you doing?” Flame managed. It was eerily quiet. There was no response whatsoever.
No trash talk, no annoying ego, not any of the loud chatter Wemmbu always kept up whenever he usually fought. Silence so cold and absurdly wrong that Flame shuddered. He dodged away from another blow from directly above him, twisting away. Wemmbu wrenched Gambit from the earth, a small crater right where Flame had been seconds before.
“Dude, if you keep that up, your wrists are gonna be ruined,” Flame muttered. He could still remember Wemmbu whining about how much macing hurt his arms, wrapping splints around his forearms.
Flame blinked. That was true. Whatever was going on with Wemmbu, he definitely couldn’t keep it up forever. The sheer force of every single strike was surely taxing him way more than was sustainable for a long fight. Flame just had to hold out, keep dodging–
And then figure out what the heck Wemmbu’s problem was.
…
Time seemed to blur in that silence, interrupted only by clashing and gasping and impact. It could have been fifteen minutes – thirty? A few hours?-- when Wemmbu staggered.
Flame leapt back, putting distance between them. Squinting at Wemmbu across the battlefield, he finally got a good look at him, and even though they were rivals, even though they had sworn to kill one another, Flame had to admit Wemmbu didn’t look good.
Long lacerations ran across his side, burns peeking through the cracks in his armor. Wemmbu was heavily leaning on the hilt of his mace, right leg bent back awkwardly. A couple dozen potion effect particles swirled around him, violet eyes flickering with fear and exhaustion.
Pap. Pap. Pap. Blood, thick and viscious, slid down the curve of Wemmbu’s arm. Flame stared.
Wemmbu’s wrists were twisted hideously, bloody with blackened bruises already blooming across ivory skin.
Flame slowly dropped Fragger. He lifted his hands cautiously, walking towards Wemmbu as if he were some rabid animal.
Wemmbu attempted to lash at Flame, but his destroyed wrists only arced Gambit feebly in a half-swing through the air. Flame firmly pulled Gambit away from Wemmbu and tossed it a few feet away. Wemmbu snarled, clawing desperately at Flame’s face, hands, and neck. His barbed tail whipped ferociously, stabbing Flame in the leg.
Flame winced as the black serrated blades dug into his flesh, but he reached out and carefully put a hand on Wemmbu’s shoulder. Slowly, he reached behind his head and pulled off his blindfold.
Gold met stained violet. Hands gripped cold shoulders.
Wemmbu stopped thrashing, eyes widening imperceptibly. A growl rolled in his throat, this time more like a question.
Flame pressed Wemmbu gently into his chest, firmly wrapping arms around his thin form. He felt claws dig into his back, but he didn’t move as much as an inch.
“You’re okay, bro. We beat the Lawmen. You beat that other mace kid.” Flame laughed, the sound thin and relieved. “We’re okay.” He repeated it quietly, a mantra.
Wemmbu began to tremble against him, an unconscious keening rising from his chest.
Claws, suddenly small and trembling, reached up. Wemmbu traced thin tracks of blood along Flame’s jaw, never once breaking away from Flame’s gaze. It was achingly gentle, a little lost.
Slowly his eyes closed, and he lolled backwards, limp in Flame’s grasp. Flame let out the longest exhale he’d probably ever exhaled. He had been holding his breath the whole time.
Flame scooped Wemmbu off the ground, stashing the bloodstained mace in his inventory. The two, one exhausted and one unconscious, began to trudge towards Flame’s base in the distance.
_______
_______
Warm, buttery light. That was the first thing Wemmbu saw as his eyelids cracked open, blurry and soft. He felt like he was floating above his body, incandescent, a sailor bobbing through the layers of reality.
There was someone moving around. A dark figure, shifting in and out of perception. Wemmbu couldn’t tell if they were real. They turned, and seemed to walk towards Wemmbu. Or maybe farther away? He felt as if he was seeing everything through inverted mirrors, lenses bending light and refracting it every which way.
For whatever reason, Wemmbu found his current state indescribably funny. Everything around him was so much more beautiful than it usually was, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember what was going on or where he was. All part of the mystery!
Wemmbu began to giggle a little, instantly wincing as the motion sent a brutal swing of pain throbbing through his body.
The shadowy blur turned, this time probably walking towards him for real.
“Huh. You’re awake.”
The voice was gravelly, familiar.
(“Behind you!” The same voice, screaming desperately.)
Wemmbu grinned.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Were his words slurring? His mouth felt cottony and dry. He couldn’t feel his lips.
“Are you real?” Wemmbu blurted the question, still smiling. The hallucination faded in and out of his vision. The walls were shifting, shimmering faintly as if there was light embedded into the rough granite. Everything was so surreal– the weave of the sheets he was bundled in, the way his head pulsed painfully in time with his heartbeat, a roar in his ears.
The figure moved to sit next to Wemmbu. He could feel the bed squeak below them. They chuckled dryly, but ther wasn’t any humor in the hollow echo.
“Sure, Wemmbu. I’m real.”
They were close, so close that Wemmbu could feel the subtle warmth emanating inches from their skin. He tried to reach out, touch them and make sure they were corporeal, but nothing below his neck would obey him. He closed his eyes, trying to force back the swirling nausea.
Everything was getting softer, muted. The pounding in his ears, the ringing in his head, the warmth at his fingertips. Wemmbu made one last groggy attempt to stretch his arms, to find an anchor to quell his seasickness.
This time, perhaps he had only dreamed it, but he could’ve sworn the tips of his claws caught lightly on fabric and smooth skin.
_______
Flame sat pathetically staring at the spot where Wemmbu’s icy claws met his arm. There was someone here, with him, touching him. Someone in his base, not trying to attack him.
Granted, they were drugged out of their mind on pain medication, but the even rise and fall of Wemmbu’s chest under the blanket Flame had wrapped him in was oddly comforting.
Flame hadn’t really slept much for the past couple hours. Wemmbu had been feverish, his fever had broken, he had begun to burn up again. Flame disinfected and washed and reapplied bandages, stitching up wounds around the clock; Wemmbu’s and his own.
Wemmbu had only woken up once, half an hour ago. His eyes had been bloodshot but normal once more, without any sign of that…thing overtaking his irises. Flame still didn’t know what that was, and he honestly had to say it scared him.
Back at the fight with the mace user, Wemmbu hadn’t seemed sane. He hadn’t seemed human. Wemmbu had fought until his wrists ripped open, until he hadn’t been able to stand.
Flame stared at the lilac strands cascading across his pillow, spilling around Wemmbu’s shoulders and pooling on the side of the mattress. Wemmbu looked years younger asleep, eyelashes fluttering and brows furrowed as if he was fighting an opponent even in sleep. His wrists were bound with heavy casts, one arm trailing over Flame’s kneecap.
(Flame blinked, remembering how Wemmbu had smiled at him. Truly smiled, not like the sarcastic smirks or triumphant taunts he often wore. Wemmbu had smiled genuinely, face open and bright.
No one had even smiled at Flame before, not like he was someone who made them happy.)
Flame shook himself, laughing a little. Pathetic. He was pathetic, overanalyzing the way his rival smiled at him while loopy on medication. Pathetic, caring and worrying over his rival. Even so, he brushed away a stray lock of purple hair from Wemmbu’s cheek. Wemmbu was dangerous, perhaps even unstable. He had proven that much today.
He was dumb, impertinent, prideful.
He was annoying, persistent, headstrong.
He was Flame’s rival, the one Flame had sworn to beat time and time again.
…
But, yeah, it wasn’t Flame’s fault Wemmbu had a stupidly pretty face.
__________
Wemmbu snapped awake as clearly and suddenly as if someone had yelled his name. Sunlight was streaming through an open window. There was hair in his mouth. Everything- and by that, he meant everything- hurt.
Wemmbu struggled to sit up, clutching his ribs. He looked around, blinking gunk out of his eyes and spitting out a couple threads of hair.
The memories hit and sent Wemmbu spinning, leaning his head against his folded knees.
Gambit, responding to the chaos rolling through his bloodstream.
Wild anger and the bitter burn of agony.
Flame.
Flame.
FlameFlameFlameFlame–
Wemmbu looked up and his breath caught when his gaze snagged on a figure slumped over against the bedpost.
He realized with a start that he knew exactly where he was.
FlameFrags was snoring lightly at the foot of the bed, light rounding and muting his features. Behind him, there were stacks of barrels, a small tabletop. He was propped up in a bed with scarlet sheets.
He was in Flame’s base.
Wemmbu stared down at his arms, putting the pieces together.
He had lost control of Gambit again.
He had defeated the mace user.
He had fought Flame.
Flame had beat him (?)
Flame had taken him back here.
Flame had taken care of him (???)
And now…
Wemmbu startled, hearing Flame snort and shift at his end of the bed. Gold eyes, sharp and almost aquiline, blinked once. Twice, then shifted to focus on Wemmbu.
Wemmbu fidgeted a corner of the heavy blanket between his two cumbersome casts.
“Hey.” Wemmbu’s voice was roughened by fever and sleep, too awkward in the deafening silence.
Flame grunted noncommittally, dragging himself off the bed. He stood and faced Wemmbu.
“Hey yourself.”
A pause.
“You helped me.” Wemmbu’s words weren’t a question, but rather a statement, made evident by the bandages and medication on the countertop. “Why?”
Flame shrugged, slow and wary of the movement pulling at stitches along his back. “Dunno. I genuinely have no idea why I went through the trouble.” Flame didn’t look at Wemmbu as he spoke, instead determinedly glaring at a tiny scorch mark along the bedpost. Wemmbu slowly took in the brunt of Flame’s injuries, giving Flame a critical once-over, wincing when he recognized the long jagged scratches along his arms and back.
(He imagined pulling Flame close, drifting his claws featherlight along the lines to prove they matched. To prove that he was the one who had left marks on Flame, that everything that had happened was more than some fever dream.) Okay, yeah. Being in his rival’s base was messing with his head.
Then, of course, Flame said what Wemmbu expected him to.
“Wemmbu.” Flame searched his face for a moment, and Wemmbu had the delayed realization that Flame had, at some point, taken off his blindfold.
Gold met violet, with the horrible tipping sensation of deja vu.
Flame scowled. “Wemmbu, what the hell was that back at the fight, bro?”
Wemmbu scoffed lightly, trying for contempt, but it was hard to make a good case when he was immobile in his enemy’s bed.
“Listen, dude, Gambit does this… thing, sometimes.” He shifted uncomfortably, tipping back his head in an attempt to explain it.
“I don’t really know…if I kill too many people, or if I battle for too long, I can kinda feel it vibrating? Like…like it’s excited, or something.”
Flame lifted an eyebrow and Wemmbu rolled his eyes. A little shred of normalcy passed back between them, urging him to continue.
“And then… uh,” Wemmbu continued, gesturing vaguely at his midsection, “I can, like, feel Gambit. In my chest. It just kinda makes me mad. And after that…I don’t really remember stuff after that.”
There was another pause. Flame stared at him, but Wemmbu couldn’t read his expression at all.
Flame sighed, rubbing at his temples. He grabbed a ragged piece of fabric off the nightstand –his blindfold, Wemmbu realized– and tied it tightly around the back of his head.
“Aweeesome. Great. So my rival is also a psychopath.” Flame dragged out the “e” in “awesome” like a drawl, sarcastic and defeated.
Wemmbu made a move to get up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed with a wince. He stood and the world tilted and whirled, stomach churning the same way it did when he was flying upside down.
Flame’s scowl deepened, seeming to etch itself into his face.
“Bro. Where are you going?”
Although it was agony, pain flaring down every nerve in his limbs, Wemmbu hobbled over to the wall near the door. He awkwardly handled Gambit with heavily bandaged fingers.
“Thanks, Flame, but I should really go now. I, uh, need to–” Wemmbu fumbled for any excuse; anything at all to get him away from Flame’s base.
Flame sidestepped him smoothly, towering over him. Wemmbu cursed Flame’s height and musculature, tilting his head to look up at him.
“Bro, you’re literally bleeding through your bandages in my base right now. Where do you think you’re going? Three steps out the door, to collapse on my front porch?”
Wemmbu snarled, glaring up at Flame defiantly. He tried, subconsciously, to swing Gambit.
Wrong move.
Wemmbu staggered, right leg completely buckling from underneath him. Flame caught him easily, Gambit clattering to the polished hardwood floor of the base.
Wemmbu swallowed, hating himself for hyperventilating at Flame’s proximity.
“What did I say?” Flame mused sardonically. He helped Wemmbu limp back towards the bed, and picked Gambit off the ground. He leaned it carefully against the wall once more.
Wemmbu stared, not entirely comprehending until a few seconds had gone by.
“How– what– how did you just–”
Flame blinked, smirking a little at his rival’s sputtering.
“Bro, what?”
“Dude, how did you pick up Gambit?”
It was Flame’s turn to stare. “I… picked it up? With my arm?” He motioned again, lifting Gambit and weighing it pensively in his grip.
Wemmbu explained, “I… I have never seen anyone other than me be able to pick it up. It’s supposed to be, like, stupidly heavy for anyone other than its user.”
Flame shrugged, propping Gambit back up. He grinned at Wemmbu. “I guess it just likes me, huh?”
Wemmbu groaned. “You’re insufferable.”
There was silence again, but this time, the drowning weight of awkwardness and things unsaid was lightened. For the first time in what must have been weeks, Wemmbu felt his body relax, tension slowly draining from his face and limbs.
Yeah, this was probably still a trap. Yeah, Flame was probably gonna kill him in a hundred gruesome ways in a few minutes.
But for now, even if it was irrational and foolish, Wemmbu felt safe in his rival’s base.
Flame cleared his throat. “So, you want breakfast, or do you plan to starve?”
Wemmbu shot him a sideways smile, feeling the full force of his usual snarky self returning.
“Dude, I mean if you’re offering…”
Flame laughed, and the sound was clear and unguarded and somehow right.
“Bro, if you want breakfast under my roof, you gotta say ‘thank you, Flame, for helping me and having basic human decency.’”
Wemmbu sputtered, scowling at Flame indigantly. “You never said food came with conditions!”
If anyone were to look through the window where sunlight streamed and cast gold hems onto a bed, bandages, a spiked mace, and a pair of bickering players, they wouldn’t have ever guessed the two tried to kill each other on a daily basis.