Chapter Text
There’s a difference in Wemmbu’s tone as he tells Egg he’s going to free him from the End. It’s a mix of acceptance and something Egg can’t quite place his finger on. He asks how, but Wemmbu just gives him a faulty smile in response.
“Just wait like five days, ‘kay?” Wemmbu tells him. “Then jump through the portal.”
“Yo, what?” Egg responds. Not in a questioning manner. In desperation.
“You gotta see the sun,” Wemmbu shrugs. “You’ve been here for what, months? I feel bad leaving my best friend in a shitty place like this.”
“Dude, I don’t mind, for real it’s like whatever,” he tries to reason with him.
“After beating Flame I really have nothing to do bro,” Wemmbu says, “We gotta go on adventures again, man.”
Egg doesn’t know what to say to that.
“I’ll meet you at ManePear’s old base in like ten days, okay?”
“Dude, I seriously don’t thi–” Egg gets cut off as Wemmbu pulls him into a hug, something they rarely do. The last time they hugged was when Egg was released from the Mafia.
“I’ll see you, Egg.”
“Yeah man, I’ll see you too,” Egg responds, patting his back. He knows he won’t be able to change his mind.
“Trust bro I’ll get your bed broken,” Wemmbu smiles, waving at his best friend as he walks over to the portal.
“Wait, bro, what do I say to people who are like… looking for you?” Egg asks. “You know Flame’s not one to end on a loss.”
“I dunno, just tell them I’m dead or something.” And with that, Wemmbu falls into the portal.
Egg hadn’t seen Wemmbu in twelve days.
Six days ago—he had waited an extra day, not because he didn’t trust Wemmbu to break his bed, but he didn’t trust the portal itself—he had jumped through the portal, leading him to the most amount of chaos he had ever witnessed.
Withers had been created at spawn, and giant lava casts were around the entire area. It was a stroke of luck that he had drunk a bottle of invisibility, and it was even luckier that no one had managed to see the way his transparent body warped the landscape like a glass of water. Getting out of spawn was a feat of its own, running as far as feet could take him, and launching several ender pearls into the air. It was some miracle that he could remember the coordinates for ManePear’s base, and he was glad that his communicator wasn’t broken so that he could find it easily.
Five days ago Egg had reached ManePear’s burnt tree, the remnants of the failed civilization Egg and Wemmbu had started still there. It felt empty, being back, but there wasn’t much he could do about it by himself. His invisibility had run out, and he knew he wasn’t much of a threat by himself. Potions hadn’t been too hard to find, especially since MinuteTech was the richest guy around and had anything and everything on hand. It would be a little harder, however, to brew potions himself. Usually that was something Wemmbu did. He’d just have to figure out how to do it himself.
Putting down an ender chest, Egg re-sorted his inventory, pulling out a shulker box with invisibility in it and another with armor. He figured that his current netherite set, while the epitome of aura, was too identifiable for someone as high-risk as him. And he lives to upset his best friend in the tiniest of ways. Pulling out one of the sets of diamond armor that he had fully enchanted, he put netherite trims on all four pieces. Putting the set on, it was much lighter than his other set, and definitely not as cool, but it would have to make do.
Four days ago, he found a chest with a sign on it. It had read: For Egg, and when opening it, had a mace inside. Gambit, was the name that was on its nametag.
Something was wrong.
For the last three days, Egg had spent it all waiting for Wemmbu, holding the mace for his return. His gut said something different.
Thirteen days is Egg’s cutoff. He was out of the End and wouldn’t spend his time on the overworld in one place, damnit. And besides that, his stockpile of invisibility is running a little thin. Wind charges migrated out of his Ender Chest into his inventory, replacing the junk blocks on his hotbar, and his bow is now ready to wield.
Capital City, one of the bigger marketable areas on Unstable, was easy to find. Despite not having his library full of information on the server ready at the tips of his fingers, he had still read—and written—most of them. At this point, he himself is the library.
“Potions, potions, potions…” he mutters to himself, as if speaking it into existence. “Oh shit, wait.”
Stopping dead in his tracks, he realizes something detrimental: some people know what he sounds like. He could just cheese it, talking with a stupidly high or low pitch to his voice. But that would eventually hurt his vocal chords. He needs something easy.
Pulling out his communicator, he navigates his way to his setting before selecting the button titled Voice. Cranking down the pitch on his voice, he successfully makes himself Batman.
“Perfect,” he says, before shuddering at the sound that comes out of his mouth. His voice has been successfully ruined.
Eggchan grimaces when he sees Parrot at the front desk of the only potion shop he had found in Capital City. It’s not that Parrot was a bad person, it's just that their last encounter was much more of Eggchan and Wemmbu bullying him than working with him.
“Yo,” he stated, walking into the shop.
“Hey, what’s up?” Parrot responded in kind, his feathers ruffling as he waves. “Are you here to get some potions?”
“First day on the server, huh?” Egg states sarcastically, filter nowhere near to turning on. “Some invisibility potions would be cool.”
“How much is some?”
“Like a shulker of long invis.”
From the ladder descends Theobald, another bird hybrid, geared in full enchanted netherite armor. “Dude we don’t hand out shulkers, you gotta provide that on your own.”
“I can see what I can do,” Egg says, looking around the storefront before walking over to a corner and grabbing his invisibility shulker out of his Ender Chest, making sure to pull out the rest of his current invis potions so they don’t stiff him. “Wait, how much is this gonna run me?”
“A diamond per three potions,” Parrot answers.
“Wait, let me do math for a second,” Egg says, staring at his hands. It did nothing, because he couldn’t see his hands anyway. “A diamond block? Bro why are we literally scamming everyone right now.”
“You don’t have to buy potions,” he shrugs.
Egg doesn’t dignify that with a response. Pulling out a blue shulker, he pulls out one of his many diamond blocks that he stole from the Void Palace, and hands it over to Parrot. “Keep the change.”
“...There is none.”
“Exactly.”
“Whatever, bro.”
As he stands in the corner and waits, he has to splash another potion of invisibility on himself.
“Oh, wait, I think we actually need some golden carrots for the rest of your invis,” Parrot says. “Do you have any to spare?”
“Parrot, we have so—”
“No, Theo we don't, I just checked.”
“Oh, ohhhhh, yeah okay.”
“Dude, I want a diamond back for that bro,” Egg says. “No way you’re making me pay for the invis and then also making me use my own resources for them. At that point I should make them myself.”
“Yeah but you aren’t, so…”
“Whatever, how many do you need?” Egg sighs.
“Ten should do it.”
Placing ten carrots from his inventory onto the counter, Egg watches as Parrot just looks at them before climbing up the ladder.
“Bro,” he states, before rolling his eyes and collecting the carrots back into his inventory.
He drowns out all of their random conversations that they have while he waits for the rest of his potions, not caring to do much but look out the window and splash himself with invisibility. That is, until they said something about Wemmbu. He was quick enough to tune back in that he caught their entire conversation, about how he had blown up all of Capital City, and how he was now dead. Or at least, rumored to be.
“Yo can we like, hurry up with my potions?”
“Chill out dude,” Theo’s voice echoes down the ladder hole. “They’re almost done.”
“I mean I’m not complaining if Wemmbu is dead,” Parrot continues on from their earlier conversation. “He terrorized and killed so many people. It’s one less thing for people to fear.”
There’s an urge to hold Gambit that washes over Eggchan, and he has to fight himself not to give in on the impulse.
It takes far longer than it should have to get Egg all 27 of his potions.
“Why do you even need invis anyway?” Theo asks as he comes down with some of his potions. “You mafia or something?”
“My priority is privacy,” Egg tells him. Wemmbu would have definitely hit him if he heard what Egg had just said.
“Hella aura, honestly,” Theo responds.
But quieter, Egg can hear Parrot ask one word only: “Why?”
“Is this W glaze?” Egg says, opting to ignore Parrot’s question.
As the last of his potions were put in his shulker, Parrot seems to change his demeanor.
“Yo, if you’re gonna stay invis, be careful.”
“Of what, dude?”
“If you’re gonna stay quote unquote, private, I would try a hell of a lot harder.”
“...Okay sure.”
“Yeah those netherite trims aren’t doing you much good,” Theo interjects as Egg starts to leave.
“That’s literally what I just said, bro.”
Egg leaves the store, getting this awful feeling of dread in his stomach. It doesn’t go away even after he leaves the city behind, running through forests and trying his best to time his wind charges to run off even faster.
He figures that if he’s going to hold onto Gambit, he might as well use it. Egg isn’t confident in his ability to try and mace a skeleton. Hell, he’s not confident in his ability to crit out a skeleton.
An armor stand is what he decides to practice on. Totem of Undying in one hand, Gambit in the other, Egg falls.
His totem pops, and he can feel all of his cells die for a second, before tethering themselves back together. He’s always hated that feeling, and he’s felt it more times than he could count.
Back up the ladder he goes, before falling and missing.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
He lied. He hit that fifth one. But couldn’t hit the combo so he just about failed anyway.
“How does he even do this?” Egg cries out, exasperated.
Four totems popped and his armor low on durability, he decided to quit for the day.
Egg cried that night, sitting alone in the overworld. He would much rather be in the end with the knowledge that his best friend was alive, than here without even a sliver of hope.
He stays away from civilizations as long as he can help it, visible only when he’s positive no one’s around. On occasion he’ll go back to Capital City to buy more invisibility potions off of Parrot, but he also uses the opportunity to talk to someone and stay sane a little longer.
“You gonna ransack my shop?” Parrot asks as Egg walks into the store.
“Wuh?” bewilderment stuns Egg from moving. “Dawg, what?”
“You’ve already terrorized several other stores, you gonna do it to mine as well?”
“Highkey, I’ve got no clue what you’re talking about,” he says. “Can I just get my potions and go?”
Parrot grumbles before responding, “Yeah, sure.”
Theo and Parrot got to work filling Egg’s empty shulker box once again while Egg sat in the corner as per usual. Looking at his inventory, he realizes just how much it has changed to look like Wemmbu’s. Cobwebs, water bucket, axe, mace, golden carrots. The only thing that really differs is the amount of potions and the bow and arrows that sit in Egg’s inventory.
As the shopkeepers finish up, Parrot spreads some news to Eggchan. “There’s going to be some sort of meeting tomorrow, if you want to come.”
“I’ll think about it,” Egg responds, picking up his full shulker box.
“A lot of people will be there,” Theo says. “You should go.”
“Chat, am I muted?” Egg says, sarcastically.
“Okay, whatever,” Theo rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Jeez.”
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to the meeting. Honestly, Egg was ridiculing himself for even thinking about going, telling himself this was an idiotic Wemmbu-esque move. It was weird when he saw one person with the same armour as him. It was creepy when he saw another.
Egg just about shit himself when he walked in the hall and found a whole room of people with the same trims as him. As much as he wanted to leave, he had to stay true to the academic in him, and stayed to record the events of this meeting in a journal later.
“Alright,” one of the two impersonators at the front starts talking, “who’s ready to unmask the Invisible Knight?”
Invisible Knight, Egg repeats mentally. Lowkey a tough name.
Cheering erupted from the crowd of other impersonators.
“Okay, sit back down, sit back down,” the person says. “Everyone here is a member of the Invisible Knights Coalition, in which you all want to uncover the true identity of the Invisible Knight.”
Egg should have left right then. But Wemmbu doesn’t call him the World’s Greatest Hostage for nothing.
“So the way we’re going to do this is quite simple. The Invisible Knight will reveal himself in the next five seconds.”
The crowd was silent as time ticked down.
5.
There’s no way this guy thinks I’m that stupid.
4.
Why is everyone looking around, bro.
3.
Yo lowkey, I should be like leaving.
2.
Uhhhh alright out of the seat, please floor don’t creak please.
1.
Just a couple more steps and I’ll be at the door.
0.
The sounds of doors closing and pearls landing fill Eggchan’s eardrums.
Well damn bro.
“Hello my friend,” the invisible player at the front states. “How’s it going?”
“Yo, hey, so like can we open this door lowkey?” Egg asks, trying not to sound too nervous. He knew this was a trap, and didn’t even try to preserve his own life.
“Unfortunately, I can’t do that, Wemmbu.”
“Uhm, sorry, what?” Egg asks. The necklace that he carried everywhere that held a pendant of Wemmbu’s broken horn felt heavy around his neck.
“You want me to explain to you everything that I found out?” the person asks, turning to open a shulker box. Pulling out a bucket of milk, Egg can hear armor being put on somewhere behind him. He doesn’t care enough to look around.
“From what I know it all started with your fight against FlameFrags. You beat him, somehow. And in that fight something changed for you. I’m honestly not exactly sure what happened, because I wasn’t there. But after that, you decided to fake your death, right? You went to the End. You talked to your friend Eggchan and you had him spread all these lies about you. About what actually happened. And in that moment, the invisible knight was born.” They start drinking the milk in the bucket, and as their form appears in front of Eggchan, he recognizes the bright green and blue. Parrot.
Egg wants to yell, to fight, to swing his best friend’s mace in fury. But all he could do was stand and stare.
He would much rather be in the End right now, spreading all the lies that Parrot thinks he is. But he has since stopped doing that, and every new lie spreading across the server is no longer part of his control.
“The two of us met when you came to my potion shop in Capital City. In that moment, I kinda had the suspicion that the invisible knight was someone already powerful on the server. Not only were you eating golden carrots and golden apples as your food source, but look at your armor, bro. Full diamond with netherite trims? How many people on the server can get something like that?” there’s a pause, almost like Parrot expects an answer to his rhetorical question that everyone and their mother knows the answer to. “And then the fact that Wemmbu had died and all of a sudden the invisible knight had come around, seemed a little bit convenient. You see what I’m saying?”
The invisible figure behind Parrot drank their milk as well. Theo’s frame came into view first, and slowly his yellowish color seeped back into his feathers.
“I see that I’m going to have to take back those diamond blocks from you,” Egg says, sarcastically, trying not to let his voice crack through the voice changer.
“It took me a little while to find out the rest of this, but I’d sometimes follow you out of the city, invisible of course, to where you would practice using your mace on random mobs. And when I was hired by FlameFrags to find out where you had gone, I did more digging, and was able to piece together everything. The lies, the invisibility, the random rich player,” Parrot takes a leap off the stage, but doesn’t move any further. “But what I can’t seem to figure out, is why did you do this? You faked your own death for what? Power? Did you want to get revenge on Flame somehow? Was that your idea?”
“...Dawg I’m going to be so real right now I caught every third word of what you said,” Egg says, trying to make the encounter lighter. “Yap city over here.”
Parrot’s brows crease in frustration under the diamond armor.
“I wish you were right, Parrot,” Egg says. “But I’m not Wemmbu.”
“Sure, bro,” there’s a distinct voice that comes behind Egg, and his heart falls to his feet. He knows who that belongs to, and he’d rather be anywhere but here right now.
Slowly turning his head, Egg sees the person he’s dreading. The Immortal Demon, FlameFrags, is standing behind him in full netherite with an atmosphere about him that could choke someone out if they got too close.
Eggchan can barely hear anything over the sound of his heart beating in his chest. He can barely hear Theo’s order to drink the milk that had been placed in his hand.
Drink or die.
Maybe the second option wasn’t too bad. He’d at least get to see his best friend again.
“Drink it, Wemmbu,” Parrot commands.
Eggchan pauses before the cold metal of the bucket is raised to his lips. As the milk slides down his throat, his cells seem to vibrate as his form becomes corporeal once again. He takes his armor off. And waits for death. At least his wings aren’t cramped under the helmet anymore.
“What?” Parrot questions under his breath. “Where’s Wemmbu?”
Egg doesn’t respond.
“You said this was Wemmbu,” Flame growls accusatorily at Parrot. “You said I’d have the chance to kill Wemmbu.”
“You can’t kill a dead person,” Egg whispers to himself.
“He’s not dead,” Flame declares. “I’d know.”
“He is dead!” Eggchan finally snaps. His wings around his face flare, and eyes form around him for a second. “You don’t think I know my own best friend? You don’t think I’d know? You and your stupid rivalry don’t mean anything.”
“Hey no—”
“Flame.” Parrot says, his tone telling him to back off.
Egg breaks slowly, but surely. Tears that he can’t hold back any longer finally come back in full force, overflowing and streaming down his face. His knees hurt as he falls onto them, legs weak.
Flame, Parrot, and Theo don’t know what to do. They always figured Wemmbu would be around, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he was. The only noise in the room was the quiet weeping from Eggchan, the last remnant of Wemmbu’s life.
“This is stupid,” Flame says, and no one can tell if his tone is empathetic or annoyed. “Get up, Eggchan.”
Egg can barely hear anything over his own breathing, lightheadedness washing over him as he sits back on his heels. His vision goes blurry as his sobs catch in his throat. Trying not to choke on air, he pats his chest.
“Woah dude, is he like, okay?” Theo asks as he watches with a keen eye.
Standing up and turning around, Egg manages to stumble his way to lean on a wall before promptly throwing up on the floor.
“Oh shit.”
“Dude,” Parrot rushes over to the seraphim, patting his back and pulling him off the wall to lean on him instead.
“Hell,” Flame shudders.
“I don’t think I’m gonna…” Egg mumbles as he starts to drift off.
“Theo, help!” Parrot calls over to his friend.
And the last thing Egg thinks about before passing out is how he used to call out to Wemmbu like that.
A friend all to himself.
He misses him.