Chapter Text
The battlefield stinks of metal, the iron tang of blood and weapons blending together until the scent is almost dizzying. Bodies, dead or just-about, litter the ground by the hundreds, crushed diamond armour and hollow eyes and snapped bones mingling together until they’re less like corpses and more like a singular, bloody, writhing entity beneath Flame’s boots. Around him, explosions rip through the ground; near-constant screaming rings in his ears like vengeful church bells.
Flame’s been in outnumbered battles before, against maybe a few dozen or more, but something of this scale is like nothing he’s ever experienced before.
His sword moves like it’s an extension of his own arm, fluidly slicing and stabbing through seas of Lawmen, but it isn’t enough. His inexperience in such circumstances costs him way too many close shots, near-misses from the enemy’s blades swinging just centimetres from his vitals, a constant as he ducks and evades.
He wastes more totems than he’d expected to, the number of adversaries beyond what he can possibly manage; the nonstop showers of green and gold sparks are almost blinding.
Above the fray, Wemmbu soars into the sky with his elytra, a trail of rocket gunpowder tailing him as sunlight glints off Gambit’s polished edges. He laughs, maniacal, as he raises his arms for the next plunge.
It is the best, or maybe the worst, Flame has ever felt.
–
The battle progresses in fits and bursts. He kills and maims until his arms grow numb, but the flood of enemies seems to never decrease in quantity. Lawmen crowd him, but he escapes each time by a well-timed windburst or his own two legs, and Wemmbu’s always there to back him up, allowing him to catch his breath with a mace attack intense enough to make his teeth rattle.
It’s maddening. It’s amazing. The sheer power the two of them possess when working in tandem is nothing short of exhilarating.
–
The scene shifts when Flame blinks, and the next thing he knows, he’s standing atop a rare un-crumbled section of the fortress walls, far away from the clamouring Lawmen beneath. Beside him, Wemmbu crouches down, rifling through a shulker of potions, shoving strength and speed into his inventory.
“What are you just standing around for? Lock in, bro,” Wemmbu laughs as he closes up the shulker, straightening to face Flame.
Irritation flickers through him, but it’s sluggish. His memories of the last few hours float around his brain, unanchored, as he struggles to wrangle them back in order, trying to think properly.
It doesn’t work.
“Bro, shut up,” Flame replies, instinctually. It’s half-hearted at best.
Wemmbu, somehow sensing his reluctance, pounces on it instantly.
“You know, so far, I’ve definitely killed more of them than you have,” he crows, “guess I really am the strongest now, huh?”
The heat of annoyance is familiar. The scene around Flame seems to sharpen, and he begins to do his own restocking as he replies.
“Yeah, ‘cause all you do is cheat your way to winning with your nukes and mace, bro. You don’t have even half the skill I need to survive in the middle of the battlefield!”
“So? I’m still winning, aren’t I?”
“We’ll see.”
“What do you mean we’ll see, that wasn’t tough, bro–”
Wemmbu’s words are cut off with a choked-off sound; it’s uncharacteristic enough to make Flame pause from where he’s elbow-deep into his enderchest. He looks up, gaze instantly meeting Wemmbu’s, whose wine-purple eyes are wide with shock.
He shifts his vision down to see the neat red line across Wemmbu’s neck where blood has already begun to flow. Behind him, a lone soldier’s sword hangs in the air, the motion complete.
Flame’s mind shutters.
Wemmbu clutches one hand to his throat and staggers towards Flame, but all his energy seems to have been sapped from him in that singular moment. His knees, clad in useless netherite, crash to the floor.
The sound jolts Flame to action. He abandons the chest, springing up to attack the Lawman, whose blade, now shifted so it’s raised high in the air, prepares to deal the final blow.
All it takes is a single lunge. They die in seconds, a blade to the heart that feels far too merciful ceasing their movements for good.
When Flame blinks again, he finds himself kneeling beside Wemmbu, scrambling to get to his supply of medical items. Everything moves as if in slow motion, but maybe that’s just his mind racing faster than his body can react.
Flame tries to force a golden apple into Wemmbu’s hands, but they’re too slick with his own blood to grasp it properly, shaky arms refusing to bring it up to his mouth. That, or he’s already begun to lose strength in his limbs, which is all-too possible since his legs seemed to have already stopped working properly, but that can’t be it, because that would mean it was already too late, he was already too far gone–
“Flame,” Wemmbu mutters. His voice is too shallow, too low, gurgling through his throat as he utters the name. In all their time as rivals, and since even before, Flame has never heard him sound like this before.
“Shut up, shut up, just–”
But what can he do? He’s already got one of his hands pressed on top of Wemmbu’s against the wound, keeping pressure on it until he can think of a more permanent solution. He’d burnt through his totems already– the fight below had drained him of his resources, which was why they’d had to restock to begin with.
He whips around to search through his shulker again, and then his enderchest, but somehow there are still none. His chest feels tight enough that it might burst at any moment.
“Wemmbu,” Flame urges, “you need a totem, put on a totem right now.”
Wemmbu blinks groggily at him until the words seem to register. “Bro, if I had one, I would– I would’ve already used it.”
He coughs wetly, splattering red specks onto Flame’s chestplate. Blood drips down his chin as he talks, his eyelids sliding further down with each word.
“I’m out.” Wemmbu croaks hollowly.
It sounds like defeat.
It sounds like acceptance.
“No, no, no, no, no, don’t–”
His head lolls forward until it rests against the taller man’s chest, his body limp. From under Flame’s grip, he feels Wemmbu’s hands growing slack, the bloody stream ebbing as the white noise in his head intensifies.
“–don’t, don’t fall asleep. Stay awake, I mean it, bro.”
Wemmbu murmurs unintelligibly, the sound almost imperceptible over the blood rushing in Flame’s ears, before he falls silent for the final time.
The world seems to blur around Flame, the air around him turning frigidly cold. He can't breathe, or maybe he’s breathing too fast; his whole body shakes as if struck by lightning. His vision swims as he glances down at the bloodied figure, blindfold clinging to wet cheeks.
When he removes his hands, hours or maybe just seconds later, Wemmbu’s arm flops down like a marionette doll with cut strings. There’s blood everywhere, soaking his sleeves and shirt until the scent is enough to make him nauseous.
Alone again, then.
And just like before, it’s all his own fault.
Everything goes dark.
The first thing Flame registers is the hand, shaking his shoulders– too close, too dangerous in the pitch black of the room. They’re gentle, too, but he doesn’t register that until after his sleep dazed state wears off; for now, all he knows is that he’s vulnerable and there are hands near him and hands equal weapons which equal nothing good, ever.
In an instant, he’s got the person pinned to the wall, an iron knife drawn from where it always hides under his pillow pressed to their neck. Their arms shoot up in surrender, head slamming against brick in panic.
Their face is indistinct against the dim backdrop of the room, but he already knows who it is: an attacker, or a bandit, or, worst of all, a Lawman who came in the night, finally here finish him off after they already finished–
“Woah, chill!”
In the quiet of the night, the voice is shockingly loud. Flame feels his grip on the handle tighten, because he knows that voice, heard it peter out into wet, rattling gasps that faded into stifling silence just minutes prior. Which meant this had to be a trick– a voicechanger, or just a really good impression.
Flame keeps the knife steady, digging it in minutely, and doesn’t say a word. He could lean in just a few centimetres more and be done with all of this, but he holds back– maybe it’s more prudent to know who this mystery attacker is before killing them in cold blood. And maybe something else, a thought he doesn’t dare finish.
“Flame, it’s me,” the person gasps.
It can’t be true, but something in him at that moment is selfish enough to hold the tiniest spark of hope. It can’t be true, but he wishes it was, that somehow, maybe–
“...Wemmbu?”
Immediately, Flame winces at how he sounds– the name comes out strangled, his voice, hoarse from sleep, bursting out in desperation. He sucks in a breath, greedily returning air to starved lungs; he hadn’t even realised he'd been holding in his breath this entire time.
“Uh, yeah, bro,” they laugh shakily, tilting their head ever so slightly away from the blade.
Flame falters, his grip weakening; an impersonator could easily imitate a few phrases, but to copy his laugh, the very same he’s heard countless times to the point of memorisation, and so accurately, would be nearly impossible.
The person – Wemmbu – leans back and reaches for the light switch. The room slowly illuminates, redstone humming and buzzing as the lamps flicker to life, revealing his face. Despite the literal knife to his neck, he looks, of all things, concerned for him; Flame takes a moment to register it, the expression unfamiliar when directed at him.
He drops the weapon like it’s burning, hears the iron clatter against wooden panels. Flame takes a step back, and then another, until he’s sitting on his bed again, fighting for breath as his eyes fix onto the tiny red mark on Wemmbu’s neck where the blade had barely nicked him.
Self-consciously, Flame realises that his blindfold is absent – he’d taken it off to sleep, after all – and without the usual barrier, his eyes are exposed, and his expression might as well be broadcast onto a giant, glowing billboard sign. Months of keeping up his carefully constructed facade of confidence, just for it to be toppled by a stupid nightmare.
Because, of course, that’s what it was. It had to be– despite the fact that it had felt more realistic than the current moment, despite the fact that it was clearer in his memory than the events of yesterday or last week, that was all it was. The man in front of him, alive and intact at this very moment, was proof of that.
He scrubs his eyes dry with one hand, reaching to grab the black fabric strip with the other.
“Why’d you wake me up?” He grumbles as he ties the blindfold back on. His voice is still rough from sleep, cracking around the edges, weaker than he’d ever let it be around anybody else in a normal situation. But with the freakishly realistic nightmare, Wemmbu sleeping in his base (in his bedroom, mere metres between their beds), and the battle just hours away, Flame supposes this situation could be considered anything but normal.
Concern is replaced by annoyance as Wemmbu scowls at him. Thank god– if Flame had to see that look any longer, he would have gone mad.
“Uh, I don’t know, maybe because you were literally shaking and crying so hard you woke me up first!”
“Well, my bad if I can’t control myself when I’m asleep, bro,” Flame snaps back. Humiliation, hot and heavy, twists like a dagger to the gut.
“That’s not what I–”
Wemmbu cuts himself off with a sigh, flopping back down to his own bed across the small room. His face looks profoundly uncomfortable when he speaks again.
“Look. It was a nightmare, right?” he asks, determinedly avoiding eye contact.
“No, I was writhing around in my sleep for fun,” Flame deadpans. “Of course it was a freaking nightmare, but I’m not gonna hold hands with you and talk about it, bro. We’re not friends, this alliance is a one-time thing.”
“Is it gonna affect our fight today?”
“Nah, I’m fine,” Flame lies. He hopes it sounds more convincing to Wemmbu than it does to himself. Somehow, he doubts it.
“Good.” By the furrow in his brow, it’s nowhere near ‘good’, but thankfully, Wemmbu leaves it at that.
Flame changes the subject hastily. “Wait, did you say today?”
“...It’s almost 7 in the morning, bro.”
–
The rest of the morning passes in a blur. Flame tries his best to forget the weird dream, focusing on the more pressing issues at hand, such as the literal thousand players the two of them are going to have to fight. They grab their supplies before leaving, and if Flame packs a few more totems than strictly necessary, well, there’s no harm in being extra prepared.
They’re waiting atop the castle walls when the army shows up. Everything from the movement of the enemies to the feel of the sun-baked stone bricks underneath his feet feels eerily similar to the dream.
“Wemmbu,” Flame starts, before pausing, because what can he say? I had a scarily realistic nightmare where you died and despite how much we fight I really really don’t want it to happen because if you go I’ll genuinely have nobody left? He can already imagine how Wemmbu would react, can hear the way he’d laugh, sharp, derisive.
It’s too late to take it back, though. Wemmbu turns around, face unreadable aside from a slightly cocked eyebrow.
“...uh. Just, don’t die, bro. We still need to have our rematch after this,” Flame flounders.
A familiar, impish grin overtakes Wemmbu’s face.
“I’m counting on it.”
Below them, Lettuce’s horn rings out across the field.
–
The battlefield stinks of metal, the iron tang of blood and weapons blending together until the scent is almost dizzying. Bodies, dead or just-about, litter the ground by the hundreds, crushed diamond armour and hollow eyes and snapped bones mingling together until they’re less like corpses and–
Okay, genuinely, what the hell?
If the events that preceded the battle were awfully similar to Flame’s dream, this was straight up just a carbon copy of it. Every single event, enemy, and attack, from the organisation of each and every one of Lettuce’s troops, to the attacks from Wemmbu himself, are exactly identical.
Even Wemmbu’s damn quips, though barely audible from where he flies far above them into the air, are the same.
Logically, it should follow that, since Flame’s already experienced this battle before, it should be light work. It’s like a gift, this precognition ability he’d somehow unlocked. The fight should be an easy one, impossible to lose with every advantage he’s somehow scored hidden up his blood-soaked sleeves.
In reality, it’s the other way around. His body moves on autopilot, the memory of this battle being the only thing that keeps him alive, because all he can think about is what comes after the fight:
Him and Wemmbu, within the castle walls, distracted by their restocking, or maybe just by each other.
The hidden Lawman and his sword.
A sliced throat, dripping-blood mouth, and unsteady purple eyes, glazed over in pain.
And then–
Flame’s train of thought is cut off when, in his distraction, a group of Lawmen manage to catch up to him, crowding around him and jumping him faster than he can react.
They knock him off-balance, sending him crashing into one of the cart-exploded holes. He catches his fall with his face, feels the sickening crunch of his nose breaking on impact. The fall knocks the breath out of his lungs, and he lags for just a second too long, trying to regain his bearings.
With a deafening bang, Flame’s totem is popped as an arrow flashes through the cracks in his chestplate, lodging itself directly into his heart. With a sluggish hand, he rips it out, feels torn flesh knit itself back together, before stumbling back on his feet.
He raises his sword. Tries to ignore how the tip of the blade refuses to stay still, his legs threatening to buckle when he takes a step forward.
The group of Lawmen– four of them in total, each looking twice as energised and half as injured as him, are cocky, overconfident. He’ll wipe the smirks off their faces yet.
Or, he plans to, at least, before Wemmbu dives towards them, one hand reaching out. He grabs Flame by the hood of his jacket and then soars back up and away, Flame dangling precariously, feeling much like a lion cub whose mother just grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
He’s too tired to care.
Wemmbu dumps him unceremoniously onto a section of fortress wall that’s, surprisingly, still intact, before landing neatly beside him.
Flame doesn’t bother to sit up, just lays dazedly on the cold brick ground as he recovers his breath, the Sun pricking rays into his eyes. Blood drips lazily down the side of his cheek, his nose pulsating in pain. Wemmbu sits down next to him and flicks through his inventory leisurely before pulling out a few shulkers, digging through them, seemingly in search of something. Resupply time or something, his groggy mind decides.
“What are you just lying around for? Lock in, bro,” Wemmbu laughs.
Flame freezes from where he’s sprawled out on the floor, his blood running cold, before he bolts upright.
Unless he was mistaken, Wemmbu had said those exact words right before the soldier jumped him in the dream. Though Flame doubts that’s what it really was more and more by the minute, the issue of recurring events will have to be considered another time. The fact of the matter is, it’s highly likely that the Lawman’s hiding near them right now, preparing to strike.
“Bro, shut up,” Flame hisses, rising to his feet. There are a few stone columns around them, which is probably where the hidden Lawman is; he approaches the nearest one quietly.
Wemmbu doesn’t seem to catch on and starts rambling about how he’s the winner between the two of them. Flame tunes him out as he turns the corner, sword at the ready.
It’s empty– nobody’s hiding behind it. So is the next, and the third, until only the last one remains.
Flame treads, light on his feet, towards it, before a flash of blue flickers in the corner of his vision. He whips around, and sure enough, it’s the soldier, scrambling out from their hiding spot in a last-bid attempt to get to Wemmbu.
Unfortunately for them, Wemmbu has nothing to be distracted by this time. Flame doesn’t need to raise a finger before Crucible swings high in the air, crushing their skull like a soda can.
“...Huh.” he exhales, without meaning to.
No way it’s that easy. No way Wemmbu just… dodges death like that.
Wemmbu turns to him with a bemused expression. “You knew he was here? How?”
“Lucky guess.” Flame says. No point in explaining the whole psychic dream thing, though that’s definitely something he needs to consult a professional on. He doesn’t know where to start, but it’s a problem he’ll have to worry about after they get rid of the few hundred Lawmen below.
“Yeah, right,” Wemmbu huffs, pulling on his elytra and switching back to Gambit. “Say what you want, but you’re explaining properly after this is over.”
He jumps off the wall before Flame can reply.
–
With the weight of worry lifted off his shoulders, fighting becomes infinitely easier. His sword feels like it’s half the weight it was before; his shield and armour are lighter than ever. Flame heads back into the battle with a newfound frenzy that courses through his body like lightning.
Giddy relief powers him like nothing else. He refuses to think about why Wemmbu being alive means so much to him, why the fact that the life of the most annoying person he's ever known is apparently so valuable to him.
It doesn’t matter. Wemmbu will live, did live through the ambush, and that’s all Flame cares about.
–
Flame is an absolute idiot.
The battle ends without much fuss or fanfare. They hunt down the last few stragglers together, both close to their wits’ end and each on the brink of running out of supplies. Unfortunately, Lettuce, the slimy rat that he is, manages to sneak away with his life, but with his entire army defeated, they both agree that he might as well be dead anyway.
Under better circumstances, Flame thinks he might have used this chance to finally one-up Wemmbu. He can tell, between the two of them, that his rival looks much worse for wear– he’s used up his entire stock of orbitals, his elytra has close to no durability left, and he’s stumbling as he walks beside Flame from one too many rough mace landings.
He doesn’t take the chance.
Unfortunately, the universe seems to disagree with him
While both their backs are turned, he hears the faint sounds of armoured boots behind them. Flame turns around just in time to see a lone soldier wielding a crossbow; he has no time to react before a heavy bolt lodges itself in the center of Wemmbu’s chestplate, right where his heart is.
Before he can even register that they’re under attack, a second one lands in the centre of his forehead.
Flame wakes up to a dark room and a gentle hand shaking him by the shoulders. He blinks up at the ceiling, the phantom sensation of an arrow splitting his head open aching like hellfire.
What was that saying, again? Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, but three times make a pattern?
This was now the third morning in a row.
Fuck.