Chapter Text
The Unstable City-State was located on an island. Really, a collection of smaller islands that lived so close to each other you could feasibly swim to one in a couple minutes given the weather and waves were calm. Capitol City was well known as the governing body of it, but nestled among expanses of farmland, mountains, anarchy-plagued sectors, and wild areas were other major ‘cities’ like Merchant City. The collection of islands sat engulfed by the Great Sea, separating it from the other countries of the planet of Esempi, and having only been discovered by the greater world but a couple years ago.
Given their proximity to water and Wemmbu’s best friend Eggchan’s adoration of fishing, any long periods of free time in their day often found them by one of the many docks.
Today was not an exception. The weather was chilling down for the winter, the wind was blowing at a steady rate, not fast enough that golfers would shake their fists and leave to play another day, but still enough to ruffle hair and steal away papers. The water was a mirror of this, waves lapping gently against the beams of the dock. Egg and his trusty fishing rod cast far into the sea, waiting for any stray fish to catch a glimpse and decide to nibble. Meanwhile Wemmbu was running back towards land, barely beyond the incredibly thin strip of sandy beach and into the large portion of the woods that separated this area of the beach from Capitol City to collect increasingly bizarre rocks to throw into the water. He’d even managed to skip a few, though not farther than one or two hits on the crashing waves.
The two best friends came here often, it was isolated from the hustle, bustle of the main city, and rarely anybody ever stumbled upon the small cove, preferring the busier and more popular docking sites. The only ship that you could ever find here was Jaden’s, and those were on days he wasn’t out in another area around the City-State’s islands. The pier showed its age and general disuse, peeling boards and moss clinging to the sides and top, wherever the sun would reach, and making it very slippery to anyone who decided to run. Wemmbu liked the challenge, not only could he perform laps from Egg’s nary ever-changing position to the tree line to help improve his stamina, but he could also work on his reaction times if he ever did find a foot slipping on the ever-damp moss.
Jaden disapproved, told him off anytime he saw him running like he was some sort of dock lifeguard. Wemmbu never listened. Egg was glad he wasn’t here now; he was forced to sit through those lectures as the best friend of the perpetrator.
Think of the devil and he shall come, as just as Egg felt the telltale pull of his line, he also heard the familiar thump thump slide of Wemmbu’s return.
“Bro,” in a singular, expert pull, a small salmon was pulled out of the water and snagged out of the air into his waiting hands. He turned to face his best friend, holding out the struggling fish, “Does this look tuff?”
Wemmbu came to a stop and near immediately burst into laughter, almost dropping the averagely larger size rock he’d been carrying with him.
“It’s perfect,” He gasped between wheezes, “First image for your dating profile.” Egg grinned.
It was a long-running joke, ever since that fateful day when Jaden made the deadly mistake of leaving his phone unlocked on the counter for 0.8 seconds while he was making dinner. Egg and Wemmbu were quick to steal the opportunity to run away with the thing, locking themselves in the ladder’s room while they scrolled through all the data they could find on the phone, cackling maniacally as mischievous kids do. They were halfway through his old digital photo book, laughing even harder at each new cringe picture that came on the screen when they were interrupted by the subject of their amusement, bursting the door open and stealing his phone back with a playfully sharp reprimand. But the damage had already been done, the final picture that had graced their eyesight was one of Jaden, probably in his late teens, on the same mosseaten dock that the houseboat was currently tied to, holding up a massive swordfish with a friend. The two were grinning ear to ear, and the two demon children who had seen swore to sentence him to be teased relentlessly for all of time, even with the joke being brought up behind his back.
Obviously, Jaden should have known his adopted child and said child’s best friend were evil masterminds and should’ve always kept a steady eye on his belongings while they were even remotely in the vicinity.
“So, what did you bring me this time?” Egg began to untangle the hook stuck in the salmon's mouth, a difficult task as it kept wriggling incessantly. Wemmbu was quick to deposit a lumpy stone onto the handrail rest of the pier.
“It’s Fragger,” he explained triumphantly with a grin. Egg just squinted at it; all he could see was an undefined shape.
“It looks like a rock.”
“No, no, Egg, bro, you have to look at it closer. You see that?” he pointed vaguely to a particularly prominent lump on the left side of the rock, “That’s his sword.”
Egg paused for a beat, waiting for his best friend to continue his explanation as to how this random rock could possibly look like the number one hero in the City-State of Unstable. Clarification did not come.
“Bro, you need your eyes checked.” He had finally freed the fish of its bond and dropped it over the side of the railing; it hit the water with a painful, bellyflop-like sounding squelch. Perhaps around the time they first began coming to their little sanctuary, he would have put the fish out of its misery to eat later on, but with the amount of damage that hero and villain fights today were causing, especially those of Fragger and Gambit, #1 villain and the idiot standing in front of him now, it was leaving building wreckage to float in the air and eventually make its way into the water to poison the local fauna. Egg did not want to eat brick dust, no thank you.
However, looking at the rivals today, it was hard to believe that less than a year ago neither of their monikers were known, much less universally praised or feared as they were now. Fragger and Gambit had popped up around the same time, climbing their respective ranks exponentially fast until they were both crowned the top spot, and had started the fiercest rivalry in the hero-villain history of Unstable. Lately, though, Wemmbu had been finding himself the victor of their skirmishes. Instead of being forced into a retreat to avoid capture by the Hero Commission, he was instead turning the tables on Fragger. But Egg could see in the way he stopped talking about the hero, how he trained less, that he had become bored with his power. And a bored Wemmbu was never a good sign.
“Whatever,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes playfully, “Would you like to do the honors?”
Egg was more than happy to push the rock over the side of the hand railing. Both teens scrambled to watch it follow the fish into the water with a satisfying plop. Despite the water washing away evidence of the rock ever being there within seconds, the two stood standing and looking into the mudded brackish water below them, watching the relentless waves and foam splash into the posts that held them up, occasionally feeling a light mist of sea spray hit their faces.
“I think I’m done,” Wemmbu finally broke the silence. Neither needed context for the new conversation, they had known each other for years at this point and could basically finish each other’s thought processes, no matter what the subject.
“So, what do you want to do now?”
“I don’t know.”
The silence eclipsed back to them; comfortable. Safe. Egg shielded his phone from the sun and sea spray as he quickly typed something out on it during the brief period of silence, probably just jotting down a note for himself.
“I don’t think I can just go back to doing nothing, you know?” Wemmbu looked over at Egg the second he also looked up, putting his phone away. They locked eyes.
“I figured as much.” Egg pursed lips as he thought for a second, “You could reinvent yourself?”
It wasn’t uncommon for heroes, villains, or vigilantes to take on a new identity. Jaden himself changed his name from Leviathan to Captain at one point, around the time Gambit had first popped up and accidentally killed his sidekick, Lobster Kidd, in a battle.
(Wemmbu remembers crashing at Egg’s place for a couple nights, terrified to go home and face the person whose protégé he just killed. Jaden had found him, he knew he would, he was friends with Egg’s guardian and would obviously know if his adopted kid had been at Minute and Egg’s house instead of his own home. But given that he was still being fostered at that time, and it had only been a couple months since he’d moved in, a couple weeks after Jaden learned Wemmbu had been dressing in royal regalia and sneaking out at night to cause massive property damage to lure in (at least at the start, nowadays his mere presence was enough to summon him) and fight the up-and-coming hero Fragger, Wemmbu couldn’t say with confidence that his new guardian would be okay with it still after that specific kill.
Especially after Mane.
But Jaden wasn’t mad. He didn’t want Wemmbu dead. He didn’t want to hurt him, either. He was… Understanding. Kind. Sad, sure, but patient, too. And that just confused Wemmbu more, because no matter how many times he had poked at him, he never snapped.)
“But then if everyone knew I used to be Gambit, Fragger would come in and be like ‘mi mi mi fight me!’ and be super annoying,” Wemmbu groaned, flapping the back of his hand onto his brow over dramatically, free hand the only thing securing him in an upright position as he leaned back.
“Only you, bro, only you can look at the Immortal Dragon Hero and call him annoying,” Egg laughed, looking back over the ocean.
“He is!” He spluttered.
“Why don’t you just completely make a new identity then? We could spread rumors that Gambit died and you’d be free.”
“That’s… actually not a bad idea.”
“I’m full of great ideas.”
“Bro,” Wemmbu laughed, pretending as though the book smart brains of their little duo could produce good concepts was an outlandish claim.
“I am!” Egg squeaked, voice cracking.
“So, for this to work, you’d be spreading rumors about my death?” Egg just answered the question with a sly couple taps on his nose, an obvious yes.
Egg was a bona fide vigilante, one that was elevated by the public eye to be almost on the same positive pedestal as a hero. Public opinion of the Secretkeeper was very high despite his tendency to hang out with public enemy number one. It was a point in his favor, probably, that he never actually helped Wemmbu cause mass destruction or genocide, instead avoiding fighting completely and distributing information to save those in need. Because of this, most people would instinctually trust what he said.
“You could just post something on social media, then?” Wemmbu suggested. A very good idea as Egg’s vigilante profiles on Instagram and Tumblr were probably the most trusted sources of information in the entire City-State.
“Since when are you the smart one, bro?” Egg teased to Wemmbu’s gasp of protest.
“I’ll have you know I’m a top-tier nerd!”
“When pigs fly, bro, when pigs fly.”
The conversation naturally developed back into their comfortable pattern of silence.
“So, who will I become? I don’t wanna be some random chungie, bro, I have some self-respect.”
“Debatable-” Egg then interrupted Wemmbu as he was about to defend his honor “-but how about a social experiment?
“A social experiment?”
“An experiment to see how long it would take people to connect you, Gambit, who they think is dead, to a new vigilante or villain who just popped up out of nowhere a day after your supposed death,” Egg explained, “We don’t even have to change up your costume too much, we could brew invis as your secret identity and pretend you’re another one of the trillion masked idiots who run around in button up shirts with extra ruffles.”
“Excuse me, the button up shirts are a very stylish fashion statement!” Wemmbu gasped in mock outrage.
“You wouldn’t know true fashion if it was thrown over your head like a blanket on a cat.”
Wemmbu spluttered at the obviously untrue statement, but it seemed nature was also against him, as that exact second one of the waves kicked up enough sea spray to drenched them both, mainly Wemmbu, in saltwater, no more wet than you would have gotten if you were taking out the trash on a quietly drizzling day, but still enough to be annoying. Wemmbu glared at his best friend, daring him not to laugh at his misery. Egg did not get the message and snorted despite himself.
Wemmbu elected, for once, to be the bigger person and graciously move on instead of being bullied further, hands drifting to roll droplets of water out of his long hair. He hadn’t realized how knotted and in need of a good brush it was until this exact moment, apparently having been whipped around quite a bit by the wind during their conversation in his earlier laps to the forest. Egg usually helped to put it up in braids or space buns, but he had had class that day as well as every other weekday and was only freed from the cinderblock prison just over an hour ago. Wemmbu could whine, grown, and complain about how much he missed his best friend while he was away at school, begging him to join him in his online homeschool course, but the other would stand firm in his decision to stay.
Egg was, at his base, a very sociable person despite how much he liked to lock himself away with his books, or how much he swore up and down he could go weeks, if not months alone. Wemmbu knew it would be preposterous to ask him to abandon his routine social time and didn’t push further than cheap complaints.
“So, I just wear my old costume and drink invis, right?” It sounded easy enough, he was already taking an advanced potions class, and Jaden was more than happy to provide all the ingredients he could ever need, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to brew it himself. He already was consistently making himself strength, speed, and fire resistance for fights, what was one more to add to the list?
“With some changes, obviously. We can’t make it too obvious.”
“Changes?”
“For one, I think people would immediately recognize you if you started macing them, so you’ll have to stick with swords or axes. And you can’t use your power, either; again, too obvious,” Egg listed off his items while taking count on his fingers. Both of those are reasonable, maces were exceedingly rare, only Gambit ever used one regularly to fight, and anyone else who maced were taken out quickly by the increasingly savage hero-villain food chain. It was most likely because it took incredible strength and agility to use one, an even more absurd reserve of stamina, and very specialized training from the exceedingly rare expert. Someone who got their hands on one, even for as long as a couple months with lots of self-practice, usually could only handle hitting a couple times before their arms gave out on them.
(Fragger always went on about honor and fairness in fights, yet did not seem to realize how hard it was to effectively wield a mace like Wemmbu does.)
Egg’s second point was also obvious. No two people ever had the same exact power, so if Wemmbu’s new identity came out of the gate throwing orbital strike shots exactly like Gambit did, like it was nothing, everyone would automatically know that it was him. The last point, however…
“Third, we will have to completely change the color of your costume.”
“Absolutely not,” Wemmbu was on the tail end of Egg’s words, half a second away from cutting him off.
“Come on, bro, who else wears that absurd amount of purple. Name me one person who covers themselves nearly head to toe in it.”
Wemmbu opened his mouth to argue but found the words would not form. Egg was right, only Gambit ever dressed himself up in that much of one singular shade, especially in his specific style. So, sue him! Purple was the color of royalty, and he only wanted to add onto that general air he gave off. Sure, Egg said it made him look like a chungus but he didn’t care.
“…I’m not fully removing it,” He finally settled on.
“Didn’t expect you to,” Egg squinted towards the horizon to their right. It was almost 5, about time for Jaden to head back from his patrol, and sure enough the large houseboat was beginning to curve around the island towards the pier. “I already have a cool idea for it. Invis is already fickle with clothing but not armor. If you dress up in armor, you’ll always be at least semi visible. Plus,” He turned back to Wemmbu, shrugging, “If you get netherite it’ll keep to your color palette without being suspicious.”
“Bro, where do we even get armor? Especially netherite?” Sure, the top heroes had good armor because they were backed by the commission, but it’s not like a random person could walk into an armor shop and order a set; for one there aren’t any armor shops to begin with. For another, netherite was exceedingly rare, Wemmbu had only seen one hero with it: Fragger, the Hero Commission’s golden boy. However, Egg seemed to have an idea as a mischievous smile flickered across his face.
“Parakeet,” Egg grinned, the multiple pairs of tiny wings on his head flapping in amusement as Wemmbu frowned at the answer. Parakeet was well known to help anyone in need or any who has the money. While his main business was in selling potions, extremely powerful concoctions he and his associate, Cockatoo, created themselves, they also dabbled in many different businesses, including apparently armor crafting if Egg’s information was correct (it always was). Gambit and Parakeet were soundly not on good terms, especially since the former was a terrorist, and the ladder was vocally against killing innocent people and property destruction. But if he was going as a completely new identity, then it might work.
“Okay,” Wemmbu agreed slowly, nodding, “But to do that, I need to go in my old costume. Which you're insisting we avoid.”
“Details, bro,” Egg rolled his eyes. "Trust. It’ll work.”
At the beginning of their friendship, Wemmbu might’ve made the comment that he would be trusting him against his better judgment, but nowadays his better judgment was always trusting Egg, especially since the seraphim absolutely knew his stuff better than Wemmbu did. It had taken a while for him to admit it, but every time Egg beat him in chess, talked about an obscure historical time as if it was common knowledge, or actually fully thought through plans rather than jumping straight in like Wemmbu did, a little bit more of his ego had been chipped away until he finally was able to admit that Egg was smarter than him.
“If I get killed by an angry bird, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
They elapsed once again and into comfortable silence, eyes drawn away from the sea and towards the houseboat that had been slowly drifting their way. Wemmbu knew it could go much faster, especially with Jaden’s ability to control water, but part of the man’s job was to patrol the beaches and water surrounding the City-State’s islands to protect them from intruders (like those of the other countries in Esempii who had previously tried to subjugate the City-State, thinking it an easy feat) and save the people who needed it.
“So, a social experiment,” Wemmbu finally looked over to Egg, who was once again syncing his movements as best friends do. He always found it strange looking him in his too-human eyes. He was used to the singular, omnipresent eyeball that replaced his entire head when Egg was shifted into his true form, the one reserved for Secretkeeper.
“Well, we have the scientist-“ Egg gestured to himself “-and the subject-“ he gestured to Wemmbu “-we need a placebo next, obviously.”
“Bro that’s not how science experiments work.”
They both snickered.
“For now, saying you died is okay,” Egg said, “but we need to nail down a story that’s believable for the long run.”
“I could have fallen?” Wemmbu suggested. Egg just gave him a deadpan look like he’d just said the stupidest thing ever, like the world was flat or that Monarch was a hero. He then pointedly looked straight to the purple haired boy's wings; large, feathered appendages that were in constant use as a villain. “Someone shot them?” He tried again. Egg raised an eyebrow; it was beyond taboo to target a hybrid feature like wings or horns in a fight, and anyone who did would face extreme public scorn no matter their position.
“How about you lost your mace and was ambushed by a group of over prepared bandits after your last fight with Fragger.” It wasn’t too far-fetched. He was physically exhausted from the last fight, having nearly leveled an entire block with his powers alone, not to mention the extended time he had used his mace for. He might be a master with it, but he still got tired from using it too much.
“Yeah,” Wemmbu sighed in exhausted defeat, “Let’s do that.”
“Parakeet’s shop is open tomorrow, why don’t you go to place your order then?”
“Me? Bro, this is supposed to be your idea! You come do it with me.”
“Wemmbu, my best friend in all of Unstable, you’re the only one I associate with regularly, if I suddenly seem to be best friends with the newest random mask in the city right after you had apparently died, they would definitely know it’s you,” Egg spoke his words, slowly, as if talking to a younger child. In all honesty, sometimes he felt he was talking to someone with the intelligence of a six-year-old. No shade on Wemmbu but the guy could be very dense a lot of the time.
“I think you’re overestimating everybody.”
“Well, I think you’re underestimating Parakeet. Don’t forget he exposed-“
“Yeah, yeah, exposed Wifies, everybody knows that.” The now dead villain’s story was a well-known cautionary tale for younger children. Never join a ground who boasts a singular person as their leader, power corrupts, especially a villain-assassin group. Everybody knew his name, especially since he didn’t create a moniker for himself, having just hid himself behind the mask of an invisible player with armor. The same exact move that Wemmbu was planning on doing.
“And you’ll also have to change your wings,” Egg gestures vaguely to them. Wemmbu nodded. It was easy enough; it was common for demons to be able to shift their hybrid feature colors ever so slightly, and he had already been shifting from his villain persona’s royal purple to the stark white he usually kept them when masquerading as a civilian. Despite there being a large population of people with multicolored wings, he still wasn’t going to take the chance. Egg commented that that was probably the first smart thought he ever had in his life, but Wemmbu vehemently disagreed, to which the former then corrected himself in saying the first intelligent thought he ever had was befriending the seraphim all those years ago to make up for his ‘unsurprising lack of a brain.’
Wemmbu remembers meeting Egg fondly, the letter remembers it more as a terrorist attack. The second they locked eyes all those years ago in the orphanage Wemmbu took one look at the seraphim: small, frail, and scared, and pushed him down the stairs. Egg was surprisingly unhurt and thus began their wondrous friendship.
By the time that the two had finally agreed on the finer details and elapsed back into their standard, comfortable silence, Jaden had already tied the boat to its designated bollard. Jaden was, as Egg put it earlier, one of the trillion masked idiots who ran around in button-up shirts with extra ruffles. It was befitting of a hero themed after a pirate, however, to have on pirate related regalia, so with the included captain’s hat and the completely unnecessary additions to his belt, including extra bags and an overly fancy sheath, the frilly shirt was fitting, unlike many of the others who wore it for the love of the game.
Jaden was a hero, specifically the core to the Hero Commission’s entire branch of marine heroes. While he hadn’t been on the job for quite as long as other heroes, he had become extremely pivotal to the operation very quickly. Powerful water abilities along with a pension for the sea lent itself quite nicely for him to run all the patrols around the island, making sure people were safe and responding to emergencies that happened on the beach. While for the most part, he wasn’t too much of a combatant like the central heroes were, those who thrive on challenging and capturing villains, he was powerful in his own right and well respected by many in the underground for it. Both Wemmbu and Egg knew about his status as a hero, much like he knew they were a villain and vigilante respectively.
Wemmbu have been left for foster care when he was very young, and with a long track record of failed fostering attempts, he was seen as a sort of problem child. Said problem child was pawned off to the first person who even seemed remotely interested: Mane.
(Mane had trained him and been his family for so long he started to believe that heroing like his big brother Manepear was what he ultimately wanted in life. But Mane didn’t see it. And he had left. It was Wemmbu’s fault, really. He was too much of a lost cause. Plus, that’s how fostering worked in Unstable, you get six months and then you have to leave if they don’t decide they like you. It was just the wrong person who left.)
Jaden, who worked with Mane in the Hero Commission (very different sectors, but they were both pretty high up and knew each other well in passing), had heard about the incident and immediately volunteered to take him in. As much as he sarcastically loathes to admit it, it was a good fit. Jaden was patient beyond reasonable doubt, and no matter how much Wemmbu intentionally poked and prodded at him to get him to snap, show his real colors, he never did. He finally felt himself accepting that someone in the world loved him for him rather than what he could do for them (someone besides Egg) and eventually, slowly stopped. Along with Egg and Minute, they have sort of become some kind of ragtag family.
Not that you would catch them dead calling each other dad or son. They were more… brothers than anything else.
“Egg, good to see you,” Jaden grinned and reached over and ruffled his psych ward white hair, the teen just squawking with displeasure and a futile attempt to duck away. Wemmbu made a twin sound when he was the next to be targeted for a noogie. “Wemmbu, glad you’re home on time. Did you finish the assignment?”
“Of course I did,” he scoffed. One or two stupidly easy classes every couple months were the only thing that keeps him away from the hell that was public school, and though he loaded the idea of school in general, he would admit that a diploma would be helpful later on in life. It didn’t help that classes were the only thing Jaden never expected of him, and he might be a free spirit, but would also do anything for the people he cared about.
“Great work,” Jaden’s face softened. Wemmbu pushed back his instinct preen, he knew that his guardian would not use that weakness against him, but he still felt the need to hide the incessant people pleaser deep down below. “Now, could you enlighten me as to why you are apparently dead?”
In one quick motion, he swiped the passcode on his phone and turned it around, so that the two teams could see the news article he had already prepared.
Vigilante Secretkeeper Claims Villain Gambit is Dead: What Does This Mean for Unstable?
“Bro,” Wemmbu turned to Egg with wide eyes. The seraphim only shrugged.
“I don’t know what to tell you, bro, I work fast.”
Wemmbu rolled his eyes looking ready to retort with a query as to when he could’ve possibly spread that rumor if they only came up with it less than an hour ago, but was interrupted before their bickering could continue.
“I’d still like an explanation as to why the media thinks you’re dead?” Jaden prompted gently.
“I’m faking my death and getting a new identity,” Wemmbu said at the same time Egg piped up with, “It’s a social experiment.”
Jaden nodded thoughtfully. To him, it sounded like a wildly stupid idea (as their ideas were most often). However, when it came to the kids, he always felt himself folding like a paper bag in the sense that he was not going to go down without the smallest bit of resistance.
“Let’s not prompt the wrath of the heroes, preferably,” He suggested haplessly, but was met with two deadpan stares of two stubborn teenagers who had already made up their minds. He shrugged, knowing at this point it was probably best to let them do their thing. So, instead of arguing further, he stepped back onto the houseboat and disappeared inside.
Like two lost ducklings, Wemmbu and Eggchan were quick to follow him.
The houseboat, still yet to be named as the residents habitually bickered over what it should be called, was standing quite still and silent, despite the windy weather and lapping waves. It was probably due to Jaden’s ability to control the water that it sat like that, though with him you never knew, and it could have been something more mysterious in cause. The thing was massive for a privately owned non-cruise boat, probably 50 feet long, and had more than enough rooms to house the occupants and all their small group of friends.
There were four levels to it, with only two of them being above the deck. The lowest level contained all the ‘boring’ rooms, including the laundry room, the boiler room, the engine room, and all the other function over form rooms that helped to keep the boat and its occupants afloat.
The second floor was mainly taken up by guest rooms, housing three of their four, as well as smaller bathrooms for each, an office, and a small library. Though small and limited in its scope because of its size, the library was Egg’s favorite place to hang out when he came over. He had helped to curate over half of the collection of a majority history and general lore books with the occasional fantasy or slice of life for Wemmbu and Jaden respectively.
The third story, as well as the floor that connected to the main deck of the ship, was the most used. It contained the main living room, the surprisingly small kitchen and pantry for a sea vehicle of its size, a smaller dining room that could only seat four people at this time and was rarely used as everybody preferred the couches, Jaden’s room, Wemmbu’s room, their respective bathrooms, and the smallest of the guest bedrooms. It also featured many escapes out onto the main deck, two in the living room, one in the kitchen, and the final one down the hall to the bedrooms. The deck of the ship emulated that of a pirate ship, with the main, mostly unused save for the times Wemmbu and Egg decided to liberate it from its owner, steering wheel for the ship near the back and the largest space near the front. There wasn’t too much decoration on the deck, that was saved for the final floor.
The fourth story was the smallest of them all, only having one sunroom and a sort of patio-deck. Probably the teens’ second favorite place to hang out on the ship was the sunroom, surrounded by a mesh to keep the flies out, including the screen glass door that led to the patio. It was the most sparsely decorated of the boat; besides the furniture it only housed two twin house plants that were tucked away in the corner, both the exact same plant from the exact same store that Wemmbu and Jaden had both gotten for each other for Christmas the last year, and both of them were somehow dying despite both being fake. They most likely would’ve been shriveled husks by the time they finally remembered to water them if they were real plants.
The boat worked not only as their home, but as Jaden’s work vehicle. However, just because he was making Hero Commission-sanctioned circles around the islands every day didn’t mean that Wemmbu was banished to Unstable mainland until he docked. Jaden made sure to provide him, as well as Egg and Minute in case of emergency, with a GPS tracker linked directly to it in case any of them needed to come over during work hours or when it wasn’t at the pier.
“So, tell me more about this plan of yours,” Jaden headed into the kitchen while Wemmbu and Egg plopped themselves into the living room couch, the open space design of the inside being conducive to cooking while keeping an eye on the teenagers. He shuffled in the cabinets, looking for ingredients for dinner.
Egg and Wemmbu shared a smirk, knowing glints in each other’s eyes, before simultaneously launching into the plan they had concocted not even an hour before.
Vigilante Secretkeeper Claims Villain Gambit is Dead: What Does This Mean for Unstable?
Article by Boomie
Less than half an hour ago, the Instagram account, real_secretkeeperIG, very well known for being owned by vigilante Secretkeeper, posted a surprising message.
Posted 4:27pm today, the vigilante simply wrote, “Gambit’s dead” without further explanation as to what situation could’ve caused this.
Currently trending on most social media websites is the hashtag #GambitsDead or similar wording. Many celebrate this death to be a miracle, quoting that whoever managed to finally kill the villain to be “sort of a hero.”
However, others are skeptical.
“It’s impossible, [Gambit]’s been in worse predicaments and come out better. Sure, he might have had a fight with Fragger on live TV yesterday, but I still don’t believe there’s any way he’s dead dead,” reports the popular hero and villain live radio, ‘Super News Now.’
Even the mentioned number one hero Fragger doesn’t believe the news, saying, “He’s not dead, he’s just a coward.”
Despite the controversiality of this news, many have echoed the sentiments shared by a Tumblr user who says, “it’s the end of an era.”
This recent revelation leaves major questions hovering in the minds of Unstable citizens everywhere. What now?
Most obvious, without the number one villain here to terrorize the city, we can expect much less property destruction and more peace as immediate effects. With the major threat removed, we are almost certain to see the amount of arrests skyrocket as heroes can focus on smaller villains and petty criminals instead of cleaning up Gambit’s fights.
Newly appointed Hero Commissioner Lettuce announced just days ago his new plans to deal with villains, and many have talked about its wide-sweeping effects. This policy doesn’t come without downsides, however, as Lettuce intends to also target vigilantes, not just those committing the specific crimes that would label them as villains.
“Anyone caught using [their ability] illegally will face serious prison time,” he said in a recent interview. This new legislation is hotly debated by officials and politicians but generally regarded as safest by citizens in a recent poll.
Lettuce has also announced he will be running for king of Unstable during the upcoming elections, which would speed up the process of implementing this policy.
How he will also balance the villain’s death is yet to be seen, as one of his major claims for his campaign trail was the capture and imprisonment of Gambit.
Some Reddit users started to speculate that this whole incident was because he held up his end of the deal and the villain is finally in custody, that Secretkeeper simply misunderstood the situation, but many others came to the vigilante’s defense in saying information he spread was never wrong.
How Gambit’s supposed death will affect us in the long run is still yet to be seen but will hopefully bring many changes for the better.
Published to unstablenewscast.org, 4:52pm, XX/XX/20XX.