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“Yo, is that one of those echo things over there?”
Wemmbu finished hooking the end of his fishing rod onto Egg’s shirt before looking up, eyes catching on literally nothing but the same repeated grass pattern of the farlands. “No bro, you’re going crazy.”
“Aw man,” Egg sighed, drooping his shoulders as he looked around the area. “Maybe the farlands are getting to me bro, I’m gonna become a zombie.”
Keeping his eyes focused on the path in front of them, lest they miss something and genuinely fall into the void, Wemmbu smiled slightly. “Yeah bro, you better keep your brain sharp or you’ll succumb to the farlands curse and be stuck here forever. I’d have to tell everyone I used to have a friend named Egg, before the incident.”
Egg jumped over a new hole in the floor, starting a different path around it. “Dude if I became a farlands zombie would you let me eat your brain or nah?”
“Absolutely not bro,” Wemmbu shook his head, imagining Egg as a mindless farlands zombie. Honestly, it wasn’t far off from how he normally was sometimes. “I would slime you out for free loot bro.”
“Wouldn’t even try to rehabilitate me or nothing bro, this kid hates me,” Egg complained as Wemmbu’s eyes caught on something off to the left of them. “I need new friends, I swear you-”
“Shh shut up for a second,” Wemmbu urged, pressing a hand over Egg’s mouth. Squinting his eyes, he noticed a sudden change in pattern that was coming up. It wasn’t like the normal deteriorating pattern that they were used to. In fact, it seemed like a section of the wall had almost been restored, as it was just solid stone. But it wasn’t a restoration—the area beyond it matched the previous level of deterioration, and the wall to the right was completely unchanged. It was just the two or three chunks on the left wall that were any different.
Egg mumbled something behind Wemmbu’s hand before getting annoyed and biting it. The pain caused Wemmbu to snap back into the moment and yank his hand away from Egg with a glare. “Bro what the hell? Are you a feral dog, why’d you bite me?”
“That was self defense bro,” Egg glared back. “I dunno where your hands have been, but I do not want them anywhere near my mouth,” he grimaced, watching as Wemmbu wiped his slightly-wet hand on Egg’s sleeve. “Thank you bro.”
“Yeah anytime bro,” Wemmbu nodded as he pushed Egg’s head so he was looking at the anomaly on the wall. “Do you see that too?”
Tilting his head, Egg looked back at Wemmbu strangely. “Uh yeah? I literally pointed it out earlier and you called me crazy. Why are you switching up bro? Stay consistent.”
Wemmbu rolled his eyes. “Okay, well I didn’t see it back then bro. You think it’s an echo?” It would make sense if an echo was crammed into the terrain like it was, but because of the lower angle he was at, Wemmbu couldn’t tell if there was actually something like an echo inside the stone area or if it was just another farlands quirk.
“I mean yeah it could be,” Egg hummed, picking his feet up and marching forward. “Let’s go find out bro.”
“Must we?” Wemmbu asked apprehensively as he was forced to follow anyway by the fishing rod that connected him and Egg. He honestly just wanted to get the orbital canons and leave. There wasn’t much reason to stay or explore since the Law wasn’t going to nuke itself. But Wemmbu had to at least admit he was curious…
Egg strode ahead quickly, pulling on the fishing rod like it was a leash so Wemmbu would walk faster. “Yes bro, we need this for the lore books, keep up.”
Wemmbu rolled his eyes but he matched Egg’s pace anyway. Honestly, he couldn’t really be too upset about the detour. It wouldn’t take that long, and while he didn’t particularly care for the lore of the farlands or whatever, if the echo included the og players, it might have some sort of info about the forge. So really it benefitted both Wemmbu and Egg if he thought about it.
As they got closer and the name tags became clear, however, Wemmbu found a new reason to want to investigate the echo. Because if he squinted his eyes, he was pretty sure he recognized…
Flamefrags. That was what one of the nametags read, and Wemmbu’s interest immediately spiked. He’d seen Flame in an echo before, but this one was different. He wasn’t with the rest of the Zam empire guards, just one other name that Wemmbu couldn’t make out yet. He was still interested though. Maybe a horrific aura loss moment would be in the echo and Wemmbu could laugh at it. Or maybe it was an echo of when Wemmbu beat Flame, which would be even funner to watch from an outside perspective.
He wouldn’t know until he got up there though, so if he-
The letters on the second nametag became readable, and suddenly Wemmbu’s focus shifted to keeping his face very carefully blank. The name was… Manepear?
Which wasn’t that big of a deal—Wemmbu didn’t care that much—but it was just a bit shocking to see his name again after so long. But Wemmbu clearly didn’t care, evident by his perfect lack of reaction.
But the presence of Mane did confirm at least one thing: the echo wasn’t new. It had to have been older, likely from some time before the Zam Empire, or when the two of them were training with each other afterward. Something from at least a year ago.
So, slightly less interested than he was before at the prospect of the echo not being new or a re-enactment of Wemmbu beating Flame’s ass, Wemmbu wind charged up the wall less enthusiastically and placed water for Egg to climb, watching as he took forever to come up.
“Hold on bro, I gotta get the lore books ready,” Egg announced once he made it up, pausing to dig around in his inventory.
Wemmbu faked a yawn, a little restless from standing in one place for so long. “I wouldn’t expect much bro. We’re just looking for a second before continuing on. We don’t have all the time in the world to be frolicking about y’know?”
Egg found the book and made a face. “Let me have my fun yo, we got mister negativity over here,” he clicked his tongue, wagging his finger disappointedly at Wemmbu.
Not gracing that with a response, Wemmbu turned around and started toward the area that held the echo. It seemed to be different from the other echos in that it didn’t look fully formed yet. Or maybe it had just been cut in half somehow, as it seemed the top part was completely missing, leaving just the bottom as a pit in the terrain.
Although that wasn’t terrible. It made things easier for Wemmbu and Egg as they didn’t actually have to go in it and could just look down into it. Well, Egg would probably still try to go in but whatever.
The two of them came upon the edge of the echo and looked down into it, and Wemmbu could see Egg’s eyes excitedly taking it all in. Wemmbu wouldn’t even come close to considering himself excited, but he could admit seeing echos was pretty cool. And since this one was between people he knew it was a bit funner, though not helpful to him.
But something began to feel off as Wemmbu’s brain started to process what he was looking at. At first it seemed normal—Mane and Flame looked like they were looting some sort of vault. Regular stuff. Nothing of note.
The trims Mane was wearing struck Wemmbu as a bit odd though. If he remembered correctly, Mane didn’t wear any trims, especially not an eye trim. But it wasn’t the craziest thing ever. There was a chance that he used to wear trims like but stopped after the mafia took over.
But that was mostly insignificant. What wasn’t insignificant was what Egg said after a few seconds of silently watching the echo.
“Dude, is it just me or are they actually talking down there?” he asked, and when Wemmbu looked over, he found Egg inching closer to the ledge. “Like I swear I can hear voices bro.”
Wemmbu was about to grab Egg off the ledge and tell him it was impossible for echos to make sound before his ears picked up on something as well. It was faint, and it sounded more like a mumble than anything, but it was undoubtedly there.
“Wait what the?” Wemmbu leaned nearer as well, trying to listen closer before he saw Egg just genuinely jump right in out of the corner of his eye. “Egg? Oh my god bro, we can not be serious.”
So both of them ended up inside the echo, because Wemmbu wasn’t about to let Egg out of his sight when they were in the farlands. But getting closer did confirm Egg’s theory, as Mane and Flame’s voices were now very clear around them.
“Yo this is crazy bro,” Egg commented as he marveled at the, objectively not-that interesting, sight around them. “I haven’t heard Lord Manepear’s voice in so long, we’re being blessed right now bro.”
Wemmbu pressed his lips together, deciding again that ignoring Egg would be his best option, and tuned into the echo around them. There had been conversation since he and Egg jumped down, but Wemmbu hadn’t actually been focused in on it.
It seemed like he’d picked a bad time to do so though, as the echo looked like it was almost over, with Flame walking out of the echo’s borders, and Mane saying something that sounded like parting words.
It was nothing interesting. Just the end of an old memory. And honestly they’d seen enough of it already so they should probably start leaving.
Well that was the case, until Mane said something about the Law, and the entire prospect of this being an old memory went out the window.
It was such a brief mention that Wemmbu was almost able to convince himself he’d misheard it. But he hadn’t. Mane had outright told Flame to take down the Law.
But didn’t that mean…?
The echo restarted, and Wemmbu quickly positioned himself in the middle of the area, between Mane and Flame, so he could see and hear everything properly. Because there had to have been something he’d missed, something that would explain why Mane brought up the Law when this should have been an old memory. Why Flame would be there on the chance that this wasn’t in the past.
“... I mean, so you think you’d ever come back to the main server someday?” Flame’s voice rang out, almost instantly informing Wemmbu of the timeline. Because Mane hadn’t been absent from the main server back during the Zam empire, or even for a time after it. He’d only left after…
“Um, probably not, I’m not gonna lie,” Mane replied, pulling Wemmbu out of his train of thought. “I think, what I’m doing right now, I kinda just enjoy what I’m doing cause I don’t really have to worry about anyone else.”
And it was a normal comment that probably didn’t mean much, but for some reason it forced a blurry memory to the front of Wemmbu’s mind, one that he wasn’t sure he particularly wanted to recall.
It was from back before the mafia had been taken down, before Mane disappeared. Wemmbu and Egg had returned from protecting Lopezz’s snow civilization and found Mane with Flame before he stasised away. Mane had said something similar back then. Something about how he didn’t appreciate working in their team.
Wemmbu wanted to say he was the same way. Wanted to say he also preferred being alone, and that a team would only slow him down, just like Mane had said. Like he’d instructed.
But one look to his right revealed an Egg, crouched down and staring at something intently as he scratched a bunch of nonsense in his lore book, and Wemmbu knew it wasn’t true. Knew he would never replace uncontrollable laughter with pure silence again.
The sound of Flame’s voice dredged Wemmbu back to reality, though that was probably a good thing considering his thoughts were starting to veer into gross sappy territory. “Well, I guess I’ll finally leave you alone like, y’know, you wanted me to do,” Flame spoke as he began backing away towards the door that led outside of the echo’s boundaries. And that once again reminded Wemmbu that he never figured out why Flame was with Mane in the first place. Why Mane had even been in the ‘main server’ to begin with.
He had a feeling that he probably wouldn’t get concrete answers from just an echo, and if he really wanted to know, he’d likely have to ask Flame, or Mane, himself. But he would rather die than do that, and also it wasn’t that serious, so he’d have to take what he could get from a simple echo.
Before Flame could make it out of the boundaries of the echo, Mane spoke up again, taking a step forward. “Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Flame turned around, and Mane continued, “Before you leave, I just want to let you know bro.” He looked around, and for a brief second Wemmbu forgot he couldn’t be seen and took a step back. But Mane’s eyes went right through him as he swept the area before turning back to Flame, and Wemmbu let go of his breath as he remembered they were in an echo. “I know, um, I was a little bit harsh on you, just cause… I dunno there was a little bit of animosity between us.”
Wemmbu cocked his head at that, a little shocked that Flame and Mane hadn’t been on good terms. Last he remembered they… well maybe they hadn’t actually been that good. He kinda just assumed they had been, but he didn’t know the full details of what happened between them in the mafia. If he thought about it though, it definitely could have been bad. Or maybe Mane had just given Flame the same cold treatment he’d given Wemmbu. Maybe he was just like that to everyone.
“But I just wanna let you know bro,” Mane continued as he stepped closer to Flame. He was wearing a complicated expression, face somewhere between pride and regret. “Like, no matter what, no matter what we’re arguing about or if we’re allies or if we’re like, right here face to face, or ten million blocks away on the server bro, like, no matter what, I always- You’re always my little brother bro.”
Mane’s words were spoken clearly, and Flame received them well, instantly commenting about being called little or something, but to Wemmbu, the speech seemed to hang in the air for far longer than it should have.
He just… couldn’t wrap his head around what Mane had just said. Why the words had come out of his mouth like that.
Because Mane wasn’t… he didn’t say stuff like that. Stuff that was sappy or proud or emotional. He’d always been cold. Emotion wasn't something he had. Wasn’t something Wemmbu was supposed to have.
Wemmbu still did though—he was never the best student after all. Emotion wasn’t just something he could throw away like that when he was so used to his and Egg’s dumb laughter being a constant whenever they were together. Honestly, no matter where Wemmbu went, he could probably find something to laugh about. Which left him on the receiving end of quite a few lectures from Mane back when they were training together, but that was in the past. Wemmbu didn’t think as much about erasing his emotions when he fought people, or killing them on sight to survive.
Though he didn’t know if straying away from the only thing he’d ever been taught was a good idea or not. It left him feeling a bit lost honestly. And even that feeling still, deep down, made him a bit uncomfortable, for the sole reason that it was a feeling.
But back to the point, Mane wasn’t ’emotional’, nor was he even particularly nice. Especially not with other people.
So Wemmbu still didn’t get it. He kept thinking over the interaction he’d just seen over and over, trying to understand how it could have been possible, but he kept coming up blank. He even almost started entertaining the idea that the echo was a fake somehow.
That was, until a faint possibility intruded the back of his mind. And it kept getting stronger and stronger until Wemmbu could no longer ignore it.
Was there a chance… Mane had been that way… only to Wemmbu? Was there a chance that the Mane Wemmbu knew, the harsh and emotionless man, wasn’t actually like that all the time? He just… singled Wemmbu out for some reason?
The thought made his stomach churn with how much it made sense. He wouldn’t have even cared if it was just some one-off idea, but the more he thought about it and the more he remembered how he just saw Mane acting towards Flame, the more it became reasonable.
And while at first it upset him knowing that Mane had singled Wemmbu out for no known reason, the longer he thought about it, the more that upsetness turned to anger. Because Mane had singled Wemmbu out. For what? He’d been so awful to him for no reason? When it was very obvious he had the capacity to be normal and nice to people. Did he just have it out for Wemmbu? Did Mane just have something against him for whatever reason? What was his problem?
Over the time Wemmbu spent going over all that in his head, the echo had looped back around one time and was now slightly ahead of where Wemmbu had last seen it. Flame was now out of the echo’s bounds and Mane was saying something encouraging to him. Something about taking down the Law and how they were friends and all that. Wemmbu didn’t really bother paying it much mind, he was already getting sick of hearing Mane’s voice.
Turning around, he found Egg furiously scribbling something in his ‘lore book’, all of his dozens of eyes scanning the area around them and taking in any possible information they could find. A few of those eyes focused on Wemmbu when he started walking over, but for whatever reason that didn’t encourage Egg to look up or stop writing in the slightest. In fact, he had the nerve to ignore Wemmbu when he stopped and stood in front of him.
So naturally, Wemmbu snatched the pen out of Egg’s hand and pocketed it.
“Uh, hello bro?” Egg looked up, an annoyed expression forming on his face. “Like, could you not see I wasn’t finished writing? Some people bro,” he huffed, stepping forward and reaching for the pocket that Wemmbu had stashed the pen in. “Absolutely zero manners.”
Wemmbu stepped out of reach of Egg and turned around, walking to the edge of the echo and beginning to pillar up. “Well you don’t need it anymore since we’re leaving, so just think of it as me holding on to it for you! Which means I actually have lots of manners and you should thank me for being so nice.”
Egg stared after him for a second before reluctantly following and pillaring up with his own blocks. “Dude, I wasn’t done documenting though. I only got like one eighth of all the consumable information from that echo.”
Rolling his eyes at Egg’s idiocy, Wemmbu threw a windcharge and knocked him into the air, watching as Egg fell all the way back to the ground. It wasn’t far enough to pop his totem or put him in any real danger, but it was funny enough anyway. It brought Wemmbu’s mood up slightly at least.
And when Egg finally got back up, he opened his mouth to start complaining but Wemmbu cut him off before he could actually get a word out. “We were down there for way too long anyway bro. Who knows what could be happening in the main server because we were standing around watching some useless echo?” He made it to the top where the regular terrain continued and placed some water for Egg to climb up the rest of the way. “Not that I care what happens to the server,” he added, only partially lying. There were some people in the main server that he’d rather not see dead, but that was about it. “But I do really wanna blow up the Law. And the longer we waste our time here, the longer I have to wait to do that.” Egg finished climbing up and the two of them began walking side-by-side along the repeating pattern again. “And who knows, what if Lettuce is like, working on some anti-orbital measures as we speak? I gotta be as fast as possible so that can’t become a thing.”
Egg didn’t really say anything to that, instead just nodding and putting his book away. Which was kinda odd, and a bit annoying because Wemmbu didn’t like the silence. He didn’t really wanna be alone with his thoughts in a place like the farlands. It wasn’t like there was anything bad going on in his head, just that the farlands were a weird place.
And to make it even worse, because Egg didn’t say anything as they were walking away from the echo, Wemmbu was forced to hear a faint repeat of that god-awful line a second time. Mane talking about how much he appreciated Flame and how they were brothers or something. It was like nails on a chalkboard to his ears honestly.
But it faded as things tend to do, and the two of them kept walking. At some point, Wemmbu decided the best thing to do to keep his mind from wandering would be to just constantly keep yapping about random things to Egg, so that’s exactly what he did. Every trivial thing that came to mind was spoken about to death while Egg listened silently, only occasionally ever chiming in to add his thoughts or make some sort of comment.
It wasn’t like Wemmbu was particularly worried about being alone with his thoughts or anything though, he just preferred having something to occupy his mind. Having nothing else to think about besides the echo he saw for the next couple of hours, or even days, seemed like his own personal hell honestly. It would likely do nothing more than piss him off, which was not the approach he was really going for at the moment.
Although deep down, there was something else that was there too, which he was unfortunately forced to face during a brief lapse of time where he’d run out of things to yap about and was forced to walk in silence for a bit, Egg still being uncharacteristically quiet.
He’d noticed that, beneath the anger and annoyance he had for Mane every time he thought about what he’d seen, there was… something else there too. He couldn’t put a name to it, or even really know if it wasn’t just the same resentment he already had, but he just had a feeling it was different. It didn’t get him fired up or make him want to go find Mane and mace him until he was begging for his life. It just… hurt. Layered below stronger emotions, it could have gone undetected if not for the small caveat of it bringing him physical pain. It was as if someone was beating his heart for him, but at the wrong rhythm, leading to a sort-of sinking, dreadful feeling in that area.
Which was unusual, and Wemmbu didn’t really know what to make of it, or what to do about it. He couldn’t tell if it was bad that he was feeling that way—though the pain was making him feel like it probably was—or if it was just part of the anger that he knew was right to be feeling.
For some reason, that feeling deep within his ribcage was making him want to turn around and go back to the echo. He wanted… Well actually, he didn’t know. He wanted something from it, and his first thought was violence. Maybe he’d go there and let some of his anger out. Though for some reason that answer didn’t really seem to fit. There was something else there, something he needed, he just couldn’t place what it was.
He’d never been good with emotions anyway.
It was strong enough though, that he almost considered turning around, but he wasn’t stupid enough to actually let that idea get that far. He had important things to do that didn’t concern whatever random, unidentifiable thing was plaguing his mind at the moment. Still he-
The soft feeling of wool against his face was the first thing Wemmbu registered as he was abruptly forced to tune back into reality. And upon blinking and taking a step back in confusion, Wemmbu found that there were suddenly two blocks of wool that he seemed to have walked right into. There was also an Eggchan standing to the left of the obstruction, holding a block of wool in his hand. He was giving Wemmbu a strange look.
“We should stop here,” Egg announced, less like a suggestion and more like a statement of fact. He began placing more wool around them to make a small house.
Wemmbu blinked. “Huh?” It took him a second to get back to reality before he processed what Egg was doing. “Wait bro, why are we stopping? We need to get to the orbitals.” He tried to break the wool but Egg just kept placing more.
“Well we’re not gonna make it very far without getting any sleep bro, and this might be the only chance we have before the og players realize we're here and like, try to kill us or something.” Egg finished off the little wool dome, trapping them inside, and began replacing the grass beneath them with wool too. “If you’re gonna fight the Law, it’s best to be well rested and clear of head when you do so, otherwise you’re gonna die to some random chungy and it’s gonna be really embarrassing for me.”
The part about clearing his head seemed a bit targeted, and after a moment Wemmbu realized Egg might have been right. He’d gotten so distracted just now that he hadn’t even noticed Egg placing blocks in front of him until he’d literally walked directly into them. Trying to take down the Law like that might not be the best of ideas, especially while handling nukes.
“Plus,” Egg added as he scattered bits off wool everywhere so it was like they were standing on the insides of a giant open pillow, “if you decide to keep going I’m just gonna stay here and be all defenseless and stuff and then you’ll have a guilty conscience because anyone could just come here and slime me out y’know?”
Wemmbu stared at him blankly. “A guilty conscience? You think too highly of yourself bro.” Despite that, he still crouched down and took a seat on the pile of wool. It might have been comfortable. Just maybe.
Egg just giggled, laying on the floor as well and letting out a long sigh as he stretched. “Bro. I’m the esteemed Eggchan, what do you mean I think too highly of myself? I’m the highest there is, we know this bro.”
Rolling his eyes, Wemmbu moved to lay on his back too as the two of them began debating on how important Egg was to all of the major events of the server before they both eventually drifted off.
And Wemmbu obviously didn’t fully fall asleep—he couldn’t in a place like this. But for some reason, lying there in a wool dome with Egg, his thoughts didn’t wander anymore. His mind was blissfully blank as he let his body relax and recharge for the battle ahead of him.
And even if what happened with Mane was still a sore subject, and probably would be for a long time, Wemmbu realized that he just, didn’t have to think about it. About him. He could live his life without having to agonize about what Mane did or why he did it. For the time being, he could just be in the moment, lying in a random spot in the farlands with Egg.
If he did that, then nothing else really had to matter, did it?