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It was a bad idea.
For Wemmbu to be silently admitting that to himself, that it was a bad idea, meant that it truly was an actual terrible awful idea. He had bad ideas all the time! Thinking of something stupid and just going for it was practically a daily ritual for him, at this point. Revealing himself to Boosfer was a bad idea, even. And this one was still worse.
He was hidden in a dark 2x2, somewhere underneath the mesa where his rival had made his home. Maybe not the smartest place to hide when the guy would surely beat his ass if he found him, especially since he was apparently working with Parrot, but that’s a big “if”. Maybe. Probably. Whatever.
But Parrot was hunting him. With how he had been handling his identity so far, his chances weren’t looking great against the smartest guy on the server and his trigger-happy explosive sidekick. He grimaced, thinking of Jaden, and what he had to do in the Great Sea. Was that why Parrot was so mad? He did kill some random guy right in front of him.
He shook his head to himself, a silent denial. He hadn’t even known Boomie.
It must’ve been the stabshot. No normal player has power like that, and Parrot, with his self righteousness problem must think he’s too “dangerous” or something stupid.
He could just kill the two of them. It wouldn’t be hard; Parrot wasn’t a strong fighter, and even though Theo was, they’d both quickly fall to the combination of his maces and nukes. But it would be a mess to find a place far enough away, and the two of them were relatively liked, especially in Capital City. People would notice if they dropped off the face of the earth. Not to mention, Parrot was probably anticipating him doing something like that, the smart-ass he was.
There was something else though. He chewed his lip.
It was a bad idea. But sometimes, he reasoned, something can go so bad they flip around to being good. No, no, that’s dumb. It’s a bad idea. It was too risky.
But if he knew their plans, he could find a way to convince them truly of his death, and be able to hide from them and escape any possible traps.
His wings, let out after weeks of being forced beneath his skin, ruffled against the cold stone of his sanctuary. All he would have to do is close his eyes and—
But it was a bad idea. What if They somehow knew? What if they learned he had truly escaped, became powerful on his own terms? He had fought so hard, learned so much, just to prove that he could stand on his own two feet. To prove he didn’t need to be one of Them.
He unclipped his communicator from his belt, and let the soft glow illuminate the small room. He scrolled over his messages with Minute, Jaden. Egg. His fingers hovered over the icon he knew was Parrots, they’d transferred codes during the whole invisible mafia takedown.
Parrot was smart. He was probably looking for people close to the Invisible Knight, probably investigating the whole server. Wemmbu had probably left behind some sort of cryptic clue even he himself didn’t know about, and Parrot would somehow decode it. He flipped it closed, and clipped it back to his belt. He wouldn’t let himself be revealed, he couldn’t.
Spreading his wings as far as he could, slightly shuttered against the small space, he closed the eyes in his face, and let his real eyes open.
All at once, everything became too much. Past, present, future—
“Parrot, I am Wifies.”
Flashes of tnt dropping over a farm.
“You’re a lost cause—“
An innocent player falling onto a dripstone, the family she left behind.
A lonesome player, left behind in an abandoned civilization, the smell of sunflowers—
“It was fun while it lasted, Wemm-“
He snapped his wings shut. Okay. Not what he wanted to do.
Let’s try that again.
Slightly opening his wings, he briefly floated in the inbetween of the code of himself and the world around him. Focusing on his body, he pushed himself outwards, floating up above the server, an apparition. Something similar to spectator mode, but more aware, seeing everything on the server at once, but very carefully not processing any of it just yet. Just the fractured strings of code of what was left of his soul. Okay. He could do this.
Sorting mentally through the thousands of usernames online, it took a couple minutes for him to locate one ‘ParrotX2’, which he zeroed in on immediately.
His vision focused, like the lens of a camera, and after some subtle adjusting, a small room came to view in front of him.
Looking down at his hands, they were completely see through, and if he tried to touch anything, he knew he’d phase right through. It was a form of Watching many of the elders had scoffed at, calling it too “player like”. Well fuck them.
Looking up, again, he catalogued the shelves full of ingredients, the wooden floors, painted in a rainbow of colors by colorful stains and spills. There were two beds, one Yellow, blankets askew, with golden feathers scattered about. The other was green, bed made, a couple colorful feathers hidden, almost secretly, beneath it. The yellow bed had a plush macaw, laid sideways but clearly loved, and the green one had a plush cockatiel, sitting politely next to a black and white puppy.
Voices filtered in from a doorway behind him, and he willed his Sight through it. On the other side, sat at a round table, were Parrot and Theo. Parrot sat with his legs held closely to him, a cup of tea sat on a coaster. Theo leaned back in his chair, legs propped up in a different chair, lounging. A mug of coffee sat in front of him.
“—at the old BAT headquarters, and then you can just drain his resources. After that, he’ll be too confident to not follow you through the Pearl cannon, and then bam!” Parrot gestured wildly as he spoke, then hit his knee for emphasis. “We get him trapped.”
“And then Flame kicks his ass. And we get paid.”
“Exactly.” Parrot nodded, lifting his cup to his lips and taking a sip of the tea. Lavender? Dawg. Is bro eighty.
Wait. Spinning back to that, Flame? At the old BAT base? A pearl cannon? Wemmbu had known this was a good idea, they were just spilling their plans out in the open.
“So is—“ Theo tilted his head. It was weird seeing him without his sunglasses, piercing blue eyes practically looking through his friend. “—is Flame gonna kill him, or—?”
The macaw rested his head on his knees. “Who cares? We’ll get the coords for the tomb, and just leave and go straight there. We’ll be able to help so many people…” His eyes glazed over, looking somewhere in the distance. Weird. He wasn’t weird like this before, at least Wemmbu didn’t think so, or maybe he just didn’t notice. Maybe he was just better at hiding it when Wifies was around.
What happened to that guy, anyways?
“I mean, I kind of care. I get he killed Boomie, but does he really deserve all of this?” Theo shook his head, clearly deep in thought. His chair scraped against the floor as he lounged back a little bit farther. “We’re like enacting psychological warfare on this guy. I mean— what if he just wanted a fresh start?”
Apparently, to Parrot, that was the wrong thing to say.
“He started it!!!” He hissed, pushing his legs down to sit criss cross, and leaning forwards in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable. “He hunted down Boosfer and Boomie, he picked fights with Flame knowing the damage it would cause!! He bombed capital city!!”
If Wemmbu had proper eyes at the moment, they would have narrowed suspiciously. He hadn’t bombed anywhere as the Knight, had he?
“He’s not a good person, he hasn’t been since the start of the server when he was stealing Elytras!” Wait so pause. “Wemmbu deserves this.”
A burst of wind rushed through the room, knocking over the table and the chairs the two were sitting on. The shattering of the two ceramic mugs, along with several potion bottles sat around the room, filled the air and the sharp shards went flying. The door to the bedroom swung shut, and the trapdoor leading to the shop downstairs swung open.
Wemmbu snapped his wings shut, fleeing back to his physical body (the one thing They hadn’t managed to take from him) and opened his fake eyes. Once again in this lonely, cold, 2x2.
Fuck.
.˳·˖✶𓁺✶˖·˳.
Parrot blinked. One second, him and Theo were discussing their plans for defeating the Invisible Knight, The next, they were knocked to the floor. The entire room was in disarray, shattered glass and ceramic and their furniture scattered around. He looked up, scanning the windows in the room. All three windows were closed, but only one still had the curtain rod attached, the other two having been flung by the burst of wind. The intact window was the one directly behind him, closest to their bedroom door.
Huh.
While he was thinking, Theo had brushed most of the broken shards to the corner and had carefully stepped over the flipped table to where Parrot was laying.
“Are you okay??”
“It uh. It came from behind me.” Parrot pointed to the closed door. “Like, that way-ish.”
Theo stood up too quickly, wings flaring out to quickly balance himself, and then carefully stepped over to the closed door, then slamming it open. He took a step, and ducked his head into their bedroom.
“There’s no one there,” Parrot said, voice faint.
Theo pulled back to look at his friend, then back into the room to scan it once more. “Well, maybe they went out one of the windows. Or they’re hidi—“
“They’re not.” Parrot mumbled.
“What’d you say?” Theo pulled himself back into the main room.
“I said they’re not here. They never were here, not really.”
Theo sat down by him, brushing some debris off Parrot’s skin and picking little bits and pieces out of his feathers. “Alright then bro, how’d they make a mini hurricane in our house if they weren’t here? Some sort of red stone machine? Some exploit?”
“Nah bro. Have you ever heard of the Watchers?”
Theo blinked, surprised. “The like super evil all seeing angels of the void? The creepy spying monsters that are talked about in stories to scare little kids? I uh— I honestly didn’t think they were real.” He scratched the back of his head.
“Yeah those guys. And they’re real—very real. There was one Watching us that whole conversation, but they’re not really supposed to interfere with normal players so I figured we were safe. One of us must’ve said or done something to like.. I don’t know, upset them?”
“Wait wait wait pause. So there was an eldritch horror monster just casually listening to our conversation, and you didn’t let me know?”
Parrot rolled his eyes. “Brooo how would I have? Slipped you a note?” He snorted. “They’re all seeing bro, kind of misses the point.”
“Okay, so how do you know we’re not being Watched now?”
“There’s a feeling to it. Like being watched but like… heavier. More real. Like a physical sensation.” Parrot shrugged. “Some people are more sensitive to it than others, I guess. But it stopped after the burst of wind.”
“Huh. Okay.” Theo sat back on his heels. “So what are we supposed to do now?”
“Now? We clean up. And then we find out how to reveal Wemmbu. And then,” he leaned closer to Theo, like he was whispering a secret over a lunchroom table, “We find whoever it is on the server who’s pretending to not be a lovecraftian horror.”
Theo nodded. “You know what bro? Sounds like my kind of adventure.”
Parrot smiled, and the swirly tattoo hidden behind his ear shone yellow-gold.