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The Law was a formidable machine, an iron fist of order and discipline, yet Wemmbu had proven to be catastrophically stronger than Parrot had ever anticipated.
Who knew the End demon possessed the sheer, raw fortitude to dismantle a Law Sergeant with nothing but a heavy mace and a patchwork of scrap diamond and iron armor? And who knew he possessed the stamina to keep fighting afterward, to walk through this blizzard as if he were merely taking a stroll through a meadow?
Perhaps the biting cold was sapping Parrot’s strength, dulling his reflexes and slowing his thoughts, or perhaps the harsh, alien conditions of the End were what fueled Wemmbu’s unnatural vitality. The End was known as a cold, empty void of endless white stone and darkness, a place where life struggled to exist. Wemmbu originated from there; it stood to reason that he would perform well in the snow, treating this frozen mountain peak not as a hostile environment, but as a familiar, albeit colder, home.
As they trudged through the deepening drifts, Parrot couldn't help but notice the shift in Wemmbu’s demeanor. He was chattier now that Eggchan was here, his voice carrying over the wind in low, rhythmic murmurs. Parrot didn't know the reason for the Seraphim’s presence, nor did he care to ask. It didn't matter. If Wemmbu believed he could keep Eggchan safe on these suicidal travels, Parrot wouldn't voice his objections. It was purely Wemmbu’s choice to risk the most innocent being on the server. And Parrot was certain, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that Wemmbu was already painfully aware of the gamble he was taking.
With every step, Parrot became acutely aware of how much his armor had been doing to shield him from the elements. Now, after the catastrophic fighting earlier in the day, his protection was compromised. The diamond chest plate, once impenetrable, was marred by a jagged tear that ran diagonally across his ribs. He could feel the frigid air seeping through the gap, slipping between the leather straps and the fabric of his undershirt. It found the sensitive space where his wings folded against his back, ruffling the feathers and freezing the tips until they felt brittle and numb. The cold wasn't just outside him anymore; it was sinking into his marrow.
Maybe it was the frost numbing his brain, or maybe it was the sheer frustration of the situation, but a sudden, sharp agitation rose in Parrot's chest. He wanted to yell. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, if only to make himself hot with the rush of blood and adrenaline. He wanted to run, to spread his wings and take to the air, to escape this suffocating closeness.
But Wemmbu was there, walking peacefully. He walked with a steady, rhythmic gait, his head tilted toward Eggchan, conversing as if they weren't in the middle of a life-threatening storm.
Wemmbu was walking peacefully with Eggchan, and that sight alone made Parrot want to scream at him. He wanted to shout for no reason other than to break that infuriating calm.
Or perhaps there was a reason. Parrot was violently aware that Wemmbu was not a good person. Hell, just a short while ago, Wemmbu and Flamefrags had slaughtered one thousand Lawmen in a single, blood-soaked afternoon. Why would anyone consider him a good person after that? He was a walking catastrophe. He killed and ruined; he was the terror within the terrorist. He was the reason players ran in panic when they saw the sight of a fishing rod in the middle of a fight. He was the reason people were attempting to glitch heavy maces into their hands, desperate to perfect the art of smashing someone so hard their scream couldn't even catch up to the impact.
Parrot hated people like Wemmbu. He despised those who thought they were superior simply because they could brute-force their way to the top through sheer destruction. At least Flame understood his own strength; Flame knew he was powerful because of honed skill and discipline. Flame knew that no one else could be as destructive as he was because they would need to train for a lifetime and a half more than they had currently lived.
But Wemmbu wasn't like that. Anyone could acquire Wemmbu’s strength if they were willing to abandon their morals.
Well, of course Wemmbu had skill, too. He was skilled enough to swing a mace wildly while teaming with an ally and rarely land a hit on them. He was skilled enough to fight with an elytra, turning the sky into his own battlefield. He was skilled enough to mix nukes into the chaos of a fight.
But that was the point—he was skilled enough, yes, but that wasn't the defining trait of his power. He wasn't just skilled. He was desperate.
And why was that? Because Wemmbu just enjoyed being at the top. He thrived on being the strongest, on crushing people down until they couldn't get back up. Unlike Flame, who held power like a steady flame in the dark, Wemmbu fought for power as if it was the very air he breathed, desperate and gasping.
Parrot was aware that Wemmbu was a demon made of chaos; it was in his natural instinct to reach for the stronger weapon, the stronger strategy—no matter how "cheaty" it seemed to the other players on the server.
But it made Parrot physically sick that Wemmbu just couldn't understand why the Law was after him. He couldn't grasp why he was a bad person.
The resentment was a physical weight in Parrot's chest. He watched Wemmbu’s back, the dark coat swaying rhythmically, completely unaffected by the tragedy he had caused earlier that day. It was that disconnect—that ability to walk away from a massacre as if it were a casual afternoon errand—that finally made something inside Parrot snap.
He stopped walking.
The sudden halt sent a jolt through his bruised legs, his boots sinking deep into the unpacked snow. The silence of his own movement stopped, leaving only the howling wind and the crunch of Wemmbu’s boots ahead.
"Do you know what you’re like?" Parrot shouted, his voice cracking from the cold and the sheer force of his repressed anger.
Wemmbu paused. He didn't turn all the way around, just glanced back over his shoulder. Even through the swirling whiteout, Parrot could see the arch of his brow, the mild confusion that only made the rage burn hotter.
Parrot’s breath hitched, turning to a cloud of steam in the freezing air. He really reminds himself of someone right now.
"You are glass, Wemmbu." He spat, looking down at the ground, but now it was too late to stop. "Cold and brittle."
Wemmbu frowned slightly, his mouth opening to speak, likely to dismiss Parrot’s outburst as another complaint about the cold or the pace. But Parrot didn't let him. The dam had broken, and the flood was coming out whether Wemmbu wanted to hear it or not.
"So I never push too hard," Parrot continued, his voice trembling not from fear, but from the rush of finally saying it.
"Because you break from so little."
Parrot looked up, his eyes wet with unshed tears of frustration. "And I cut myself on every shard."
"I wish that you were clearer, and could see my point of view."
Wemmbu hates metaphors, but if Parrot truly wants to play, he shall play. Suddenly, Wemmbu made a sharp, subtle sign with his fingers.
Place. Place. Place.
Parrot’s vision was abruptly blocked by gray cobblestone. Eggchan moved with terrifying speed, stacking cobblestone around him in a rough, jagged box. Before Parrot could even react to the sudden darkness, he heard the distinctive creak of a bowstring being drawn.
He looked through a gap in the cobble to see Eggchan standing on the other side, an arrow nocked and pointed directly at his forehead. The Seraphim’s expression was calm, but the arrow didn't waver.
It was Wemmbu's turn.
Metaphors? Easy. Poisoned words? He could always do those. He wanted to hurt Parrot twice as hard as Parrot had hurt him when he revealed his identity, without a care for how much Wemmbu had wanted to stay away and just be someone else.
So…
"You are glass," Wemmbu repeated Parrot's words back to him, leaning casually against the rough cobblestone wall. "Thick and blurry." Mockery dripped between every vowel Wemmbu sounded.
Parrot glared at him through the hole in the box. "You see the worst parts first."
Wemmbu’s mace, Gambit, tapped rhythmically against the cobble. "You're a pane."
Egg's chuckle made Parrot's feathers puff. Maybe he should have stayed silent; maybe he should have kept the rage in. Because Wemmbu isn't a good person, and killing Parrot wasn't beneath him.
"And I worry," the End demon grinned, his words now filled with bitter honey, just to make Parrot back up against the stone while trapped. "That your temper's always primed to burst."
He took a step closer, peering through the gap. "You wish that I was clearer," Wemmbu mocked, echoing Parrot's earlier plea. "And could see my point of view."
The cold wind hit Egg's wings and made him tremble. He should stop Wemmbu, shouldn't he? He should hold the demon back, let him kill Parrot another time. It just doesn't seem worth it.
What happened, happened. There was no way to go back and stop Parrot from revealing his identity; there was no way to go back and stop Wemmbu from going invisible in the first place. What they could do was accept this was how the situation ended, and move on. So what if Wemmbu wanted to stay invisible for a little longer? He couldn't go back, so why shouldn't he move forward?
Eggchan's bow lowered slightly.
"But if I'm glass, then I'm a mirror," Wemmbu said softly, his voice low and dangerous through the stone. "So you're seeing only you."
Maybe it was the fact that snow started falling harder, or that there was no longer a bow to his head, but Parrot wanted to speak. He wanted to say something, but someone beat him to it.
"Deflection is a social behavior," Egg spoke up, turning to look at his friend, the arrow now loose at his side. "Particularly a defense mechanism, Wemm."
Egg stated it calmly, a fact amidst the tension. Wemmbu frowned almost immediately and turned to fully look at Eggchan, distracted from his trapped prey.
"It is when an individual will redirect blame, criticism, or generally uncomfortable emotions away from themselves and onto others in an attempt to preserve their self-image."
Silence stretched between them, save for the wind whistling through the gaps in the cobblestone. Then, a laugh.
"Alright, Oxford dictionary," Wemmbu scoffed. "Want to add more?"
"Um, yes actually," Egg continued, unbothered. "Whether or not the original speaker's critiques are valid, the second speaker—you, Wemm—does not acknowledge them and instead changes the topic to highlight the original speaker's flaws."
The frown returned at that.
Parrot almost wanted to laugh. Eggchan had just stopped their poetic exchange because he wanted to let Wemmbu know that he was deflecting. And Wemmbu's reactions were animated, but then again, they always were when Egg spoke.
"When you said, 'So you see the worst parts first'," Egg explained, gesturing vaguely to the box, "you deflected from Parrot's view of you, which is that you 'break from so little'—which is true, you do get angry very easily. And Parrot does end up receiving damage from that anger, as he poetically stated when he said, 'And I cut myself on every shard'."
Snow crunched, and the cobblestone began to vanish as Eggchan mined Parrot out of the box, the gray blocks disappearing into smoke.
"Egg, bro," Wemmbu sighed, frustrated.
"I don't think this is a good idea, man," Egg started again, turning to face the demon. "I mean, you said earlier that you don't really care to kill Parrot, and it sounds like your beef is more with LettuceK than it is with Parrot anyway."
Wemmbu had a look on his face like he was considering what Eggchan said—that Parrot's life could be spared. And if he got out of this unscathed, Parrot knew he needed to thank Egg later. He was fully aware that he had riled Wemmbu up in the first place, so he would apologize for that first, then he would thank Egg for saving his feathers from being smashed into the void.
"Alright, whatever," Wemmbu huffed. He walked towards Egg and ruffled his white hair. He still had a frown when he looked at Parrot, but it felt more as if he was saying, 'You are free for now', rather than 'I'm going to kill you when Egg isn't looking'.
So Parrot would take that as a win.
Now, they just had to get to the debate.