Chapter Text
MinuteTech's life has been going downhill the last couple of months.
He had a perfect life, he thought. He had enough of everything so that he didn't need to go the overworld for resources or something else. But it had to get ruined.
People kept trying to force their way in the end, leaving no other choice but violence for Minute. That type of thing wasn't rare, but more and more people kept coming. Everytime they either got stronger, or Minute was getting tired. What he did notice was that people have started wearing netherite. He also noticed his storage having less and less items. Weirdly enough, he knew he wasn't taking that much. That was going for weeks until it didn't.
He knew one thing-- he can't stay in the end for long. His armor is almost broken, he has no items left, and his elytra is close to being broken so getting the stashes he's hidden around the end isn't an option. Well, he could walk by foot, but he'd spend more resources getting there. He had to start going to the overworld for jobs and resources.
It just had to get worse.
Minute was looking through what's left of his storage, grabbing a few breeze rods as well as a stack of wind charges, some golden apples and some potions if he had to fight-- He was going to collect bounties, of course he'd fight. As he was closing the last chest, he heard something. He grabbed his sword, ready to face whatever it was.
What he didn't expect to see was a kid, curled up next to one of the obsidian towers, crying. Minute quickly sheathed his sword, slowly coming up to the kid. As he was getting closer he saw the child's clothes were bloody, and he didn't have wings. That's weird, considering he looked like an end hybrid as well. He had horns, his skin was pale. 'Purple, even.' Minute thought. He hurried up, closing the distance between him and the child.
The purple child sat up straight, looking up to see a figure in armor coming towards him. He covered himself with his hands, expecting a final blow to end him. Instead, he got picked up by the person in the armor, and tried to fight his way out of the man's arms. After a minute of trying to break out, the sleep got better of him.
By the time the child woke up on a soft bed, he couldn't help but notice he had fresh clothes, that were awfully cut to his size, his injuries covered by bandages, and his wings-- His hands moved to his back, flatness met his touch. Yes, he was a child that was yet to be trained-- he can't be trained anymore-- but he still understood the beauty of his wings. He felt his face tremble as tears started to form. During these seconds, he turned to see Minute walking down the stairs to check on the child who was awake.
"You're awake." Minute stated the obvious.
He was met with silence as the child broke down once again.
Minute's face softened, and he walked up to the child, hugging him. He didn't wear armor this time, so he felt his suit's shoulder get wet. "It's okay. We can talk later."
They stayed like this for a while until the child was starting to get a headache from all the crying, so he had no other choice but to stop. He pulled back, rubbing his eyes.
"Do you wanna talk or are you hungry?" Minute wiped the tears off of the child's face with his forearm.
The child nodded, muttering a soft "Both..."
Minute nodded, grabbing a golden apple from his inventory. He handed it to the child as he sat down on the bed.
"Let's start with something simple. What's your name?" Minute ruffled the boy's hair and pulled his arm back as the child flinched at the contact.
"We-.. mm... Wemm-- Bu. Wemmbu." Wemmbu muttered, slowly biting down onto the apple.
"Wemmbu it is! That's a nice name. I'm MinuteTech. Minute. I'm the guardian of this realm, so you're free to feel safe here."
Minute smiled, grabbing the golden apple from the Wemmbu's hands and grabbing his pocket knife, cutting the apple into pieces, handing them to Wemmbu one by one.
"How old are you, Wemmbu?" Minute knew that question is weird, since Wemmbu probably didn't have an answer to that. "You probably don't know. By the looks of it you're--"
"I'm nine!" Wemmbu cut him off, puffing up. He's really proud of it.
"I was actually going to say eight, so we were going to be close." Minute smiled again. This is the first company where he didn’t have to fight during these couple of months.
"No! I'm nine. Nine." He looked down at his hands, putting up nine of his fingers, showing them to Minute.
"I know you're nine, Wemmbu. I'm just saying I was going to be close if I said you're eight."
"I'm nine!" Wemmbu shook his head, showing Minute the same nine fingers.
"Nine it is." Minute stood up, stretching. "I'm going to grab you some steak. If you feel better, walk with me."
Wemmbu nodded, crawling out of the bed and standing up as well, following Minute.
Minute didn't understand why the child trusted him so fast, but he didn't wanna ask about his past so soon. They reached the food storage, and Minute walked up to the chest that had some steaks.
"Golden apples are superior than most of the food resources, but your body still needs protein, Wemmbu. Golden apples-- Gaps, that's how we call them, fill your hunger quickly and usually regenerate your injuries, especially if they're not that bad. I fed you them when you were sleeping. Steak on the other hand is rich with nutrition your body needs. It gets you full and..." Minute looked down at Wemmbu, who already wandered off to other chests and clearly wasn't paying attention.
"Wemmbu! I'm talking to you." Minute walked up to the child, leaning down and patting his shoulder.
Wemmbu closed a chest and turned around, looking up. His mouth was full of cake and his lips were all greasy with cake toppings. He giggled.
"Wemmbu..." Minute grabbed a spare towel that just happened laying on a chest near them, and wiped the cake from Wemmbu's lips. "Any chest that has something sweet in it is getting locked down." He muttered.
Wemmbu got a lecture why he should listen to Minute and why he should never sneak behind him. He didn't really listen, he was just forced to sit near Minute while he was somewhere in the clouds, still focused on how good the cake tasted.
Minute had no other choice but stay with Wemmbu, wasting his last resources that could of been kept for months, but Wemmbu is curious about everything, so...
Couple of weeks have passed.
Minute was deep in his bed, counting sheeps when he felt someone-- Wemmbu tugging on his leg. He opened his eyes to see Wemmbu, his eyes full of tears as he was trembling.
"Oh, Wemmbu... What happened?" He quickly sat up, pulling Wemmbu onto his lap, hugging him.
'I-.. I had this... D-dream about..." Wemmbu started crying again, resulting in Minute having to soothe him down again.
"Shh... We can talk about it later. Calm down first." Minute's hand rested on Wemmbu's back.
Few minutes later Wemmbu did calm down, but he still was grabbing onto Minute as if he let go he'd die. "I had a dream, where... When you took me in, you left me the next day, a-and I was all alone..." The words came out uneven, as if they hurt to say.
"I'm not going anywhere, Wemmbu." he said softly. "It's just a bad dream."
"Y-you promise?" Wemmbu whispered.
Minute hesitated. Just enough so that Wemmbu wouldn't notice.
"I promise."
They stayed like that for a few couple of minutes.
"Can I stay here?" Wemmbu asked. "... Just for tonight, at least." He hesitated saying that, and Minute felt that.
"Wemmbu... You don’t have to ask these questions." Minute put Wemmbu down near him, pulling the blanket over both of them.
Minute waited for Wemmbu to fall asleep before he let himself sleep.