Chapter Text
Everything wrong starts with waking up. Slowly, feeling begins to come back to his arms and legs. The softness of a bed beneath his back, the cold of one foot and arm which remain outside the warmth of his blankets. Wemmbu rubs his eyes with one clawed hand, and stretches lackadaisically, like a cat waking up in the sunlight, eyes blearily opening to look at his— that is not his ceiling. That is not his ceiling.
Wemmbu snaps awake, blinks sleep out of his eyes and sits up, scanning the room. He should have known something was wrong when he woke up like that. He almost never sleeps; his paranoia doesn't allow his too. He doesn't sleep that peacefully, he doesn't wake up slowly and peacefully, usually he's snapped out of his light sleep and jumping out of bed, hand flying to his sword. So, what is going on and why is this not his room?
The room smells like him. It smells right. It feels right, unexplainably, but it isn't. The walls are carved from a dark wood; the bedframe is wooden too. There's a purple rug beside the bed, dresser, vanity with a mirror, closety, all of the amenities a normal room would have, except Wemmbu doesn't have any of them. In fact, his sleeping arrangement had been a mattress in a cave.
There's no structure on Lifesteal that looks like this. Nothing looks amiss, but that doesn't mean it isn't a trap. And, if it is, any sudden movements or noise could alert whoever else is here to his awakeness. Although why wouldn't they kill him when he was asleep? Why put him here in the first place?
Wemmbu startles suddenly, and pats the covers around him, brings up his inventory to flick through, heart jumping. No sword. So, he is officially unarmed, in a new area and doesn't know what he is working with. Great. Fantastic. He turns his gaze to the bedside table. There are a couple framed pictures by the bed. He picks one up, frowning at the figures posed. It's him, but… not. Wemmbu doesn't look like that, and he certainly doesn't have someone so close to him that he would have an arm around them grinning at the camera. It's a seraphim, the only eyes open the ones encircling their head. They have one wing around Wemmbu and are smiling softly. He doesn't know their face at all, but he finds himself smiling a little bit nonetheless, feeling… feeling… warmth? Wemmbu doesn't bother to try and figure out what that means, catching sight of his hands.
Oh, that's wrong, he thinks, at the sight of his black claws, at the way the foreign darkness fades back into purple just shy of his elbows. He was so busy panicking (a rookie move he's honestly ashamed of) that he didn't catch what was obviously wrong in front of him. Is he? He looks back down at the picture, back to his hands. Am I tripping?
He drops the picture, throws the blankets off of himself and runs to the vanity mirror, leaning down, palms on the cool wood.
Lavender skin and darker purple hair that's a lot longer than he usually keeps it. His are wrong though. The black sclera has a filmy look to them, and the purple pupils are blotted with blue-silver in certain parts. His clawed fingers, now digging slightly into the edges of the table are still black, still wrong, wrong, wrong. His clothes are a lot simpler— a simple hoodie and shorts, actual sleepwear. He never has the luxury of that. He has to always be ready. And yet… And yet, he woke up to the sunlight and not to someone trying to slit his throat in his sleep.
Wemmbu pushes himself up into a standing position, presses his clawed fingers to the bridge of his nose. Okay. Okay. Different body, different room, same mind. Still Wemmbu… he thinks. Wings, tail, pointed horns jabbing pitch-black up from his head. Purple skin and hair. Yeah, Wemmbu. Had to be. This Wemmbu just dressed a lot nicer— gold jewelry on horns and everything, lived with an air of comfort and confidence like no one was going to try attacking anytime soon. Or that if anyone did, he would be able to take care of them.
And there he goes, separating them. But they had to be different because Wemmbu would remember this kind of stuff, and yet the only thing he remembers is falling asleep on Lifesteal and waking up… Waking up…
Wemmbu pulls up the sleeve of his left arm. There's no Lifesteal heart tattoos. No visible heart count. Nothing. He fell asleep with like, fifteen hearts to his name, but he feels dead normal. No extra energy boost, nothing to alert him of any of the buffs extra hearts gave him. So, it had to be a normal server.
"What the fuck is going on?" Wemmbu asks himself, laughing quietly to himself as he runs a hand through his hair. He isn't on Lifesteal anymore, isn't even in his normal body, just this one which— he catches a glimpse of his fangs in the mirror — which is so different.
"You're an idiot," he addresses the previous owner of this body, leaning down again and lifting a lip with a finger to check his canines. They're longer and sharper but that isn't why he says that. He says it because the back of his tongue and the entire lining of his throat is stained the same blue-silver as the color that infects the purple in his eyes. Excessive intake of invisibility potions will do this to someone. But why? Why take them if you're so confident in your skill? Especially… Wemmbu catches something in the corner of the mirror's reflection. His grin sharpens as he walks over to it. Especially if you have a mace.
"I haven't seen one of these in ages," he says to himself, picking it up. The indent in the leather grip on the handle fits his hand perfectly. He gives it a look-over, noting the name carved into the handle. Gambit. Not a bad name. Magic thrums underneath his fingers as he lifts it off its spot on the wall. The metal promises to morph into any size he wants if he so asks. Wemmbu smiles to himself and tucks it into his inventory. A sword is here too, right next to the rest of his tools. Don't mind if I do, Wemmbu thinks, tail curling up in pleasure.
Self-defense worries aside, Wemmbu walks around the room to familiarize himself with his surroundings. A window overlooking a frankly terrible… spider looking build? It's got long, leg-like… things protuding from a squarish body… It's an abomination, that's what it is. Wemmbu quickly turns his gaze away from the eyesore and toward the rest of the room. Door leading supposedly to the hallway which is closed, his closet full of clothes— all outfits fit for some kind of prince, ostentatious and ruffly and likely uncomfortable, and, as Wemmbu finds, posessing no shoes outside of heels. What the hell.
"Surely I'm not expected to fight in these," he murmurs to himself, holding up a pair of heeled boots. The toes and heels are gold because why the fuck not. Is the other Wemmbu height conscious or something? Before Wemmbu can even begin to question anything, the door to his room is opened suddenly, and his name spoken from some foreign mouth. Wemmbu drops the shoes and jumps, much like a startled cat. He has enough time to catch a glimpse of the figure— freakishly tall, with big, puffy white wings and a startling number of eyes floating around their head before he tackles them to the ground, pinning them with a well-placed arm to the neck and his claws raised above their head.
"Who the fuck are you?"