Work Text:
Wemmbu knew the rematch had to happen eventually, after all, the entire "2 vs 1000 people" was just a temporal obstacle to their previous plan. He couldn't help bit feel a bit of betrayal tough. In his mind, after the whole thing, they would probably search the place for the loot that had not despawned yet. Maybe they would talk about their fight, how this particular guy was, how many they were, how this went, how that happened. And then they would organize their shulkers and reschedule the fight for another day to rest and regear. He really should have seen this coming.
As he was falling from the ledge, his entire world spinning, he looked at FlameFrags for a split second. He was grinning. Wemmbu positioned himself properly and took off with his elytra, and the betrayal from earlier was replaced by a spreading anger, a bit of resentment, and maybe a twist of disappointment.
Despite the situation, Wemmbu didn't think the fight would last long. They were both exhausted, drained of their ressources, and hurt. He knew eventually Flame would stop the fight. And they would go back from wherever they came from. And see their friends again. And be fine.
And as the exhange progressed, they both shared some banter between them. Some observations here and then. Wemmbu wasn't too focused on them. At first he responded with a hoppefully more snarky remark, or a dismissive answer, but as the fight kept going, he grew more quiet as a tought consumed his mind.
Flame didn't look nearly as exhausted as Wemmbu felt. It was strange, because after all this, he surely felt tired, right? The previous war lasted for what felt like forever, and knowing how powerful both are, Wemmbu expected to at least see him less lively, like he was, and yet the so called "Immortal Demon" was living up to his name, because he fought like he just showed up.
It was enough to distract him, to the point were the tenporary numbness the golden apples gave him was giving away, letting the wounds on his body make themselves present. He searched his inventory for more gapples, and with a chilling sensation he realized that it was filled a bunch of nothing.
It was as if suddenly the severity of the situation came crashing to him in a split second. He barely had potions left, and the ones who were available were almost useless. He didn't have that much food left, only a few rapidly decreasing golden carrots. He was exhausted of the fights. It felt as if his body was being articulated by a bunch of sewing treads ready to snap at any moment, and his senses started to fail him, making him stumble, miss his shots and poorly dodge his opponents' attacks. And the cherry on top, one of his most feared situations, his durability was incredibly low. Wemmbu could not let his armor break. It was crucial for it to stay in one piece, as Wemmbu had already used his replacement, and he couldn't just pick any pieces that may still be on the ground.
A new shot of adrenaline, fueled by fear, traveled across him, and he took the opportunity to run and hoppefuly make a plan. Running away wasn't an option, because he wasn't weak. Talking to Flame wasn't an option either, since the demon would just press harder once he sensed Wemmbu was low. Maybe he could call someone to help him? But this was a battle between the two of them.
Wemmbu could hear Flame aproaching him. He was using windcharges to maneuver around the uneven ground. Wemmbu had long ran out of them. He was getting closer. Wemmbu's heartbeat drummed across his body. Flame hit him, dealing hearts of damage yet boosting him forwards. Wemmbu's vision was half covered by dark sploches, swirling around like the wind, and his body and mind was slowly giving up on him. Flame taunted him. Wemmbu barely registred the sounds around him.
Suddenly, Wemmbu triped on a particularly deep crater, a consequence of his own actions. As he fell face first in the slightly deep hole, his chesplate, along his pants, broke simultaneously .Flame had seen Wemmbu fall. In fact, just as he fell, Flame had used a windcharge to position himself directly on top of the unfortunate man, to come down and land a good hit on Wemmbu. No one had enough time to react properly.
At the sight below him, Flame widened his eyes in shock, and in his trance the trajectory of his sword shifted to the left, landing directly across Wemmbu's...wing?.
It plunged on his membrane, burrowing deep in the ground below. Wemmbu screeched, louder than ever before, and from his mouth came sounds no human could ever produce. The sheer amount of pain he was feeling was inexplainable. The membrane of his wings was laced with thousands of nerve endings to be able to sense and adapt to the wind, and due to this any injury to them would be incredibly more painful than any other pain he would ever feel. At the sharp, spreading feeling, his body shook, and he instinctively tried to get out, lifting his massive his wings, causing more pain to slice trough his body.
Flame stood there doumbfounded. Never in his life would he have tought that Wemmbu was a hybrid. Usually hybrids can't hide their features under armor unless those features were small enough, wich was rarely the case. Wemmbu's wings were massive, and his tail was freakishly long too. And looking at his legs, they seemed to be more antropomorphic than human, and he had horns that literally jutted out from the sides of his head and rised upwards, so it was completely illogical how he managed to fit all that under such tiny space.
The part that confused the most tough, was the hybrid that Wemmbu was. Never in his life had Flame seen a hybrid like him. Wemmbu's wings spread and shook like a bird's wings, with the short feathers on the top neatly positioned, but instead of the long feathers that supported flight, long extremities connected membrane together that spread across a slight part of the tail too, similar to a bat's wing. That was the part that captivated him the most. Wemmbu's tail, trashing around, forcing Flame to move to so he wasn't hit by it, was just a long spine extension that ended in a prolonged tuft of long hair. Wemmbu's legs, barely visible under the wings and tail, looked like Lopez's cat legs, but with claws. His arms had fur on them, his hands were clawing desperatly at the ground. His horns came out from the sides of his head, and turned sharply upwards, leaning towards eachother slightly. His ears would normally dangle downards, but now they were pulled back in a twist of tremendous agony. But his wings, carefully taken care of, now stained with dark purple blood, were the most capturing thing of the scene.
Flame didn't have time to observe any longer, because Wemmbu's mind was overtaken by his instincts, who screamed at him to get out, despite being pratically nailed to the ground. This resulted in his body trembling and trashing around again, and his injured wing hurting once more. Tears started to fall down his face.
"Oh shoot"
As if suddenly pulled back to reality, FlameFrags audibly cursed, and tried to conjure up a plan to get the sword out. Since Wemmbu kept moving around, despite Flame telling him to stop, he decided the best curse of action was to hold down the wing and slide the sword out. Due to the wingspawn tough, it was a bit tricky, and he needed both hands to oull it out since it was embedded pretty deeply into the ground.
Time kept ticking, Wemmbu kept yowling, and Flame was still fumbling around. Eventually, he decided to jus get over with it quickly, stepped on the wing, causing another hurtful screech, both to Wemmbu and Flame's ears, and finally slid the sword out. And Wemmbu, obviously, kept screaming.
Now that he was free, Wemmbu immediatly got up, wich made his vision swirl, and tried to run away despite barely being able to walk, seeing maybe a third of the world, low on everything except agony,
and loosing blood every second.
"Oh no bro, you ain't getting away from this bro"
He heard a voice behind him say, and hurrid footsteps hetting closer by the second, but this only made him want to keep going, and faster. Wemmbu only made it a few meters before his vision blacked out entirely for a second, disorienting him, making his foot get caught in a hole, consecutively twisting it and falling face first into the ground, where his body finally gave up with all of the noise and pain and feelings and rushing and just simply shut down, making Wemmbu pass out.
This whole thing happened in maybe ten or fifteen seconds, and the other witness to this scenario was quick to catch up to the now winged man. In those seconds Flame came to the conclusion that Wemmbu was gonna die if he didn't do something quickly, so he fumbled with the other hybrid's body, trying to somehow hold him, and when he found a most definitively not comfortable position, he set off to running as quickly as possible, all the way to an end portal. Troughout the trip, the half demon and tiger man threw healing and regeneration potions at the other, hoping to somehow slow down the bleeding until they got to the safe place.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wemmbu woke up, still half dazed from some recognisable, heavy treatments Eggchan would give him after a rough battle, and immediatly recognised that he was not wearing armor, leaving him exposed, and there was a conversation happening on the other side of a door. Wemmbu knew that he was in his room, and the memories of how he even got there started to appear in his head, tough the end was still a bit hazy. He also realised that he was under a heavier dossage of whatever his friend gave him, that made his body slugish. And lastly, he was covered in bandages and his left wing stinged with manageable pain.
Wemmby stayed silent, hoping to catch a bit of the conversation happening on the other side of that wooden door. By this point, he had a pretty good guess on what happened. It was hard to listen to who he identified as Egg and FlameFrags, so he only picked up that Flame was explaining what happened, amd then asking what was up with this whole thing, and Egg saying that Wemmbu himself never actually told Egg exactly what hybrid he was, and the only explanation he gave as to why he hid all the time was that he needed to watch out for "DragonHunters".
After some confusion and a clarification that never came, they switched to some friendly chatting, and Wemmbu couldn't pick up recognisable key words, up until Egg got up from his chair, and said, as he approached the door, something about checking up on Wemmbu because he probably was awake and listening to their conversation. Egg knew him so well. Wich is why he didn't bother to pretend to be asleep when he opened the door.
"Yo, do you mind if Flame comes in?"
Was the first thing Egg said as he entered the room. Wemmbu, half conscious, still found in himself the strength to heavily disagree. He would not let his rival see him like this, despite what happened a few hours ago. Flame, who did not see the head shaking, got up from his seat and made his way over to the now slightly crowded room.
The two stared at eachother for a second. FlameFrags, the skilled fighter, could very easily kill Wemmbu in this instant. He wouldn't even need potions. They were both very aware oh this. Wemmbu was tense, as much as the medication allowed him to be. Flame hovered his hand over an inexistent sword. The silence was deafening. Flame cut trough it first.
"You better have a great explanation for this, bro."
Guess the time has come for Wemmbu. He wasn't ready for this. Wemmbu visibly, and audibly groaned, pulling his ears back and letting a low growl escape his throat.
"Wemmbu, bro, don't act like this. This is serious. How long have you been hiding this for? Why didn't you tell anyone? Who are the DragonHunters? You need to explain, like, right now bro"
Wemmbu rolled his eyes. At the moment, his mind was still hazy, yet that didn't stop him from the dawning realisation that his life would probably change drastically after this. He looked down for a second, deciding what to start with, before deciding to just simply let the others decide. He was too tired for this.
"Well, what do-... you wanna hear first?"
Eggchan got up to fetch Wemmbu a glass of water once he heard how he heard how bad his throat was.
"Uh, I don't know bro. Like, what even are you in the first place bro?"
"An... ender dragon hybrid. More specifically a rare mix between- a feathered and bat-winged dragon hybrid"
Flame didn't know what the last thing of that sentence meant. He knew of the existence of ender dragon hybrids, they were the rarest hybrid species out there after all, but he didn't know that there existed differents types of them. At least that explained the weird wings.
"I'm surprised you didn't-... didn't recognise what I was when you... saw me"
Eggchan had now came back with the glass of water. He passed it to Wemmbu, who took a gulp of water.
"Egg, aren't you supposed to be like, the server's lore keeper or something? Like, bro, how did you not know what he was?" Asked Flame.
"Well the books never speak about dragon hybrids, even the rare ones. I found it odd at first but I tought it was because nobody really did some research about them, and it's not like you would just find one of them roaming around the streets"
The way he said that last thing rubbed Wemmbu the wrong way. It almost felt derogatory. There was silence in the room for a few seconds. Egg was about to speak, but he was suddenly cut off by FlameFrags.
"Wait, Wemmbu, aren't ender dragons like, really powerful and strong? Wemmbu, bro, you could have beaten me any time you liked! Bro, you're stronger than me. You could've just maced using your wings instead of having to worry about fireworks!"
Flame looked at him bewildered. Egg was surprised. Yet again, the room was filled with silence. Wemmbu refused to look him in the eyes. Everything that he said was true. With enough training Wemmbu could very well surpass Flame and easily claim victory over him. He was stronger, more agile, and his species paired well with his fighting style. The space between the three players was tense yet again. They both looked at him, waiting.
"Well, would it be honorable to win like that? I mean, it's kind of like an unfair advantage-"
"Oh, so now you want to talk about honour!? Bro, when have you ever been fighting honorably!? You're not making sense, Wemmbu! That's not real reason and we know it, bro"
Flame yelled out, snapping Wemmbu's talking. He also flinched slightly, the loud noise making an unpleseant pain in his ears. He was looking away, yet again. Wemmbu could feel Flame's body temperature going up, a common experience when he got angry. Wemmbu clenched his claws, slightly crinkling the sheets. His shoulders shook, but only Egg noticed.
"I.."
Wemmbu took a long breath, composing himself. Egg offered the glass of water, but he refused. Flame waited impatiently. Eventually, he looked back towards him.
"I promised my mom... that... I wouldn't use my... 'ender dragon powers' to kill innocent people. There. I said it. Happy?"
"That cannot be true bro. I know you, Wemmbu, and you would use everything you can to your advantage if it's to win a fight, especially if you're a dragon hybrid. You probably just made that whole thing up. Your mom is probably out there living the best of her life while you're making up these stories of her"
That seemed to strike a nerve in Wemmbu. He could take other people saying bad stuff about him, sure, that could happen, but he would not tolerate anything like this about her mother. His eyes immediatly looked into Flame's. He bared his sharp teeth, growling loudly, and raised, to the best of his ability, his wings.
"Do not disrespect my mom like that, Flame. Do you not even know the amount of struggles she went trough trying to raise me!? I would be dead if it wasn't for her!"
"What troubles, bro!? You're literally rich! Like, you're an ender dragon! You can just kill anyone that blocks your path! Like, bro, why even hide in the first place!?"
"We were being hunted, Flame! Hunted! All my life, ever since I was born, the DragonHunters have had a bounty on our heads worth, like, thousands of stacks of netherite or something! Do you even know how hard life is when you're constantly on the run and trying to keep a child alive!?"
"You're just making stuff up again, bro! Who even are the DragonHunters!?"
Suddenly, the entire room went silent again. There was a moment where Wemmbu looked at FlameFrags, in complete bewilderment, before talking again.
"... you don't know who the DragonHunters are?"
Immediatly Wemmbu quieted down. The previous heated argument was cut short by the growing confusion in the dragon's head, and the demon in front of him noticed so too. There was something off in the situation, something that both fighters seemed to ignore. Except for Eggchan.
"Yo guys, maybe it's time to calm down. Arguing won't lead to anywhere and there's clearly something missing here."
They both turned to him. Wemmbu was clearly agitated, and so was FlameFrags. Egg felt pretty uncomfortable as he suddenly realised they could both kill him in an instant.
"Um...Wemmbu, how about you start from the beginning? Thay way we could clear up any missinformation in here. Then we could make an opinion based off of that."
Nobody made a move in what felt like forever. Egg almost tried to speak again before things got heated, but Flame just looked back at Wemmbu, and slowly backed away.
"Don't make this too long, bro, I'm not in the mood to hear a Parrot wanna-be"
"...D'aaalright"
Mumbled Wemmbu, as drank he some water before speaking up again.
"You guys know about the HybridHunters right? "
Flame looked towards Egg, expecting him to have any answer to the question, but was surprised to see that the angel was looking at him expectantly, also seeking answers. There was a short silence, and Wemmbu, much to his dismay, had to speak up again.
"How are you alive? "
He asked, surprised, as the two others looked back at him in confusion.
"You both are some of the rarest forms of hybrids on this world and you've never heard of the HybridHunters!?"
"Just keep on explaining bro, I don't have all day"
That was a lie, Flame did have a lot of time to spare after this, he just wanted to dodge the question. Wemmbu sighed.
"Alright, so basically a group of humans thought that hybrids wanted to take over the server and obliterate them, so they decided that they would kill them first. Obviously no one would believe them if they said that, so they said that it was unfair for hybrids to have 'extra abilities', and a lot of people believed them then. "
"Wait hold on, I need write this down"
Said Eggchan, as he pulled out his book and a quill from practically nowhere. Flame look at him strangely, but averted his gaze back to Wemmbu as he chuckled lightly.
"So the thing is, the HybridHunters needed funds for their organisation, so they decided that they would start to sell hybrids, wether dead or alive, on the black market. "
The air around the three of them grew uncomfortable as he said that. Flame's eyes hardened around the edges and Eggchan dropped his smile as Wemmbu's voice took a dark tone.
"This started to happen like 20 years ago or something, and since they where winning so much money, the HybridHunters were able to dedicate a part of the black market purely to their sick desires. "
Egg stirred uncomfortably in his chair. He did not want to imagine what happened in those dark halls. During part of his existence, he had been sheltered in the Aether, never wanting to come out, since his peers would always tell horrible stories of humans massacring their kind. He imagined the worst for those poor hybrids.
"They eventually got so greedy, that they opened a new faction dedicated entirely to hunting ender dragons, because they were the best selling taxidermy, or... slaves... that they could offer.
Wemmbu spoke of the last words with hatred and disgust in his voice. He remembered the one time he got captured by those humans. It was only for a week, since his mom fought like the warrior she was to get him back, but in that week, he saw the horrors of how the others were treated, and occasionally he suffered too. There was a moment where he stared emptily at the ground on his right, before picking back up the conversation.
" That's who they reffered to as the DragonHunters, and I was a very special target for them. I said earlier how I was a rare variant, but they also hunted me due to my increased healing powers. Usually , when near of an end crystal, most dragons hybrids can heal a few of their injuries, but I was granted the ability to regenerate almost everything in my body, basically making me a money farm. "
Flame, who had been standing at the foot of his bed, looked at him with wide eyes. It was as if he was trying to capture Wemmbu with his gaze, and assimilate him to a version of him he never even knew was possible. He suddenly took notice of the few scars that littered his wings membrane.
"... And where is your mom now? "
He asked, his voice low and wavering. It was the question that had been in his mind for the past minute. He could almost feel how Egg also wanted to ask the same question, but was too afraid to do so.
The room grew tense again, and they both could feel how Wemmbu didn't want to answer the question. He had looked away at the floor again, and was slightly crimpling the sheets in his claws. There could only be heard the soft breathing of Wemmbu.
"I... I don't know"
Wemmbu's voice was barely heard, but the tiger hybrid managed to pick up on it. He could tell how the dragon was fighting back tears, by the way his ears lowered and his voice broke slightly. It made him immediately regret asking the question. He didn't realize how much empathy he could hold for his so called "rival".
A few more seconds passed by of deafening silence, and Wemmbu managed to compose himself.
" You... You don't know? "
This time, it was Egg who spoke up. He had been listening to the conversation and taking a few notes, as quietly as possible so as to not seem rude. Truth be told, he was afraid of speaking in the presence of FlameFrags, the Immortal Demon, especially with Wemmbu not being in a position of fighting back. Still, it could not hold back his growing worry and curiosity of his friend's life.
Wemmbu on the other hand, was glad to have heard the voice of another person other than Flame. He wasn't scared of him, but his tone made him feel like he was obligated to answer. It calmed him to know Egg was still there.
Before answering, he took his time to slowly bring his knees up to his chest, and slightly wrap his wings around him. His mom would do it all the time to him, to comfort him when times got bad.
"We were in the End. My mom had managed to find another group of dragon hybrids, but they weren't showing up. Time kept going, and eventually one of them came by, left a note, and left"
As he said that, he could almost picture himself back at that moments, watching them as they jumped back trough the portal without saying anything. His mom's eyes had lit up with hope, but were quickly replaced by confusion and a growing sense of dread as she picked up that note.
"The note said that we were now the last free standing dragons, because they had joined the Dragon Hunters"
"Isn't that like, the entire opposite thing that they should be doing? "
Flame interrupted, in shock of what he heard. Wemmbu continued.
"Some dragon hybrids were granted a chance to live if the DragonHunters deemed them strong enough, but they had to join them. My mom broke down crying in that moment. She hugged me tightly, and made me swear that I would never, ever in my life use my dragon abilities to hurt others who are innocent, or just simply have nothing to do with this. "
Wemmbu paused his story, expecting someone to chip in or interrupt him. Seeing as that didn't happen, he continued.
"Moments later, a hoard of DragonHunters cmar at us. She let go of me and threw me into the portal. She was about to go in too, but they took her, and I never saw her *hic*... again. "
His voice broke at the end, and Wemmbu buried his face in his knees as he surrounded himself tightly with his wings, seeking the comfort he once had. As he sobbed quietly, Flame could not avoid standing there completely dumbfounded.
Suddenly everything clicked in their heads, for both Eggchan and FlameFrags. That was the reason Wemmbu hid his true self. Why he wanted to become stronger. Why he always worried so much about his armor, it was enchanted with shapeshifting, allowing him to hide.
Eggchan put his book aside, after all, he hadn't written down anything in a good while. He moved to sit alongside Wemmbu, and offered a hug as he tried to wrap his several wings around him. Wemmbu leaned into the touch, trying to replicate what he wanted the most.
Flame stood aside for a few uncomfortable seconds, before moving to the other side and offering a hand on his shaky shoulders.
He wasn't sure how things would play out between them after this, because he certainly wouldn't look at him again the same way, and he didn't want to think about how dangerous those HybridHunters would be to him, but whathever it was, he sure hoped he could be alongside Wemmbu. After all, he had been thing about him, and how he maybe didn't wanna keep being rivals.