Chapter Text
The eerie silence that fell over the battlefield was unnerving after everything that had happened. The ground below was littered with the corpses of a thousand players. High above all the destruction, Flame and Wemmbu stood standing as the only players left alive.
As Wemmbu stepped away to organize his inventory, Flame thought about all the chaos that had just occurred. It was over. The thrill of a good fight had long lost its excitement, and now Flame was glad to finally have a moment to breathe before he reclaimed his title. He wasn't going to let Wemmbu get away that easily. But it was nice to just have a moment.
Through all the blur that was a fight against 1000 players, Flame had kept the blindfold on through all of it. Even if fighting would have been easier with sharper senses, he couldn't risk what would happen to him if he took it off. But it was over. The only person nearby was Wemmbu, who seemed to be wrapped up in his own thing. So for just a moment, Flame decided to take off his blindfold.
He wanted to see, to really see. He could see through the fabric, sure, but the full vibrance of the sky and the sun after such a hard fight was different. Flame wanted to see the colors in their full brightness, to enjoy the full view over such a battlefield.
He thought back to what Manepear had told him. "Don't risk it. Never take off the blindfold, unless you're sure you're completely alone. You don't want this happening again."
But as Flame looked out at the sky, he disagreed. He could make his own decisions. It was okay for him to enjoy himself, just a little bit.
He looked back down at his hands to see the blood of thousands on them. His own blood, and the blood of the players he had killed. He did what he had to do.
Now that the battle was over, the mace resting beside him was out of place. He wanted to prove himself, for real this time. He thought about everything he had been through to get to this point. It was time to take back his title.
But when Flame lit the fire to burn the mace and elytra, he didn't pay close enough attention to the fact that the fire looked a bit too bright, a bit too vibrant. It was only when he had already approached the still distracted Wemmbu that Flame realized he had forgotten to put the blindfold back on.
He swung his sword forward at Wemmbu, and Wemmbu turned around. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. Wemmbu locked eyes with Flame, and at the same time Flame's sword made impact, sending them both stumbling back.
Wemmbu looked at him annoyed. "Are we really going to do this?" He clearly got distracted mid-complaining, by noticing Flame's eyes. "I didn't know you had heterochromia."
Flame didn't respond, his mouth wide in horror. He knew what happened if he locked eyes with someone.
"Uh, hello?" Wemmbu looked confused. "Why are you looking at me like that? You attacked me."
Wemmbu flew up into the air, coming down in an attempt to mace Flame. Flame dodged the attack just in time.
"You don't understand what just happened, bro." Flame said. "I just-"
He was cut off by Wemmbu macing him again, this time successfully. Flame gripped his ribcage from the force of the impact. Wemmbu grunted, falling to the ground.
"What was that?" Wemmbu questioned frantically, also gripping his own ribcage in the exact same spot. "I didn't see you land a hit on me at all!"
"Yeah, bro." Flame explained. "It's my curse. The reason I wear the blindfold. Now we looked each other in the eyes, so we're linked to each other, bro. If one of us takes damage, so does the other." He picked up the blindfold from where he had left it and put it back on. He didn't want to make an already bad situation worse by locking eyes with another person.
"You're making that up." Wemmbu accused.
Flame smacked his own knee into a wall. Wemmbu gripped his knee in pain at the shared injury.
"Ow, you need to stop doing that!" Wemmbu complained. "Fine, I believe you. But what do we do about it?"
"I don't know. I don't really know how it works, bro." Flame admitted.
"How do you not know how your own curse works?" Wemmbu asked.
"Uh, it's kind of a long story, bro." Flame didn't really want to explain it. It wasn't really any of Wemmbu's business what Flame had been through in the past.
"Fine, let's test it, then." Wemmbu said. He took a bite of a golden apple. "Does this heal you?"
As Wemmbu bit into the golden apple, Flame felt his own health regenerate as well and the pain from his injuries start to numb, although he didn't get any absorption hearts.
"Yeah, it does." Flame confirmed. He pulled out his sword and stabbed himself, hurting both of them.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
"How much health are you on now?" Flame asked.
Wemmbu checked his health bar. "7 and a half hearts. Why?"
Flame looked down at his own health bar to see 5 and a half hearts. Exactly two less than Wemmbu. So they took the same damage, and regenerated the same amount of health, but they didn't share absorption hearts.
"No reason." Flame lied. He ate a gapple to heal both of them back to full.
"So we should probably work together to figure out how to undo this." Wemmbu said awkwardly.
Flame considered it. He didn't like that idea. They had already worked together to take down those 1000 players, and now Flame just wanted to reclaim his title as the strongest. By winning in a fight against Wemmbu.
If only he hadn't messed everything up by taking off the blindfold. Now, Flame didn't know how to break the link. There was only one person who did know.
But it would take forever to track down Manepear. Flame wanted to defeat Wemmbu right now.
"What about our rematch, bro?" Flame pointed out.
"Our health is linked!" Wemmbu replied. "I don't think we can even do a rematch until we figure out how to fix this!"
"Sure, but if we could, you know I would win." Flame said confidently.
"No, I would definitely win!" Wemmbu argued.
"You wanna find out, bro?" Flame challenged. He was tired of waiting for his rematch. He was getting his rematch here and now, regardless of the current situation.
There was at least a possible way to win, since they didn't share absorption hearts. So even though it would be hard, and recklessly stupid, to fight someone whose health was linked with his, Flame decided he needed to seize the opportunity.
Flame ate a golden apple and ran into battle. Technically, he could just stab himself repeatedly to damage Wemmbu, but he wanted a real fight, and that would be a cheap way to win.
Wemmbu seemed at least somewhat surprised that Flame was still trying to fight him. "What are you doing? This is a bad idea!"
"I'm gonna win, bro." Flame said as he slashed at Wemmbu with his sword. Every hit, Flame felt the pain of his own attacks. But he was confident that he was more used to fighting while life-linked to his opponent than Wemmbu was.
Wemmbu flew up into the air and maced Flame. When the blow hit, Wemmbu's movement stuttered as he felt the impact of his own attack. His aerial fighting style meant that he wasn't used to tanking a lot of damage, and couldn't recover from being hit as easily. He ate a golden apple to regenerate his health faster.
"Thanks for the healing, bro." Flame chuckled, eating a golden apple of his own to get absorption hearts as well. He continued to attack Wemmbu, who was growing increasingly annoyed by the second.
"This is ridiculous." Wemmbu whined. "How are we even supposed to fight like this?"
Flame looked at his armor durability to find that thankfully, his armor was not taking twice the durability damage. If Flame got more hits in than Wemmbu, and used the absorption hearts from a golden apple, he could win the fight. He continued to fight against a very annoyed and distracted Wemmbu.
Wemmbu pulled out the fishing rod for his last remaining stab shot. He contemplated whether to use it, but there would be no point. It would pop both of their totems. He didn't understand why Flame was even still trying to fight him at this point. Wemmbu just decided to keep macing, but even then he was putting less force behind it than usual since he knew he had to feel the pain of each hit he successfully got.
Finally, after some more fighting, Wemmbu's helmet broke. This meant that he was taking more damage, but it also meant that Flame was taking more damage as well.
By this point, Wemmbu wasn't even eating gapples, and Flame was doing all the healing for both of them. Unfortunately, the extra absorption hearts didn't do much to create a differential between their health, since the regeneration kept healing Wemmbu when they both took damage.
"This is stupid!" Wemmbu continued to complain, although he still participated in the fight anyway. If he wanted to run away, he probably would have done so already.
Flame's helmet broke as well, and that pushed both of them to the point where they were taking too much damage to realistically fight each other. Wemmbu maced him again, and nearly killed both of them.
"If we keep fighting, we're both gonna die." Wemmbu pointed out, backing off since both their health got dangerously low.
"Yeah bro, I guess." Flame acknowledged.
"So what now?" Wemmbu asked. "We should probably work together to figure out how to break the link." he suggested.
"Nah bro, I'll figure it out myself." Flame said confidently. He started to walk away, but Wemmbu elytra'd to catch up.
"Are you being serious right now? Our health is linked!" Wemmbu crashed out.
"Just because our health is linked, doesn't make us teammates." Flame said. "I can figure this out on my own, bro. I know more about how my curse works than you do."
"So what am I supposed to do, then?" Wemmbu asked. "You can't just be like, 'Sorry, I activated a curse I know nothing about and linked our health together. Anyway, I'm leaving, good luck!'"
"That's exactly what I'm doing, bro." Flame said. He pearled away.
Wemmbu tried to elytra after him, but used up his last rocket and could no longer catch up.
"How's that rocket supply looking?" Flame taunted.
Wemmbu watched in frustration as Flame pearled further and further away. Every time the pearl landed, Wemmbu took damage from it as well.
Later…
Wemmbu was in the End, in the process of regearing, when he suddenly started taking damage.
Eggchan looked over from across the room. "Are you taking damage randomly or am I imagining things?"
Wemmbu ate a gapple. "It's a long story."
Egg grabbed a book and quill. "It's a good thing I keep record of the stories on this server. Spill the tea."
"Long story short," Wemmbu explained, "I'm currently life-linked to Flame."
"That's wild." Egg commented. "I don't know what I would do if I was life-linked to one of my opps."
Wemmbu loudly started giggling at Eggchan's absurd statement. "Who even are your opps!?"
"It would put you in danger if you knew." Egg ominously proclaimed.
"One sec." Wemmbu continued taking damage, and he started typing out a message to Flame.
you whisper to FlameFrags: STOP
After a few seconds Flame responded.
FlameFrags whispers to you: busy, can't talk rn
Wemmbu kept taking damage from whatever Flame was currently doing. Annoyed, he ate some more gapples.
Eggchan took more notes. "This is fascinating."
"Maybe for you, but for me it's just annoying." Wemmbu complained.
"What is he even doing right now?" Egg asked as Wemmbu continued taking damage.
Wemmbu shrugged. "I have no idea. Probably in a random fight."
"You don't even know what he's up to?"
"Well, he refused to work together with me." Wemmbu said between bites of a gapple. "He said he would figure out on his own how to break the link."
"That's ridiculous." Eggchan argued. "Maybe we should try to figure it out as well, in case he doesn't get anywhere with it."
"Good idea." Wemmbu finally stopped taking damage. He looked at his messages when another one came in.
FlameFrags whispers to you: sorry, was fighting lawmen
Wemmbu groaned.