Chapter Text
[LS! Wemmbu POV]
The building that housed the banned players was silent. Of course, it was way too early in the morning to expect people to be awake. Even so, Wemmbu was bored. Sure, he knew a handful of the players here, and there were lots of utilities that were free, but Wemmbu wanted to do something exciting (read: fighting). And obviously, the number one rule here was: no PvP-ing. Outside the house, on the floating island, there was a pool, a few gaming stations and parkour courses. Entertaining, but what really caught Wemmbu’s eye was what surrounded it.
The code.
Thinly veiled, it wasn’t even invisible like a player splashed with invis would be. It was just… there. From the corners of your eyes you could see the flickering particles, the giant holograph of numbers, but Wemmbu had discovered from Day 1 that the code seemed to vanish the moment you looked at it head on. He once tried to ask the player in the room next to him, but they just stared at him and asked him what he was talking about. Wemmbu asked a whole lot of different people, but everyone said no. Even Flame. But Wemmbu knew this wasn’t true. He had seen Flame glance at the code briefly before saying no. Still, he didn’t push. If everyone wanted to pretend it didn’t exist, so be it. Let their local hacker step into unexplored territory.
Okay. To be fair, on Wemmbu’s first day, the self-declared admins of the House of the Banned (author note: for convenience i’m gonna call it the HB) had made him promise not to meddle with the code. Wemmbu had promised them. They didn’t believe him. Why would they? This was Wemmbu. He wasn’t going to follow no instructions. Of course, Wemmbu had his fingers crossed. He hadn’t been planning on messing around with anything. In fact, he had prepared himself mentally to wait out for the next season. That was until the admins mentioned the word “code”. Now how in the world was Wemmbu supposed to not meddle with it?
Focus, Wemmbu, he thought. From his perch on the top of the parkour course, the demon could see… pretty much nothing. It was 3am after all — the sky was pitch dark. But normally, this position let him watch the entire server below the HB. He could see the players scurrying around like little animals, see the statues that he had built like giant pinpoints on a map. But most importantly, he could see the windows of most bedrooms in the HB. This meant that he knew who woke up first, who slept in, who spent certain days locked in their rooms. Flame normally stayed in his room until late morning, Mane would head straight to the kitchen, the other players… they were irrelevant. After all, only Flame and Mane would miss him.
See, Wemmbu had a plan. Today, he was going to go and take a look at the code for himself. With his hacks and the amazing power of server code… who knew? Perhaps he could unlock a hidden dimension… perhaps he could revive himself… Power is a greaaaaat thing, and of course, Wemmbu was planning to abuse it. As long as he was back before sundown on the server, no one would know. Unless, of course, he revived himself. That was another matter, but it was a problem for future Wemmbu.
***
[UU Wemmbu POV]
Arachnid was seriously pissing Wemmbu off. This was the fifth meeting he’d called in a day. The first was because he wanted to send Parrot a trojan horse. Second was because Parrot hadn’t fallen for it. Third was for… honestly, Wemmbu couldn’t remember. All he knew was that Arachnid told him to gear up and get here for the next meeting. This one was because… oh! It was because Arachnid lost some gear and blamed Cindercrest.
The meeting room was really just a hastily-put together table in the middle of the largest enclosed storage room. A couple of lanterns, webs and red carpet later, it was apparently Arachnid’s “prized high end war planning room”. The name was stupid, but at least Wemmbu, as second-in-command, got a chair.
Unfortunately, FlameFrags got one too. Flame was looking at Wemmbu, probably trying to pick a fight or something. But Wemmbu was seriously tired. It wasn’t obvious, he was sitting up straight, eyes following whoever was speaking, head tilted. Well, okay. Almost everyone knew he was spacing out, like he always did, but they wouldn’t know how tired he is. After all, they couldn’t see his hand sitting slack against Gambit’s handle, couldn’t see the eye-bags he hid under his bangs, couldn’t see the way his lower half was slumped slightly under the table. And it wasn’t just physically. Wemmbu was getting sick and tired of this entire war, of being the missile for Arachnid who held Egg as leverage. Wemmbu would have left the war a long time ago had it not been for Egg. Whatever Arachnid does, he must not hurt Egg. Wemmbu really wished Arachnid would just free Egg like he promised…
***
[LS! Wemmbu POV]
The invisible platform materialised under Wemmbu’s feet the moment he stepped off his speedbridge. It was… boring. Not boring, as in empty, but boring, in the sense that whoever designed it either lacked fashion sense or had done it at midnight on an hour of sleep. The floor was plain oak wood and there was a giant window of barrier blocks looking over the server. Wemmbu looked around for the console, but it wasn’t what he was expecting. Instead, it was simply a dark grey sphere with a hemispherical indent in the top, supported by what looked like an end rod (author note: imagine a pokimon ball but completly black, the circle is facing the top and looks like the circle in the respawn anchor). The moment he got within a 1 block radius, the hemispherical indent filled with a swirling purple substance and a giant hologram popped up, displaying lines and lines of code. Wemmbu stared at the code, reading through player names, familiar and foreign. His name wasn’t part of it. Then, he realised that none of the banned players existed on this list.
The sun rose behind him, framing the server code room only visible to Wemmbu and Wemmbu alone. Meanwhile, Wemmbu saw a holographic folder hidden with a trash icon marking it. He reached out with a hand to tap it. Paused. Looked at the sparks of electricity flying from the screen. Maybe using his hand wasn’t a good idea. He moved his hand and the projection moved, like he had swiped it. This sure was some futuristic tech. In the list, he saw the names of the banned players, and right at the bottom, his name. Flame and Mane were among them. But many strings of code were tied to his name, unlike the others. Wemmbu looked around. No one could see him. After all, if they did, they would have stopped him by now. Tampering with the server code could crash the server or mess up the season clock. Wemmbu hesitated for a fraction of a second before making contact with the code.
Wemmbu’s face jerked upwards violently as if his head was tied to a rope of sorts, his body going rigid. A loud whooshing, sucking sound later, his vision blurred and white light burned at the edges of his vision. His face scrunched up in pain as he screamed, hoping someone could hear him, but no sound left his mouth. Purple spots danced in front of his eyes as he squeezed them tighter, and he felt a soul-wrenching pain that was worse than anything he’d ever experienced. Maybe this was why he wasn’t supposed to touch the code.
But then, something snapped, like he’d been the rubber band inside of a hair tie and had been ripped out. The pain cleared, as well as his vision, to reveal… absolutely nothing. Yes. He was standing in a completely white room, and his hand was translucent. His inventory was intact, and he tried putting down a crafting table.
It worked.
Same with a furnace. And an e-chest.
The wall to his left was a giant window. Beyond it, he could see… himself? His body. Head cocked towards the sky and body ramrod straight. On the ground, hovering and flickering, looked like an item. It was oddly shaped, well, shaped like a heart, but half of it was a normal red heart, the other half was a black angry heart that Wemmbu vaguely recognised as a hardcore heart. The entire thing was glitching and flickering, with sparks of lightning dancing around it. The centre of the room also held a… respawn anchor? It was right in front of the e-chest, furnace and crafting table he’d placed down. How did he not notice it the moment he spawned in? Curious, Wemmbu clicks the anchor. A flash of light and he was back in his body. He looked up expectantly, but whatever wormhole he’d been had vanished.
He picked up the heart on the ground and right clicked. Immediately, he spawned back into the wormhole, without the pain this time. Interesting… the heart was pulsing in his hand, giving off a faint warmth. It seemed to be dragging him to the opposite end of the room, opposite the window to his body. He right-clicked the wall with the heart and it dissolved into glass.
Behind it, he could see himself. Wait. That’s not him. Wemmbu looks at the player’s username: Wemmbu. The holographic code, swirling around the entire wormhole, suddenly glowed. Videos started playing, Arachnid, Parrot, Saparata, Clownpierce, and caught up amidst their childish territory disputes, was himself. An alternate universe. Where EVERYTHING that Wemmbu knew, didn’t exist. But Wemmbu is a fast learner. He learnt about Wemmbu’s relationships, learnt about Wemmbu’s history, the different Arcs of this new server: Unstable Universe. Wemmbu smiles dryly. These people certainly are unstable. I see why the server name is Unstable SMP. Wemmbu turns his attention back to the other Wemmbu. He is sitting at a meeting table, his face worn with tiredness but defiant in the way Wemmbu’s was when he adamantly refused to admit something. His eyes held the weight of all the wars he’d been through, and he looked on the verge of collapse.
Wemmbu opened the window into a miniature portal, staring at the other version of himself from back view as UU Wemmbu suffered through what was the most boring talk in Wemmbu’s opinion.
“Psst!”
UU Wemmbu jerks his head, looking for the source of the voice.
”Wemmbooooooo! Behind youuu!”
UU Wemmbu spins around, hand tightening around Gambit.
”Who are you, and what are you doing here?” He demanded.
Wemmbu is thrilled at his fighting spirit. “I’m you.”
”No you’re not.”
”Yes I am”
”Prove it.”
”okay my name is wemmbu i’m a demon-hybrid—“
”wrong! i’m an ender-dragon hybrid”
”i was about to say, i’m from a different universe/server. in my world i am a demon-hybrid. it’s basically you but minus the wings.”
UU Wemmbu pauses. It’s at this point that he noticed that the meeting is over and people are leaving, but no one seems to see LS! Wemmbu. Wemmbu smiles.
“They can’t see me, don’t worry.”
UU Wemmbu glares at Wemmbu. “what do you want.”
”…so mean” Wemmbu looks mock offended and clasps his hand to his heart. “you look kinda tired. also on my server i’m kinda just chilling and i’m not a guy who likes chilling.”
”so?”
”um- i was wondering if you wanted to swap with me? your life looks pretty interesting and its basically everything i could have dreamed of. i can fix your problems for you and you can like get some rest”
UU Wemmbu stared. “are you out of your mind?”
Wemmbu laughs, a sound that sounds so painfully identical that UU Wemmbu does a double take. “No, but seriously. I won’t make you lose or die because we’re basically the same person but from different universes.”
***
[UU Wemmbu POV]
Arachnid’s annoying voice was getting on Wemmbu’s nerves. He was beginning to wonder if he could fall asleep without anyone noticing when he heard someone say something near him. But the people on either side of him were focused on the meeting. Then he heard it again. “WEMMBU! BEHIND YOU!” Wemmbu startles and grips Gambit. He whirled around in his seat, preparing the attack the intruder, only to see a glowing portal that appeared to be a mirror. Except that the image of himself was waving and smiling.
Wemmbu stared. It was quite impossible not to. After all, someone was impersonating him…
“who are you, and what do you want” he hissed through gritted teeth.
the person looked at him, appearing mildly insulted. “What do you think? I’m you, of course.”
”I think I can tell whether or not I have a twin, thank you very much”
Wemmbu looks at the insistent person, who does seem to look like him, and groans internally. “prove it then”
The player starts spurting facts, most of which were true until the player said this. “i’m a demon-hybrid”
“wrong! i’m an ender dragon hybrid!” Wemmbu told the player, thinking about his bound wings. The other player proceeds to explain some random nonsense about their server and after a while, Wemmbu catches on. But the meeting is over and players are dispersing, so Wemmbu grabs Gambit and stands up to leave. As the portal bobs after him, Wemmbu can’t help but notice that no one seemed to see this obvious portal.
Wemmbu watches the other him explain how he wanted to help deal with his problems, but he doesn’t really want to do the swap until he gets to know this “LS! Wemmbu” better.
***
[LS! Wemmbu POV]
Wemmbu is vaguely aware that he’s still standing in the wormhole, and that his body is still in the server code platform, but it’s hard to remember that when he’s trying to convince UU Wemmbu to let him do the swap. UU Wemmbu looks really tired, and as far as Wemmbu knew, UU Wemmbu would stay off-season in the HB and could catch a break.
When UU Wemmbu finally nodded slightly, Wemmbu jumped up, face lit up in anticipation. He looked at the heart in his hand and an evil idea came to mind. Turning his back to the portal, he quickly duped the heart before handing it to UU Wemmbu.
They held the heart in their hands and grabbed each other with the other. The background blurred behind them, spinning them faster and faster until all they could see was each other. UU Wemmbu’s eyes were blown wide, in confusion, shock, fear, basically every possible negative emotion. “It might hurt!” Wemmbu yelled over the rushing wind as streaks of light from both of their bodies — Wait. When did he return to his body, or rather, when did his body return to him?!
”WHAT” UU Wemmbu looked betrayed at the thought.
”SEE YA-“ a blinding flash of light, similiar to the one before, appeared in their vision before they passed out.