Chapter Text
Your eyes trailed Wemmbu, amused curiosity radiating off of you.
It wasn’t often that the demon invited people to private SMPs-- and, quite frankly, you and him aren’t the bestest of friends or anything, so the specific request for you and another friend, Eggchan, is a little concerning, to say the least.
You still felt the lightness of being a new player. The natural, unaimed curiosity, and the urgent need to explore and see every wonderful thing a new server had to offer. And, most importantly, the empty inventory.
You were wise enough, upon first materializing into the world in a flash of white, to know the vulnerability you’d have. Something entirely out of your control based on what transpired after spawning.
No elaborate tricks, you mused internally, studying the surprisingly peaceful spawn. No fire and no withers or terrible monsters to fight. No void traps and no suffering. Wemmbu paced below the tree you and Egg stood atop, murmuring to himself loudly, hand on his chin.
No tricks… yet.
The silence was quickly broken by a light-hearted joke, the person's monotone voice catching quite pleasantly on your ears. "Can’t be this serious, bro,” Emeggchan chuckled loudly, catching onto the slight distress Wemmbu showed, same as you did.
You laughed along with him, keeping your body language easy-going.
What was Wemmbu planning?
Wemmbu’s pacing finally stoped, gaze snapping up, fixing the both of you with an assessing stare.
Then, “We need to build the best and grandest empire any Minecraft SMP has ever seen. You both ready?”
The breeze picked up a bit, making his hair swish peacefully behind him; long, purple straight hair staying put together despite the interruption.
The air carried a small whiff of a lavender scent the demon carried, right up to you. It smelt slightly of something sweet, too, like the nice and juicy crunch of a golden carrot. The scents mixed quite nicely together-- and, in the distance, like it was personally planned by the Gods themselves, you could see the bright sunrise beginning, dawn dark-blue turning into a soft and inspiring orange, yellow and pink.
Honestly, it was a beautiful sight.
Sharing a curious gaze with Eggchan, you both shrugged in unison before answering,
“No.” Egg.
“Twenty bucks and I'll help, bro.” You.
Wemmbu’s grin was immediate and bright.
“What tha fuck–”
You yelped as another one of your totems popped, FlameFrags taking the bait and focusing on you and Egg. The alarm bells in your head rang insistently, survival instincts telling you to take off with your elytra and leave the place entirely. To have to distract one of the strongest Minecraft PVPers for some plan Wemmbu was setting up... was very painful, to put it light.
Again, your totem popped. A previously deep and painful strike of Flame's sword, fatal, right across your abdomen, suddenly stitched itself right back together, leaving you good-as-new. You quickly off-handed another totem, using the momentarily blinding sparkle of yellow and green to get a head start in distance.
"Egg, bow him!" you screamed, pushing down the panic flooding your senses. "Don't just stand there, bruh!"
"I-- Bro, you're running too much for me to get an accurate hit! Oh-- Shoot--"
Flame gave up on chasing you, turning around to hit the bow focused Egg. Egg shrieked, turning around and running the opposite direction "Yo--"
Watching the chase, you panted. Was this worth it?
The civilization was... going okay, you supposed. So far, at least. Nothing too extravagant and honestly, it had a slow start, but the important thing was that you guys were trying and love was put into it. Along with a little greed.
You couldn't wait to get players to join the kingdom and tax them with your two friends allies, Egg and Wemmbu. They had grown on you overtime. Not-too-bad people, at most. Totally.
The loud questioning from Flame continued, stopping your momentary dissociation. His hits didn’t falter for a second.
“Where is Wemmbu?”
You both ran away as quickly as physically possible, lungs burning, eyes wide and legs aching. You bowed Flame along with Egg, keeping as much of a distance as you could, waiting for Wemmbu’s signal.
“I guess you’re both just gonna die–”
“I have no clue what you’re yapping about, bro,” you replied, cutting him off with an exasperated sigh. “By the way, you're ass at PVP, bro. I’d totally dog you if I had the resources–”
Your words ended with a squeak, narrowly dodging the harsh swing of Fragger.
Egg giggled in the distance, bowing Flame twice in the back while he wasn’t looking.
Flame, tired of running back and forth, scoffed. “Bruh, you’re both just gonna die by yourselves, then. I dunno where Wemmbu is, so.”
You weren’t entirely sure what the plan was to begin with.
When Flame had first came by and started attacking Wemmbu, well. You weren’t sure what to think.
According to Wemmbu, FlameFrags was a part of the PrinceZam Empire guard force–- and was one of their strongest fighters, too.
Flame, upon being asked just seconds before he first started to attack, had smirked and said "I'm not his guard. This is Wemmbu empire."
“I owed him a favor. This is the favor.” Wemmbu had once told you, shrugging casually when you complained and asked why the three of you were going through all this trouble in the first place.
Maybe the favor wasn’t worth it, though, because now with Flame trying to kill the two of you, Wemmbu nearby the stasises doing God knows what, you could see the golden apples in your hotbar slowly depleting in size.
Forty-two. Thirty-one. Twenty.
How long did Wemmbu need?
If you or Egg ran out of God apples, it was over.
“I’m not telling you anything, bro,” Eggchan panted, replying to another demand of ‘Where’s he at?’ from Flame. Determination coursed through his words, along with the kind of loyalty that honestly made your stomach sick.
With a simple hand gesture, you switched to the eight slot in your hotbar, elytra in hand…
Two golden apples left—
Eggchan's totem popped.
Then--
wemmbu whispered to you: RUN DOWN THE HOLE, DO NOT TURN RIGHT JUST GO STRAIGHT
wemmbu whispered to you: RUN DOWN THE HOLE, DO NOT TURN RIGHT JUST GO STRAIGHT
wemmbu whispered to you: RUN DOWN THE HOLE, DO NOT TURN RIGHT JUST GO STRAIGHT
Thank God.
“No way, bruh.”
The voice of Flame ringed through the aftermath, sounding irritated and gruff.
Three hearts raced below, bodies all cramped together in an 1x1 hole in the ground.
The trap had been successful and actually succeeded in popping Flame’s totem, giving you three the time to hurriedly dig down into the ground. The smell of gunpowder stuck to the three of you, and, honestly, if Flame had half a mind, he'd follow where the scent got stronger and find them easily. Luckily for them, he seemed a little bit dense and oblivous.
Flame was still straying close, though.
You panted quietly in one of the corners of the hole, eyes trailing over your two friends with something unreadable. You had all almost died, and yet fate pushed through, leaving the three of you alive and hiding from Flame.
You had all almost died, and you had almost left them for dead.
The golden apples and totems did their job; your bleeding wounds were almost completely healed now, leaving only a small sting and the ache of exhaustion and overexertion. Nothing you couldn't ignore or sleep off.
You could probably say the same for Egg, who currently looked way better than the bleeding mess he was during the fight, unable to fight back in the same way you weren't, too.
Your eyes cut to Wemmbu, catching the slight curl in on himself as soon as it happened. Your fingers moved almost imperceptibly, body acting before you could even consider it properly.
you whispered to wemmbu: you good?
His figure paused, entire body stiffening for a second. His eyes briefly flickered to you, as if checking for himself that you were uninjured, before another chat came through, fingers twitching into small hand gestures to guide the chats saying.
wemmbu whispered to you: yeah
wemmbu whispered to you: tnt cart just caught a bit of my tail
Your eyes trailed down, catching the way his tail slightly shook, pressed up against you because of the tight space. You also caught the way that it seemed perfectly fine— if not moving a little strangely.
You couldn’t give respite to the space issue. If any of you broke blocks or made a sound, Flame would hear. You all would just have to tough it out, and…
The way Wemmbu curled in on himself wasn’t like someone in pain.
Egg couldn’t see it— his one eye was focused above, listening intently on Flame’s footsteps, awaiting either the sound of blocks breaking and the inevitable finding of all of you down there or awaiting Flame’s departure.
But in the dark, you and Wemmbu made eye contact.
Why was he blushing?
His tail twitched against you, and at the same time, Wemmbu’s jaw clenched.
… Huh.