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Dried flakes of blood chipped to the floor as Wemmbu impatiently picked blood off of Gambit.
They’d been arguing for twenty minutes now, and he’d grown tired of the yelling in half that time. Grown ass adults, arguing here, when they could just be killing Lettuce.
Flame, standing towards the corner of the room, two totems in hand, seemed to share this sentiment, loudly declaring that he and Wemmbu should just go and get Letty themselves. He was loudly vetoed by the rest of the room, but he earned a sharp grin and an eye roll out of Wemmbu, matched by a toothy grin of his own.
“You know he’s right.”
Wemmbu looked down at the mace in his hands, glowing softly as it spoke in a voice only he could hear.
Conversations were so much more painful when your weapons could talk. And have opinions about what you did with them.
“We’re powerful enough to kill him ourselves. Let’s blow this popsicle stand!”
Wemmbu frowned. That was a dumb expression.
He tapped twice on the flat edge of the mace’s heavy core, a signal they’d agreed meant a firm ‘No’.
“Awww, come on boss. You know even Crucie would agree.”
An expression of disbelief crossed his face. The breach mace, although interested in violence (as all weapons were), was significantly less bloodthirsty than Gambit was. Maybe because he’d gotten her later on? Maybe because he fed her less? He tended to fight in large, open spaces, so he did rely upon Gambit most of the time.
Across the room, Spoke yelled something about Parrot. Several voices raised in both agreement and disagreement.
A soft, warm wind blew across his face, mussing his hair up, purple and white strands flying in all directions. Stupid windburst enchant. He’d threaten to remove it later if the mace kept this up. He brushed his hair back, hoping no one had noticed the warm breeze in the cold, enclosed room. The mace chimed in again.
“You know, Flame’s got a mace now, too.”
He did. Windburst enchanted in fiery red decorated the edges, a spiralling design of flowers crept up the handle, and a red gem set at the top, resting under his rival’s calloused hands.
“Do you think maybe he–“
“Nope!”
Standing up abruptly, chair screeching behind him, all the heads in the room turned to look at him. He blinked, all eyes on him, waiting for some explanation for his interruption. He was gonna deconstruct that stupid mace after this.
“Alright, here’s what’s gonna happen.” He let Gambit fall into his inventory, and clasped his hands together. “I’m gonna go get Parrot or whatever by myself. And then I’m gonna go kill Letty.” He smiled, waving, then jumped out the door, pulling on his elytra and launching himself up.
He heard Minute faintly sigh, and say something about him to the others.
Then he just heard the rushing of the wind.
————-
Lettuce wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Weeks spent trapped in that stupid prison, forced to work, months spent on the run, hiding and never truly feeling safe. Dozens of injuries on himself and his friends from his mace, the End, destroyed by his men. And the caracal couldn’t even look him in the eyes.
Flame shifted from one leg to another in Wemmbu’s peripheral vision, his tail swishing in a way that Wemmbu had figured out a long time ago meant he was nervous. He clearly expected the cheetah to join his side, and was confused as to what was taking so long.
Wemmbu looked to the left, seeing Minute’s eyes already looking to his, a silent ask in his expression.
Ears twitching, he gripped his maces harder.
If Gambit could have a physical manifestation, he would have been right behind Wemmbu, lips up to his flicking ears with a whisper.
“Why the hesitation? Don’t you remember what he did to you? To us?” A warm wind curled around his ankles, twisting up around his body, and resting over his right hand, grip on Gambit firm, almost reminiscent of handcuffs. Minute’s eyes sparkled.
“Give me a second.” He said, eyes not quite focused on the scene in front of him. A couple huffs were heard, and a few whispered between themselves, allies now torn apart by this dilemma.
“You know you want him dead. I want him dead. Why not give us both what we want? And he’ll never hurt anyone again.”
A sharp, cold pain burst up from his left arm, drawing him so abruptly away from the feeling of that warm breeze that he would have likely dropped both maces if he hadn’t been long since used to this feeling.
A calmer voice echoed in his other ear, and if he focused enough, he could almost feel a soft, frosty exhale as another whisper joined the conversation.
“Let him live. He is already defeated.”
His claws extended, scratching against cold, shimmering metal. She continued on.
“It’s the right choice. Look at Egg.” His best friend was waiting patiently, scribbling something in a journal. “Look at Minute.” The End Guardian’s gaze hadn’t left Wemmbu. He normally hated people staring at him, but something in Minute’s gaze felt… comforting. Or something. Whatever. “What would he want you to do? Forgive and forget.”
His eyes stung from the cold. His limbs hurt from the warmth. It was too much. Swinging his arm, he pushed both maces back into his inventory, and the whiplash of returning to normal temperature almost sent him to the ground.
Legs shaking, he moved to stand between Minute and Egg. A tiebreaker.
He could barely hear the other’s complaints and celebrations as Parrot led Lettuce away. He brushed crusted blood off of his hands, following behind the rest of the crowd, Egg and Minute at his sides.
He ignored the soft smell of sunflowers, gently pushed away from him by a warm breeze.
———
“Do you know how easy it would be to kill both of them right now?”
Wemmbu’s hands around the teacup squeezed so hard, the porcelain cracked between his claws. He gasped, startling back as the hot liquid brought him back to sweet soberness.
“Aw shit—“ He said sheepishly, wringing out his shirt where tea had spilled onto it. “My bad, Minute.”
Minute’s mouth opened. “It’s— (Why do You Even)—could you— (care What He) Wem—(thinks?)—bu?”
Wemmbu blinks. Minute sighs. Egg gave no reaction from his spot lounging on the couch, except a soft snore.
“You didn’t hear anything I just said, did you?”
“Not a word!”
Minute pinched the bridge of his nose. “Put him away, then.”
Wemmbu blinked again, then turned down to look at his side. Low and behold, there was Gambit, resting warmly against his fingertips and leaning back against the armchair he was perched on.
“That’s kinda rude of him to say. You should kill hi—“
Wemmbu pulled the mace back into his inventory with a woosh. “I uh. I didn’t know he was—“
“I know.”
Wemmbu turned back to Minute, catching the tail end of his worried expression fading into something more stern. “You need to figure out how to better deal with them. This is hurting you.”
“I just—“ He huffed, standing up. “I can deal with them. I can. They’re just getting… bolder.”
“Bolder?”
“Yup,” he chirped, popping the ‘p’. “But it's cool. In fact, I’ll go deal with them right now!”
Minute stood, up, chair screeching as he pushed it out of the way. “Now hold on—”
Wemmbu twirled away from Minute’s outstretched hands, towards the end portal. “I’ll be back in a bit!”
Minute sighed, again. He turned to Egg, gesturing to the broken porcelain and tea on the floor. “Mind lending a hand?”
Egg blinked slowly, Head slowly lifting from the couch cushion. “Whuh?”
——-
“Yo Flame.”
Flame looked up to where Wemmbu was perched on the roof of the barn, tail flicking back and forth, toothy grin on his face.
“Bruh. What could you possibly need.”
“Fight me?”
“Dude, what?? Did we not end the Law like, two weeks ago? Or something..”
“I mean, yeah. Which means we can go back to sparring.” Wemmbu tilted his head to the side, tapping his temple inquisitively. He summoned Gambit with his left hand, then swung down his right to summon Crucible. “I mean, this is happening. At least I’m warning you this time.”
“Guess I should count my lucky stars then. And ‘sparring’ is pushing it. But whatever, I guess bro.” Flame swung his own hand down, swapping the hoe he was using for Fragger, polished edge shining.
(“Finally,” two voices whispered in tandem, “it’s been a while.”)
Throwing a windcharge at his feet and launching himself up, Wemmbu came down on Flame’s shield with Gambit’s flat edge, using the force to launch himself back up into the air with the windburst enchant, warm air cloaking his body like a suit of armor.
Flame responded by swinging at where Wemmbu was, missing him by a millisecond.
“Where’s your fancy new mace, eh?”
“My mace? Bro—“ Flame shook his head, catching Crucible with his sword, and deflecting it back towards Wemmbu. “—That mace belongs to Lomedy. He just let me borrow it.”
“Borrow it? Huh???”
“What sort of person would let another ‘borrow’ a mace? And then return it?”
Wemmbu actually did have to agree with the peanut gallery for once. “Wait— What?” He flipped backwards, dancing out of reach of Flame’s burning hot blade. “He let you just borrow a mace?”
“Yeah.”
“And you just, what, gave it back?”
“I mean yeah, bro. Lomedy’s my friend.” They had both stopped, chests heaving, several feet from each other. “I’d give him whatever he wanted— But don’t— don’t like, tell him that yeah? He doesn’t need a bigger ego.”
Wemmbu scoffed. “Says you. But hey, you got them to shut up for once SO!”
Flame reared back slightly. “Got who to shut up..?” His head flicked around, looking for potential threats. “Did you bring someone else?”
“Huh? No? I mean the— Wait.” Wait.
The mace belonged to Lomedy. Did he hear it? Lettuce had never said anything about his mace which yeah. Fair. He’d never heard any of the others like Clown or Ferre talk about it either. Which yeah. Again. Fair.
But after confessing it to Jaden, the pirate had mentioned hearing soft whispers, but whenever he had tried to listen harder, they had quieted. He had mentioned, in the wake of the Law battle, that that moment was the loudest the voice had ever been.
Jaden’s mace had originally belonged to Lomedy, hadn’t it?
Hmm… What if—
A cold breeze shook him back to reality, “You’re thinking too hard again. We can chat in a moment.”
Blinking a couple times, Wemmbu focused back on Flame, in front of him, clearly waiting for a proper response. “Oh yeah. No there’s uh. No one here. But I have to go.”
Equipping his elytra and flipping his maces back into his inventory, he launched himself up with rockets, towards the stronghold he had come from. Flame’s shocked response was lost in the winds rushing past his face.
——
Wemmbu’s legs dangled over the void.
“So,” he prompted. “What happened earlier?”
Heat rushed up his left arm. “Nothing happened. We would’ve kicked his ass if you stayed. We could’ve killed him.”
“Yeah, totally.”
The other voice he was waiting for chimed in. “I think… it’s strange to hear about someone like Flame just… giving away a weapon as powerful as we.”
“Yeah? It shut you both up. Fast.”
“Well...” “I mean—“
“Are you two… worried?” A grin crept up his face. He ran his claws over Crucible’s glowing handle, and his tail wrapped around Gambit’s.
A burst of heat hit where his tail was wrapped around the mace, and an aching cold crept up where his claws hit metal.
“WORRIED??? Why would a weapon as majestic and powerful as I ever be worri—“
“Ahhhh well, you really must be mistaken. Why would I have any reason to be worri—“
“Alright! I get it, you two totally weren’t scared that I’d follow in his footsteps and Drop you two off on some random doorstep, right?”
“Not one bit.”
“Hell NO.”
“Well I guess saying this won’t matter, but,” he tilted his head to the side, blonde and purple streaks falling down his shoulders like a waterfall in the windless dimension. “I won’t be dropping either of you off anywhere. You’re stuck with me. I won’t let anyone steal either of you from me. Even if you guys are sometimes assholes.” The heat wrapped around him seemed to shy some, almost sheepish. Not that the windburst made would ever admit to actually caring about his words. It was a start, though.
A sickly sweet coldness curled around him. “Well I—“
“And that one time doesn’t count! Sharpness was using cheap tricks, Next time I see him, He’s dead!” Standing, he grabbed both maces and twirled them around. Both seemed to hum happily in his hands. He let out a soft purr. “Now, let’s go see what Minute and Egg are up to. Maybe I’ll get some more tea.”
Spinning around, he twirled both maces in his hands, crossing them in front of his chest before sending them to his inventory. Tail flicking lazily, he began the short walk to the black walled castle in the distance.