Chapter Text
He watched as Flame left the crater, his title safely secured—no longer in Wemmbu's possession—and he felt strangely light. Empty might be a better word for it, all things considered. Free might be even better.
He wanted to savor the little bit of peace Flame's departure caused, but a weight on his person pulled him back from that lightness as he remembered the mace one of the Law members had dropped. He paused with it in his hands, the different enchantments made it feel wrong in his grasp. His claws dug lightly into the weapon's shaft. The thoughts to hoard or burn it briefly crossed his mind, but what good would that do? He wasn't trying to be the strongest anymore. He didn't need to be.
He dropped it over the ledge. It clanged against the stone walls, causing an echo that reverberated back up to him, and made a splash when it hit some water at the bottom.
Pain soon surfaced to the forefront of his thoughts. He could practically feel the adrenaline and energy drain from him. His wings felt like dead weight, limply hanging on his lower back, and his arms and legs felt no better. He was almost content to pass out right there on that jagged rock, if not for a certain red and green cat making his presence known.
He heard him before he saw him.
"Hey buddy." Lettuce said.
"Hello?" It was more of an acknowledgment than a question. Wemmbu spotted the cat at the top of the pit.
"You've definitely seen better days."
Lettuce enderpearled to a ledge a little ways above him.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Wemmbu knew the man was right. His almost shattered armor; his nearly completely drained resources; and the blood that dripped down his face until collecting at the bottom of his chin certainly made him look worse for ware.
The cat looked as if he had never been to battle. He didn't look tired, he had no new injuries, his armor was pristine. Not a whisker was out of place on that man's muzzle. It was disgusting.
Lettuce laughed, "That was quite the spectacle."
He said something else but Wemmbu tuned it out, more focused on his own injuries than the conversation at hand. Probably not a good idea when the conversation was with his enemy, but whatever, his head felt foggy with exhaustion and he doubted he would be able to pay attention if he tried. His wings were in no shape to fly far without elytra assistance, certainly not far enough to escape. His legs shook slightly, hardly noticeable to anyone who wasn't trained (Or Eggchan, who always managed to notice those kinds of things.)
Faster than Wemmbu could retune into Lettuce's words, the cat used his elytra and snatched the spare mace from the bottom.
He windbursted up a few blocks and tried to mine into the wall. There was a large patch of clay that blocked his path to escape. Oh, how he hated clay. He couldn't find his shovel in time before Lettuce's return.
"Thanks for this, by the way. Anyways-"
"Uh, so- your entire army just died." Why would he be here? He had no noobs left to throw as cannon fodder. Wemmbu dreaded the fact that he already knew why.
"Unfortunate, right?" Wemmbu didn't reply. "But, with the way you are right now I don't think I even need an army to take you with me, so..." Ah, so that's his plan. He was far too cheerful for someone who had just sent 1,000 players to their death. "So what's gonna happen now is either you're gonna die, or you're gonna come with me."
"Right..."
He wasted no time in attacking the man. Normally he would be able to beat Lettuce with his eyes closed and his hands behind his back (that may have been a slight exaggeration). This wasn't a normal situation, though. He was severely undergreared and tired from the several days of not only fighting 1,000 people but also fighting Flame.
If he was exhausted while fighting Flame, he was on the verge of collapse while fighting Lettuce. He fell down the strike crater, landing in the water at the bottom. The fight was over in just a few moments when a particularly strong blow brought him down to just a heart.
"Okay. Fine, okay. Alright, alright." Lettuce swung once more as Wemmbu surrendered. "Alright. You got it bro, you got it, you got it, you got it..." He didn't plead, but it was a very near thing. This was not a fight he was ever going to win in his current state. "I- I'll go wherever you want." The words tasted wrong in his mouth.
"Great! I'm glad we can finally agree on something, right?"
Wemmbu didn't deign that with a response.
Lettuce was able to make him drop all his stuff, somehow. Wemmbu didn't actually know how. His mind had been too static filled and he could feel his heart beat pounding in his head too much for him to pay attention to what was happening around him. He did manage put some of his items in an e-chest Lettuce placed while he was distracted, so he was able to pay attention at least that much.
Unfortunately, Lettuce made him hand over his communicator. So now he had no way to call for help (Not like he was going to anyway, this was his problem) or check his health and hunger (which mattered a lot more than his lack of ability to get help.)
"You got a lot of work to do, you and me." Lettuce said as they started leaving the strike crater.
"Work to do?" Why did all of his enemies have to be cryptic? Would it kill one of them to just be straight forward?
"There's a lot of moving pieces and you might be one of them."
-
Traveling with Lettuce was an experience. He yapped the entire time, leaving no room for silence to linger. Wemmbu tuned him out for the most part, more focused on not collapsing every time he took a step than whatever Lettuce wanted to say.
His wings dragged behind him, he was too tired to try to keep them off the ground. At the beginning of their journey they left a trail of blood, but it had since dried. It was probably mostly his blood, if he was being honest with himself.
He was an ender sheep, but only his wings really stood him out from the overworld variant. He only had one of his horns, the other had been broken for some years now, leaving only a small nub that did little for him, the unbroken one was small and usually invisible behind his tiara. His tail had been docked when he was younger, an event he tried to avoid thinking about. He didn't look at his wings during the trek. They felt like shit, he didn't even want to know what they looked like.
A small part of him was scared he would lose them. The journey gave him ample time alone with his thoughts, during which that small part became louder and louder.
They didn't pass very many people on their way to the Law base, but the few they did pass gawked and kept their distance. They looked at him as if he was going to either drop dead or kill someone, like he was some wild animal that would lash out if they got too close. They looked at him with pity. Lettuce would simply smile and wave at them, then he'd continue whatever threat or story he had been in the middle of.
"Come along now, buddy." Lettuce said as they neared the base.
"A'right…"
"It's a victory for the heroes." Lettuce said as if he and Flame weren't acting in self defense. Self defense isn't villainous.
As they approached he saw several players up ahead of them, standing in two orderly lines along the path. What happened to all of the Law being dead? Woah, could it be? Lettuce lied and didn't bring the entirety of Law to the fight? Who woulda guessed?
"Hope you don't mind but I set up a little parade for you."
"Why." It wasn't a question, not really, he knew why. It was a show of power.
Wemmbu attempted to get his wings off the ground, trying to look at least a little less like he was about to keel over, but he couldn't. They still hung limply from his lower back, unmoving despite his trying, the only thing his effort earning him being a flare of pain. He managed to bring himself to look at them, then he understood the reactions of the players they had passed, because his wings looked awful. There were gaping holes and cuts all over them, the areas that dragged on the ground looked raw and disfigured, and a bone on his left wing jutted out at an angle. They looked like he had lost a fight with a pair of shears.
Almost all the injuries on his wings were from the thousand players, Flame tended to avoid wings when he was attacking. Something about it not being honorable. Wemmbu hadn't really paid attention when he was explaining it, it having been said during a fight a while back, so Wemmbu had had more pressing concerns at the time.
"You might recognize a familiar face or two." And he did. Loppezz stood out the most at the end of the "parade", with her being the only netherite player aside from Lettuce.
Her expression was odd, not something he had ever really seen on her face before. It reminded him a little of how she had looked at Jaden in the abandoned civilization, but it didn't quite match. It wasn't exactly the same righteous anger from then, that anger had been so strong it might've been tangible, but it was close.
She avoided looking directly at his eyes. He sort of deserved that.
He wondered distantly if the armor she wore was the same set that he had given her.
The guards next to her looked like a bunch of children wearing their parents clothes and were trying desperately to look tough. Where did Letty even find these guys? Did he go recruiting at a daycare? Several of them couldn't have been more than sixteen, and even that would likely have been an overestimate.
Some of them seemed VERY angry, like he had killed their entire families or something. He probably did, if he's being honest. Others looked to be trying their best not to show their fear, though if that was their intention they were failing miserably.
"Well, man," Lettuce said, "What's gonna happen now is pretty self explanatory, but, you're getting locked away for a very long time."
He didn't deign that with a response. Best not to feed into whatever massive ego Letty already had.
Lettuce said something else but Wemmbu didn't pay attention, he just followed him up the stone steps behind the guards. He heard armor clank as they followed behind. He didn't turn around, but he could hear Loppezz's netherite with every step she took. The click of netherite boots was quite distinctive from the diamond ones that the regular guards wore.
He could hear one other set of footsteps along with Loppezz's. He had no clue who they could belong to.
The halls felt off. Too bright. Not bright enough. The yellow lighting and musty air seemed to suffocate him, it snuffed out most of the shaky breaths he could muster before they could come into fruition. How could the air here even have been musty? The building could hardly have been more than a few months old with Wemmbu's previous attack. How did the Law even manage to make it musty?
Every breathe felt like a chore. Every step was only following the momentum of the previous, if he stopped moving he almost doubted he'd be able to start again. He thanked almost every higher power he could think of that he had actually taken Minute's advice about doing endurance training, even if enderian species had naturally high endurance compared to most others.
The last week had been draining, if not fighting the Law then he was fighting Theo, or Flame, and when not fighting he had been traveling. The only real time for rest was when he had been at Flame's base, and that hadn't lasted for nearly as long as he would have liked before the Law had shown up.
He wished desperately he was in the End with Egg and Minute. He wished he was sitting, listening to Egg ramble on about some book he read. He wished he was sitting by a campfire with Jaden as they planned on how to get him the treasure. That he and Flame were sitting in mine carts on their way to the battle location; arguing about something inconsequential. He wished for a lot of things, none of which would come true. Not anytime soon, at least.
The wallpaper turned to stone bricks soon enough, and the air turned cold. With it came the all too familiar sluggish feeling of mining fatigue. Both his hooves clicked on the stone, he didn't even remember when he lost his shoes.
Lettuce's voice seemed so distant despite him being directly in front of Wemmbu. He replied to what he was saying with what little energy he could muster, but he wouldn't be able to relay what the cat had just said not even a second prior. Everything felt so far away.
Eventually, they stopped walking. Lettuce scrunched his face and looked him up and down.
"But! But, before we continue anything; you look far too sympathetic like this." Wow, that was… A blunt way to describe him. He supposed it was accurate, even if it was an odd way to say it. "Loppezz, could you-?"
She tossed bright orange clothes into his hands and shoved him into a separate room from the hall. She closed the door behind him, then he was alone.
"You have six minutes! Time starts now." The muffled voice of Lettuce called. "And remember, guards are everywhere! There is no point in trying to escape!"
"We'll have to do something about his injuries, but that's a tomorrow problem!" The caracal said as an afterthought, barely loud enough to hear.
Half a dozen showers took up the room. It was made entirely of stone bricks. The whole room was quite vacant of any sign it had been used before, the only real signs of life were a couple yellow scales on the floor. A single towel was placed outside one of the showers, he guessed that was for him.
It would be nice to get the blood off, he supposed.
He placed the clothes next to the towel and stepped in, he had little care for getting the clothes he was already wearing wet. They were ruined beyond saving anyway.
The water ran red on the brick floor, the whole room smelled of copper. He ignored it.
He took extra care in wiping his tiara clear, more care than he took with his own self. He got much of the dirt and gunk off of him, but he made sure that all of it was off his tiara.
Finishing his shower, he dried himself off (not enough, his fur never dried quickly,) he put on the clothes provided to him, and he stared at his reflection. Orange was not his color. At least it wasn't covered in blood and holes. Small victories.
He'd never say so, but the shower certainly made him feel better, even if only barely. He felt a bit more aware of his surroundings, and less like he was going to die if he kept standing.
"Knock, knock! Six minutes are up!" Lettuce called from outside, "Hope you had a nice shower." The door opened. "Showers are once every three days for prisoners, but that's probably more often than you're used to."
Wemmbu did not fall for the bait, he said nothing.
"Oh, look at you! I'd say you look good but… Orange is not your color."
"Why do I need to wear this?" He asked.
"Well, if you ever make a break for it, we'll be able to identify you."
"Somehow I feel I'd be really easy to spot." He was a bright purple ram, after all. Not all too common.
"Eh, that's subjective," Lettuce opened a different door on the opposite side of the hall. "Come along now, buddy."
They entered a large room filled with cells, there was a second story of them as well. Almost every cell was empty.
"As you can see we don't have a lot of people just yet, but welcome in."
He followed Lettuce to the last cell on the block.
"That's your home," He could not be serious. It was an empty cell with nothing but a bed in the corner. "We have something planned for the rest of your sentence, so we're going to need you in tip-top condition." Maybe he was serious. "But for now, you get to live life as a prisoner."
"So uh-" he started.
Loppezz grabbed him by the arm and shoved him into the cell, closing the door the moment he was inside. He stumbled to steady himself.
"Okay," He wasn't even able to get a word in. Rude.
"All prisoners are required to be in or on their beds at night, just so we know you aren't doing anything suspicious," Lettuce said, "Oh, and one more thing. Please hand over your tiara."
"What?" He could not be serious. "It’s gold. What am I going to do with gold?"
"It’s sharp. It is a potential weapon. Anything that could potentially be a weapon must be handed over." What a stupid reasoning.
"My horns are a potential weapon. My claws. My teeth. Are you gonna take them too?" It came out as more of a growl than he intended.
"Of course not, they're part of you. But your tiara is not, so hand it over."
"No."
Lettuce's ears were pinned back. He could guess his own showed similarly his irritation.
"Do not make this difficult."
He stared directly into Lettuce's eyes. Lettuce stared back evenly.
"No." He stood his ground, even if he stood shakily.
They stared at each other, Lettuce kept his face neutral but his ears and tail gave him away. Wemmbu didn't bother hiding his expression.
"Please, Wemmbu."
They continued their odd staring contest for a few moments more.
Wemmbu was first to break contact. He took his tiara off and handed it to him through the bars. He did not meet Lettuce's gaze again. He didn't know why he relented it.
Lettuce smiled and slipped it into his bag.
"Thank you for cooperating."
Wemmbu grumbled a reply.
"Now, get some sleep. You're gonna need it."
"I don't need sleep." While typically true, sometimes he'd go over a month without sleep, was a blatant lie at that moment.
"Sure you don't. Enjoy your new life, buddy. Make sure to listen to the guards, you don't want to end up in solitary." Then Lettuce and the other person with him (The deputy?) left.
He put Loppezz in charge.
Wemmbu sat on the cell's bed (not his bed, nothing here would ever be his) and waited for an opportunity to break the door.
It was hard to not doze off while waiting. He hadn't slept in a couple weeks or so. Enderian species tended to need less sleep than their overworld counterparts, but that didn't mean they didn't need it. It was a fact Egg liked to continually remind him of every time he visited (Or back when they were able to travel together.)
Eventually, Loppezz went to the upper level to yell at an inmate. He used the opportunity. He quietly jumped off the bed and started hitting the door. The horrid feeling of mining fatigue washed over him, it was like he was trying to throw a punch underwater with weights strapped to his wrists. He'd always hated the feeling.
He was so, so tired, but he had to try. He could not and would not let himself be beaten by Lettuce of all people.
Then, the sound of an enderpearl, and Loppezz was in the doorway.
"Excuse me. What are you doing?" she asked, she didn't say it like a question. She said it like she knew the answer and simply wanted him to say it himself.
"Uh… I'm doing nothing. I've been on my bed the entire time."
Her ears were pinned back and her face was furious. Oh. She was mad-mad.
"I saw you breaking the door!" she yelled. Her tail was lashing behind her.
"I wasn't trying to escape! I was just-" Uh. "Touching the door!"
"Why were you touching the door!?"
"I was just touching the door!"
He sat down on the bed.
"Look, I'm in my- I'm in my bed." It was a rather hard bed, not comfortable in the least. It was maybe a single step up from sleeping on the floor.
She still looked extremely irritated.
"I'm in my bed and I'm being a respectful prisoner." Bleh. It felt weird to say.
"There," she said, "You deserve this."
"Okay, thank you," he said because how else was he supposed to reply to that?
"Everything you're about to get, bro, you deserve." Ominous. Why did his enemies have to speak cryptically all the time?
"…Thank you." He wanted to be done with this conversation.
Thankfully, she left soon after.
Despite how uncomfortable the bed was, he felt himself melt into it. It was the first bit of rest he'd had since Flame's base. It was nowhere near as nice as Flame's stupid base, but it was still the first bit of comfort he'd had since then.
He laid his head on the paper-thin pillow, pulled the blanket over his shoulders, closed his eyes, and drifted off into a dreamless slumber.