Chapter Text
The air in the ruined cathedral was thick with the scent of ozone and old stone.
Shafts of pale moonlight cut through the shattered rose window, illuminating two figures locked in a stalemate that had lasted the better part of an hour.
Flame stood quietly in the nave, his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. A single line of blood traced its way from his temple down to his jaw, but his eyes—those pale, knowing eyes—held no trace of fatigue.
If anything, he looked kinda amused.
Across from him, Wemmbu rolled his shoulder, feeling the joint pop back into place with a dull throb. His knuckles were split, his lip was swollen, and there was a tear in his jacket that hadn’t been there when the night began.
But his stance was still wide, still grounded, still ready.
The purple-haired demon was, indeed and maybe unfortunately, an alpha in every sense of the word. He‘s dominant, territorial, and utterly convinced of his own superiority.
He’d built his reputation on it.
It wasn’t like he‘d discriminate anyone——he’s far from that, or rather, he equally disrespect everyone except for his really closed friends. But in the megaverse, all would know that an Alpha is, obviously superior and strong and well, any words relted to that.
That doesn‘t change that Flame didn’t fear anything. Not Wemmbu, not anyone.
The other was reckless. Actually let’s say, both of them were reckless. Flame‘s secretly an enigma of his own sense, and it’s quite a tough gender, if you ask me. An Enigma is strong enough to overpower any other genders in this world setting, and they could even change an alpha into an omega.
So most of the time, people who were borned as Enigmas inevitably became criminals, sexual offenders even. But Flame was a special case.
Okay, it’s not like he‘s not a criminal. The strongest player was considered a serial killer after all, trying to attack the Capital city several times like some supervillain he was.
But he never wanted to ruin anyone’s life. And he‘d never taken advantage of anyone’s gender.
“You’re slowing down,”
Wemmbu taunted, flexing his fingers. The metallic taste of blood coated his tongue, and he spat onto the cracked marble floor. “All that mystery and mystique, and you bleed just like the rest of us.”
Okay. He‘s going to change his previous words.
If there was anyone that he especially wanted to ruin, that would be Wemmbu. The other was the stupidiest person he’d ever seen, an idiot of the 33rd degree, if you must say.
They fought over even the smallest things. How many people they killed（which is quite silly, of course）, what kind of base they own（and unfortunately Wemmbu kind of owns the whole End, so here he was）, to how much golden apple they had left after a literal war.
So yes, if there was a magic to kill Wemmbu or bend him over the ground, Flame would kill to do that. And to make it better, Flame had the power to do that. He‘s an enigma, after all.
Flame’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“And you talk just as much as you always have. Some things never change. Is it because your master doesn‘t let you talk on be——”
Wemmbu clearly got quite pissed and lunged.
The fight reignited with brutal intensity. Wemmbu fought like a force of nature—all power, precision, and relentless forward momentum. Every strike was calculated to dominate, to overwhelm, to force submission.
He’d studied Flame for years, learned his patterns, his tells, the subtle shift in his weight before he teleported. When Flame flickered to his left, Wemmbu was already there, catching him with an elbow that sent him staggering.
“Got you,” Wemmbu snarled, pressing the advantage. A knee to the midsection. A hook to the jaw. “You’re not so untouchable, are you?”
Flame blocked the blows, gave ground, and then—in that infuriating way of his—simply wasn’t where Wemmbu’s next punch landed. He materialized three feet away, dabbing at the fresh cut on his lip with the back of his hand.
He looked at the blood on his fingers, then at Wemmbu, and something shifted in his expression.
“You’ve gotten better,” Flame admitted, and the praise felt like an insult. “But you’re still so... predictable.”
“Predict this,” Wemmbu growled, and reached into his jacket.
The vial in his hand was small, stoppered with black wax, and filled with a liquid that seemed to drink the moonlight. It was a weapon he’d been saving for a desperate moment—a concentrated essence of nullification, rare and irreplaceable and utterly illegal in any civilized territory.
One dose, and Flame’s enigmatic abilities would be scrambled for hours. He’d be reduced to flesh and bone. To mortal. To beatable.
Wemmbu had promised himself he wouldn’t use it. A victory won through such means wouldn’t feel earned. But as the fight dragged on and his body screamed with exhaustion, pride began to matter less than winning.
Flame’s eyes tracked the vial with sharp interest. “That’s not your style.”
“Huh,” Wemmbu shrugged,“Maybe you don’t know my style as well as you think.”
“I thought you were far from using that？”Flame stared at his rival. Sure, Wemmbu used mace and orbital strike cannon and all those annoying bitchy stuff, but hadn’t they already made an agreement on not taking advantage over their genders？
“Nah,” Wemmbu breathed cheerfully, “You should‘ve known when I started using my orbital.”
“Oh fuck y——”
Wemmbu hurled the vial at the ground between them.
It shattered. The nullification essence bloomed outward in a silent, invisible wave, and Wemmbu felt the satisfaction of a plan coming together. He’d tested it before—the effect was instantaneous and devastating to anyone whose power relied on bending reality’s rules, Flame would be helpless. Then he would easily toss him over on the ground, and claim that he’s the strongest. What a great idea.
Except Flame didn’t look helpless.
He looked disappointed.
The other tilted his head, and the nullification wave passed through him like light through glass. His form rippled, flickered, and then stabilized. Untouched. Unchanged.
Still holding all the impossible power that made him what he was.
“Are you serious here？” Flame asked, and his voice was soft now, almost gentle. It was worse than if he’d screamed. “I’ve known about the nullification essence for three months. I knew you’d try to use it. I wanted you to.”
Wemmbu’s blood ran cold. “That’s impossible.”
“I’m an enigma, if you‘re so interested to know that. Impossible is what I do.”
The shift in the air was subtle at first—a pressure change, a taste like copper and static.
Then Flame’s eyes began to glow, a pale silver light that seemed to come from somewhere far behind his pupils, somewhere ancient and vast. The shadows in the cathedral stretched toward him like supplicants, and the temperature dropped until Wemmbu could see his own breath misting in the air.
Wemmbu opened his mouth to retort—to assert, to dominate, to remind himself of exactly who he was dealing with—but the words never came.
Because suddenly, he couldn't move.
"What—"
Wemmbu's voice cracked. His hands were shaking. He found himself trembling. And then he was falling in a graceless, terrifying spill, his back slamming against the forest floor hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
Flame stood over him and looked down.
Wemmbu tried hard to move. He didn’t know where—away, anywhere, just not here—but his feet wouldn’t cooperate. The flagstones beneath him had become viscous, gripping his boots like quicksand. He looked down and saw not stone but something dark and depthless, a void given texture and weight.
“You wanna play dirty, ” Flame said, taking a step forward. The shadows moved with him, around him, through him. “So let’s play dirty. I’m quite curious to see if you can handle it.”
Okay, so he made a wrong move. Wemmbu thought.
He just wanted to win, but clearly, that was difficult. The whole gender thing had made it difficult. The thing that made Enigmas scary is not just because of their power to change other people’s gender；but also the physical strength and built body God had gifted them.
So although unwilling, he had to admit that he needed dirty tricks to stand a chance agianst Flame. They were both agile and capable fighters, sure；but the other‘s strength had clearly over powered Wemmbu, and Wemmbu doesn’t like that.
So he used a mace at first, next several traos he learnt from Judelow, and then a whole orbital strike cannon. Flame didn‘t complain that much；but today, he had clearly overused these tricks.
What’s there left to do？Wemmbu fought.
He fought with everything he had, every ounce of strength and will and dominance that had carried him through every battle before this one. The chorus fruit scent was enough to threaten others away, but Flame‘s was no normal players.
He threw punches that never connected. He spat curses that died in the frozen air. He tried to run, to twist free, to do anything other than stand there helplessly while Flame advanced on him with that terrible, patient expression.
The invisible force hit him like a wave, slamming him backward. His spine met the cold stone floor with a crack that drove the breath from his lungs. Before he could recover, the pressure intensified—weightless but crushing, pinning his shoulders, his hips, his wrists.
He was spread-eagled on the cathedral floor, staring up at the ruined ceiling and the uncaring stars beyond.
Flame stood over him, silhouetted by moonlight.
The glow in his eyes had dimmed to embers, but the power radiating from him hadn’t lessened at all. It pressed against Wemmbu’s senses like a migraine, like a sound just below the threshold of hearing.
“You always thought being an alpha made you untouchable,” Flame mused, lowering himself into a crouch beside Wemmbu’s head. His fingers traced the air just above Wemmbu’s collarbone, not quite touching. “Made you above consequences. Made you the one who decided when a fight was over and who had won.”
“You motherfucker,” Wemmbu cursed and bared his teeth,“you’re a bitch——”
“Nah,”Flame chuckled. “You are using words that describes yourself, bro.”
Wemmbu bared his teeth. Common villain sense, right？All villains bared their teeth at the protagonist who just won, except this time, none of them are considered protags.
“You haven’t won. I’ll get up. I’ll always get up.”
“I know,” Flame said, and there was something almost like fondness in his voice. “That’s what makes this interesting.”
“Fuck you——”
“I‘m in a rut, by the way.”
The pressure on Wemmbu's wrists didn't let up.
If anything, Flame's grip tightened—fingers like iron bands around bone, pinning his arms above his head against the cold stone. The cathedral floor was unforgiving beneath his spine, every ridge and crack pressing into his back like a map of his own helplessness.
"You're thinking too loud," Flame murmured, and his breath was warm against Wemmbu's throat. "I can hear it. Good to know that you‘re already trying to figure out how to twist this around."
Wemmbu's chest heaved. He was thinking frantically and desperately, running through every escape route, every hidden weapon, every scrap of power he had left in his mind.
But his body wasn't responding the way it should. The nullification essence he wanted to use had failed, but yes, his limbs felt heavy, distant, like they belonged to someone else.
"Get off me,"
He growled, but his voice came out rougher than he intended. Thinner.
Flame tilted his head, those pale eyes tracking down from Wemmbu's face to the bared column of his neck. His pulse was visible there, fast and exposing the fear he refused to acknowledge.
"You know," Flame said conversationally, ignoring the fact that he had Wemmbu completely immobilized and pinned on the floor of a ruined cathedral, "I've thought about this. Yeah？What would it take to finally make you stop running your mouth？"
"Nothing will," Wemmbu spat. "You could kill me and I'd haunt your ass just to keep talking."
Flame chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately I'm not going to kill you."
And then he leaned down.
Wemmbu felt the dry brush of lips first, almost chaste against the side of his neck, just below his jaw. His entire body went rigid.
What the fuck was happening? This wasn't—they didn't——
“Oh shit, ” he cursed, “This wasn't how fights fucking ended.”
He felt the other‘s lips.
"Flame." Wemmbu called the other’s name as his voice cracked. He hated it. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING."
Instead of answering, Flame shifted a bit. His teeth found Wemmbu's neck , vulnerable and hollow and exactly where scent glands lay thick beneath the skin, where alphas carried their dominance and omegas their surrender.
A place that was never supposed to be touched by enemy hands.
Wemmbu immediately thrashed. He kicked, struggled, trying hus best to throw Flame off with every ounce of strength left in his exhausted body. But the weight pressing him down was immovable, absolute, making all his movements futile.
His wrists stayed trapped above his head. His hips stayed grounded. His neck stayed exposed.
"No——"
He started, and then Flame bit down.
The pain was sharp, electric—a bright flare of agony that made his back arch involuntarily. A wave of heat rolled through him, starting at the bite and spreading outward through his chest, his stomach, his trembling thighs. His vision went white at the edges. His mouth fell open on a sound he didn't recognize.
And then he whimpered.
The sound was small. Barely audible. A broken little noise that escaped before he could catch it, before he could remember who he was and what he was supposed to be. His body went soft beneath the touch and became responsive in a way that made his stomach drop with horror.
Flame didn't let go.
His teeth sank deeper, just shy of breaking skin, and his tongue pressed against the mark, wet, possessive, claiming. The shadows around them pulsed in time with Wemmbu's heartbeat. Faster. Harder. Out of control.
And then, slowly, Flame pulled back.
His lips were slick. His eyes were almost gentle. And on Wemmbu's neck, still throbbing and hot, was a bruise that would take days to fade—a bruise shaped like teeth, shaped like ownership, shaped like everything Wemmbu had never allowed anyone to give him.
The pressure on his wrists vanished.
Flame sat back on his heels, still straddling Wemmbu's hips, and looked down at his work with something like satisfaction. "There," he said softly. "Now everyone will know."
Wemmbu's hand flew to his neck. His fingers touched the small teeth marks, and he felt his capillaries and beart break at the same time.
Oh no. He seriously shouldn‘t have fought with the stupidiest gender on this world.
"What—" His voice came out hoarse. He swallowed and tried again, forcing energy into his spine even as his body continued to tremble. "What did you just do."
Flame raised an eyebrow. "You know what I did."
"Shut the fuck up." Wemmbu shoved at Flame's chest. His legs were still weak. His hands were shaking. "But I'm an alpha. You can't—that's not how it works——"
"Wemmbu." Flame called his name patiently. "I'm an enigma. I've told you that many times. You just don't want to hear me out."
The realization hit like a blade between the ribs.
Enigmas could change alphas into omegas.