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Without a doubt, Flame was undoubtedly bored out of his mind.
Apparently, killing a thousand players alongside his former rival made someone so notorious and feared that the occasional bandits stopped trying to break into his house for the umpteenth time. It was nice for a short time, but things quickly became monotonous.
Nobody came to him looking for a fight.
It was starting to get to him.
Imagine the Immortal Demon being called stir-crazy after not being ambushed for the third time this week. But here he was, absolutely restless.
Either way, bandits weren’t going to cut it.
Back then, when he was still chasing Wemmbu–actually, even before that– it was so thrilling to have someone to fight that didn’t immediately die after a few good crits. Frankly speaking, it was even more exciting the moment Wemmbu actually won.
Though it was totally unfair, and the kid was using cheats.
Literal nukes, and called himself the strongest for a while, which kind of irked him.
But either way, it brought a challenge that stopped the slow monotony. Being the strongest was cool and all, but it was kind of boring when things kept being stagnant.
To be honest, he never really thought that his rivalry with Wemmbu would end so soon, on such an anticlimactic note.
When he looked down at Wemmbu in that crater, the other didn’t have that determined, challenging fire in his eyes anymore. What was replaced with that persistence was a calm, accepting, and resigned glint that made his stomach roll uncomfortably.
Having a rival was fun.
And it was over too soon.
Ignoring the resounding hollowness, he finds himself saying goodbye to his dogs and opening the doors of his base, stepping outside with a long, heaving sigh. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to do this. Sometimes he wondered why he was like this.
Taking some sky-blue swift potions from his inventory, he splashed them at his feet and mumbled to himself.
“I guess we’re doing this again, bro.”
**
Wemmbu thought he was having a too-peaceful evening today.
A warm breeze hit his face as he stood in a brilliant field of flowers. His cape flew gently with the wind, with the red tulips and alliums swaying alongside it. Sweet, potent pollen overwhelmed him.
The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, FlameFrags was coming to his location at rapid speeds, the soft clouds were shifting– wait.
Turning his head, he saw a very enthusiastic FlameFrags approaching from a distance, waving just as brightly with his terrifying sword covered in crimson. Speaking of, the strongest player on the server was covered head to toe with sickening blood that contradicted the beautiful field of flowers they both were in.
To be honest, he thought he’d never see this guy again.
Flame looked like he just escaped a maximum-security asylum and committed genocide in said asylum.
Dragging his face, “Why are you here now?”
Flame, who’d just caught up, maniacally grinned, “Some chunguses refused to tell me where you were, and they started attacking me out of nowhere. Took care of them.”
“This is wrong,” Wemmbu cringed, “So wrong, bro. Why didn’t you clean up before you decided to come to this place?”
“I couldn’t let you just flee before I get the chance to catch you.” Flame flicked his bloody sword to get rid of the blood. Admittedly, it worked, but it just splattered onto some flower leaves, and Wemmbu began to question his life decisions about why he had gotten associated with this guy.
Wemmbu took a long moment to just stare at Flame’s face, which was still covered in scarlet. Before finally asking, “... You didn’t ask my question. Why are you here?”
“Because I’m bored.”
“I see,” Wemmbu nodded intelligently before taking his elytra and readying some rockets in his hand. “Have fun trying to solve that by yourself.”
Flame just as swiftly grabbed onto his arm before he could take off. Eyes sharpened as if warning the other. With a dangerous grin, he continued, “Bro, you’re going to have to answer a question I have, alright?”
“...”
“You don’t have a choice, unless you want to get beaten into the ground again.” Flame boasted, as if trying to egg him on. “Since I’m stronger than you.”
Maybe the old Wemmbu, bitter and passionate to the point that he was willing to do anything to win, would step up the challenge.
Perhaps a snarky response that would lead to a fierce battle between the two, both landing powerful attacks on one another, with him relying on rockets and his mace, and the other relying on his pure skill.
But people change.
“Yeah, you are,” Wemmbu softly admitted before adding a little bit of snark, “But we already established that, did you forget?”
Then, he stilled.
The sight he was met with was one that he’d never expect.
Flame’s wide, lively smile fell almost immediately, passionate eyes that felt bigger than life were filled with an uncharacteristic hollowness. Flame clenched and unclenched his hands until they turned pale white, and he thought he heard the sounds of cracking underneath the other’s palm. What was supposed to be his rival looked more like a man trying to find a reason to live.
Then, it was gone just as he could start wondering if he’d imagined it all.
“This,” Flame snapped as he exaggeratedly gestured to Wemmbu with a carefully blank expression. Voice bordering on the edge, sounding more like a cornered, seething animal. “This is what I’m talking about, bro. What happened to you?”
Wemmbu slowly shook off the grip the other had on his arm, motion steady and tranquil. Privately, he catalogued the sight of his rival’s empty expression for him to later try to figure it out. “Character development.”
“We both know that’s stupid, bro.” Flame narrowed his eyes, “Just tell me.”
Seriously, what’s up with this guy?
The other was acting so strange at the moment, and Wemmbu was having a bit of trouble grasping words when it came to this confusing behavior from the other.
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
“The answer, Wemmbu.”
Sighing, he tried to detail his answer this time. “I’ve been chasing power all this time, right? I’m even the second strongest on the server, but…”
…
“I don’t know, I guess I realized that there are better ways to spend my time.”
Flame pressed his lips together, “Like…?”
“Getting Egg out of the End, you know, that kind of stuff.”
“But what about a friendly rivalry?”
Wemmbu arched an unimpressed eyebrow at the wording, “Our rivalry was literally anything but friendly.”
“Fair.” Flame casually acquiesced before gripping his sword and pointing it at Wemmbu. “How about we be rivals again?”
…
Wemmbu blurted out incredulously, “... Excuse me?”
“You are not excused, bro.”
Almost immediately, he scowled at the other, “Okay, you know that wasn’t what I meant.”
For some reason, this felt familiar.
Flame rolled his eyes with a cheeky grin, “Well, maybe you should be more careful with your words.”
Like a well-fitted glove, even after their rivalry had essentially ended, the banter and interactions didn’t change all that much.
The thought made Wemmbu feel a fond smile coming up, but he shoved those thoughts to the darkest pits of his mind with everything else he chose to avoid. This was dangerous, and something like this made him vulnerable.
A sign of weakness. A bitter thought in his mind whispered, and he pretended not to hear it. He had achieved some kind of revelation, damnit. He didn’t need these thoughts again to make him regress to how he was before.
It was better to just move on.
“I’ve gained some sort of inner peace,” Wemmbu articulates slowly, enunciating every word. “And you tell me that you want to be rivals again. After my world-shattering revelation. That would most likely go against my revelation.”
Wemmbu pinches his nose, feeling a headache coming.
“Is that what you’re saying?”
Flame considers his words for a few seconds before nodding. “Yeah, bro. You just summarized everything in a few seconds.”
What did Wemmbu do to deserve such a fate?
Sure, he’s killed like a thousand people, bombed Law’s base, nuked Capital City (twice, but who counts nowadays?), killed more people, bombed an entire area with orbital strike canons of mass destruction, the list goes on…
Thinking back, he took a moment to reflect on every event for a few moments.
Yeah, there’s nothing that really justifies this horrifying fate.
Wemmbu spoke without wasting a beat, “No thanks.”
“Come on, bro!” Despite Flame’s fervent words, his grip on his sword lightened as it drooped a little miserably. Every word was laced with a subtle, hidden yet noticeable desperation, and every moment of this conversation, it grew a little more obvious– more potent until neither of them could ignore it.
“Wasn’t it fun?”
Frankly, it was fun in a twisted way. The challenge seemed so insurmountable, but he put his all anyway, and every fight against Flame was difficult, hard, but it filled him with adrenaline.
Begrudgingly, his respect grew for the other with every fight.
But that didn’t mean that he wanted to go back to that time. Not anymore, he couldn’t lose himself like he did in the past– chasing a hollow goal for the sake of a single, empty title.
“Nope,” Wemmbu turned around, about to leave before a stubborn Flame got in his face. “Get out of the way, FlameFrags.”
“So you’re going to just continue being like this, bro?”
A simple, “Yep.”
FlameFrags scrutinized him all over, looking for any piece of lingering doubt. When he found none, he sighed once more, long-suffering and exhausted. The sudden action made Wemmbu falter a little.
“Guess what, bro?”
Wemmbu pursed his lips, “What.”
“I’m going to keep bothering you until you agree.” With newfound resurgence, Flame announced that with a bright, hopeful smile.
… Wemmbu wanted to join Rejoice in the afterlife, because he had just landed himself in a fate worse than death.
Though he has a feeling that if he died, Rejoice would actually kill him in the afterlife. And he was also busy trying to help Egg escape the End, and he would never just leave his best friend like that, so he also couldn’t just end his life.
Living is hard. Too bad he had too many reasons to keep on living.
The thoughts and memories flowed into his mind like a river calmly trickling downward. Peaceful memories flowed gently before the thoughts began to change and start originating from the back of his mind without warning.
Lost caus–
Okay, he’s officially done with his self-reflection quota for the day. He finds himself staring at Flame like he’s grown three heads, with the strongest player beaming in his face.
“You need to find better ways to spend your time.”
Flame seemed unbothered, “Bro. I came here because I was bored, and nobody wanted to fight me after we killed like a thousand players.”
…
“Why’d you come here anyway?” Flame squinted his eyes curiously, staring at the collection of flowers. “Never took you for someone who liked flowers.”
“Alliums are cool.”
Looking at the lavender, purple flowers, he commented casually. “Bro. Of course you’d say that, but what’s with the red flowers?”
“... They’re okay too, I guess.” Wemmbu plucked a purple flower from the ground and simply spoke, “Just wanted to get some fresh air, see some sights before going on an adventure to help spring Egg out. You know?”
Flame stared at the expansive field of red and purple flowers. It felt a little ironic, but right at the same time, with the specific color choices.
Coincidences were everywhere, and yet he didn’t feel this was one at that moment.
“What happened to LettuceK?” Flame inquired with a relaxed stance.
Wemmbu’s eyes darkened a little at the reminder. “Killed him right when you left. I’m the second strongest for a reason, but it was… close.”
“How come?” Flame was genuinely puzzled by the fact that the fight wasn’t so clearly in Wemmbu’s favor. “Don’t you have that chungus mace?”
“... I dropped one of the maces that I got from the members of Law, and LettuceK stole it.”
Flame took a moment to process those words. “What? That’s not like you, Wemmbu.”
…
“Anyway, I’m going to go now,” Wemmbu announced as he casually handed the deliberately chosen purple flower to Flame, who took it without thinking. Adjusting his crown, he continued, “You should slow down a little and enjoy the sights.”
Flame looked down at the purple flower that he was gently holding in his hand, as if it would shatter like glass the moment he applied too much pressure to it. Like the flower was worth more than he could comprehend to warrant his tender care, trying not to ruin the delicate flower with the blood still roughly stained on his hands.
His voice was contemplative, quiet, and a little too soft, especially for him, when he finally said something.
“... I’ll think about it.”
Wemmbu blinked his eyes quickly as if he didn’t expect that answer. “Alright, see you, I guess.”
“Okay.” Flame looked up with a Cheshire grin. “See you soon.”
“Please don’t come again,” Wemmbu looked like Flame had just threatened him to the point that his expression went deathly pale. “I really don’t want to have you bothering me every day.”
That caught an unexpected laugh out of Flame, as he struggled to breathe. His purple rival paused mid-action as he was about to utilize a rocket to leave with his elytra, and seconds later, a few snickers were reluctantly spitting out of Wemmbu’s mouth as well.
For a while, they just laughed together like they were old friends who’d been inseparable for many, many years.
But they both knew it was far from the truth; they were former rivals, with one of them never giving up on that rivalry when it was supposed to be laid to rest a week before. Sharing a laugh with a former rival wasn’t really a normal thing.
But their rivalry was a unique thing, even from the start.
When the laughter finally trailed off, Wemmbu just picked up his rockets once more and, straightening out his elytra, “Seriously though, don’t come.”
“Bro, when have I ever listened to you?” Flame bantered.
There was a tired look on Wemmbu’s face as he sighed, albeit without bitterness. “Never.”
And then, Wemmbu turned his back to Flame and took to the skies.
Flame, on the ground, was chortling without really understanding why, and if anyone asked, no, Wemmbu definitely didn’t have a fond smile on his face as he heard his rival’s chuckling from a distance.
And no, Flame did not catch that smile on Wemmbu’s way out.
…
… Rival?
Wemmbu didn’t say or think that, and pretended that the choice of wording never happened.
They were just two acquaintances with Flame trying to poke him into being rivals again, and in the future, Wemmbu would sigh like a man who’d gone through too much for the umpteenth time as Flame broke into the Ender to keep trying, always seeking him out.
Yeah. Not friends, but not quite enemies at the same time.
Maybe that’s why the next time Flame broke into the End while simultaneously placing a furnace and demanding he cook food for him out of the blue, he did so with minimal disbelieving complaints.
“Bro, this isn’t how you cook steak.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that you’re wrong because I’m pretty sure that you know this is the right amount of coal for it to cook well-done–”
“Really, bro??? Who needs fifty coal in a furnace to cook a single piece of steak?! Have you been eating golden apples for your entire life???”
“It’s supposed to look like this, Flame! Burnt food is the best food–”
“Bro, you are literally the craziest–”
Egg had just casually walked into a room.
Something smelled burnt and smoky the second he entered, and his eye widened marginally.
Almost immediately, he was met with the sight of the strongest player in the server and his best friend arguing loudly over a pathetic piece of burnt steak that was still freshly burnt.