Work Text:
“If you kill him, you’ll know what happened to Wemmbu, I promise!” Boosfer’s shrill words pierced in Flamefrags’s ears like a mantra. He really didn’t know why he believed the green man, it was more that he wanted Boosfer’s words to be true.
Flame continued swinging at the Invisible Knight who was clearly struggling to keep up. Annoyingly though, the mysterious man was still focusing his killing intent onto Boosfer instead of Flame, fighting quite passively towards the Combat Master and chasing after Boosfer anytime Flame took a step back to heal.
It was annoying. Especially when the invisible guy wasn’t strong enough to ignore Flamefrags’s attacks. So he fought harder. Splashing his strength two potions that he typically used sparingly - and for actually competent opponents - to kill him faster.
Flame wanted to get it over with. He wanted to do what Boosfer told him to do, not because he was ordered to, but because he didn’t want to be Boosfer’s lackey any longer. He had already seen the mockery in Parrot’s eyes, the confusion in the Capital City’s guard force. Flamefrags didn’t work for people, with people, or even have people working for him.
He didn’t need to. He was the Immortal Demon, the strongest player of Unstable, someone who didn’t need people to help him fight.
“Oh my god just kill him already! He’s weak!” Boosfer called out with a smile stretching his lips, causing Flame to scowl.
“I am, it just takes time,” he muttered.
It seemed only the invisible guy heard him, “why are you even working for Boosfer? Is he blackmailing you?”
The deep, scratchy voice made Flame’s face sour. He ignored him initially, though his words stuck with Flame longer than he’d like to admit.
“I’m not working for Boosfer, I’m working with him. I help him, he helps me.”
Boosfer laughed loudly, “no, invis-guy is right. If we were actually equal, I’d be fighting alongside you.”
Flame bit his lip at Boosfer’s provocation. After he kills the invisible man, he’ll get the information Boosfer held so tightly. And after that, he is killing Boosfer. One hundred percent.
He was so sick of sparing annoying people: Spongs, Willsion, Boosfer… Wemmbu. When he finds the latter again, he will absolutely kill the purple demon.
Once he defeats him in a fair battle.
The invisible man’s helmet broke, shards of welded diamond falling from his head, making him appear like a headless ghost. Good, they’re now one step closer to actually becoming one.
“His helmet broke! His helmet broke! Kill him!” Boosfer jumped and cheered.
‘No shit.’ Flame thought. Was the guy stupid? Clearly less stupid than Flame’s target, seeing as how the man was trying to regear through his enderchest. Flame broke it instantly and drove his sword through his chestplate, breaking that too.
“Gah!” The creepy voice rang out in pain. Their remaining armor pieces lifted from the ground, yet no elytra was seen from their back.
Wings… they had wings. How frustrating. Somehow Flame ran into people sharing the rare body feature far more times than the average person - the overpowered body part that was still masked by invisibility. Parrotx2, TheoBaldtheBird, and Wemmbu all shared this trait, yet only Wemmbu abused them during fights.
“Of course they have wings! Of course!” Flamefrags laughed exhaustedly and strengthened his stance, drowning out Boosfer’s words in attempt to focus. It was difficult to keep an eye on the invisible man; only his boots and leggings were left, and he didn’t make any attempt to regear. Was he that confident?
“Why are you listening to Boosfer? What is he going to do for you?” The man’s voice sounded uneven from the constant flapping of wings and from sheer exhaustion.
“He has information. Of a… friend.”
“…Right.” Clearly, the man didn’t care. He dove down towards Flame, slashing his shoulder with his sword while Flame did the same to him. Flame heard strained swear words coming from his mouth as he flew back up again.
“Oh my god just come down here! Do you really think you can win?”
Ignoring Flame, the man flew down in a blink towards Boosfer, though of course h the Immortal Demon expected it, after all, the man had been targeting Boosfer from the start for reasons Flame didn’t care to learn.
He sunk his sword through the solidity of the translucent neck, sliding through it with a clean movement. The thud of his head falling on the ground masked the faint gag that came from Boosfer.
Flame heard a ding in his messenger- the death message, no doubt - though didn’t pull it out. He’d stopped looking at his victim’s death messages a long time ago, it helped disconnect him from the fact he was just a killer. But seeing as he didn’t know who he just killed, he’ll check later. For now, he had a debt to collect from Boosfer.
“I killed the guy. Tell me what happened to Wemmbu.”
“Uh, um… uh,” Boosfer’s voice came out nasally and croaky, his eyes shining from tears.
“What? Just tell me where Wemmbu is. Or were you a waste of time, too?”
“Wemmbu, um…” Boosfer shakily pointed towards the small pile of gear that was left behind by the corpse. Flame dug through it, expecting a book to lead him to the next clue about where Wemmbu is. But… nothing. Just potions, some junk, and… two maces.
“What..?” Flame picked one up, scanning the handle for the engraving he didn’t want to see: ‘Crucible’ was scratched in neat handwriting, a faint glow behind each letter from the enchantments that he knew well.
“What.” Flamefrags repeated, shakily pulling out his once ignored messenger, staring at the text that he himself caused:
Wemmbu was slain by Flamefrags.
Flame felt lightheaded. He looked towards Boosfer who was staring at the floor with a confusing expression. He wanted to be angry towards Boosfer, he truly did, but saying out loud that he killed Wemmbu would’ve cemented the fact that he couldn’t even think for himself when killing the man he was searching for.
“Is this what you mean, bro? When you said I’d learn what happened to Wemmbu if I killed him? I didn’t want to!”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“I’m me! I kill people! I just wanted a fair fight, to defeat him even with his useless tools! He was in half-armor, for fucks sake!”
Why was he in half armor? Why didn’t Wemmbu attack Flame with his maces, like he’d always done before? Did he really care about his faked identity that much? It pissed him off.
Boosfer took a step back from Flame, fearful. It made sense. Flame just killed his friend, and probably looked like he’d kill Boosfer too. He was going too.
“Just… go. Leave, bro.”
Boosfer took another step back, shakily asking, “are you sure? A-are we all sorted?”
“Yeah.” Flame heard Boosfer scramble away, and looked back down to his messenger. The words didn’t change. Flame really never changed. He hesitantly took a step back from the pile of loot - the last sign of Wemmbu’s life, and in a quick moment, picked up both of his maces to put in his inventory.
‘Wemmbu would’ve wanted Egg to have these,’ he thought silently.
He could at least do this. Though it wouldn’t erase what he’d done.
