Work Text:
Egg always seemed to find himself in the most scuffed situations.
How he managed to survive on the server so long despite being a bum at PvP was beyond him. He accepted it long ago, jokingly calling himself ‘Wemmbu’s Little Chungie’ about as many times as the dog hybrid said the same of him, too.
He was happy with being the best friend, the scholar, the All Seeing Eye. He liked the life of notetaking and recording their experiences while Wemmbu pulled him in every which way, dragging the two of them into war after conflict after situation that could have been handled with a simple apology.
Egg didn’t mind; he never minded. He was with his best friend and that’s all that mattered.
Something that baffled him, however, was the fact that he’d started gaining a cult-like following.
His empire was the start; a lot of the normal citizens didn’t care for the wealth him and Wemmbu had been trying to hoard, rather trusting Egg to provide them a safe place for them.
Then the Pirates, the original ones who had kidnapped him and Wemmbu to the Great Sea all the time ago, seemed to treat him with some sort of reverence, didn’t target him as much as his friend and never aimed for the kill.
The Farlanders were the exception, an almost welcome change.
And when stuck in the End, it seemed that his joke to Wemmbu during a visit to Capitol City had been taken more seriously than he’d expected, with many of the people who visited quoting that exact title to him with stars in their eyes and awe in their voice.
(“Are you the Legendary Warrior?” Some hopeful new player came up to the two of them while they were shopping, all that time ago before Wemmbu had been banned from every civilization known to playerkind.
“Yeah,” Egg had piped in, puffing out his chest with faux confidence despite quite clearly not being the question’s recipient, “Some may call me the Legendary Warrior.”
Wemmbu nearly fell over in tears from his laughter.)
Then, even as Wemmbu and him were chased to the beginnings of the Great Sea by the Law, the only person who seemed particularly keen to capture the seraphim himself was Deputy Ace.
And finally, no matter where he went, the Pirates, this newest third (apparently) rendition of them, treated him like a god whenever he opened his mouth, even if what he said was objective garbage.
Jaden had said he was built like a leader, someone with charisma and purely good intentions to back it up. Made people trust him. Made them gravitate naturally towards him.
Egg didn’t care in the slightest, not since his old empire went so disastrously wrong.
(He knew that wasn’t his fault fully, but it still hurt seeing something you worked so hard to build up get leveled for next to no reason. Jaden nodded and agreed, though admitted that the first iteration of the Pirates was sort of deserved. Since, he decided he didn’t want to be put in a position where that could ever happen again.)
Except this server seemed to constantly want to place him in a leadership role. Its latest attempt being once what was left of the Pirates was forced to retreat after their leader had been captured by the Law. Well, at least that’s what the Pirates wanted.
Egg was more than relieved to try and shove the responsibility on Wemmbu the second he showed up out of nowhere.
“-So yeah. This is all that remains of the pirates,” Egg finished his tale, however playfully exaggerated.
Wemmbu took one slow look at the group behind him, then met his friend in the eye again.
“We’re cooked,” He deadpanned.
“You’re gonna lead them, right?”
Wemmbu just let out a small huff, seeing the way a couple of the pirates shook their heads at the proposition.
“Wemmbu,” Egg nearly sweatdropped, “I’m not the leader, bro, I hold the pen and you hold the sword, and leading’s a soldier's job.”
“Sure, bro.” But it was in that sarcastic way that he knew he was not agreeing with him.
“We were thinking about building a tnt cannon or something to destroy the orbital, but, you know, we don’t have any gunpowder because of the mob cap.”
“That floating trading post probably did… but that got burned down,” Wemmbu hummed, crossing his arms.
“See, this is why we need your leadership, bro.”
“Yeah,” He tilted his head to the side, nose scrunching, “No.”
Egg felt his heart sink.
“Listen, I’m going to go invisible and try to break Jaden out, destroy the orbital, and kill Lettuce. You’re gonna… I don’t know, whatever you do in daycare,” Wemmbu turned on his feet, a hand raising in a wave goodbye like some too cool for school anime protagonist.
Egg turned back to the gathered group of pirates, swallowing dryly.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I just… followed him?”
They did mind very much.
So, Egg found himself as their unofficial ‘Captain’ despite his best protests after the fact.
He also wasn’t an idiot, especially after the disaster that was his old Empire. He’d studied for years, and only in the past couple months did his focus shift towards civilization building and maintenance when he was able to more reliably borrow Minute’s ancient history texts.
He knew that sending the remaining pirates, a couple fighters intermingled with a majority of builders, fisherpeople, and other noncombatants, would only get them all killed; especially after such a major loss of their citizens.
So Egg focused on one thing he could do: rebuilding.
Sure, he wasn’t the best builder himself, but people joined in his efforts to repair infrastructure almost as soon as they saw him pick up his axe.
The pirates, he found, were more like some small community than any formal civilization he’d been in before. Rather than the strict ranks of the Mafia, or the professionalism expected in the Zam Empire, or even an organization where everyone had a job and nothing more like he’d seen with the OG Players in the Farlands, the pirates laughed and joked with each other like they were all of similar standing.
Egg found out they were. The pirates had no hierarchy, no code of enforcement, they just… existed.
Helped each other when they needed, shared their food and resources more readily than they did their words, and already had a strong community despite admitting they barely knew each other in favor of friends now dead.
Egg, in turn, opened up to them as they had to him. He let spill tales of Farland Zombies, of what life in the server earlier on was like, even of Wemmbu who most of the pirates regarded as a fighter and nothing else.
Sure, he was technically ‘Captain’, but he was never treated with reverence.
The end of the first day brought the market to near completion. In celebration, the pirates gathered in a small tavern on the oceanside, one Egg saw a flash of a large anchor somehow suspended on the front with the almost chicken scratched name of ‘Anchor Tavern’ into the metal, bumping bowls of suspicious stew together like wineglasses.
“I just…” A pirate with the brightest blue hair Egg had ever seen shook their head before taking a swig of their own bowl of soup, “What’s the point if the Law can just destroy it all in a heartbeat?”
“The point,” Growled a red macaw avian, “Is to show those Law freaks that we won’t surrender. You remember what Jaden said, we’re too big to govern!”
The point, actually, was that Egg needed something to do with his hands, and the first thing he spotted was a loose floorboard on the market pier that became his first victim.
“Freaks is-is a s-strong word,” Chittered a squirrel hybrid, fidgeting with their hands. They still had their Law uniform cape wrapped almost protectively around their shoulders, “It was j-just the b-best option for some of- of us.”
“You know I’m talking about Lettuce and the Commanders,” The macaw snapped, almost gently compared to their usual tone of speech.
“He’s just another Ashswagg at this point,” Narrowed the eyes of a selkie.
“One with better outward morals,” Agreed the first blue-haired human with a snort.
“Hey, Cap’n,” A dog hybrid waved to catch Egg’s attention from where he’d been zoning out of the conversation, “Didn’tcha say somethin’ about a place that resisted the Mafia?”
“District 13?”
“No no no, the- uhh… the End one.”
“Oh, End Civilization,” He nodded.
“Boo,” Called a monkey hybrid, pointing a dramatic thumbs down, “Boring name.”
“We’re the Pirates of the Great Sea, bruh,” Balked a tropical fish hybrid, “We can’t judge.”
“Could have been the Navy,” Snorted the selkie.
“Boo,” Chorused nearly the entire group. Egg winced at the sudden influx of noise.
“Sounds too much like a Law factionlet,” The blue haired human shook their head in disappointment.
“Guys, lock in,” A hamster hybrid knocked their foot on the floor to gain everyone’s attention back before nodding to the dog.
“Ya also said they dodged bomber planes,” They prompted to Egg with a raised eyebrow.
“Bomber planes…” He searched his memory for a moment, vaguely recalling the memories Horace had told him about the place when he’d last stopped in the End for more materials.
Then it clicked.
His Book of Lore materialized in his hands and he began flicking insistently to the page he needed, a double spread he’d made with a lot of help from Horace about the now destroyed End Civilization. Most of the pirates crowded around his table leaned closer when he scooted it so they could all see.
“The Mafia sent multiple bomber planes at it because they’d set up a chunk ban perimeter. It was defended by a dome… made of glass… and water.”
He looked up, sharing an almost knowing glance with those around the table.
“Someone tell the Old Man we’ll need all the glass he got!” Called the red macaw, which then set up a flurry of activity in the tavern.
Egg watched the other builders drop down from the ceiling with a stream of water to pull them safely to the ground. Everyone had enthusiastically jumped on the glass shipped to Pirate City from Old Man Linn the second it arrived, and a full glass dome now encapsulated the entirety of Pirate City.
It had taken the better part of the morning to figure out the smooth, circular shape, but by midday the city was cut off from the outside winds and rain that had just begun to fall. The sun, shining through the clouds, also reflected off the pool of water encased at the top of the dome that he was wading through to the edge of, sending sparkles across the city beneath.
Tiny… at least it looks so from this height. Egg was always fascinated by the way distance warped perspective. How supermassive civilizations sprawling tens of thousands of blocks looked like ant colonies from the sky.
(The Aether itself, positioned above the clouds further than even Sky Civilization in its prime, made everything look small.
Even the Great Sea, widely considered one of the largest biomes in any server, was still smaller than his pinkie fingernail when he looked at it from his home.)
He admired the view for a moment.
Maybe, he reasoned with himself, this entire arrangement wasn’t the worst thing to happen.
(Even though he had failed his own empire so spectacularly all that time ago.)
For now, at least, maybe he was okay where they were at.
Once Jaden got back and took charge once again he would absolutely dip. Perhaps not even off on another server-trotting adventure; maybe just letting his name fade from the pirates’ minds as he just became another face to their forces. Someone who worked for better rather than led it.
(Diamonds scattered across the landscape as the sun hit flowing water through thick, protective glass.)
Wemmbu returned almost a week later.
He looked exhausted: his armor was beaten, dented, and hanging together by almost a literal thread; his hair was a rat's nest, and the bags under his eyes had darkened immensely.
Egg had rarely before seen him so torn apart. Maybe the only times before were those days after Mane left. Or when they were building the walls around their supposed-to-have-been retirement mushroom house. Or during a brief visit to the End when Parrot was hunting him.
(Or those days after Rejoice had died, but the purple had mixed far too well with red.)
The first thing Egg did was drag him straight to his room and force him to sit in his nest so he could finally be taken care of. Namely in their tried and true back and forth of ‘Wemmbu complaining heavily while Egg brushed and braided his hair’ with a worrying lack of the former event.
“Bro, stop going limp,” Egg whined after another heart attack when Wemmbu’s head snapped back with a particularly vicious tug, like it’d come without living resistance.
Wemmbu, instead of using his words, just hummed out a non-response.
Egg struggled with the tangle for the better half of a couple hours, having to force his friend back to the tub anytime he needed to dunk his head in the water for another round of shampoo-and-condition. The dog was, for the most part, cooperative with the routine, though Egg suspected it was from his pure exhaustion, of which he succumbed to before they were even finished.
(And if he did take the chance to scratch behind his ears without complaint, watching with a bloom of affection as his tail began thumping gently onto the blankets, then that was between him and Mojang.)
He tossed a couple blankets on top of him and sank back into the pirate’s current project: fixing the entrance machine with the rest of the pirates. Something he was weirdly prepared to deal with having been taught about multiple different redstone machines by Minute during his time in the End.
It wasn’t until the next evening’s routine trip to the Anchor Tavern by the entirety of the crew after a long day of repairs and work did sleeping beauty finally decide to show his face again.
“I’m saying maybe you’re being stupid,” The red macaw growled, slamming their hands into the tavern table and leaning forward so they were even more in the face of the selkie, “Nobody could have escaped.”
“But they did!” They countered back, waving their arms wildly to make their point, “If something is ‘impossible’ then why did someone do it?!”
“Extenuating circumstances don’t count!”
“Sure they don’t,” The selkie huffed, much to the entertainment of the audience.
“Wha…?”
Egg nearly jumped in the air at the familiar voice from behind him. His eye spun to meet Wemmbu, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, but standing there in the tavern all the same.
“Hey bro,” Egg relaxed with a nod of his eye.
“What are they even fighting about?”
Egg just shrugged.
They proceeded to bemusedly watch the two despite it, sipping suspicious stew as their concessions (Egg got night vision while Wemmbu got weakness).
Wemmbu explained, through general laughter when one of the people in the fight did something particularly insane, that he had managed to destroy the orbital seconds before it could launch. Egg was thankful, taking a sigh of relief with the revelation, until he explained he couldn’t recover the disks.
“Lettuce was just being too annoying, broke my helmet while Ace ran off or whatev- hit them with the bucket- yeah like that!” Wemmbu laughed with the rest of the pirates present as the macaw did just that. It would never fail to frustrate Egg how fast he could switch topics.
“Bro, don’t encourage them,” Egg huffed playfully. He could tell the roughhousing was just that- nothing serious, which is why he left them to it. “You said Ace got away with the disks? All of them?”
“Yeah bro, all of them,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes, tipping his head back as he took another sip of soup and got hit with another wave of weakness because apparently he hadn’t learned from the first five sips.
“Void,” Egg shook his head, burying his eye in his palms, “They’re just going to rebuild it.”
“And I’ll just go destroy it again,” Wemmbu chuckled back with all his usual confidence.
Eventually the fight calmed down, everyone chortling in amusement from the impromptu entertainment. The seraphim was ready to pack it up for the night; ready to crawl into his nest and let his tired muscles relax, but he was interrupted before he could even begin making it to the door by the blue haired human.
“Hey, Cap, wait up!” They grabbed him by the arm and started unceremoniously dragging him away from the tavern in the opposite direction of the city’s main tower. Egg shot a pleading look to Wemmbu, but the dog just gave him a bemused sort of helpless look, obviously refusing to help him.
“Um…” He stumbled along, helpless to their pursuits.
“S-sorry,” The squirrel stuttered out, stumbling to keep up with the two ahead of them, and Egg also noticed that most of the taverngoers were also tagging along, though whispering quietly with each other as they went.
“Um… So what’s this about?” He laughed, his nerves seeping into his voice.
“We got something for ya,” The hamster hybrid took the lead in their group, which had now fully descended the stairs to the seafront pier.
Egg nodded, interest piqued but still retaining a bit of his previous reluctance.
That was until the hamster and the tropical fish hybrid begun hefting a heavy, dark sheet off of… a boat, which had previously been hidden among the growing shadows. Egg gaped at it; it was beautifully made with dark oak wood and golden accents and the sail emblazoned with the dragon mascot of the city, and though relatively small compared to some of Jaden’s fleet he’d taken to fight against the Law with, it was no less impressive.
“Wow… This is… Wow…” Egg stumbled out.
“We know we sorta shoved you into being Captain and all,” The selkie laughed almost nervously.
“Not that any of us woulda’ done it,” The dog hybrid rolled their eyes.
“Hell no,” The red macaw huffed in agreeance.
“So we wanted to say thank you,” The selkie finished.
(Art by Ghost)
“This is…” Egg couldn’t quite find the words, “Thank you.”
“Plus,” The red macaw tilted their head up with a huff, “You can now patrol further out than me and selkie-”
“Hey!”
“So win-win!”
“Thank you,” Egg finally turned back from admiring the ship with a certain twinkle in his eyes, “Thank you all so much.”
“No, Cap’n,” The dog hybrid dipped their head, “Thank you.”
“So the Law’s been getting more active?” Egg had taken the first opportunity he could to cast his fishing line into the water. It had been a while since he’d last gotten to relax and fish. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Wemmbu had had a chance like this, probably before their trip to the farlands.
Sadly this was overshadowed by the server drama that Wemmbu returned with, and the fact that Egg was technically on his first patrol-watch, already breaking in the boat he’d gotten not even a full day before.
“Yeah, bro,” Wemmbu huffed. Despite having ample space on the ship and more than one other footrest, he’d decided the best place to kick his feet up was Egg’s lap. It probably wouldn’t last long, the dog hybrid couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes at a time. “There was this Purge event or whatever happening for the election contestants. Don’t know why, they didn’t mention, but apparently Parrot was one of the final contestants. Bro’s a bum at PvP, don’t know how he pulled it off.”
“I heard he had a friend who was good at carting. Theo?”
“Theobald. I think they said he wasn’t around, though. Something with Horace?”
“The builder?”
“Yes, bro. There’s literally no other guy named Horace Altman.”
“That’s where he’s been, then,” Egg hummed. He’d remembered a small sign he’d found when wandering the main building of the city; ‘For questions or expansions contact Horace’. “He’d make a good King. Better than Lettuce.”
“Parrot is better than Lettuce, it’s not an impressive standard,” Wemmbu snorted before being slapped unceremoniously in the face by a salmon that Egg had just reeled in.
“Sorry, bro.”
“Watch where you’re swinging that thing!” The dog spat out some of the salt water that was still dripping from the poor fish. “I swear you’re blind.”
“20/20 until proven so,” The seraphim snickered back.
“D’alright, bro.”
Just as Egg was undoing the hook in the salmon’s mouth and tossing it back into the water (so he practiced catch and release, not much skin off his back. Plus, the fisherpeople already caught more than enough to sustain the Pirates and much more) when he stopped something in the distance.
He nudged Wemmbu’s legs off of him so he could stand up and squint through to the heat waves.
“Do you see that?”
“Oh, yeah. They’ve been here this whole time,” Wemmbu shrugged.
“Bro? Why didn’t you say anything,” He gave his friend a quizzical look.
“They’re not a threat, they barely have anything. Look, they’re just fishing for food.”
“Wemmbu, they could be with the Law.”
“And I’ll kill them. They're half iron anyways.”
Well. Egg couldn’t argue with that logic.
“Still,” He cracked his back with a satisfying sound, “We should check it out. They might need help.”
“Whatever you say, bro,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes, but got up in the same vein.
Egg slowly docked the boat on the small island’s beach. Wemmbu had commented to him that it was one of the islands he and Jaden had been jumped by Lobster, and Egg noticed the couple of half-sunken ships near the center of the trio of islands.
A quick toss of the anchor and both Egg and Wemmbu dismounted, feet sinking into the powdery sand.
The two people on the island had seemingly noticed their approach and were already on the defensive. The closest to them, a duck hybrid with a half charred gray and white patterned jacket, was brandishing a netherite sword, having stopped in front of the other, a cod. Wemmbu seemed to rise to the silent challenge, bristling and pulling out Gambit.
As the duck and the dog were competing in the world's lamest staring contest, Egg waved to the cod, presuming he’d be more reasonable than the other (and hopefully more reasonable than his best friend when he was in a state as territorial as a rabid raccoon).
“We don’t mean you harm,” He even put his hands up to prove it; this was one of the few times he wished he had a face so he could better portray expressions of sincerity, “Unless you’re with the Law?”
“With the Law?” The duck spun to meet him, incredulity filling his voice, “No. Of course not.”
“They kicked us out of the main server,” The cod added on, “Chased us to the edge of the Great Sea before we could lose them.”
“Of course I could have fought them off if I wanted to,” The duck puffed his chest out proudly, “But I didn’t feel like it.”
“Fought them off?” Wemmbu grinned, “Okay mister iron boots, iron leggings, unenchanted diamond chestplate and no helmet. Sure, you could have fought off all the Commanders at once in full netherite and fully potted.”
“Well they don’t call me the greatest and most skilled person on this server for nothing!”
“Sure, bro,” Wemmbu, one of the two people actually regarded as the server’s strongest, drawled back. “And who might you be? I’ve never heard of you before.”
“I’m Luke4472, how haven’t you heard of me?”
“You must not be that well known.”
“Okay,” Egg stepped in between them before it could escalate, “How about we focus on the problem at hand. You said the Law drove you out?”
“A lot of people were driven out by the Law for past ‘crimes’,” The cod nodded, “Mine was just association, which a lot of people actually fell under. I’m Codmaster, by the way.”
“Already? But the election hasn’t even finished yet,” Egg tilted his eye to the side.
“‘Doesn’t Stop Justice’,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes at the quote, eliciting a groan from all four people.
“So,” Egg began, “If you don’t have anywhere else to go. Do you want to come back to Pirate City? We’re working on making it a safe place from the Law.”
Codmaster looked at Luke4472, and Luke looked at Cod. They both seemed to share something between them telepathically, much like how Egg and Wemmbu sometimes could. Finally, they both replied back with a nod.
“That would be amazing, thank you.”
Egg and Wemmbu repeated that routine quite a few times. They set off early in the morning, circled around Pirate City and hitting quite a few of the surrounding islands in their search, Wemmbu was thrown at any Law soldiers or Law patrols they saw like he was a feral cat (which he did act like quite a bit of the time), and Egg would convince those kicked out of their homes by Lettuce’s ‘peacemaking’ group to come to Pirate City.
The Pirates themselves seemed delighted by the newest additions to the island, welcoming everyone with open arms, much to Egg’s eternal relief.
Both Luke and Cod quickly became pivotal members to the Pirates.
Luke quickly took to training anyone who was willing up into proficient fighters, and even Wemmbu had to admit his sword skills were pretty good. Not Flame-level, as much as the duck would insist, but insanely proficient.
Cod, meanwhile, was thrust into a position of managing resources. Egg was too busy with repairs, then building, and now patrols to even touch the mess that was the storage warehouse, but Cod was more than happy to dig through troves of chests filled randomly with fish, books, treasure, and junk the fisherpeople cluttered together after each day. The task was momentous, but he was already halfway through in two weeks, having put together a complicated sorting and storage system to boot.
As their citizens grew in number and in combat skill, Egg eventually assigned official patrols. Luke was happy to lead the furthest ones as well as head the cluttered forces of their up and coming army, something Wemmbu didn’t seem too keen on (“I don’t want to babysit the newbies!”), so it was a pretty obvious decision.
Which left the mace wielder as the city’s sort of guardian angel- er, dog.
Anchor Tavern seemed to be the prime choice of meeting spot for Pirate City’s major players. They’d stay later than most of the others to spread a large map of the city and surrounding area on a table and discuss plans of attack.
Apparently a couple of them took ‘plan of attack’ seriously.
“I’m just saying,” Luke argued, “Plus me. We could fully drive Law out of the Great Sea.”
“But our ultimate goal is Jaden,” Egg shook his eye, “We need to stage a rescue first and foremost, then we can drive them out.”
“If they see us attacking they may just bring him further inland,” Cod agreed.
“Oh my void,” Wemmbu whined, “I kicked their ahh once and I can do it again.”
“You’re out of orbitals and rockets and low on wind charges,” Egg deadpanned, giving him an incredulous look.
“Bro,” Wemmbu groaned.
“Ha,” Luke snarked with only a partially malicious grin, “Imagine needing anything but a sword to fight.”
“I will actually ban you right here.”
“Please don’t,” Cod waved his fins in the air at the same time Egg stepped between them to say, “Let’s not.”
They just stared at each other for a moment longer before relenting, much as they always did whenever getting into their petty challenges.
“Well then send someone to go find him,” Wemmbu crossed his arms and kicked his feet up onto the table, much to the chagrin of the others sitting around it.
“That’s actually… a surprisingly good idea,” Egg nodded thoughtfully.
“Surprisingly? Bro.”
“Well we can’t send trigger happys over there,” Cod snorted, gesturing to the two pouting pvpers.
“What?” Both Luke and Wemmbu looked up.
“And-” Cod looked Egg dead in the eye, knowing full well Egg had seen the finished organization system and cleaned out storage room, “I still have mountains of sorting.”
“Please,” Egg almost whispered.
His prayers were answered the next day by the personal appearance of Old Man Linn with a long time friend of his, one CoinMonke. They were just passing through, but Egg took the opportunity to question Linn more about the mainland, especially since he seemed to have a vast knowledge of the events on the server despite being a resident of the Great Sea since the fall of the Mafia.
However, it was Coin who seemed to know the most.
“I own a nautilus shop outside one of the Law’s blockades, so a lot of information comes through via gossip trains and bored guards,” He explains with a shrug after telling Egg about a temporary prison relatively close to the Great Sea that was the most likely place for Jaden to be, “Sometimes it's hard not to listen in.”
“I think it’d only be temporary,” Linnwyrm adds in, “They never keep prisoners from the main prison for more than a couple months, usually a month on average to prepare space in their main block under their Mesa headquarters and to fully make sure they don’t have any weapons or tools nor an escape plan that could jeopardize their main system.”
“Clearing space has taken much longer now that they’ve arrested more people,” Coin nods finally, “But that’s all I know, so I’m off to get more slime. Meet you at South Gate in an hour?”
“Make that two, I have more people to check up on.”
“Thank you both, really,” Egg nodded his head down, “This helps so much.”
“Anything for Jaden’s friends,” Linn gave him a smile and a small wave as well before departing to his own duties.
“So the plan,” Cod elaborated once again, “Is to sneak in…”
“Ugh,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes at that.
“...Break Jaden out…”
“Mhm,” Luke nodded along.
“...And get out?”
“It’s a bit bare bones,” Egg squinted his eye, “But that just leaves room to improvise, right?”
“I don’t get why we’re making such a big deal of this,” Wemmbu toyed with one of his fishing rods, an action that should have made all the occupants in the room tense if there wasn’t an explosion-preventing barrier above the city already, “We have more than enough gear to storm the place.”
“But that’s risky,” Egg argued, shooting him yet another look, “We want to use as little resources as possible.”
“And keep as many as we can from dying,” Cod added in, “An infiltration would be much more effective than an outright attack.”
“And it would be easier logistically,” Egg continued for him, “Less of our people to worry about, and if it’s a small and elite enough group we shouldn’t have to worry about every individual person. Like how we took down the Mafia.”
“We are not going to District 13,” Wemmbu objected quickly, “I doubt they even still remember it. Plus, they’re all chungies. Absolutely no help in a fight.”
“I wasn’t suggesting it,” Egg put his hands up in mock surrender, “Plus I think Parrot is tied up in the elections. I was thinking it could be just you two-” He looked pointedly at Wemmbu then Luke “-plus whoever we think is good backup for any just in case scenario.”
“I can already think of a few people…” Luke hummed, more to himself than any of the others.
“Great, then we’ll head out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Wemmbu sat up quickly, ears perking.
“Yeah, bro,” Egg huffed back at him, “Linn says he’ll be transferred to the mesa prison after a month, and it’s already been three weeks. Which means…”
“This succeeds or our job becomes infinitely harder,” Cod finished, swallowing dryly.
(Egg hoped they could do it. He had confidence in his best friend, but it didn’t quell his worries. He hoped he could finally be released of the responsibility of leading, giving it back to someone much better prepared.)
Egg was scandalized when the next day came and his and Wemmbu’s boat was loaded with supplies and their elite force of 4 pirates who had become the civilization’s strongest (minus Jaden, Wemmbu, and Luke obviously) under training from the aforementioned former two piled in.
“You’re telling me to stay behind?!?!” He almost screeched, “Bro, what?”
He was basically Wemmbu’s sidekick at this point, something even the dog would comment on (“He’s my day one chungy, bro.”), which made it even more ridiculous that he was insisting he stay behind for his own safety. He’d been in situations hundreds of times more dangerous!
“You will genuinely get slimed out the minute the fighting starts,” Wemmbu deadpanned.
“I wouldn’t-” Despite knowing he probably would without the dog’s protection.
“Plus,” The blue haired human added, “Sending everyone important into a situation where they could die is, like, Don’t Do 101.”
Egg stuttered before he could respond; there wasn’t a good argument for that logic.
“That’s cheap,” Egg crossed his arms.
“It’s true,” Cod argued back, having agreed to his own imprisonment in the city the second it’d been suggested (“I’d much prefer hanging on the dock than anything else, anyways.”), “This place would fall apart without you.”
“Surprised it hasn’t even with you,” The red macaw avian huffed with a tiny snort that sounded half like a soft chirp.
“Genuinely,” The blue haired human stepped in, “Without you, we would have fallen apart within a day, I guarantee it. Jaden stepped up in the Great Sea as the Pirate King because it was so divided and dysfunctional people were getting hurt. Hundreds of different groups, many perishing and more popping up each week. He knew what needed to be done, what needed to be said to stop the fighting, and he wasn’t afraid to do those hard, hands-on tasks himself, either. I’ve seen you do the same; you get your hands dirty because that’s what needed to be done and you weren’t afraid to help out. That’s powerful. More than anyone can fully comprehend.”
Egg stared for a moment, then did an imitation of his equivalent of a laugh- a short flick of his headwings and a couple tiny shoulder shrugs.
Then, when nobody joined him, he paused.
“You’re serious.”
“Dead.”
Egg actually did laugh his time, though from the pure absurdity of the feeling rather than any actual humor. Because he didn’t want to be the person who solved problems! He didn’t want to be that person you ran to to lead, to stand at the helm of the fight. He didn’t want that responsibility.
“Void below,” He finally said, “I… Let’s just get Jaden back. Then…” We can forget about this whole thing and Egg can go back to irresponsibly goofing off with his best friend, like Mojang intended.
“Don’t worry, bro,” Wemmbu grinned to him, “No chance we lose.”
“You’re going to jinx it!” Luke gasped, the second to last to board.
“Aww, come on,” Wemmbu chuckled after him, “We’ll win. Especially with me there.”
“I think you mean me, especially with me there.”
“Sure, bro-”
Their bickering was tossed to the wind as the ship departed the dock.
Egg was the last one to retreat back to the city and his nest for another hour of sleep before the sun rose and the day began. He watched minutes after the front entrance canal filled, rising the ship to the level of the general ocean. Watched the ship disappear over the lip of the city’s walls. Stayed there, standing in the dark, just training his eye on the distance.
(Was he worried about them? Absolutely not, they could handle themselves. He’d be more scared for the Law prison guards if he had any worries at all.
(So why did this feel like the end of an era?))
(Wemmbu was in his element.
“Go go go,” He urged Luke and the currently three remaining pirates of four towards the grouping of searching guards, “GO.”
Their cover had been blown just as they made it to the dungeons. Luke said it was because he was too impatient. Wemmbu said it was because they were going too slow. That didn’t matter, he grinned to himself as he faced the meagre force inside the underground prison.
They didn’t stand a chance, not against a master macer while the rest of their backup was being distracted by Luke and the Chungy Squad.
He navigated through the labyrinth, half amused to find it the same setup as the one the Law had kept him in. He was quick to dispatch the singular guard to the high security cell before coming face to face with Jaden, clad fully in orange prison regalia that did not match his usual blue theme in the slightest.
Jaden was cut off from whatever he was about to say when Wemmbu flicked the closest switch, releasing one of the walls to the one by one cell, grabbing his wrist, and sprinting off with the Pirate King in tow.)
(Art by Ghost)
“Ship ahoy!”
Egg perked up at the call, nearly slamming his head into the roof of the shop he’d been working on. It was the sixth call since Wemmbu had departed yesterday, and each made him bolt up and hold his breath in hopes it would be them.
He’d been pretending to work and he knew it; this one stall had been broken the entire time and he was only getting the smallest bits done at a time.
He shuffled a step away and turned his back to his project, all but completely holding his breath as he watched the ship elevator descend behind glass.
He recognized that color palette.
Egg was off before he could think twice, hammer tossed haphazardly to the side in his half excitement half nervous charge. Some of the others scattered on their own projects or chatter paused, eyebrows raising as they puzzled out what it could be before seeming to understand and following with excited whooping.
By the time they rolled up to the dock, his and Wemmbu’s ship was already halfway across the port, and a veritable crowd had formed behind him.
Jaden, dressed in a very slightly singed prison uniform instead of his normal highly dressed up regalia (though looking no less imposing), stepped off, grinning wildly.
Silence.
Then, celebration. Cheering, whooping, people talking over each other and rushing forward to meet their Captain who had been absent for nearly a month.
Egg hung back just slightly, greeting Wemmbu with a quick hug while the pirates regaled their returned leader with the events in his absence.
“Did it go well?” He whispered.
“Obviously,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes, “The stand in were absolute fools and Luke was just as deaf as you in a dire situation, but we somehow pulled through.”
“That’s good,” Egg let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “Ready to get out of here?”
“Get out of here?” Wemmbu fully turns to him from where he’d been eyeing a loose plank with intent to pull it up just for the sake of something to do with his hands, eyes twinkling in a way that made Egg’s stomach drop.
“You know…” He attempted half helplessly, “We still have to destroy the Law’s Orbital. Then we can go back to exploring the server. Just you and me.” No responsibility, not again. Never again.
“Maybe,” Wemmbu’s voice pitched up in a way that told the seraphim is was most certainly a no, “I think Jaden wants to talk to you first.”
This was it, Egg’s stomach had fully descended to the pits of the Nether Void. Attempting escape didn’t work, as the dog just snatched the back of his suit and unceremoniously dragged him across the pier, through parting crowds that had one moment ago been bustling with excitable activity and were not calming from their initial high.
“Wemmbu, please,” Egg struggled against the hold to no avail, and digging his feet in didn’t seem to work.
“Hmm,” The dog pretended to think for a moment, “No.”
“Please, I’m asking politely."
“Nah.”
“You’ll wrinkle my suit.”
“You’ll live.”
Egg finally resigned himself to his fate, slacking in the hold almost pitifully.
“Yo, Jaden,” Wemmbu called, catching the Pirate King’s attention away from the blue haired human. He marched Egg right up as well, the pirates congregating the space around the circle even tighter and blocking all his escape routes.
Jaden and Egg shared a quick look, one that only two people who roughly knew each other by association to a third could.
“Egg,” Jaden greeted with a warm smile under his mask, “Good to see you.”
“You too,” He relaxed, just slightly.
“Thank you,” Jaden continues, “For holding this place together so well. I don’t think it would have survived at all without your help.”
“It was really nothing.” If Egg had a human face he would definitely be blushing with embarrassment.
“You hold yourself too lightly,” Jaden rebutted, “You’re a better Captain than you may think.”
“No, seriously,” Egg chuckled nervously, “I was just filling in. Temporarily.”
“You were leading,” The King spoke back with a determined twinkle in his eyes, nodding resolutely, “And very well. You kept this place alive long enough for it to be built better than ever. And you know? A Captain does need a First Mate.”
Egg’s muscles slowly locked in place as he more fully processed the implications behind those words.
First Mate…
He was never going to go back to exploring the world, was he?