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“I don’t know how to say this,” Wemmbu’s manager at McDonald’s looked him right in the eyes, hands folded on top of each other over a heavily charred desk. The smell of smoke still hung heavy in the air despite the fire trucks having left hours ago.
“I’m promoted?” Wemmbu perked up. He was hired to cook, after all, and that’s what he did. Just on the building.
He went above and beyond and deserved all the recognition they could give him. They should promote him to CEO!
Wemmbu NoLastName, CEO of McDonalds. That sounded perfect.
“You’re fired.”
(Art by Rexi (Twitter, Instagram))
“Fired? How could I have been fired?” Wemmbu waved his arms in the air to emphasize his point.
He had been pacing around Egg's couch for the last half hour, ranting about the same exact thing, mostly because his best friend was such a good listener. At least most of the time.
“You’re the one who decided to go for a doctorate in World Domination,” Egg snarked unhelpfully, probably not for the first time but Wemmbu didn’t care to keep track, “You should’ve thought to get a useful degree for a good career. Or, you know, get some common sense.”
“Well excuse me if Doctor World Domination sounds better than Master World Domination,” He whined, flopping himself next to his friend on the couch.
If there was one thing television had taught him, it was that evil masterminds with PHDs were cool. If there was a second thing television had taught him, it was that having a villain name with ‘Doctor’ in it was even cooler.
“When I take over the world, people will tremble at the name of Doctor World Domination.”
“The Master of World Domination.”
The words hung in the air for a moment.
Without even looking up from his book, Egg hooked his hands on the back of Wemmbu’s shirt before he could fully get up again.
“Lemmie go, Egg! I need to go back and get my Masters of World Domination!” Wemmbu whined as he was pulled back down.
“You’re not going into another half billion of debt to E.V.I.L. University just to get the same degree twice.”
“You know, they never told me what the acronym stood for.”
(Egg almost rolled his eyes. Wemmbu was so stupid sometimes.)
“You know what?” Wemmbu ceased his struggling, finally accepting that he wasn’t going to be allowed to spend more money he didn’t have, “Eggy, you know what?”
“What,” Egg just flipped to the next page.
“I bet this is Flame’s fault,” He seethed, wriggling himself into a better position; lying with his back on Egg’s shoulder and his feet dangling over the side rest.
“Mhm.”
“I’ve been telling you since I met him! He’s the embodiment of true evil.”
“Literally all he’s done is get Valedictorian.”
“You see!” Wemmbu whipped his head back, accidentally knocking painfully into Egg’s, “Evil! Sadistic! I bet he’d jump at the opportunity to undermine me! He’s done it before…”
“Wemmbu, you didn’t practice for the advanced sword fighting final,” Egg sighed, exasperated for some reason, “Of course he won.”
“That’s what he’d like you to think!”
Instead of responding verbally, Egg just shoved him off of his shoulder and onto the floor.
“He cheated!”
“He did not cheat.”
“How would you know,” He stumbled to his feet, suddenly turning his glare onto Egg, “Are you working for him?”
“Wemmbu, bro,” Egg closed his book with a long-suffering sigh, “I know because Professor Ferre is still years above both your current skill levels, he would have known if one of you cheated or not.”
Wemmbu spluttered, unable to form a proper reply to that. Luckily, he didn’t have to, as at that exact moment, his phone rang.
He scrambled to answer, the device slipping out of his hands not once, not twice, but four times.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Wemmbu NoLastName?” Came the voice from the other side over the speaker, clinical in its formality.
“Yeah,” He responded back dumbly. Who else would it be?
“We’re calling to let you know that, due to your three month-long due balance and your disregard for our previous notices, your apartment is being repossessed by the landowner. Any items you have not moved out before now will also be repossessed. If you are currently on the property, you will be required to leave. Thank you sir, have a great day.”
The call ended before he could get out a single word.
He stared at the phone in his hands for a beat.
Then he looked over pleadingly at Egg.
Egg rolled his eyes. “Fine,” He huffed, opening his book back up and going back to reading, “You have five days. Five.”
“Five days,” Wemmbu saluted him with the determination of a particularly fierce ant, “You won’t regret it! I’ll have a job before you know it!I’ll pay off all my debt and be a trillionaire before you can say ‘No you can’t’!”
“I already regret it,” Egg sighed, too low for him to hear.
“Plus,” Wemmbu plonked himself back onto the couch, “I already have a brilliant idea on just where to start.”
“And where is that?” Egg deadpanned, no longer even pretending to pay attention.
“Have you ever had a slow delivery,” Wemmbu’s voice suddenly morphed into that of a television advertisement agent as he stared Egg down with severe intensity until he finally looked up with a done-with-this-world expression, “Did your ice cream melt because your driver went half the speed limit? Did you not get your pizza in thirty minutes?”
Egg raised an unhelpful eyebrow.
“Well! I have the solution! Crucible Delivery Co!”
“Crucible Delivery Corporation?” Egg echoed, sounding wholly unimpressed.
“No, not ‘Corporation’, just ‘Co’. They’re two completely different things.”
“Uh-huh,” Egg replied with what sounded vaguely like a condescending tone.
“But think about it! We’ll be the best in the game, and that’s where I’ll get my trillions.”
“If I ask you to go get me some Wendy’s with…” Egg took a deep breath in, “Crucible Delivery Co, will you get out of my apartment?”
“Only for a short time, Eggy,” Wemmbu stood for the umpteenth time in so much time, apparently allergic to sitting still, “Because Crucible Delivery Co is the fastest service there’ll ever be.”
Egg buried his head in his hands before finally handing over a crumpled twenty dollar bill, one of the many he kept shoved in his pockets for emergencies. Wemmbu perked up, snatching the money and bolting to the door.
(Art by Rexi (Twitter, Instagram))
“Crucible Delivery Co is off now! Expect your food in record time!” And he disappeared out into the hallway without fully closing the front door.
“That’s a negative aura name,” Egg called after him, “Change it!”
But apparently his best friend had already disappeared into the wind.
Peace at last, Egg sighed.
It took Wemmbu nearly half an hour to bike to the closest Wendy’s. He forgot to grab sunscreen, so his skin was already a harsh red color by the time he stepped into the pleasant, airconditioned coolness that was corporate Capitol City.
It was an even crisper cool as he was the only patron in the store, the only others being the employees.
Except when he locked eyes with the poor cashier at the front, looking bored as all get out in a washed out red polo with a black apron, he recognized that face. He recognized those heterochromic eyes.
“Flamefrags,” He growled, instantly on the offensive.
“Hello, welcome to Wendy’s, what can I get for you,” Flame just stared him down, completely indifferent to his appearance
“You,” He pointed a finger at his rival, steam almost beginning to come out of his ears. How dare he? How dare Flame stand there like everything was okay when, at least Wemmbu could reasonably assume, it was his fault he’d lost his job! His apartment!
He was ruining his life and he didn’t even have the audacity to respond correctly.
“Me?” Flame raised a confused eyebrow.
“You cheater! You cheated on the Sword Fighting final! And took Valedictorian! You’re a cheater and a fraud!”
“Sir, this is a Wendy’s,” Flame deadpanned.
(Art by Starrie (Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr))
Wemmbu launched at him, vaulting directly over the counter and knocking into Flame, throwing them both to the floor along with a cash register and a loud crash.
The grappled on the ground for a long moment, neither managing a good hit on the other until finally-
“No! No! Absolutely not!” Wemmbu was torn away from his rival by the scruff of his shirt. He twisted in the grip in an attempt to escape, to no avail. The man who was holding him had on the manager uniform and… a Burger King crown?
“You,” He hauled Wemmbu towards the door like he was a particularly misbehaving cat, “Can get out of my store. And NEVER return.”
Wemmbu flailed his arms but couldn’t prevent himself from falling on his butt.
“Thanks, Saps,” He could hear Flame say to the manager before the door clicked shut.
Wemmbu just sat on the sidewalk outside the restaurant for a moment, gathering his senses. He scoffed, this just cemented his dislike of Flame even more. How dare he get him kicked out when he had a mission to complete for Egg?
Well… he came all this way. He can’t disappoint his best friend.
He stood and made his way to the back of the store, squinting at the large dumpster trying to remember what exactly Egg had asked for from Wendy’s.
When he came up empty, he just shrugged, plugged his nose, and began digging through the delectable selection they had.
He eventually made it out with a large bag of uncooked burger patties (including burnt buns, give him some credit), moldy fries that looked like they’d been dropped somewhere and forgotten for weeks on end, some mysterious sticky substance in a cup, and finally dropped them all into a large bag that had a mysterious skull and crossbones shaped stain.
He looked upon his findings with pride. Egg was going to love it, that he was sure of. He was going to be so proud. He might even tip him!
He tossed the bag into his bike basket, mounted, and set off back home, a journey which took another forty five minutes as he unfortunately encountered some bad traffic.
But he finally made it back to Egg’s apartment, throwing the door wide open and walking in with the brava only he could have (because he was so cool, because he had too much aura).
He rounded the couch and held out the spoils of war to his best friend.
Egg looked at the bag, still buzzing with a couple flies and still with that mysterious skull and crossbones-shaped stain.
He took a breath in, then let it out.
“You know what? Good job bro,” Egg sounded like he was talking through his teeth, trying not to blow up at Wemmbu (but for what reason? He didn’t do anything wrong), “I certainly didn’t expect… this.”
Wemmbu preened.
“You are so welcome,” He grinned, “You’re so lucky to have the most amazing, the most skilled, the best world dominator on your side, or else you’d be doomed!”
“You certainly are…” Egg took another deep breath in and out, “Unique.”
Wemmbu didn’t wait for further praises. He just tossed the bag at Egg (who cringed away from it, weirdly enough) and plopped down next to him on the couch.
The next day both Wemmbu and Egg were up early.
Just like the old days, they were duking it out in the only battle arena that really mattered: Mario Kart.
(Art by Starrie (Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr))
Wemmbu was dominating the board (also known as the last two positions, as they always did), grabbing every single power up seconds before Egg could even think to go for it, cackling each time at the annoyed-flabberghasted look on his face.
“Wemmbu,” Eggs voice went low, almost warningly, when he cut in front of him.
“You snost you lost,” He shrugged, zooming to the finish on their second lap while the NPCs had already completed the course.
Wemmbu finished number one in that game. Number one for last place, that is.
“That’s how it’s done,” Egg stretched, popping his back, a proud smile on his face.
“Cheater,” Wemmbu playfully accused.
“Loser,” Egg shot right back, “I’m out for classes, don’t trash the apartment.”
“The apartment will be spick and span when you return!” Wemmbu saluted him once more, to which Egg gave him a strange look (“Who even uses that expression anymore?”) as he slung his backpack over his shoulder.
“Okay, bro. Just… okay.”
Speechless once again, Egg stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
Wemmbu was on the internet within an hour, stealing time on Egg’s home computer with his high speed Wi-Fi connection and searching the first thing he thought of, the one thing that never let him down: get rich quick ads.
Now, despite popular belief, Wemmbu wasn’t stupid. He knew some titles were too good to be true.
‘Apply Easily for Online Jobs on Zip Recruiter’ was pretty obviously a fraud of some sort.
‘Build Your Perfect Resume with Resume Genius’ was such a con, anyone could tell.
‘Find Jobs Near You on Indeed’ was the most obvious fake ploy ever. Who would even fall for that?
Finally, he struck gold.
‘Publish Your Book Easy Today!’
He clicked on it, interested, and was met with the best sight known to man: early 2000s eyesore colors with too many gif stamps and the most auraless page organization in the universe.
This was perfect. After all, those who don’t spend millions on their presentation must be spending those millions on the product itself.
He eagerly scrolls through the eyesore of a website, searching for a couple of minutes to finally find their instructions. It seems easy enough, all he’d have to do is send in a PDF of his book and they’d do all the hard work for him. He would even get a downpayment of $100!
And they even had quite the extensive terms of service and privacy policy that all but guaranteed his books intellectual safety! Not that he read it…
It seemed more than perfect.
The only problem was that he wasn’t an author.
E.V.I.L. University didn’t even offer any writing courses! Not that he would have taken any in the first place.
Only ‘Influencing the Media’ whatever that meant.
Except…
He felt brilliance strike him, as it often did. The umpteenth metaphorical lightbulb over his head clicked on.
“EGG!” He yelled into his phone the second his best friend picked up the phone.
“Wemmbu?” Egg was whispering from the other side, “I’m in class, what do you need-”
“I’M GOING TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT WORLD DOMINATION!”
“...Okay. Good for you bro. I need to go now, it’s in the middle of class-”
Wemmbu hung up before he could finish. With a proud huff, he instantly opened a blank Word document, cracked his knuckles, and got to work.
Egg, for some reason, isn’t too impressed with his work thus far.
He takes one look at the chapter he’s currently working on, ‘Economics: Conquering with Spreadsheets’, and instantly demands he leave.
“Egggggg,” Wemmbu whines as he is being actively pushed out the door, “Come on, I’m almost done! Once I send this off we’ll make our billions! Trillions, even! I’ll have dominated the market! I can sell it for however much I want and people won’t have a choice but to buy!”
“I don’t care, Wemmbu,” He gives a final heave and the purplette has to stumble to stay on his feet (how undignified!), “I told you five days and it’s been five days. You can keep your stuff here but you are getting out.”
“But…” Wemmbu attempts the best puppy dog eyes he can manage. Wateringly sad. He was a lost puppy. No, he was a kicked puppy.
Unfortunately, his best friend was immune.
Egg goes to slam the door, but Wemmbu manages to shove a foot in before he can.
“Egg, please, come on,” He attempts again, “I don’t have anywhere else!”
“That sounds like a Wemmbu problem,” Egg replied back in deadpan, nudging his foot out of the way of the door so he could slam it closed again.
Unfortunately for that plan, Wemmbu has his other foot in the doorframe just in time and it stops the door swinging closed yet again. Another wince of pain, another bruise the next day.
“Please, Egg, I’ll have to sleep on the ground. The ground! Don’t you know that’s where bugs are?”
(Art by Silvverlaw (Twitter))
Egg raises an unimpressed eyebrow.
“In an alley somewhere,” He tacks on, “It’ll be horrible, you can’t do this to me.”
Egg crosses his arms.
“Please? Egg? My best friend in the entire world?”
“No,” Egg slams the door on him for a third time, and this time Wemmbu has no more feet to shove into the crack to stop his attempt.
“Egggggggg,” He starts rhythmically banging on the door, pleading with whatever deity is out there that his best friend will answer the door.
Sadly for Wemmbu, whatever deity is out there doesn’t seem to like him very much, and instead he hears the telltale click of a lock.
Finally accepting defeat at the hands of the only person allowed that privilege, he shuffles sadly away and down the apartment complex hallway, looking back a couple times like a puppy rejected food.
Egg does not seem to be paying him the slightest bit of attention.
He grumbles his frustration to himself as he walks down the street, kicking every rock he comes across.
His best friend is cruel. Crueler than he could ever be.
Maybe Egg should have gotten a degree from E.V.I.L. University? He’d absolutely be the perfect match for Influencing the Media or whatever. They’d be the dynamic duo. Everyone would fear them and their ruthless ability to dominate the world.
But Egg had betrayed him! How dare he!
He was startled out of his moaning thoughts by a sudden commotion.
He looks up.
Is that the deity Jeb? Pikachu? Michael Jackson?
He wanders closer, intrigued as to what these mysterious strangers dressed up as pop culture icons are doing, and sees that they’re shouting nonsensical commands to each other, crowded around a double set of closed doors.
What are they doing?
Meh, he doesn’t care to find out particularly, and just sprints closer to join the crowd in their goal.
The group cheers when they finally manage to knock through the door (who put a bike lock on it and thought it would work?) and everyone spills inside.
Wemmbu runs in with them, ducking under multiple frantic security guards and running further into the building with… is that Luigi?
Egg has forsaken him, so it doesn’t matter if this will get him killed. He might as well have some fun before his inevitable death to Incurable Sleeping On The Floor In A Dirty Alley Surrounded By Bugs Disease.
He joins them, stumbling up and down the twisting, maze-like stairwells scattered throughout the building.
Who needed this many stairs?
When Wemmbu took over the world he’d ban having this many stairs in one place. Maybe even ban stairs altogether… replace them with slides and elevators.
Slowly the group seems to split off into smaller and smaller sections. Wemmbu barely manages to dodge another security person as they lunge for him, tumbling out of the way and instantly rolling back onto his feet as he’d learned from all his fighting courses, then dodging deeper than anyone else into the maze.
This definitely looked smaller on the outside, he swore to himself as he peered down sprawling hallways after massive gym-like rooms. They’d painted the walls a sickly yellow color, too. What a mess.
Well, mess was a strong term. He slowed down his running, feet aching from being abused so heavily in such a short amount of time (from Egg’s door and now the treacherous stairwells), and noticed that nearly every hallway looked identical. It was so weird.
He finally got to a door that looked completely different from the others, almost like a bank vault door.
Wemmbu’d almost trotted right past it, having to backpedal a few steps to just stare, wondering if it was a smart decision to snoop further into a building he’d already trespassed in.
His curiosity won out, especially since he’d yet to see another living soul in… a while.
(Art by Skid (Instagram, Youtube, Twitter))
He barely needed to graze the door with the tips of his fingers before it swung itself open for him. He peered inside.
Pitch black.
He squinted, trying to make out something, anything.
“Hello?” He called to the darkness, stepping inside, “Is anyone there?”
Nobody answered.
Typical.
Suddenly, however, the lights flash on.
Wemmbu jolts, shielding his eyes from the sudden influx of searing white.
In front of him was nothing he’d ever seen before. It was some sort of… blob?
A giant, purple blob with almost cartoon looking legs and arms that were genuinely just black sticks. And a bracket smile that almost seemed painted on.
And eyes that bore directly into his soul.
“Is that an alien?”
The entity, whatever it was, jiggled a little.
Then it lunged.
Wemmbu let out a totally not terrified, and very very dignified scream.
He turns tail and books it the other way, barely dodging out of the way as someone tries to grab him.
He turns to face this new aggressor, hands twitching for a sword that hasn’t been by his side regularly since E.V.I.L. University and their lax view on deadly weapons.
He stares down a man in a too-formal pure black suit and the most suspicious looking sunglasses imaginable.
The man raises a hand to his ear, but Wemmbu is on the move once again before any words can be spoken into the earpiece.
“WE HAVE AN INTRUDER!” He hears called from behind him, “PURPLE HAIR, TACKY CLOTHING, RUNNING FOR ENTRANCE SCI-OL12.”
“TACKY?!?!” Wemmbu blanches at the words, taking a second to look down at his clothes.
He was in his casual outfit, just a simple dress shirt, embroidered pants, and heeled boots. It wasn’t tacky in the slightest! He’d even left his monarch-eqsue cape at home!
He was much faster than the man in the too-formal suit, and managed to slip back into the never ending hallways once again.
Now, if only he could remember where he came from.
He had to duck as another man attempted to grab him, performing a front handspring when a third suddenly shot their crossbow at him.
Why were they so aggressive? Geeze.
Once he had his balance again, after a step of stumbling, he was off once again.
Luckily, the men in sunglasses didn’t seem to be as fast as he, not many were, and he was able to once again make it out.
He screeched to a stop when he finally noticed a double set of doors at the end of the hallway that looked nothing like the others in the dank-yellow hallways.
He booked it for them.
“Hey! You! Stop right there!” A man called from behind him. Wemmbu spared a glance and nearly tripped when he counted almost a dozen more of the suit men.
He refocused on the task at hand, slamming open the door as footsteps hammered behind him.
Up a stairwell (oh god not another), down another, then burst through the doors at the end of the final hallway after dodging one of the security men from before.
Cool night air hit his face as he stumbled out into an unassuming street. He booked it, only pausing to catch his breath when he realized nobody had followed him through the doors.
“What… the freak…” He panted to himself, staring at the door he’d just come out of, a carbon copy of the one he’d entered with the crowd not an hour before, down to the shining ‘SCIENTOLOGY’ letters above the front door.
He could have sworn he’d entered when it was morning, and now the sun was already setting. He couldn’t have been in there for the entire day, right?
He brushed off his pants, took a final deep breath, and elected to ignore that entire interaction.
A bit of wandering leads him to a motel. He is not sleeping on the cold, dirty floor of some dinky alley.
By the time the cleaning crew comes to unceremoniously kick him out of his motel room the next day, he’s already thinking hard about his next venture to make money.
Since someone so rudely kicked him out of their apartment until he got ‘a real job that makes real money’ (cough cough Eggchan cough cough) he was forced to wander the street like some hooligan.
He bit his lip, thinking hard on what he could possibly do when it finally hit him.
There’s one thing he never fully took advantage of.
One thing he got because he could. Because Flame didn’t have it, and getting it would therefore prove his ultimate superiority over his rival: his status as an ordained priest.
It was the perfect scheme, he grinned to himself triumphantly.
One trip to the 24/7 Spirit Halloween later and he had swapped his now rumpled casual outfit for one that matched a catholic priest, minus the giant ‘FOR SALE’ sign he’d also gotten, scratching out the intended text for his own ‘MARRIAGER FOR HIRE’ message.
He was snickering all the way to Capitol City main square, impressed yet again with his own genius despite the strange looks people were giving him along the way.
“Here ye here ye!” He leapt on top of the first soap box he found, earning a disgruntled yell from a newspaper boy, “My name is Wemmbu and I am the greatest marriager in the world! I will marry you right here, right now, for cheap!”
The initial crowd seemed to scoff at him. They had the audacity to laugh at him, how dare they! Oh, if he had his mace right now… Or his sword…
“Come on, babe, this will be fun,” Someone pulled their partner up to his temporary stand, a mischievous smile on their face.
“It’s not legally binding,” The partner chuckled, “What’s the harm?”
Oh little did they know.
“Are you here to be married?” Wemmbu asked them coyly, as if he hadn’t just eavesdropped on their previous conversation.
“Yes, please!” The first person exclaimed.
“Yes?” He asked with a grin.
“I mean,” They giggled, “I do.”
“As do I,” The partner agreed.
“Then by the power vested in me-” those were really the only words he remembered, to be honest “-I say you are married.”
“How silly,” The first person laughed, handing him a couple dollars and pulling their partner away.
“Yes, dear,” He heard the partner say back, before they disappeared back into the crowd.
Wemmbu instantly stuffed the bills into his hat, chest puffed out proudly at his first successful sale.
See, Egg! He thought to himself, This is a real job!
They said not to count all of your eggs before you put them in baskets (or whatever) but Wemmbu was certain this was the path he needed to take.
“Are you really an ordained priest?” He jolted to turn towards a couple who had approached him while he was lost in his thoughts.
“Of course I am,” He grinned back, “The name’s Wemmbu NoLastName! Are you looking to get married?”
“We are!” The second partner smiled at him.
He was such a charmer. Two customers in however many minutes, he was living the life.
“Sir, first may I see your license?" The first of the two asked.
“Of course,” He made a show of pulling out his phone, extracting the tiny business card size certificate from within his case, and handing it over with the brava of a crow holding out a dollar bill for bread crumbs, “Now all you two need to say is ‘I do’.”
“Actually-” To his horror, the person instantly began ripping up the card, pocketting the shredded pieces.
“HEY-” Wemmbu screeched, lunging forward but getting blocked by the second partner.
“By the power vested in me,” The first partner then took out his own card. Wemmbu froze when he recognized the ornate gold filigree spelling out ‘High Priest’ at the top. “I am removing Wemmbu NoLastName’s ordained status for misuse of responsibility.”
Wemmbu is useless to the world as he watches the couple turn around and stalk away, as if they hadn’t just shattered his entire plan.
Well, he grumbles, sulking back the way he came, that was certainly a setback.
He ditched the priest uniform the first second he got, kicking it down an open manhole cover and watching in satisfaction as it slipped below the surface.
So much for that genius plan.
He stalked to the closest Starbucks he could find, latching on to their free Wifi to sulk and doomscroll on Twitter, waiting for inspiration to strike him once again.
Except something on his screen made him freeze.
Wemmbu’s eyes narrowed at the screen. Someone had posted a collection of images of himself, many he knew for a fact that were taken without him knowing.
In every single one of them, his forehead was slightly larger than normal.
It had to be Flame, he decided. Nobody else was that atrociously evil.
(Except maybe Boosfer.)
And the latest to the collection was him standing in the middle of Capitol City square, face frozen in time as the evil, evil couple stalked away from where he stood on the crate.
And the worst of all, the hat made his hairline look even worse.
Wait… the hat.
He felt his heart sink in realization that he’d thrown away the hat without extracting the money from inside.
Which means he didn’t have enough for another night in the motel.
(Not that he’d had any for the first night, that’s what his now maxed-out credit card was for.)
He tapped his finger on his phone as he rang up his best friend.
“Egggg,” He whined as soon as he picked up.
“Wemmbu,” Egg answered back in a similar fashion though without the syllable elongation.
“Can I-”
“No.”
Wemmbu hung up.
He was going to get revenge on him for this, he swears! He’ll… actually he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but it will be absolutely evil!
Despicable!
Unheard of!
Maybe, when he conquered the world, he’d ban Egg from getting coffee. That seemed like a suitable punishment.
Oh well, he sighed, setting off yet again, this time to find a suitable alleyway to hole up in.
Except, he lit up once again with yet another absolutely brilliant idea.
He could just find an uninhabited house and break in! He knew how, obviously, he paid some attention in the Breaking and Entering 101 class at E.V.I.L University, and it seemed simple enough.
How hard could it be?
Turns out, it wasn’t that hard at all.
He found a pretty dead-to-the-world looking house within a couple minutes of searching the suburbs, staking it out for another hour after that. No lights, no cars, no nothing.
He stalked through the darkness that had slowly set onto the world around him, ducking into one of the bushes outside.
He waits another moment or two, just as Professor Sharpness had taught them, listening to the sounds of crickets and frogs.
He didn’t even need to flex his amazing lockpicking skills, the window was already unlocked for some reason.
He grinned to himself. Idiots.
He crouched low through the house, eyes flicking any place security cameras could be, and finding surprisingly nothing, he relaxed.
No cameras, no security system, wow these guys must be amateurs.
Then he notices it.
He almost passed it on his initial sweep, having to backtrack to full squint through the darkness and see it.
A picture frame featuring two figures that he knew very well.
E.V.I.L. University had a direct competitor; the University of Generosity, Opportunity, Outreach, and Duty, or the University of G.O.O.D.. And their top students were standing right there.
Parrot and Wifies.
Wemmbu rolled his eyes.
Of course he managed to stumble directly upon the house of the world’s number 1 goody two shoes.
Well, he figured, at least he wouldn’t feel too bad about crashing here.
Without further ado he flopped onto the couch and promptly passed out.
The next day he wakes up and decides it’s a perfect day to finally fully get his delivery service off the ground.
The first step in this is to finally get his drivers license.
So he goes to the one place that somehow manages to suck the hopes and dreams out of everyone it encounters: The DMV.
As soon as he steps through the dreaded double set of doors into the soulcrushing corporation building, he instantly hears some overly horrible rendition of Baby Shark played over the speaker, completely out of tune.
This had to be Flame’s doing. Who else would be devious enough to find a poorly made heavy metal cover of the worst song imaginable?
The only person he could reasonably think of was his rival. He had the evilness, had the desire, and had the motive to do it.
The horror.
Truly, Wemmbu was in hell.
“Hello, sir,” The person behind the counter greets him with too much enthusiasm for 9:03 in the morning in the most bland place on earth, “How may I help you?”
“Drivers license?"
“Of course!” They begin shuffling papers behind the counter, “That’s pretty straightforward, all you need to do is fill out this quick form.”
And they proceed to hand him the actual motherload of paperwork. His eyes widened in almost fear looking upon the pile of papers, nearly as tall as his head.
As if to add insult to injury, the clerk drops a pen on top of the stack and slides a clipboard underneath with an encouraging smile.
Wemmbu thinks the clipboard is useless, the papers themselves created enough sturdy weight to write on without requiring outside stability.
“This is the prequalifier, once you have this all filled out we can check your eligibility for an actual license with our actual test. Then, all that’s left is the final paperwork to issue said license and you’re good to go,” They patted a stack of papers next to them.
Wemmbu’s eyes almost bulged out of his head when he noticed it came up to their shoulders and started at the ground.
He groaned internally.
“Okay…” He whimpered.
He slid the motherload of paper off the desk, almost toppling over as its weight was way more than he was expecting, but finally managing to lug it over to the many stainless steel folding chairs decorating the waiting area.
He was going to be here for a while…
…
(Art by Silvverlaw (Twitter))
…
…and a while it was.
By the time he’s finally finished all the accursed paperwork, it’s been dark outside for quite a while, not that the windowless, cement building let any outside light in in the first place.
The clerk had been rotated out nearly four times by the time he lugged his stash back to the counter.
“Thank you,” The person behind the counter nods to him, taking the stack with the strength of a god, “Let me just run this through the system.”
Without missing a beat, they shuffle through the stack, find a single piece, and slide it into a scanner. The rest goes instantly into the trash.
Wemmbu wants to break down in tears.
“We’re so sorry,” The clerk turns back to him with a sad smile on their face, “We can’t accept your application at this time. Please do come back again, though.”
“Okay…” He replies back, sounding absolutely defeated. The only loss he’d willingly accept.
Despite himself he’s relieved when fresh air hits him in the face as he’s finally free from the stuffy building.
He’s never going back, he decides with the fervor of a man who just avoided getting burnt alive. He is never spending another 16 hours doing paperwork ever again.
It’s nearly 1am by the time he reaches the house again, traveling back in record time.
He doesn’t even bother doing his usual checks on the house, just climbing in the window and rolling to his feet.
Only to come face to face with said house’s resident.
“Wemmbu?” Parrot gives him a baffled look as if not expecting him here.
“Parrot?” Wemmbu says back, equally baffled. He was supposed to be on vacation! Or gone like last night! Wherever he went, Wemmbu honestly didn’t know.
“Why are you in my house?”
Wemmbu honestly didn’t have a good answer for that.
So, instead of answering, he just turned around and dove back through the window.
“Hello? Police? I found the person who broke in,” He hears from behind him, causing him to scramble even faster through the garden.
Unfortunately for him the police were apparently faster, a car blaring alarms and flooding the night with red and blue lights screeched to a stop right in front of him just as he was about to run across the street.
“Stop!” The policeman lunged out of the vehicle, taser already in hand, “You are under arrest!”
“No thank you!” Wemmbu booked it in the opposite direction, instead.
“Hey! Get back here!”
He vaults over Parrot’s back fence and into the back yard of the adjacent house. He races through, speeding up when he hears a nasty bark behind him and the neighbor's dog begins to join the chase.
Luckily, his head start allows him to jump over the front fence before the animal can catch up, and he’s back in another section of the neighborhood.
He’s glad for the Evading the Police on Foot class he took back during his E.V.I.L. University days as another couple of police cars speed down the block and screech to a halt in front of him.
In an epic show of skill, strength, and dexterity, he takes a running leap, using the first car’s hood as a springboard onto the second’s roof, performing a completely unnecessary backflip midair, landing on the other side of the poorly done blockade, and continuing his run.
The police look baffled when he peeks behind him.
He’s leaping into the next yard, this time turning to vault through backyards rather than across another road.
He crouches in a dark back lawn, behind a bush, giving him a moment to catch his breath and listen in to the police chatter.
“The suspect disappeared,” One of the officers said into their radio, “Approximately 5’ 4” male with purple dyed hair.”
A light shines on his hiding spot from above, and he looks up to see a police helicopter.
It cannot be that serious.
“I have eyes!” Another officer yells, “Stop! You’re under arrest, come out with your hands-”
But Wemmbu is once again on the move, vaulting over the fence next to him with little effort, tumbling into the adjacent yard.
He’s off running again, zigzagging through neighborhoods until he’s back in Capitol City proper. The helicopter zooms right overhead as he ducks behind a market stall, creeping out only when the propellers have gotten a fair distance away.
It’s then a game of ducking in and out of alleyways, dodging away from the streets the police are actively scouring, and making his way through the maze of streets that is Capitol City.
Finally, he finds the perfect hiding spot: the basement of an abandoned building that’s already located a fair distance away from the active search.
He ducks in, finding a good spot in between two rotting wood cabinets, and collapses to the ground.
It takes him a moment to fully search his surroundings. He spots something, right across from him in front of an old washing machine actively spilling sluggish… whatever that liquid was- like a volcano, was a raccoon.
More specifically a dead raccoon, sprawled on its back with white foam spilling from its mouth.
The raccoon somehow looks very judgemental, with its tiny paws in a state of permanent rigor mortis and its eyes staring somehow straight into Wemmbu’s soul.
Very much like Egg did when he was finished explaining his E.V.I.L. University coursework over summer break.
“So what brings you here?” He asked.
The raccoon, as expected, didn’t answer.
“Let me guess,” He rolled his eyes, “Flame?”
The washing machine continued to spew mystery substance.
“It’s about time someone gets me,” Wemmbu shakes his head, “Finally, someone to agree that Flame is pure evil! He’s plotting something, I know it. He acted too innocent back at Wendy’s. I swear this is all his fault somehow…”
The raccoon twitched, just barely, as if to offer its agreement.
“First he got me fired… then he got me kicked out of my apartment. But I just can’t seem to figure out why.”
“...”
“Then! Do you know what he did! He got me kicked out of Wendy’s! He wouldn’t even fight me! How ridiculous, it’s basically all he wanted back at University, ‘Bro come fight me, Bro I’ll prove to you dirty tricks won’t work, Bro Bro Bro!’” His voice went a note higher than usual, a poor imitation of his rival’s voice.
The raccoon didn’t respond, as per usual he was finding.
“I bet he even set up that High Priest. He’s just evil like that. And the DMV. You know what… I think he’s scared,” Wemmbu laughed, an evil manic thing that bounced off the walls of the basement, “Scared that I’m already on track for world domination before him!”
The raccoon, this time, let out a loud alarm.
Well, not the raccoon, the car outside of the building that suddenly just turned on its lights and siren, flooding the basement with sound and noise.
Wemmbu startled to his feet and took off running again without further ado.
Three officers came in, the first instantly following him while the other two just cringed at the filth.
“So. Can we arrest the raccoon?” He hears one officer say to another as they examine his old hiding spot.
“It’s already dead,” The other deadpans.
A period of silence.
“Fine,” The second relents, “But you’re getting it to the car.”
“Stop running!” The one chasing him pants.
Wemmbu is too fast for them, easily speeding away back into the cover of night.
He didn't stop this time, not until he was all the way on the opposite side of the city. At that point, even he had to begin slowing down from exhaustion; nobody could keep up that rapid of a pace for longer.
He huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf, one hand gripping the brick siding of a run down pawn shop.
24/7, he noted with a raised eyebrow, eyes taking the moment of rest to search the displays in the window.
Then he sees it, the perfect revenge: superfine glitter.
A smile crosses his face, unmatched in its crazed air.
He’s quick to empty his pockets of the money he’d thieved from Parrot’s house that first morning, slamming it down on the pawn shop’s counter with the determination of a madman.
The cashier, somehow knowing his order without even exchanging a single word, doesn’t even look twice at him before gesturing for him to take the entire bag from where it sat on the display case.
Mission accomplished, he beams triumphantly to himself as he slowly makes his way out of the store, hefting the hundred pound bag with him.
Now.
He pulled up his contacts and dialed Egg’s number. Four times calling him in a row and he finally answered.
“Egg?” He can’t hide the grin in his voice.
“Wemmbu?” Egg sounds exhausted, slurring his words together as the background noise of his fans make his end sound a bit like TV static, “Why are you calling… at this… ungodly hour?”
“I need your help, Eggy! I have the perfect revenge plan!”
“Mhm,” Egg hums back, sounding like he was halfway to passing out.
“I just need you to drive me to Wendy’s.”
“Wemmbu, you’re my best friend in the whole world, but please go to sleep. Come back here, I don’t care anymore, just go to sleep.”
“Egg,” Wemmbu whines back, pouting, but he’s already hung up on him.
He grumbles, but opens up his last ditch effort: Uber.
A black SUV pulls up next to him within a minute.
“╎ᓭ ℸ ̣ ⍑╎ᓭ ∴ᒷᒲᒲʖ⚍?” The driver rolls down their window.
“Huh?” Wemmbu replies almost dumbly.
“Tee-ah-runk,” They gesture to the back, the trunk popping open just as he sounded the word out, “!¡⚍ℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑℸ ̣ ╎リ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ℸ ̣ ∷⚍リꖌ, ∴ᒷ ↸𝙹リ'ℸ ̣ ⊣𝙹ℸ ̣ ᔑꖎꖎ ↸ᔑ||.”
“Dalright,” He shrugs, lugging the bag to the back of the car and stuffing it as best as possible into the back. If a little glitter spilled out then that wasn’t his problem anymore.
He shoved the door closed and climbed in the back.
“∴ᒷ'∷ᒷ 𝙹⎓⎓ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 Whenn-nneys リ𝙹∴. ᓭᒷᔑℸ ̣ ʖᒷꖎℸ ̣ 𝙹∷ ╎ ᓵ∷ᔑᓭ⍑ ᔑリ↸ ꖌ╎ꖎꖎ ||𝙹⚍.”
Wemmbu for the life of him couldn’t place the accent. He just squinted up at the driver. They sighed and mimed the action of putting their seatbelt on.
“Oh, seatbelt,” He echoed dumbly, clicking his own into place.
The drive was quiet. He rested his head against the window and let his eyes slide closed for the majority of the trip, fading in and out of sleep with the bumps of the road.
He was unfortunately rudely awoken when suddenly the door opened.
“Hey!” The seatbelt barely caught him from falling out. The driver tapped their foot against the pavement impatiently with a raised eyebrow.
“∴ᒷ'∷ᒷ ⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ,” They huffed to him.
Some things, apparently, were understandable despite language barriers.
“Okay, okay,” Wemmbu grumbled, stumbling out of the vehicle with a huff back at the impatient driver. Once his feet had fully hit the pavement the car was already starting back up and peeling out of the parking lot with probably illegal speeds.
Wemmbu didn’t care, just trudged over to the unceremoniously dropped bag of glitter.
Now, time for his ultimate revenge.
Except when he turned around he wasn’t greeted with the pop-disco lights of Wendy’s; instead, a run down and depressed Denny’s met his eyes.
He just stared at it for a moment. Slowly turned around, placing the bag back on the ground, and ran off towards the retreating car.
“Hey! Hey you!” He called, waving his hands in the air as if that would get the driver’s attention, “This isn’t my stop!”
Except, for some stupid reason, in a contest of speed even a trained Athlete from E.V.I.L. University was not a match for a car.
It took him a minute or two of running to finally accept the truth.
“Stupid Uber,” He grumbled to himself as he trudged dejectedly back to his abandoned bag of glitter.
That was now sitting next to someone.
A police officer, if the uniform was anything to go by.
Wemmbu froze just as the officer spotted him and waved him over.
“Sir, is this yours?” The officer tapped their pen against a clipboard, looking up expectantly at him.
“Um…” Wemmbu gave him a wide-eyed look, “Maybe?”
“I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
“No, absolutely not,” Wemmbu immediately denied, just as Egg told him to do if he ever got questioned by the police (though that advice was for when he was not guilty of any crimes).
“You know, I could swear I recognized you.”
“And I could swear you didn’t,” Wemmbu rebuked, the argument to end all arguments.
As if by a twist of fate, a voice crackled over the radio on the officer’s belt.
“Purple haired suspect is still MIA and unidentified. Please report sightings immediately but return to daily patrol in the meantime.”
The officer and Wemmbu seem to share a moment of cognitive dissonance as they stare at each other.
The officer recovers a moment quicker.
“Hey! It’s you! You’re under arrest!” They lunge forward, managing to hook a finger in the collar of his neck, stopping his escape.
What is it with being picked up like a cat, lately, Wemmbu thought miserably to himself.
They grapple on the ground for a moment, knocking into the bag of glitter. Ripping it open.
Bright rainbow specks fly in every direction, peppering them both in a fine layer and exploding into the air like some unholy cloud of doom.
Wemmbu yelps as his eyes are suddenly assaulted by bright, shining specks digging into his eyeballs, choking a second later as the actual motherload takes the opportunity to settle halfway down his throat.
And as if to add insult to injury, the officer finally manages to slam his wrists to a pinned position.
“You’re,” They coughed, a cloud of glitter coming out of their mouth, “Under arrest.”
How would he get out of this?
His brain raced for possibilities, but his mouth apparently didn’t listen as it spat out the first thing he thought of.
“You’re not the police.”
Just take him to prison and never speak of this again.
However, instead of doing so, the policeman just froze. Like a child being caught halfway into the cookie jar.
Wemmbu froze right alongside them.
“Who are you?” The officer said in a voice that somehow echoed around them.
Wemmbu took the opportunity to kick them straight in the stomach, throwing them off of him.
“Don’t you know impersonating a police officer is illegal?” He yells, launching to his feet and clocking the officer(?) in the face with a well-timed punch.
“What- But- Says the person who literally broke into someone’s house!”
“Details,” He shrugged, and instead of running (which at this point was getting a little boring) he leapt at the officer-not-officer.
This caught them off guard, and he was able to get in quite a few more good punches before the weight was shifted and he had to readjust.
He felt his E.V.I.L. University training kick in, body automatically adjusting back into his mace-wielding stance, his swings becoming more focused, his breathing evening out.
His opponent swore, barely dodged his attacks, and had no time for retribution. Their form was sloppy, like they never fought a day in their life.
“Man, you’re crazy,” They snarled.
Wemmbu only had enough time to grin before some otherworldly force threw him off and to the ground.
“What the-”
He shielded his eyes as the officer-not-officer transformed into some figure made entirely of light, then ascended into the sky like some unholy beacon.
Or, well, holy beacon of light, perhaps.
Wemmbu was left dumbfounded.
What the actual hell?
“That was…” Wemmbu spun around to face another person, specks of glitter spinning into the air with the movement. They had a slightly amazing look on their face as they gaped at the apparent winner of the fight.
“Amazing?” He echoed dumbly, unsure of what else to say.
“I need you. Like, as an employee. Right now. If you’d be willing, of course.”
“Employee? For who?”
“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, I’m sorry. My name is Branzy; I’m one of the regional managers for Waffle House, and I would like to formally offer you a job.”
“I- I-” Wemmbu stuttered for the right thing to say.
“You?” The general manager looked at him hopefully.
“What are you doing at a Denny’s?”
“And you wouldn’t believe what a customer did today!” Wemmbu lamented to Egg, overdramatically collapsing onto his best friend like he was a fainting couch.
“Oh?” Egg sounded wholly disinterested, not even looking away from the news.
“Reddoons had the audacity to try and flex his status as governor! Like come on, you come into Waffle House expecting to be treated with reverence-”
“That’s a big word for you.”
“-like every other place in this city. Obviously not, so I beat up his bodyguard or friend or whatever. He wasn’t that strong, not like that Jaden guy or whatever. Now he was fun-”
“Hey. Flame’s on the news.”
“WHAT?!?!” Wemmbu sat up at breakneck speed, head whipping towards the screen.
Just as Egg had said, Flame was standing in front of a large podium, the channel displaying ‘BREAKING NEWS’ at the top of the screen.
“You’re experiencing history here, folks,” The reporter commented, “Flamefrags is officially being crowned the first King of the World. He reportedly has a degree in World Domination from E.V.I.L. University, which would make him the first person ever to succeed in using that degree.”
Wemmbu spluttered. “That was supposed to be my thing!”
“Thank you for having me,” Flame gave the camera a short smile, one Wemmbu knew all too well having learned the same exact one, “My first order of business: I am doubling the debt owed by one Wemmbu NoLastName to E.V.I.L. University from half a billion to a full billion.
“And before I move on,” Flame leaned towards the podium, staring straight into the camera, “I would like to say something directly to him…”
He paused, letting out a short huff of a laugh.
“You were right, but only once. I have been orchestrating everything,” He tapped the microphone once, then went back to that cool, calm professional mask he wore a moment before his taunt, “My second order of business is to resign from this position and return all citizens to their previous leaders.”
Wemmbu stared at the screen for a solid minute as his rival stepped down and the reporter began commentating again, so much so that even Egg gave him a questioning look.
“Okay,” He finally huffed, “What the fuck.”
