Pawprints: The Election

21- president pass-off

(TW: alcohol and death)

We had made it to Manberg seeing Shlatt and the others, also geared in full neatherite, standing ready for a fight.

The war had started, unsure of who attacked first. I tried to stay out of the large fight only fighting someone if they came to me. I had noticed I was not the only one who had slipped out of the fighting.

A familiar set of horns stumbled out of the battle field and into the old camarvan. I followed behind him keeping my distance so as to not start a fight outside of the range of the others. I slowly approached the van, seeing his armor all stripped off and abandoned outside of the door. When I entered the van I saw Shlatt, slumped onto the floor, flustered, clutching a dark bottle tightly. I slowly took another step forward gaining more confidence, suddenly a loud crack gave me away. Slatt turned to me quickly, his face lit up as he saw me.

"Kitten!" he shouted reaching for me, I stepped out of his reach smelling the alcohol in his breath. "Oh come here (Y/N)," He stammered in his words, "you know I didn't mean any of the stuff I did."

"Shlatt you tried to kill Tubbo," I searched for the right words, "you almost had me killed!" I shouted at the drunk.

Shlatt started mumbling something under his breath, we had not even noticed the silence that took over the battlefield outside until a door was pushed open. Tommy and Wilbur were the first to shove in of the group, soon followed by the rest of both sides of the war.

"Wilbur- Tommy!" Shlatt stood up, stumbling around.

"See!" Dream shouted from the roof of the van were he sat looking in through one of the large holes that had corroded in, "He's a drunk, an idiot I will not fight for." Tommy held his bow at his side tightly as dream spoke.

Shlatt's slurred words started getting worse as he took another swig of the drink. Fundy stepped forward seeing the man stumble slightly.

"You know Shlatt I believed in you," He said almost broken, "I did so much for you."

"Ya, well I am one thing you'll never be," Shlatt held himself up against a wall as he stumped a bit more trying to take another swig of the empty bottle.

"And what is that?"

"A real man," Shlatt yelled as he threw the empty bottle at Fundy.

Fundy quickly responded holding up his arm to protect him from the bottle as it shattered against him. The crowd started yelling inaudible shouts. Wilbur was telling Tommy something through the shouts, Tommy's reaction was to raise the loaded crossbow to Shlatt as the crowd quieted down.

"You know," Shlatt spoke, "if you kill me, l'manberg will fall with me."

"No," Tommy spoke confidently, "No l'manberg won't fall without you, we'll survive without you."

Tommy still held the bow to Shlatt finger lingering over the trigger. Shlatt broke out coughing, his footing faltered as he slowly slid down the wall to sit.

"I- I smell toast," Shlatt started coughing again. He suddenly slumped over and stopped coughing.

"Did-," I hesitated for a second "Did he die?"

Wilbur knelt down to Shlatts level, pressing two fingers to his neck checking his pulse. Without saying a word Wilbur stood back up and nodded.

The crowd cheered at the news as I pushed through to get out of the crowded van.

The crowd eventually dispersed mostly following Wilbur to the stage. Wilbur and Tommy both made their way onto the stage as the rest of us took seats.

Wilbur took and told Tommy something as Tommy walked to the podium.

"It looks like we've won " Tommy spoke, "and I never thought I'd say this, but even after the hardships, the tyranny we've been through; wilbur, tubbo; after everything... it was meant to be." Tommy took a deep breath, "thank you everyone for making me president, Wilbur I know you said I never would be" He stopped, "Wilbur I can't be the president."

The crowd erupted in surprise and questions.

"As much as this is everything, I've still got unfinished business," he looked to Dream who sat in the back of the crowd, "cause you've still got those disks and I cannot take this place in Manburg- L'Manburg."

The crowd erupted in cheers and applause at the old name coming back.

"We sometimes take 'L's," Tubbo shouted from the front row.

Tommy left the stage as Wilbur took the stage.

"Look I'm going to keep this bref and in keeping with the theme," Wilbur spoke into the microphone, "That flag," he motioned towards the black and orange flag that flew, "That is not the L'Manberg flag, I want to go back to the original flag. However I also cannot take this presidency, Techno has taught me a lot and I see that government is not the way, so I am going to hand the presidency off to someone else, Tubbo I want you to come up and take this presidency."

Tubbo walked onto the stage taking Wilbur's position as the crowd cheered loudly. Wilbur walked up to Tommy, placing a hand on his shoulder and whispering something to him and then he walked off. It felt off, where was Wilbur going, what was he doing? My thoughts were interrupted by Tubbo speaking.

"Ok well I've been put on the spot here," he laughed slightly "I wasn't expecting to be surrounded here by friends, enemies which I don't hate at all that much to be honest. But I enjoy seeing the unity and I feel like that's really all that matters; whether we were fighting against each other or together I feel like that's important and I feel like there's a solid future to be built on here. Yes it has damages but everything has bamages, when I think of damages I think of a piece of wood which has had nails banged into it, you can take the nails out but there's still holes okay and the holes can be filled and that's what I would like to do as my jon as president. I don't want to just be an agent of chaos, if you will, for anyone who wants to start violent activity; that's honestly the last thing on my agenda right now. I just want you to know I want to fix this place up, I want it to be back as it was in its heyday. Thank you to everyone, it's been hard," Tubbo stopped for a moment, "So I'm really going to be honest, I don't really know what a president does."

The crowd laughed as the boy stood atop the podium.

"Well I feel like we should start by taking down my execution decorations," the boy stifled a laugh.

word count: 1144

an- ayyyeeee were so close to finishing the Manburg Pogtopia arks and I am so excited to start writing for the exile and egg arks.

as always I hope you enjoyed!