Kain looked at the absurd sight in front of him with an air of resignation. He had been walking for hours to reach the edge of the island, so when he finally got there he decided to simply stare out at the void. Across from where he stood, there was an island with stony ground and sparse grass growth, with the odd tree here or there. The gap between the islands was about a mile wide; such a wide chasm was outside even Kain’s jumping abilities.
Once he got there, Kain wanted to test a few things about the space he was in. His first test was throwing a rock off of the cliff. Kain used some of his monstrous strength to hurl the rock as far as possible, which caused the rock to soar in an amazingly straight arc, almost hitting the edge of the island opposite him. It fell down and down, eventually hitting another island somewhere in the void. Kain, seeing the result of his first test, wanted to perform his second test, throwing a fallen tree off of the cliff, when he felt something moving in a pocket in his poncho.
Kain pulled out the now reddish-brown rabbit from his poncho as she began to wake up. While the little rabbit woke up, Kain held her in his arms like a baby so she was comfortable. Normally, Kain would not do this to a wild, potentially rabid animal, but there was something different about this rabbit compared to the others.
‘She obviously needed my blood. I don’t know if it was because she drank some back when I was a total mess or if it was based on some other principle, but it had no malicious intent and may have even died were it not for the blood. Besides, I can’t just leave a rabbit all alone in the woods where those nightmarish green apes, it’ll get eaten. Besides, this rabbit is much more intelligent than it should be…’ Kain thought.
The rabbit slowly opened her red eyes and saw the gentle face gazing down at her. She looked at Kain’s eyes and did not want to move. It felt warm and safe in his arms, like a close family member would feel if she huddled together with them. She looked up while on her back and began to try to get out of his arms. Kain, discerning what the little rabbit wanted, slowly let her down to the ground. The little rabbit, now on the ground, began to look around and noticed that she was at the cliff. Seeing this jogged her memory and of the metal hive, as it was in fact quite close to the cliff.
‘Maybe the human can find something interesting there. He made armor out of a green creature, so maybe he can find some use out of the metal creatures!’ She had begun to feel like Kain was now her friend, so she wanted to do as much for him as she could, despite being a rabbit, as she never understood the concept of friendship as a normal rabbit and wanted to bask in the new feeling of friendship.
While the rabbit was collecting her thoughts, Kain was still trying to send the tree off of the island. The tree was eventually thrown off, flying a few feet away from the cliff and plummeting down into islands unknown. Kain now was able to confirm that the islands had some special property to them that allowed them to float, while other things could not.
As he concluded his findings, he felt a small tug on the leg of his now dirty and ripped pants. He looked down and saw the small rabbit pulling his leg, trying to get his attention. Once she got his attention, the rabbit tried to bring Kain somewhere in the forest by gesturing for him to go a certain way.
“What do you want, little girl?” Kain asked. He got no reply, as he expected, so he decided to go along with it. “Fine, I’ll go with you ok?” He smiled at the rabbit, which made her jump in an effort to draw him into the forest, because she could not understand human language. “Alright, alright I’m coming, so calm down.” Kain said in a sighing voice.
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After a bit of walking Kain asked “Where are we going… uh… Ah what’s your name?” The rabbit looked at him and tilted her head like a cute, confused puppy. “Alright, I know you're a girl from holding you earlier, so how does the name Luna sound?” The rabbit, now named Luna, looked at him with another confused expression, so he pointed at her and said “Luna, you’re Luna, Ok? I’m Kain.” he said while pointing to himself.
Luna was confused at first with the strange noises that Kain was making, but eventually got the gist of it when he pointed to her and said ‘Luna’ and when he pointed to himself and said ‘Kain’.
‘Kain… I like his name, but I like my new name even more!’ Luna thought. She was unfamiliar with the concept of names, but had already formed the basic framework of the concept during her dreams, so she had no idea what made a bad name. But Luna could have also been seen as a genius, as her mind was that of a normal rabbit’s not long ago, and she was able to comprehend many human concepts that would have been difficult for any others in her position and with her background.
Luna thought of the metal hive as ‘quite close’, but it was in fact quite far from where Kain found himself after traveling through the forest, so both Luna and Kain were eventually too tired to continue. They found a cave that was secluded enough to rest in and began to settle in for the night… or day, whatever it was. Kain had remembered the albino green ape and its overwhelming power and wanted to replicate the fire blast or at least replicate what Luna did during their fights. Therefore, he sat himself down on a rock in the cave and began to try to force it out of his body.
Meanwhile, Luna had found a soft patch of dirt to lie down in and began to drift off into sleep. She may have just woken up a while ago, but she still felt tired from the weight placed on her by the new breadth of her mind. While drifting off, she began to feel waves of energy coming from Kain. They circled around his body and clashed against each other at random intervals, trying to escape. She realized that he was trying to replicate the fog of energy that she had often used against him in their battles.
‘Ahh! He’s trying to project his energy! But if he keeps doing it like that, hurt himself.... I'll try to help him.’ She thought.She picked herself up off of the ground and hopped over to where Kain was sitting.
He was beginning to feel exhausted as well as some pain. Every time he sent his energy clashing up against their bodily restraints, it felt like someone had just punched him in his veins. He felt sore and bruised, but he had to keep going. If he could not figure it out, then he would likely die in this hellhole sooner rather than later.
As he was concentrating, he felt Luna climb onto his knee. He looked down to see Luna concentrating on his hand with intense focus. Suddenly, wispy, small limbs branched out from her body and began to creep around Kain’s hand, looking for a way to get in. The limbs made him aware of something that had gone unnoticed by him during his practice. Kain was unconsciously reinforcing his skin with energy, making it resistant to energy-based attacks and even physical ones to a degree.
‘So this is why my skin is blue, huh? Well, I don’t mind looking a bit more normal than being freakishly blue.’ It seemed to Kain that he had found the way to turn his skin back to normal. He pulled his energy away from his hand, watching it turn back into his normal, pale skin, though there was still a tiny amount of bluness left over which made his skin look mostly normal. Immediately, Luna’s energy limbs surged into Kain’s body and began to poke around. It poked and prodded at his energy and the walls of his veins, which is where Kain assumed the energy was stored or used to move throughout his body. They continued prodding until one limb finally grabbed his energy completely. As it did, however, Kain heard a voice that sounded like that of an overactive tongue woman ringing in his mind.
‘Ah! There it is! Now I just gotta pull this slowly…’
‘Umm… can I help you?’ Kain said to the voice.
“AH!’ Luna’s energy tried to pull away at that time, but Kain was able to keep it where it was.
‘Ah, so you are Luna, aren’t you?’ Kain thought with a slightly amused tone.
Luna replied ‘Uhh… yeah, that’s me, heh heh… Wait! Are you really Kain?’