Remnant’s Void

[Krak-Quinn]

Clang! Clang. Clang! Clang! Clang. Clang. Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang. Clang! Clang.

The monotonous sounds of the tips of about ten metal pickaxes smashing against stone walls echoed endlessly through the dark mine. The figures behind producing the sounds didn't all agree on a rhythm beforehand, so the sound was pretty chaotic, and the occasional pause to cough only disrupted each individual pattern.

The mine was pitch black with the exception of small glistening crystals ores lining the walls and collected in pails. The raw sparkling ore was unprocessed Dust, and the reason the cave was without light was that any fixture to illuminate the mine might set them off.

This mine was deep, really deep, underground, where sunlight couldn't reach. A fire based light like a lamp, torch, candle and whatnot, would heat up the surrounding stone walls and set off the raw Dust. And an electric based light used Dust, which would mean they would be using Dust to mine Dust, if they couldn't gather enough to offset the waste, it wouldn't be worth it.

So, it was up to the miners with natural Night Vision to extract the Dust in this deep mine. With just the low ambient shine of the crystals, they were able to see perfectly. Some of the other miners called them lucky, since they had extra work available to them which meant they could meet their quotas a bit easier than most.

I didn't think we were particularly lucky: unlike the mines higher up, the deeper the deposits were the less wind there was to disperse the loose particles. I could feel more of my skin hardened as the infection took a drastic leap forward in development. Fuck. I really need to hurry up.

Dustpathos, a disease caused from the prolonged exposure to raw Dust. It crystallized the flesh of the infected, turning them into Dust. I would prefer a bit more information in the subject, but my knowledge was bare bones, the only other concrete fact I knew was that it had a mortality rate of 100%.

This fatal disease wasn't covered in the show, and I couldn't remember every hearing of it in any side-story.

Shortly after suddenly finding myself in this world, as a Faunus forced to work in a mine, I was informed of my fate by a disinterested guard. Then I had learned from a few other slaves that I was unlucky since the crystallization started in my neck; the easiest treatment method was to remove the infected flesh. A man with a stump for a leg laughed at me.

But, there were other methods. Although it wasn't a cure, a pharmaceutical company did develop a medicine that could halt the infection from spreading quickly. Some people could last decades with the proper treatment.

The only way I could get that medicine was to meet my Dust quota for the month, and then any extra Dust I turned in could be converted to a mock currency that the slaves could trade in for benefits. The medicine was extremely expensive, since the supply was low and the demand was high.

Still, I needed that medicine if I didn't want to die only about a month after arriving in this world. Has it seriously been almost a month?

I suddenly realized how long I had been slowly dying for, with each day that passed I struggled more and more to breathe. I doubted I could survive another week or two, I was almost always panting and wheezing all day. Thinking about my fate, I noticed that I had stopped breathing as my throat swelled up from irritation.

My mind blanked out as I dropped my pickaxe and fell to my knees, slumped against the jagged cave wall, I desperately attempted to breathe.

"…Blake's down, who gets his bucket?" An old man with a stump leg croaked out as he stopped mining and eyed my bucket.

"You can have it, I'll take his body." Someone eyed my crystallized flesh.

"Is he really dead? I betted he would die before his quota this month, so you better not be yanking my tail." A woman with a frayed and limp squirrel tail spoke without pausing her mining.

I shoved my hand in my mouth and forced my fingers deep into my throat, then I manually pulled open my airway. With my mouth clogged I was forced to breathe deeply through my nose. I spent a few minutes lightheaded, just barely getting enough oxygen to avoid passing out.

"Fff-uck… you all." I spat out along with some blood and mucus. Then I broke down into a coughing fit that lasted for a few minutes. I was almost certain my lungs were beginning to crystallize. I probably should've barter with someone for a mask of something, but I definitely would've been ripped off.

My infection was spreading regardless of what I was doing, extending my life by a few days was meaningless if I couldn't gather enough extra Dust before the deadline. Oh, but if I was unlucky then the stock would be bought out before I knew it.

Slumped against a dark cave wall, a wave of negativity consumed me. Small tears budded in my eyes, and I silently wept. The suddenness in which my life was completely turned upside down was crashing down on me. A little over a month ago, I had been minding my own business on earth. I wasn't doing anything special or remarkable, but I lived a pleasant enough life that I didn't want for much.

Then I suddenly woke up in another world with a new name and body that had cat ears. I recognized the terms Faunus, Dust and Aura from a web show I had seen. At first I thought I had been given the chance to experience a wonderful adventure.

And then I realized I couldn't escape being a slave, that my body was slowly crystallizing. I heard terms that I didn't recognize from the series, Qi, Cultivation, Cores and Elixirs. Then the very idea of enjoying this life ended when I realized that I couldn't use Aura.

I tried asking around, and apparently I had a Deviated Network, that meant I was incapable of using Aura based Techniques, whatever that meant. This was another concept that wasn't from any of the canon I could recall, so I had practically zero knowledge about it.

I could still feel my soul, and it did provide me a small boost in my regeneration, but I couldn't use it for anything else. Unlike the rest of the slaves in this mine, I couldn't strengthen my strikes and easily tear through stone, so my Dust gathering rate was laughable.

It finally happened, I couldn't take the stress anymore. I had been suddenly snatched away from my normal life, enslaved and given a fatal illness, only by the power of optimism was I able to force my body to work tirelessly. But that was over now, reality settled in, I would die soon.

Time melted together, I handed off my bucket to the nearest person who hadn't been rude to me yet, and then I crawled up a long tunnel that led to the base. I wasn't planning on going back, I just wanted to die somewhere in peace, I didn't want anyone eyeing my dying body, not until I was no longer conscious.

After forcing my body through thin squeezes and tight tunnels, I eventually found a small cavern I could lay down in. It was pitch black, even with my Night Vision I still needed a little bit of light to perceive things, but this cave was completely dark, not even a single speck of light existed here.

Someone would eventually find and harvest my corpse, but after my death I wouldn't care anymore. For now I just wanted to be comfortable in my final moments, but as I was searching for a perfect area to lay down and die, my hand didn't meet anything and I ended up tumbling down a large hole.

Stale wind whipped past me as I fell for a while. Surprisingly, the darkness numbed my fear, I doubted this weak body could survive any fall, and as the seconds stretched on, I was certain of an instant death.

If only… A fantasy flew through my mind, one where I could've lived a life I enjoyed. Ah, why did—

The darkness swallowed up my body, silencing my mind.

…

…

…

My eyes registered a glowing red haze swimming towards me immediately, but my mind couldn't comprehend anything for a few minutes. What? Am I dead? I looked around and only saw darkness, as I shifted my focus back to the haze, the formless crimson energy dove straight for my body, it burned through my nerves and veins as it sank inside my soul.

As if my blood turned to magma, my body burned. Energy was invading my body and soul, I could feel as my every cell was being infused with foreign energy. Then when the red haze permeated through my soul and reached the center of my being, I felt it squirm, then the energy buzzed as it destabilized.

My body wasn't under my control, or else I would've screamed in pain, but as I was right now, completely paralyzed, I could sense every excruciating detail of what was happening. It felt as if every cell in my body was being pulled apart, then as the red haze flailed about, it reached something else, and then I felt as if my body was collapsing in on itself.

The majority of the red haze was absorbed into the second something, and after that was gone, the suffocating darkness around me flooded in. After that was gone, I realized that I was on cold stone as the surrounding air swirled around my body, rough winds brushed against my form and more energy invaded my body.

Pain continued to rack my body, until I felt like my soul was about to explode out my skin. I curled up in a ball, and fluctuated between almost passing out and writhing in agony. The excess energy shook the cells that constructed my form, then they caused them to morph under the strain.

A shifting pain came from every cell in my body. My spine shook as pressure built up at my tailbone, and slowly expanded outwards, into a tail. A sharp pain came from the tips of my fingers and toes as thin claws jutted out from beneath my fingernails, dislodging them in the process.

I had to open my mouth wide as my tongue fell out and a new set of teeth ejected my old set. I couldn't see or hear anything as I felt my eyes melt, and my cat ears tumble off. My hair fell out from the roots as my skin slid off in layers. Bones sundered and reformed. Muscles riven and mended. Absolute agony had engulfed my entire body and I could no longer comprehend what was happening.

I wanted to die, I wanted the pain to cease, but I was keenly aware of the life my cells were vibrating with, my entire being was overflowing with vitality. As my body lost most of the excitement, and it purged the useless energy from my body, I could feel something odd taking place.

Through my new eyes, I could see that I was in a cave with large glowing crystals, and surrounding me was my discarded flesh. The purged energy sank into the viscera and then everything melted together. I could see a flickering shadow pulsing over the gore and I watched as it reformed a body.

I was stunned, the body created from my discarded flesh bore a striking resemblance to Blake Belladonna, she looked a bit younger and she was covered in shadows, but I could tell that I wasn't mistaken.

When I blinked, as my eyelids opened back up, I could suddenly see her eyes open, and I saw someone in a pathetic state curled up on the floor with tears covering their face. As I squinted, I realized I was seeing through her eyes.

My brain boggled. My current situation was completely bizarre, I didn't know what to make of it. I just wanted to forget everything that had just happened, and pretend I had died or something. "What the fuck is all this?" My voice echoed off the stone around me and I heard it from two different sources.

 

[Krak-Quinn]

I slept peacefully, dreaming of waking up in my bed and cooking a meal before driving to work, then I woke up in a cave. This was reality, I was currently an unknown depth beneath ground alone, no, actually, technically I wasn't alone. My gaze moved over to the flesh pile resembling a girl next to me.

When I arrived here, I had learned my name was Blake Nightshade, I hadn't been completely sure, since it could just have been a coincidence, but now I was certain that I had been a gender-swapped Blake Belladonna. Of course, why my discarded flesh had formed into a female Blake was unknown to me.

That was obviously strange, however, I had been from earth originally and I used to have a different body, and then this new body mutated after a red haze breached my soul. Basically, it was just another addition to the growing list of things I didn't understand.

Regardless, I did understand that I was able to breathe easily and that the flesh around my neck was soft. Still, the air down here was pretty stale, so I should probably escape before I contracted Dustpathos again.

As I stood up, I stretched my enhanced body, I felt limber and brimming with energy. My new features, the retractable claws and prehensile tail, didn't offer up any difficulty in using. I could even feel my soul, my Aura thrumming through my body, across a spiritual network.

Whatever had been wrong with me was fixed and I was stronger now, maybe I could finally enjoy a fun adventure, but first I needed to find a way out.

Looking around, I couldn't see an immediate exit, and the hole I had fallen from was a few hundred meters up. The crystal walls were pretty bright, enough to illuminate all the way to the ceiling, so that gave credence to my idea that the darkness I saw had been tangible. The darkness had caught me, or else I would've surely died.

I started trailing along the walls, but I could only find holes that ended after a few feet. I was probably going to have to scale one of the steep walls then try and cling to the ceiling until I could find a hole to enter.

As I was searching for a way out, I noticed the sensation of a light breeze pushing against my bare feet. I felt around until I found a tight hole on the ground, peering down I could see a long twisting tunnel and then maybe what seemed to be a large cavern.

I gazed at the tunnel from all the angles I could see, but it appeared too small for me to crawl through, it would be impossible for me to make it to the other side without getting stuck. I thought about using my Aura and claws to dig a path clear, but the tunnel was too long for that to be feasible in a reasonable amount of time. I wanted to leave before prolonged exposure to Dust corrupted my cells again.

As I was about to give up on the tunnel and scale a wall, I noticed the still form that my flesh had taken just resting on the floor. If I wanted to, I could see out its eyes, and I could probably do a bit more than that. After finding a comfortable place to sit, I closed my eyes and searched for something that was linked to my soul. I flipped a switch.

An unpleasant sensation washed over me as I became aware of another set of nerves. I opened my eyes and saw my body sitting down with my eyes closed. It felt weird, the stimuli I was receiving from this body were numbed and awkward.

This form wasn't a true body, only a copy formed from my discarded viscera, some distabled energy, and tangible darkness. So, basically, I hoped it would be useful for attempting to make it through the tunnel. The malleable form should provide some help squeezing through the gaps, and if I didn't find anything worthwhile my while, then I could just leave my walking corpse to rot.

Walking awkwardly over to the hole, I slid headfirst downwards with my arms outstretched. I clung to the walls and yanked myself down, I received a few scratches because this body didn't have any clothes and I didn't waste my Aura to shield me.

…

…

I couldn't tell time, but I would guess it had been about two hours of shimming down before I fell down out of the tunnel. I was little more than a corpse stained red, most of my scalp and skin had been scraped off, and I had to shear off one of my shoulders and a hip to fit through a tight hole.

The pain was almost nonexistent, just a slight tingle on my nerves.

As I peered around what was definitely a cavern, I noticed a thick darkness flowing through a large hole in the wall. I crawled with one arm and leg, following the darkness back to its source. And luckily I didn't need to force myself through any more tunnels as I appeared in a larger cavern.

Along the walls, ground and ceiling, various trails of darkness were spreading into countless holes, and in the center of the cavern was a large dark crystal with a pulsating red haze inside it. The center crystal was huge, and it was encased in golden glowing chains, and the darkness was flowing from small cracks in the crystal.

The light of the chains was quite literally burning away the darkness that came in contact with it.

As I attempted to get closer, for a better view, I felt the darkness around me shift, and then I saw a pulse of red shoot through the darkness as it dove for my body. As the crimson energy drilled through my soul, it reached my core once more, this time I didn't feel like I was being ripped apart, I went straight to feeling like I was collapsing in on myself.

The red haze and the darkness were absorbing directly into my core, and then the excess shot through my spiritual network, the energy went haywire as it messed with my cells once more. My skin regrew as deep crimson scales, my hair grew as countless horns, a wriggling tendril shot out of my shoulder bone as an arm, and a lump of flesh that ended in a hooved talon was my new leg.

Fortunately, this time it wasn't my physical form, no it was just an animated hunk of gore, so I didn't worry about it. However, when the flood of energy didn't stop, I started to feel it overflow into my soul link, and then I panicked, I definitely didn't want to morph into a monstrosity.

I couldn't cut off the connection, since it was just an extension of my soul. As adrenaline flooded my mind, I thought about how to deal with the surge of energy. I couldn't purge it, that would take too long, and releasing massive amounts of energy in a Dust cavern didn't seem wise.

My mind ran miles as I felt my cells buzz, they were on the verge of mutating. Then I realized a solution, I just needed to get rid of the energy, simple, sure I didn't have a way to do that by myself, but that didn't mean I couldn't use a tool.

I moved the mutating monster and staggered forth, I stumbled over to the crystal, and gripped the chains. The result was immediate, my flesh seared and charred as light permeated my form. It caused me pain even through the link, so I hesitated to allow the new energy into my real body.

Which was apparently a mistake, as the light faintly reached deep into the core of my form and burned away the darkness I had absorbed, and by creating available space, more darkness flooded in. A cycle was created, a swirl of light and dark at odds, the deep darkness and the faint light overflowed my form's core and ruptured it.

As I stumbled, trying to keep the form stable enough to process all the darkness, I leaned against the crystal. Red lighting shot through the dark crystal and straight into my veins. More pain reached me and my focus wavered. A low whisper echoed in my mind.

I would die.

That much was clear, whatever was happening to my form would fry my brain in my body if it reached me, I needed to prevent that. My core and network was full, so the energy invaded my cells. My form had a core. I created that form. I can't allow regeneration because mutations would occur, so the cores would be baseless, but I just needed time.

As I pushed past the pain, I remembered Blake's Semblance, to create shadow decoys. If I'm really a version of Blake, then it wouldn't be a stretch to think I had a similar ability. I recalled the sensation of my cells being ripped apart, the red haze form before had reached a different core and became destabilized.

I focused, and found something at the center of my awareness, something instinctual and carved into my soul. I struggled and then funneled the energy tempest there, and then hazy clones of my disfigured form manifested around the crystal.

I almost fainted, but I kept my wits as the energy was slowly calming down. Unfortunately, when the hastily made clones expired, a surge of unprocessed energy would snap back to my form. The only upside to my venture, was that the respite I found had allowed my form to mutate and grow, which in turn allowed it to hold more energy in its cells.

By the time the last clone popped, my form was a mass of hideous flesh that dwarfed the now clear crystal.

I knew I wasn't out of the woods yet, I could feel my form pulsing, the cells in my discarded viscera had been stretched to the limit, they were now utterly unrecognizable, and wouldn't last long. My form was about to burst, and when it did, I didn't know what would happen. I hoped the link would be severed and no energy found my body, but I doubt I could escape the backlash.

I couldn't think much, most of my attention was focused on maintaining a sense of stability and on circuitating energy away from the link, but both of these were slowly overpowering me. I doubted I would even get a second to prepare for what would happen next.

My form, the dam holding back a flood of foreign energy, exploded and my mind went blank as the world shook.

A massive amount of four distinct energies were sent flying through the link and they slammed into my soul as the link snapped back. The compressed energies ripped through my soul and shattered my core. My mind almost fell apart. Energy ran rampant, and the chaos enacted contradictions that obliterated my soul down to the smallest particles.

Collapsing. Exploding. Rupturing. Absorbing. Circuitlating. Fission. Imploding. Reforming. Coalescing. Fusion.

…

…

I had blacked out. Or more likely I had died, and then my soul resembled itself when the chaos ended. Though only loosely, I could recall the neurons firing in my brain as my soul was disassembled. Gaining my bearings as I stumbled to my feet, I felt inside my soul what seemed to be four stars orbiting a black hole. Four cores orbiting my core.

Just observing the star informed me of what they were, more instinctual knowledge was carved into my soul.

The black hole, my core, could absorb and compress supernatural energy.

I focused on the purple star, and I knew I could create a controllable clone that would last as long as it had energy. The clone was based on my genetics, so customization was limited to what was in my DNA.

The red star, energy absorption and alteration, although similar to my core, this one took in physical energy and then changed it to supernatural fuel. It also contained the spiritual DNA of some sort of creature.

The dark star, darkness manipulation, this one allowed me to generate and manipulate a light absorbing darkness that was highly conductive for supernatural energy.

The golden star, nullifying light, this one was heavily unstable, in fact my soul left a hollow gap in my existence to accommodate it. When this light came into contact with anything supernatural, it nullified any effects and eliminated it. It also contained the spiritual DNA of some sort of creature.

Of the four stars, the purple, red, and dark one could probably burn for one hundred years if I didn't disturb them. And the golden star was going to burn out in about five years if I did nothing.

My soul was too big for my body, the energy of the stars was leaking out of my skin, but I somehow knew a way to solve this issue. I focused on the purple star, and the black hole, and I manifested a clone. This one was special, and it used a sort of synergy to activate.

I took half of my soul, and inverted it, then imparted it on the clone's creation as it formed, so now inside of it a mirror image of my soul formed.

The technique was complicated to explain fully, I only knew about it because it was carved into my soul, but basically my soul was split between two bodies. Unlike a regular clone, this one isn't linked to me, because it was conceptually the same thing.

It was also female, I'm pretty sure it was something about Yin and Yang or whatever.

I really don't want to think about it, because of all the things I could be doing, I'm not going to waste my time questioning magic that I didn't understand.

Now that my affairs were in order, I shifted my focus to the world outside myself. I noticed that the small tunnel had been transformed into a large chute by the escaping blast that snaked through the underground gaps. I sent my mirror clone sliding down the chute as I gazed at the wall of large red Dust crystals, that luckily hadn't been set off.

In my experience, natural raw Dust was small in this world, mostly formed inside veins of stone, in fact this was my first time seeing Dust crystals. I placed a hand against the rough surface, and generated some darkness, it quickly seeped into the crystals. I felt the red Dust shifting beneath my touch. That settled it, the highly conductive darkness seemed to feed the Dust.

I opened the barrier of my soul, and constructed a channel that led directly to my spiritual network. The large crystals crumbled into fine particles and swam into my skin. If I wasn't sure I could have also turned it into fuel for a star, then I might've worried about getting infected again.

After absorbing all the red Dust, I followed after my clone who had been able to scout out a path for me.

It didn't take too long with two bodies before I found an exit path, but before I could leave, I heard voices nearby, so I hid.

I wasn't completely sure why I ducked into a cramped niche along a wall when I heard voices, but I probably just didn't want to get caught. Now that I was away from the people who had enslaved me, I was entertaining the idea of just running away and never looking back.

Hopefully, they would think I died somehow and wouldn't search for me, but for that to happen, I can't let myself be spotted.

Although, there probably wasn't a reason to hide, the voices I was hearing were further away than I initially thought. I blame the twitching cat ears on my head for their superior hearing having tricked me.

"—me, probably, a chain reaction."

"I never heard of a mine explosion reaching down like 4,000ft. I'm telling you they know we're here, it was an attack on us. I knew it was a dumb idea to make a base under a mine!"

"Take that back right now! Our glorious leader had a revelation, and he's never let us down before."

Eventually, my mirror clone and I managed to creep over to observe the people that were talking. It was two individuals dressed in non-descriptive clothing with the emblem of a scratched out wolf's head stitched on.

They didn't seem to be saying anything important. All I could gather was that they were from a liberation group who planned on attacking the mine in a few days. They were investigating the sudden explosion, but they didn't seem to have any knowledge of the chained crystal.

My mirror clone and I stuck to the shadows as we crept behind the two goons leaving, after about an hour of traveling a winding path, I could hear the bustle of a small camp. If I wasn't trying to put as much distance between myself and the slave mine, I would've exposed myself and tried to get some help for some of my issues.

Unfortunately, I didn't want to be spotted anywhere near here, so I hid in the dark and navigated my way around the small camp. I relied on the feelings of faint drafts to find an exit.

I had to squint my eyes so I didn't go blind when I saw sunlight for the first time since finding myself in this world.

 

[Godfire]

Watched.