Chapter Text
Iteration 247
The Vessel stared up at the long climb, its mask dripping with Void. Tendrils of black snaked up from its neck and stretched out from its eyes, like veins visible against skin. The outer shell of divinity defiled to reveal the truth. It watched as the Pale Light shone down, watched as its siblings climbed, jumped, and scrambled up. Watched as they came crashing down, masks shattering like porcelain on the Abyss floor. Watched as their Shades rose up.
It felt its own mask crack from an internal pressure, threw its head back… and as a jagged fissure opened upon its face where a mouth should be, the Vessel SCREAMED…
…
Jack woke up with a start, flinching so hard he nearly fell out of bed. Then as he took in his surroundings, he actually DID fall out of bed. His mind simultaneously felt like it froze and like it went into overdrive. He glanced around, taking in a complete picture of his surroundings in record time and detail, and was left with a simple question.
“What the actual fuck?” he said numbly. His bed, bedside table, and a decent chunk of the floor they both sat on, were no longer in his house. As if a piece of his room, floor, furniture and all, had simply been scooped up, and dropped here. The edges were cut impossibly, PERFECTLY smooth, as if cleanly cut by the world’s most precise carver with the world's sharpest knife. He was in what looked like a desert, if it was grey instead of yellow, in the middle of a sandstorm. He couldn’t even see the sun, just billowing, howling sand in a wind that seemed to change direction every other second.
Helpfully, his brain decided to bring up the memory that would be the most concerning at this moment. It brought up diamond storms. Diamond storms, a thing from a book he had read a few months ago. Sandstorms filled with small pieces of crystal that would pierce through your body like bullets. Why was his brain bringing up a Magic: The Gathering book in a survival scenario? He assumed it was because it hated him. He also assumed rocks were a bigger worry than diamonds.
“What the fuck?!” He repeated, almost angrily this time, shouting over the wind. He glanced around again, squinting to see anything through the storm. He pulled his blanket tighter around himself, making sure to cover all his exposed skin. Even if this stuff looked more like ash or dust than sand, he knew that sandstorms could cause some irritation by scraping skin raw. He wasn’t sure if that kind of wound would get infected, but he didn’t want to risk gangrene. Also, it was really cold.
Think. Just think. He thought, trying to compartmentalize. Compartmentalizing was quite possibly anyone’s greatest asset in a dangerous, life or death situation, whether it was being stranded in the desert, or being in an active shootout. Survival now, questions later. He tried to push all of the questions out of his mind, clearing his thoughts as best as his ADHD riddled brain would allow. To create priorities, and focus on one at a time.
Obviously, the priority would be to take stock of what he already had. His bedside table and part of the floor were here - he had to tamp down the questions that came up with that, or he’d never get out of here - so he actually had a fair amount. More than most people had in survival situations. Still wrapped in the blanket to keep the sand out, he checked each piece of furniture one by one, coming up with a list of items. For once, having such a scattered home came in handy, as he had things that normally wouldn’t be in a bedroom.
From the bed itself:
•A bedsheet.
•A pillow
•Two blankets.
•A heating pad. Sadly, its wire had been over the edge of the displaced chunk of his room, and had been cut so impossibly smoothly that the cut edge was smoother than the rest of the actual wire. He shuddered to imagine what would have happened if he had been caught on the edge.
From his bedside table, which had thankfully been a mess of random crap, he got from on top of it:
•A jigsaw puzzle of a dragon painting.
• Five separate fidgets.
•A magnetic battery pack, and his phone, both at full battery- a miracle given how damn long the battery pack took to charge.
• His water, which was basically an off-brand hydroflask. A quick shake confirmed it still had some ice, and was mostly full.
And in the drawers:
•His spare set of earbuds, the case at about 60% battery.
•A boxcutter he had used to open something a while ago, then forgotten to take back downstairs.
•The mouth guard he had gotten after learning that he ground his teeth in his sleep, hard enough that he thought it would cause damage. It had somehow taken him 16 years to find out about that problem, he hadn’t learned until he and his family were at a hotel, and his brother complained that the grinding was so loud he could hear it.
So first, he needed a way to carry whatever he decided to keep. Jack huddled next to his bed, getting at least a little shelter as he worked. He took the bed sheet, and laid it upside down. He put the second blanket, his water, and some of the fidgets, wrapped in the blanket to make sure they didn’t break, on the sheet. His earbud case went in his left pocket, the phone and battery pack in the right, more out of habit than any planning. The boxcutter clipped to his pants. Then he scooped up the bedsheets, and slung it over his shoulder as a bag. Like a proper hobo. Or a hiker with poor planning. He thought sarcastically. The bag also seemed… Weirdly light.
Still wrapped in the first blanket like a shawl, he stood up, then stopped. Where was he supposed to go? Not only was he in the middle of a desert, he couldn’t see anything. Normally he thought the best way out of a desert would be to pick a direction, and keep going until you reached the edge, or dropped. But without a visible sky, he would get turned around almost immediately. And since the wind changed direction so quickly, he couldn’t use that either. Or could he…?
He loosened his blanket shawl on one arm, and raised it above his head. It pillowed in one direction, then another, then another, and so on. But there was one direction the wind never came from. As if something in that direction was blocking it. I’m so fucking smart. Checkmate, desert! He thought smugly, giving the middle finger to the wind, and the world in general.
With a determined grimace, and eyes narrowed against the sand-filled wind, he set off. Every few hundred feet, he tested the winds again, pausing until he had pointed in every direction except one a few times. After what felt like an eternity, he finally saw something immense looming out of the blinding sand.
A titanic cliff stood like a solid wall of stone, stretching in all directions, including up, as far as he could see through the sandstorm. He craned his head back, a little intimidated at the sight. For the third time in the last hour or two, he found himself muttering “what the fuck?” This time in a tone more awestruck than anything. After a few moments of staring, he began walking along the side of the cliff, looking for any way through or up.
After some time, he found what he was looking for, though not quite what he was HOPING for. A dark, ominous passage into the side of the cliff. There was another one nearly thirty feet up, then the gloom obscured his vision. There was something familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Then he saw the thing that marked the beginning of the downhill tumble that would define his life for a long, long time. He saw that damned Vengefly, barreling towards him with a shriek.
Most people would have either ran away, or frozen in shock. Not Jack. As his mother had once said while driving him home from school after he got suspended for punching someone, his ‘fight or flight’ was JUST ‘fight’. When he was hit, be it verbally or physically, he would always respond in kind, ten times out of ten. That kind of wrathful determination was his greatest strength and the cause of a LOT of trouble in school, until he had reigned in his temper.
So, when he saw a giant fly the size of a medium dog with mandibles like a set of serrated, bony scissors, he swung without even thinking about it. He hitched the bag over his shoulder, and slammed it into the Vengefly. The soft bag obviously didn’t do much, if any, damage, but it still knocked it out of the air, sending it to the ground with an indignant squawk.
He dropped the bag, already pulling the box cutter from his belt. He plunged it into the downed creature, or at least tried to. The blade glanced off its shell like he had tried stabbing solid rock. It only left a small scrape in the chitin. There was no way in hell he was cutting through that with an exacto-knife. So, without any better options, he grabbed the creature with both hands - again, he was surprised by how light it was - and THREW it as hard as he could off into the wastes.
Without waiting to see how effective his gambit had been, Jack turned and RAN. He sprinted at first, before quickly remembering to pace himself, and slowing to a jog. He quickly glanced over his shoulder, seeing that the Vengefly was a good distance away, and still recovering its balance. He reached the cave, and darted inside.
After getting far enough into the cave he didn’t think the Vengefly would follow him, he paused, breathing heavily. Not as heavily as he would have thought, though. He wasn’t out of shape, but he was also DEFINITELY not fit. He was on the skinnier side, and had always had rather crappy stamina. But he didn’t feel that out of breath. He paused, glancing back to the cave entrance to make sure he wasn’t being chased as he thought.
This might all come back to a theory he had about Hollow Knight. Which was relevant, since apparently he was don’t think about that don’t think about that. He jumped, and his suspicions were confirmed as his head crashed into the cave ceiling. He fell to the ground, landing awkwardly as he clutched his throbbing head. Not exactly how I wanted to confirm my theory, but it’s confirmed nonetheless. he thought wryly. It was confirmed. Whatever planet Hollow Knight took place on had noticeably lower gravity than earth.
His wry grin faded as he slipped into deep thought. He needed to plan. He was a Hollow Knight expert, having beaten both the original and Silk Song. But the first thing he needed to know was what point in the timeline he was. After several minutes of consideration, self doubt, and indecisiveness, he had come up with a plan, and a list of head canons he needed to confirm or deny the truth of.
If this was before the fall of Hallownest, he would find the Dream Nail, bring it to the White Palace, and tell them to use it on the Hollow Knight as soon as the Radiance was contained in it. Then a strike force of all five Great Knights and the Pale King would kill the Radiance, no more infection, crisis averted. He’d maybe get some kind of reward from the Pale King, and then Jack would be on his merry way.
If he had arrived before the fall, then things were much, much more complicated. He would do the standard thing for Hollow Knight Isekai protagonists, and help Ghost however he could. Get the Everbloom from Ze’mer to the God Seeker, and encourage Ghost to complete the Pantheons. After the fifth and final Pantheon was complete, Ghost would ascend to the Shade Lord, and the Dreamers would wake up. Jack would then have to explain everything to them, since he doubted Ghost would do it.
So, he definitely hoped it was before the fall. His life would be a lot easier. He wouldn’t have to do much more than serve as a delivery boy, and give a brief explanation. The hardest part would be getting an audience with the Pale King. If he was after the fall, he’d have to go through the same amount of shit that Ghost did, which he really did not envy.
Regardless, there were a few things he’d have to do first, regardless of where - or rather of WHEN he was. Obviously, the first step of any plan would be getting through the Howling Cliffs to Dirtmouth. If Iselda was there, he’d ask her for training, enough to understand the basics of combat and self defense. Even if he was before the fall, he’d need to get all the way from Dirtmouth to the Resting Grounds, then to the White Palace from there. He’d likely need to defend himself on such a journey. And if it was after the fall… well he was probably screwed anyway, but he should still at least try.
That train of thought led him to a different sort of training. He had a long running theory that truly sentient creatures, ones that had conscious thought even without the presence of the Pale King’s mind expanding influence, would be naturally better at Soul manipulation. So if he could find the Snail Shaman, he could learn if that was true. A lot of bugs were ridiculously strong and fast, so using magic rather than trying to match them physically was a good option
But again, he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to get to Dirtmouth before anything else could happen, regardless of when he was. So, with a heavy sigh, he hoisted his makeshift rucksack, and… wait, didn’t the bottom-most cave in the Howling Cliffs connect to Greenpath? He paused, realizing that he would have to climb all the way to the uppermost cave.
...
Elder bug looked up from his contemplation, eyes narrowed in confusion. He hadn’t seen anyone other than Cornifer, Iselda, and Sly, who had recently left for a while, and none of them ever used the kind of coarse language he heard distantly over the howl of the winds. He considered for a few moments, before shrugging, deciding he must have imagined it.