‘Yes, I am really Kain. So what are you doing in my head? And beyond that, how are you even smart enough to talk through our minds anyway?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I was just trying to help you get your energy out of your body. As for how I can chat with you… I’ve been able to think like this since I woke up, after we had that fight!’ Luna truly had no idea why she was smart enough to converse with Kain, but she had a feeling that it had something to do with Kain’s blood.
‘I… see. Well, do you at least like your name? I never asked you because I thought you were a normal rabbit and I feel a bit bad about it.’ He really did feel bad about judging her based on her appearance because it was one of the things that he hated people doing to him the most, especially after all of the isolation he had to deal with in his youth.
‘Yeah! I like my name very much! And that isn’t something you should apologize for, you were kind enough to give me a name even though you only saw me as a rabbit, okay?’
‘Thanks Luna, and I am happy you like your name. By the way, why did you come and do… whatever you were doing?’
‘Oh yeah! I was trying to help you project your energy out of your body. If you kept up the brute force approach that you had been doing, your body would have buckled under the pressure. If I had not stopped you, you would have gone splat!’ She accompanied her colorful description with gestures using her paws, spreading them out like an explosion. Kain shuddered to imagine spontaneously popping like a bloody balloon. Luna added ‘I would have lost my first friend you know, so I had to stop you!’ She somehow, despite already being a cute little rabbit, managed to look even more cute and adorable while making a face that showed her anger.
‘Wait, you consider me your friend?’ Kain was quite perplexed at this turn of events, as he never had a real good friend aside from maybe Uncle Trunks and some acquaintanceships with a few of his work friends.
‘Well yeah I do. You were the one that willingly saved me after I even attacked you, twice! If that does not deserve at least a little gratitude, I don’t know what does.’ Luna had apparently developed a sense of kindness to those who had helped her to be an integral part of her personality. She had thought that it may have been from the fact that her whole personality formed when she was given kindness, which influenced her behavior. She also noticed that she was being quite analytical with her personality, which was an aspect of her personality that she did not know what influenced it to be.
‘If I am being honest, I don’t know why I went out on a limb to give you my blood, I just felt a bit guilty because it seemed like you needed my blood to survive. By the way, why did you need my blood, huh?’ He leaned in and stared at her beady rabbit eyes, causing her to be a bit panicked.
‘W-Wait, why don’t you c-calm down a little, yeah?’ She was nervous that he might get angry with her when he heard that she drank his blood, which made her attack him out of nowhere. ‘I may have… um…. drank a tiny bit of your blood. When you were at the river up the mountain.’ She squeezed her eyes tight and prepared to be scolded because she brought her friend a lot of trouble. Her skittish behavior likely came from her life as a rabbit.
‘So that’s why.’ Kain pondered for a moment. ‘But why? My blood would not taste or smell good to a herbivore, right?’
‘Well it actually smelled really good… It smelled like… something really sweet!’ Luna was still bracing for Kain to reprimand her.
‘Oh, so that’s it? After that, did you get attracted by the smell of my fresh blood or something? Also, calm down, please. I’m not going to hit you.’ Kain let out a sigh of pity as he saw the innocent rabbit cowering on his knee.
Luna looked up carefully and, after making sure that Kain wouldn’t scold her, beamed in happiness, saying between their minds ‘Yeah, that’s what happened! After I got some of your blood I felt tired and fell asleep. When I was dreaming, my thoughts felt like they were getting more complex and stuff. Eventually I developed a train of thought and the rest is history!’
‘Well if you just developed a sentient consciousness, how are you so adept at so many human concepts?’ If Luna had just recently become self aware, it seemed impossible to Kain that she would be able to develop a human’s thinking abilities so quickly. There was another possibility, but it seemed way too fantastical, even for this world.
‘I don’t know. It all just made sense to me.’ She really had no idea if the source of her ability was her own skills or some outside influence, but it hardly mattered to her at the time. ‘But! We need to get you able to use your energy before we get too distracted again. I don’t want you to blow up before you can master the ability, got it?’
Kain wanted to protest, he wanted to ask every question he could think of, but he had to listen to Luna because he could tell that she truly cared for him. He pushed his lingering questions to the back of his mind and began to concentrate on Luna’s mental guidance.
‘The problem with what you were doing was that you were trying to force the energy out of your body in such large quantities that your body, which is unaccustomed to manipulating such amounts of energy, began to rebound the energy back inwards. This causes a great amount of damage if repeated. Trust me, when I was a normal rabbit, I had almost gotten myself killed by pushing too much energy through my body. Normally, it is impossible for animals to even come close to energy rebounding, but I was a special rabbit that had much more energy than normal rabbits, so I had to be careful.’ Luna’s analytical side took hold once more as she went on a long rant about the proper way to project energy.
‘So the problem is that I am pushing too much energy through at once, causing it to fire back into me with even greater force?’ Kain wanted to summarize the information given so he could start to practice right away.
Luna shrugged her little rabbit arms. ‘Yep, that’s the summarized version. But remember, be careful! I don’t want my first frie-’
‘You don’t want your first friend to die by forcefully manifesting too much energy. I understand and will be more careful, so do not worry about me, okay?’ Kain chuckled when he heard Luna repeating the same speech as before. ‘I think you should take care of yourself as well, you look exhausted.’
Luna stared at him for a moment before responding. ‘Nope! I’m going to watch you practice until you either get it right or you pass out. Alright, let’s start.’
Kain chuckled again. ‘Okay, here I go.’ Kain moved his energy in his right hand, as Luna was communicating with him through his energy in his left hand, and began to slowly emit energy from his body. The task required great concentration and it felt like he was weaving thousands of threads of silk at the same time by using his mind. Eventually, a small cloud of about 2 feet cubed was left floating above Kain’s palm. The best part about the cloud was that, by sparing a little concentration, he was able to move it around in the cave. He could even expand or contract it into a light fog or a small ball of liquid. Despite Kain’s success, he still felt mentally exhausted from the arduous task. He asked Luna a question in disbelief.
‘You and other animals use this sort of thing in combat? How do you do it so fast if it is so hard to do properly?’
‘Well, it’s not like we are able to throw energy around at our leisure the minute we’re born, you know? It takes years of body growth to be able to use it in combat, and the only exception to that rule is the green apes, because they’re fully grown after birth. You’re inexperienced in using energy this way, so it’s only natural that it’ll take some time, okay? Though I have a feeling that you’ll make short work of the training needed.’ Luna made a face with her adorable rabbit mouth that could only be interpreted as a teasing grin. Kain chuckled at the sight in front of him and tried to manifest another cloud of energy, pulling it out through the tiny openings he could feel on his skin that allowed him to project energy. At the same time, he struck up a conversation with Luna.
‘I wanted to ask a few questions earlier, do you mind answering them?’ Kain asked in a soft tone.
‘There’s no problem here, ask away, friend!’ Luna was happy that Kain trusted her enough to ask her any questions, and was happy to have someone to talk to.
‘Where are we headed, anyway? You obviously had a place in mind since we have been moving in the same direction for a while now, so where is it?’ He felt like he was becoming more loose with Luna, because he could ask questions without worry.
‘We’re going to the Metal Hive!’ Luna answered in an excited tone.
‘And what is the Metal Hive?’
‘It’s a place where a bunch of metal monsters were ripped apart, and their corpses never rotted. I saw you making armor out of the green ape, so I thought that you may be able to make something out of the metal monsters as well!’ Luna’s voice shone with excitement, as she was able to help her new friend.
‘Hmm… Metal monsters you say? I am no smith or welder, but I should be able to make something. For both of us.’ Kain lightly smiled at the end. ‘But what I now want to know is what killed those monsters that you said were so powerful?’
Luna immediately recalled her memories and began to shake in terror. The one, black eye haunted her to the point that she was unable to do anything at the mere thought of the monster. Her little beady eyes began to cry. Kain quickly stopped his practice and embraced her crying, shaking head and began to console her like an elder brother.
‘It will all be okay. Calm down, arlight? Take as long as you need to calm down. After that you can tell me the story. I’ll be here to listen to you.’ He patted her head and combed his fingers through her reddish-brown fur on her back, trying to console her.
