A shattered star...
That's what it was.
A tall, brooding figure covered the skies of the Citadel of Power, blanketing the entire country black. At the center of the capital of the country is the shattered remains of this world's last canon. However, as if destroying this world's last bastion of defense against the Hateds is not enough, the culprits of the destruction stole the fragments. And as if nothing had happened, they vanished like a fog.
-----
Drop...
drop...
drop...
A drop of water trickled across the shallow water of an unnamed cave. A snail mushed the ceiling of the cave with its slime. Then it stumbles upon a strange rock. It must have thought it was unusual, and curiosity got the best of it. It got close.
Munch...
It munched a chunk out of the strange rock. However, nothing happened.
Rumble...
An ominous sound rang throughout the caves! A shadowy figure danced through the shallow waters and as if the water was solid, it walked through it seamlessly.
Prance, prance...
Behind it however, is a huge behemoth. A feline of insane proportions, and bare teeth plastering face first on its exterior. Its fur is murky, wet, and stained with dirt, probably for living so long within the caves. Its eyes, however, is mute. It cannot see, but it chases the mysterious figure effortlessly.
The mysterious figure brushed against a stalactite at the side of the wall, and its clothes were torn. A face was revealed, and it was a nanite, a creature born from a compilation of many various small insects. Its face is visibly human, yet something wriggles and always feels off. Its eyes are hollow, yet it sometimes sports a lively trance and only to disappear again.
The stalactite, however, has not only torn its clothes but also punctured an injury at the side of its abdomen. The creature stumbled and fell and its previous speed became lost. However, its face shows no emotions. Blank, and lifeless but lively. It's a weird combination. However, desperation is not one of its traits. It quickly pulled out an object, then spat:
"Blindness."
Wooongg!
The cave was hollowed out of its darkness! The light blinded even the snail on the ceiling and it curled on its mobile home. The heat of the light however is not something to be messed with. The surrounding surface of water sizzled and a slight vapor rose. The mammothic sabretooth was blinded, however at the cost of killing a portion of itself.
The mysterious figure's hands burnt, and flakes of something fell off. Insects of various kinds, caterpillars, butterflies, worms, mantises, centipedes. The nanite, without a second thought, discarded its arm. It doesn't hesitate because it knows it can recover its arm quickly after it goes back to a lush forest.
Using its other hand, it grabbed the scepter that fell to the ground. It knows it can't kill the mammothic sabretooth, but it can at least incapacitate it so that it can escape.
The scepter in its hand, the nanite struck a pose. Its two legs steadfast on the ground, and the hand holding the scepter right in front of it. Its posture is domineering. A surge of energy suddenly hummed visibly. The sabretooth sensed a slight disturbance in the air. Even though it is blind, the light still disturbed its ability to sense its target. It relies on heat signatures, and the light was hot enough to blind it temporarily. The sabretooth felt a bit angry. After all, being the king of a dominion, who would dare to bare its fangs to it tyranically, when it knows it is the tyrant?
The mammothic sabretooth consumed the air explosively in front of it. And then, ripping some of neck muscles apart, and its lungs expanded to such a size that its chest area ballooned. Its look is ridiculous, looking like an extremely domineering gorilla that lost its lower proportions. And then, when the air stopped moving, and time felt like stilling, the mammothic sabertooth roared!
WRROOOARRR!!!
Rumble... rumble... rumble...
A sabertooth is a class of feline predators who hunts solitarily. It enjoys its own solitude, and hunts prey with patience. However, wild creatures have the possibility of becoming mammothic. Although rare, once a creature is born mammothic, it becomes a completely different species. They are imbued with supernatural powers when it has originally none, and its trait becomes unpredictable. A social lion may be solitary if it's mammothic, or a peaceful butterfly may become a mad bloodlusty beast.
In the case of this sabertooth, it was born mammothic. It's mad by birth. It consumed its parents due to not being fed on time as a baby. In just a few years since its birth, it became the ruler of the Frolick Forest dominion. The special ability of this sabertooth is a roar so strong, it shatters mountains.
At the first few milliseconds of the roar, the entire cave rumbled. Before even the sound of the roar reached the ceilings of the cave, the entire cave had already feared its collapse. As if sensing the despairing demise, creatures dwelling the cave were all long restless and had already long left the caves even before the mysterious nanite and the sabertooth entered this cave.
At the next second, however, the sound of the roar caused a massive shockwave at the front of it. The air caused a boom, and expanded to so much density that it quickly vaporized all of the shallow water in the cave. The thick walls of the cave crumbled and next turned to dust. The dust was pushed to the extremes however, and pushed the walls further. Tunnels collapsed, and the entire cave system shattered.
Vrrrrrr.... shreekkkk..
At the surface, a large boom resounded. The cave first caved in of itself, and then an explosion sent the shattered rocks and dust hundreds of miles in the air. The cave's debris flew everywhere, as if a volcano erupted.
However... at the next second, a shocking event unfolded. If anybody has witnessed it, their eyes might literally pop out. Unfortunately, it is not possible to witness.
The flying shards of heated dust that landed on a faraway tree suddenly moved back in a smooth manner, following the previous trajectory it occupied when it flew. The scattered debris of the once destroyed caves flew back to its origin. The once destroyed cave recovered back to its previous state as if it never happened. The shattered tunnels recovered to its previous state, and the vaporized shallow water became water once more. The blown away body of the nanite returned to one piece, holding the scepter and the mammothic sabretooth breathed out all the air in its expanded chest.
From that moment, however, the nanite was shocked.
'How could this be? I'm alive?' it stuttered in its own voice internally. Despite not predicting the mammothic sabertooth to use its mountain roar to decimate the entire cave and bury itself along with him, he also did not expect to survive and as if the explosion did not occur, his previous steadfast stance recovered.
'I, Aser, the Ruler of the Small Insect Dominion, was supposed to cast a restriction spell on this beast! But then it roared. What just happened? I should have died. It's as if... time just wound back?'
However, whilst he was feeling tranced, the mammothic sabretooth once again executed the familiar pose of vacuuming all the air in the cave. Aser, without a second thought, cancelled his spell. A backlash caused him internal injuries and he vomited black blood. But this is far less more important to think about than dying!
Very quickly, Aser casted another spell, a quick spell.
"Blindness!"
Vroooongggg!
Light blinded the caves. Aser lost another arm, but he achieved his purpose. The sabretooth caught off guard was blinded and a backlash occurred for being interrupted midway in casting mountain roar. Its veins bulged, and its ribs got punctured. Aser knew this wouldn't stop the sabertooth, but it would buy him precious time to cast another spell.
However, Aser thought the time was not enough. Feeling a pinch, he brought out a new item: A quick teleportation scroll. Without a second thought, Aser channelled his power into the scroll for two seconds.
However, two seconds felt like an eternity. Aser felt increasingly nervous. The ribs of the sabertooth healed, and its injured lungs recovered. The sabertooth was slowly recovering from its blindness.
Before it was even able to recover, it already started consuming the air around it. With an expanded chest, the sabertooth was about to exhale. Unfortunately, Aser, the thief of his cub, has already left. The teleportation succeeded, and in rage, the sabertooth roared far stronger than it did before. The cave collapsed, and a fourth of the forest was decimated.
But it doesn't matter. Aser has already succeeded in his heist. Before the roar however, the strange rock attached to the ceiling broke off by itself and secretly lunged at Aser without him noticing. Little does he know though, he has now become fated with the newborn canon of the world.
----
Vroongg!
In a patch of shrubs, ten thousand miles away from the explosion, fireflies are seen prancing freely in the air. All of a sudden, the fireflies became still. More fireflies gathered, and a magical phenomenon happened. A bunch of fireflies turned into trillions of tiny insects.
After the light vanished, the fireflies scattered. The insects wriggled, and reconstructed itself forming the figure of a man. Now, it has a different face, reminiscent of an average medieval lumber. Using the spool from the many weaver insects he has, he sported a worn out leather attire.
'I should get away quickly. The sabertooth is still after me.'