Apprentice {Zote TF FtM HP MC TW}

‘Travel Alone;” You can rely on nobody…. - except yourself~.

The only thing that was in her head was a really stupid pun; this is a really buggy game! Ranging from clipping through the ceiling to random invincibility, she always seemed to be on the opposing end of the bugs and glitches of Hollow Knight. The game was wonderful, but these glitches were getting more and more numerous, and it was getting annoying. She had recently reached the Coliseum, and already had done preparations for the “special” boss, Zote, by rescuing him twice before, just to fight him. She mostly hated Zote; she still felt Tiso was worse, but Zote’s story importance seemed to make him seem more fun.

After having her knight crawl its way up the Kingdom’s Edge to the cavern, the muffled cheers of the fictional crowd vibrated through her headphones; she was finally there. She dashed through the dead creature’s mouth, and the chained bugs in the next screen gave her unease. She talked to the living chained bug to open the first trial, the Trial of the Warrior. She didn’t want to jump right in, as she wanted to save at the nearest bench first.

She jumped down the floor gate to the resting room where she was supposed to find Zote; all she was left with was disappointment. Zote was nowhere to be found, nor was the cage he was supposed to be in; all there was were the sleeping mooks and Tiso. Did she mess something up? Did the game glitch again? Either way, she was irritated; she wanted to drop-kick Zote into the sun, not sit next to Tiso! She sat next to Tiso anyway, just to save, which is when she noticed a character she had never seen before talking to Tiso. They were a large bug, clad in white, with an odd black-and-white patterned carapace. They were wearing a white mask, like plenty of other characters in the game, that had three sets of horns; the top set jutting up, the middle set curling forward, and the bottom set curving backwards; definitely a unique shape, which oddly complimented their single black eye hole. She decided to take a screenshot of the scene, and then listen in on what they were saying in this unique opportunity. She did not expect what they were talking about:

The conversation ended there, with an annoying, nasally laugh from Tiso; one of the many reasons why she hates him more than Zote. She didn’t really think about how the mysterious figure kept on referring to the Knight as “she,” or how the figure seemed to be intently watching her character as it moved, but just dashed away. She destroyed the secret area to the right to fill her Soul, before climbing p to put her mark on the first trial. When the door opened, she super-dashed through, waiting until she entered the arena to stop. The cheers of the digital watchers invigorated her somehow, despite them not being real; she loved the idea of having an audience roaring in her presence, and, even better, devoted fans. She couldn’t help but smirk, and the waves seemed to go by each in a matter of seconds; she almost forgot about the possibility of Zote being at the end of this trial.

As the last wave passed and the crowd roared again, one lone cage door rose from the ground, before a familiar blue-clad character burst through in an overly-dramatic fashion. He dropped to the ground in the “thee-limb” landing, before standing up with his chest high and laughing in his nasally voice, with the “boss roar” animation. His name and title then appeared in the corner of the screen: Tiso the Shellbearer.

She simply grinned; Oh, this was going to be lots of fun.

Or, at least she thought it was; Tiso fought even more cowardly than his behavior suggested. When she did the charged slash, he blocked with his shield, being flung backwards into the wall. He stayed in his blocking animation with his back against the wall; no matter how many times she swung and slashed, it wouldn’t go through, and he refused to budge. After what seemed like a few minutes of slashing, Tiso just laughed again, before speaking:

This line sent her over the edge, leaving her to yell at the screen:

Without a warning or a promt, Tiso charged in rage, allowing her to pogo off of his back; She did not believe that would actually work. The charging and pogoing repeated a few more times until Tiso suddenly charged much faster, managing to pin her Knight to a wall and began shield-bashing. She had no choice but to just senselessly slash and tank damage, managing to defeat him with one mask of health left. Tiso was knocked back, and fell to the ground without a sound, without even a dying quote; the crowd roared, and geo rained from the sidelines. She collected the geo, but before she left, she noticed something strange; that there was a “Dream essence” effect coming off of Tiso’s body.

She walked back to it and struck it with the Dream Nail, being instantly warped to the Dream realm. This place looked different; every surface was monochrome and/or white, and there were cages and bars everywhere. She hopped from platform to platform, following where the platforms were forming to one large area that looked like the Coliseum arena. At the opposite end of the arena was, to her surprise, not Tiso; in his expected place was the masked figure from before, holding a large nail. Tiso soon appeared next to it, and opened the barred door behind him to drag something out; it was a cage, with Zote inside. So that’s where Zote was? Zote seemed to be yelling at them both, but she saw no dialogue from him. The masked bug roared similar to the Nailmasters, and had his own name text: The Warper.

“The Warper” then spoke, its voice being oddly young:

He didn’t finish properly, instead jamming his nail into the ground. The screen flashed white, and an ear-piercing noise assaulted her ears. She hissed, before being knocked out by the sheer trauma of the noise.

When she woke up, she found herself blinded at first, by a strange white light. After rubbing her eyes, she recognized where she was in horror; it was the Dream arena. Opposite from her, she saw the three figures, “The Warper,” Tiso, and Zote. Good god, did they look freaky in real life; she could see the details of their carapaces clearly, and they just looked…. wrong. She stepped forward hesitantly, fearing for the worst, before “The Warper” spoke again, in clear English:

He spoke that line again, this time putting his nail down slowly, before walking towards her and grabbing her shoulder.

She, Tiso, and Zote all stared at “The Warper” in confusion; Tiso and Zote in more of an “what are you speaking” manner. Team up with Zote? That was… underwhelming, a bit, but sounded a lot more sensible than what other thoughts she had of what it was going to say. To fight Tiso fairly? Makes…. some sense; she wasn’t fighting as the Hollow Knight, had no fighting experience what-so-ever, and no physical feats she could boast about, either. At least Zote could boast about something; from what videos she saw of the fight against him, he could at least jump high (even though he would fall comedically on his face), but it was something.

As she felt that she had no other choice, she agreed. In under half a second, the mood-whiplash from “The Warper’s” behavior hit her like a truck. It laughed gleefully, and ran back to Tiso and Zote with an odd spring in its’ step, with even Tiso and Zote looking unnerved. It took its nail and jammed it through the cage, only narrowly missing Zote, and tore through the bars and chains of the cage. It yanked Zote out hastily, before hoisting Zote over its shoulder and dashing back to her. He quickly planted Zote in front of her, before putting an unknown object in his hand. Zote looked frazzled, and irritated, and Dream Tiso was looking on with confusion. Even after playing Hollow Knight for all of this time, she never quite realized how small Zote was; he was only slightly shorter than half of her height without the mask, and the horns extended that to slightly under collar-bone height.

“The Warper” sneered in joy; just what was it planning? It spoke in whatever gibberish language the characters of the game spoke in to Zote, in what seemed to be some kind of instructions. Zote seemed to obey, beckoned her to kneel down to his height; she had to work with him, so she did. After she got to eye-level with him, he turned around and began fiddling with something that made jingling noises; just what did “The Warper” give him? After he seemed to be done, he turned around and held his clutched hand up high, before opening it up. A small pendulum watch dropped from his hand, before suddenly stopping when its chain reached its max length. It then began to sway and tick faintly, which, before she knew it, left her completely entranced, and completely in its power. Zote looked back at the masked being, who gave another order in its gleeful mood. Zote obeyed that order as well, yet didn’t understand what this was supposed to do. Dream Tiso still looked on in confusion, still not understanding what was supposed to happen.

Zote started his monologue, lecturing out his 57 precepts from memory, starting from the first one. She didn’t care, and was still entranced, and oblivious to what was happening. It started with her chest, her breasts disappearing, and her skin hardening and turning into a hard, shiny, black carapace. She didn’t feel any pain, even as her bones began dissolving into herself and into her flesh to strengthen the carapace and give it structure. The carapace conversion and dissolving of bones spread across her body as Zote spoke and the pendulum swayed to-and-fro. Her torso became two main segments; a chest segment, and a lower-body segment. As it spread down, her gender swiftly changed, yet was covered with its own segment. His shoulders cracked as they were given their own segments from the torso, and the carapace spread even quicker. The arms became two segments each, until the hands got converted. His hands twitched as the bones dissolved and her hands became converted into complexly segmented black carapaces like the rest of his body, his fingers becoming oddly clawed. The language that Zote was speaking was starting to…. make sense. Zote monologued on, from precept number 32. His legs became converted similar to his arms, this time his feet being converted to non-defined, toeless stumps. His neck was covered and converted as well, also changing his vocal cords to fit his new body. The conversion slowed down drastically when it got to his head, almost stopping entirely.

His entire body shook; what was his name again…? He didn’t remember anything. Zote stopped speaking and stopped the watch’s swaying at the sound of metal on stone; “The Warper was dragging his nail across the wall to get their attention. He could understand what they were all saying now, and “The Warper” was telling Zote to come over to him to get “his supplies.” Zote dashed over, leaving him by himself. He looked over at Tiso, who looked at him with a horrified expression. He looked down on himself to see whatever problem Tiso was horrified by, and saw his black, carapace-covered body; was this not normal? He almost spoke up, before Zote came back over, with an extra cloak, a wooden nail, and a copy of Zote’s mask. Zote looked at him in an unnerved way, and gave each item to him with a violently shuddering hand; just what was so wrong?

He took off his old clothes and tossed them away, before putting on the ragged blue cloak that Zote gave him. He took the wooden blade and quickly holstered it on his back. Lastly, he took the mask and held it out in front of him. Tiso looked horrified, and Zote was almost quivering, leaving him hesitant to put the mask on. He looked over at The Warper, who was nodding happily and excitedly, seeming to want him to put it on. He held his breath and placed the mask over his head, fearing for the worst.

The mask clamped over his head, and he, for a split second, scrambled to get it off. Zote jumped back, and Dream Tiso attempted to cover his eyes, failing to conceal his mortified expression. The conversion of his face happened almost instantaneously, shifting in a flash of white that shone out of his mouth and eye holes; his face was converted like the rest of his body, his nose and ears melted into his face, he gained antenna (one smaller than the other), and his eyes were dyed a jet-black color. He started remembering… everything! Yes, everything! He was Zote, Zote the Mighty, and he was looking for a good glory fight in the Coliseum of Fools! Well, technically, he was dragged into it, but it was intentional! He felt an intense pain as he felt his entire body shrinking, and hissed in pain. At the end of it, his entire body shook, and felt very numb; now, where was he? Right:

He felt that he needed to say that; maybe his impeccable memory was being impulsive. Now, where was he, literally? He looked ahead to see a strange sight, a duplicate of him! And it looked terrified; looks like they forgot about precept thirteen! He was about to say something, until a gleeful squeaking shriek rudely interrupted him. The Warper crashed into both Zotes, grabbing both of them in its arms, spinning around and laughing happily. Both Zotes struggled to get out of the giant bug’s grip, until it suddenly dropped both of them. Dream Tiso was still watching on, looking like he was about to vomit in fear. The Warper was still jumping around in glee, and seemed

The Warper dashed up to Dream Tiso and shook his shoulders violently, almost making Tiso nauseous. The Warper sneered:

The Warper calls out to the original Zote:

It pointed towards the “new” Zote:

Before either of the Zotes could respond, the Warper vanished from sight, leaving only the two Zotes against Tiso. Both Zotes seemed to agree to work together, and Tiso was left with a dazed look on his face, before snapping out of it and readying his shell. The Warper watched from the sidelines of the “Dream Arena” and snickered to himself; now this was going to be quite the entertaining fight.