Come No Closer, Ghost (Hornet HK TF, MC, AR)

An almost standard scene for a digitally-inclined household; a black computer screen, the impatient tapping of a foot, a face in two hands, followed by an aggravated sigh. Harriet had been on this black loading screen for three minutes, waiting to fight with Hornet yet again. She had played through Hollow Knight five full times already, and was going for the “Speedrun 2” achievement, having already gotten most of the other achievements. She pulled off her headphones and yanked her hair over her exasperated face;” this was definitely going to kill my speedrun,” she thought, starting to impatiently tap the jump and attack keys. As she was about to tap the escape button, the signature spinning white outlines of the Hallownest seal appeared for a split second in the lower corner.

Before she knew it, she saw her knight in the foliage covered hallway to Hornet’s battle room. Her face lit up as she hastily placed her headphones back squarely on her ears, finally! She made the character jump its way to the room, as she bounced in her own seat. Her happiness turned into confusion as she looked from the ledge into the room to see something that never occurred in her previous runs; Hornet’s cracked mask sat on the ground where she normally stood, her body not in sight, and the other vessel she was normally standing in front of was standing and moving, and looked different. The vessel’s mask looked considerably different; instead of four side horns, it had many horns draping down its head, like long hair, and its cloak was tinted a maroon color. It looked unstable, and its animation was hunched over and aggressive, almost looking like the Broken Vessel. With hesitance, she jumped into the room, knowing something is wrong.

Right as she landed on the ground, the vessel did the Broken Vessel’s roar animation, and its name flashed in the corner: “Bargain’s Guidance.”

Right afterwards, the new boss immediately leapt onto her player knight, dealing two masks of damage, and knocking her back. She jumped in her seat at the sudden attack, before running around frantically, as she lacked the ability to dash. She ran around like a madman, desperately trying to dodge the boss’s attacks while trying to get hits in. It was almost hopeless; whenever she tried to take a stab at it, it seemed to shade cloak through the swing and jab at her with its own pinblade. After a few minutes of not getting a hit on it, she got a lucky invincibility-frames slash on it, which seemed to be the only thing needed to send it reeling back in defeat. With the sound of glass breaking, the Vessel was sent flying backwards, with a large hole in its mask, leaving a crack going across its right eye and down its face. As it was flung back, she felt a severe pain in her head, clutching it tightly, like an instant migraine.

The boss swayed back and forth, before a black particle effect flared up from its mask damage, before the ceiling was clouded with black shade, and causing the vessel to slump down in defeat. After the fight, the “important item” gleam appeared on Hornet’s mask; in her curiosity, Harriet went up to it and interacted with it. When she did, the screen that occurs when you pick up a special ability appeared, a picture of Hornet’s mask under it:

The “Bargain’s Seal?” Made sense; Hornet was made in a “bargain” between Herrah and the Pale King. When the screen returned to normal, the scene was soon not so normal; the black shade from the BG’s defeat began quickly covering the screen, blotting it out until it was completely black. She braced herself for the worst; the game bugging out and crashing, or even a cheap death, but instead, something sick happened. She heard a strange dripping noise and looked around, before she looked at her computer screen again; the dripping was coming from the screen, and when she looked down, it was something black dripping from the screen. Something… what…?!

Caught off guard, she was too stunned to fight back when the black substance, the Shade, sputtered from the screen, before flowing from the screen into her face. The black, unnatural, almost liquid-like gas substance forced itself into her face. Her hands scrambled to her face to try and block it out, but it just kept flowing through. She seemed to be forced to gulp it down, but couldn’t stomach it, and when it began flowing through her entire body, the pain was downright unbearable. She tried to scream out of the searing, pulsing pain, but the Shade muffled her to silence. Eventually, she passed out, falling out of her chair unconscious.

When she awoke, she was…. back in her computer room. Odd. She looked around, before trying to stand up, meeting with her hitting her head on the base of her PC’s table; ow, as if her headache wasn’t bad enough as it was. Her entire body pulsed with a strange pain, which intensified as she stood up properly; there was something… wrong. Oh, so wrong. She looked around the room and noticed that it had no doors; no apparent exit. She felt her hand around the walls; she didn’t know why she did this, it just seemed in her instinct. Before long, she felt a strange crack; looking at the wall, she saw a long crack going across it, and… Dream Essence, the dream catcher symbols glowing from it.

On impulse, she punched it, which left her with only regret, and her hissing in pain and clutching her fist, not even noticing the black substance bleeding from it. She shook her damaged hand out, before looking around yet again, when she saw more Dream Essence out of the corner of her eye. Acting on impulse yet again, she grabbed the source without even looking at the actual item, before jamming it into the wall; the item being a long and large crowbar. It fit into the crack like a key in a lock, causing the wall to fall apart almost instantly. The clash of scenes hit her almost like whiplash, the foliage of the corridor in front of her not at all fitting with her closed, urban computer room, and looked familiar…

She attempted to run, but the pain in her body was too intense, leaving her to limp down the plant-claimed hall slowly. Before a long while, she saw a large room from a drop, with a familiar scene; the Hollow Knight holding Hornet’s mask in her battle room, with a thick blot of Shade clouding the ceiling. She attempted to climb down, but was left to fall on her feet, before the knight looked at her. Its supernatural qualities were a lot more obvious in person; the mask seemed forged from stone, and its segmented body seemed to wisp with the familiar black smoke it was made of. She crept towards it slowly, not wanting to look like an enemy to it, despite knowing that it would most likely not attack her.

When she got close, it snapped its head to look dead at her, its vacant eyes looking very uncanny. She jumped back slightly, readying her crowbar in case of an attack. The knight looked up, before standing up itself and trotting towards her with the small pitter-patters of its nubby feet. It looked up at her, before grabbing her free hand; she didn’t notice anything odd before she looked down at her hand. Her hand pulsed with pain as the black substance that forced itself into her began seeping through and converting her skin and bone to the same substance. The knight looked up to her again, before holding out Hornet’s broken mask to her. Her hand tensed with pain, before she grabbed the long-pronged mask into the shade-converted hand.

She looked down at the large mask, which she was surprised could fit in her grasp. The crack went across her eye and one prong entirely, surprising her yet again as to how it was not in pieces. She seemed to be feeling an intense fever, and the pain in her body was yet again pulsing intensely, leaving her hands shaking. She looked back down at the knight, who then did a unique gesture; it made a gesture of what seemed to be it… putting something on its head. Putting a mask on its head. She was mentally incoherent, leaving her to do what she felt she needed to do in impulse; put Hornet’s mask on. With a shaky hand, she slipped the mask on, which clasped over her neck, and what seemed to decapitate her, despite still standing. She looked up through the eye holes to the Shade above, which began to creep its way and flying down towards her.

The Shade slipped under her clothes, coating the outside of her skin entirely, and flying through the mask’s eye sockets to her face. The shade that had forced itself into her body earlier began inking and seeping through her skin, truly making the conversion correct and full. Her skin became the same black, almost liquid wispy substance as the substance that coated and flowed through her, and also became a segmented carapace, her joints becoming much more prominent. Her breasts disappeared into the rest of her body, having no use to this new body. Her organs became liquefied into the same black substance, along with her bones, as she wouldn’t need them anymore. As it reached her face, her eyes became a jet black color, and her face began molding into the mask’s pronged shape. Her clothes were converted as well, but instead of becoming Shade, it warped and wrapped itself around her as a new, pale red piece of ruffled, flowing cloth, with no standard sleeves to put her arms through. Even her crowbar was shifted, denting and heating up with a powerful glow as it sharpened into a long, silver needle, with a long handle and a hole to put thread through. Her sturdy thread magically appeared on its own, looping through the hole in her needle. At the end, her broken mask healed with a white flash as the crack disappeared.

Before long, the Shade blotting out the ceiling was all gone, having coated and converted this new Hornet’s body. The new Hornet fell onto her back, aching all over. The Hollow Knight walked over and looked down at her, before Hornet jumped up and readied her needle.

“Come no closer, ghost!”

The knight looked at her blankly, before leaping to an invisible platform above. It then used its Monarch Wings to leap higher to another unseen platform, before leaping through what seemed to be a false ceiling. The ceiling vanished, and the platforms appeared, revealing the place to be much taller than it looked. The knight dashed, leapt, and flew its way to the top, before looking down at her. Hornet took her needle and flung it to one of the higher platforms, before reeling herself in with her thread upwards.

How could this... ghost…?!