Birth of a Cub

In a small corner of the Tai Ping forest, surrounded by thick foliage and towering trees, all was peaceful and quiet. Only the sounds of insects could be heard as they sang through the night. But today was a strange day, for in that clearing there was a distortion. Space itself was churning and crumbling, like the very fabric of reality was tearing apart.

The distortion was small, fast, and gone almost as soon as it appeared. No being noticed it, leaving the world unaware of what changes it would bring. For from that tear came a small form. Round, black in colour. The only colour to be found were soft purple highlights that accented its form, like highlights in a woman's hair.

The creature was small, young and had yet to open its eyes. It did not know where it was, who it was, or even what it was. As it felt the cool grass below him, the creature awoke. It was no longer in the warm embrace of the cave it came from. It was confused, looking around he saw things for the first time.

Surrounded by trees as tall as small hills, and thick foliage that limited sight, the creature did not know what to do. It took a few moments, but then it felt it. The thoughts in its mind seemed to be guiding it. It was as if instinct had taken over as the newborn started searching for a source of water. It was confused again, where were these thoughts coming from? What was this craving to find something?

It didn't know what it was craving, but as if instinct guided it, he walked toward the soft sounds of a running river nearby. The river poured into a small pond, with another stream on the other side continuing further downstream.

So, this is what I am craving, it thought. It was strange to it, having just been born. It was flowing and formless. Even its attempt to touch it was pointless as its limbs simply passed through the substance. On the surface, it could see strange images. It was freaked at first, what were those images on the strange substance?

Only after some experimenting did it find those strange images were the reflection of the strange crescent in the sky and the strange twinkles, and… itself?

It leaned forward to see better what it looked like. Soft black fur with purple highlights. Four limbs and a feline face. Turning around it noticed a tail that swayed near the ground. It didn't know what it was, but it was satisfied with what it had learned. This liquid, when drunk, soothed him. He had learned something new today, and he was satisfied.

Feeling tired, the cub walked near a large tree, curling itself up into slumber. As his eye's closed, the faint light of the moon and the energy of the stars seemed to become visible in its surroundings. Slowly the energy gravitated towards the cub, unconsciously absorbed into its body. Most of the energy settled into the cub's body, surrounding its muscles and bones – growing them, strengthening them, in a barely noticeable speed.

Some of the energy seeped into the cub's head, melding into its brain. The energy seemed to be a stimulus. A portion of the brain, even in a resting phase, seemed to be unlocked. Strange memories and thoughts came from this place and assimilated into the cub's mind. To it, they were dreams. Amazing pictures that described the world around it, the concept of planets, stars and the universe. The memories show great big feline forms as big as planets, it showed fantastical clashes of energy in the deep void of space.

The memories contained information so deep and substantial, that the cub's brain could not store it all. They were instead pushed into the recess of its mind, to be brought up again when the cub grew. These strange memories – no, they were ancestral memories – were inherited, and the cub learned. It learned names, creatures, places and more. It learned what it was called – the Void Swallowing Beast. It learned about the scope of the world, and from all this settled in the wisdom that would not be available to most newborns of regular bloodlines.

And thus, the night passed.

Nearby, in the thick foliage, a predator roamed. It stalked its prey in the night, often coming near this water bank at nights. Years of hunting had made it smart – it knew how to make prey come to it rather than chase it around.

Tonight, like all other nights, the predator approached with silent steps. Each of its paws padded with soft fur, silencing any movements. The prey – a Jeweled Gazelle, a four-legged gazelle shaped creature with three horns and a jewel on its forehead, was unaware of its impending fate. The shift in the air as the predator jumped upon it was the only warning it got before its neck was caught between powerful jaws and twisted – a quick death.

Even if the prey had been aware, it would not have changed the outcome. The predator – a pitch-black feline with only the whites of its eyes and the glint of its sharp teeth giving it colour, was a powerful Golden-Core beast, a mere Inner-sensing stage Jeweled Gazelle was no match for it.

The Night Panther - called as such by the humans of the land due to the pitch-black coat that hid it in the night, started to pick up the prey, anxious to return to its den and its cubs. As it turned around, a black mound caught its attention. As a gold-core beast, it could sense the life-force of the mound, there was something there. Curious, the night panther approached the creature, only to find a small cat, asleep near the tree. It looked strangely like itself, a black fur coat covering the form of a cat-like frame.

The only difference was the purple highlights in its coat. Strange, thought the panther. Why would a cub be left alone over here, every creature in the forest knows not to be unaware near a water source. No beast would be foolish enough to leave their cub here unattended. Alert at this strange situation, the panther scanned around, looking for a trap or anything out of the ordinary.

There was nothing. Again, it looked at the cub, why was it left here? Then it thought, the purple highlights! It must be an abandoned cub, one left to die due to its difference from the rest. The panther was sympathetic, herself having just given birth to a litter of her own cubs. It could not imagine how anyone would be able to abandon their child this way, the very thought of anything happening to her own made her mad.

At that moment, she made a decision. A decision that changed hers, and the destiny of many others. She decided to adopt the cub, and raise it as her own.