Work Text:
it was my first week as captain of the hyperion, things weren't going very smoothly because of my constant daydreaming about the shackles society has put on us, of course until Dr.tesla smacked me in the back of the head to return to work.
my work consisted of watching over the valkyries to make sure they don't destroy the ship or kill each other, and keeping the dorms clean.
it's a very tiring job especially with the kaslana blood running through kiana's veins, whether you interpret that as her burning the dorm,blasting music by K-pop girl groups due to her love for girls, keeping the dorm dirty due to her laziness or starting unnecessary fights is up to you.
in all honesty she just alternates between all of those 'fun activities'.
today when I walked into the dorm she magically did all 4 activities at once, I was amazed shocked and most importantly crying tears of joy
I thought maybe they would demote me and I'd finally be able to leave this hell!
but then I remembered as a law abiding citizen it would be very suspicious for me to look at this dorm fire and not do anything, so I did the most logical thing any person would do in my situation, create another problem to solve this one.
I used the new ice cannons Dr.Tesla has been creating to freeze the whole dorm,finally for the first time in my life since getting this damned job i heard the sweet sound of nothing.
it was quiet and it felt like my childhood when I lived in the dark caves with the little rocks that became my parents.
but my happy paradise was broken when a very strong hand smacked the back of my head
they seemed to be doing that a lot, I wouldn't have been surprised if that made me develop some sort of brain damage
"idiot! what do you think you're doing?!" asked me a very stern voice
"M-Major Himeko! I was stopping the fire!!"
"by freezing the whole dorm?! we have a fire alarm and a sprinkler system for a reason!!"
"oh we had those" in my defense it hasn't been that long since I started working in this God forsaken place.
Major Himeko let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose "this is giving me a headache, I need a beer…hey captain! go clean up the mess you created" she dismissed me before going to get her can of beer.
never knew I could be ordered around even as a captain but I feel like if I don't follow the orders bad things will happen.
I took another look back at the dorm, everything was either half frozen or half burned.
"a moment of silence for our fallen valks"
"ᴵ'ᵐ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵈᵉᵃᵈ" I heard a voice next to me, when I looked it was none other than bronya.
"oh you're the tiny font girl"
"ᵗⁱⁿʸ ᶠᵒⁿᵗ?" she asked confused for a second "ᵐʸ ˢᵉᵃʳᶜʰ ʳᵉˢᵘˡᵗˢ ˢʰᵒʷ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵖᵉᵒᵖˡᵉ ʳᵉᶠᵉʳ ᵗᵒ ˢᵘᵖᵉʳˢᶜʳⁱᵖᵗ ᵃˢ "ᵗⁱⁿʸ ᶠᵒⁿᵗ" ᵃʳᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃˡˡⁱⁿᵍ ᵐᵉ ˢᵐᵃˡˡ?" she raised her hand which made project bunny appear.
i need to fix this misunderstanding before project bunny crushes my bones.
"no I meant that your voice is very gentle small" i frantically tried to explain the meaning behind my words
"ᴵ ᵍᵘᵉˢˢ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵐᵃᵏᵉˢ ˢᵉⁿˢᵉ" she lowered her hand, instead of attacking me she decided to be held by project bunny like.
"hey bronya! do you know any way I can fix this mess quickly?" a hint of desperation was evident in my voice.
"ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ ᵃʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ⁿᵉʷ ʳᵒᵇᵒᵗˢ ⁱⁿ ᴰʳ.ᵀᵉˢˡᵃ'ˢ ᵇᵃˢᵉᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᶜᵃˡˡᵉᵈ 'ʳᵒᵒᵐᵇᵃˢ' ᵗʰᵉʸ ˢʰᵒᵘˡᵈ ʰᵉˡᵖ ʸᵒᵘ" she hovered away with project bunny holding her gently.
I guessed I didn't have any other choice, the ice was starting to melt and I didn't really feel like being beaten by the valks today.
I headed over to Dr.Tesla's basement, but before that I had to bribe the guards with my secret hummus recipe, I learned the amazing recipe from my rock parents.
when I arrived to the basement I found a bunch of blueprints nailed to the walls like paintings or posters, a good amount of broken or unfinished robots and the amazing machine I was looking for "the roomba" written on a piece of paper in bold italics.
said paper was taped to the forehead of what seemed to be an android, a robot? I never knew the terminology.
she had brown-ish gray short hair, maybe it was more efficient for work?
the android--or er robot was wearing a maid outfit, I thought it was very old fashioned but paid it no mind.
"now… how do we turn this roomba on?" I held the roomba's head gentle and turned it left and right looking for a button to press or a switch to flick
but to my surprise the roomba opened her eyes and stared dead into my soul, she had light red eyes which were closer to the color pink.
'mom,dad, maybe this is the day I die in the hands of a cleaning robot. '
"beep…" the roomba said very quietly, her hands coming to the front so she could bow.
I was honestly shocked and didn't know what to do, so I gave her head some gentle pats.
the roomba raised her head in confusion "boop?" I didn't understand so I just shrugged and gave her a smile
"I have absolutely no idea what you are saying!" she seemed to look lost for a moment.
having no other idea what to do I removed the paper from her forehead and placed it somewhere else.
"do you have a name?" she seemed to understand my question because she pointed to the back of the paper I removed from her forehead 'Rita'
"oh, so your name is Rita" she gave me a smile and let out a bunch of beeps.
I had no way of understanding what those beeps meant but I felt like I had to deal with that another time, first we needed to get out of here.
"Rita I need you to follow me, i caused a disaster and I would appreciate it if you helped me clean.. um I'll even pay you in head pats if you like that"
Rita's eyes sparkled at my statement, or maybe there's a malfunctioning in her eyes,who knows.
I walked up the stairs of the basement expecting Rita to follow me but soon noticed that she was stuck, walking into the same wall repeatedly.
her beeps were that of frustration,even I didn't know how I understood that but I put that thought aside and hurriedly went over to her side, guiding her to the correct path.
she gave me a small bow as thanks for helping her, so I did it again, oh boy I did it again.
I gave her another pat on the head.
she seemed to really like the pats because she keeps smiling whenever I give her one, so I made sure to give her gentle pats on her head whenever I could.
then we got outside Rita looked up and let out a very high pitched beep that hurted my ears.
"Ow, what… why did you do that?" my question was answered(?) when a flock of birds landed on her shoulder and getting comfortable there.
I looked at her confused, and she looked back at me "they find comfort in being on my shoulders for some reason"
"you could talk all this time?"
"beep boop"
"fair enough"
we walked past the guards that I had to bribe before entering the basement, they all looked at me with grins on their faces "we can't wait for that hummus recipe captain" they all gave a salute and went back to their work.
'sorry parents, I had to give away your secret recipe'
once we arrived to the dorm I noticed that all the ice melted but everything was soaked.
"I'm guessing it's time to work, I'll go get some brooms and mops-" Rita made two mops materialize out of thin air and gave me one.
"well...let's go to work!" I decided to finish the work and be suspicious later.
it was a bit hard with Rita getting stuck every ten minutes but she was also very helpful, lifting and throwing things twice her size, I felt very proud for some reason.
after a lot of work and many head pats as rewards for her hard work, we were finally done the dorm looked brand new.
"good job Rita! I couldn't do any of this without you! you literally saved my life!" I spoke with a my biggest smile.
Rita returned the same smile with a quite "ᵇᵉᵉᵖ ᵇᵒᵒᵖ" as I was about to give her one final pat I heard a very loud voice
"CAPTAIN YOU DUMBASS, YOU BETTER PAY FOR FREEZING ME AND MEI SENPAI" oh no it was the kaslana, she was running towards me with her guns in her hands, doing multiple unnecessary flips until she got to me.
"NEKOOOO-" I closed my eyes tightly waiting for the sweet release of death, or immeasurable pain that I'd somehow survive.
"CHAAAARM!! Huh?!" the impact never came so I slowly opened my eyes, Rita was holding a scythe blocking Kiana's attack with it.
I felt my heart skip a beat.
Rita blocked that attack, an attack that could've could've ended my life.
both kiana's and Rita's expression wre that of anger and irritation, I didn't want them to fight so I got between them which wasn't a very smart move of me.
"uh kiana I'm very sorry for what I did, I promise I'll help you cheat on your next test so you can get praise from mei-senpai! and uh Rita, thank you so much but please don't fight her okay?" I gave them both my strongest most effective move: the pleading eyes.
their expressions softened and looked away from each other "fine I'll take you up on your offer, but please can you tell overseer Otto to get out of the bathroom? he's been there since before the fire started"
'huh overseer Otto? what's he doing here?'
I walked over to the dorm bathroom and knocked on the door twice "overseer? what are you doing in the dorm bathroom?" I waited a couple of minutes before the door opened
"was taking a shit what did you think I was doing?" I took a glance down to his hand that was holding the door knob, gloved, and dry.
my voice started shaking but I tried my best to ask the overseer another question "um...overseer… did you… did you enter the bathroom with your gloves on?" my palms started swearing, there was no way the overseer went to the bathroom without washing his ha- "yes" he simply said and walked past me.
I fell to my knees from the shock and disgust I felt, the overseer walked into the bathroom, took a shit, and did not wash his hands.
I clenched my fists and punched the ground, what has the world come to? white men thinking they don't need to wash their hands? this is the lowest humanity can get.
I stood up in shame and and walked out of the dorm, there I met Rita again.
she seemed a bit worried as to why the color was completely drained from my face so I simply said "it's the overseer" after I said that I got the most brilliant idea.
"Rita, can you do me a favor?" she nodded her head with a gentle smile, mayhaps I really liked her smile.
"can you keep a close eye on Otto?" she seemed confused as to why I was making that request.
I encouragingly pat Rita's shoulder "if he doesn't wash his hands you're allowed to cut them off" I told her in my most gentle voice, she beamed in happiness gripping her scythe tightly
"beep boop!" I did not understand a damn thing but gave her a smile nonetheless, I watched her hover off into the sunset as I cried tears of joy.
"you can come to me if you ever need a pat!!" I said as loud as I could before she disappeared.
'Otto will finally wash his hands!' I thought to myself, that might've been the best day of my life as a captain.
but my happiness soon came to a halt as I heard faint music by what seemed to be a K-pop girl group "ᵒʰ ʸᵒu goT ME!-" I felt a sharp pain in my head when the music Got closer then darkness fell.
.
.
.
.
seele was shaking, with tears in her eyes " f-fu hua... c-can you... please... p-pass the salt...?" her voice shook violently
Fu hua rested her feet on the table very casually and placed 3 pen vapes each one with a different flavor in her mouth " I've been alive for so long, was hanged in the Salem witch trials only to survive it because they didn't know how to properly hang someone. I should've let them all die in the great honkai war but they depended on me, they depended on China's greatest warrior. I saw so many people die and I've forgotten all their names, have you ever lost someone?"
Seele blinked a couple of times before gathering the courage to ask "u-um... the salt…"
both fu hua and seele remained silent for what seemed to be centuries
suddenly fu hua looked around them, they were in the sea of quanta with nothing but a table and a salt shaker on it.
Fu hua removed her legs off the table then her 3 pen vapes, letting out an exhale of smokes "why do you want the salt?" she asked her voice dripping with worry
I cleared my throat to bring the attention to me "um, where am I? and what is happening?"
Fu hua gave me a smug smile
"you are dead, welcome to hell."