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Chapter Text

"You're finally here!" the man said relieved "I'm the commissar Ugo Biondi" he said offering a handshake

"Mila Weber" The S-rank Valkyrie replied shaking his hand "These are Emma Klein and Emilia Barbarigo. The command didn't detect any honkai energy coming from this area, why have you called us?"

The commissar expression turned grim "We sent our best men inside and they were all killed, I personally knew the captain and the last thing he said was to call Schicksal, he was a good man and I trusted him, he had a reason to say those things."

Mia gave him a nod and had to admit that the situation was pretty weird and usual. Suddenly a communication from HQ arrived, it was from the overseer himself, Otto Apocalypse.

"I'm quite interested in this incident, capture whoever you'll find inside" he ordered.

"Roger that" Mia replied nodding as Otto closed the communication.

The three Valkyries grabbed their weapons and walked inside the house, what they saw deeply disturbed them. Every inch of the walls was covered in blood, the floor was covered with the mutilated corpses of police officers that first entered the building, their guts, internal organs and so on were spread across the room. They immediately understood that this wasn't the work of a human. The three women navigated the house until a muffled cry reached their ears, they were quick to find the source.

A little girl with pink hair was under one of the corpses, she was crying and covered in blood. Mia analyzed the girl and didn't sense any type of Honkai Energy coming from her, she guessed that the police officers were attacked while rescuing the little girl.

Mia gestured the girl with her head to her companions. Emma and Emilia immediately went to help the little girl while Mia covered them from behind. They removed the body from on top of her and carefully helped her getting up.

"It's okay, we are Valkyries, everything will be fine" Emma said with a gentle tone.

"Did you see the one who did all of this?" Emilia asked before noticing something "Horns?"

A chill run down Mia's spine as she spun around and aimed her handguns to the little girl, she widened her eyes when she saw the decapitated bodies of Emma and Emilia falling to the ground and their heads floating in front of the little girl. With a warcry, she squeezed the triggers of her high caliber weapons. The first shot missed but the second hit the girl in one of the horns causing her to drop to the ground unconscious.

Mia felt a sharp pain coming from her left arm and when she looked at it she remained shocked as she saw her arm on the ground lifeless. Mia immediately placed her right hand on the spot where her arm used to be linked to the main body in order to try to stop her blood from pouring out. She then launched an SOS signal.

Later...

Schicksal's tech department noticed several safeties in the nanomachines that kept them stable. Unfortunately, those restraints would not allow the repelling of 311's instincts so Otto came to the conclusion of removing them. With a single pressure on his tablet, he disabled the safeties. 311 started having several convulsions before stopping. All her vital signatures disappeared.

Otto remained still before he saw it.

311's eyes were looking all around herself, she slowly rose up from the small bed she was in and looked directly at Otto "Hello?" She asked with a rather shy tone.

Otto smiled as he made his way to the surgery. He placed himself 12 meters away from 311 and smiled "How are you feeling?" He asked gently

311 looked at her arms "I'm fine I guess?" she said tilting her head

"Do you know where you are? Or What's your name?" Otto asked

311 shook her head

'But she knows how to speak, probably thanks to the suit' Otto thought as he approached 311 aware of the risk he was in. The man placed himself in front of 311 and grabbed her hands while smiling "You, my dear, are the future of mankind, your name is Anastasia Apocalypse. I'm Otto but you can call me grandpa" he said with a smile and a gentle tone "Come, I'll take you to your sister"

Anastasia slowly nodded while trying to recollect her memories as she followed her grandpa "Uhm..."

"What is it?" Otto asked as he grabbed some clothes and led her outside the surgery and towards the dorm.

Anastasia noticed how certain scientists paled when she passed past them and even if she tried her best she just couldn't figure out why. "Why is everyone looking at me like that?"

Otto checked his surroundings causing the scientists to return to their tasks "You see, before taking you in, you killed an emperor-class hoinkai which had killed 3 experienced valkyries, unfortunately, your family was killed by it and you got badly injured"

The girl felt bad for having forgotten about her parents and she felt like she should feel sad for their death but the fact that she couldn't even remember their faces kept her from feeling too bad then something that Otto said caught her interest and before she could process the information her mouth moved "Wait...I killed an Emperor-class Honkai?" Anastasia asked raising an eyebrow.

The question caused the overseer to stop his tracks "You remember what an Honkai is?"

Anastasia blinked a few times before bringing her hand to her chin "I don't remember learning about them...but I...just know it..."

Otto remained silent for a few moments "I see...your amnesia probably didn't wipe out all of your memories, that's good! It means that soon you'll be able to remember"

Anastasia smiled, relieved by the fact that her memory loss wasn't permanent "That's good to hear"

Otto nodded and only stopped walking when he reached a certain door "Now, before entering I have a few things to tell you. Since your parents died, I decided to adopt you. Behind this door there will be your apartment which you will share with your big sister from now on, her name is Theresa Apocalypse, she has a bit of a hot temper but I'm sure you two will get along just fine"

Anastasia nodded

"One last thing, due to the nature of your wounds we had to...change your body. Even as we speak, you are wearing a special armor, unfortunately, it can't be removed once put on, you can't see it because the armor is connected to your nervous system which gives the armor the image you have of yourself and so the armor adapts in order to follow your mind's instructions" Otto said calmly

Anastasia looked at her hands feeling a bit uncomfortable with this new knowledge, she looked at her limbs as if searching for the armor Otto was talking about...suddenly to her surprise, her hands changed into something similar to armored gloves. She looked at Otto with a panicked expression.

The man simply put his hands above hers "It's okay, if you don't want to see it just wish it" he said with a calm and soothing voice

Anastasia closed her eyes and did just that when she opened her eyes, the armored gloves where no longer there.

"I wish there was another way to save you but you were almost reduced to shreds. I understand if you hate me now" Otto said looking away from her

Anastasia shook her head and wrapped her arms around the man "No...you went on extreme lengths to save a complete stranger...if it wasn't for you I would be dead...I will never be able to repay you"

Otto simply hugged her back...unknown to Anastasia, he had a smile on his face, the same smile someone would have after winning the lottery. He did it, he got himself who could easily be, an Herrscher Killer and that person now sees him as her savior, she will do anything to pay her debt.

The man broke the hug and looked at the door "come on, let's meet your big sis, shall we?" he said as Anastasia nodded.

Otto opened the door surprising a very naked Theresa who just got out of the shower, the three of them looked at each other for a few seconds

"Ops" Otto said before...

"KYAAAAAH!" Theresa shouted as she started throwing things at Otto "Nobody taught you to knock!?"

Otto covered his face with his arms ready to be hit by the objects thrown by Theresa...to his surprise, they never hit him.

Two of the objects were in Anastasia's hands and the others were floating in air caught by Anastasia's vectors. To Otto's horror, there was also a javelin between those objects.

"Are you mad Theresa?! You could have killed me!" he said as he crossed his arms

"That's what you get for being a pervert" Theresa whispered before spacing out when she saw the objects in mid-air "Woah..." she uttered before a towel flew out of the bathroom and covered her little body "Eh?"

Anastasia sighed "You could have at least cover your eyes, grandpa" she said casually

"Ana?" Otto said pointing at the flying objects

Anastasia looked at him and then to the objects "Oh sorry" she said as she placed the objects back to the ground with her vectors

"How did you do that?" Theresa whispered causing Anastasia to realize that what she just did was not normal

"I...I don't know? I just did it?" Anastasia replied panicking a little since she felt under the spotlight

Otto gave her a friendly nudge "Now we know how you killed that Emperor-Class Honkai!"

"WAIT WHAT?" Theresa said shocked "You killed an Emperor-Class?!"

"Seems like it" Anastasia said scratching the back of her head

Theresa looked at Otto, who just nodded "Well damn" she said surprised before looking at Anastasia again "Anyway, I'm Theresa Apocalypse, nice to meet you"

"Likewise" Anastasia replied with a small nod "I'm Anastasia Apocalypse"

Theresa looked at Otto once again waiting for answers from the man

"From now on, Anastasia will be your little sister, take care fo her!" Otto said before walking out the room and closing the door behind him.

Both of Anastasia and Theresa were shocked by the man, the little woman quickly ran outside still covered only by a towel, unfortunately of the blonde-haired man there were no traces.

Theresa sighed as she returned inside the apartment and looked at Anastasia, who was awkwardly standing like a friend that just witnessed a fight between his best friend and his mother. The white-haired girl sighed before smiling "Come, I'll show you where you'll sleep"

With a nod, Anastasia started following Theresa. The valkyrie had a feeling that Otto was going to give her a roommate especially since that apartment was made for two people, in all honesty, Theresa was hoping that Cecilia was coming to live with her, she certainly didn't expect to get a sister.

Theresa and Anastasia entered the second bedroom. In it, there was a bed, a desk with a computer, the door that led to the bathroom, a wardrobe and a TV. Anastasia analyzed the room with her eyes, it looked a bit plain but she will make sure to make it more lively, maybe with some objects she could buy.

"If you need anything just tell me okay?" Theresa said with a smirk before leaving the room.

Anastasia silently walked to the bed and sat on it. Her mind was thinking of the situation she was in, she couldn't remember anything of her past but her grandpa told her that she was able to defeat an Emperor Class Honkai and that she's the future of mankind...he probably wants her to fight the honkai once again.

Anastasia turned her hand into a fist 'I can't let him down' she thought. Otto did so much for her, she needs to repay her debt.

She looked at the clock and noticed that she spent hours immersed in her thoughts and now it was getting pretty late, though her stomach was grumbling quite a bit. She got up and walked out of the room and into the kitchen. She noticed how Theresa wasn't in the living room nor in her bedroom.

With the help of her vectors, she started cooking before she could even notice she had made some pasta for two. She watched the dish like it was something alien to her and yet she felt a wave of nostalgia and sadness soon followed by a sharp pain from the right side of her head. The girl fell on knees and placed her hands on the origin of her pain. After a few moments, the pain was gone as if it was never there.

Anastasia got up again and looked at the pasta...she might have exaggerated since it was enough for at least 3 people. She heard the door in the living room open, Anastasia quickly went to greet Theresa but to her surprise, her sister wasn't alone. There was a woman with her, she had long white hair and sky blue eyes, she almost looked like a doll.

"Oh! there you are Ana!" Theresa said with a smile "This is a friend of mine, Cecilia"

Anastasia nodded and bowed her head a little "Hello, I'm Anastasia Apocalypse"

"Cecilia Schariac" Cecilia replied with a smile

Theresa sniffed the hair "is...is this...?"

"Oh yeah, I cooked some pasta, I hope you don't mind" Anastasia replied scratching the back of her head

"I sure don't!" Theresa said smiling "I'm an okay chef but just from the smell I can tell it's going to be delicious"

The pink-haired girl just nodded and walked back inside the kitchen, without putting too much thought in it, she started to set the table with her vectors.

"See, that's what I meant with doing weird stuff" Theresa whispered as Cecilia nodded

The two white-haired girls sat down at the table while Anastasia served them their pasta. Both of them were surprised when they found themselves looking at a black-colored pasta.

Theresa looked at Cecilia with the expression that said 'Is this even edible?'

Anastasia was happily eating at this point.

Cecilia simply put the food in her mouth and hummed happily at the taste of the dish, to Theresa's shock.

"Are you Venetian, Anastasia? I once had a mission there and I remember eating this type of pasta back then it was a specialty of the place if I remember correctly" she asked causing the pink-haired girl to stop eating and clean her mouth with a napkin

"I don't know? Sorry...I suffer from memory loss" Anastasia said with a nervous chuckle

"Oh my, what happened?" the woman asked

"She fought an emperor class honkai and won" Theresa stepped in calmly "The Overseer told me that the honkai reduced her pretty bad"

"That's quite an achievement...no valkyries were dispatched?" Cecilia asked

"Yes, you knew them it was Mila Weber, Emma Klein, and Emma Barbarigo" Theresa said as Cecilia stopped any movements and look at Theresa waiting for an explanation.

Theresa just shrugged and her shook her head.

"Am I, missing something?" Anastasia said tilting her head

"No no dear" Cecilia replied shaking her head "It's just that I knew those three and I was surprised to hear that you were the one to avenge them"

The dinner kept going silently and when it was over Cecilia just left leaving the two sisters alone. Since it was late they both went to bed but Anastasia's sleep wasn't a calm one. The images of battles, of monsters and apocalyptic landscapes, filled her dreams. Some times it was an island and other times it was New York. She could understand a few words between the chaos of images.

Prophet, CEPH, HONKAI, Alpha Ceph, C.E.L.L, Claire, Psycho, Archangel

Those words repeated themselves in her mind in rapid succession but suddenly all the chaos disappeared and instead, Anastasia found herself in a garden full of flowers with a massive tower in the middle of it.

A hooded figure appeared in front of her, she couldn't see his or her face, he or she pointed towards the sky and the image of New York appeared but this time, it was showing Grand Central Terminal. The hooded figure's lips moved and like a whisper in the wind the voice reached Anastasia's ears

Go there

Everything turned black and Anastasia woke up from her dreams, she slowly turned her head to see the clock on the wall and noticed that it was 9 AM. She got up, had a shower, and walked out of the room. To her surprise, there was Otto inside the living room alone. Theresa was still inside her room.

"Did you sleep well?" Otto asked with a smile as he offered her some sweets he got on the way to the apartment.

Anastasia nodded "Yeah..." she said as she graciously accepted the sweets "Grandpa..."

"What is it, dear?" Otto asked eager to know Anastasia's question.

"What is...a Ceph?" she asked causing the blonde man to frown as he put his hand on his chin

"Never heard of it" Otto replied shaking his head "Where did you hear it?"

"In my dreams..." Anastasia replied a bit embarrassed, to her surprise, Otto actually leaned forward looking clearly interested in what she just said "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, I just find it interesting" Otto replied slowly nodding "Do you have any other question?"

"Am I...Venitian?" Anastasia asked tilting her head

"Why yes" Otto replied nodding "We have indeed found you in Venice, did you remember something?"

Anastasia just shook her head "No but yesterday Cecilia told me that I have cooked a typical dish of that place..."

"Ohh, you've met Cecilia" Otto said seemingly pleased "What did you talk about?"

"Not much...Theresa and her turned silent suddenly after talking about the Valkyries that died the day you rescued me" she replied

Otto expression turned serious for a moment before returning soft as Theresa got out of the room in her pajamas "Oh there you are"

"What are you doing here, grandpa?" Theresa asked

"I came here to talk with Ana" Otto replied calmly

Anastasia tilted her head "What is it?"

"I want to test your strength, do you mind?" Otto asked as Theresa stiffened

Anastasia blinked a few times before nodding "Sure"

Theresa narrowed her eyes as she looked at Otto, he was up to something, she had no doubt.

Anastasia finished eating as Theresa got dressed and started following them much to Otto's delight. The Trio walked into a special training room which used fragments of memories to generate enemies, Otto walked to the console and gestured Anastasia to place herself in the arena.

Theresa was a bit skeptical and looked at the Overseer with an inquisitorial look on her face "Isn't too much for her?"

"No, I'm afraid she'll blast through everything I put in front of her" Otto replied with a smirk before turning on the intercom "Ana, I would like too see what your armor is capable of so please avoid using that ability of yours"

Anastasia looked at the console above her and nodded.

Otto was about to summon on of Schicksal's enemies when an Error Message appeared on his screen "What the...?" Otto whispered before a giant metal snake with drills attached to its face appeared in front of Anastasia.

Anastasia started screaming as she put her hands on her head as a voice filled her head

"We meet each other again, Prophet" The voice said as several other beings appeared around the giant snake, the code name CEPH appeared on the console.

Anastasia gritted her teeth as a weapon appeared in her hands, the console identified it as Typhoon. With a warcry, the pink-haired girl launched herself against the CEPHs unleashing a storm of bullets against them

"Still fierce as ever" The snake-like creature said as it lifted up the girl front the ground and tried to break her mind.

Anastasia, with something that can only be compared to a natural instinct, returned the attack to its owner causing it to drop her to the ground. A bow appeared in her hands and she started firing explosive arrows at the snake aiming at its eyes and drills. The arrows flew in the air and hit the target which launched an attack using some kind of energy beams and energy balls.

Maximum Speed

Anastasia blurred away from the attack and her speed increased exponentially. The snake then launched even more energy balls when he saw that Anastasia cornered herself.

Maximum Armor

The balls impacted but Anastasia was not injured, when the dust settled down there was no trace of Anastasia.

Cloak engaged

The snake and the other Cephs started looking around until they started to get hit by something invisible. Anastasia turned visible once again, now standing in front of the snake, she aimed her bow at the creature and fired one last explosive arrow which killed its target, who fell to the ground and exploded into millions of pixels.

Anastasia was panting, all of her vital readings were showing that all of her parameters were out of scale. The pink-haired girl felt her legs light but also unstable and almost painful as if the tension and the adrenaline had broken the muscles that kept the limb together.

Theresa and Otto were in pure shock, the white-haired girl quickly rushed to her sister's side to check her condition while Otto kept looking at the console where a list of things he never heard off had appeared-

Alpha Ceph

Ceph trooper

Hunters

Typhoon

Predator Bow

The list was fascinating, it was in English quite surprisingly but every time he tried to open the files about the creatures named Ceph a notification saying that he lacked the authority to access the files popped up on the screen and some sort of advanced IA named SECOND kept him from hacking his way through those files. The blonde man knew that what these files were hiding could reveal secrets that humanity never knew to possess, he felt curiosity filling his being but also frustration from being kept away by the answers...

In the meantime, Theresa had reached Anastasia who had already calmed down to some extent.

"Are you okay?!" Theresa asked as she grabbed Anastasia's hand, she felt like she had just grabbed a brick. Anastasia's skin was as hard as steel and just as cold, there was no longer any sign of softness in it.

Anastasia slowly looked at Theresa and her hand softened in an instant as the nanosuit turned in what looked like normal skin "Yeah...I'm okay" she muttered

Theresa was far from convinced due to Anastasia's way of talking and the fact she was hiding eye contact "Do you know what that thing was?"

"No...yes...I don't know...I-I never seen a thing like that but I just...I-I" Anastasia started speaking gibberish, she immediately started hyperventilating and her legs give in as the nightmarish voice of the alpha ceph kept calling her Prophet. The girl started putting her hands on her air as tears started falling from her eyes

Theresa hugged her newly acquired sister as tight as she could "It's okay, everything's fine, it's not here anymore" she whispered as Anastasia started sobbing

Theresa patted Anastasia's head and never broke the hug until her little sister had calmed down, she then threw a look at the console where Otto was and felt a chill going down her spine when she saw Otto expression. He was smiling, almost manically, that face told the white-haired girl that for Anastasia, this was just the beginning...

Several years later

Since that day many years had passed, Anastasia had partaken several of those training sessions aimed at studying the functions of her nanosuit. Schicksal discovered that when they put the Nanosuit on Anastasia, they basically replaced the whole body. After one month, Anastasia had no longer internal organs and things like breathing and eating became just a habit, they also discovered how she was naturally immune to Honkai corruption and any other type of gas and poisons that could potentially be used against Valkyries. Not only that but the nanomachines upon contact with the Honkai energy repurposes it into another kind of energy which is then used to supercharge the armor itself. The only instance where Honkai Energy seems to prevail over the nanosuit and her natural immunity is when Anastasia is submitted at extreme levels of Honkai Energy, the nanosuit has little time to react and repel the infection and Anastasia in the meantime feels incredible pain, though, with a lot of psychological training, Schicksal managed to teach her how to maintain control during these kinds of situation. Of course, Schicksal attempted to reverse-engineer the Nanosuit but they always lacked something though they did create several new battlesuits.

The scientists had discovered that Anastasia's vectors not only got stronger and longer but also more numerous as they had become 28 and capable of stopping rocket-propelled grenades at incredible speeds. Not only that but unlike her big sister, Anastasia showed to grow faster than any human.

They also tried to implement artificial stigmatas on her body but they were all rejected upon contact not by the nanosuit but by Anastasia's body itself. It was then that they found out that Anastasia already possessed a stigmata, a natural one. This came as a shock and caused a lot of excitement between the scientists which quickly died down when every attempt to get the stigmata to work failed.

This research was kept hidden and only a few people outside of scientists themselves knew of Anastasia's existence. She was kept from leaving the base just like the official 'Strongest Valkyrie' Cecilia with the main difference that Anastasia never went on a real mission. Unknown to Anastasia, there was a bomb placed inside of her which should be strong enough to blow her up completely, that was Otto's trump card that he placed just to be sure that he could keep his control over her.

Thanks to the fact that both were kept from leaving the base without permission, Cecilia and Anastasia bonded quite a lot, though they mostly talked of TV series and movies since it was the best thing that came close to what's like outside HQ. Theresa always spent her time with them whenever she wasn't on a mission, she truly loved to tell stories of her mission to her little sister especially she felt a bit anxious for her.

Cecilia also felt the same. At first, the pink-haired girl was scared of pretty much everything and had nightmares every single night. Theresa will always remember how she used the get up in the middle of the night after hearing Anastasia scream only to find her drenched in sweat muttering words like 'Raptor team' and so on. She even set aside her pride and begged Otto to do something. The blonde man gave Anastasia several drugs to help her but the Nanosuit nullified them.

Then suddenly, Anastasia just stopped, her initial shy behavior slowly disappeared and she became more like Cecilia but colder during the tests she was dead serious and she was always composed around everyone who wasn't Theresa or Cecilia. Otto said that was because she finally got used to the Nanosuit but Theresa just knew that something was wrong and there lots of times when she caught her little sister just staring at the nothingness.

The small white-haired valkyrie was inside her room. Since Cecilia was on a mission, Anastasia had chosen to stay at their apartment. Theresa was looking at her feet as she sat on her bed, several thoughts were crossing her mind. After taking a deep breath, she jumped on her feet and walked out of the room. The Valkyrie had chosen to take matters to her hands and to confront her sister.

Theresa walked out of the room and her heart cracked as she saw Anastasia standing by the window looking at the artificial garden outside, her eyes seemed to be empty. The small Valkyrie knew that Anastasia loved her a lot and never failed to show her affection but whenever either her or Cecilia were not there the pink-haired woman would look like an empty doll.

"Hey" Theresa called her smiling causing Anastasia slowly turned her gaze towards her

"Hey" she replied with a gentle tone and a bittersweet smile

Here it is, the 'I don't want to make you worry' Look that Anastasia always gives Theresa when she knows that Theresa is about to express her concerns for her. Usually, that look is enough to make Theresa back off and change topic but the small girl this time will not back down.

Theresa walked up to her little sister and grabbed her hands and started caressing them "Ana, as your older sister, I'm worried about you" she said in the most honest tone possible as she felt heart being torn apart "I know you don't feel good, there's something bothering you, I can see it in your eyes even now" she tightened her grip "Please, tell me what's wrong, I beg of you. I don't care how bad it is, I just want to help you"

Anastasia brought her into a hug "Everything is fine Theresa, I'm fine it's just that the tests are tiring me out a bit, that's it"

"You always look at nothing, do you see something that bothers you? Maybe your nanosuit has altered your vision?" Theresa continued not wanting to back off

"I don't see anyone" The pink-haired girl replied gently

Theresa widened her eyes as she felt her soul being torn apart this time "Liar..." she whispered as she clenched her fists "STOP LYING TO ME PLEASE!"

Anastasia looked at her stunned as Theresa placed her hands on her chest "You always say you are tired because of the tests or because you haven't slept well but that's a lie, isn't it?! All these years, you were always in pain, weren't you?! I saw how you always change behavior when you think you're alone! Your eyes become empty and you put up that smile of yours that distracts the others from what you are hiding! It's your mask isn't it!? You always take care of me and try to cheer me up when one of my missions goes wrong or the others treat me as an abomination, but all this time, you were the one in desperate need of help! I always tried to reach out to you but you always declined!" she shouted at the top of her lungs before her voice got lower until it became a whisper "I love you so much Ana, you always been at my side and alwayas looked after me, you are one of the few reasons that make returning her a good thing but seeing you like this just makes me feel like a worthless sister who cares only for her problems...so please...Ana...let me help you...please" at this point Theresa started crying as she grabbed Anastasia's clothes and started clinging on them "I will share your burden even though I'm small...I will keep it a secret even from grandpa...but please...please, Ana...I beg of you...tell me what's wrong..."

Silence filled the room before Theresa felt something falling on top of her head, she looked up and saw Anastasia crying with a pained expression. The pink-haired girl started sobbing before slowly falling on her knees and hugging the Valkyrie in front of her "I'm sorry..." she whispered with a trembling tone before she pointed her finger towards the empty couch "He's there"

Theresa turned her gaze in the pointed direction and saw no one while Anastasia could see a bald Afro-American man with Blue eyes. He was wearing a Nanosuit just like Anastasia's. His name was Prophet, he was the ghost that had kept company all these years and who remained always undetected by Schicksal's continuous research and scans.

She could still remember the first time she met him. It happened 6 months after she was rescued until then the nightmares of a war that never took place hunted her mind then one day once she woke up and she found herself staring at him as he sat across the room, the memory of her screaming at the top of her lungs and Theresa bashing in with her Oath of Judah still brings a smile on her face. After she made sure that only she could see him, Prophet explained that he was the nanosuit and that the war she saw was a war of a different era which he fought in, he explained to her that the monsters she saw were the Ceph, an alien race from another galaxy. He also told her that after that war the Honkais made their first appearance in that era and that since humanity was unprepared they all died, Prophet chose to turn himself in the nanosuit instead of fighting until he was killed so that he could be useful to the next humanity.

Anastasia asked how he knew that there was going to be another humanity and Prophet told her that the hooded man had reassured him that it wasn't the end. The woman knew of who he was talking about, she also saw him. A hooded man which usually appeared in her dreams, turning the hellish landscape into a garden of flowers.

Since that day, every night Anastasia trained herself along with Prophet, she went through everything, CQC, Karate, Jujitsu, Aikido, Judo, Kung Fu, Capoeira, Krav maga, and many other martial arts. But it wasn't all physical training, Prophet also thought her the art of war and strategies. She was surprised how fast she was able to learn these things, until Prophet explained her that in reality, she was just remembering them since the Nanosuit never forgets anything, a clear example of that was Anastasia's first encounter with the Alpha Ceph. On that occasion, she already knew where to aim and what to do to protect her mind from the psychic attacks.

"Who is he...?" Theresa asked Anastasia causing her to snap back to reality.

"His name is Prophet...he's the person that no one else besides me...he's the previous owner of my nanosuit" she muttered causing Theresa to look at her with a concerned look

"Did he do anything to you?" the small valkyrie asked

Anastasia shook her head "No, he's the one who taught me how to use the Nanosuit at its fullest and about...the other civilization..."

This caused Prophet to get up and cross his arms "You weren't supposed to say that" he said with a stoic thone

Theresa was about to say something when suddenly someone knocked on the door of the apartment and Anastasia broke the hug before walking towards the door as Theresa stared at her with concern. When the pink-haired girl opened the door she saw Amber, Otto's secretary and bodyguard, standing in front of her.

Anastasia, like usual, stepped aside to let Amber talk to Theresa, she had no doubt that Amber came to send her sister to a mission.

"I'll get ready" Theresa said thinking she didn't need to hear what Amber was about to say.

"No" Amber replied coldly as she looked at Anastasia "The Overseer has an urgent mission for the Jäger Anastasia, he requested the immediate dispatch"

Theresa froze in place as she heard those words, her gaze slowly drifted towards her little sister. Anastasia's expression was...emotionless...there was no sign that she had cried a few moments ago, the only thing that she did was to clench her hand into a fist.

Anastasia nodded as the nanosuit appeared leaving only her head normal. She walked towards her room and retrieved her equipment, the portable minigun Typhoon and her predator bow, both built from the analysis of the nanosuit's data. The Jäger crouched down in front of her sister and hugged her. The small valkyrie hugged her sister back, she look forward to this moment, the moment where her sister would finally see the world with her own eyes but now that the moment came, Theresa had a horrible feeling as if the moment Anastasia will leave, everything will change forever and with what Anastasia just told her, that feeling was slowly turning into terror

"I'll tell you everything when I get back..." Anastasia whispered as Theresa slowly nodded

After a few seconds, Anastasia broke the hug and started following Amber. the two were directed to the hangar.

"Exactly 32 minutes ago, we discovered that the A-rank Valkyrie Cecilia Schariac went missing during a secret operation finalized to lure out the Anti-Entropy forces" Amber started a briefing as they walked "Due to the importance of the subject Cecilia, Overseer Otto had decided to mobilize the Jäger Anastasia to either retrieve or destroy the subject Cecilia, of course, the last option is only allowed if the subject can't be retrieved. Overseer Otto will also come with you"

Anastasia remained silent but inside of her there was a tornado of emotions. She had started to feel honored by the fact that Otto himself finally gave her a mission, she also felt nervous since this will her first time in the outside world since she got there but she was also worried about Theresa and the fact that their conversation was interrupted so suddenly made her feel quite bad and if it wasn't enough hearing that her mission could potentially force her to kill Cecilia removed any form of joy out of her which was replaced with determination.

Prophet was walking beside her without uttering a word. The two reached the hanger from Otto himself was waiting for them. Both of them made a small bow though Anastasia noticed that Prophet's expression was filled with disgust as he looked at the blonde man.

"Amber, I'll leave the command of the base to you" Otto said calmly

"Overseer, I thought Amber would have come with us" Anastasia said solemnly

Otto smirked "Why? Do you think you're not enough for this mission?"

Anastasia vigorously shook her head "of course not"

Anastasia didn't let him repeat himself, she immediately got on board of the aircraft which quickly took off.

"Are you nervous Ana?" Otto asked with an intrigued expression "This is your first mission after all"

Anastasia shook her head "I prepared myself for this moment for a long time, I will not disappoint you grandpa" she said with a dead-serious expression.

The blonde man chuckled at that and nodded "I have no doubt of that, though you were trained to fight the Honkai, Anti-Entropy is formed by humans and an Herrscher."

"Don't worry, I also know how to deal with humans" She replied darkly as she placed her hand on her Typhoon

"Remember that the mission is rescuing Cecilia, not killing the enemy. Maybe we'll not encounter those scums" The overseer replied calmly

"Still, better be safe than sorry" Anastasia replied

"Amen" Otto agreed nodding "Anyway, we should celebrate"

"Celebrate?" she asked tilting her head

"Yes, after this mission, I will accept one of your requests, do you have already something in mind?"

Anastasia remained silent for a few moments before nodding "I...want to see New York"

The request surprised Otto, he was quite sure she would have asked to go to her homeland or something like that.

A smile appeared on Prophets face as, unknown to Anastasia, he sent a message to someone else.

"Well then, let's get this over quickly" Otto said smiling "After all, the trip to New York isn't a short one"

Anastasia felt overjoyed and so she immediately threw all of her arms around Otto hugging him.

The blonde man started feeling like being squished "A-Ana, your everything is chocking me" he managed to say as the girl realized that the vectors and her superhuman strength were too much for the man in front of her.

"Sorry" She squeaked a bit embarrassed for having lost her cool.

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful, the Aircraft left Otto and Anastasia near a small town and took off.

"Okay Ana, do your thing" Otto ordered as Anastasia nodded and connected to the cameras of the town while making diagnostic research for Cecilia. After a few seconds, she found her target, Cecilia was unconscious inside an arcade, next to her there was the Anti-Entropy scientist Einstein.

"Arcade, 700 meters East, Einstein is with her" Anastasia said

"I'll get Cecilia, you take Einstein" Otto replied "Do not kill her, capture her, she could be useful for intel gathering."

Anastasia nodded and used her vectors to launch herself on the rooftops, in a matter of seconds, she was on top of the building in front of the arcade. She checked the cameras once again and saw that Einstein was gone but Cecilia was not, she was still inside the arcade unconscious.

Anastasia could feel her blood boils as she finally found her prey. Einstein was talking to someone with an earpiece.

Anastasia cloaked herself and descended on the streets using her vectors, she went inside a alley and then with the vectors, grabbed Einstein and dragged her inside the alley.

Maximum armor

Anastasia rammed her first in the scientist's belly, causing her to spit blood but Anastasia was far from over. The pink-haired girl threw an uppercut which broke several teeth of the scientists

"what have you done to her, you scum?!" she hissed before placing her hand above the other's girl's mouth before breaking her arm.

The blue-haired girl let out a muffled scream before Anastasia threw her to the ground and stepped on her back "A little bit of pressure, and you'll be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life"

Suddenly, a group of titans appeared around Anastasia, who remained emotionless as her vector immediately ripped them apart. Einstein widened her eyes at how her titans were easily destroyed.

Anastasia made more pressure on the scientist's back as some cracks could be heard, the blue-haired girl gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes waiting for her spine to snap.

Fortunately, that never happened as someone else stepped inside the alley. Einstein's vision got more and more blurry but she recognized her savior...it was Welt.

"Let her go and this can end peacefully" Welt said with a threatening tone

Anastasia lifted Einstein by her hair and looked at him with hatred "Why should I let go of an Anti-Entropy scum like you?"

Welt opened his hand a pair of spheres appeared in it. Anastasia looked at him with an expression that said 'So what?'

What she didn't know is that Welt couldn't use his powers against her while she was holding Einstein, his gravity manipulation could easily stop the valkyrie in front of him but that was a risk with his scientist so close to her, especially since she was wounded.

"So is this how Schicksal fights? You use human shields now? Typical of Otto" Welt said playing the provocation card.

"Don't fall for it, he's provoking you" Prophet said as he crossed his arms

"I don't care" Anastasia hissed as she rammed Einstein's head into the wall, completely knocking her down.

"Got you" Welt whispered as he drastically increased the gravity around Anastasia.

Anastasia felt like she was being inside a hydraulic press but she didn't back down, instead, she started walking towards Welt as she utilized the maximum armor to resist the pressure.

"What...?" Welt whispered as he increased, even more, the gravity around the Jäger.

Anastasia's movements got slower but she kept walking "I will make you pay for insulting grandpa and hurting Cecilia" she hissed

"You never know when to give up huh? Very well, let me teach you a lesson!" Welt replied as he kept increasing gravity's pressure.

'Her organs should have given in a long time ago, how is she even standing?' Welt thought as he finally saw Anastasia stopping an kneeling down. Welt felt that he was near his breaking point, using this much of his power was quite risky for his body. He was ready to put an end to this when he saw Anastasia grinning.

"Checkmate " she said as her vectors grabbed Welt from the waist and slammed him against the ground and then against the wall

'An Herrscher...?' welt thought as he slowly rose up again. To the man's shock, Anastasia was no longer there, he started looking around before he found himself staring at the barrel of a gun

"try it anything funny and you're dead" Anastasia said as her vectors grabbed everything that Welt could use as a weapon. "What did you do to Cecilia?"

"nothing...we thought that she was a new weapon of Schicksal but it seemed we were wrong" Welt admitted with a defeated smile

"Cecilia is the strongest Valkyrie in Schicksal, what are you even saying?" Anastasia replied as her hatred could be seen in her eyes

Welt chuckled "She couldn't even beat me and yet you did it" he said calmly

Anastasia clicked her tongue "Any last words?"

"Long live humanity" Welt replied

Anastasia was about to squeeze the trigger when suddenly a communication from Otto popped out in her HUD

"Ana, where are you?" The overseer asked with a serious tone

"Dealing with trash" Anastasia replied

"Return immediately, we are leaving" Otto ordered

Anastasia was shocked "B-But grandpa, I..."

"It's overseer Otto when we are on a mission" The man replied harshly "This is an order, return immediately"

"As you wish" Anastasia said as she closed the communication "Seems luck was on your side this time" she said as she knocked out Welt with the back of her rifle.

The Jäger immediately returned where Otto commanded her too and saw Cecilia giving a lap pillow to a total stranger

"Good you are here" Otto said nodding

"Sir with all respect, I had captured to Anti-Entropy soldiers, Welt Young and Einstein" Anastasia said with a slightly annoyed tone.

Otto facepalmed angry at himself for having told Anastasia to return, he wasn't expecting Welt himself to come. He also made a mental note, he would check that the nanomachines in Anastasia's body are still suppressing her killer instincts, in his opinion, she just sounded like a battle-maniac.

"I'm sorry Ana, but I told you that our top priority was Cecilia" Otto said sighing "You've grown careless Cecilia" he said as he started walking towards the evac point "You are expected to be better than this"

"Lord Overseer...just give me a few more minutes" Cecilia begged Otto as she looked at the unconscious man on her lap

"You will leave now. Your Overseer has spoken" Otto said solemnly as he walked to the Evac point "Anastasia get this man to his home, then I'll reward you"

Cecilia widened her eyes when she heard the name of Anastasia, she looked at her in shock. Anastasia never went on a mission but even so, she defeated the enemies and only retreated because she was told to from Otto. Cecilia turned her gaze away ashamed as Anastasia lifted Sieg with her vectors while accessing the Schicksal's database in order to see where the man lived.

Anastasia raised an eyebrow when she read 'Siegfried Kaslana' but didn't say anything. She left a very sad Cecilia and went to the apartment of the man.

The place was messy as hell, there was a really foul smell in the air and worst of all, the man also didn't smell quite pleasant.- She put Sieg on the bed and covered him with the blanket since she couldn't stand seeing that room so messy she also cleaned up a bit with her vectors.

"Cecilia...don't go..." She heard the man sleeptalk

The Jäger sighed and went to the evac point where Otto and Cecilia were waiting for her

"Everything is done?" Otto asked getting a nod from Anastasia "At least someone was able to do their mission" he muttered as the Schicksal's aircraft landed behind him.

Cecilia remained silent as the aircraft slowly made route towards NY. Cecilia seemed to have noticed that and looked at Otto with a puzzled expression.

"This is not the route to the base" The Valkyrie said as her tone became concerned, she thought that someone just hijacked their aircraft but Otto just shook his head and sighed

"We are going to New York" he replied calmly as grabbed something out of his pocket and handed it to her "These are your medications, they should last long enough for the whole trip and the time to get back home"

"What are we doing there? Is this another mission?" she asked making the man sigh again annoyed

"No, this is Anastasia's gift for her first mission" Otto said as he crossed his arms "She asked for it and since I have no reason to deny her wish I accepted"

"Is this true?" Cecilia asked to Anastasia who had remained silent until now

"Yeah" She replied calmly "I just thought that I wanted to see it for myself since I only saw it in movies"

"How about this?" Otto proposed "After your next mission, I'll take you to another city"

Anastasia's eyes lit up "You really mean it?" she muttered as a big smile appeared on her face, she then realized that she was still on a mission so she cleared and throat and nodded "I-Is that so? I'm really grateful"

Otto patted her head as he threw a look at Cecilia "Of course, after all, you did a good job so far"

Anastasia blushed a lot at that and just nodded as Cecilia looked down at her feet saddened from having left Ziggy behind.

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful, the aircraft took its sweet time to reach NY and it was getting dark again. Otto made sure to give Anastasia a whole attic while he and Cecilia got a suite. The pink-haired girl didn't know where to look, everything so new to her eyes. There was one thing that attracted her more than anything, it was the view, New York lights left her dumbstruck, she didn't know how long she had stared out of the window or what was happening around but she was snapped out of the trance when Prophet placed himself in front of her.

Anastasia blinked a few times before giving an annoyed look at Prophet, who simply pointed his finger at the door.

She noticed that someone was knocking so she got up and opened the door. Cecilia was standing in front of her with a slightly embarrassed expression "Cecilia, what's wrong?"

"Can we...talk?" Cecilia asked as the other girl nodded and let her inside.

The two sat down in the living room of the attic, Anastasia was a bit curious of what Cecilia wanted to talk her about, Cecilia on the other side was blushing heavily and avoiding eye contact

Anastasia raised an eyebrow as she analyzed Cecilia's conditions, her heartbeat had increased and so was the blood pressure "So?" she asked

"I...I think I fell in love" Cecilia said with an embarrassed smile

"Let me guess...with that Siegfried?" Anastasia asked crossing her arms with a smirk on her face

"You knew his name?" the Valkyrie asked

"I learned it when I looked into our database to look where he lived" The Jäger replied "A messy guy in my opinion but hey as long as you're happy"

"I'll probably never meet him again though" Cecilia said as her expression turned sad

"I have the sensation that this will not the last encounter with the guy, after all, he's a Kaslana" Anastasia replied with a smile

"He's a Kaslana?!" Cecilia replied shocked as the other girl nodded

"Yep, that's why it was so easy to find information about him" she replied calmly as she nodded "Kaslanas are usually dumbasses so we'll see him again especially since he also has a crush on you"

"you really think so...?" Cecilia asked as her eyes got watery again

"Yep, the probabilities of that happening exceed the 90%" she said before noticing Cecilia's eyes, she smiled as pulled the Valk into a hug "There there, no need to be sad, I'm supposed the be the one crying since I'm the youngest" she said calmly as she patted Cecilia's back

"I know but...it hurts" the white-haired girl replied sobbing a bit.

"How about this? Tomorrow we'll go look around together, I'll convince grandpa" Anastasia said as Cecilia nodded

With that said the two women spent the rest of the night enjoying the attic until they both fell asleep on the couch...

As Usual, Anastasia didn't dream but she also didn't train with Prophet, she was standing in the middle of the flower field she occasionally sees in her dreams, her eyes darted around trying to spot the hooded man.

It didn't take a while for her to find him, he was sitting on a bench a few meters away. She just walked up to him and sat down on the opposite side of the bench "I'm in New York, what now?" she asked as she crossed her arms

The man smiled under his hood as they both found themselves in the middle of New York's Grand Central Terminal, the entire place was empty. He got up and started walking towards the staff area.

Anastasia followed him without uttering a word, she saw him make his way through the corridors until he stopped in a dead-end where the staff kept all the cleaning materials and so on. He placed his hand on the wall and a symbol she never saw appeared. The whole wall started moving away revealing a tunnel that went deep down underground. Without hesitation, the hooded man started walking deep down, Anastasia followed him in the darkness.

The woman didn't know how long they spent in that darkness but she could feel the atmospheric pressure getting stronger and stronger, she knew that a normal human would have fainted by now...The hooded man stopped walking and with his staff created a light...Anastasia remained shocked.

There was a city, a city in ruin...no...it wasn't just a city, it was...New York, Anastasia could see the ruins of the collapsed Empire State Building. She also noticed how there were giant biological looking tentacles that connect several buildings. There were destroyed tanks, shot down army helicopters and jets. There were several guns which were covered in rust and with the there were empty protections gears, the bodies that once occupied that gear were already been turned to ashes by time. That New York was silent, and the only thing that could be heard was the steps of the two echoing in the shadows.

The hooded man kept walking until he stopped himself in front of a massive metal door. He grabbed her hand and placed it on the pad next to the door. With a hiss, the door slowly opened, ice-cold air came out of it Anastasia had the feeling that no one had come here in a very long time.

The man simply walked inside and again she followed. On the walls there several logos of organizations like 'Gentek' and 'Blackwatch' none of the two sound familiar to her. The place looked like a bunker but there wasn't any sign of the Hitech she's used to, she felt like she was taking a trip into the past, and as she walked through the corridors she felt like time had stopped or at least it was way slower.

The hooded man gestured her another pad and unlike last time she placed her hand on her own. The light next to the door handle turned green and the door opened revealing an empty room with only a box in the middle of it. The hooded man walked to it and opened it.

Inside of the box, there was some sort of black blob with some red pulsating lines, the hooded man waited for Anastasia to approach the thing which she needs with all the wariness she could muster up.

Anastasia looked at the blob and then to hooded man"What do you want me to do?"

He looked at her without uttering a word. Anastasia sighed as she slowly extended her hand towards the blob which reacted by slowly extending something that looked like tendrils when the two come in contact the world turned black.

The pink-haired girl was back in her attic, she was lying under the sheets of her bed staring at the ceiling. The digital watch on the wall said that it was 7:00 AM, Anastasia looked at the hand which supposedly came in contact with the blob and found out that it was normal as usual. She slowly rose up and started her morning routine, she got up, took a long shower and sat in the dining room for a while before realizing that she wasn't at her base.

She looked outside the window and saw New York city starting to get more and more lively. Anastasia noticed that of Prophet there were no traces but it didn't matter in that moment because she felt calm as she watched the streets from up there. Normally someone would have probably feel weirded out by this unexpected calmness but she wasn't, she felt like she was supposed to be there, she felt at peace.

Someone knocked on the door and with calm light steps, Anastasia went to open the door. It was Otto, he was dressing fancier than the previous night.

"Ow, I wanted to surprise you with breakfast, dear" Otto said with a smile that was returned by her

"Then why did you knock?" she replied calmly as she let him in

"To see if you were awake" he replied as he placed on the table of the dining room two plates along with several delicious-looking dishes "I asked the valkyries deployed here what's the most typical breakfast dishes of New York, we got stuff from Brooklyn, Manhattan and so on"

"That looks like more than I can eat" Anastasia chuckled as Otto took a seat

"Well, looks like I will have to help you" he said with a fake saddened tone

"Oh poor grandpa" she replied with a bit of sarcasm as she also sat down.

"You look serene today" Otto remarked as he started dividing the food between him and her "Theresa told me that she was worried about you but you don't seem to have a problem or any all"

Anastasia just smiled "Theresa worries too much, probably I just got tired of sitting around in the base"

Otto's expression turned grim for a second, he had made the mistake of keeping Cecilia away from most of the world and as soon as she tasted a bit of freedom she fell in love with that good for nothing of Siegfried. Keeping them into a cage had backfired against him really good but he will not make the same mistake again, if it's the outside world they want to see so be it but he will be the one who will show it to them.

"After your debut, there is no reason to keep you a secret, you will soon get more and more missions and every time you'll complete one I will take you wherever you want, I know a lot of places after all" he replied with a smirk "Anyway, we're not here to talk about work today, this is your reward holiday, after all"

Anastasia looked a bit embarrassed which made Otto raise an eyebrow "speaking of that grandpa..."

"What is it?" he asked as a few red flags started to rise inside his head

"I would like to bring Cecilia with me..." she said sheepishly.

The red flags descended as Otto sighed "This your reward not hers..."

"yeah I know but I would prefer to visit this city in company of my friend..." she replied

Otto remained silent as he drank some of the coffee he had brought with him "Well, I have to visit Edison so you would be alone, I had planned to give you an escort...very well, Cecilia shall escort you and make sure that you'll enjoy yourself"

Anastasia's eyes lit up "Thank you, grandpa!"

"You better go tell her before I change my mind" he said as Anastasia immediately got up and left the room.

The overseer of Schicksal looked at his phone where a diagram of Anastasia's cerebral activities appeared. It was normal, her cerebral activities were perfect...the only problem was that in all these years she never had normal diagram exception made for her firsts months after he put the Nanosuit on her. He was sure she never slept since then and that she did something else during the night, he couldn't remember all the attempts they made to get inside her dream world only to be blocked by SECOND.

But tonight, not only she had slept but her readings were normal. Maybe it was true that she was just feeling like a caged bird since the symptoms disappeared but Otto had the impression that wasn't the case.

He made a call to Amber "I want a squad to keep Anastasia under control" he ordered

"Yes, overseer Otto" Amber replied

Later...

Anastasia felt happy like never before, she and Cecilia had walked around the streets of New York all day and they still needed to see many things, unknown to both of them, there was a squad of Valkyries following them around. The Pink-Haired girl couldn't wait to tell her sister what she saw during her mission and in New York, she was that she will talk with Theresa for days especially since she knew that the small valkyrie was worried-sick for her the last time they saw each other.

She also was a bit worried for Prophet, the Nanosuit was working as usual so he should have appeared but nothing happened.

These thoughts were eclipsed by the joy of being in the outside world...

Unknown to everyone there was someone else watching from the rooftops of the city, their faces hidden by their hoods, but there was something that united them, an insignia. To the people who didn't know what it meant it could be seen as an A but the reality was much different.

The only one who didn't have the insignia was the same man who always had appeared inside the dreams of the girl named Anastasia.

"So it's her" one of the hooded men said calmly as he look down on the pink-haired girl "You know that we will never have another chance to find the heir right?"

"Yes Italian Mentor, I was the one who told you that this was our last chance" the hooded man of the girl's dreams replied nodding "She still have to pass the trial though"

With that said the hooded group remained silent as they saw Anastasia and Cecilia reached the Grand Central Terminal. The two women looked at the majestic building in front of them before walking inside, both of them were dumbstruck by the beauty of the station though Cecilia was wondering why they were there she looked at Anastasia and found her in some sort of trance.

Cecilia was about to say something when Anastasia started walking towards the staff area "Ana?" Cecilia called her once without getting an answer "Where are you going?! Ana?!" she called again as she started following the pink-haired girl

Cecilia was getting more and more concerned with each passing second as Anastasia stumbled upon a dead end.

"There is nothing here, Ana" Cecilia said as she looked at the several cleaning objects in front of them.

Again Anastasia didn't reply and slowly pressed her hand on the wall. After a few seconds, a strange A-looking insignia appeared and the wall slid away revealing some stairs which seemed to lead into the depths of Earth itself.

"What the...?" Cecilia whispered as she quickly grabbed her phone and was about to call the overseer. The white-haired Valkyrie saw Anastasia starting to descend inside that Abyss causing Cecilia to widen her eyes. Unfortunately, there was poor reception inside the corridor...

She looked at her phone with a conflicted expression, she had to go outside in order call Otto and let Anastasia go by herself or follow Anastasia as she adventured in that Abyss...

Cecilia put down her phone and quickly started following Anastasia. The two girls made their way through the tunnel, the descend was long and seemingly infinite, the white-haired woman started feeling more and more tired and weak as the atmospheric pressure started increasing while Anastasia kept on walking as if she couldn't feel the pressure.

Cecilia's vision started to get blurry as she started slowing down and panting before completely stopping and falling down her knees "Ana..." she whispered as she stretched out her hand in Anastasia's direction before collapsing unconscious.

The pink-haired didn't seem to notice Cecilia's actions as she kept descending in that darkness now alone. She reached her destination when she finally stumbled upon the ruins of New York city. Everything was just like in her dream, the coldness, the silence, the feeling of emptiness and despair but now she was alone, there was no hooded man to accompany her nor anyone else this caused her to snap out of her trance and to notice how lonely she was in that moment. The Jäger couldn't even remember how she got there in the first place nor where Cecilia was...but those thoughts couldn't stop the feeling of wanting to get to the bottom of this place and so she headed towards the massive armored door that was shown her in her dream.

She wasn't surprised when she managed to open the door with her hand neither she was when she opened the other door leading to the room where her dream ended. Anastasia finally reached her destination, the room was empty just like in her dream and in the middle of it there was the box she saw.

Like in the dream, she opened it and the blob revealed itself to her eyes. Anastasia slowly stretched out her hand in its direction and in response, it slowly extended some tendrils towards her.

Later...

Otto was looking down at Cecilia with a really angry expression, behind them the emergency services were trying to the get a hold of the situation since an Earthquake hit New york, fortunately without any massive damage. What really angered the Overseer wasn't that but the unconscious body of Anastasia...

Cecilia had been crying since the medics stated that Anastasia was now in a permanent vegetative state. She was found inside outside the Grand Central Terminal by the emergencies services, she didn't show any sign of damage, she was just like that.

"She's here" Otto whispered as Cecilia widened her eyes while an aircraft landed next to them "No punishment will come from me because the consequences of your actions will be enough of a punishment"

The door of the aircraft opened and Theresa immediately come out of it, she sprinted towards Otto and Cecilia and only stopped when she saw Anastasia's body lying on the stretcher. Her worried expression turned into one of shock as she slowly raised her gaze towards Otto.

The man had a grim expression on his face which was more than enough to make Theresa understand what he was about to say, tears started falling down her eyes as she waited for Otto to speak "I'm sorry...Anastasia seemed to have suffered massive brain damage...to put it simply...her mind is gone and her body is simply using its instincts to keep working" he said solemnly

Theresa grabbed his clothes "But we are Schicksal! We can do something about it, can't we?!" she shouted before breaking down and starting crying

"Even if we manage to repair the brain...Anastasia would be no more...she will return to be a complete stranger" He said while stroking Theresa's head "I'm sorry..."

Cecilia wasn't able to look at the small Valkyrie, the guilt kept her from doing so...she held herself responsible for what happened to Anastasia...Theresa will hate her for sure after this...

Theresa left Otto and made her way to Anastasia's body and grabbed her hand, it was warm still alive but at the same time, it felt emotionless. All the good memories with her dear little sister came up all at once causing her mind to wander back into the past...

Theresa had just returned from a mission assigned her by her grandpa, she was slowly making her way back to the apartment as she felt sadness wrapping her up. Today was her birthday and yet no one seemed to have noticed not that she expected her fellow Valkyries to care since they considered her an abomination to begin with. Cecilia also wasn't around since she had to go on a mission...

she opened the door of her apartment and...

"Surprise!" Anastasia shouted as a room full of colorful ornaments, Happy Birthday signs, presents and food revealed itself to Theresa's eyes. "happy birthday Theresa!"

Before Theresa could react, she found herself being hugged by her little sister who easily lifted her up in the air while laughing. She then put her down and made a smirk "I had to be sneaky and hide everything that I had prepared, you know? Two weeks of secretive planning! I bought all of your favorite food and corrupted some pilots to bring me your presents since there isn't any type of mall inside the base! since I think that 3 gifts are not enough for you, I counted every valkyrie here and added a present for each one, so we have...123 gifts ready for you to open! Don't worry since I barely use my salary I had quite a lot of money! So where do you want to start?"

Theresa started sobbing causing Anastasia to looked at her with a worried expression "Oh Gosh, something happened?" Anastasia asked

The small valkyrie shook her head as she hugged her sister "No, I'm just happy!"

"Oh my, are we interrupting something?" Otto asked as he also walked inside the apartment "sorry for being late, bureaucracy took longer than expected"

Cecilia appeared behind him along with a young red-haired valkyrie "Sorry! I just came back! You don't mind if I brought someone else right?" she asked as she gestured the valkyrie next to her "this is Murata Himeko, a B-class Valkyrie who has the potential to become an A-class"

Himeko bowed "pleased to meet you" she said calmly...

Theresa was sitting on the couch of the living room in her apartment, she felt like that place became empty all of the sudden and it didn't feel like home anymore, it was cold, emotionless like the rooms Schicksal give her when she's on a mission. Suddenly a knock on the door caught her attention, and slowly, she made her way towards the entrance. When she opened the door, she found Cecilia standing in front of her with a mortified expression.

"I know that you hate me because you lost your sister because of me...I just want to say that I also loved her...and that I'll never forgive myself...I'm sorry..." she whispered as tears fell down her eyes "Farewell Theresa..."

Cecilia quickly turned around knowing that she wouldn't be able to bear Theresa's reaction...but she remained shocked when the small Valkyrie hugged her tightly and started to sob

"Please don't go...you're the only one who's left" she whispered as Cecilia turned around her hugged Theresa back before they started sharing their tears.

Meanwhile...

Otto was standing in front of Anastasia's body, in his hand there was a syringe with Kallen's genes. His breath was heavy, and his hands were almost shaking.

"We are ready milord" Amber said as she checked Anastasia's vital signals

Otto nodded and injected the genes inside Anastasia's body before taking a step away.

Silence filled the room before the ping of notification of Ambers's console filled the air.

"There's a reaction!" Amber said before tendrils covered Anastasia's body changing its shape and form.

Otto widened his eyes when the tendrils disappeared...she was there, her eyes were open and fixed on him.

"Kallen..." He whispered as he felt joy overwhelming his being.

Kallen had the same clothes as the day she left to go east, beautiful as ever. She slowly looked at her hands before gritting her teeth.

Otto quickly approached her "What's wrong?!" he asked before getting slapped across the face "Kallen...?"

"How could you...?" Kallen muttered with an angered expression "You tortured her for years! You did so many cruel things to her! She trusted you! She loved you!"

"Who are you talking about...?" Otto asked as she rubbed his cheek

"Anastasia!" Kallen replied as she got up and pushed Otto to the wall "How long did it take for you to think of replacing her?"

"She was dead Kallen" Otto replied

"No she isn't!" Kallen shouted causing everyone to widen their eyes "she just lost all of her will to live! She felt so betrayed that couldn't handle it! Her world shattered when she understood that her life was a web of lies!" she said before starting sobbing a bit "What happened to you Otto...? I know you did a lot of things in the past...but this is just cruel..."

Otto's expression turned grim "I lost you..."

Kallen remained silent for a few moments before backing away "Don't you dare you did it for my sake...don't use me as motivation for your actions..." she said before turning invisible

"Kallen?" Otto called "KALLEN?!" he shouted before looking at Amber "Find her!"

The alarm went off as all the security system kicked in.

Kallen used the cloaking of the Nanosuit to get past the normal guards, she nullified her body temperature to get past the heat sensors and the lack of heart kept her from getting caught by heartbeat sensors. She used SECOND to hack the pressure sensors and the lasers. Her destination was only one...her house.

This body didn't belong to Kallen, nor she asked to be brought back but even if she did, she would never steal it from someone else. Unfortunately for her, Anastasia never went in this area of the lab and so she was wandering around looking for an exit.

Kallen widened her eyes when she found herself staring at numerous pods filled with pink-haired girls with horns with a bigger body than normal people, she had stumbled upon another secret.

"clones?" she whispered to herself before she saw a computer nearby and hack inside of it.

Many files flashed before her eyes, the truth struck her like a truck. Anastasia wasn't the only Diclonious around, when Schicksal discovered her existence, they started using samples of her blood and injected it inside various test subjects, at first the experiments led to nowhere until one of the test subjects got pregnant and the result was a child born in four and a half months which had different anatomy compared to normal humans which matched Anastasia's before she got her nanosuit, since then the test was repeated and the resulting children imprisoned in this structure. Anastasia was marked as queen since she was the only one who also could reproduce normally besides from infecting people with her vectors and blood The other Diclonius were marked as Silpelits. Their DNA was similar to Anastasia but not completely, Schicksal had tried to replicate her DNA but it was to no avail, the Silpelits had multiple hearts and lungs and their bones were naturally stronger but they were all females which seemed to work against them since they were stronger than a normal human but not as they should be, the scientists stated that they should be four times stronger. Due to being unable to suppress their natural killer instinct, Schicksal put them into stasis.

Kallen started looking inside the files until she found one of them called 'Project Ragnarok'

Schicksal intended to turn every Diclonius into a Jäger and build an army capable of killing any type of Herrscher. Thanks to their innate body strength, healing factor and resistance to Honkai corruption, they would have easily surpassed the Valkyries. The project was put on hold due to the DNA problem and a new one was started.

Project Prophet

It was an attempt to duplicate the Nanosuit in order to put it on the Diclonius to repress their destructive instincts but it also failed since the Nanosuit's sample always destroyed themselves after being separated from the main thing. There were a few attempts to analyze the Nanosuit on Anastasia herself but all failed once SECOND either kicked them out or the Nanosuit hardened itself to the point that the instruments were incapacitated from keeping with the operation.

Kallen was shocked but didn't have much time, everything was saved up inside SECOND now and that's all she needs. She found a map of the lab and quickly reached the exit. Valkyries and Schicksal soldiers were swarming the entire place but she learned how to sneak her way through a long time ago. She finally reached the residential area of the base and quickly got inside Anastasia's house.

"Who's there?!" Theresa said as she summoned the oath of Judah

Kallen took a deep breath and disengaged the cloaking appearing in front of her "Hello, my kin"

Theresa couldn't believe her eyes, in front of her there was no other than Kallen Kaslana herself, and she was alive.

"How did you...?" Theresa muttered before Kallen started using the vectors to break the door so that it wouldn't be accessible, she then lifted several heavy looking pieces of furniture and placed in front of it.

"there's no time for presentations" Kallen said before grabbing a pair of HOMU-HOMU virtual reality commlink that Anastasia had gifted Theresa on her birthday "You are the only one who can bring her back"

"what? What are you even talking about?!" Theresa replied shaking her head as she tried to understand what was going.

"Anastasia is not gone" Kallen said shocking Theresa as Kallen then placed her hand on her chest "This body is not mine, is hers. Otto placed me inside of it but I don't want to steal anyone's life"

The small Valkyrie was stunned "What...?"

Kallen grabbed her hands "Anastasia is going through immense pain, I know it because I saw her memories and I saw her, she has lost her will to live, I think that her immense love for you should be more than enough to wake her up." she said as she then placed one of the HOMU-HOMU on her hands.

Theresa felt a sharp pain coming from her heart and almost wanted to cry...but now it wasn't the time of tears but it was time for action. Theresa nodded determined as Kallen connected the HOMU-HOMU to the Nanosuit "Are you sure this will work? After all you lived back in the renaissance" Teri asked

Kallen gave her a nod "Yeah, me and Anastasia share the same knowledge and the nanosuit makes it way easier" she said before looking at Theresa with a concerned expression "You are going to see a lot of awful things not only that but we must be quick before Otto finds me, got it?"

Theresa nodded "Let's do this" she said as she placed the device on top of her head.

Kallen activated the devices and both of them found themselves in the middle of a destroyed New York.

"What happened here?" Theresa whispered

"This is the New York of another civilization, watch out" Kallen replied as a pair of guns appeared in her hands

"You don't want to use the Oath of Judah?" Theresa asked as the giant cross appeared on her back

"No, you're its wielder now after all" Kallen replied as both of them started walking towards Central Park.

"Do you know where she is?" Theresa said getting a nod from Kallen.

The Kaslana pointed her finger forward and there she was. Anastasia was lying on the grass of the park.

"Ana!" Theresa shouted as she started running towards her little sister.

Kallen was about to do the same thing before her instincts screamed at her to avoid getting near Anastasia. Kallen tackled Theresa to the ground as an arrow pierced through the tree that was behind Theresa.

"What?!" Theresa shouted as a man with a nanosuit appeared not too far away from Anastasia "You!" Theresa shouted as she pointed her finger at the man "YOU ARE PROPHET, AREN'T YOU?!"

Prophet nodded "Indeed and I will not let you get close to her" he said as he pointed his bow towards them.

"Why?!" Kallen shouted as another person appeared

He had a hood but some of his features were still visible like his pale skin and blue eyes. He was wearing a button-up shirt, plain gray hoodie and black leather jacket with red interior accompanied by a pair of blue jeans and black shoes.

"Who are you?" Theresa asked as Kallen pointed her guns at the hooded man "His name is Alex Mercer"

"Oh? Seems like you also looked inside our memories miss Kaslana" Alex said shrugging "You know how this fight is going to end so why don't you just step aside and let us do our things"

"Can't do that" Theresa replied shaking her head before throwing a look at Anastasia "I will not leave until I get back my little sister"

Alex chuckled as his body started turning into an armor and his right arm into a massive blade while the other turned into giant claws "Then Perish" he said with a ghostly tone as he launched himself on Theresa.

Kallen was about to help the small valkyrie when an explosive arrow forced her to throw herself to the side. The Kaslana then looked in the direction of the arrow and saw Prophet aiming his bow at her "I'll be your opponent" he said before turning on his cloaking.

Kallen cursed under her breath before finding cover behind a nearby tree, she closed her eyes trying to analyze her surroundings, her finger were ready on the triggers of her two handguns.

She didn't hear anything except for something similar to a whistle. The Valkyrie threw herself to the ground again as her cover literally exploded sending splinters everywhere. She understood that the place she was in gave Prophet a massive advantage but unfortunately for her, this was central park...

Kallen needed to think fast because she was quite sure that the next arrow will probably kill her. She analyzed her surroundings once again and located a shot down chopper nearby. The girl took a deep breath and sprinted towards the wreckage, her ears picked up some cracks coming from the trees and she knew that Prophet was probably aiming at her and so she started zig-zagging trying to avoid getting hit by one of the soldier's arrows.

Prophet in the meantime was taking it slowly, he knew very well that zig-zagging was an excellent way to avoid getting shot but that only applies when the one shooting isn't a super-soldier with an AI that can trace movements and bullet trajectory.

The AI integrated into the nanosuit analyzed Kallen's movements and started tracing a trajectory to hit the girl's vital organs while Prophet nocked the arrow, the world around him came to a stop as his eyes found the spot that he will hit. He let go the arrow which flew in the air at incredible speed before stabbing itself into Kallen's thigh causing the girl to fall on the ground.

Kallen grit her teeth and looked at the destroyed chopper. She was used to fighting more straight forward enemies like the Honkai or Shenzou warriors but her current enemies was something else completely. She was fighting a silent assassin who had the most advanced equipment of his civilization, she knew that he had more experience than her and fought scarier enemies but this didn't help her to feel any better. The fact that Kallen saw his memories didn't help either since he probably saw hers...

She tried to pull herself up but it was to no avail. The bolt had struck her nerves but that wasn't the major problem. Due to the strength of the impact, the arrow has managed to tear through her flesh and leave. Kallen hadn't realized how bad her situation was, especially due to the adrenaline that made her forget about pain, the grass around her was slowly turning red as blood kept pouring out of her wound.

Finally, the realization of her conditions made her extremely frustrated, she tightened her grip on her guns and raised them towards the tree lines, her breath became heavier and her skin sweaty and pale though the last one could probably be a consequence of her bleeding.

The white-haired honkai fighter scanned the trees for anything resembling a human figure, she wanted to land at least one hit on the bastard before going down...That thought caused a chill to run down her spine. She was sure that Prophet could kill her at any moment, there was no cover around her nor there was a way for her to get away due to her leg, and yet nothing was happening.

Was she was going to be defeated like this? Just like when she fought the immortal? Without even lending a single hit?

Kallen had no problem with dying again, her problem was dying without accomplishing anything, if she dies right now Theresa will have to fight Alex and Prophet and she'll lose and probably die...

She cursed her breath as she felt so powerless in front of the invisible warrior...she closed her eyes for a few seconds before re-opening again and tightening her grip on her handguns before opening fire against the shot down chopper's fuel tank causing it to explode and ignited the vegetation.

The fire quickly spread around the wreckage and then to the trees where Prophet was. Kallen reloaded her guns and then pointed them to the now on fire tree line hoping to see Prophet silhouette but instead, she found someone else that caused her heart to stop...

Theresa lifted up the oath of Judah as Alex came down from the sky swinging his massive biological sword. The relic took the hit but the force of the attack was strong enough to send the small valkyrie flying and crashing against a tree. Theresa quickly got up and threw her javelin at him aiming for the head but to her horror, the thing simply bounced off Alex's armor. She quickly summoned her chains and wrapped them around her opponent hoping to hold him down.

"Oh? That was a very poor choice" He said before turning his arms into hammerfists and pulling the chain with all of his strength.

Theresa widened her eyes and was about to drop the chain from her hand but it was too late. A sickening crack ringed inside her ears before an immeasurable amount of pain filled her being, the chain had broken her arm and now she was flying towards Alex.

The bioterrorist smirked as Theresa flew towards him before he rammed his Hammerfest in her belly. Theresa almost lifeless body fell to the ground with a thud, blood was pouring out of her mouth as tears of pain fell from her eyes. Most of her bones were completely broken if not gone, even breathing was causing her pain, soon her remaining organs will give in.

"Oh? Valkyries sure are though" Alex said as he turned his right arm into a blade again and removed the armor "Back in my day, a soldier would just explode to a hit like that one" he added as he placed the tip of the blade on her neck "well, not that I was taking you seriously "

Theresa couldn't reply but could hear him very well, she wanted to get up and fight but everything hurt...but there was something she could do...

"Ju...da...h" she whispered as the massive cross stabbed itself on the ground and started launching javelins towards Alex.

The attack seemed to be successful as all of the javelins stapped themselves inside their target.

Alex looked at the spears inside his body and chuckled "I'm sorry for making fun of you" he said as his tendrils removed the javelins.

Theresa looked at him as sadness filled her being, she lost...no she never stood a chance against him and now she was going to die in a very painful fashion while also losing her sister forever...

Unknown to her, a stigma appeared behind her neck and cherry blossom's petals appeared out nowhere. A giant fox bit Mercer and threw him away while a girl with pink hair with fox ears in a Miko dress gently lift Theresa up and took her to a safer location.

The girls caressed her cheek with a pained expression while looking at Theresa's body, a tear fell down her eyes. That was the last thing Theresa saw before blacking out.

Sakura sighed, her eyes darted around analyzing the ambient near her, she could feel the ground shaking because of the battle between the 12th Herrscher who had kept her company for a very long time and the being called Alex Merce. Her hears perked up when the sounds of gunshots filled the air soon followed by an explosion. She made sure that Theresa was well hidden before rushing towards the source of the gunshots, as she got near the source of the noises the temperature got higher and fire started spreading around her she widened her eyes, her heartbeat stopped when her gaze meet Kallen's.

Time had stopped for the two of them but it didn't last long as Sakura's ears perked up something else, she blurred in front of Kallen and swung her sword only to deflect one incoming arrow before looking at the attacker. Prophet was standing a few hundred meters away from them with his bow pointed at the two, the vegetation around him was burning thanks to Kallen's actions.

Sakura placed her hand on the hilt of her katana and blurred behind him. To the untrained eye, she seemingly just teleported behind him but in reality, she already attacked him. The fox girl quickly dodged as Prophet started throwing punches at her. Sakura knew that her attack was blocked, she knew it when her katana with Prophet's skin since she felt like hitting a brick wall.

The fox girls parried, blocked, dodged the man's punches, and each time counterattacked with a series of quick swings of her sword or punches and kicks. Finally, after a few minutes of fighting Sakura felt like Prophet's skin softened to the point where cutting him was now possible.

The pink-haired girl placed a kick on Prophet's chest sending him stumbling backward and finally performed a vertical swing aiming for the head...Unfortunately, Prophet was able to predict such move and grabbed Sakura's hands with his and simply started crushing them with his strength.

Sakura at first tried to contain the pain but simply couldn't, she tried to escape the soldier's grip but it was useless.

Kallen in the meantime aimed her weapons at the head of the man but the bullets simply bounced off. She couldn't bear to see Sakura suffering and felt so useless, she felt anger towards Prophet's and her regards. Out of Nowhere the Oath of Judah stabbed itself on the ground next to the valkyrie, Kallen looked around and saw a crawling Theresa looking at her before fainting. Kallen used the Oath of Judah to stand up and grabbed one of the javelins, once again, she aimed for Prophet's head and launched the weapon with all of her strength.

The Javelin pierced through Prophet's head, causing him to let go of Sakura just a few moments from breaking her hands and fall to the ground lifeless. Kallen felt a sense of relief filling her being as Sakura quickly picked up her sword and dashed in front of her.

The pink-haired girl hugged Kallen tightly, a single tear crossed her cheek. For Sakura, hugging her loved one once again was like a dream come true, she didn't want to let her go again in fear that she might disappear again. Kallen was also feeling the same and of course, returned the hug but her mind quickly drifted towards the one who allowed her to rescue Sakura. She broke the hug and looked towards the unconscious Theresa.

"Help her first" she whispered as Sakura nodded and started running towards the small valkyrie. She extended her hand to pick her up before widening her eyes.

There wasn't any sound around her, the ground wasn't shaking anymore. The last thing Sakura heard was a scream coming from Kallen before Alex rammed his fist in her belly and sent her crashing to the ground.

Kallen was about to face Alex as anger and hatred filled her being, but she found out that she couldn't move at all. The Oath of Judah simply floated away from her before something picked her up and repeatedly thrashed her around broking most of her bones. When the world around her stopped spinning, Kallen saw two Anastasia standing where she was. One was laughing like a maniac while the other was looking down, her face covered by her pink hair.

"Ana...stasia" she whispered causing the maniac one to look at her with an angered expression.

"This vermin is still alive" she said as she approached the heavily injured Kallen and stepping on one of her wounds "and this was the greatest valkyrie of Schicksal, what a joke" she said with a chuckle before noticing a flinch coming from Anastasia, the maniac Ana made a pissed off expression and walked towards the other one and started pulling her by her hair and forcing her to look at Kallen "SHE IS HERE TO REPLACE YOU! DON'T YOU GET IT?! THEY ARE ALL HERE TO REPLACE YOU!"

Anastasia remained silent

"All of your life is a LIE! You are just a pawn in their hands! And since you're no longer operating, they are replacing you" the maniac said "YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM ALL! YOU CAN'T JUST LET YOURSELF DIE OTHERWISE THEY WILL HAVE WHAT THEY WANTED! YOUR POWERS!"

Anastasia remained silent

"Tsk!" the maniac hissed before grinning as she dragged Anastasia towards Theresa "Look at her, the biggest liar of all, she's even worse than Otto" she said as she chuckled "She wasn't worried for you, y'know? She was worried that their loyal puppy was slipping out of control. From day one, she knew that you were just an instrument! And so did that awful woman named Cecilia"

The memory of Anastasia's first dinner with Theresa and Cecilia flashed before Anastasia's eyes which caused her to grit her teeth as tears started falling down her while her hands wrapped around Theresa's neck.

"yes, she will be the first one of many" the maniac said as she could barely keep her excitement at bay

lex sighed seemingly disappointed at that while Prophet got up without any wound and had the same reaction.

'Another failure' they both thought.

Inside Anastasia's mind though, her feelings towards her sister clashed against each other, on one side, her feeling of betrayal and hatred yelled at her to snap the traitor's neck while on the other side, her love wanted to believe that Theresa never lied to her and that she wasn't part of Otto's plans. She desperately hoped for something that proved Theresa's never lied to her, even the smallest one would suffice...

Anastasia felt a burning sensation coming from the back of her neck, unknown to her, the stigmata that had been always dormant was now activated. Its shape was one of a two-headed Aquila. The girl's eyes started to shine with a golden glow as Theresa's memories flowed inside her mind...

A sense of relief and happiness filled Anastasia's being as she used her vectors to heal Theresa's injuries. The world around her became silent and perfectly still...time had stopped and a behemoth of a man had appeared in front of her.

He was at least ten feet tall, he was covered in baroque golden armor. The only part not covered in armor was his head, he had golden hazel eyes and long dark hair.

"Who are you...?" Anastasia muttered in shock

"I'm your father" the man replied as he approached her

"I...kill-" Anastasia started saying before the man lifted his giant armored hand

"Those were your normal parents my child" he said as his voice echoed through all reality "But the genes inside of you are not those of a normal human"

"What do you mean? What's the meaning of all of this?!" Anastasia replied shaking her head

"Soon you'll find the answers you need but for now just listen" the man replied "You are my daughter, you are the first Primarch of this universe and you have a mission. Create your sisters, defeat the Honkai God and protect humanity"

"Create my sisters? Protect humanity? Me? How a monster like me do that? A few moments ago I was about to destroy it" Anastasia replied

The man nodded "Indeed but unlike your predecessor, you didn't. You stopped, why? Don't you think that humanity is trash?"

"A part of me thinks that Humanity is evil...corrupted...merciless...bloodthirsty...disgusting" Anastasia whispered as Cecilia's and Theresa's image flashed before her eyes along with the images of the people of New York and the beauty she could only see through the screen of her TV. Anastasia still wanted to see the world to explore it herself, there were a lot of things she wanted to experience "but it's also beautiful...joyful and has the potential to be better"

The man nodded "Indeed, humanity is able to do many terrible and beautiful things, my child." he said before looking at the bodies of Kallen, Sakura and Theresa "But it has the potential to be the brightest star of all" he said before making a serious expression "But to be like that it must reach the future, and the Honkai God is in its way. This is why my child, you have to kill him and if you can't then you have to protect Terra until my arrival. Fight for humanity"

Anastasia looked at him and then shook her head "No, I will fight for all that's beautiful in this world" she said before frowning "But how can I do that?"

"The people who lived before have left you the instruments, the me that sent you here gave you the manpower, and you have many abilities that you have to learn to control, the fallen me and your brother will help you with that" The man said "Your men are already coming to take you away and start your journey but you still have a job to do in Schicksal. The incubus will aid you. From now on, you're the master of your life, Anastasia Apocalypse, Protector of the Imperium of Man."

Anastasia felt like a massive weight just have been placed on her shoulders but she didn't feel bad for it, actually, she felt a certain amount of pride. She looked at the massive man and nodded before realizing something "What's your name?"

The man remained silent "I don't have one, my enemies addressed me as The Anathema but you may call me father."

Anastasia slowly nodded "Farewell...father"

"Next time we will see each other it will either be in victory or defeat but in the meantime, I will look upon your journey" The Anathema replied before disappearing.

Anastasia found herself back in the middle of central park, Theresa was unconscious in her arms while her other self was barking something at her. Anastasia looked at her clone, her expression emotionless but her eyes showed determination.

"I will protect humanity" she said coldly surprising both of Alex and Prophet

"what? You can't be serious" the other Anastasia said with a chuckle "Humans are trash and tortured and betrayed us for so long"

"Yes, but they also loved us, they cared for us and they helped us" Anastasia replied

"THAT ARE ALL LIES! LIES!" The other one shouted as Anastasia placed Theresa on the ground "I will never forgive them! Never! NEVER!"

Anastasia pulled her other self into a hug "Enough" she whispered "This hatred...this feeling of betrayal is hurting us"

The other Anastasia widened her eyes before starting to sob "But it's not just that...we have killed our parents...and a lot of people..."

Anastasia kept whispering "The guilt will never leave us if we hold on it...let it go, Serena"

The clone's body turned into the one of a child as she started crying and hugging Anastasia really tightly "I'm sorry! I didn't want to kill them! I want to see mommy and daddy again!" she cried out as Anastasia stroke the top of her head and nodded.

In an instant, the small child was gone, nowhere to be seen.

Anastasia noticed that Theresa has been awake for a while and looked at her.

"Who is Serena?" Theresa muttered

"That was the name of a little girl before she was taken in by Schicksal" Anastasia replied before looking somewhere in the horizon "Now she rests with her parents inside her happy memories"

With those words she looked at Kallen and Sakura and healed both with her vectors "Theresa..." she called with a serious tone "I have to go but I swear that one day I will return to take you away" she said as the world around them started to disappear.

Anastasia was back in her real world, Theresa was unconscious next to her. She stroked the top of the small Valkyrie's head as her vectors removed the Diclonius gene-seed from her before getting up as a bunch of Schicksal soldiers finally busted inside the apartment.

"Lord Overseer we have found her!" one of them shouted as Otto's hologram appeared in front of the squad.

"Anastasia..." He growled trying to hold back his disappointment in finding her instead of Kallen.

"Otto" She replied as she stared at the soldiers who were still aiming their weapons at her.

Otto, who was inside his study, had the switch to activate the bomb placed inside of Anastasia in his hands. The tension between the two of them was shockingly intense, Otto knew that Anastasia remembered the years of experimentation and she probably wasn't really happy about it. He wanted to see Kallen once again but Anastasia wasn't the way to get her back...meaning that she outlived her usefulness.

The blonde man pressed the switch ready to see the woman in his screen explode in a gory explosion...but that never happened. Instead, Anastasia sighed and as if it was the most normal thing ever, she inserted her hand inside her own body and took out the bomb.

"Fortunately Prophet isn't that stupid to not notice that there was a bomb inside of me" Anastasia said with a sigh

Otto broke the switch with his hand "Kill her" he hissed as the soldiers opened fire against the woman in front of them. The bullets simply bounced off Anastasia's skin which was now made of Nanomachines and Blacklight Virus. When the soldiers ran out of bullets she disarmed them and knocked them unconscious with her vectors as the Herrscher alarm went off.

"To combat personnel, this is the overseer Otto talking to you, the woman known as Anastasia Apocalypse had turned into an Herrscher, the subject must be killed on sight" Otto said through the speakers of the base.

Anastasia sighed as she started walking towards the laboratory where the other diclonius were being kept, after a few steps she stopped herself "I don't want to kill anyone" she said to no one in particular as a flower petal disappeared.

Cecilia was inside the canteen when the announcement ended, she couldn't believe her ears. She saw how everyone was quite shocked at the news at first but now was preparing for fighting one of her best friends. Suddenly Patricia Highsmith and Cheng Lixie, Cecilia's teammates, rushed towards her weapons in hand. Patricia threw at Cecilia her spear and smirked "Miss Overseer's chosen we have to go!" she said before running out of the canteen.

Cecilia looked at the spear in her hands and felt her guilt devouring her soul. Anastasia had turned into an Herrscher because she wasn't able to protect her and now she will have to kill her...The white-haired woman slowly walked out of the canteen in the open area. Her sensors went crazy as they detected a massive amount of Honkai Energy above her, the valkyrie saw how everyone was looking up the sky and did the same. What she saw made her question her mental stability.

A gigantic vessel was hovering above the Schicksal base, it looked like it was made of gold and looked like it was something that came from a high gothic era. Its shadow had covered the entire base. Flying above it there were several other vessels with the same gothic design minus the gold.

The automated antiaircraft defense of Schicksal immediately started firing towards the vessel but with no result since the shots seemed to have been caught by a shield. As an immediate response, the massive vessel fired something similar to a laser and took out the antiaircraft guns then they came down...

They were insanely tall, covered in baroque armor and wielding massive lances with the same pattern as their armors. Soon after them, many others landed, this time they were slightly less tall compared to the first ones but still they were way taller than a normal person, just like the first ones they were all covered in armor with the difference that theirs were crimson colored with golden outlines and that they were carrying massive guns.

A hooded man appeared next to them and pointed his finger towards the research complex "The Primarch is waiting for you there, she ordered to not kill the valkyries" he said as the behemoth next to him nodded.

"As if we'll let you do that!" an A-rank Valkyrie shouted as she charged towards one of the golden men. In the blink of an eye, the man swung his lance by the end without blade and knocked her out.

Their charge did not stop and soon enough Cecilia and her two teammates found themselves staring of the horde of warriors.

"Dammit" Patricia hissed as she braced herself for the impact with the horde

"Well, it's been nice working with you" Cheng Xie added as she did the same

"Drop the weapons" Cecilia ordered as she dropped her spear on the ground

"What?!" Both of the valkyries shouted before looking at the attackers

"Just do it!" Cecilia shouted as both Patricia and Cheng cursed under their breaths and let go of their weapons.

The three Valkyries closed their eyes ready to meet the same fate as their comrades...but that didn't happen, instead, the hulking men ran past them ignoring them completely.

Otto watched the entire scene with horror and shock from the cameras of the base. he leaned against his seat as Amber looked at the screens with a worried expression "Milord, they are about to breach inside the diclonius laboratory" she said as Otto widened his eyes

"Show me the cameras of the lab" He ordered as the screen showed the diclonius laboratory. Anastasia was standing in the middle of it, she was standing still "Switch the sensor to see all telekinetic frequencies"

Amber did as she was ordered and the camera show them how Anastasia was using her vectors to 'touch' every diclonius inside the lab. Otto got up and looked inside the computer that kept track of the diclonius inside the containment chambers. Once again, he found himself dumbstruck, Anastasia was using her vectors on a such small scale that she was literally changing the DNA, to be more precise, she was removing the destructive instincts

"SEND ALL THE ROBOTS WE HAVE!" Otto ordered as Amber activated the automated antipersonnel security system. The blonde man quickly rushed towards the screen to see the fight going down. That was the occasion to kill Anastasia once and for all, her vectors are all to busy with changing the DNA of the test subjects and her without them she cannot block the incoming projectiles, the nanosuit was strong but not invulnerable.

The mechs quickly surrounded Anastasia who looked at them with cold eyes. She slowly raised her arms as if she was surrendering but then something else happened. Both of her hands started changing shape and instead of them appeared a pair of giant claws.

Anastasia looked at her own hands, her claws were different were Alex's which were more grotesque and scary looking, hers were more elegant, polished and smooth. She knew that it was because of nanomachines which, with the blacklight virus, formed a new kind of cell that has the proprieties of both.

In a blur, Anastasia launched herself against the mechs and started ripping them apart with her claws. She jumped away as an Aesir Heimdall smashed its sword where she was standing. She morphed her arms into hammerfists and proceded to smash the robot's armor with her massive strength. Once she staggered the mech, she turned her arm into a massive blade and cut it in half.

She found herself surrounded by many other mechs but before she could engage them in combat, the air was filled with very loud bangs soon followed by a storm of explosive bullets that turned the mechs into scrap metal. Anastasia looked in the direction of the bangs and saw a group of hulking figures marching towards her. Her stigmata started burning again and unknown to her, the projection of the Anathema appeared behind her.

The warriors stopped on their tracks and knelt. One among them raised his head as the figure of the Emperor disappeared.

"My Primarch, I'm the Legion Master Alatan Bloodhammer" the warrior said with a solemn tone "We are the Crimson Slayers, a space marine legion sent in this universe by the Emperor himself to fight the honkai who threatened to end humanity in its infancy. He said that we would have found our Primarch there and now, we stand in front of you...give us your orders, my Primarch"

"Well well, there are also some Legio Custodes here though" The Hooded man said as he appeared next to Anastasia "And as for me..." he said as he removed his hood revealing a man with long silver hair with a very light shade of pink "I'm Merlin" he said with a bow "At your service"

Anastasia narrowed her eyes "That Merlin?" she asked as the man nodded

"Yes but I'm not the one from here, I come from their universe or timeline depending on the perspective" Merlin replied with a smile "The Emperor had enough of me since I was similar to a daemon so I thought of kicking me out of my tower and to send me here"

"I see..." Anastasia replied with a bit of uncertainty before looking at the Legio Custodes.

Anastasia nodded before looking at the space marines "Take the test subjects here and get us out of this place" she ordered as the Astartes immediately followed the instructions and removed the diclonius from their pods. "How are we supposed to get out of here?"

Alatan pointed to the roof "We'll return to the Eternal Protector with the stormbird outside"

Anastasia gave him a nod and started heading to the exit of the complex followed by the Astartes and the Legio Custodes. None of them were surprised when they found a small army of mechs standing in their way.

The pink-haired girl morphed her body into an armor that looked like a combination of the Nanosuit and Mercer's bio-armor, she then turned her left arm into a quite big blade while her other arm turned into an hammerfist.

"Don't stop advancing" She ordered as the space marines started opening fire against the mechs while Anastasia jumped right on them. With her hammerfist she took out the most armored one while with the blade she cut apart those less protected, every shot fired at her was stopped by her vectors since she was using them as a defensive mechanism, she wasn't worried about the bullets of the Astartes even though they packed quite a punch her vectors were able to deflect them or block them.

The Legio Custodes were cutting between the mechs' ranks like they were made of butter while the space marine protected the diclonius while lighting up any mech that managed to slip through the vanguard.

After a few minutes, the group reached the outside where a crimson red Stormbird and another golden ship was waiting for them. Around the ships, there were several wreckages of destroyed mechs. Anastasia would have stopped in shock when she saw the mighty ships that were hovering above base but the situation required her to move. She looked at the two vehicles not knowing which one of the two was the stormbird

"Which one?" She asked as Alatan pointed at the crimson red stormbird "That's the stormbird, the other is Orion Assult Dropship.

The massive door of the stormbird opened and the space marines got inside as the Legio Custodes embarked on their ship. Anastasia was about to embark when with the corner of her eye spotted Cecilia taking care of the valkyries that were previously knocked unconscious, their eyes met.

Anastasia saw how the Valkyrie was in shock to see that this was all because of her "I'm sorry" she muttered but the sound of the engines of stormbird completely covered her voice, she stretched out her vectors and removed the Diclonius gene-seed from Cecilia.

She then saw someone else, he was standing in front of the entrance of the research complex, his expression was extremely angered. Anastasia looked at him as a Space Marine noticed how she was looking at Otto and aimed his bolter at him.

"No" Anastasia ordered shaking her head "He's not worth it" she said as the door closed and the stormbird took off...

Later...

This caused Cecilia's eyes to lit up as a sense of relief invaded her body, she hugged the small valkyrie. "I thought you would have never wake up"

Theresa was beyond confused, a few moments ago she was inside Anastasia's head and now she's being treated like she spent years inside there. She widened her eyes as she realized that Anastasia was nowhere to be seen and quickly got up and looked around "Cecilia, where is Anastasia?!"

Cecilia's expression turned grim and this caused Theresa to remember the last words she was able to hear from Anastasia...she was about to run across all the facility but Cecilia stopped her as she gave her a tablet with the camera's recordings.

Both of the valkyries fell silent as the audio of the recordings was the only sound between the two.

"This can't be real..." The small valkyrie said as she put her hand on her mouth

"It is" Otto replied as he walked in "Anastasia has betrayed all of us"

"She said she would have protected humanity! I was inside her head!" Theresa replied shaking her head with angered tone.

"but she still betrayed us" Otto replied with a cold tone

"who were those people?" she whispered as the Overseer just shrugged

"No idea" He said "They appeared from a something like a portal, with ships never seen before, with weapons never seen before and crushed the valkyries who tried to oppose them"

"How many...did we lost?" Theresa asked not really wanting to know...

"None" Otto replied surprising her "Everyone is either heavily wounded or with some brain damage but they are all still alive and with our care, they will return in shape" he stated before sighing "with that being said, all the turrets and automated defense system is gone"

Theresa felt relieved, she couldn't care less for the mech, she was happy that no one died "Where is she?"

Otto pointed to the sky "An Honkai energy similar to one of the portals used to get here has been detected on Mars' orbit"

"Are you saying...that she's on Mars?" Theresa replied astonished

"Yes and that those ships were spaceships" Otto replied nodding

"So what? She's working for aliens?" she asked getting frustrated at the lack of info.

Otto just shrugged "The only thing I know, is that Anastasia is an enemy of Schicksal and that if our paths will meet again, we will strike her down" he said with a solemn tone as he then walked away.

"What do you think of this...?" Theresa asked the other valkyrie that has been silent for the whole conversation

"Anastasia...is not an enemy..." Cecilia muttered before looking at her hands "before those men attacked, one of them said that the Primarch didn't want any death...and I think they meant Anastasia. She didn't want to kill anyone and those who surrendered didn't even get knocked out. They could have killed us but they didn't, this is why I think that she's still loyal to our cause..."

"She's just not loyal to Schicksal anymore..." Theresa concluded

Anastasia sighed "Well...you could have told me...anyway what does this have to do with the AIs?"

"The Adeptus Mechanicus don't see AIs under a good light and would never normally accept them...unless you tell them to" Merlin explained

"But I was made of flesh once" Anastasia said

"And we'll keep it a secret" Merlin said "It's better like this we don't have the manpower to make war against the Honkai God, even though we 250.000 Astartes and Additional Mechanicus, it's still not enough for defeating it"

Anastasia sighed and nodded "very well..."

Suddenly someone entered the room, it was Alatan "My Primarch, we are ready to depart to Mars' surface, the Adeptus Mechanicus are already waiting there " he said getting a nod...

"Is he always like this?" Kallen asked

Chapter Text

Mars' Surface

Anastasia had just arrived on the red planet's surface and was ready to meet the Adeptus Mechanicus at the ruins of a previous civilization which was called the 'Vers Empire' according to Merlin, the objective of this meeting was to make the Adeptus Mechanicus accept the fact that AIs are needed for their cause and to pick up the first 'gift' left from one of the previous humanities.

Walking beside her there were Alatan, Merlin and an escort of Legio Custodes. The Primarch could already see the Mechanicus priests waiting for them at the entrance of what looking like a palace.

She felt a slight burning sensation on the back of her head before...

"Hello my daughter" A text-to-speech voice suddenly ringed inside Anastasia's ears

"Hello sister!" Another male voice said.

Anastasia was genuinely freaked out but didn't show it since she didn't want to make a bad impression in front of the Mechanicus

"You can speak with us with your mind if you want" the male voice said

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Anastasia replied inside her mind

"I'm your father, the other one while the other is your big brother Magnus" The Throne Emperor said as his mortal form appeared in front of Anastasia "Before you scream that I'm here, you're the only one who can see me just like Prophet" he said as Magnus also appeared in front of her

"I wasn't going to scream since no one else reacted to your sudden appearance and you are all RED" Anastasia replied upon seeing Magnus over-sized red figure "So you are the Emperor that sent the genes inside of me in this universe and you are a Primarch of that other universe and by definition my brother?"

"Indeed" Magnus replied "We are here to provide advice"

"And also because I was bored inside the stigmata" The Emperor replied.

"I will not follow orders" Anastasia said with determination "I chose to protect humanity but I will do it my way"

"Don't worry my dear daughter, I'm not going to give you orders since you're out of my jurisdiction and I want to have a good relationship with you" The Emperor said

"If only you could have done that during the crusade" Magnus muttered to himself "WAIT, FROM WHERE THAT 'DEAR' CAME FROM?!"

"But I will hear your suggestions" Anastasia added as she mentally sighed "Anyway the other father said you would have taught me how to develop my abilities...though I don't know what he was referring to"

"Oh yes, you're a psyker and as one you have to learn how to use your powers" The Emperor said with a nod "In this universe, after the Honkai took over, psykers are very rare but some got very famous as 'Herrschers'"

"I'm an Herrscher!?" Anastasia asked already worried for her wellbeing

"No, you are not" Magnus intervened "You're just a psyker, a human that can draw powers from the Immaterium, here called, Honkai Dimension"

"Normally, I wouldn't allow you to practice such power" The Emperor said

"Even though he uses it himself" Magnus whispered

"But since Chaos doesn't exist here, and you are theoretically immune to the Honkai corruption, there's no problem with it" the Master of Mankind said

Anastasia wasn't really happy with the whole 'I wouldn't allow you' part since it was against her previous statement but she dismissed it since she was kind of happy to see the Emperor and his brother for the first time. "Okay then, now let me deal with the mechanicus"

"Well, your entire body is made of machines and your mind has the power of thousands of computers so you're probably going to be their favorite Primarch out of all since Ferrus" The Emperor said

"Hopefully it will be enough to convince them that AI is necessary" Anastasia said sighing

"I don't really like the fact that you are going in that direction for the AIs but again Chaos doesn't exist and the Honkai God is too stupid and naive to use the power of the immaterium correctly...and what is waiting for you here will help you with machine corruption, but anyway it's your choice and since the other me seems to have nothing against this plan I'll just wait and see I guess...Just avoid depending completely on the machines and give them equality otherwise they will become like the Men of Iron all over again" The Emperor said

"Didn't the Men of Iron thought that they were superior to the humans?" Magnus asked

"Yes because humans completely depended on them and made them do all the dirty work" The Emperor said as Anastasia and the others finally reached the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Anastasia was immediately approached by three tech-priests escorted by the Skitarii. Anastasia was a bit weirded out by their appearance, they looked like cyber monks with hoods and lots of mechanical objects attached to their body and glowing eyes.

"You are the child of the Omnissiah, is that correct?" one of them asked with a computerized voice "The Child that embodies the machine side of the Imperium?"

"Indeed" Anastasia replied with a stoic tone "My name is Anastasia Apocalypse, the first child of the Emperor of Man in this universe. To answer your question, yes, my entire body is made of machines created by humans, you're free to see yourself if you need more proofs" she said as she offered her arm

The Adeptus Mechanicus shook his head "No, I don't doubt your identity, the Legion Master Alatan told me that the Emperor was with you...I am the Fabricator-General Abrariel Cybios, we are at your service"

Anastasia gave him a nod before looking at the palace they were standing in front of "Have you already entered this place?"

"No" The Frabricator-General said shaking his head "The door is controlled a machine spirit that will not let pass anyone unless they are worthy..."

Anastasia walked in front of the door and like in the destroyed New York she saw a small pad where she was supposed to put her hand on it, in her HUD SECOND started hacking the thing and after a few seconds the door of the palace opened with a hiss.

The Adeptus Mechanicus quickly started praying the machine god as Anastasia, along with her escort, started walking inside.

The Palace was completely dark inside and so seeing things would have been hard for a normal human, fortunately for everyone present, no one was human there and thanks to their augmentations they were all able to see in the dark.

The room where they were in was a throne room, on the floor there was a carpet with an unknown symbol, Anastasia guessed that was the flag of the previous civilization since that same symbol was on the almost destroyed banners that were hanging from the pillars that were placed on the sides of the room. Anastasia saw something shimmer in the dark as the light that was coming from the entrance.

The Primarch walked towards the unknown object that was laying on one of the arms of the throne and picked it up. It was a remote controller.

Anastasia looked around as she tried to see if the object was booby-trapped which didn't seem like it. "Prepare for the worst" She ordered as the Tech-Priests and the Astartes braced themselves while Merlin made a bittersweet smile.

"This is exciting" The Emperor said "Now I get it why the Adeptus Mechanicus are always so eager to discover ancient stuff"

"Shut up, I wanna see what happens" Magnus replied as Anastasia pressed the power button of the remote.

A Projector turned itself on and started projecting the image of a young woman on the wall above the throne. She had long blonde hair and green eyes, she was wearing a very fancy white dress similar to a wedding dress with the skirt that reached the floor.

"My name is Asseylum Vers Allusia, Empress of the Vers Empire. If you are seeing this recording it means that the man named Merlin told the truth and that you are the Primarch that will protect humanity from the Honkai..." she said with a bittersweet tone "I don't have much time, they will arrive soon, behind the throne there is a secret passage that leads to a bunker where Vers' most important artifact is...hopefully, it will help you in your task to save mankind" she said as tears started falling from her eyes "Good Luck" she said as the projection ended.

The Adeptus Mechanicus were in silence while the Legio Custodes remained stoic. Merlin, on the other hand, had a smile on his face.

"wow, you actually didn't say anything when she said that she was an Empress" Magnus commented

"Shut up" The Emperor replied shaking his head "There were lots of empresses and emperors in human history, I will not pretend that I was the one to invent that title...even though I existed before them."

Anastasia felt her being filled with sadness as she walked behind the throne, she pressed the button of the remote again and a secret passage opened itself up for her. The passage was narrow and so neither the Legio Custodes or Alatan could fit through.

"Wait here" Anastasia ordered as she entered inside the narrow corridor. She didn't know for how long she walked but finally, she found herself in front of a vault door. She looked at the removed in her hands and pressed another button. The vault door slowly opened itself revealing what looked like one of those rooms where nuclear reactors are kept in.

Just like in New York, in the middle of the room, there was something. It was a glowing spheric that seemed to give power to everything around her. The Primarch cautiously approached it and then touched it. An electric shock run across all of her body as a notification appeared on her HUD.

'New Energy Source installed: Aldnoah energy successfully installed'

Anastasia blinked a few times as she tried to comprehend what the hell is this Aldnoah.

"It seems like this energy source is limitless" Magnus said intrigued by such technology "No wonder they managed to build an empire with it"

Anastasia was about to comment on Magnus statement but something else caught her attention. It was another door, this time it had no scanner or anything. She walked towards it which caused it to open itself up.

She widened her eyes when she saw several skeletons lying on the floor in front of a pod. Anastasia checked the bodies and saw that they were all soldiers or at least, most of them. She picked up the military dog tags and read the names

Kaizuka Inaho

Yuki Kaizuka

Darzana Magbaredge

Inko Amifumi

Rayet Areash

Count Klancain

Anastasia made a small prayer for all of them and then looked at the pod, it had several machines attached to it which were almost too old to work. The glass of the pod was completely covered in dust and so she wiped it away only to widen her eyes. In front of her, in suspended animation, there was the Empress Asseylum Vers Allusia.

"Now Anastasia, don't rush things" The Emperor quickly said before Anastasia could try to break the pod to get the girl in front of her out "She have been in suspended animation for eons, rushing things will probably get her killed."

"I'm afraid he is right" Magnus said nodding "Try to see if the commands of the pod still work"

Anastasia calmed herself down and started to see if there were any buttons or screens she could use to release the empress in front of her without putting her in danger. Fortunately, she found a touchscreen on the right side of the pod. She quickly ran through several menus until she finally came across the 'release' button.

With a mechanical sound pod disconnected the various machines that kept the girl asleep and slowly opened itself. Anastasia held her breath as she used the Nanosuit to see if the girl was responsive or she just killed her by removing the machines.

Then she saw Asseylum's chest expanding and contracting as she started breathing..then she opened her eyes. Anastasia then saw that Asseylum was trying to say something but due to being in suspended animation for so long, no words came out of her mouth.

Anastasia knew that all Asseylum muscles were probably atrophied but she needed to get her out of there "I'm sorry this will probably hurt a lot" she said as she carefully picked the girl up with her vectors. She could see in Asseylum's eyes that her actions were giving her quite a bit of pain but it was necessary.

Asseylum tried to say something again as her eyes looked at the other side of the small room. Anastasia tracked Asseylum's gaze and saw a computer sitting on a table. The Primarch walked towards it and turned it on. Unfortunately, the screen was broken.

Anastasia morphed her fingers into small tendrils and entered inside the computer, the Nanosuit analyzed what was inside the computer. Anastasia found herself with lots of blueprints of Aldnoah Engines and other types of structures. She looked at the empress that was floating in front of her and made a small bow "Thanks" she muttered before leaving that place.

When she returned inside the throne room, Merlin was waiting for her while the Adeptus Mechanicus were checking on any piece of technology they could get their hands on.

"You knew she was here" Anastasia said getting a nod from the mage

"Yes, I was there when they put her inside the life support pod" Merlin replied with a bittersweet smile as he walked to the former empress "Your friends didn't suffer, I guided them into a nice and eternal dream" he reassured the blonde girl as he used some of his magic to not make her feel pain.

Anastasia walked to the throne and after a few seconds contemplation, she sat on it. As soon as her hands came in contact with the arms of the throne, the Aldnoah activated and started powering up the entire complex and city around it. The dark palace quickly turned bright and several systems returned online including a hologram of a map of Mars' facilities that were hidden during the war against the Honkai.

The tech-priests started praying again while Alatan and the Legio Custodes knelt.

"Today," Anastasia said with solemn tone "I declare the Imperium of man created, I hereby swear to protect it from all harm both internal and external, I shall rule until the day my father will take my place or death release me from this duty" she declared "If anyone, including my father, has anything to say against this decision of mine speak now"

The only answer she got was silence.

Magnus looked at his father expecting him so not be very happy with Anastasia's statement but instead, he had the expression who just succeeded in something...Magnus wasn't sure if he liked that expression or not.

Anastasia slowly nodded and looked at the Fabricator-General "Abrariel, I was told that Mars is the home of the Adeptus Mechanicus, is that correct?"

"Yes...my empress" the mechanicus replied with a nod

"Then you and your brothers shall live here, I want you to recover all the technology you can find and to start the production of all the equipment that the legion needs" she ordered as her golden eyes glowed a bit "If you come across sentient machines, call me immediately"

"The Emperor forbid us to come in contact with sentient machines that can be corrupted or go against us "

"Me and my father have come to the conclusion that the sentient machines and humans must collaborate to defeat our enemy. Machine and Humans shall be one once more, equal to each other" Anastasia declared with a solemnly "I will personally take care of them if they refuse to collaborate"

The Mechanicus slowly nodded "It will be done"

Anastasia looked at Merlin "Is there anyone else that needs to be recovered from space?"

"Quite a few actually" Merlin replied

"Then we shall gather them all before returning to Terra" Anastasia said as she looked at Alatan "tell the fleet to get ready"

"Yes, my Empress" Alatan replied

"I'm nothing more than a regent Alatan," Anastasia said with a gentle smile "If you think that calling me Empress is an act of betrayal towards my father then don't do it" she said shaking her head "This applies to everyone else"

The silence was the only answer she got once again.

"I thank all of you for your trust, I hope I will be worthy of it" the pink-haired woman.

"So this is how an Imperium starts? With a leader and a legion?" Magnus asked telepathically to his father

"Yes Magnus" The Emperor replied "I created her gene-stock with this purpose"

"So she's like Sanguinius? The one to heir the throne?" The crimson Primarch asked

The Emperor shook his head "No, she's not like him or any of you, I made her gene-stock to be unique, I think that's the main reason those Chaos Cancers tried tainting it more than the others. The others are similar to the ones I used to create you and your brothers but hers is made with the purpose of being a kind mother to humanity while daddy is too busy doing his emperor stuff, she will give birth to her sisters and will help humanity grow. I gave her a purpose, you and your brothers gave her the tools" he replied "my plan is now set in motion and it will decide the future of all of us...now shut up and let me enjoy the fruits of my work"

The Empress walked outside of the throne room and looked at the city that thanks to her actions have turned alive, she could see the Mechanicus Fleet slowly making its way through the planet's orbit, she could feel the weight of the imperium on her shoulders, she knew that failing will cause humanity to stop existing. She was feeling out of breath but at the same time at peace as if she felt like she was meant to be here in that moment.

"Father...Brother" Anastasia called both of them inside her head "My journey will not be an easy one, so please let me learn from you" she said with an almost ethereal voice

"Anything for a familiar figure who doesn't bully me for liking books" Magnus replied sarcastically as he eyed his father

"There are no second chances this time" The Emperor stated with a grim tone "Your actions and your actions alone will determine if humanity will live or die, with taking the role as empress you have placed the heaviest of burdens on your shoulders, the expectations on you are very high just as the stakes. Fron now on, I will train you to be me, you will have no rest nor peace until you'll be ready for the battle to come"

Anastasia knelt "Yes, father"

later...

Anastasia was standing in front of the several Diclonius she had recovered from Schicksal, under her orders, the Adeptus Mechanicus took them in one of Vers' medical facility.

During her escape, she had changed their DNA in order for them to not be homicidal towards normal people though she could only redirect them. She was now waiting for the results of a certain investigation she ordered to clarify a doubt of her.

"Omnissiah" A tech priest said as he slowly made its way towards the woman "Your doubts were truthful, the gene-seed of your mutated gene-stock is within the bodies of these women" he said as he looked at the unconscious living beings "The youngest of them are naturally developing the new organs as it's written on their DNA...Their body strength is superior to a normal human but isn't the same as the Astartes but that is probably due to the gene-seed being meant for male subjects...something like this is truly a blessing from the other Omnissiah himself, this has the potential of creating fully-fledged Astartes since birth...if only we could remove the taint of Chaos from the gene-seed..." Anastasia sighed at those words causing the tech priest to look at her with a puzzled expression "My Empress'?"

"As I feared, this means that on Terra there are humans who are giving birth to superhuman killing machines" She said causing the tech-priest to stumble back as he realized what danger this could lead to "Do we have someone good at stealth operations?"

"Yes, your highness" the tech-priest quickly said nodding "The crimson slayers have been trained by the other Primarchs prior to being sent here, those trained by Corvus Corax are familiar in the ways of the silent approach..."

"They are kept inside several Schicksal bases, take them away and bring them to Mars" Anastasia ordered before starting walking away "When they wake up, feed them and keep them busy...I shall depart for Orion's arm now"

The tech-priest nodded as Anastasia walked away.

Several weeks later, Orion's arm, UNSC Infinity

Thanks to the projects left by the people of the Vers Empire, the Adeptus Mechanicus were able to construct several communication satellites, which were placed by the mechanicus fleet while the Imperial Army made its way to the sector where their future allies were waiting to be awakened

The Eternal Protector along with its escort fleet was floating next to the smaller deactivated spaceships, the size difference was immense but the real contrast was the one between the high-gothic structure of the Imperial vessels and the slicker design of the smaller vessels.

Anastasia had already made her way through what Merlin told her was the flagship of the fleet, she was walking through the corridors of the long asleep vessel, beside her there was only Merlin who silently followed her inside what looked like a tomb.

"You took your sweet time Merlin" A female voice said as the illumination of the ship turned on

Anastasia looked at Merlin with a raised eyebrow as he just smirked and shrugged "What can I say BB? Finding the Primarch took quite a while" he replied "Can you please take us to her?"

There was a sigh in reply as the doors next to them opened itself.

"Who is she?" Anastasia whispered as both of her and the half incubus walked through the corridors and the various sections of the ship

"Well, she's one of the copies installed on these ships of a heroic spirit called BB, she's an advanced AI and she kept active the life supports of several installations during these agreed to join us in exchange of the protection of someone she holds dear, like this she gave access to the Moon Cell." Merlin explained while nodding "The UNSC fleets use AIs in their ships but many were those AIs that were corrupted by the honkai or by rampancy, the UNSC quickly found themselves out of manpower and out of AIs so I gave them copies of BB which, due to her nature, can't be corrupted. In secret, I took accords with the person you're going to meet, she understood that the war with the Honkai was a war that humanity couldn't win in that moment" Merlin explained as they finally reached their destination

Anastasia once again found herself in front of a pod, but unlike the one on Mars, this was still in a good shape. The Primarch slowly walked towards it and expelled its inhabitant. She had grey hair, was missing an arm and looked old but still pretty.

Merlin didn't waste any time and brought a wheelchair closer to the pod as he cast the same sleep he cast on the Empress of Vers on the woman before placing her on the wheelchair.

"Good Morning Doctor Halsey" BB said as the woman slowly opened her eyes "I'm sorry but due the time spent inside suspended animation your body needs some time to recover even with me giving it stimulations during these years"

"It's okay" Halsey replied before coughing a few times and then looking at Merlin and Anastasia "So...you're the Primarch?"

Anastasia nodded "Yes, my name is Anastasia Apocalypse" she replied

"Doctor Catherine Halsey...I would shake your hand but I'm missing an arm and I can't move my body" the doctor replied sighing

"It's okay, I understand doctor" Anastasia replied

"Is the Honkai still a problem?" the woman asked getting a nod from both "Then it's time to wake up the others..."

"Indeed" Merlin said as he started pushing Halsey's wheelchair.

"Did this guy told you what happened?" Catherine asked as she coughed a bit more.

Anastasia shrugged a bit "He explained something but nothing in particular"

"Well, it will take a while to get to the others so might as well tell you everything that happened" Halsey said before gazing at the empty corridors ahead "The human-covenant war, the flood and everything else had left everyone tired and then the Honkai showed up...they were different from everything we faced so far which always followed a scientific logic but not them, they just appeared out of nowhere, corrupted our AIs, zombified our soldiers. But even though the Emperor-Class Honkai were a pain to be dealt with, we managed to hold our own against them...until the Herrschers appeared, at that point physical laws were thrown out of the window. The Herrscher of Death killed entire cities before being stopped, the Herrscher of the void destroyed our ships but then...it appeared, a being bigger than planets with immense power..."

"The Honkai God" Anastasia muttered getting a nod from the doctor

"Yes, it cost us a lot but we barely managed to repel the Herrschers but it destroyed all life on Earth, the fleets, our colonies...The UNSC got desperate and all Spartan programs were re-opened once again, all the equipment that never got to see the light of the day was issued to all personnel in hoping to defeat it...It was at that time that this other science-defying entity appeared" Halsey said

"Wait...are you talking about me?" Merlin asked

"He arrived and started stating the obvious like 'This operation will lead to your slaughter' and so on" Catherine continued "And then told me about his little plan and...it looked better than getting my Spartans killed by the Honkai...The only problem were the remaining higherups of the UNSC who were convinced that we could win...I did something that will accompany me for the rest of my life...I ordered a group of a friend to kill them before they could get all of us killed...and they did" she said as looked out of the window where the Imperial ships were navigating next to the inactive UNSC vessels "I ordered to relocate where this man told me to and then when I made sure that everyone was ready with the help of BB...I went to sleep myself"

Without realizing, the group had reached their destination. It was a long corridor full of pods, in each of them had an armored figure inside of them.

"This is all that remains of the UNSC, our next step in evolution" Halsey said as Merlin expelled the inhabitant of one particular pod.

The armored figure that emerged from it, slowly walked towards Halsey "Catherine..."

"John..." Halsey replied with a bittersweet smile "It is time to finish this fight"

The Spartan nodded before looking at Anastasia

Anastasia's face turned stoic "I'm Anastasia Apocalypse, Primarch of the Crimson Slayers Legion, Empress of Imperium of Man"

At those words, John quickly performed the military salute "Petty Officer John-117, waiting for orders"

"Also known as THE Master Chief" Merlin added with a chuckle

Anastasia returned the salute out of respect for the warrior "Your orders are simple, help me protect all that is beautiful"

"Yes ma'am" Master Chief replied

"BB" Anastasia called

"Yes?" BB replied sounding amused

"Get everyone out of their sleep...ships included" Anastasia ordered

BB chuckled "Aye Commander!" she replied as all the pods opened and the last UNSC fleet returned alive...

back on the Eternal Protector

Anastasia was on the bridge of the Emperor-Class battleship, her eyes were looking at the imperial fleet as a thought was stuck on her head.

Alatan seemed to notice his Primarch expression "My Primarch, may I ask you what are you thinking?"

"250.000 space marines, a less than two thousand Spartans and the Mechanicus" Anastasia said with a serious tone "We are not enough"

"Well, of course, we are not" Merlin said as he stepped inside the bridge causing several imperials to look at him bothered by his presence "There is a reason you were tasked to create your sisters and you have the gene-seed of their future legions" he said before and a mischievous smile appeared on his face "but I would pump up those numbers to the millions, my Empress"

Anastasia raised an eyebrow "speak"

"We have visited several planets inhabited from humans and due to serval circumstances involving an honkai apocalypse, turned into Death Worlds" the caster replied "And there are several Primarch candidates on them along with armies of Honkai hating soldiers...all of them driven by the fact that one day they will be called to fight and get their revenge "

"Is this true?" Anastasia asked Alatan

"Yes, my Empress" the legion master replied nodding "with each reset, humanity kept popping up in the planets which used to rule over, and every time we would make contact with them in order to spread the teaching of the Emperor, several of these planets had many conflicts on them and every time the Honkai monsters appear the planets turn into Death Worlds, many of those saw humanity that was destroyed but the people who survived on the other planets became natural warriors, there are no Space Marines with them of course, but they are the finest guardsmen you'll find in this galaxy, the Mechanicus produced them several small fleets in order to for them to occupy other planets to use for soldiers' training ground

Merlin nodded to show his agreement "They are worlds that focus on the sole objective of creating soldiers and I have no doubt that there will be many volunteers with the requirements to become Space Marines"

Anastasia nodded solemnly "we shall go there then"

Krieg

Anastasia could barely believe her eyes, if she had to describe hell, she would describe the planet she was on. Merlin told her that Krieg in his original universe was a quite wealthy hive world and she knew that Death Worlds weren't exactly pretty, but what she was seeing was literally a massive endless battlefield.

"Looks like that some things are the same even in other universes" The captain-general of the Adeptus Custodes Kitten said as he appeared on Anastasia's HUD

"You mean that your Krieg is also like this?" The Empress asked

"yes, the planet once-wealthy fell into an apocalyptic civil war between those loyal to the imperium and the traitors, The loyalist launched a surprise attack that ended with the almost complete destruction of the surface due to way too many nuclear warheads detonating on its surface" Kitten explained

"their victory cost them the planet..." the woman replied with a sigh

"absolutely fucking not" Magnus intervened as he also appeared "those bastards kept fighting even after that apocalypse, their war turned into one of attrition that lasted for centuries that ended with the death of fifteen generations worth of humans lives"

"I wonder how this Krieg turned out to be like this" The Emperor said as his figure appeared while scrutinizing the horizon.

"This place has one of the possible candidates to become a Primarch" Merlin said with a smirk

"Oh no, get the fuck out of our psychic conversation you half-human incubus" The Emperor said

"Oh come on! I'm here to help!" Merlin said with a chuckle

"Fuck off" The Emperor replied

"Who is this you are talking about?" Anastasia asked as she heard the sounds of someone marching towards them.

The Legio Custodes and Adeptus Astartes put their guard up

"She's here" Merlin as said as a battalion of gas-masked individuals reached their position

She was a tall, beautiful, and slender woman with long, light blue hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a heavy white coat with black fur, on her side rested a sort of sword.

"General Esdeath" Merlin said as he waved his hand at the woman

"Merlin" Esdeath replied with her eyes fixed on Anastasia "And you're..."

"The Empress of Mankind" Alatan said as the gas-masked soldiers quickly knelt

The woman named Esdeath did the same as a smirk appeared on her lips "Finally, this long wait was starting to tiring me out"

Anastasia felt a stinging sensation coming from her stigmata

"HOLY SHIT!" Magnus said as he looked at Esdeath "WHAT IS THE BLOOD INSIDE OF HER! HOW IS SHE STILL HUMAN?!"

"Calm down, Magnus" The Emperor said

"Father, what is this sensation?" Anastasia asked

"Since you can't take the time of developing the Primarch Project as I did, I put you some sort of radar capable of picking up people who can be turned into Primarchs" The Master of Mankind said calmly as Anastasia slowly nodded in understanding

"Let's walk" Anastasia said, her eyes glued on Esdeath. She made a gesture to her Space Marines and Legio Custodes to wait for her and Esdeath did the same as she rose up from her kneeling position.

The two women started walking through the wasteland alone "Tell me of this planet" The Empress requested as Esdeath slowly nodded

"Where should I start?" the General said with a small chuckle "Several Millenia ago, on this planet, there was an Empire which I used to serve, an extremely corrupted one at that, I didn't care much of all the stuff they did, I was there just for fighting and doing some tortures, a revolution started and war broke out, long story short, the Honkai started popping out everywhere in infinite numbers and the war never ended, what you see today is the war still raging on" she said casually almost with a hint of amusement

"You couldn't beat the Honkai?" Anastasia asked

"Of course we could" Esdeath said "...but the planet was already too far gone to be prosperous again and we didn't...then that Merlin guy arrived bringing those sweet ships and guns and explained us the whole deal of the Honkai, me and the others decided to split up and to go on several worlds in order to prepare ourselves for the battle to come" she explained as she pointed at the sky "My soldiers are waiting for the Primarch to call them to action"

Anastasia narrowed her eyes "You have all those men and yet you didn't stop the war nor conquered Terra, why?"

"Conquering means ruling and I'm not interested into ruling" The General replied shrugging

"So what is that you desire?" The Empress asked as her mind was suddenly flooded by an intense bloodthirsty aura

"I wish to fight in the bloodiest war that this galaxy ever saw" Esdeath said, a wicked smile printed itself on her expression "Merlin told me what is to come and during this time I have prepared what he asked me to, I have pushed myself to my limits in order to be stronger but it''s still not enough"

Anastasia would have paled if she still was a normal person but instead remained calm "War can't last forever" she stated probably expecting to see Esdeath's grin disappear but instead her features softened, she was cute but in a creepy way.

"Of course I have a retirement plan" She said calmly "I will return to my beloved Tatsumi and live with him"

"Tatsumi?" Anastasia asked tilting her head

"Oh yes, he's one of the others I told you about, he went to a planet called Helghan if I remember correctly, I haven't seen him since then but now that you're here this will not be a problem" Esdeath replied and Anastasia could have sworn that general blushed for a second

"Sooo this planet kind of suffered the same fate as our Krieg with the whole civil war and stuff that eventually turned the world into a Death world, this chick took control and started mass producing soldiers while purposely avoiding to defeat the Honkai on the planet for whatever reason and her purpose in life is to fight in the bloodiest of wars and then to retire to fuck some poor soul that now lives on another Death World?" Magnus summarized

"Seems like a totally reasonable person to me" The Emperor said

Anastasia was starting to have a headache "You still haven't told me why you didn't defeat the honkai here, I'm quite sure that most of the attention of the Honkai God is towards Terra, not this planet"

"How was I supposed to train the soldiers without a threat?" Esdeath asked with a smirk

"Can you explain the blood in your veins?" Anastasia asked

Esdeath blinked a few times probably surprised by the Empress' sudden statement and knowledge, she stretched out her arm towards the battlefield and a tower made of ice appeared out of nowhere "This is called Imperial arm or Teigu if you want, it's an ancient weapon of the First Emperor of the Empire that was here, mine was extracted from an ice demon, whoever tried to use it fell to madness but I...subdued it"

Anastasia remained silent as the ice tower was reduced in millions of pieces from her vectors, Esdeath was a strong, strong-willed, charismatic, smart and at the same time she was fearsome, terrifying and a bit crazy...but the Empress knew that the war she was fighting couldn't be won just with optimism and power of friendship, she needed people like Esdeath.

She looked at her hand before stretching out towards her "My father gave me the task of creating my sisters, Primarchs like me, you wanted to become stronger? Then become my sister"

Esdeath looked at the woman in front of her shocked a bit but not for long, she grabbed Anastasia's hand "It would be an honor, your majesty" she said with a smirk

The two women walked back where the others were.

"So how am I supposed to create my sisters?" Anastasia asked

"Tell to the tech-priests to initiate the Primarch Protocol, for the rest, it's already in your mind" the Master of Mankind said...

Earth, Schicksal Europe HQ

Theresa had just returned from another mission. Today, the last test subjects of the Yager project were kidnapped by Anastasia's soldiers no matter how hard she tried, their assault was always sudden and brutal. The overseer had finally decided to shut down the project as they couldn't afford to have more structures being raided...

The small valkyrie was returning home alone, Cecilia had to participate on a test so there was no one to keep her company...even though today was her birthday, the first one she ever passed truly alone, Otto was somewhere else but he didn't forget to send his present not that it could make up for the loneliness Theresa felt.

She unlocked the door of her apartment and got inside, it was strangely darker than she remembered and so after putting her Oath of Judah to its usual place she went to turn on the lights, only to discover that the electricity had been turned off. She narrowed her eyes and went to look for her weapon again but it had suddenly disappeared, she went to the entrance of the apartment but the door won't open.

Suddenly the lights turned on and Theresa widened her eyes in shock

Four Adeptus Astartes with black armor and red outlines were standing in front of her, one of them was holding the oath of Judah. The Valkyrie was about to scream in order to put the base in alarm but she then noticed that the whole home had been decorated with the decorations that Anastasia had bought before she went rogue.

"The Empress sent us here" one of the Space Marines said through his helmet

"W-What?" Theresa whispered in shock as the Astartes turned some sort of platform in front of him.

A hologram appeared from the platform portraying Anastasia. To the valkyrie, she looked way taller and more mature but there was also something that she never saw in her sister, she looked...fulfilled.

"Hello, Theresa" Anastasia said with a gentle tone "I'm sorry for the sudden intrusion but there wasn't another way...anyway Happy Birthday! I know that you might not want to hear it from me after what happened but I love you and I really miss the old times...I know that it's been hard and I know that-"

Theresa clenched her fists, gritted her teeth "You KNOW!? Do you know how I felt when I woke up in a hospital bed being told that MY SISTER has been tagged as an herrscher and that she went god knows where with these behemoths, who spent the following months and weeks raiding our bases!?" she replied with an angered tone

"Watch your tongue! You are speaking to the empress!" One of the Astartes said

"How about we talk about this?! EMPRESS?! What's that supposed to mean!? Empress of WHAT?!" the Valkyrie kept going let her anger and loneliness pour out

The Astartes tensed up as they placed their fingers on the trigger of their boltguns

Anastasia expression remained serious as Theresa spoke

"You left me here!" Theresa finally shouted as tears rolled down her eyes and fell on her knees, she slowly started sobbing before she felt something akin to a hug. Theresa widened her eyes and looked at Anastasia's figure, her hologram had her eyes closed but what truly shocked Theresa wasn't but the fact that another Anastasia was hugging her body seemed to be made of Honkai energy which didn't harm the valkyrie. After a few seconds, the second Anastasia disappeared and the hologram opened its eyes.

"How?" The white-haired woman asked

"There are many things that I know that you don't but I don't have enough time to tell you" Anastasia replied with a distressed voice "One day I'll explain everything to you but for now Theresa...be patient" she said with a bittersweet smile "I left you a few presents along with a cake..."

"Wait don't go!" Theresa asked

"Sorry, We've been here for too long already, the alarm will go off soon if we don't go...Goodbye Theresa and Happy Birthday" The Empress said as her hologram disappeared.

The space marines picked up the platform used to project holograms and left from the balcony leaving Theresa all alone again. The Valkyrie made her way to the table where several presents were waiting for her along with a strange looking cake which had something written on it

'Happy Birthday from the Omnissiah'

Theresa raised an eyebrow at that and was quite skeptical to eat the grey cake before her but she took a spoon and eat it.

She widened her eyes when she realized that it was a cake made of bitter lemon. Theresa ate with a smile on her face as tears of happiness fell down from her eyes

Meanwhile, Eternal Protector

"Well done!" Magnus said as he clapped his hands at his sister "You projected yourself on Terra even though we are so far away from it!"

"I can do it without any problems but congrats" The Emperor said

"So can I! BUT! For someone who is learning to use her immense psychic power that's quite impressive nonetheless!" the red Primarch replied as Anastasia let out a sigh

"To celebrate this progress, I'll give you a present" The Emperor said with a suspicious chuckle as Anastasia raised an eyebrow at him "Go to the tech-priest in charge of this ship and ask him about the Anathema Protocol"

"What is that?" Anastasia asked

"You'll see" The Emperor said as Anastasia nodded and made her way to the engines of the Emperor-class ships.

The Empress saw the mechanicus making sure that the machine spirits and all of that were fine, she approached the one called Amaveren Groza, the tech-priest who was in charge of the other Adeptus Mechanicus on the ship.

The Mechanicus immediately felt her presence and turned towards her "Oh Omnissiah, how can I serve thee?"

"Greetings Groza, I seek the Anathema Protocol" The Empress replied

The Techpriest made a sound that sounded like he was quite excited but Anastasia couldn't tell. "If her Majesty would follow me" he said snickering

Anastasia was curious about this reaction and started following him "Do you know what this protocol is?" she asked

"It is a secret! Only the Omnissiah of the previous universe and I know of it, the fact that he told shows how much trust he has for you" the tech-priest said while walking through the massive corridors with gothic decorations of the ship

"I see..." She replied nodding "How is the Primarch Esdeath doing?"

"Thanks to the machine spirits you injected her, her body is adapting to its new form, we think that she'll wake up in a few weeks" he replied receiving another nod. The tech-priest reached Anastasia's private quarters

"Why are we here?" Anastasia asked

"The Protocol is kept in here" The Mechanicus replied as a secret door opened leading to some sort of armory.

Anastasia looked around and saw twenty power armors around them, each of them with a set of weapons.

"Here are preserved the armors made from the Emperor himself for his sons...well daughters...you get my point" The tech-priest said

"So which one is mine?" Anastasia asked

"Well...the armor shall reveal itself to its rightful owner" The tech-priest replied

Anastasia nodded and started walking in front of the twenty armors stopping in front of each of them...but none seemed to attract her. The Empress looked a bit distressed by the lack of response from the power armors until something caught her attention.

It was wall, there wasn't anything particular about it but for some reason, Anastasia felt dragged towards it. She walked to it and placed her hand on it causing a mechanical sound.

The wall opened and what appeared in front of her eyes caused the tech-priest to start praying as the Empress admired the objects in front of her.

She didn't notice that her father and Magnus appeared next to her.

"Father" Magnus said "WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT!?" he asked

"Her armor of course" The Emperor replied

"YES BUT WHY IT'S JUST LIKE YOURS?! AND WHY IT IS THE 21TH!?" Magnus inquired

"Do you think I didn't expect her to take the role of Empress?" The Emperor replied with a sigh "How can it be called Imperium if it has no Emperor or Empress?"

Magnus remained silent for a few moments "I guess that makes sense...but why you made it like yours?"

"Because she is the motherfucking Empress and must be recognizable as such from her glorious ultra-shiny gold armor" The Master of Mankind replied

Anastasia ignored them as she ran her fingers on the golden power armor which covered with many Imperial Aquilas and baroque ornaments along with many jewels. The armor had a clawed gauntlet and next to it rested a sword, its hilt, just like the armor, was golden with the same baroque style, its blade was glowing red.

"With that, the Honkai will tremble before you" The Emperor said looking at the sword "It's specially made to destroy the honkai and anything that comes out of the immaterium, no armor is able to hold back its blade" he said before putting his hands on her shoulders "This armor is a sign of my trust, remember that when you're wearing it, you are carrying the weight of all of humanity"

Magnus stared at his father, he knew that there was something behind those kind words but he doubted that his father would reveal it to him if asked.

Anastasia was speechless and just nodded, she started donning the mighty armor.

Earth, 3 months later

The new Imperial Army was navigating near Earth's orbit.

The Adeptus Mechanicus had expanded the former Vers capital and started the production of Aldnoah engines. The blueprints left by the Vers Empire proved to be very useful for the creation of a proper logistical management system. Kitten had described how the Imperium of their universe uses psykers to get the messages through the Imperium and that the ships don't get lost in space through the use of the Astronomican.

This caused a reaction of awe and a massive headache to Anastasia, the fact that her father was able to guide millions of vessels through the warp truly impressed her, to say the least, but at the same time, the Imperium of Man was a logistical mess. Anastasia had the advantage of being able to access ancient space travel technology thanks to the UNSC archives and the several others found on several other planets and the things saved inside the Moon Cell.

When Anastasia wasn't too busy with leading the Legion through the ruins of the previous civilizations she would visit the former Empress of the Vers Empire to build the Imperium Government since that was the next step in Anastasia's plan after recovering all the arsenals left by the other civilizations. Thinking of expanding of conquering nations without thinking about building a functioning form of government was useless after all.

After getting the last fleet of the UNSC, the Imperium has visited several other planets to get manpower, the other Primarchs and several lost technologies like the titan technology of the IMC and the Militia of the frontier.

With all the arsenals recovered from outside the solar system, the Imperium started the second phase of its plans, the recovery of all Terran Ancient Tech. Once this objective will be completed the Imperium will finally enter the last stage of its creation...

The Emperor had remained true to his world, Anastasia didn't rest since her arrival on Mars. Similar to what Prophet did, The Emperor had occupied her dreams but unlike Prophets, who kept Anastasia inside her dream world for days at best, he kept her initially for centuries practicing her power but once she gained more mental fortitude he kept her for Millenia, Magnus had tried to convince his father that he was being too rough with her and that keeping her that long inside her mind would have eventually broken her but his complains were completely shot down by both of the Emperor and the Empress.

The Master of Mankind revealed that inside of Anastasia there were thousands of souls of psykers thanks to Mercer who back in his civilization had consumed many people, Herrschers and zombified humans. He had eaten many potential psykers that due to being inexperienced ended up becoming zombie honkais. He had forced Anastasia to fuse with these souls in order for her to unlock humanity's potential but she was still far from even come close to Magnus due to her lack of knowledge that simply couldn't be learned in a few lessons.

The people around Anastasia had noticed how after every night she was different from the previous day and that after the fusion a certain aura that caused most to not be able to meet her eyes appeared around her.

Anastasia was now inside her private chambers, sitting next to her there was her brother Magnus and Kitten while her Father was walking around. The young Empress was trying to practice the Divination Discipline aided by Magnus and her Father, unfortunately, so far, she had only collected failures. The other disciplines, in her opinion, were way easier to practice

"Well, maybe she doesn't have the predisposition for Divination" Magnus muttered after another failure as he crossed his arms

Anastasia sighed as she felt quite frustrated with herself, she had gone through hell to fuse her soul and even then it was not enough, she still lacked the discipline needed to use all of the Psychic Disciplines, her father had told her how if she wasn't able to achieve this she will lose no matter what against the Honkai God.

"Nonsense" The Emperor replied "She has my genes and thanks to Mercer who ate a fuck ton of possible psykers, she should be able to use all the disciplines...I have an idea"

Anastasia raised an eyebrow "What is it, father?"

"Why don't you try to check on your acquired big sister or that friend of yours?" The Emperor said

"that's actually a good idea" Magnus said as he pointed his finger at Earth "Try to find them and see what's going to happen in their near future"

Anastasia slowly nodded as she closed her eyes and peered through the strands on the immaterium.

"The Immaterium here is way calmer than the warp especially without Tzeench around so it should be at least a bit easier" Magnus voice said

Anastasia barely heard him as she finally saw what she was looking for...

Cecilia was being taken to surgery as she was about to give birth to her child. A small smile appeared on Anastasia's lips since she saw the man named Siegfried beside her old friend. Her happiness didn't last long as she found herself in front of Siegfried and Otto.

"I'm sorry Sieg...your wife didn't make it" Otto said as he sighed "We tried our best but...she was gone before we could do anything

tears fell from Siegfried's eyes at the news before putting his hands on the overseer's shoulders "what about our Kiana?"

Otto turned his gaze away for the knight "I'm sorry..."

Anastasia was shocked and started to think about how to avoid Cecilia's death, the immaterium, as if responding to her thought, started showing her another vision

Cecilia and Siegfried were holding their daughter in their arms with a happy expression.

Anastasia was clearly happier with that outcome and so thousands of ways to reach that ending flashed before her eyes...then she remembered about what her father told her...the Divination Discipline allowed her to see possible futures and how to reach them but said visions didn't guarantee the result and if they proved to be wrong they could lead to a disastrous outcome. The Empress widened her eyes as her gaze returned in the real world, her brother and everyone else had disappeared, she touched her eyes and found out that she was crying. The Empress quickly got up and started walking through the corridors of the Eternal Protector with one objective in mind...getting to Earth.

The Empress walked through the throne room of the Eternal Protector where her throne and the ones of her sister. She used this place for discussing with her sisters about the actions of the Imperium and so she wasn't surprised to see them sitting on their thrones.

Esdeath seemed to be bothering the poor man they picked up on the planet called Helghan. Just like a normal Primarch, she was way bigger than any normal human being but that was entirely her choice since thanks to the nanomachines inside her body she was able to change the shape of her body on will. Just like most of her sisters she was wearing a white Artificer Armor with black outlines, with the insignia of her imperial arm on her shoulder

The man she was bothering was the one called Tatsumi, who was shorter than her by 30 centimeters clad in dark dragonic armor. He was found on the planet Helghan where the people who have followed him had to adapt to the hostile environment of the planet, Anastasia would have made him a Primarch but the Primarch gene-stock didn't allow her to and trying to purify by Slaanesh's curse was too risky.

"where are you going, sister?" The Primarch of Armageddon Leone asked as she raised an eyebrow.

Leone was the woman in charge of the Steel Legion on a planet called Armageddon along with several other generals, she was one of the people who knew Esdeath and just like her had an Imperial Weapon called Lionel, which earned her the name of Lioness of the Desert.

Anastasia's stigmata demonstrated that the Lioness's body could withstand the transformation into Primarch. Just like the other Primarchs, Leone was injected with Anastasia nanomachines to make the procedure faster. Her power armor was similar to Esdeath with the difference of the color scheme which was light yellow with black outlines. Her insignia was, of course, a lion's head. Her only weapons were her clawed power fists which also had bolters installed on them.

"To Terra" Anastasia replied with a serious tone

"We are already moving? I thought we had to recover YoRHa first and find Rapture's location" Akame, the fourth Primarch asked.

Unlike Leone, Akame wasn't the leader of an army but quite the opposite, she went alone on a desolate planet in order to control the curse within herself. When Anastasia found her she was surprised by the red markings all over her body and just like with Leone, the Empress' stigmata reacted to Akame's presence.

Akame had no hesitation when she accepted to become a Primarch except for one thing, she wanted to use her sword, the cursed sword Murasame able to kill anyone with one cut if given the opportunity. Akame's power armor was pitch black with scarlet outlines, her insignia was some sort of bird that once was the insignia of the Night Raid, the group of assassins that helped the revolution to rise up against the corrupted Empire of Krieg. Her sword has been adapted to her new size by Anastasia's herself and a new one was given her by the Emperor.

"It's for personal reasons" Anastasia replied

"Ooooh it's the beginning of the Horus Heresy all over again" Najenda, the fifth Primarch, said with a smirk.

Najenda was the leader that Anastasia had found on the death world Catachan. Her power armor was dark green with black outlines, unlike the other Primarchs Najenda was more focused on long-range weaponry, she did have a thunder hammer called Bone Demolisher but she also had a plasma cannon incorporated in her armor.

"You're not funny" Apollyon replied shaking her head

Apollyon was the sixth Primarch discovered by Anastasia, she was on a feudal world which was on an endless war with its people. She was similar to Esdeath in many ways, she believed in the survival of the fittest. Since she was told about the first Primarch she has been selecting the strongest among the people of her planet and while Anastasia wasn't exactly happy about this selection, she had to recognize that the knights that were following the warlord were the most disciplined on that planet and most of them were turned into Space Marines without too many problems.

Her armor was ash black with orange outlines but unlike her other sisters, the type of her armor was similar to an Aegis Pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armour. She wielded a massive two-handed power sword called Warden's Wrath.

"While I'm at it, I'll meet up with the Brotherhood and Hellsing" Anastasia said as Najenda looked at the hologram of Earth

"You'll tell them about our plans?" she asked as she threw a glance at the Empress

"Indeed, we need someone to bring the population by our side when the time comes, fortunately, the Soviet Union's about to fall apart, The Imperium will take its place"

"And South America's" Apollyon said as she looked at the American continent "We need to keep an eye on Anti-Entropy"

"Why not Africa?" Leone asked as she crossed her arms

"Because we must avoid any needless war, we'll conquer only the essential areas" Anastasia replied "Every human life is important to us this is why I want to avoid conquering by slaughter. We'll make them wish to be part of us and when the time will come they'll ask us to join, trust me"

"Not that they would be able to put up a big fight anyway" Esdeath said shrugging as Apollyon nodded in agreement

"Though the conquest of Japan is inevitable" Tatsumi said as he pointed at the nation "We can't occupy Neo Tokyo 3 without conquering it"

"I'll ask the Brotherhood...what news do we have from them and the Inquisition" Anastasia asked to Tatsumi.

The Inquisition was a relatively new creation in Anastasia's Imperium, they are guided by a former member of Night Raid whose identity is kept hidden for the time being. These Inquisitors were secretly hidden within the armies of Esdeath, Najenda, and Leone. They were created by Akame, Najenda, their leader and Tatsumi before each of them departed towards the planets they have been found on.

These people saw the Empress as their goddess, they took upon themselves the task of keeping an eye out for any traitor of the first Primarch or any corrupt person who tried to create its own empire. Anastasia felt great sadness when she discovered their existence, they thought of their work as extremely honorable and both of Esdeath and Apollyon agreed that their existence will be necessary for the future of the Imperium to make sure that no Imperial Official becomes corrupted.

The Emperor wasn't exactly happy for the fact they also existed in Anastasia's universe but Kitten wanted to argue in their favor to say that they actually did saved the imperium a few times but they quickly got massively totalitarians and were given way too much power and the fact that they didn't have a real hierarchy or leadership made every inquisitor act based on his own judgment. Anastasia was relieved that the Inquisition she had established leadership and she decided that she and her sisters will be the ones to check on them.

"The Yäger project got completely shut down, the people knowing about it no longer live except for Otto" Tatsumi said "The overseer has way too many bodies to kill"

Anastasia sighed "Any other news?"

"The Adeptus Mechanicus will soon complete the complete construction of a few forge worlds and all the technology has been recorded into the Moon Cell so that it will never be lost like in the other universe" Najenda said

"Why can't we send the projects back to pops? They kinda lost all of that tech..." Leone asked

"Because something like that would attract the attention of the Chaos Gods and the last thing we want is another immaterium coming to kill us" Akame muttered

"We have the factories, what we lack are the legions" Apollyon said

"Creating a legion is no easy task" Anastasia said sighing "And we don't have that many humans to sacrifice in the attempts to make a space marine, the mortality rate of the operations is extremely high and not everyone can be one"

"My soldiers would gladly do it" Esdeath commented as she crossed her arms

"Also, the younger they are the better" Apollyon added as she placed her hands on the strategic table "The children of your Death Worlds are born as soldiers, we can use some of them to make the legions"

"The Imperial Guardsman as just as needed as the Adeptus Astartes" Najenda quickly shot back with a glare "Do I have to remind you that in the other universe they have held the line for ten thousand years?"

"The mortality rate of the operation is still too high and while we equip the guardsmen with the best weaponry we could give them, they are far from immortal, they'll need new recruits" Tatsumi intervened.

"I already asked Halsey and the Mechanicus if there was a way to change the gene-seed or improve it, both of them said that was either impossible or would take millennia for it to be available" Anastasia replied shaking her head

"Then how about clones?" Akame asked

"Attempting to clone a Space Marine never led to anything other than abominations" The Empress replied "Also you would get copies of my Crimson Slayers, they would not have your original gene-seed"

"Why don't we use our current gene-seed? Wasn't it like almost totally safe?" Leone asked scratching her head

"We would need to have someone to give birth to them or a machine" Najenda replied "Also, the Adepta Sororitas while being superior to a normal human being, can't be compared with an Adeptus Astartes"

The Adepta Sororitas were the newest order within the Imperium, they were formed when the Crimson Slayers raided Schicksal's bases, they had retrieved around one thousand of Diclonius, Anastasia removed their natural instincts to kill humans but as she had previously discovered making them totally peaceful was not an option, this is why she had redirected those Instincts towards the Honkai. Anastasia promised herself that once she'll be strong enough, she would remove those instincts for good.

The Empress took inspiration from the Adepta Sororitas of the other universe when it came to organization and ranks but she did not make them a religious order. She also took inspiration for their armor although it had some improvements when it came to the enhancing capabilities. The new Sister of Battle were not normal humans since they are the result of the application of the altered gene-seed of their Primarchs but they possess the same enhancements of normal Space Marines like multiple hearts and so on, the only difference between was that those enhancements operate on a smaller scale making the Sororitas weaker than a normal Astartes but way stronger than the average guardsman.

The Emperor didn't hide the fact that he preferred his Space Marines to be all males

The sisters of battle also receive part of the powers of their Primarch. As an example, the Adepta Sororitas of Anastasia have vectors while Esdeath's can control ice to some degree.

Unlike the Astartes, the Sisters of Battle were like this since birth. Each Primarch could infect a normal human woman with their blood or, in Anastasia's case, with her vectors. Once the woman gets pregnant, she will give birth to a Sororitas in four and a half months. Many female guardsmen volunteered to give birth to Sororitas and this led the creation of mixed regiments where all women were infected with the Primarch blood and are allowed to have sexual relationships.

Since the Imperial Army is divided between the Primarchs, there are two of these kinds of regiments per Primarch assuring the creation of Sisters of Battle.

"Can't we make them?" Leone replied

"Sure but can you do it enough times to build an army?" Najenda said as she sighed.

"Tatsumi..." Esdeath said with s giant grin on her lips

The man became pale "I've to go!" he said as he quickly walked out of the room

"One day you'll give him a heart attack" Leone commented with a chuckle

"May I suggest something?" Suddenly BB intervened as her hologram popped out on the table "this problem was already solved by the Empress, any of you went through the injection nanomachines in your bodies which kept you from dying during the Primarch transformation. You can just use those on the people compatible with being turned into a Space Marine, of course, you would put back the safeties of the nanomachines so that the subjects will not fall apart. You would become the hive minds of the nanomachines of your legion, you would be able to give order just by thinking about it and the Astartes wouldn't need radios to communicate with each other and will be capable, to some degree, of computer level calculations. And even if some of you would be killed, the Astartes will be able to keep on fighting" BB explained "You could call them Omni Marine or Astartes Mechanicus or something like that...it would also give them the possibility to connect themselves with the future AIs fighting for us"

The Primarchs remained silent for a few moments before Anastasia broke the silence "Do we have the projects of the nanosuits?"

"We can recover it" BB replied

The Primarchs looked at each other before all nodding "Yes that sounds like a valid option" Esdeath said nodding

"Then it's decided" The Empress said "We'll recover the technology as soon as possible and start building the Legions"

"Where is Samus?" Anastasia asked not seeing her other sister around.

Samus was the last Primarch, this time, she was found from the Adeptus Mechanicus. She was in cryosleep inside her gunship with an AI guarding her.

"She went outside to check on something" Najenda said shrugging "She didn't specify what"

Anastasia nodded "BB, tell the assassins that I will meet them in Berlin" Anastasia ordered as she rushed to the hangar of the Eternal Protector

She stopped her tracks when she saw Samus staring at the emptiness of space as her gunship was taken away from the Mechanicus. Unlike her sisters, Samus was not wearing an artificer armor, the power armor she was wearing was a combination of the terminator armor prepared from the emperor and her power suit, Samus seemed to be able to use the power armor to upgrade hers.

"Samus, you came back" Anastasia said calmly before feeling the sadness that was surfacing from Samus' soul

"I didn't want to believe it" Samus said suddenly "When you all found me and turned me into a Primarch, I still didn't believe that humanity was all that was left in the galaxy...I went to the planets I used to know...those usually inhabited by other races...no one was there"

"The Honkai God wants to destroy everything and have the galaxy populated only by Honkai, it failed back in the other universe and so came here" Anastasia replied as Samus clenched her fists

"I will not let that happen again, I'll be dead before seeing that thing destroying everything again" she hissed as Anastasia placed her hand on her shoulder using her aura to calm her sister down

"We are here for that. We, Primarchs, are here to protect our people and make the Honkai disappear once and for all" The Empress said with a calming tone

Samus slowly nodded before noticing Anastasia's lack of armor, which was unusual since she always saw her with it "Your armor?"

"I'm going to Terra to take care of a few things, I'm going incognito" she replied

"I see, stay safe" Samus said while Anastasia gave her a small nod and walked

Anastasia finally arrived at her destination "I need my Eagle!" she shouted as the mechanicus and the guardsman immediately obeyed.

The Empress had commissioned the Mechanicus to create a hybrid between Xiphon Interceptor used by the Space marines and the Sabre Prototype from the UNSC, which projects were provided by Halsey which had gathered all the armament projects or lost ones of the UNSC before going in suspended animation and several other imperial aircrafts and of the lost civilizations.

The result satisfied her greatly, the Mechanicus have kept the Sabre's design, they made it bigger in order to fit the massive amount of armament. This is the first vehicle that had an Aldnoah Engine mounted, so its flight time is theoretically limitless. It also has stealth capabilities thanks to both The UNSC database and Vers'. Thanks to the improvements, and the brand new engine, this fighter was able to enter and leave the atmosphere without the use of a rocket and had VTOL capabilities. Unlike the original projects, this starfighter has only one pilot, due to the extreme maneuvers it can pull off, this starfighter is only suited for Spartans and Adeptus Astartes, which all got their respective variants.

The name given to this aircraft is Lighting Eagle.

Anastasia's Lightning Eagle had a black with red stripes pattern with a few golden imperial insignias on the sides. This color pattern is unique to her since the others are all red and golden and are heavily adorned with golden insignias of the Imperium. She also had another one which was her official one which was covered in gold.

The Lightning Eagle was quickly placed in front at the exit of the hangar as an Adeptus Astartes knelt before Anastasia "My Empress, we are preparing the targets for your practice session"

"No" Anastasia said "I'm going to Terra to meet up with the Assassins and to take care of a few things"

"Then I'll immediately form an escort" the Space Marine replied

"There is no need for that, this mission of mine must not attract any unwanted attention, I'll go solo" She stated "Or are you perhaps doubting me?"

"NEVER!" The Astartes immediately replied

"Good" Anastasia said with a nod "Tell Alatan that I will be back by tomorrow"

"It will be done!"

With that, Anastasia got inside the Lighting Eagle and started turning on all the systems before taking off and leaving the Eternal Protector. The Emperor-Class Battleship got smaller as the Primarch started to enter Earth's space. She knew that an aircraft entering Earth's would be easily detected and labeled as UFO but thanks to the stealth capabilities of the starfighter detection are near impossible.

The Imperium must remain hidden until the recovery of the arsenals outside Earth is completed, this is why the Imperial Fleet has been navigating way outside Earth's radars. She knew that warp travel will set off the alarm of Schicksal since every time an Imperial vessel uses its warp engines it leaves an Honkai Energy signature, which could be tracked.

This is why the Mechanicus are slowly adding slipspace drives and the FTL devices from the IMC and Militia to the imperial ships, the first one is used for long-range FTL travel, it leaves far more discreet energy trace that is way harder to detect and trace while the IMC FTL is used for short-range operations since its range of effectiveness is nowhere near Slipspace and Warp Travel but it's completely undetectable so it's perfect for stealth operations.

"BB inform the Brotherhood of my arrival" Anastasia said

Anastasia put the coordinates of the Märkische Schweiz Nature Park in Germany, the location where she could leave her lighting eagle without any problems and go meet up with the Assassins in Berlin. From there it will take an hour to reach the German capital where Cecilia will be taken to give birth.

Anastasia started the FTL jump procedures and then in the blink of an eye she was flying above the national park, thanks to the aircraft color scheme and the fact it was night the aircraft could fly around unseen. The Primarch lowered the speed of the starfighter and scanned the area for a possible landing spot. After a few minutes, she found what she was looking for and proceeded to land.

Once on the ground, she dismounted the aircraft which then turned invisible. Anastasia's body shifted into her nanosuit armor, of course, she had left her Empress Armor back on the ship. Inside her HUD the map with the route to Berlin appeared. The Primarch's muscles tensed up before she started running in the direction of the German Capital. The energy bar in her HUD didn't even dare to decrease thanks to the Aldnoah in her genes.

The Primarch was literally a blur, she was keeping her speed in check since she didn't want to leave sonic booms behind her. It didn't take too much time for her to reach the city, once she was near enough she engaged the cloaking mode of the Nanosuit and decreased her speed.

Her body shapeshifted into a more suitable appearance, she knew that she was wanted by Schicksal after all. Her blonde hair turned pitch black, and her eyes blood red, her cheekbones, jaw, height, and clothes also changed in order to elude face identification.

She removed the cloaking and mixed with the crowd. To everyone, she was just a normal woman. She reached the coordinates she gave the assassins, the place was one of their safe houses, in this case, a theatre.

She got inside and walked up to the cashier, who gave her a bright smile "Yes? Which Movie do you want to see?"

"Something about the Animus" Anastasia replied as the cashier smiled and nodded before pushing a button under the counter.

"We have a wardrobe here, why don't leave your coat there?" she replied as Anastasia nodded and walked to the said wardrobe.

She found and a hooded man waiting for her, he gestured with his head a passage next to him and without saying a word let Anastasia go through.

The Primarch found herself inside an elevator which started going down as soon as she entered. After a minute or two, the door opened and Anastasia found herself in front of a secret base, there were armed guards, and people working like ants in front of monitors.

A woman in a business suit approached her "Your Majesty?" she asked as Anastasia turned her gaze towards her, her voice was loud enough to reach the ears of the other people inside the base, who started throwing looks at Anastasia before quickly turned their gazes away by instinct.

The Empress nodded "Yes" she said as she shapeshifted back to her normal appearance

The woman looked at her in awe before recomposing herself "My name is Natalia, the mentors are still on their way and they gave me the task of serving you until they arrive"

"Is that so?" The Empress replied getting a nod "Is there a place where I can wait for them?"

"Of course!" Natalia replied with a nod "We didn't have much time but we prepared a room for you...it will take a two or three hours for the mentors to show up, I hope that it doesn't bother you"

Cecilia will arrive at the hospital in the next 5 hours, Anastasia had plenty of time and so she shook her head "No, It doesn't bother me" she said as Natalia started to lead her through the base "So what do you do here?"

"Oh, this base has the task of checking on Schicksal and Anti-Entropy Activity in Germany" Natalia replied

"Do you know if Schicksal will transfer someone to a nearby hospital?" Anastasia replied

"We got no news of such thing" Natalia replied with a frown "I can ask if you wish, your highness"

Anastasia shook her head "No" she said as they finally reached the guest room

"If you need anything just ask me, my desk is right there" she said as she pointed in the control room nearby

Anastasia gave her a nod and headed inside the room, which wasn't anything too special but it reminded her of her old room in Theresa's apartment. The Empress sat down on the bed and started wondering why everyone had disappeared.

Magnus, Kitten and The Emperor didn't show up so far, which was unusual since they usually do especially when she's doing something unusual. Maybe they are busy talking with one of her sisters, after all, they all received the Imperial Stigmata.

"Feeling alone?" Alex Mercer said as he appeared sitting on a nearby chair

Anastasia raised an eyebrow "Woah, it's rare for you to show up"

Alex shrugged "I just want to see how the world is going"

"And because he was bored" Kallen said as she also appeared sitting on the other end of the bed "Hi Ana"

"Hi Kallen" the blonde-haired woman greeted back before looking at Alex once again "Speaking of the world, why did YOU protect it?"

"Didn't you see my memories?" Alex replied as he crossed his arms

"Yeah but I want to hear it from you" Anastasia said

"Well, After I survived being nuked, I started traveling around the world to see if there was some humanity left in me" Mercer started to tell his story "I killed quite a few criminals but every time I was disappointed"

"Why is that?" Kallen asked

"Because humans proved to be selfish and that cared only for themselves" Alex said sighing "Then just when I was about to give up, The Honkai attacked out of nowhere. To nations fell one after the other as the Herrschers laid down entire armies...I thought that the survivors would just start preying on each other but instead, they started cooperating. The Honkai surrounded them and were going to kill them but since I wanted to see how long their little community could last I decided to save them...I was about to go away, after all, they saw my true colors., but instead they asked me to join them"

"Did you think that they did it only to have you by their side?" Anastasia asked

"At first, yes" Mercer said "But I accepted anyway...but they proved me wrong, they cared for me and slowly I started to care for them" his tone turned dark "Then the Honkai God showed itself and would have killed me...if it wasn't for them...they willingly asked me to consume them so that I could live...and so I did. When I was fully healed, the Honkai God was already gone and Merlin found me, at that point, I swore that I would have eradicated the Honkai and so here I am giving you my powers in order to become the best warrior around"

"You are still sure that you don't want a body of your own?" Anastasia asked

"For now...no, I'm fine here" Mercer said shrugging "You should give one at Miss Kaslana over there"

"I don't really need it" Kallen said shaking her head

"What if Sakura gets resurrected?" Alex replied as Kallen blushed

"Well...in that case..." Kallen muttered as both of Alex and Anastasia laughed a bit "H-Hey stop that"

"Anyway" Mercer said with a smirk "What's the plan? Are you going to enter the hospital guns blazing and take away Cecilia?"

Anastasia shook her head "No, I'm just going to keep her from dying of childbirth and disappear"

Kallen placed her hand on her shoulder "Why don't you stay with her a bit? Maybe you could visit Theresa in the meantime"

"Because I'm one of the most wanted person from Schicksal?" Anastasia replied

"Oh please" Mercer said shaking his head "You can literally turn yourself in someone else and you can just Obi-Wan your way through security with those powers you practiced" he said as he made a gesture "This is not the Anastasia you're looking for...hell, you could literally turn the entirety of Schicksal into your loyal followers by just them looking at you? or like make their head explode? Didn't emps taught you that?"

"You know how I don't like that power" Anastasia replied with a sigh as she shook her head.

"But you still use it" Mercer remarked

"Not now" Anastasia replied

"You should since you are meeting the Brotherhood, no?" He replied crossing his arms "Like how you did in the planets we visited so far"

"They are already our allies" Anastasia replied while steeling her eyes

Mercer immediately brought his hand to his head "Ouch"

"That's what you get" She said as she suppressed her powers from punching Alex's mind.

"Though" Kallen said "That power was essential to bring all those people under our banner...and to find the other Primarchs..." Kallen muttered

"Yes, because they were expecting a god-like being to come..." Anastasia said "Even though I'm not a God..."

"Well, neither the Emperor is but...you know...they made him into one" Kallen replied shrugging

"Yeah" Anastasia agreed as her mind got clouded by her thoughts again "I wish I had more free time like you" Anastasia said as she laid down on her bed "I have too many things to think about like where to find more soldiers"

"You are joking right? The Death Korps, The Jungle Fighters, The Helghasts, the Steel Legion and the other ton of soldiers you have is not enough?! Didn't you also said that are literally sleeping robot armies waiting to be awakened once again?" Kallen asked raising an eyebrow

"Kallen...the Honkai God is stronger than you think" Anastasia deadpanned "The soldiers we have now are enough to defend Earth but not to eliminate the threat, our mission is to kill the Honkai and free the universe from its chains"

"But the previous civilization defeated it!" Kallen said in shock

"No, they defeated its projection in real space, it already knew that the 12th herrscher was going to destroy them" The Empress said shaking her head "We have to bring the war to the Honkai Dimension and for that we need all the Primarchs, Legions, Imperial Army and everything we can muster up"

Kallen looked down at her hands before Anastasia sighed and laid down on the bed "I wish to rest a bit"

And with those words, Anastasia closed her eyes trying to contact her father or her brother, to no avail. She gave up and decided to just keep her eyes closed since she stopped resting for quite a while, her dreams were too painful for her...

Hours passed before someone knocked on her door

"Your Highness" Natalia said from the other side of the door "The Mentors are here"

Anastasia opened her eyes and got up before walking out of her room, causing Natalia to be surprised since she didn't expect the Empress to be this responsive. "Lead me to them" she said with a cold tone

Natalia nodded and brought her to a conference room where two hooded men were standing along with a woman with creamy brown skin, blue eyes and long blonde hair. The woman left the four of them alone.

"It is an honor to finally meet you face to face" The first man said he gently grabbed Anastasia and kissed it "I'm the Italian Mentor Ezio Auditore da Firenze"

The other man did the same "And I'm Levantine Mentor Altair Ibn-La'Ahad"

"Charmed" Anastasia replied before looking at the woman

"Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing" the woman said as offered Anastasia a handshake which Anastasia accepted "Not a member of the brotherhood but the leader of the Hellsing Organization"

Anastasia nodded. Hellsing Organization also belonged to a long lost civilization, Merlin told her that they allied with the Brotherhood during their apocalypse. She also knew who was observing from Integra's shadow...

"It's a pleasure to meet both of you" Anastasia replied as Integra smirked as a tall man wearing a charcoal suit, leather riding boots, and an intricately knotted red cravat, covered by a full-length, and red frock overcoat with a cape, a hat, and sunglasses.

"We got busted" the man said while sitting down

"His name is Alucard, pay no attention to him" Integra said as she started smoking a small cigar

"We were surprised when our adepts told us that you wanted to meet us in Berlin" Ezio said with a gentle tone

"I'm sorry for the sudden call" Anastasia said with a sigh "Due some...personal reasons, I had to come down here but I didn't want to waste the opportunity of meeting you, after all, your services are really beneficial for the Imperium"

"We understand" Altair said as he gestured the seats next to the group "Why don't we talk over a nice cup of tea?"

"It sounds like a good idea" Anastasia said as Ezio pulled out the chair for her "Thanks" she said sitting down as the two men did the same "First of all, I would like you to know that, while I'm the Empress, I don't want you to think that I'm infallible if you think that I'm doing something wrong or you think that you have a better solution to a certain situation, please speak and I shall listen. Ours is not some sort of interrogation, this is a friendly conversation to know better each other, for me it really important to establish a relationship of mutual respect" Anastasia immediately said as everyone nodded in understanding except Alucard who just grinned "Now, I would like to know how your order came to be, Merlin told me just the basics"

Altair and Ezio looked at each other "You start" Ezio said as Altair nodded

"The order of Assassins is not as old as the other civilizations, we don't come from this one nor the previous but we also don't come from one of the very old ones. In our civilization, the Honkai appeared quite early in forms of natural disasters but since they weren't killing humans as fast as the Honkai God would have liked, Honkai Beasts started appearing everywhere. This turned several nations into anarchies, like in Cairo."

"The place where the creed was created" Anastasia said as Altair nodded

"Our objective was to protect the freedom of those who couldn't find on their own while also creating weapons to fight the honkai" Altair explained "Which we succeeded but we didn't keep those for ourselves, every time we took care of a corrupt government, we would replace its empty ranks with our own assassins and then we would arm the warriors with Honkai powered weapons. This kept the Honkai at bay for quite a while. While researching, we discovered the way to keep our best Mentors alive indefinitely, this was both my case and Ezio's. With the centuries passing, the creed and another organization called the Templars fought against each other. We both had the same objective but while we wanted to preserve free will, they wanted full control over the people in order to achieve peace and defeat the Honkai" he said

"Unfortunately, this whole war distracted us from our main enemy and so the first Herrscher destroyed an entire nation before we could do something about it" Ezio said as he looked at his hand "I was the one who put it down...unfortunately, what followed was an escalation of disasters which led to the death of people including lots of good mentors" he said with a sigh "when we understood that we would have died soon your advisor, Merlin, told us to go into hiding and pointed us towards the bunkers of a previous civilization...regretfully we did but unlike how he told us, instead of waiting for you, we decided to help him with the gathering of allies and arsenals."

"We kept an eye of any person who Merlin injected with the Primarch Gene-seed" Altair said "Putting them down if they showed themselves to be bloodthirsty monsters. At first, we thought that you were not going to make it but then New York Happened and so we gave your position to the Space Marines who did their thing"

Anastasia slowly nodded "Why haven't you joined forces with Schicksal?"

"Because, Schicksal are Templars" Ezio said "Their organization and leader are all templars just with another name...but the enemy of my enemy is my friend and so..."

"You allied with Anti-Entropy" Anastasia concluded as the men nodded "To think that I beat the shit of Einstein" she said sighing as she suddenly felt guilty

"Kinda, we have a deal with Welt...he wasn't really happy but we managed to convince him to not go after you in New York" Ezio said "The Brotherhood created several industries to cover up our activities and to justify the influx of money we have"

"While I still have many questions for you" Anastasia said as she looked at the time on the clock and to Integra "I want to hear your story"

Integra smirked "There's not much to say, we used to fight in out old all kinds of shit including ghouls, vampires and Honkai. Everything went downhill with the Herrschers, we made contact with the Brotherhood and they were kind enough to keep me alive this far. Officially our organization is a...private security company"

"Are you even human?" Alucard suddenly asked causing everyone to freeze and Integra to facepalm and sigh "No sorry, let me change the question, you were born this way, it would be unfair to ask you something like that...Do you consider yourself as a human?"

Anastasia looked at her hands in silence before starting speaking "My body is made of machines and is genetically engineered to be way stronger than any normal being. I have no internal organs, I don't have to drink, eat or rest. I can change the shape of this body into weapons...but even so, I still feel the need those normal things...just like I feel the need to protect humanity...as long as this feeling harbors inside of me, I'm human even though my body says otherwise"

Alucard lowered his hat and leaned against the chair without uttering a word as Integra smirked

"If there aren't any other questions about my humanity, I would like to speak about the current situation" Anastasia resumed looking at the two assassins

"What do you wish to know?" Altair said

"What's your situation in the soviet union?" Anastasia asked

"The Union is one of the places where our presence is extremely necessary, the communism regime is slowly falling apart and the poor people are suffering because of it, we have several agents inside the Kremlin and our adepts are trying to help the population as best as they can" Ezio said "May I ask why are you ask this?"

"The Union is full of hidden arsenals of the previous civilizations and it's one of the few nations big enough and out of Schicksal's control for us to occupy" Anastasia said as the other two tensed up "I want to use it for the debut of the Imperium"

"That's not going to be easy" Altair said "Imperialism and Russia don't go well together"

"But if it keeps going like this, the population will suffer immensely" Anastasia replied "Me, my sisters and the former Empress of Mars are building a regime that will drastically improve the conditions there...this is why I would like to ask you to start...whispers of a possible revolution..."

Altair and Ezio paled a bit "The KGB and USSR officials will start a witch hunt if we are discovered"

"No if your agents inside the Kremlin make everyone realize that soon they will be all gone" Anastasia replied "We also have to speak about Neo Tokyo 3 and South America" she said crossing her arms "These places are of critical importance in our plans and I don't like the idea but we'll have to conquer Japan"

"The new Japanese government is composed of many of our agents. It will take a while but we could arrange something that will not require a war" Altair said with a nod "for the South American nations, unfortunately, they are under military dictatorship. We made several attempts to free them but due to the Honkai attacks, the citizens are always forced to give political power to military figures"

"The Imperial Army will take care of those" Anastasia looked at the clock once again "Lastly, have you found Rapture?"

Altair shook his head "No but we have found someone who knows its location" he said as he grabbed his phone "Her name is Eleonor Lamb, she is a former inhabitant of the city until 1968 when she returned to the surface along with several other little girls and now she manages an orphanage in Venezuela..."

"And?" Anastasia asked noticing how Altair didn't continue his introduction

"She also has a secret identity known as the 'Grande Hermana' or 'Hermana Mayor by the locals" Altair said

"Big Sister..." Anastasia translated

"Yes, she basically fights the Honkai and the cartels on her own along with a few of those little girls from Rapture, those who didn't return to their families that is, Schicksal and Anti-Entropy has kept a close eye on her but they never managed to discover her real identity...fortunately, she's a believer of our cause"

"How do you know?" The Empress asked raising an eyebrow

"Well, I paid her a visit after we discovered her identity, she's a very kind and caring woman...well, she does speak to a syringe sometimes but it seems like her moral compass. She accepted to join us on one condition" Ezio said with a chuckle

"Which is?" The pink-haired woman asked

"To speak with you" The Italian assassin replied

Anastasia remained silent for a few moments before nodding "Tell, I shall go to speak with her after dealing with the matter at hand...can you inform her? I don't want to barge in her house almost unannounced" she said as the two chuckled while nodding "It seems like my time here is over gentlemen. I must go"

"Arrivederci" Ezio said

"Goodbye" Altair, Integra, and Alucard said as Natalia entered the room and gestured Anastasia to follow her.

"Ehm...your highness, I know you didn't want me to check but Schicksal has just transferred a valkyrie in a nearby hospital" she said

Anastasia made a small smile "I know" she replied causing Natalia to frown. The Primarch left the Assassins' hideout and went to the hospital were Cecilia was.

When she was near enough, she changed her appearance to the one she used upon first arriving.

She wasn't surprised when she saw several Schicksal's valkyries guarding the place.

Then she saw her.

Theresa was coordinating the teams while also calming Siegfried, who was panicking a bit.

Anastasia brought her hand to where her heart was supposed to be, the joy of seeing Theresa again was quickly replaced by sadness.

They were so close but at the same time, they were so distant.

Anastasia walked past them without uttering a word and entered the hospital.

"I told you Sieg, everything is going to be fine" Theresa said almost exasperated before a black-haired woman walked past her.

Suddenly, she felt a slight burning sensation coming from her stigmata...the same one she felt when she was in Anastasia's mind.

She widened her eyes as she turned around in order to see the woman again, she caught a glimpse of her entering the hospital and so she followed her, ignoring Siegfried.

When she entered the facility, the woman was gone, lost between the Schicksal's troops, the nurses and doctors going around and the other people waiting for treatment.

Sieg finally caught up with the small valkyrie "What's going on?"

Theresa remained silent as she clenched her fists

"Wait...you're crying" The man said causing Theresa to immediately start rubbing her eyes

"No, I'm not" she hurriedly said "I just have something in my eyes"

Anastasia sighed, that was too close for her, who could have thought that their stigmatas would react this way, next time she will use her psychic powers to avoid that.

In that moment, the Empress was cloaked as she walked through the corridors of the hospital looking for the doctor who would have conducted the surgery.

Her mind recalled once again the image of that grim future and so she was able to identify her target. In order to locate him, she used the viral vision she got from Mercer.

The doctor was preparing himself for the operation, he was whistling as he washed his hands in order to get them sterile.

Anastasia sneaked behind him and with her psychic powers, she sent him to sleep. She then proceeded to hide his unconscious body and take his appearance.

She wasn't worried about doing a medical procedure, after all, Mercer had consumed quite a few doctors and their memories and experiences were within her.

The nurses took Cecilia in and the procedure started. Anastasia knew that up in the gallery of the surgery, Otto and Siegfried were watching probably along with Theresa...

"We have to go for a cesarean delivery" Anastasia said with the doctor's voice as the nurses nodded and prepared for the change "Prepare the anesthetic"

Suddenly, various alarms of the medical equipment went off as Anastasia widened her eyes.

In her vision, the doctor went for normal childbirth even though it was too dangerous, and so Anastasia used the cesarean delivery but now she was dying...

The truth struck her light a truck. Cecilia's conditions got worse because her body can't take this huge amount of stress after all the experimentations it went through...

Anastasia grabbed Cecilia's hand while barking orders to the medical staff in order to avert the gaze of the observers to them.

The Primarch used one of the psychic abilities, or at least, a variant of one of them. She started sharing her life force with Cecilia.

Slowly, the valkyrie's conditions got better and in end, Cecilia was able to give birth to her daughter.

After making sure that the little girl was healthy and clean, Anastasia handed her to the caring arms of Cecilia.

"My little Kiana..." She said as tears fell down her eyes

Anastasia smiled under the surgical mask and ordered the others to get Cecilia and her daughter in her room...

Later...

Cecilia was looking at the sleeping form of her daughter with wet eyes, her birth wasn't an easy one but she was immensely happy that the little Kiana was finally with them.

Siegfried went to take a snack since he didn't want to return home.

Cecilia chuckled to herself as she recalled how enthusiastic the man was when he met Kiana for the first time.

"Congratulations" A familiar voice said.

The valkyrie slowly turned her gaze in the direction of the voice, she standing right next to the window, leaning against the wall beside it. She was wearing a black hoodie and pants, her pale skin and blonde hair were the only colored things about her along with her golden eyes.

Cecilia couldn't believe her eyes, Anastasia was standing within arm's reach, she didn't change a bit since the last time she saw her, exception made for the hair.

"...Ana" Cecilia said while feeling a lump in her throat

"Yes, that's me" The other woman replied with a nod "I couldn't possibly miss my best friend giving birth..." she said not getting a reply "...Well...It was nice seeing you Cecilia..." she said, sadness now filling her being upon discovering that even Cecilia doesn't see her as a friend anymore.

"I'm sorry" Cecilia said, tears crossing her cheecks "If only I would have been strong enough to protect you...we would b-"

Anastasia looked at the woman with a gentle smile as her surroundings started to glow a bit while she gently grabbed her hand "You have nothing to apologize for...what happened was inevitable...there is...a grand scheme in motion Cecilia...and I'm one of its pawns" she whispered to her ears "It's true, I was angry, I felt betrayed but I never held grudge against you or Theresa and I have forgiven even those who turned me in what I am today, because, in the end, they gave me the tools to fulfill my task"

"What task?" Cecilia asked

"With time you'll see" Anastasia said with a smile as she let go the woman's hand "But enough of me, it seems like my calculations were right"

At those words, the white-haired woman tilted her head confused "What calculations?"

"Sieg showed himself up again after all" The other one replied before they both started chuckling a bit.

"Yes, he forced Otto to take him in" Cecilia replied with a nod "Lots of things happened since then..."

"I had the pleasure to meet those things" Anastasia replied as she eyed the sleeping Kiana.

"Oh? What? You meeting my little Kiana was in that grand scheme of yours?" The Valkyrie joked

Anastasia smirked as she shapeshifted her appearance returning to look like the doctor "Nope, just a vision of mine"

"You didn't..." Cecilia started to ask

"Nah, he's taking a nap right now" The Empress replied "I saw you dying during birth so I took his place and made sure that nothing would have happened to you or your Kiana..." she said before something caught her attention "Unfortunately, my time here is over, I have to go, Cecilia take care" She said as she called her Lighting Eagle through the Nanosuit.

"Wait!" Cecilia said grabbing her hand "You have to talk to Theresa! She misses you a lot"

The Primarch shook her head "I can't but tell her that there is no day where I don't think about her and our time together and that I did not forget the promise I made with her" she said before looking at the door

In that moment, Siegfried rushed inside with a worried expression "Someone knocked out the doctor!" he said before his eyes turned towards the stranger in the room

"Hello there" Anastasia said before jumping out of the window

Siegfried rushed to his wife's side and started checking on her "Are you alright?!" he said panicked as Kiana started crying

"Yes, Ziggy" Cecilia replied with a beaming smile as the alarms went off outside.

Anastasia surpassed the Schicksal block without too many problems, and was now standing on top of an elevated parking lot, she had to take care of someone first.

Otto was standing behind her with a golden weapon pointed at her back along with another girl she never saw before "You can't escape now Anastasia, we blocked all this area"

"Really?" Anastasia asked as she turned around "What makes you think that I can't call my soldiers like I did last time?"

"I will do anything in my power to bring you down, even blowing up this city" Otto threatened her while the other girl looked at him with a perplexed expression.

The Empress sighed, at the same moment, Otto smirked as she was caught by an EMP impulse.

"But I will not need to do that if you can't contact them" The Overseer said with a dark tone "Fu Hua apprehend her"

He said but Fu hua didn't move but instead assumed a fighting position.

"I wasn't expecting that, I'll give you that" Anastasia said as she pulled herself up. Her body was slightly glowing with energy thanks to the Aldnoah charging up the nanomachines in her body.

"And here I hoped that I could solve this without using violence" Otto said

"Oh really?" Anastasia replied smirking "Well, I have no intention to fight today" She said as stepped on the edge of the building "I have places where I need to be"

"I already told you, you can't go anywhere" Otto said as he smiled "Come down and let's talk"

Anastasia chuckled as a mischievous expression appeared on her face "You don't know how wrong you are" she said before jumping off

Both Fu Hua and Otto rushed to see where the former Jäger went but there was no trace left of her.

"She's invisible" Otto concluded as he turned on the communications "To all units, the target is invisible, use any sensor at your disposal to track her down"

Venezuela.

Anastasia appeared with her ship above the Venezuelan coast. She was trying to keep her laughter at bay.

She was imagining the Schicksal troops trying to find her in Berlin but in reality, she literally has changed continent in a matter of seconds.

"Jeez" BB said as her hologram appeared above the commands of the starfighter "Making me rush like that..."

"Sorry BB" Anastasia replied as she calmed down

"Anyway, we are at the coordinates that the Assassins sent us" the AI said with a sigh

Anastasia slowly nodded as she looked outside of the window of the starfighter, a lonely building near the coast towered above the trees.

The Empress started her descent and landed on the beach in front of the orphanage. She got out of her vehicle and walked up to the door of the building.

Back in Germany, it was early in the morning but here it was barely the evening.

She knocked on the door and a woman in a maid dress opened the door "Yes?" she asked in Portuguese.

"The Mentor Ezio Auditore told me that Eleonor wanted to see me" Anastasia replied in English

The maid nodded and stepped aside letting the Primarch enter the building.

The place was quite clean, and the laughter of the children could be heard through the corridors. The walls had several childish drawings on them. Anastasia spot with the corner of her eyes the small group of kids staring at her from the corner of one of the corridors, probably wondering who she was. Anastasia waved at them causing the children to run away

The maid led her to the principal office before knocking on the door "Miss Eleanor, she's here" she said

After a few seconds, the door opened and a woman with long brunette hair, pale skin and blue eyes appeared "Thank you Marie, you can go" she said as the maid bowed her head and walked away "please come in" she then said to the pink-haired woman, who felt a stinging sensation coming from her stigmata.

Anastasia nodded and entered the office, the other woman sat in front of her and smiled "When I asked to meet with you, I never thought that it would have been this soon, your majesty"

The Empress smiled "I happened to swing by" she said calmly

"let's get to the point, shall we?" Eleanor said getting a nod "You want to know where Rapture is"

"Indeed" Anastasia replied nodding "We have reason to believe that the city will be essential for humanity's survival, its position and nature would allow us to have a strategic base in the Atlantic"

Eleanor slowly nodded "Yes, Ezio already told me that but how can I know that you're not another Andrew Ryan?"

"To be honest" Anastasia said with a sigh "Besides what I've been told about, I don't know much about Rapture myself but I know one thing, what happened down there was a tragedy that I'm not willing to repeat, but to my eyes, its existence while seemingly cursed it's also beautiful. Rapture is a testament to what humanity is capable of creating, what happened is the result of total isolation that led to insanity and disorder. I will not, let Rapture be isolated again, I would share it with the world"

"Well...that doesn't sound communist at all" Eleanor joked

Anastasia chuckled "I'm trying to build a new government to replace the Soviet Union, changing things too much would work against me"

Eleanor slowly nodded before placing her hand on a wooden box and opening it revealing a syringe full with some kind of liquid "Every year, I return there to remember who I am and the principles I fight for... you're telling me that you want to make that nightmarish place return to its former glory...but those are words...if I give you the coordinates, I have no guarantee that you will not just turn it into your personal fortress. I believe in your cause Empress, I believe that humanity must be protected from the Honkai and that someone has to take the matter on his hands...but I've seen many people during my life who used pretty words to get what they wanted to and then turned their backs on those who believed them"

"I understand" Anastasia said as she felt the stigmata pulsating "Then why don't you check me yourself?"

"What?" Eleanor asked confused

"Do you know what a Primarch is?"

"Yes, Ezio told me about those" the brunette woman replied nodding

Anastasia nodded "Good, along with my word, I offer you to become a Primarch"

Eleanor was more than shocked, she looked at the syringe on the table and cleared her throat "I'll have to think about it..." she said as she grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something on it before giving it to woman in front of her "These are the coordinates..."

Anastasia nodded and got up "Thank you Eleanor...call Ezio when if you accept my offer" she said before starting to walk out of the room

"Wait..." Eleanor said while sighing "what...comes with becoming a Primarch?"

Anastasia turned around a golden aura was emanating from her "Your body will be changed deeply, maybe it will not show in the outside but you'll feel it. Aside all the superhuman abilities you'll get, you will also carry the burden of all humanity, you'll have to be ready to give up your life in order to achieve our goal, it means contributing to the creation of a better society, it means leading soldiers in battle and making hard decisions. It means...having undying loyalty towards humanity and incredible courage...it means fighting for all that is beautiful"

Eleanor slowly nodded understanding what Anastasia meant, she threw a look at the syringe "...my father taught me a lot of things...he is kind, forgiving and merciful...I always wanted to be like him...I accept your offer, let me help you save humanity"

9 Months later

Since that day in South America, things had changed a lot.

The news of the discovery of the Sixth Primarch caused a general increase of the morale of the troops.

The tech-priests had managed to study the devices of Rapture and to combine them with the other devices developed by the UNSC and the Vers Empire.

The Delta Legion was created and it was composed of a thousand Astartes so far. Eleanor provided the tech-priests with the syringe she always kept with her.

The Mechanicus with the usage of a device called Vita-chamber they recovered from Rapture were able to rebuild and modify the man.

This was how the Praetor of the Delta Legion was created, his name was Delta or like the citizens of Rapture called him 'Johnny Topside'

But the real revolution arrived after the recovery of the nanotech which finally allowed the production of new Astartes without too many problems. Each Primarch now had at least a chapter and of course, the numbers were increasing. Anastasia's Crimson Slayers also received the nanomachines in order to keep up with the Space Marines of the other Primarchs.

The Imperium was closer than ever to its return to Terra, only one last arsenal must be recovered and the Empress was already taking care of it.

Anastasia was about to get on board of a satellite type of structure called the bunker, Merlin had warned her that this facility has no humans but only androids who had fought for eleven thousand years against the honkai. The stormbird she was traveling on opened the cargo door letting Anastasia, her custodes escort, the space marines, and blue team get out with their equipment.

The group maneuvered themselves until they were able to get a hold on the structure in order to stay still in space, Anastasia hacked the entrance and opened what was called 'Flight Unit bay'. The squadron entered the facility and gravity quickly pulled them on the ground.

Master Chief gestured Blue Team to check all the dark corners of the room while the Space Marines simply moved forward but make no mistake they were in high alert. Anastasia was in front of the whole group, even though she wasn't wearing her Power Armor she was ready for anything.

She opened what seemed like an elevator "Check the radio" she said before getting inside the elevator which quickly closed itself.

The group remained in silence waiting for a signal from their leader...

"All clear" Anastasia said through the radio.

The Space Marines looked at the elevator and shook their heads "We're pinned here" one of them said seeing how impossible is for them to fit inside the small elevator.

"Roger that" Chief replied as he and blue team all took the elevator.

Blue team reunited with Anastasia they were welcomed with a weird sensation. There was only one very long corridor and everything was colored black and white.

The entire place had a certain eerie feeling that made everyone in there feel that this place wasn't meant for humans.

"BB" Anastasia called to the AI "Why weren't you installed here?"

"The YoRHa firewall had a massive backdoor that was a bit too dangerous for me to approach" BB replied

"Why didn't you...just closed it?"

"The Firewall is not as easy to crack as you think" BB replied as she sighed "The only thing that I did, is to create a virus to shut down all the YoRHa units inside the bunker in order to keep them from dying on the battlefield, then when the honkai threat returned to their home after gleefully annihilating their opponents, I started working on fixing the system, I closed the backdoor and removed the virus, but even with all the time and comfort I could get it took me many years to assume control of the YoRHa system" BB said

"Wait" Master Chief said as he stopped his tracks "Then you're in control of this place"

"Yes" BB replied as she chuckled a bit "I'm turning everything on right now"

Anastasia sighed internally 'I hate BB when she acts like this' she thought

"This is why I don't like Sentient Machines" The Emperor said as he appeared in Anastasia HUD

"Good Morning father" Anastasia said "If it is morning in your universe..."

The whole structure turned on, revealing a long bright white corridor and an insignia on the wall along with the words 'For the Glory of Mankind'.

The sound of doors sliding open caused the whole group to point their guns towards the direction of the noise.

A woman with long blonde hair, a white dress and wielding a riding crop came out of one of the doors on the sides of the corridor, she holding her head with her free hand as if she was having a headache. She didn't seem to notice the armored spartans or Anastasia until she slowly turned her gaze towards them.

Silence filled the air, as the woman's expression changed in very quick succession between expressions of shock and seriousness. She steadied herself as she assumed a more dignified posture.

"This is a military structure, put down your weapons or suffer the consequences" She said with a cold tone as the sounds of doors sliding open filled the corridors many times before several other female figures appeared, all wearing several different clothing but with the same black pattern, also most of them were blindfolded for some reason. One among these women placed herself on the blonde woman's side while holding a white katana in her hands.

She had short white hair, was wearing a black dress with a skirt and had some kind of small robot hovering behind her.

"Commander, who are these people?" someone said from behind the blonde woman.

He was the only man in the group of women, he was short making him look like a teenager at best, he also had white hair and was also blindfolded.

"We are surrounded" Frederic-104 said as he saw more women coming from behind them

"Stay calm, don't make sudden movements" Master Chief said

"I can shut them down again if you want" BB said through the comms

"Negative" Anastasia replied as she placed herself in front of Blue Team. "We are not here to fight" she said with a calm tone

"And yet, you entered here armed" the blonde woman replied "Tell me why shouldn't we kill you on the spot?"

"It wouldn't be a wise decision since you're outgunned and outnumbered" Anastasia replied gesturing the window.

The Blonde woman turned her gaze towards the emptiness of space and saw the Imperial Navy floating near the Bunker with their guns pointed towards them.

"COMMANDER!" An operator shouted as she came out of the command room "THIS IS TERRIBLE! WE ARE SURROUNDED BY-"

"I know 6O" The blonde woman replied

Anastasia remained silent as she allowed the woman in front of her to elaborate on the situation. "Who are you?" the YoRHa commander asked with a serious tone.

"My name is Anastasia, current Empress of the Imperium of Man, we are here to make an alliance with you" Anastasia replied as she gestured Chief and the others to lower their weapons

"You...are humans?!" the young man from before asked "I thought you were all ex-"

"Quiet 9S" The Blonde woman said raising her hand

Anastasia looked at the one called 9S and nodded "Yes, we are" she replied with a nod "At least, my men are"

"What does that mean?" the YoRHa commander asked as she narrowed her eyes.

"I don't want to give you lies" Anastasia said as her harms turned into claws "I'm...something akin to Bioweapon...it's hard to explain right now but with time everything will be revealed to you"

"A Bioweapon...against what?" the woman next to the YoRHa Commander asked

"Against the Honkai of course" Anastasia replied as whispers filled the Androids ranks "They are still here, and are still a threat"

Silence filled the area, tension started rising up as the YoRHa Commander and Anastasia stared at each other.

"Lower your weapons" The YoRHa commander ordered as slowly and reluctantly the other units lowered their weapons "The YoRHa was created with the objective of defending humanity...our task has not changed...there are still a lot of things that are unclear but as for now..." she said as she put her hand on her chest "Glory To Mankind!"

The Commander's actions caused all the other Androids to imitate her...

UNSC Infinity, months later

After the mission to recruit the YoRHa in the imperium ranks, the final procedures of the Imperium's return began, the Brotherhood used its influence to prepare the ground for it and soon the operations would have started.

Blue Team was put on standby and so the Spartans all returned to their quarters. The UNSC spaceship was pretty empty due to the death of most of the crew eons ago, it's inhabitants were all the spartans that survived to the great fall of the UNSC who were now under the command of the Primarch Samus Aran, The Honoured Hunters, the Space Marines clad in blue with red outlines Power Armor who serve the Primarch, and the guardsman and mechanicus assigned to the legion along with the Adepta Sororitas created with Samus' altered gene-seed.

The ship itself was being piloted by the AI BB, which proved herself far superior to any other UNSC AI.

Master Chief was inside his private quarters sitting on his bed while staring at a small object in his hand...Cortana's chip.

The small object had several cracks on it which were pulsating with honkai energy...he had lost her...he failed to protect her...and she sacrificed herself to save his life...the honkai corruption was supposed to get him not her.

"Still mourning her" A voice came from the edge of the door.

John quickly put the chip away before looking at the woman that was standing at the entrance of his quarters. His new boss, the Primarch Samus Aran, she was the kind of woman who while putting on a mask of coldness deeply cares for her soldiers, she was also one of the few Primarchs who didn't always follow proper etiquettes like the Empress or Apollyon.

"It's just to remind myself of my promise, ma'am" John replied as he got up and walked at the entrance "Do you need something?"

Samus crossed her arms and nodded "Halsey wants you on the deck, I already told the rest of blue team to go there"

"Do you know what's this all about?" the Spartan asked as he came out of his room and the two started walking towards the commanding deck

"All the preparation outside of Earth are finally over, the Empress will hold a speech before starting returning to the planet" Samus said

"How are things down there?" Chief asked as the Bounty Hunter sighed.

Samus had just returned from a solo mission on Earth, the objective was to make sure that the allies on the ground were ready for the deployment of the Imperial Forces.

"The Brotherhood has secured Masyaf for our arrival and prepared the citizens of the Soviet Union for our arrival, the civilians have started a cult of the Imperium, but our first stop will in Antarctica where Chaldea is" Samus replied

"Finally we'll meet BB's master" Master Chief remarked

"indeed " The former Bounty Hunter replied "While we take care of that the Delta Legion and a portion of the Imperial Army will take control of South America while the others will recover the last ancient arsenals. The Empress will personally go to Moscow"

"Russia is the nation with Rhodes Island, Sangivis Ferri and the GK Troops, correct?" John asked as Samus nodded

"Yes...Asseylum will go with Anastasia's Adepta Sororitas and a chapter of the Crimson Slayers while Akame and her Death Ravens will sneak inside the Asian nations to recover the mechs of the previous civilization and will recover Rhodes Island. Apollyon will recover the Azur Lane and the Fleet girls...Esdeath will recover the revenants" she explained "Najenda will take care of Japan while Leone of the Middle-East"

"The Middle-East? I thought that we were not going to attack nations that are not strictly necessary" the spartan said

"We can't have Syria isolated from the rest of the Imperium, we will not conquer the whole Middle-East just those we need to connect Syria and the Soviet Union" Samus replied

John nodded as the two finally reached their destination. Many Spartans along with Blue Team and Doctor Halsey were on the commanding deck, The Spartan and the Primarch gave the Doctor a nod of greeting before their gaze turned to the AI that was projecting itself on the table that was next to Halsey.

"Okay then, All the spartans are gathered, now we just have to wait for the YoRHa forces to be ready." BB said as she chuckled

Meanwhile, all the people personnel on the deck were staring at the massive screen that was showing the Imperial Aquila meaning that soon enough the Empress will make a speech.

"finally we will see our deployment against the Honkai" Frederick said

"We spent years preparing for this moment" Kelly replied as she clenched her fists

Suddenly the Aquila disappeared from the screen and Anastasia took its place, she had a serious and solemn expression on her face, she was in her 'Empress Mode'.

"Brothers and Sisters" Anastasia said breaking the silence "My sons and daughters...Years ago, you have found me and the task of defending humanity and defeating the Honkai was bestowed upon me...since then we all worked together to create an army prepared to face that cruel God that has been haunting the galaxy for far too long! For years we have gathered, recruited, rediscovered warriors, weapons and technology and we have planned the day that the Imperium will finally reveal itself to the world! And now, on February 2th of the Second Millennium, that day is closer than ever! We must be quick and precise, our objective is to recover the Security Organization Chaldea, Rhodes Island, Grifon Kryuger, Sangivis Ferri, NERV, Azur Lane, The Fleet Girls and lastly the Iron Mechas" she said as her eyes were filled with determination "We will take over the Soviet Union, South America and Japan where we'll deploy our main forces. From that point forward, we'll start boosting our numbers and then we'll take war to the Honkai God and show him that humanity will no longer stand his existence! WE WILL DESTROY HIM! FOR EVERYONE'S SAKE, TO AVENGE THOSE WHO FELL BEFORE US AND TO GRANT A BRIGHT FUTURE TO HUMANITY!" she spoke as her voice volume got higher and higher "FOR HUMANITY! FOR TERRA! FOR ALL THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!" she shouted

At that point, all the communication were filled with cheers from every single company withing the Imperial Forces

"GLORY TO MANKIND!" the YoRHa units replied

"FOR THE EMPEROR! FOR THE EMPRESS! FOR THE IMPERIUM! FOR TERRA!" The Adeptus Astartes replied

"PRAISE THE OMNISSIAH!" The Adeptus Mechanicus responded from Mars

John looked at Cortana's chip before raising his fist "For all that is beautiful" he said causing all the Spartans to follow his example as the ships approached the planet...

Chapter Text

Siberia, Babylon Tower

Einstein, Welt. Siegfried and Theresa were inside the Honkai reactor of the Schicksal facility Babylon Tower, the group was looking for the 2nd Herrscher by using Theresa's Oath of Judah. The group was about to depart when the blue-haired scientist received an urgent called from Tesla, who was at the Anti-Entropy camp 30 km away from the tower.

"Tesla something happened?" Einstein said as she accepted the call "Your mechs have found the Herrscher?"

"Einstein...check our satellites" Tesla said with a trembling voice causing Welt and Siegfried to raise an eyebrow

The scientist connected her tablet to AE satellites, after a few seconds the video feed appeared on the screen and caused her to pale and to put her hand on her mouth. Welt walked to her side and had a similar reaction.

At this point, Siegfried and Theresa got interested and looked at the small screen. What they saw were countless gothic-looking spaceships entering Earth's atmosphere and spreading towards several continents

Theresa took a few steps back in shock as she recognized the ships "Ana..." she whispered causing the rest of the group to stare at her

"You mean...Your sister Theresa?" Siegfried asked cautiously

Einstein froze in place when the name of the woman who cost her several months of rehabilitation reached her ears.

Theresa slowly nodded "A ships similar to those ones attacked our base when she went rogue...I...met her soldiers and they referred to her as Empress but I didn't think that..."

"Your sister took the control of South America" Tesla said through the radio "She took out the chains of command of the armies and the capitals, it's a matter of time before the armies surrender...wait what?! Japan, Syria and Turkey are in the same condition?!"

"It's impossible" Siegfried quickly interrupted "Conquering half continent is already something but attacking three nations on different sides of the world is something else!"

"Not if she has space travel, hers is a massive fleet and yet we never detected it meaning that they kept themselves away from our detection systems meaning that FTL travel for them is not a problem" Welt said as he put his hand on his chin

"FT what?" Siegfried asked

"Faster than light travel caveman" Tesla said sighing

"Oh" the man replied

"It's possible..." Theresa said "The ship that took Anastasia away appeared on Mars' orbit a few hours after the attack"

"Wait..there's more!" Tesla shouted in shock

Meanwhile in a Red Army Military base

Cocolia was sitting on the bed of her cell before she heard a sudden commotion coming from the outside, the woman looked first at the camera on top of her before making her way to the door where she could see through the small opening on the top of the door.

"This can't be!" a guard said in Russian as he stared at the TV

"Aleksey what's going on!" Cocolia shouted as Colonel Alexey stepped in front of her door.

His face was pale as a sheet of paper, he was sweating and shaking "Moskva fell Cocolia" he muttered "We received the order to surrender and wait for the new army to instruct us with new orders"

Cocolia widened her eyes in shock before quickly narrowing her eyes "Don't fuck with me Aleksey! There is no army on this planet that can conquer Moskva in so little time no matter how strong!"

"Step Away from the door Cocolia" Aleksey shouted causing the woman to stumble back a bit, he opened the cell and handcuffed her before dragging her where the TV was.

The screen showed the red square filled with burning tanks and Red Army Soldiers being taken as POW giant soldiers with massive armors, then she saw bipedal mechs walking through the streets looking for any tank. The sky was filled with hovering spaceships, unknown aircraft were flying above the city assuring their air supremacy. Along with those bipedal mechs, Cocolia saw tanks that she never saw before, like the things she has seen so far, they were massive and filled with guns. Gas-Masked soldiers were keeping the civilians in check.

The transmission cut to show a woman with Blonde Hair and Golden eyes, she was towering above everything and clad in golden armor. The woman started speaking...

"Citizens of the Soviet Union, fear not, I, Anastasia Apocalypse, Empress of the Imperium of man, have no intention of bringing you any harm, I am here to protect you from the threat that you know as Honkai. During these years you have waited for my arrival and now I'm here to uphold the promises that my messengers made. Soldiers of the Red Army, lower your weapons and join our cause, if you do that I swear that no harm will come from us, I don't want to spill more human blood that has already been. We have discovered that the Second Herrscher has already appeared in Siberia, come to Moskva and we'll grant you protection." The woman said as the transmission ended.

Cocolia was speechless for a few seconds "What are you going to do Aleksey?" she muttered

"I'm going to pick up my wife and go to Moskva" Aleksey replied

"So you want to betray our nation?" Cocolia barked

"ONE THING IS FOR SURE! I'M NOT GOING TO DIE LIKE OUR COMRADES IN MOSKVA! THE SOVIET UNION IS NO MORE!" he shouted before dragging back Cocolia to her holding cell "Cocolia...I hope that you will rethink about all of this, I'll come back with my wife and then we'll go to Moskva...you can come with us"

"What about General Colonel, you should have received his instructions correct?" Cocolia replied

"He wants all the Red Army forces in Siberia to rally in Novosibirsk to organize a counter-attack" Aleksey muttered "I thought he was smarter than that"

"And what about this Herrscher?" she asked

"It's true but he said that it's just an invention to scare us but I know that Shicksal has lost contact with one of their labs here in Siberia" The Colonel said before walking away "Comrades prepare for departure! We are going to Moskva!" he ordered...

Antarctica

Samus, her legion, her Spartans, the Mechanicus and the Adepta Sororitas had landed in front of Chaldea's headquarters, BB had allowed them to get through the Magnetic Field that was protecting the structure. The Primarchar entered followed by her soldiers, they found themselves walking through long white corridors when the sound of hells filled the air causing everyone to stop and point their weapons in the direction of the sound.

BB was now standing in front of them wearing her usual black coat with a mini skirt and thigh high stockings. She was just like in the holograms though her long purple hair and eyes seemed prettier in person.

"Hello!" She said waving her head

"Meat detec-" A Skiitari said before interrupting himself "Error"

Samus lowered her weapon and smirked "Hello BB" she said calmly as everyone relaxed "It's nice to finally meet you"

BB just nodded "It is time for you to fulfill your promise"

Samus nodded knowing very well what this promise was all about. It was made by Anastasia after first meeting BB, it was the reason why BB allied herself with the Imperium after all. The Primarch followed the AI through the corridors until they found themselves inside a room full of some sort of capsules. Samus starting the read names on each screen of the devices

Leonardo Da Vinci: Conditions Normal

Romani Archman: Conditions Normal

Olga Marie Animusphere: Conditions Normal

Sherlock Holmes: Conditions Normal

Ritsuka Fujimaru: Critical Conditions, Honkai Corruption at 98%

Samus looked at the young man inside the capsule, his body was covered with zombification symptoms, the only parts that were spared were his head and right hand where there was a symbol representing the command seals that bonded him to his servants.

Samus looked at the tech-priests that she brought with her and gestured them to take care of the young man

"I don't want him to turn into a machine" BB immediately said crossing her arms

"They will see what we can with our conventional means otherwise Anastasia will do it herself as part of our deal" Samus said as both of the Spartans and the Space Marines started to get agitated.

"My Primarch" An Honoured Hunter called "The Second Herrscher has made its appearance in Siberia"

"What news from the Empress?" Samus replied

BB seemed to stare at the emptiness before looking at Samus "She ordered the Orbital Fleet to aim at the moon"

Samus raised an eyebrow before she felt her stigmata giving her a burning sensation, she started following that sensation until she found herself in front of another capsule.

Mash Kyrielight: Life Support Engaged, Critical Conditions

"BB" Samus said turning towards the AI "Tell the Empress that another sister has been found"

GK HQ

Anastasia's Adepta Sororitas were cautiously making their way through the corridors of the military base of the Griffin Kryuger, at their side, there were the Crimson Slayers escorting the Empress' right hand and former Empress of Mars, Asseylum, behind them there were the Skitarii and their masters. Merlin had warned her that when the organization isolated themselves they were fighting the Honkai Corrupted androids of the Soviet Army of their civilization, since they just entered the base they didn't come across any of those except for their deactivated bodies.

Suddenly one of the Astartes stopped everyone's tracks before pointing his weapon at a camera that was tracking their movements.

"Welcome to the Griffin Kryuger secret strategic base" the voice of a man said from the speakers "I would welcome you but I'm afraid that the monsters that have followed us back in our day are still there and we lack the resources to take them out...but where are my manners, I'm Berezovich Kryuger co-founder of the Griffin Kryuger...can I ask who am I speaking to?"

"I'm Amitiel Redshield, Chapter Master of the 4th Chapter of the Red Slayers Legion" The Chapter Master as he stepped out of the way to show the only not heavily armored person within their team.

"My name is Asseylum Vers Allusia, emissary of Empress of Mankind Anastasia Apocalypse. I was sent here to recover you and your men to respect the deal that you made with Merlin before your isolation. May I ask you why are you already awake?" Asseylum asked

"We had sensors installed at the entrance, you triggered them and we woke up" Kryuger replied "further on there quite a few foes, I hope your weapons are suited for the job, a few of them are well armored"

"Your worry is unnecessary, my Battle Brothers will take down anyone who steps in front of our Empress' path" Amitiel replied "Come brothers!" he shouted as the Space Marines started rushing through the corridors

"Lady Asseylum, stay behind me" Saria, canoness of Anastasia's Adepta Sororitas, said as her and her sisters followed the space marines into the depth of the base.

Their descend was a silent one and each corner could have been an ambush...but neither the Space Marines nor the Sister of Battle had any fear. Then the air was filled with a loud bang as a Space Marine fired his boltgun against a zombie-looking being. Everyone stopped their tracks but the sound of footsteps did not stop, the sound was coming from all direction

"Protect Lady Asseylum!" Saria shouted as the Sisters of Battle placed themselves around the counselor and pointed their boltguns and flamers towards the empty dark corridors.

Then they appeared, some were humanoid androids with purple energy coming out of their cracks showing that they were being controlled by the Honkai, along with them there were less humanoid robots, all of them were carrying all sorts of assault rifles and machine guns. Along with those there were literal zombies running towards the group, their skin seemed to be covered with some sort of shell but it didn't keep them from running towards them.

The Astartes, The Skitarii and the Sisters of Battle opened fire against the incoming threat. The bolters were mowing down the androids while the flamers were melting the zombies in their shell causing a foul smell to spread around them, the armored robots were being struck by the Skitarii vanguard which quickly dispatched them. Silence fell around the soldiers before the sound of very heavy footsteps reached the soldiers' ears.

It was one of those zombies but unlike the previous ones, it was huge and its shell was so thick that even the bolter rounds were only scratching its surface.

"Hold your fire!" Amitiel shouted at the top of his lungs before grabbing his hammer and charging towards the amalgamation.

He blocked the arm swing of the creature with his weapon and pushed it away before striking what it looked like its head causing the beast to stumble backward allowing the Chapter Master thrust his power fist into the middle of the monster, the attack pulverized its shell, flesh and bones.

The space marine in Terminator armor started walking towards him before lighting up the corpse of the beast with their heavy flamers.

"Thank you Chapter Master" Asseylum said bowing her head in front of of the man

"It is my duty and honor" Amitiel replied also bowing his head in sign of respect.

The group resumed their descend, they did run into more of those Honkai Controlled robots and androids which the mechanicus called 'Imprisoned Machine Spirits'. The group found themselves in front of a vault door which started opening itself up in front of them.

The members of the Imperium found themselves looking at several individuals all being on wheelchairs, probably due to being just out of suspended animation, and accompanied by a few dozens of armed female soldiers who looked quite nervous after seeing the sizes of the Legio Astartes.

"Who is Berezovich Kryuger among you?" Asseylum asked with a friendly tone breaking the ice

"it's me" one of the people in the wheelchair said. He was rather muscular, he was probably a veteran due to the several scars on his face, he had dark brown hair with some white enforcing the idea of him being an experienced soldier.

Asseylum bowed her head a bit in a sign of respect for the man before looking back into his eyes with a determined expression "As much I would to make the proper introduction we are on a state of emergency" she said causing several of the people in front of her to frown "The second Herrscher has already appeared and the Imperial Army is about to coordinate the counterattack, I was tasked with the task of recovering you and make you combat capable"

"We lack the equipment" One of the people replied "And the Neural Server to save up the Digimind our tactical dolls and some of them need special preparation since they can't be backed up"

Asseylum nodded "The Empress predicted this reply" she said as the Mechanicus started bringing in several containers "This is special equipment, due to the training needed to use it, we were not able to train many soldiers into using it. You'll be connected to our Moon server, you can upload the digiminds of your soldiers there once you did, the training and the data on our troops will be shared with them in order to avoid any issue." she then sighed "But...the Fabricator-General Abrariel Cybios also asked me to refer to you that for any machine spirit interested and willing to go under an experimental procedure, your current body will be scrapped and a new one will be provided by the Adeptus Mechanicus...if you wish to undergo such operation just ask me"

The woman who had pinkish hair and what seemed like cat ears on top of her head didn't like the sound of that at all...the others were slightly concerned but after all, T-dolls will have backups so if anything goes wrong it will not really matter much.

The announcement caused several tech-priest to look excitingly at the G&K soldiers looking if there were any machine spirits among them but it didn't seem like it...One of the soldiers looked at the containers and got the attention of a tech-priest which immediately understood that the female soldier in front of him was not human but a machine. This caused quite the commotion within the mechanicus who began to inspect the soldiers.

If the Emperor hadn't sent the most 'progressive' mechanicus along with the Crimson Slayers this situation would be way more dangerous, there would be way more people screaming about techno-heresy and lots of shooting, the choice of sending these Adeptus Mechanicus proved itself to be the best one since they would have probably turned into dark mechanicum during the Horus Heresy. This is one of the main reasons why they followed Anastasia, she did allow them to conduct their researches as long as it didn't include brutal operation conducted on human living beings or AIs and gave them access to ancient tech and also removed the rule of not studying Xeno tech.

"Don't disrespect the machine spirits!" suddenly a tech-priest shouted causing everyone to stop and apologize to the tactical dolls leaving them puzzled by the amount of respect they were getting

"I apologize for their behavior" Asseylum said with a small smile causing Kryuger to chuckle

"As long as no harm comes in their way, there is no need to apologize" the man replied

"I know it's a lot to ask since you're not physically capable but I have to ask you to coordinate the operations of your soldiers, we don't want them to be commanded by someone who are not familiar with" The Emissary said calmly.

"We'll do it" Cryuger replied "Gentiane, Jun Shi, Kamolov, Kawasaki, Franklin, and Richtofen. I want you to immediately head in the command room...Helian you go with them"

"Wait what are these?!" suddenly one of the GK tactical dolls said as the Mechanicus opened the containers revealing several sets of armors.

"This is what will allow you and your titan to go toe to toe with the abominable honkai beasts" One of the tech-priests said as he grabbed one of the armors "It has been studied to allow an acceptable amount of protection along with high maneuverability and speed. It is a combination of ODST armor, jump kit and 3D maneuvering gear that we've recovered during our journeys"

"Wait...What's a titan?" The tactical doll asked tilting her head

Asseylum chuckled upon hearing this and was about to walk outside when...

"Ma'am" A tactical doll called them causing the counselor to turn around "For that upgrade...I'm interested, I will do it"

Later outside

M4, STAR-15, RO635, and Sopmod II were staring at the iron giant in front of them, they were already wearing the new equipment and their minds were connected with the Moon Cell meaning they had access to the data of the Imperium. The thing that was in front of them was called Frontier-Type Titan, it was recovered by the Imperium during their journey in the frontier. This type of titan was not to confused with the titans of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

"Hi!" Sopmod II said waving her hand to the towering machines which stared at their hands for a few seconds as if they were analyzing them before waving back at her "Which one of you is my partner?"

One of the giant machines, a Legion Type of Titan kneeled in front of her "I'm LV-141, you're my assigned pilot" it said as he placed its hand on the ground in front of SOP

"Nice to meet you!" the tactical doll replied as she stepped on the hand of her titan before being placed inside its body.

The other titans knelt in front of their respective pilots. M4 got an Ion-Class while STAR-15 a Northstar and RO635 a Monarch-Class titan.

"Woah" M4 said as she entered the titan, she had the training imprinted inside her digimind, she knew thew procedures but seeing them and doing them left her with a feeling of awe

"This is so awesome!" Sop said through the radio as she started walking her titan "RO look!"

"Calm down Sop! There are people around us, it's dangerous!" RO replied sighing

"It's easier than I thought" Star 15 said as she starting walking with her Northstar

"yeah" M4 agreed as she checked the weapon systems when suddenly someone literally knocked on the back of her titan causing the tactical doll to be surprised.

When M4 turned around, she saw another Ion-Class titan "Still getting used to these? Are you thinking that you'll be able to fight before the Honkai God shows up?" UMP45 said through the radio

"Oh come on captain, cut her some slack" G11 said as she joined the two with her Monarch-Class titan

"I was only joking, I hope I didn't offend you" 45 replied with a giggle

"No offense taken" M4 replied coldly "Do you know what is our current objective?"

"We are going to the Sangvis" 45 replied causing everyone to stop what they were doing

"FUCK YEAH!" Sop shouted as her titan showed off its massive minigun "Time to kick some serious Sangvis asses!"

"To recover them" 45 concluded causing again to stop everyone's actions

"what?" Everyone asked shocked

"It seemed like the Imperium has a deal with Mastermind" 45 said

"We could..." Sop muttered "literally...stomp them..."

M4 remained silent, as the thought of seeing her again kept her mind busy. Star 15 caught wind about what M4 was thinking and had to admit that she was uneasy when thinking about that doll. "Does the commander know?"

"Which one?" 45 joked before understanding that M4 wasn't in the mood for jokes "The poor widower commander has been already informed...As soon as everything is set, we'll depart to go there" 45 said calmly "I'll leave you to think about it. G11, you come with me"

The two walked away leaving M4 to stare at the sky filled with Imperial Spaceships.

Neo Tokyo 3

Najenda was making her wait through the NERV base of Neo Tokyo 3, the Imperial Army had already took control over Tokyo after a few skirmishes with the JSDF, and had forced the population to stay home, the airports were shut down and the Imperial Ships were waiting for a possible counterattack of the United States Army. Najenda would have been here if it wasn't for the fact that Anastasia had contacted her from Moscow telling her about the Second Herrscher and the fact that she needed to recover the EVA units as soon as possible in order to use them to protect the city from what was about to come.

BB told Najenda that she would have awoken everyone on the base but the entire place seemed like a damn labyrinth to her. Her and her Silver Claws Astartes, clad in Green with black outlines power armors, finally made their way to the NERV command room where to women were waiting for them.

The first one was wearing a sleeveless black flapper dress with a cross necklace, a fancy red jacket with stylized accents, green socks, and black boots. She had long dark violet hair that is wavy with bangs parted to the sides and dark brown eyes.

The second one was wearing a lab coat with a purple shirt under it and a skirt. She had short brown hair and dark green eyes.

Both of them had a serious expression on their faces and didn't seem to mind the sizes of their guests.

"Major Misato Katsuragi and Operation Director of Nerv" The first one said as she did a military salute "This is my colleague Ritsuko Akagi, Nerv's head scientist"

"Primarch Najenda" Najenda replied with a nod before looking around "It is just you here?"

"Negative, but we are the few that were able to walk and work" Misato replied

"What about the pilots?" Najenda asked causing the woman in front of her to frown a bit

"They are...operative" she replied

"We need to deploy them to Tokyo, the city is in danger" The Primarch said before looking at the scientist "Are the EVA units operational?"

"The batteries will not work after all this time inactive and the Umbilical Cable needed to keep them active is not that long, also part of the base is destroyed so we don't have much energy to begin with" Ritsuko replied

"We can provide the energy, can you make them work?" Najenda asked getting a nod

"With all respect ma'am, but the pilots need more time to get ready" Misato interjected

Najenda sighed "I wouldn't ask them to fight right away if it wasn't necessary Major Katsuragi" she said calmly "You have 24 hours, the Empress asked me to tell that the threat is similar to the 10th Angel"

Earth's orbit

The Mechanicus Fleet and a reserve Imperial Fleet, composed of two Apocalypse-class battleships accompanied by various types of cruisers of various classes, were guarding the Earth from a distance ordered by their Empress, with them there was also the Bunker of the YoRHa forces. All of their attention was focused on the moon, the empress had ordered them to point their weapons at the natural satellite but not to engage combat unless attacked first.

They were confused a bit since they were not getting any type of signal...until their eyes settled on a small flying object directed towards the moon. It was a dragon ridden by a girl.

Both of them were emanating a lot of Honkai Energy and so the Imperial Forces immediately understood that those were the Second Herrscher along with its pet

"We must open fire on those enemies" The Master of the Fleet said pointing his fingers towards the moon which was the location were the Herrscher landed on

"The Empress' orders are clear, do not engage unless attacked" The Lord Commander replied before looking at the tech-priest that was on the deck with them "Contact the Empress and tell her that we have the Herrscher in firing range"

"There is a peak of Honkai Energy!" A communication sent by the Mechanicus Fleet said as the Second Herrscher appeared above the moon with five with 5 giant meteors floating around it

"THE EMPRESS AUTHORIZED THE ATTACK!" The tech-priest on the deck shouted

"ALL SHIPS OPEN FIRE!" The Lord Commander shouted to the top of his lungs as all the ships of the fleet fired a massive barrage of shots in the Herrscher direction.

The second Herrscher turned her gaze towards the incoming threat and raised a barrier made of Honkai Energy, when the shots impacted against it, they created massive explosions that could be seen from the planet surface. Unfortunately, the Herrscher still sent the meteors against her Earth aiming at Los Angeles, Rìo de Janeiro, Moscow, Tokyo and Singapore.

Moscow

Anastasia was standing in the middle of the Red Square staring at the sky while also hearing the warning communication coming from all radio channels. Her figure started glowing, slowly the general panic ceased and everyone fell silent

"hear my words" she said speaking to the minds of her followers "I will take care of the meteor here in Moscow, the battleships must turn the others into ashes, every weapon is allowed to achieve our goal" she declared before contacting Najenda "Is everything ready?"

"Yes, The EVA units are on standby in Tokyo" Najenda replied as Anastasia spotted with her eyes the incoming meteor.

All the civilians that were looking out of the window started panicking but Anastasia was not worried. She raised her clawed hand and the blink of an eye the meteor was stopped on its tracks. She slowly lowered her hand causing it the lower itself until it gently landed on the ground.

Anastasia looked behind her where her Legio Custodes were standing "We are going to the Babylon tower"

Rìo de Janeiro

The citizen of the Brasilian capital stared at the sky with fear in their eyes, the Imperial guardsmen were keeping them from going full panic something they have achieved with sheer numbers alone. They were all seeing the meteor slowly getting bigger and bigger as it entered the planet's atmosphere. Suddenly many of the ships that had occupied the sky above the city started aiming themselves towards the meteor while the rest of them placed themselves directly above all the evacuation zones.

The Meteor got bigger and bigger as the parents covered the eyes of their children while telling them that everything was going to be fine...then it happened.

All the spaceships opened fire against the impending doom, the sound wave of such mighty weapons boomed all across the hair, causing the very earth to shake and all the glass directly under them to shatter instantly when then followed was the appearance of a sudden blinding light and then an ear-shattering explosion.

The people were forced to cover their ears and close their eyes but when they opened them a rain of fire revealed itself to their vision but the giant meteor was destroyed but its debris were now falling towards the ground.

Many buildings were hit and destroyed but the people were protected by the giant bodies of the ships hovering above them, and the few that managed to slip past them were stopped by armored female figures which seemed to have stopped the debris in mid-air.

Whispers among the people begun as they observed the armored figures before someone shouted the name of the legend of South America

"It's the Big Sister!" a man shouted causing all the people to look around before finally seeing her.

She was towering above everyone, she was wearing some sort of diving suit, her helmet was spheric and had two portholes which were glowing green. At her side, there were several other male-looking armored figures armed with giant drills and several other types of weaponry.

The woman brought her hands on her helmet and removed it revealing her long brown hair and blue eyes "My name is Elenor Lamb, Primarch of the Delta Legion, I was tasked by the Empress of the Imperium to protect all you. The people you see around you, may have scared you but both of them and me are here for protecting all of you by the Honkai! And it seems that we have arrived just in time" she proclaimed

Tokyo

The three giants were standing inside the Kokyo Gaien National Garden, the EVA units deployed by NERV under the order of the Imperium.

"This wait is killing and my body is so sore" Asuka Soryu Langley, pilot of the red EVA unit 02, said as she stretched out her arms inside her entry plug

"It is to be expected, many years have passed since the last time we moved our bodies" Rei Ayanami, pilot of the blue EVA unit 00, replied emotionless

Shinji Ikari, Pilot of the purple EVA unit 01, was silent. The boy hadn't spoken a word since he got inside the EVA unit.

"Oi! Stupid! Are you even alive in there?" Asuka shouted across the radio channel.

"Why...why are we here?" the boy muttered "We...already failed haven't we? We wouldn't be here if we didn't...the Honkai already defeated us...what can we do against it? We have no right to be here..."

"Shinji..." Misato muttered via radio from NERV HQ.

She wanted to say something but Shinji was speaking the truth, Nerv has been defeated by the Honkai before and now it's just a shadow of the past...all the attempts and plans both from the former commander of NERV and SEELE failed and those who survived were forced into hiding. Misato herself had a feeling of dread inside her heart whenever she thought of facing the Honkai again.

"Hear my words" Najenda said as she looked at the video feed of the three EVAs "It's true, you've failed before, you became the laughing stock of the Honkai God but...you're here, you're standing in front of its cruel eyes once again and you're not alone, the will of the people you lost, their dreams, hopes, regrets, anger and hatred rest on your shoulders...but that weight is not only yours to carry because we're here, we stand with you and if it comes to it we'll die standing and we'll smile just to mock that cruel God that had decided that we should perish"

The pilot of Unit 01 looked into the eyes of the woman who just spoke to him but he didn't see any sign of fear, she had a smirk on her face. He then noticed that the Imperial Army, even though it should be gone from the area was standing still next to the feet of the EVAs fearless.

"As long as you stand with us you'll never stand alone" Najenda added as her grin got bigger

"Meteor incoming, 20 seconds before impact" Ritsuko said as she looked at the prevision of the MAGI system

"All you, if you feel shame for your defeat, if you feel anger and hatred towards the Honkai God, if you feel sad for those people who have lost their lives because of it, put those emotions in your actions and let everyone know that you'll not bow to no God anymore! That you will not hide anymore!" Najenda shouted

Shinji tightened the grip of the controls of the EVA unit, he wanted to look away, he wanted to be somewhere else but at the same time, he felt a burning sensation coming from his heart, his chest and breathing was heavy, he was sweating bullets"

"10 seconds before impact" Ritsuka communicated

Asuka stared at the meteor, her usual annoyed expression was now one of deep disgust and anger, a growl escaped her lips "Damn you..." she muttered

Misato looked at the synchronization levels and widened her eyes when she saw that all of the three pilots' rates were quickly increasing even Rei's

"5...4...3...2...1..."

"SCREAM YOUR FEELINGS TO THAT CRUEL GOD THAT ONLY SEES YOU AS LAUGHING STOCK!" Najenda shouted

"AT FIELD FULL SPREAD!" All of the three pilots shouted at the top of their lungs as the Meteor hit the AT field generated by the EVA units.

The impact caused shockwaves the be sent in all direction, and even though they were distant, the soldiers in the Baneblades and Fellblades had to brace themselves.

"They got it!" Misato said with a determined expression

"It will take a while to stop its momentum" Ritsuko remarked before a notification appeared on her screen "The AT field is giving out!"

"WHAT?! WHY!?" Misato asked "It's just a big rock!"

"Threw from an Herrscher with its powers" Ritsuko replied "the Honkai energy is eroding the AT field"

"They will make it" Najenda said with extreme calm

"DAMN YOU DAMN YOU DAMN YOU! I WILL NOT LOSE THIS TIME! I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED AGAIN!" Asuka growled as she pushed the commands of her unit with all the strength of her body

"I can't do it" Shinji muttered before his eyes spotted the Baneblades and Fellblades staying still just out of the AT field range, the boy quickly changed the radio channel to general one "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! GO AWAY!"

"If we have to die, we die standing" someone replied as the turrets of the mighty tanks shook as if they were shaking their heads "We'll die side by side brother!"

The young pilot was shocked by that reply and he slowly looked around himself, he saw Asuka and Rei trying their best to stop the meteor and again saw Najenda, still smirking as if she had no doubt that they will win. He gritted his teeth and with a warcry, he pushed the commands of the EVA as far he could.

Unit 01 opened its mouth and let out a roar as the combined AT fields started stopping the falling meteorite until all of its motion was gone. When that happened the three EVA units dissipated the AT fields and caught the meteor before it could fall to the ground and carefully placed it down.

Shinji couldn't believe his eyes, they had made it, they had saved the city from the Honkai...he snapped back to reality when the sound of clapping reached his ears. He looked at the image of Najenda, she was clapping her hands, her smirk was replaced with a gentle one.

"Good job brother" the guardsman inside the tanks said through the radio while clapping before they returned to their normal operations since the emergency was over.

"You've done great" The Primarch said with a nod "Return to the base"

Moon

Sirin was forced to set up a massive barrier around the moon due to the relentless attack of the Imperial Ships which had opened fire while she was busy throwing meteors at Earth intending to use the kinetic bombardment to destroy some of the major cities of the world, she would have kept throwing if it wasn't for the fact that every time she opened a small area of her barrier, those ships will bombard her with deadly firepower.

Sirin was mad, of the rocks she threw only one struck her target, Los Angeles. She had revived Benares, the honkai dragon that had brought her to the moon, and gave her a human form and the new name Bella and now she was thinking about what to do next

"They are here...why...how?" Bella whispered as she stared at the imperial ships with hatred "The anathema must have sent them here!"

Sirin raised an eyebrow "You know them?"

Bella clenched her fists "Yes...those people have humiliated our God, those people are the proof that humans are vermins" she hissed

Sirin frowned as she got up "That's not possible!"

Just as she said the world around her became a blur and she found herself in the middle of space. The first things she spotted were magnificent giant Honkai creatures similar to whales which were navigating the emptiness of space. On top of one of them was standing the Honkai God in all of her glory.

Sirin was amazed and in awe but suddenly, out of nowhere thousands...no...Millions of Imperial Vessels came out of what she thought was the Honkai Dimension, they all opened fire against the Honkai beasts killing many of them in mere moments.

She then saw how the Honkai God opened up a portal supposedly to evade the attack but from it Nightmarish creatures poured out which started to attack both the Honkai and the Imperials.

Sirin then found themselves in a dungeon, surrounded by mutilated corpses and by people with pointy ears and with questionable clothing who were torturing a girl. The second Herrscher saw that the girl possessed the core of the Herrscher of death but she wasn't using it, her eyes were devoid of life

"Look at this fool Ide'ashi" one of the figures said as he grabbed the chin of the girl "she thought that she could conquer Commoragh for her pathetic god mocked by Chaos and even from the Anethema" he said while laughing

The woman next to him laughed "But she's the best doll we could get our hands on, Drazkos, her wounds heal themselves, our fun will never end!"

Sirin was horrified and closed her eyes...when she opened them, she found herself in a desolate wasteland

"OI!" someone with a very grotesque voice shouted causing Sirin to turn around.

The Herrscher saw something that she would describe as an orc...a massive orc covered in an armor made of scraps and with a saw replacing his right hand while in the other was pulling the hair of a blonde girl who was covered in wounds and barely breathing, Sirin recognized her as the Herrscher of the lightning.

The monster lifted her up in the air as it let out a roar which shook the earth under Sirin, he then activated his saw and proceed to cut in half the Herrscher "DA SMOL GURL IZ DED!" the greenskin shouted.

In the blank of an eye, Sirin changed location and found herself in front of the most obscene thing she ever saw, she had to cover her eyes in order to avoid seeing anything else...Another Herrscher...the Herrscher of corruption had fallen to the temptation of something that she could not put into words.

"Oh? What do we have here? Another Herrscher?" a voice said giggling "But you're not here are you?"

Sirin opened her eyes to see who was speaking and saw two figures standing in front of her, one which looked like a lanky sorcerer while the other was blurred, Sirin could see her...his...its silhouette but couldn't see anything about it.

"She's not" the sorcerer said "She's also being protected from seeing you Slaanesh, a wise but foolish attempt to protect its servants from your powers"

the blurred figure giggled again "The Honkai God sure is cute when it does this..." she/he/it said as slowly its body started to become more visible.

Sirin fell on her knees, she tried to get up but her body wasn't responding, she could feel her mind slowly falling into a spiral of numbness when suddenly everything returned to normal.

Sirin was no longer in that place but instead, she was on a battlefield, her body was still numb and barely responding. Her eyes wandered around until she spotted a group of armored men with a pitch-black color scheme, in front of them, one towered above all, wielding a magnificent giant hammer.

In front of him, kneeling on the ground, there was the Herrscher of Reason.

"In the name of my father, I, Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands Legion, sentence you to death" the Primarch said before smashing the Herrscher's body, turning it into a pulp

Sirin launched a scream before realizing that she was back on the moon, Belle was grabbing her by the shoulders with a worried expression.

"My queen! My queen!" She shouted before the herrscher gently pushed her away while breathing hard

"I saw them..." Sirin whispered causing her Servant to freeze "I saw how they humiliated us...but...we have no reason to worry...for they do not exist here...in the end...we are the masters of this universe...a few ships cannot stop the will of our God"

Bella slowly nodded even though a shadow made of doubt and dread was still looming over her heart.

"I will send them a message, we'll take care of that traitor and then of them..." The Herrscher said as a twisted smile appeared on her face

Terra, hours later, Tower of Babylon. Overseer's Lobby

Welt, the sovereign of Anti-Entropy, Einstein, one of Anti-Entropy's finest scientists and Otto Apocalypse, the Overseer of Schicksal were discussing how to handle the current situation. After the kinetic bombardment, Sirin had launched an ultimatum, she wanted Welt to go to the moon to meet her but that wasn't the most pressing matter.

Einstein had recovered some data from soulium within the meteor which hit Los Angeles, it was the data for a technology meant for containing the Honkai Energy, unfortunately, due to the atmospheric entry, the data was damaged and kept Anti-Entropy's scientists from being able to recreate such tech.

"I am prepared to head to the moon, I hope you can spare an agent to help collect soulium while I distract the 2nd Herrscher" Welt said with a serious tone

"Very intriguing, mr Welt. You never fail to surprise me" Otto said with a smirk as he took a sip from his glass of wine "Bu-"

He was interrupted as Siegfried stormed in with a shocked expression, causing everyone to freeze and Welt to activate his powers

"She's here" the Kaslana said as the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard from outside

Welt froze and looked at Otto. The Overseer, on the other hand, had an expression of disgust, the same disgust he had for Welt but this time he didn't bother to hide it. Einstein paled and placed her hand where she remembered being hit mercilessly.

The heavy footsteps stopped just outside the door, Siegfried quickly stepped away from it before it could open...then she entered the room, clad in golden power armor towering above everyone, sword strapped to her hip, followed by the Legio Custodes who placed themselves on the sides of the door in order to guard it, besides them, there was a tech-priest.

Her expression was a serious one, it only showed coldness and silent determination, she didn't seem to be bothered by Otto's presence nor she looked like was hostile. She placed herself in front of them and then spoke

"The Herrscher will not attack any time soon" She declared calmly "She put a barrier of Honkai Energy around Luna, we do have the weapons to breach it but it would put the entire place in danger of utter destruction, in order to launch another attack, she would need to open her barrier and this would make her an easy target for my ships' cannons"

"You stopped the meteors from hitting your...territory but you did not stop the one on Los Angeles..." Einstein said coldly

"You didn't lack the firepower to destroy the meteor before it could hit the city" Anastasia replied just as coldly

"How we were supposed to know what was going to happen?" Welt said shaking his head

"I had informed the United States Government, about the hour it would have struck the city and which weapons to use with which trajectory" The Empress shot back with absolute calmness "I received a declaration of war as reply...I sent my ships but they were attacked, not that they managed to do anything, I hoped that the army would have listened to what I said but instead they used the wrong weapons in the wrong way and the meteor hit the city nevertheless, I'm very mortified for all the human losses but now is not the time of tears and grief" she said before looking at Otto "Nor the time to be distracted by previous fights. The Herrscher wants your head and you know it" she added returning to stare at Welt "Death is what is waiting for you there"

"I know...but if my death can bring us to victory so be it" he replied with a serious tone when suddenly all of his injuries and wounds healed themselves, he actually felt better than ever, he looked at himself and to the blonde woman in front of him

"Take this as an apology for our previous encounter, you should be able to put up a longer fight with this" Anastasia said solemnly, her gaze turned towards Einstein "I'll lend you one of my ships, it will be faster to go on the moon like that, you will share the collected data with my forces"

"I'll send Siegfried with you" Otto finally spoke as he regained his usual cocky attitude "Use him as you wish, my forces will not oppose any of you"

"My armies will do the same" Anastasia added "...But when all of this will be over, no Shicksal or Anti-Entropy personnel must be here or they will be purged" she darkly said

"Even if it is Theresa?" Otto spoke with a grin "Or Cecilia"

Anastasia remained emotionless "If that will be the case I will make sure that you'll never see them again just like you can't see Kallen" she shot back while placing herself in front of the man "By the way, she's very mad at you when I told her that all of this was caused from your terrible experiments"

Otto broke the glass of wine in his hands, cutting himself in the process, in his eyes, the flame of hatred burned brighter than ever.

"use this to contact me when you're ready" Anastasia said giving Welt a small communication device before leaving the room soon followed by the Legio Custodes.

Anti-Entropy Yellowstone Base, USA. 57 hours 50 minutes before Sirin's ultimatum

Siegfried was sitting inside one of the hangars of the base, looking at the news channel...

"It has been confirmed that the newly born Imperium of Man had warned the Pentagon about the impending attack of Los Angeles, this rumor initially received by the CNN 15 minutes before the attack was initially denied by the government but a few minutes ago the President has admitted that to be true, we quote 'Me and my colleagues thought that it was a way to scare us and keep us from intervening in South America...we picked up the signals of a formation of the same ships that appeared in Rìo and attacked them even though they communicated that they were there in order to stop the catastrophe...We had received the reports from the Brasilian army before its fall about the firepower carried by those ships and we couldn't allow such things to enter our airspace let alone hover one of our most populated cities...' After this declaration, the president announced that when the emergency will be over he will resign from his position...now onto the international news..."

The Kaslana sighed as Welt made his way towards him with a bittersweet smile on his face "It's time" he said as he crossed his arms.

The two men had already talked about the plan both A and B. The sovereign had already made all of his preparations and so did Anastasia on the other side of the world. The Imperial Fleet which kept the moon within sight had retreated to allow them to go there.

Siegfried had already contacted his wife and daughter to give them a last goodbye in case he would die during the mission. Welt talked one last time with Tesla leaving her in tears.

The two of them walked out of the hangar where the Mech Arahato created by Tesla and Welt was. The sovereign grabbed the communication device and activated it causing it to start beeping along with a blinking red light.

After a few seconds, the Eternal Protector seemingly teleported itself above the base causing all the Anti-Entropy personnel to stare at it in awe. A Space Marine landing craft and a Stormbird descended on the two men, the transport grabbed the container and flew back to the ship while the Stormbird landed in front of them and opened one of its lateral doors.

Welt and Siegfried saw the Crimson Slayers waiting for them to get inside which after a few seconds of hesitation they did. Tesla and Einstein watched with worried expressions as the giant aircraft took off and flew back to the massive Imperial Ship.

The journey was a short one and Welt and Siegfried soon found themselves in the aircraft bay of the Eternal Protector, Anastasia was there waiting for them along with Samus and Akame. Welt was absolutely stunned by the proportions of the things inside the ship, everything was bigger and covered with all sorts of weapons. Siegfried didn't know where to look first, he was overwhelmed by the amount of cool-looking stuff around him.

"Giving you a full tour of this ship will take days and we don't have that time" Anastasia said approaching the two followed by Samus and Akame "We'll be at a safe distance from the moon in a minute, I would recommend you to be prepared since after that you'll be alone"

As she said that, the ship commenced a jump into space and was now withing the moon's vicinities. Welt slowly nodded as he walked to the Arahato and got inside along with Siegried.

"Are you sure we shouldn't go with them?" Samus said with a saddened expression

"The Herrscher must return to Earth before getting defeated" Anastasia replied with a sigh "the world needs to see her or we'll be blamed for the attack...You have to prepare for the battle, your missions were successful but it's not over yet, do we have any info from Esdeath?"

"She should be in the city by now, she must see the queen of the revenants yet" Samus replied as Anastasia nodded "asseylum should also be recovering the Sangvis"

"I heard she chose to let the G&K commanders taking care of making sure that everything goes smoothly" Samus spoke looking at Anastasia to see if she was surprised

"I told her to do that" The Empress said with a sigh "G&K and SF have a beef with each other, they need to dissipate the old grudges if we don't want problems in the future"

"And that...how she was called? Elisa?" Akame asked getting a nod "Is she okay with all of this? Wasn't she the one who struck a deal with Merlin?"

"She is already connected to the moon cell" Merlin said as he bowed to the three women "She agreed to be G&K's punching bag as long as she can see M4A1"

"sounds fishy" Samus stated raising an eyebrow

"Don't worry...she just wants to speak to her and she will join our ultra-firewall no matter what direction the conversation goes" the mage replied shrugging.

Revenant's underground nation, Queen's castle

Esdeath was standing in front of a massive door, supposedly, behind it should be located the Queen, the most powerful revenant that lived. During the Honkai Apocalypse of this civilization, people were genetically modified to fight the Honkai beasts with something called the BORS parasite which granted them some sort of immortality at the cost of becoming some kind of vampires, the strongest among them was the 'Queen' as they called her which back in the day protected them from the Herrschers, unfortunately, due to the death of most humans of the world, the revenants lost their primary resource of food making their combat effort weaker and they were eventually defeated. The Queen took upon herself the task of protecting the revenants after coming into contact with Merlin Since then, both of the queen and the revenants were on a dormant state in order for them to neither decay and fall to their bloodthirst.

Esdeath pushed open the giant doors, revealing a massive throne room where the Queen resting on an oversized throne. The Legio Astartes and the guardsmen carefully approached the women while Esdeath casually walked right in front of her before noticing that the Queen was made of stone.

"You" Esdeath called as she looked at one scion "give me some of your blood"

The scion immediately nodded and walked up to Esdeath before removing part of his gloves and grabbed his combat knife before making a quite deep cut in his hand, he let the blood drip on the Queen's statue

"I would advice you to get back now" Esdeath said as the stone of the statue absorbed the blood before slowly turning into skin.

The scion quickly nodded and run back to his squad as the sound of something cracking came out of the Queen's figure. The woman's body returned to normality but wasn't awakened...

In a blur, the woman launched herself in the direction of the scion but Esdeath caught her and pinned to the ground effortlessly before creating a small ice cage that blocked her hands and legs. She felt a burning sensation coming from the back of her neck as a huge grin appeared on her face.

"My Primarch" One of her Winter Predators Space Marine called Esdeath "The Empress wants us to return as soon as possible"

"Fine" Esdeath as she got up and looked at the Revenant Queen "tell my daughters to gather all of the dormant revenants and start collecting blood from regiments...our new friends need something to drink" she said before picking up the restrained woman in front of her "I'll take her with me"

Sangvis Ferri HQ

The outside defenses of the SF's fortress were turned off and so the G&K troops didn't have any problems getting inside. Anti-Rain was inside their new titans when a transmission from command arrived.

"To all G&K forces, the objective is to retrieve Mastermind, unfortunately, in order to reach the target you'll need to make your way across the entire complex. The Sangivis Ferri troops are not as many as the last time you saw each other in the battlefield but don't forget to rely on our new allies...the rules of engagement are as follows...the ringleaders must be captured while any other Sangvis can be destroyed, Mastermind as the top priority...The Imperium struck a deal with it but, unfortunately, the news couldn't be communicated to the rest of SF due to the Honkai Corruption of the channels. In order to access the area where the VIP is located, we are forced to reactivate the entire complex including the tactical dolls..." Kryuger spoke through the radio.

"M4, we need to separate, my chassis cannot fit inside those corridors" M4's titan, which she named Skull, informed its pilot.

"Roger that" the tactical doll opened as she got out of the titan.

The rest of her squad did the same and were about to enter the facility along with the rest of the T-Dolls and the Crimson Slayers

"We'll find a way to catch up with you" Skull said receiving a nod from M4 before walking away with the rest of the titans to find another access point

"Bye Luv!" Sop said waving her hand at her titan

STAR 15 sighed "I can't believe you gave it that name"

"Reactivation of the facility in 3...2...1...now" RO whispered as the main door of the SF structure opened on its own

The Crimson slayers were the ones to enter first since even if there was someone was waiting to ambush the troops they will hit a brick wall. M4's squad entered shortly after but while they sprinted past the Astartes RO noticed that the Space Marines were holding back, when they entered the G&K HQ they were fast, methodical and dominant but now they were simply acting as shields leaving the job of clearing the rooms to them.

The sounds of footsteps approaching suddenly could be heard from the depths of the facility, the SF troops were there. M4 tightened the grip of her rifle and pointed it in the direction of the sounds then they appeared and they were greeted by a barrage of bullets from both G&K and the Crimson Slayers.

The slayers were aiming at the armored targets which they knew that most of the t-dolls couldn't take down while AR team and the other wiped out the less armored ones. After the skirmish, the troops advanced and encountered more enemy troops, the fight went down just like the first one and so they keep going and going repeating this cycle over and over again.

The Tactical dolls which got hit were roughly repaired on the spot by the Mechanicus allowing them to quickly return to the fight. The Space Marines showed off their strength by literally ripping apart the SF armored units after they got close enough.

M4 and her teammates in the meantime finally understood the big changes in their equipment, so far even a directed hit on the chest was nothing to them and their newfound mobility gave them the upper hand on the SF troops which were having a bit of a hard time aiming at them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the facility, where the second entrance of the facility was, 404 squad was entering the base along with Spas 12 and a few Skitarii squads.

UMP 45 was wondering why with them there was Spas 12, she wasn't a member of the Squad and yet she was with them not even wearing her standard uniform but with her knight-looking armor, the one she called Goblin Huntress for some reason.

The Imperium Forces quietly got inside, checking the corners and making sure that there wasn't an ambush. Just like the Astartes, the Skitarii's role seemed really passive though they also seemed eager to see something...

HK416 was looking around as the echoes of the gunshots on the other side of the facility could be faintly heard. The squad received secret instruction from Kryuger himself...they had to oversee the meeting between M4 and Mastermind...

"Yo" someone said causing 416's expression to be filled with hatred "long time no see 416...you haven't changed much"

"M16" 416 replied with spite as she looked at the white-haired woman with a heavy black jacket in front of her "I was looking for you"

"I can't say the same" M16 replied with a sigh "Let's make this quick, if you are here it means that they are the other side"

"I was about to say the same thing M16" 416 replied "Finally, I will show you that you are nothing compared to me"

"You couldn't beat me before, I don't think you can beat me after how I've been modified" the former G&K doll replied raising her rifle

416 threw her rifle away and cracked her knuckles before sprinting in M16 direction, who opened fire against her.

The bullets bounced off 416's body as if they were BBs instead of real bullets, and this caught M16 by surprise but she kept firing until she saw something that shocked her. The bullets had shredded 416's clothes revealing an entirely different body, it looked like a living armor of metal. She was about to dodge but suddenly 416's speed increased massively and in the blink of an eye, she was right in front of her.

416 launched an upward kick that disarmed M16 of her weapon and then followed up with a downward kick that hit M16 on the top of her head. The SF Doll ignored the pain and immediately counterattacked with a left hook which was caught by 416

"Like you, I also chose to become something else" 416 said as she started crushing M16's hand "Something far better than this scrap body of yours!"

M16 gritted her teeth and threw another hook with her free arm but 416 raised her arm and blocked it before grabbing onto it...ripping it off with swift motion, 416 didn't allow M16 to realize what just happened, she used the ripped off arm to hit her rival's head before ripping the other arm. She then rammed her knee in M16's belly and forced her to kneel, she then grabbed by the collar of the jacket with her left hand and proceeded to punch M16's face without any mercy

With each punch, the ground below them shook but 416 was controlling herself, she had received instruction to retrieve her rival after all but they never specified in what state, she will leave her barely conscious.

"LOOK AT ME M16! HOW DOES IT FEELS?! TELL ME!" She shouted as she threw one last punch that echoed across all the facility before letting the body of her enemy fall to the ground. Her eyes became filled with disgust as she stepped on M16's back "Pathetic"

"416...?" UMP 9 called her with a horrified expression "W-What happened to you?"

416 grinned "I accepted the Mechanicus upgrade" she replied before bursting into maniacal laughter "My body was replaced with a stronger one...I'm not a tactical doll anymore, I have become an Adepta Omnica" she declared before someone rushed in

"M16! I need you to go to..." Dreamer shouted before seeing what was going on, she was about to raise her sniper rifle when Spas 12 suddenly appeared behind her and rammed the bayonet of her shotgun in the Dreamer's body, but that was not a common bayonet, it was a chainblade. Dreamer's body started to be ripped apart when the blade stuck in it came to life and started ripping apart everything in its path.

"What the hell" UMP 9 whispered in shock as she looked at Spas in pure shock

Spas let the Sangvis doll's body drop to the ground destroyed and looked at the Skitarii "It's perfect" she said with a twisted smile

"The master will be pleased to know that, Adepta Omnica Sabrina" one of the Skitarii replied

"So this is the upgrade..." 45 muttered before returning to focus on 416

"You wanted to see your sister, didn't you?" 416 said darkly as she grabbed M16's hair and started dragging her by it "then let's go find her"

The AR team, in the meantime, had finally come across the heavy troops of SF but so far none of them have encountered a ringleader which was strange since most of the other squads did come across them like Destroyer and Alchemist but for some reason, M4's squad didn't, they were clearing out the structure without any major problem, The crimson slayers were able to take down the Nemeum and Matincore SF units without too many troubles while the Tactical Dolls took care of everything else.

"Clear!" RO shouted as she came out of a room

"Same here!" STAR 15 said

M4 looked around a bit before checking the map they were given...then she realized that there was only one room left to check and the signal of Mastermind was coming from there...she clenched her fists and closed the map, she then placed herself in front of the final door, her squadmates leaned against the wall at the sides of the door. The Crimson slayer seemed to have disappeared.

M4 placed a breaching charge and made it explode before rushing in with RO, STAR, and Sop. All of them pointed at the same being that was standing in front of several computer screens.

She was a little girl, with light purple skin and white hair and a symbol on her forehead. She was staring at M4, she didn't carry any weapon on her "M4..." she muttered before a bullet flew right next to her face

"Don't you dare..." M4 growled "You took everything from me...you put me through hell...now I understand why we didn't meet any of your ringleaders...I don't know what were you expecting but this is not going to be a moving reunion. I have orders to take you in and you should be thankful that I'm not allowed to shred your body to pieces"

The little girl looked down on the ground

"But I have to ask...didn't you expect me to hate you after all you've done? How you tried to break my mind and so on? Are you now trying the diplomatic approach because you can't attack our minds now?"

The girl looked so small even though she was the one called 'Mastermind', M4's words left her no room for any reply except for "I'm sorry..." she whispered before someone broke in causing M4 to point her weapon in its direction.

She widened her eyes in shock when she saw HK416 dragging an armless and broken down M16 by her hair, she remained speechless as the 404 member just threw her sister like a ragdoll on the floor with a huge smirk on her. Even Sop, Star and Ro were in shock.

"In the name of the Empress" 416 said pointing her arm towards Mastermind "I order you to give the order of surrender to all active Sangvis Tactical Dolls, if these conditions will not be met, We will destroy your body and backups"

Mastermind nodded, she knelt down and the gunshots in the distance stopped immediately "I hope this Empress of yours didn't forget our agreement" she muttered as two Astartes walked in and simply carried her away

"Now" 416 as she looked at M16 with disgust "M16 is neither property of G&K and Sangvis, so she has no purpose and there is no place for traitors in our Imperium, I'll proceed with the termination of the unit as stated by the imperial law on autonomous machines" as she said that she pointed her arm towards M16's head

"WHAT?! SHE CAN'T DO THAT! 45 TELL HER TO STOP!" Sop shouted but Ump 45 turned her gaze to the ground with a mortified expression

"She doesn't follow my orders anymore...the Adeptus Omnicas outranks any normal tactical doll" she muttered shocking everyone in the room

M4 Digimind was conflicted, M16 was betrayed G&K but she said she did it only to protect her sisters...but she did fight her and the other Tactical Dolls.

"It's okay" M16 whispered as a single tear fell from her only working eye and smile appeared on her face "you're safe now...that's all that matters to me"

With those words every doubt abandoned M4, she wasn't a Sangvis nor a Tactical Doll, she was her sister. M4 rushed to 416 and tried tackling to the ground but 416 stood her ground as if she was just a breeze. Ro, Star and Sop also joined but they didn't manage to move the Adeptus Omnica of an inch

"This sort of behavior can be count as a betrayal!" 416 shouted before tossing away Sop and the others away with her free hand except for M4 who still clung to arm pointed at M16 "IT'S USELESS!" the Omnica said as her arm started glowing and heating up

M4 could feel her body burn, but she didn't let go even if it meant melting, she will not let her sister be taken away again.

"ADEPTA OMNICA 416!" Suddenly an Spas shouted pointing her shotgun at 416 "YOU'RE VIOLATING THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN US BY THE EMPRESS HERSELF! CONTINUE THIS ACTION AND WE'LL DESTROY YOUR DIGIMIND!"

"WHAT!?" 416 shouted back in shock as she scanned through her memory to check these instructions before widening her eyes in shock when she found what she was looking for..."

'Upon the successful recovery of subject Elisa, code name: Mastermind, every sin of Sangvis Ferri will be forgiven by the Imperium of man. With this pact, Mastermind agrees to take part in the combat effort against the Honkai God in exchange for a dignified life for her and her soldiers and civil equality. As a last condition, I, The Empress of the Imperium of man, promise that no harm shall be done to the G&K Tactical Doll M4A1 by Imperial Forces.'

416 looked at M16's face as she lowered her arm which stopped glowing, she took a few steps back and Spas and the Astartes lowered their weapons

M4 felt a bit dizzy but she didn't let that stop her, she knelt in front of M16 and raised her by the torso, she then gently hugged her as tears fell from her eyes

"I'm sorry M4..." M16 whispered making M4 shake her head

"don't speak or you will overload you Digimind" M4 muttered with a trembling tone "We'll take you home now..."

M16's eyes wandered around and saw her precious sisters...Sop...Star...and even Ro...were crying "Okay...do you mind if I sleep a bit...? My battery has been damaged a bit..."

M4 shook her head and M16 closed her eyes her and body went energy-saving mode "What will happen now?"

"A trial will take place sister M4" One of the Astartes said...

Later, Moscow

The Primarchs were all gathered inside the Kremlin except for Eleonor who chose to stay in South America to coordinate the Imperial Army effort of completely consolidating the borders and eliminate the remains of the dictators' armies, in her place, there was Asseylum.

"How long before the Herrscher will come down here?" Najenda asked as she crossed her hands "And where she will decide to appear"

The Empress sighed "my vision ends with her return to the Babylon tower, the attack of several cities from other Herrschers...and the biggest Honkai horde ever seen by this civilization"

"So what's the plan?" Leone asked

"We'll fight of course" Esdeath replied with a determined expression

"What news from Tatsumi?" Apollyon asked looking at the Primarch of the Winter Predators

"He and the leader of the Inquisition have confirmed that the remains of the Red Army who have not surrendered are gathering at Novosibirsk, they are planning to relocate in a hidden base" Esdeath replied "But considering the current situation they will not attempt anything for the time being"

"Then the Imperial guard can fortifications several kilometers away from the Babylon Tower, we can create a perimeter and keep them from reaching the cities" Leone said as a map of the Siberia projected itself in front of them "It will a kill box"

"Once we pushed back the horde we'll start advancing and they'll found themselves cornered..." Apollyon added

"I'll take care of the Herrscher" Anastasia intervened with a serious tone "We don't know if the Honkai will pop up all in the same spot so we'll divide the guardsman so that they can protect the civilians in the outskirts..."

"We need all the manpower we can muster for the kill box though" Akame remarked with a grim tone

"The machines will take of the men missing from the frontlines, we'll deploy the titans...all of them...We'll place the Imperii Invicta and the Tyrannus Immortalem to guard Moscow along with a regiment of guardsmen..."

"I have a few regiments on standby, leave this task to the steel legion" Leone replied she said with a nervous laugh "if something manages to actually get past that"

"Now, let's speak about the allies we reclaimed...what's their conditions?" The Empress asked

"The mechs and the pilots we recovered are not capable of fighting" Akame said "They either need repair or their bodies to wake up, same goes for Rhodes Island...where I have confirmed the presence of a Primarch candidate." Akame said as the image of a girl with brown hair and animal ears projected itself over the map "Her name is Amiya, like most of her companions, she is affected by a disease called Oripathy, though while the others went in suspended animation while the disease was still contained, hers was already in the terminal stage...the disease is at fault for her mutated features"

"I like those donkey ears, to be honest" Samus said

"Those are jackrabbit ears" Esdeath said "I used to hunt them"

"She's a chimera" Akame replied as her right eyes twitched a bit "I briefly spoke to her, she'll agree to become a Primarch only if we cure her friends of Oripathy"

"she'll be able to do it herself" The Empress said before looking at Esdeath "The revenants?"

"They are capable of fighting but not in a coherent way, they went dormant for so long and they need to be fed before sending them to battle, same goes with the Primarch candidate, her name is Cruz Silva, the queen of the revenants, we fed her quite a lot of blood before she returned rational...she will join us as long as we'll provide her revenants' sustainment"

"The Azur Lane and Fleet Girls joined our forces and while their equipment is not the most advanced one they will keep our oceans safe" Apollyon said before Anastasia could ask her for her report

"The Heroic Spirits are not supplied with mana, the master of Chaldea is in critical conditions so he can only provide energy to BB" Samus reported "For the Primarch candidate we found, she is called Mash Kyrielight, her body is suspended animation but it seems like it has an expiring date which was long ago, if we take her out, she'll die shortly after...unless you could do something about it"

"When the Herrscher will be defeated, I'll personally take care of these tasks" Anastasia stated "Now we must prepare...Esdeath, go to Astana. Akame you will reach Tatsumi and the inquisitors at Novosibirsk, your opponents are the Herrscher of Flame and Death. The rest you will come with to the Babylon tower to set up the defenses"

"Anastasia" Asseylum called for the Empress who looked at her and nodded "There has been...an incident during the retrieval of Elisa...I would be grateful if you would be so kind to give a judgment on the matter..."

Anastasia nodded and with Asseylum walked outside...

In a different room of the Kremlin, a temporary courtroom has been set by the Imperial administration, inside of it there were Anti-Rain Squad, 404 Squad, M16 which wasn't repaired but she was connected to a battery so she could be conscious for the trial, a few Astartes and tech-priests.

The seat where the judge was supposed to sit was empty, they were waiting for Asseylum to show up and give a verdict that will decide both of M16 and 416.

Suddenly, eight Legio Custodes walked inside causing everyone to freak out a bit since their presence usually means that the Empress was around...and this seemed to be true since, after a few seconds, Anastasia walked inside the room followed by Asseylum.

Everyone immediately saluted her as she placed herself in front of the seat where the judge should be, unfortunately, the seat was too small for her to sit with her armor.

"the Empress will personally give a verdict to the current situation, her words will be final" Asseylum said as she sat next to Anastasia.

"I was already informed of the incident and since spending time like this is not a luxury we can afford, I will make this quick " Anastasia called as she checked the report of the incident with her nanosuit "Adepta Omnica 416, you cannot be held responsible for M4's injuries since she was already on your arm when the Chapter Master Confirmed the successful recovery of Mastermind. M4 at that moment wasn't under Imperial protection."

"Thank you, my Empress" 416 said with an emotionless tone

"Now" The Empress said before looking at M16 "You're accused of betrayal by G&K since you joined Sangvis Ferri, and was brainwashed by the virus Parapluie, which has been neutralized by BB upon coming to contact with Mastermind..."

"I wasn-" M16 tried to say when suddenly she found herself unable to talk as if someone was controlling her

Anastasia's eyes were glowing a bit "But even after being brainwashed, you helped AR team escaping from the Honkai Hordes until they made their way back to their base...with this knowledge, I apply the Imperial Absolution on you just like I did with the SF, you will be repaired and will be allowed to return to your family and husband, you will be granted civil rights. The conditions of the alliance with Sangvis Ferri will apply to you but you can choose with which squad you want to work with. This is my judgment...you're free to leave"

With those words, everyone started walking away.

"Leader of Anti-Rain" Anastasia called causing M4 to freeze on the spot "I would like to have a few words with you in private"

M4 bowed "Yes my Empress" she said

The room emptied, the rest of AR team felt a bit worried for M4 but Asseylum convinced them otherwise. The only people left were M4, Anastasia, and the Legio Custodes.

"I was informed of what happened between you and Elisa, and I can't force you to like her" Anastasia said calmly

"Can't you?" M4 whispered before realizing that she just talked back to the most important person in the Galaxy and bowed "I'm sorry"

"No, you're right" Anastasia said with a smile "I can bend the will of people and machines if I wanted to...but I don't unless it's strictly necessary...because I love the human mind and spirit and forcing it to obey me makes me feel like I'm tainting it"

"We're machines though, My Empress..." M4 replied looking down on her feet

"you threw yourself on a plasma gun that was charging up, crying, clinging desperately to it, ignoring the pain just to save someone dear to you" Anastasia replied as she placed her armored hand on M4's shoulder "You fought, cried for the fallen soldiers and sisters...you are a sentient being, a machine with a human heart and a human soul...because otherwise, you would be a mindless killing machine...and these same traits are possessed by Elisa, but she manifested the ugly side of humanity...our enemy is strong if we are divided so what I'm asking you is to know her better, to correct her and if you'll feel like it...to forgive her...she was the one who put the condition of you being protected...along with M16"

M4 remained silent a few moments, processing what she was just told "I will try..."

"That's all I ask" Anastasia replied before her smile disappeared as she looked outside as if something caught her attention "Unfortunately, I will have to ask you go on another mission with your squad again...I'm sending you the details"

Babylon tower, hours later

Shub-Niggurath and Salome Jokanaan, valkyries of the Squad Snowwolf were inside the vehicle bay of the Babylon Tower, the alarm of the facility could be heard going off around them and this was because of the massive battleship filled with Honkai Beasts that had reached the place and was now hovering above the tower, the systems had detected thousands of Honkai beasts in the near vicinity, the situation was critical and the two valkyries were cut off from the rest of Schicksal, Salome had decided to retreat back to Europe where she and the remaining personnel of Schicksal would be safe.

They had gathered a few transport vehicles but unfortunately, they had no form of defense system meaning that the two valkyries will have to defend the convoy themselves, which was extremely risky. After all the preparations were done, the two valkyries got on top of the transports and opened the doors that were keeping the beasts from getting inside. To their surprise, no beasts were waiting for them.

"THE WAY IS CLEAR! HOW!? IS THIS A TRAP?" Niggurath shouted in shock

"I DON'T CARE! TIME TO MAKE A RUN FOR IT!" Salome replied "THERE'LL BE NO STOPPING TO RESCUE STRAGGLERS! YOUR ORDERS ARE TO LEAVE THIS PLACE AS FAST AS YOU CAN!"

With that being said, the vehicles started to move as fast as they could. Unknown to them, the person who had cleared the way was looking at them from the distance, her name was Patricia Highsmith, an MIA Valkyrie of Squad Snowwolf and Anti-Entropy spy, she had fought her way through the Honkai in order to clear the way for her companions but now was heavily injured and couldn't keep fighting and so she watched as the convoy got away from the Babylon tower, she wanted to give one last goodbye but she knew that the Honkai Beasts behind her was going to kill her soon. She closed her eyes as her thoughts wandered to the strongest Valkyrie of Schicksal...

'Sorry Cecilia' She thought as the Honkai behind was about to thrust its spear inside of her 'You'll have to look after these snow pups on your own...'

"Patricia Highsmith, A-Rank Valkyrie of Squad Snowwolf...signing off" she whispered closing her eyes...

The sound of an assault rifle filled the air as the Honkai beast stumbled back a bit, Patricia felt herself being lifted off the ground and being grabbed from someone. She looked at the one grabbing her and saw a girl wearing black clothing carrying an assault rifle with her but most importantly

"I got her M4!" the girl shouted excited as she used the 3D maneuvering gear paired with the jump kit to get across the forest "Are you okay?"

Patricia stared at her "Not really...who are you?"

"I'm M4 SOPMOD II but people call me Sop or Sop II" the girl replied smiling

"You can fly?!" Patricia asked realizing now that the two of them were literally traversing the forest without touching the ground

"What? no! We're swinging around with this" Sop replied as she gently touched the device that was strapped to her waist "I can't tell you how it works but it's awesome...Oh! there you are M4!"

Patricia looked around herself and her eyes managed to catch the figures of three other figures swinging next to them "Sop the forest is going to end, we'll jump on the convoy" the girl named M4, who was carrying a massive suitcase on her back, said getting a nod from Sop

"If the judgment-class honkai will not kill us first" the girl with white/pinkish hair swinging next to M4 said as she pointed at the sky

A humanoid figure with wings made of Honkai energy was following the convoy, her intentions didn't look exactly friendly

"If the convoy makes it into firing range that will not be a problem, STAR" M4 replied "RO call for air support"

"Roger that" RO, the girl swinging at Sop's left, replied with a nod

"Let's do this" M4 shouted causing the whole group to change direction and head for the convoy.

The forest was about to end but this wasn't concerning the squad since they used the last line of trees to launch themselves on top of the transport vehicles, startling the Valkyries on top of them

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?" Niggurath shouted as Sop let Patricia sit on the roof of the vehicle "PATRICIA!?"

Sob didn't waste any time and along with the other t-dolls opened fire against the flying humanoid honkai, unfortunately, the bullets did not affect it as they bounced off on some sort of invisible shield, what they did succeed in was in pissing it off and so the girl-looking honkai was now preparing a power orb of honkai energy in her hands.

"M4 we need more time!" RO shouted causing the leader of the squad to kneel on top of the vehicle and to removed the suitcase from her back and opened it prevailing a mini-Jupiter cannon.

She aimed the shot at the honkai before pulling the trigger causing a loud boom to echo all around them. She hit her enemy...but she didn't wound it. The smoke cleared away revealing a quite annoyed honkai girl who simply aimed her hand at the convoy

"Die" she muttered

Suddenly, a barrage of bullets and lasers hit the honkai beast as a squadron of YoRHa Flight Units engaged aerial combat against the girl

"This is YoRHa unit 2B, responding to your request of air support" 2B said on the radio as the battle in the sky raged on "We'll escort you to safety"

"Hell Yeah!" Sop shouted excited

"Thanks" Salome said to the girl next to her which was M4 who gave her a brief nod

"Schicksal and the Imperium have an agreement, we were tasked with seeing if any active personnel was still in the area" she replied as she put back her heavy weapon inside the suitcase "We'll arrive at the safe zone in two minutes"

"There's no safe zone we must return to Europe to be safe" Salome replied raising an eyebrow

M4 looked at her with an annoyed expression and was about to reply when she saw something "I would turn around if I was you"

The Valkyrie looked at her with a puzzled expression before turning around and widening her eyes at what she was seeing.

A kilometers away from the convoy's position, there was a massive trench line filled to the brim with Imperial Guards, Fellblades, Baneblades, Leman Russes, Land Raider tanks and many armored vehicles. The Adeptus Astartes could be spotted between the many guardsmen...but there were two things which stood out the most and it was what was behind them. They were standing tall and proud, death machines which towered above everything, the Titans of the Adeptus Mechanicus, there were Imperial Knights, Warhounds, Reavers, Warbringers, and Warlords.

In the distance behind them, the artillery was ready to make fire rain on whoever was unlucky enough to be indicated as a target...

The sky was occupied by the imperial ships, their silhouettes were blocking the sun.

Bella, who was still attacked by the YoRHa flight units, came to a halt when she spotted the massive gathering of Imperial Forces all around the area, her blood froze when, once again, the Imperial Guard stood brave and proud just like during the Honkai-Imperial wars of the other universe, the titans were intimidating as ever...

She snapped back to reality as a new sense of safety crossed her whole body. This wasn't the same universe, her glorious god rules over the immaterium and by consequence, all of the honkai was stronger. The Anathema wasn't here nor his sons, there was no daemons, no Eldar, No Chaos Gods...just a group of vermin without a leader.

Bella saw the convoy reaching the trench line and noticed how the YoRHa flight units weren't engaging her anymore, of course. "My queen..." she whispered as her mind connected with Sirin's "The Imperials are here"

She heard a giggle "Then let's welcome them" Sirin replied as the sky turned of a pinkish color and hundreds of thousands of Honkai Beasts appeared below Bella...

Meanwhile, Astana

Esdeath's Adepta Sororitas raised walls of ice to shields civilians of the city while the Winter Predators fended off the Honkai beasts that were flooding the streets, fireballs were raining from the sky and this was caused by the Herrscher of Flame that appeared in the city when Sirin returned to the Babylon Tower, she was identified by BB, her name was Agata and she was one of the test subjects of the Schicksal Siberian facility who died during the experimentations.

Agata was observing the city with spite and anger from the rooftop of one of the skyscrapers, the entire place was supposed to be set on fire but for some reason as soon as she arrived an insanely cold wind started blowing, extinguishing every fire she tried to ignite. Then those women started protecting the citizens and so she sent them the Honkai Beasts to exterminate them but they came across the giant hulking men and being pushed off.

"What a disappointment" Someone suddenly said from behind her "You're not even a real Herrscher"

"HOW DARE YOU TO SPEAK TO ME VERM-" Agata barked back before widening her eyes as they settled on the giant armored woman in front of her, she was taller than the soldiers she saw fighting her beasts, she had a similar body armor but of a different pattern

"Greetings false Herrscher" the woman said with a twisted grin "I'm the Primarch Esdeath...your executioner"

The word 'Primarch' echoed across Agata's mind as if she remembered hearing it from somewhere else. She leaped high in the sky and used her powers to launch a fire bombardment which completely destroyed the skyscraper "AH AH! SEEMS LIKE YOU WERE ALL TALK AND NO ACTION!" she said with a laugh

"You speak too much for a dead body" Esdeath replied from behind her as she examined the pseudo-herrscher core in her hand before it broke apart "These things are just stupid, they are a major weakness"

Agata looked down at her abdomen and saw a gaping hole where her core was supposed to be, she then saw that ice was spreading out of the wound. She looked at Esdeath as tears fell from eyes "I don't want to die again"

Esdeath gave her a stern look "You were weak and so you died, if you didn't want to die you should have been stronger...now perish" she said as she flicked Agata's forehead causing her to turn into an ice statue which plummeted towards the ground and broke in thousands of pieces once it impacted against the asphalt.

The Primarch then contacted her troops "The Pseudo-Herrscher is dead, purge the remaining beasts"

Novosibirsk

The city was empty, a lethal miasma forced its people to evacuate, the Red Army forces who had gathered there under the order of General Colonel Ivan suffered incredible losses, the inquisitors also retreat under the orders of Tatsumi. The only two people walking the streets were Tatsumi and Akame, the man had adapted to the miasma while Akame thanks to her Primarch transformation was naturally immune or at least extremely resistant against it.

"Why..." someone whispered alerting the two "These two people are not sleeping why? Something is wrong with them"

Akame took a split second to analyze the one who spoke who was a girl in a fancy dress with long greenish hair, she standing a few meters in front of them. Akame unsheathed Murasame causing the girl to stumble

"NYET! Get away from me!" The girl shouted before Akame's sword passed through her body and caused her to fall on the ground lifeless...

Akame was about to recover the Herrscher Core when Otto Apocalypse appeared standing in front of the dead body "I needed her" he said with a cold tone

"I don't think so" Akame replied as the man knelt and recovered the core which broke immediately

"It was just a copy...the Original must be with Sirin..." he said before looking at the Primarch "You don't need to worry, we're allied for now" he said "We took care of the Herrscher in Finland...Cecilia was the one to take it out"

Akame remained silent before both of her and Tatsumi literally blurred away

"Rude..." Otto whispered with a sigh

Red Army Outpost

Alexey walked in front of Cocolia's holding cell and knocked on the glass window of the door, waking the woman up "Cocolia! We are going to Moskva! Come with us!"

"I already told you...I will not side with a traitor" Cocolia whispered "Let the Imperials find me...I don't care"

"The honkai will kill you first!" Alexey said causing the woman to raise an eyebrow "Novosibirsk has been attacked and your precious Red Army was killed by an Herrscher! What remains of them are going to the secret base in Severobaykalsk"

"Go away Alexey..." Cocolia muttered

"You're a good woman Cocolia...think of that Orphanage you send your money to..." the man replied with a sigh without getting any answer, he was about to say something but suddenly the whole building collapsed as if hit by something.

After a few moments, Cocolia emerged from the debris and looked around trying to understand what just happened. The woman saw an Honkai beast standing tall in front of her and as a reaction, she ran away from it and hid.

She remained hidden for several minutes until she was sure that she wasn't being chased, then she saw Alexey covered in debris and heavily injured.. Cocolia rushed to his side and removed the debris but quickly understood that there was no hope for the man

"Please...Save my wife..." he whispered before dying to his wounds

"Dammit..." Cocolia muttered "I'm sorry Alexey ...If only I knew you were telling the truth" she then checked the man's pocket's and found a Makarov handgun and his car keys.

The woman quickly rushed to the parking lot and reached Alexey's car, she got inside and...

"Who...Who are you?" Alexey's pregnant wife asked

She had silver hair made into two curled twin tails and silver eyes, she was wearing a light blue coat with white fur on the neck and sleeves.

Cocolia didn't have any time to speak with her so she just sat on the driver seat and ignored her

"No wait!" Miss Zaychick shouted as she grabbed Cocolia's arm "Who are you? And why do you have my husband's car keys? What happened to Alexey? Tell me!"

Cocolia cursed under her breath before taking Aleksey's gun and pointed it at the woman's face "SHUT UP WOMAN." she shouted "Alexey is dead. Keep your hands on your lap and stay quiet, if you want to live, you'll do exactly as I tell you and if you try anything funny, I'll shoot that pretty face of yours."

Miss Zaychick slowly nodded and did as she was told. Cocolia turned on the engine and drove away, she was about to go for the road to Moskva but she found herself looking at a small group of Honkai beasts, crossing between them was too dangerous...

The road to Novosibirsk, on the other hand, was empty. She cursed under her breath again and decided to follow it...hopefully, she'll come across General Colonel Ivan, she will dop off miss Zaychick and then try to find a way to get to the Orphanage...

Chapter Text

Eternal Protector

Anastasia looked down at the Honkai horde that was approaching her firing line along with many floating battleships created with the core of reason by Sirin, at her side, there were Najenda, Samus, Leone, and Apollyon.

"My Empress" Alatan called as he entered the room "Primarch Esdeath and Akame have completed their missions. Small groups of Honkai Beasts have been spotted in the Siberian Tundra...I took the liberty to authorize their elimination on sight"

"You did the right thing" Anastasia replied with a nod "Tell your brothers that I'll personally guide the defense and counterattack"

Alatan knelt "It will be an honor to fight alongside you again, My Empress" he said before leaving

"So it begins" Najenda said as she looked outside

"Let the slaughter commence" Apollyon proclaimed

Anastasia closed her eyes when she opened them back, she was standing in the trench line along with her sisters and the Legio Custodes. Their sudden appearance startled the guardsmen for a second but they all quickly returned to aim their lasguns at the slow marching horde.

A few kilometers away, the Schicksal gunships were traveling towards the Imperial formation, they had received a notification that the Imperium was about to launch a massive assault on the Herrscher as part of their temporary truce.

Onboard of one of those battleships, there was Cecilia, who had been recalled from her temporal retirement due having to take care of her Kiana, And Siegfried. She noticed how the battleships suddenly started their landed procedures and looked at the C-Rank valkyrie next to her "What is going on? We're not at the tower"

"The Imperial Defense line is here" the Valkyrie replied as the gunships finally landed

"Here? Why?" Siegfried asked puzzled

"More than a million Honkai Beasts have been detected near the tower, the coalition can't get closer if we don't decrease those numbers a bit"

Siegfried was shocked and was about to reply that it was impossible to fight a horde that big but he was cut off from the sound of the cargo door of the gunship opening.

Cecilia grabbed him by the hand and walked outside along with the other Valkyries. They were in shock when they found themselves in front of massive robots equipped with many guns, they were also surprised to see how Doctor Tesla and Einstein along with their mechs were also there.

The additional troops of the coalition were in the back of the trench line, waiting to give them instruction there was Anastasia's counselor, Merlin. "Okay, I'm not exactly a professional with all these tactics and stuff so bear with me" he said with a laugh

"Get to the point already idiot!" Tesla replied already irritated by the man's antics

"Okay okay!" Merlin replied "The Mechs of Anti-Entropy will offer additional firepower and so will stand next to the massive tanks you can see. The A and S-Rank Valkyries of Schicksal will place themselves in front lines while the rest will be in the back, we can't allow unexperienced valkyries to interfere with our forces. DON'T ENGAGE THE ENEMY UNLESS YOU HAVE RANGED WEAPONS!" he said before turning towards a few gas-masked guardsmen "Take them to their positions"

The Guardsmen nodded and quickly gestured the joint forces to follow them.

Cecilia followed the soldiers deep within the trench line, she was shocked by the amount of military hardware present on in the defense lines, what surprised her the most is that she wasn't able to recognize any of weapons she was seeing. The closer she got to the first line the more Astartes she could spot...then she saw her...Anastasia was towering above the guardsmen, the Space Marines and any human being, at her side there were four other women, they were taller than anyone else but Anastasia. The Empress was clad in shiny golden armor and a golden aura seemed to emanate from her, which, even though the situation was pretty dangerous, gave Cecilia a sensation of safety and peace.

The Valkyrie was brought back to her senses when her husband tapped on her shoulders "I-Is that her?" he asked as he threw a few looks at Anastasia but avoided staring at her for too long

Cecilia slowly nodded "Yes...that's her"

As she said that Anastasia stabbed her sword on the ground and looked in the directions of the Honkai horde

"The day of reckoning has finally come" Anastasia said as her voice filled the minds of every warrior on the battlefield "Our enemy has finally revealed itself, we spent Millenia worth of preparations, the time of grief is over, the time of hiding is over. Today, we take our weapons and stand up against God! HAVE NO FEAR FOR I AM WITH YOU! HAVE NO HESITATION FOR I PROTECT YOU! HAVE NO MERCY BECAUSE THE ENEMY WILL NOT GIVE YOU NONE!"

Somewhere in the trench line, A Valkyrie was shocked to hear those words, for she has spent millennia on Earth and never came across the Imperial Forces...

The Honkai beasts known as Ballistas, raised their arms to throw the spheric objects that they usually used to bombard their enemies. Once having aimed they all threw the spheres at the trench line...but they never reached their targets as the Spheres exploded as if they hit an invisible wall

"MEN!" Anastasia shouted as all the legio custodes pointed their Guardian spears outwards as the other Primarch also aimed their weapons both of Schicksal and Anti-Entropy forces prepared themselves for the battle "SHOW THEIR GOD WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CHALLENGE HUMANITY!"

The guardsmen, the Astartes, the Spartans, and everyone else launched a warcry that echoed all across the Siberian tundra before the warhorns of the titans filled the air with what it sounded like sky ripping apart...then every single weapon opened fire.

The honkai beasts were hit by a massive barrage of Imperial Firepower, the titan's armament killed dozens of them with each shot while the Artillery rained mercilessly on them, the guardsmen's lasguns killed everything within range, a lasgun alone may not be strong enough to harm an Honkai beast but that doesn't matter when there are hundreds of thousands pointed at them. The Imperial Ships started engaging the floating battleships of the Honkai, each attack caused massive damage or simply destroyed the enemy ship upon impact.

The Frontier Titans piloted by the tactical dolls unleashed all of their firepower. The sky was occupied by swarms of flying honkai beasts engaging in combat the Imperial aircrafts and YoRHa flight units.

The Imperial Tanks aimed their cannons to the giant Honkais which were being used as shields by the smaller honkais, each shot caused the earth around them to tremble.

Tesla and Einstein were shocked but this didn't keep them from firing all of the ammunition of their mechs, the Valkyries with ranged weaponry shot in the mass of beasts.

Suddenly, the sky above the battlefield darkened and wrathful clouds started appearing everywhere soon followed by a storm of golden lightning bolts crashed down the enemies of man, destroying their ships and electrocuting any flying beast. The damaged aircraft and YoRHa flight units started repairing themselves.

Anastasia's body was now shining with a golden glow, her eyes were now made of the purest of light and a pair of wings made of aldnoah energy and resembling those of an Eagle shoot out of her back.

Bella was hovering above the horde and froze in place, her eyes settled on Anastasia's figure, terror grasped her heart as the memories of the great crusade resurfaced in her mind, the memories of Him slaughtering her people. She had to warn her queen and so she turned around started flying back to the Babylon tower.

The horde lost lots of its members, the bodies which were not immediately vaporized by the heavy weapons started to accumulate faster than they could return to the immaterium. Their advance came to a halt as their leader was no longer with them. The beasts started retreating towards the tower leaving only the scorched earth, the air filled with the smell of something similar to stone melting, incinerated trees and a thin layer of fog created by the pulverized snow.

"They are retreating!" Siegfried shouted as he looked around himself in shock while Cecilia tried to understand why they were behaving like this, it was like they were scared by something.

"FIX BAYONETS!" Someone suddenly shouted causing the guardsmen to place bayonets on their lasguns

"Are these people crazy!?" Siegfried said in shock "They are normal people! They can't fight them!"

"Silence!" The guardsmen next to him shouted enraged "Only in Death Does Duty end! And As long as the Empress stands! Even death is a victory!"

Both of Siegfried and Cecilia were shocked at those words which sounded like pure madness

Anastasia removed the sword from the ground and pointed it at the retreating horde "IT IS TIME TO RETURN THE FAVOR! MEN! CHARGE!"

A roar from men and machines spread out from the trench line as a reply to those words. The Empress started running towards the retreating horde followed by all of her forces. The titans' footsteps caused the earth to shake, the engines of the tanks turned to life before they started moving forward, their guns blazing and aimed at the back of the horde.

The Astartes and Adepta Sororitas climbed out of the trench line with their chainswords and power weapons in hand followed by the guardsmen who bravely charged at the enemy with their bayonets.

"FOR THE IMPERIUM!" some shouted

"FOR THE EMPRESS! FOR TERRA!" other roared

"GLORY TO THE FIRST MAN TO DIE!"

The artillery still fired its shots in order to reduce the enemies' number and possibly cut off their retreat while the aircrafts gave chase to the flying beasts.

The Valkyries of Schicksal and the Anti-Entropy troops were in awe, some of them thought that what they were witnessing was the ultimate form of bravery while others saw this charge as proof of absolute madness.

Siegfried grabbed his two handguns and looked at his wife with a smirk on his face "well...this is crazy" he said "Together?"

Cecilia smiled and nodded before both of them jumped out of the trench and started running in the direction of the Honkais

As they run closer to their enemies, time seemed to have slowed down, everything was moving in slow motion. Cecilia spotted Anastasia in the vanguard of the charge, she was launching lightning from her clawed hand at one fifteen meter Honkai while with the other hand she was about to swing her sword. The Valkyrie watched as the mighty sword came down on the enemies of man and with that single blow a large group of them was utterly destroyed opening a gap within their ranks.

The Legio custodes rushed inside the opening opened by their empress and with a great display of discipline and strength, they started crushing their enemies with unrelenting determination.

The guardsmen, on the other hand, did not rely only on their weapons...no, they relied on their overwhelming numbers, whenever an Honkai was busy impaling a guardsman, five of them will attack keeping the monster from recovering from its previous attack

The Adeptus Astartes used their jump packs to get in the heart of the enemy formations before starting swinging their nightmarish chainswords and power weapons while some of them simply used their powers fists to lay down their enemies

The Adepta Sororitas were also among them, being created from Anastasia's blood they didn't to worry about defending themselves because their vectors blocked all the incoming threats and crushed them, they used their bolters and power swords to cut through the opposition and reach their Empress.

Among these, The Spartans of the UNSC fought their way through the battlefield in squads, their movements were methodical and tactical unlike those of the guardsmen, they were aware of the battlefield conditions and took upon themselves the role of support for the main forces. Thanks to their enhancements, they were able to give accurate and precise radio feedback to the imperial army commanders who would either order the guardsmen to focus on a certain point of the charge or order the ships above to offer some support

But those who dominated the battlefield were without a doubt the machines and the mighty titans.

The Fellblades and Baneblades literally crushed the honkais under their tracks, the cannons fired non-stop their rounds and lasers, they opened the path to victory for the guardsmen who used them as battering ram.

The mighty machines of the mechanicus targeted the biggest honkais on the battlefield, the Imperial Knights and the Warhounds being the relatively faster than the others titans were marching alongside the charge, the knights had started attacking the 'false' Emperor-class honkai with their reaper chainswords while the warhounds stomped and shoot down the enemy with their turbo lasers and mega bolters.

The Reavers, while slower compared to the warhounds, were still able to tear apart the Honkai formations in order to drastically reduce the number of enemies waiting to fight the incoming charge.

But the titans who really devastated the opposition were the Warlord-class and Warbringer class titans, their weapons were too powerful to being fired in the vicinity of the vanguard but fortunately, the ocean of targets within the vanguard and the Babylon tower gave them plenty of opportunities to put down their enemies, each shot of their weapons made the earth tremble and the air to be filled with the loudest of explosions, they were single-handedly responsible for dealing massive blows in the enemy ranks both on the ground and the air as the titans used their carapace mounted weapon to shoot down the flying Honkai Beasts and used their Nemesis Quake Cannon to shoot down the battleships projected by the Herrscher's power.

In the middle of all of this, the Frontier-Class Titans piloted by the Tactical Dolls were charging along with the vanguard, their weapons might not be as strong as the weapons of the Collegia Titanica but they were still be able to offer support and thanks to their more articulated frames were able to help out the tanks who got stuck or to simply grab and crush whatever Honkai beast was unlucky to be on their path.

The Tactical dolls inside of them were able to analyze better the battlefield than the normal guardsmen and were able to calculate where they were more needed or where the formation was weaker, thanks to their constant report of the battlefield conditions and the connection within them, the Mechanicus Titans, and the other mechanized troops, they were able to mark targets that they needed to be rid off as soon as possible.

In the middle of all of this, The Schicksal A-rank and S-rank Valkyrie were fighting side by side with the Astartes, among them there was Cecilia, who was living up to her name as strongest Valkyrie of Schicksal, each of her attacks struck down several beasts with ease but sometimes whenever she needed to advance in order to keep pushing the vanguard, she would throw a glance in the back of the formations and see how the lower class of Valkyries were holding up.

Unfortunately for them, some of them were paralyzed on the spot, they were not used for such intense warfare and the extremely powerful noises produced by the Titan-grade weaponry, some of them outright fainted upon hearing the Volcano Cannons. Cecilia couldn't blame them though, even herself was having a hard time getting used to those blasts.

The Anti-Entropy mechs, on the other end, felt a bit left out due to the fact they were placed next to the armored divisions of the Imperium, meaning that they were fighting side by with the Leman Russes, Baneblades, Fellblades and the Astartes armored vehicles which meant that they were always on the move and had to be careful to not be in the way of the turrets of the other vehicles. Despite this, they still offered protection to the guardsmen and focused their fire against the enemies which were being targeted by the others

From her tower, Sirin watched the fight unfold with rage and disgust, Bella had come to warn her but that army but She wasn't particularly worried about that...until she saw the one who was leading. The person who resembled the man that once dared to stand against her God...she will have to take care of her...but first she'll send her a message.

She then looked behind her and smirked when her eyes laid upon a small group lead by Otto Apocalypse...

Moscow

Leone's steel legion was guarding the Russian capital as instructed by the Primarch and the Empress, their objective was to protect the city in case something were to happen to it, so far, nothing had since the conquest of the capital.

The civilians of the outskirts of the city have been evacuated for precursory measure...everything has been quiet until a pink bright light appeared on the horizon...soon followed by a horde of Honkai Beasts running towards the defense line.

The guardsmen aimed their weapons at the incoming threat but they weren't worried...because they were the weakest asset of the defense of the city...

A warhorn blasted across the land before silence returned...then another one from another point seemed to reply to the first...

Then the ground trembled with the rhythm of a heartbeat as a sound echoed louder and louder, the people inside the city left their houses to see what was the cause of such noise...and all of them found themselves overwhelmed by a mix of fear and awe.

It was towering in the sky, slowly positioning itself. The guardsmen looked up to it in awe

The Imperator-class titan, The Imperii Invicta, was on their side and it wasn't alone. On the horizon, another behemoth stood, its weapons already aimed at the horde, the Tyrannus Immortalem, the Warmonger-class titan.

The guardsmen saluted to the two machines before they created a sea of fire and destruction...within seconds, the horde was no more...

Siberia

The Imperial charge was cutting through the horse like a hot knife through butter. Anastasia stilled leading the charge along with her sisters and Legio Custodes...then she felt it...It was there, the Honkai God.

Anastasia looked to the tower, the presence was coming from there

"Najenda" She called in her sister's mind "I must go to the tower, take the lead"

"Okay!" Najenda replied before Anastasia teleported herself on top of the tower.

The Herrscher was floating up in air, above her there were several meteorites wrapped in fire pointed at them. Below her there Otto, a Valkyrie and the warrior that was with the Overseer back in Berlin...Fu Hua, although, her appearance was way different, she was wearing a white short Chinese dress. her hair was white with a few tinges of red.

The Empress raised her sword and as a result, the meteors exploded in mid-air before they could fall on the group of Valkyries. Otto and the Valkyrie with him turned around to stare at her in disbelief while Fu Hua seemed to be focused into doing some sort of prayer

'I must stop her here' Anastasia heard from the thoughts of the warrior 'I have no choice but to burn Fenghuang Down. Memories of friends long gone...the moments shared...the battles fought...Shall fade for this blade'

Anastasia felt a wave of immense power coming from the warrior...but she knew that it will fail

"Do not give something so precious to that God of hers" Anastasia voiced boomed inside Fu Hua's mind

Finally, Fu Hua turned around and saw who was standing behind her and grit her teeth "She must be stopped now!"

"And she will" Anastasia replied as she shoved away the ancient warrior.

Sirin stared at Anastasia's figure in disbelief for a few moments before feeling anger which didn't belong to her filling her being, she immediately understood who held such feeling...it was her God...

"You..." Sirin hissed as she clenched her fists "You are a child of the Anathema..."

Anastasia lifted herself from the ground as her wings started to shine brighter than before "It is Master of Mankind to you"

"YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE!" Sirin shouted as a feather appeared in her hand "AND NOW I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT WE'RE CAPABLE OF!"

Anastasia remained emotionless as a portal opened behind her, she looked at the group on the tower and with the blink of an eye they disappeared, she then looked at Sirin "Then I'll show you that our resolution is greater than your will" she muttered before disappearing into the portal.

Sirin started to laugh as Bella flew next to her and bowed "It is done Bella! Their Empress is GONE! GO! AND STRIKE DOWN THOSE HUMANS!"

Bella smiled "It will be done my queen" she said before flying towards the battlefield at incredible speed

When she arrived, she placed herself up in the air and started conjuring powerful balls of Honkai Energy and aimed for the titans, her bombardment didn't go unobserved since the titans started firing back at her but thanks to the blessing of her queen, she was able to avoid the shots. Each shot of her, was a heavy blow for the void shields of the machines, with patience, she will be able to destroy them.

Then everything came to a halt, Bella found herself falling down into the frontline, with immense pain coming from her side

"You were starting to be quite annoying" Najenda said as she stood a few meters away from Bella with her plasma cannon fuming a bit "Your queen will not save you now" she said darkly as she prepared her thunder hammer...

Sirin's dream world

Anastasia was driving a car in a city created to trap her and the others that Herrscher targeted, she could feel the rage of Sirin, this dreamworld was supposed to be a nightmarish realm but, thanks to her psychic abilities and experience with dreamworlds, she had no problem turning it into a happy one at the cost of many of her forces...but it was worth it especially since with this illusion she was able to see deep within Sirin's mind where her personality was still untouched by the corruption of the Honkai...and so far, she only found sadness and grief

The Honkai God appeared only in front of people who seemingly have given up in life and suffered immensely, it would offer them its power in exchange of slaughter...Anastasia was lucky because her father was with her but Sirin had no one and so she accepted God's offer...

But this meant that deep down, below that hatred and anger caused by the people who tortured her, she was a thirteen years old girl who was being drowned in sadness and grief, who lost her faith in humanity because of what happened and that desperately looked for the happiness she once had...

"So what you're going to do?" The Emperor asked sitting in the backseat

"Sirin is human" Anastasia said looking at her hand "I'll reclaim her soul"

"And if you fail?" Magnus asked sitting next to his father

"Uhm...machines like this no longer exist in our universe" Rogal said as he played with the window

"Then I'll kill her..." she replied with a sigh before chuckling "It's strange to see you all with normal sizes... and without armors"

"Huuuuuuuh...I don't like this shirt...it's blue" Kitten said as he looked at his own clothes which consisted of a light blue polo and a pair of jean "I'M SORRY BUT WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO'S NOT WEARING A MILITARY UNIFORM?!"

"because we're important members of a prestigious family of soldiers, who serve in the military for generations while you're Anastasia's househusband" The Emperor replied

"You do realize that I'm a High Lord of Terra, right?" Kitten replied

"You do realize that I'm the motherfucking Emperor and that you're whatever I see fit?" The Master of Mankind replied

"I'm sorry Kitten...I know that I will never be like Shadowsun but put up with me until we get out" Anastasia joked preparing for the captain-general's reaction

"For the last...fucking time...THAT IS NOT FUCKING CANON!" Kitten shouted as everyone in car started laughing

"that is funny" Rogal said as Anastasia pulled up into a driveway

"Okay now, don't blow our cover" Anastasia said

"Don't worry, I'll be the always grumpy grandpa, who still doesn't like the husbands of her daughters but it's sweet to his grandsons" The Emperor replied

"I'll be the smart uncle" Magnus said with a chuckle

"And I...will be the architect uncle" Rogal said

"You're an army man Rogal" Magnus commented

"Soldiers always need to be build fortifications" Rogal replied

"Wait...what am I?" Kitten asked

"you're the normal uncle, who tries his best to look cool but miserably fails" The Emperor "Now let's go! I want to finally speak to someone else"

"Wait...how should we call you?" Magnus asked

"Ceasar" The Emperor replied "yes, like that roman emperor, now let's go" he said before leaving the car

"He's strangely excited" Kitten remarked as he also left the car

"Ten Millenia sitting on a chair and surrounded by people who do the exact opposite of what you told them to does that to you" Magnus replied.

The five of them walked to the door of the house and knocked on it

"Who could be at this hour?" Anastasia heard Siegfried

"Wait here Sirin, I'll get the door" she then heard Cecilia said before she opened the door "Ana!"

"Sorry for being so late, work took a while" Anastasia replied while hugging Cecilia "They are with me" she whispered to her ear knowing that Cecilia wasn't under the influence of the illusion "I brought father and the others, I hope you don't mind them"

A loud gasp could be heard coming from the living room as Cecilia smiled "Of course I don't mind! Kiana, Sirin! Come to say hi to your grandpa and uncles!"

A grown-up Kiana ran towards the entrance wearing a beautiful white and light blue dress "Auntie!" she shouted before hugging Anastasia

Anastasia hugged her back "How could I miss the birthday nephew" she replied before Kiana looked at Magnus and the others

"Hi!" she said with a smile

"Would you look at that" Ceasar said with a smirk "how old are you? 23?"

"Eeeeh!? I'm 16 now grandpa!" Kiana replied as she crossed her arms

"Is that so? Then You can drive now" he replied causing Kiana to til her head confused "the gift that is waiting for you outside"

Kiana widened her eyes and ran outside and saw two magnificent white and purple Ducati Panigale V2 "OH MY GOD! MOM! GRAMPS BOUGHT ME TWO MOTORCYCLES!"

"Only one" Ceasar corrected him "the other is for Sirin, after all, we missed her last birthday due to work"

"WWWWWWWHAT?!" Siegfried shouted as he run-up to the entrance of the house, only to freeze in place one he saw Ceasar looking down at him

"so you finally showed up Siegfried" he said with a stern tone "I thought you were going to keep hiding"

Siegfried started to visibly sweat "Uhm...I wasn't...hiding...I was...YES! I was telling to Sirin to say hi!"

As he said that, the purple-haired girl peeked around the corner of the hallway unsure of what to do

'Well, she doesn't look so evil without all her herrscher stuff' The Emperor said to Anastasia telepathically as he walked to the girl and lifted her "There you are, my little genius" he said causing Sirin to panic "How is school going?"

The girl was at confused as hell and didn't know how to reply "Ehm...I...well...good?"

"That's great!" Ceasar replied patting her head

"seeing behaving like this sure is making my blood boil" Magnus muttered to Rogal

"Yes...seeing him able to perform healthy parental interactions makes you think how so many things could be avoided" The Primarch of the Imperial fist replied

The Emperor put down Sirin "I'm proud to see that none of your father's trait kept you from becoming a brilliant mind"

"Hey...now...are you like insulting my ancestors?" Sieg muttered to himself

"Well, Kiana doesn't have to same grades at me though" Sirin said with a smug expression

"It's all because of Siegfried genes" Ceasar replied with a sigh as Siegfried literally started crying

Anastasia smiled and walked up to the two of them and hugged Sirin "Aaaah how I missed this feeling!" she said happily "You're soft and squishy as ever"

Again, Sirin went into panic mode and didn't know what to do, fortunately for her, her sister came to her rescue

"Gramps! Can I drive it now?!" Kiana asked excitedly

"So you don't want to see our gifts?" Anastasia asked with a smirk causing Kiana's eyes to spark

"Gimme! Gimme!" Kiana said

"Shit, we needed to bring gifts?" Magnus whispered to Rogal

"Brother, it is tradition to bring gifts to birthdays, it has been common practice for millennia" Dorn replied

"So where's yours?" Magnus asked

"My gift cannot be carried with my hands" Rogal replied stoically

Kiana rushed to them with sparkling eyes

Anastasia seemingly pulled out a bag out of nowhere "I wonder what's inside of it"

the girl snatched the gift from her hands "Thanks auntie!" she said before pulling out a fully leathered white motorcycle outfit with protections included "Woah! It's beautiful!"

"I'm glad you liked it" Anastasia replied before sneaking another bag to Sirin.

The girl was confused and looked inside of it only to see another motorcycle outfit inside of it but purple "...thanks" she muttered getting a wink from the woman next to her

Kiana dashed to Rogal and Magnus "Woah there little lady! no need to rush!" Magnus said as he put his hands behind his back and started conjuring something "there you go!" he then said before handing her a box

Kiana opened the box and saw several board games "Oh? What's this?"

Magnus smirked "That my dear is a limited edition of a game called DnD, an Ouji Board, Regicide Board with metal pieces" he said proud of himself "along with some very interesting books"

Anastasia and Ceasar snickered a bit as Kiana made a bit of a forced smile "Thanks uncle!" she said before looking at Rogal

"My gift is too big to fit in this house" he said causing Cecilia and Siegfried to look at him with a worried expression "You should look at the tree in the backyard...now preferably"

Kiana literally blurred away and went to the backyard soon followed by the others. On the tree, there was a massive yet beautiful gothic-styled treehouse

"When the fuck did you built that?" Magnus asked

"Father helped me conjure it from my mind" he replied as Kiana looked at the house with a shocked expression "I fortified the tree so that it could support the house which has a working bathroom, kitchen, heating and electric system and three bedrooms, one for you, for your sister and a guest...it is a masterpiece of mine if you ask me, not even Perturabo can ruin it"

"I don't know who Perturbo is but thanks!" Kiana replied with a beaming smile

Magnus placed himself in front of Sirin and cleared his throat "I took the liberty of leaving your gifts in your bedroom up there"

Sirin slowly nodded

"Tell me Siegfried, what have you gifted to my grandaughter?" Ceasar asked looking at the man in question

"Ehm...a DS4?" he replied

"I see" the Emperor replied with sigh

Siegfried looked at his wife "I have to buy a car for Kiana...no two of them one for Kiana and the other for Sirin"

Cecilia chuckled "There's no need for that dear"

"B-But your father!"

"Don't worry about that" she cut him off causing the man to sigh

"Uncle Kitten also has a gift for you!" Anastasia said

"Oh yes!" Kitten said giving another bag for Kiana to open

Kiana quickly opened it and smiled "BUT THIS IS THE ENTIRE COD SERIES!"

"It sure is! DLCs included!" Kitten said getting hugged by Kiana

The night went on and the girls went to sleep, Sieg was knocked out from the beer while the others stayed downstairs to speak a bit

Cecilia, the Emperor, Anastasia, and her brothers were sitting in the dining in complete silence...

"Well this is awkward" The Master of Mankind said

"Yes" Rogal agreed

"still better than our usual family reunions..." Magnus muttered

"You have been busy huh?" Cecilia suddenly said

Anastasia nodded "Yes...how was your maternity?"

"Probably one of the happiest periods of my life..." the Valkyrie replied "Ana...I believe Sirin can be saved"

"I know" Anastasia replied nodding "Otherwise we wouldn't be speaking right now"

Cecilia smiled "I see...I'm happy to see that you understand...after the nations you conquered for a moment I..."

"I conquered those nations out of necessity" Anastasia said calmly "I don't do things without a reason Cecilia, everything that I do, is beneficial for humanity"

"Schicksal depicts you as criminal though..." Cecilia said with a saddened tone

"The same organization that put children under experimentations for who knows what objective and created an Herrscher" the Empress said

"Not that the space marines are old when recruited" Kitten muttered

"Is that true? Those bulky men? Were all recruited as children?" Cecilia asked shocked

Anastasia slowly nodded "Yes...the golden and red ones were made by him" she said gesturing the Emperor "The others...are made under my command"

"Then what right do you have to criticize Shicksal?" The white-haired woman asked

"There is a difference between human experimentation and certified protocols" Anastasia replied "When recruited, we made as clear as possible what is going to happen to them and how they will become. Initially, the mortality rate was immense but now it is so low to not be considered...meanwhile, Otto experiments on people! He just does something to them and sees if they die or not, if they don't then he experiments more on them until he gets what he wants for fuck's sake Cecilia look at what he has done to you! Or to me! You know that you were destined to die because of the experiments he has done on you?"

"Calm down Anastasia" The Emperor intervened

Cecilia remained silent for a few moments

"He...he doesn't fight for humanity, he fights for his personal interests alone, and he's willing to sacrifice and kill anyone..." The Empress concluded "No one is safe around him"

"Then why did you leave Theresa behind?" Cecilia asked "Why did you leave me behind?"

Anastasia widened her eyes at the sudden question "Because...leaving was the right thing to do, I couldn't force to leave your lives"

"Did you asked us how what we thought about it? Maybe we would have followed you"

"Do you really think so? You would have followed me into the complete unknown? You would have been happy to abandon the possibility to see Siegfried again?" Anastasia shot back

"Maybe I wouldn't have...but Theresa...she would have followed you to the ends of the universe without questioning you" Cecilia replied "You know...since you left, many stopped trusting her, they treat her as a spy..."

Anastasia crossed her arms "Maybe it's true, leaving you two behind was a bad move...but now, everything has changed, I'm no longer what I'm used to..." she said before staring into Cecilia's eyes "Join me Cecilia...not as a soldier...nor as an Astartes...join me as a Sister" she said as a brooch depicting two crossed spears appeared in her hand "Join me as Cecilia Schariac, as Primarch of Spears of Terra legion. Your family will be safe, Sieg would follow you no matter what, and Kiana will never be experimented on"

"So she did notice" Magnus whispered looking at Anastasia's back of the neck, where the imperial stigmata was glowing brighter than ever

Cecilia was shocked and looked at the brooch as if it was going to bite her "I..."

"Think about it, Primarchs are rare Cecilia but also extremely needed" Anastasia said as she got up

"where are you going?" Cecilia asked

"the house that Sirin was kind enough to create for me in this illusion" the Empress replied as she started walking to the exit

"Wait..." Cecilia called stopping the other woman to stop her tracks "Why don't you stay here? For once there is no one chasing us..."

"Welp we should go" Kitten said

"For once, I agree with you" The Emperor said

"No please" Cecilia said looking at the group "I wish to know more of...you all..."

"Terrible decision, really" Magnus remarked

The rest of the night was spent talking, Cecilia heard the stories of everyone before going to check on Sirin. Anastasia and the others simply sat down in the living room, for the first time in a lot of time, Anastasia slept.

It was very early in the morning when she woke up looked at the clock and saw that it was 6 AM, which meant that no one was awake, she looked around herself, The emperor and the others were gone probably because they needed to do stuff in their universe and couldn't be always there to watch her.

Anastasia made her way to the kitchen and started making some breakfast for everyone, without thinking about it, she used her vectors to help herself a bit...everything was quiet until she felt observed

Sirin was standing next to the stairs, staring at the flying objects. Anastasia froze in place, she was sure that Sirin was probably considering what to do when suddenly "Are you even human?" Anastasia blinked a few times confused "Those hands coming from your back"

The Empress was sure that her vectors were at a frequency which made them invisible but she needed to defuse the situation...and so she let her body morph back to her original appearance, pink hair, red eyes and horns "I...don't know"

Sirin looked fascinated and sat down on the table "Do they know?"

"Who?" Anastasia asked

"The people you work for..." she replied

"those who tortured me or those you saw?" Anastasia asked causing her to raise an eyebrow "I was three when I was found, I killed my parents with these...vectors and the policemen who tried to put me down"

"Why did you killed them?" Sirin asked tilting her head

"There was...a voice inside my head...whispering to kill them...and I did" she replied "Then they sent some special soldiers and shot me here" she continued touching her right horn "When I woke up...I was being experimented on...then tortured...then tested...then experimented on and so on for twenty years"

Sirin widened her eyes "And then?"

"I was brainwashed" Anastasia replied "I was turned into their loyal dog, with my memories wiped out, I was used to destroying their enemies and be happy about it...then, my father arrived, he freed me and put me in front of a choice"

"What choice?" she asked

"Kill them all and become the monster they depicted me as or be free from them forever" The Empress replied "Now, they live in fear that one day I will come for their lives"

"Why didn't you kill them? What about the voice?" She asked shocked as she got up and stared into Anastasia's eyes

"I was free, no voices, no orders" Anastasia said calmly "I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me stepping on their level, they are no longer in the position to do anything to me because I don't need to even move to make them get shot by my soldiers"

"Why? Why don't you just destroy them all!? You're not human! YOU ARE SOMETHING SUPERIOR!" she replied

"They were superior to me and so they tortured me, they were superior to me so they experimented on me, they were superior to me and they brainwashed me" Anastasia said sternly "If being superior means being like them, I'd rather be dead"

Sirin slowly sit down and Anastasia walked in front of her and knelt down taking her by her hands gently "Sirin, I hope you'll never go through what I went through"as she said that she placed her hand on Sirin's shoulders "but if that happens, don't let it dictate how you live your life, don't let it keep you from being happy because once you taint your hands with the blood, you'll not be able to live a happy life" she said as her hair returned blonde, her horns disappeared and her eyes returned golden

Sirin remained silent for a few moments "What if I don't care about others?"

"What would your mother think of you? Or your friends?"

"What if I can make them understand?" the girl asked

"That's called brainwashing" Anastasia replied as she got up and gave her plate full of waffles

"is...mother also? like you?" Sirin asked as grabbed a fork and knife

The Empress shook her head "No...we are not connected by blood, we were both adopted by Ceasar"

"I see" Sirin muttered "And she knows about the experiments?"

"Yes...she was also...being experimented on" the other replied before smiling "But she's retired now, thanks to you and Kiana, you saved her life...I don't think I should have said that though...don't tell your mother please"

Sirin smirks "Well that will depend on how willing you're to make more waffles"

"Wow, do you know that's illegal to blackmail someone?" Anastasia said with a fake offended tone

"I'm a bad girl" the girl replied smirking before Anastasia made her more waffles

The two of them remained alone for a quite some time, but they didn't speak, Anastasia starting humming a bit while Sirin ate her waffles while thinking about what Anastasia told her, about Cecilia and then of her mother.

A strange feeling of fear gripped her heart...what would her mother think of her after all she has done...what her friends would think of her really? The ones she revived were just modified copies of them...then she noticed that Ceasar and the others were gone

"They had to go" Anastasia said as she placed more waffles in front of her "Their job almost never ends"

"What about yours?" Sirin asked tilting her head

"I took a few days off the see you all"

"Oh my! You're already awake?" Cecilia suddenly said interrupting the two "And you made breakfast!"

"Good morning Cecilia" Anastasia said offering some waffles "Want some?"

"sure!" the woman replied as she sat down with them "I heard you talking, mind telling me about what?"

Anastasia smirked "That's a secret between aunt and nephew" she said winking at Sirin, who just looked smugly at the pouting Cecilia

The three of them had breakfast, after quite a while, both Kiana and Siegfried woke up and after a brief meal they immediately rushed to play games on Kiana's brand new DS4

"Well since your sister and old man are too busy playing, why don't we take this time to head to the mall for some serious shopping?" Cecilia proposed causing Sirin to choke on waffles

"Kyaa! Mall? Shopping? Really?" Sirin asked

Anastasia smirked as she showed off her black credit card which caused both of Cecilia's and Sirin's to sparkle "I'll take care of paying"

"Well then! It's decided! We'll try emptying Ana's credit card!" Cecilia stated as Sirin nodded in agreement "Let's go change ourselves!" she said before storming upstairs with Sirin

Anastasia chuckled before picking up her phone which was ringing "Mister Yang" she said answering the phone "It's good to know that you're still alive"

"Empress" Welt replied with a calm tone "I'm glad to see that you're still you, the voices on your account seemed to be trustworthy"

"I'll take that as a compliment" Anastasia replied crossing her legs "Mind if I ask you what your plan is?"

"Me and my colleagues have prepared a Selene which should be able to suppress the Honkai energy for a while, during this time we'll extract the Herrscher cores" Welt explained

"Remove the death core" Anastasia said calmly "Try the others only after that, I will help Einstein with that"

"So you knew huh?" Welt replied with a serious tone

"I'm still in contact with my sisters, I'm aware of what is going on outside, soon my Sister Najenda will defeat the Judgement-Class Honkai, this would trigger a reaction within Sirin which would end our operation inside of here...but I already severed that contact and replaced it with a fake one" Anastasia explained "Now I need to recover her"

"You still think you can save her?" Welt asked sighing

"I'm sure of it" Anastasia deadpanned "She needs one last push, I've been applying my psychic powers on her mind to remove the Herrscher's influence on her since we made contact with her, she needs one final push...a dangerous situation...and a sacrifice must be made...but I can't do it, or all the work would have been for nothing"

The sovereign of Anti-Entropy remained silent for a few seconds "...tell me what you want"

"You'll know soon enough...for the safety of humanity, this conversation never happened, this job will be your own idea, and she'll blame you for what will happen" Anastasia clarified

"...I can work with that" Welt replied "Good luck Empress, I will try to not be too hard on you"

Anastasia hung up and sighed as she waited for Cecilia and Sirin to come down, it didn't take a while for them to show up "Ready?" she asked with a smile as the two nodded "Sirin why don't you try your new bike? Me and your mother will follow you"

Sirin's eyes sparkled as she nodded vigorously before heading out. Anastasia and Cecilia followed her and saw the girl hopping on her bike, already wearing the outfit Anastasia gave her, and drove off.

Babylon tower

Theresa was running through the battlefield, she had just arrived after her initial retreat back at HQ where Otto forced her to master Judah, she never thought that making her way to the Babylon Tower would have been that hard, she was almost stepped on by the titans, almost shot by the guardsmen and knocked down from a charging Astartes, the only good thing was that the Honkai beasts were totally ignoring her. Her objective was to face the Herrscher with the power of Judah.

While from the outside, Theresa looked calm and determined, in reality, inside her heart and mind there was a tornado of emotions. She was worried for Cecilia, the valkyries she met while pushing towards the tower had told her that Cecilia was pulled inside some sort of portal leaving her weapon behind...then she learned that Anastasia herself had led the imperial forces into battle. Theresa knew that soon or later she will meet her sister, and the thing scared her a bit.

The last time she spoke to Anastasia was at her birthday, the first one Theresa spent without her sister. Since then, the valkyrie wasn't able to speak with her, the only sign that Anastasia still cared for Theresa was the fact that each year she would leave a gift on her birthday...

Theresa shook her head trying to dismiss those thoughts when suddenly an Assaka came falling down in front of her which clearly startled the Valkyrie, she looked past the honkai beast and saw Samus giving orders to her Honoured hunters. The Primarch arm cannon was fuming indicating that she was the one who took down the Assaka. Theresa was about to go away to resume her march towards the tower but she found herself surrounded by the Legio Astartes.

"My Primarch" one of the hunters shouted as he looked at the small Valkyrie "That's Theresa Apocalypse"

Theresa cursed under her breath and was ready to fight her way through them if it would have come to that, she was about to do so when Samus stepped in front of her "So we finally meet" she said coldly "The Empress told me about you..."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the battle between Bella and Najenda was raging on, the humanoid honkai had an injured wing thanks to Najenda's plasma cannon and so couldn't use her ability to fly to her advantage.

The humanoid Honkai jumped in front of Najenda gathered Honkai energy in her hands and aimed to the least armored area of her power armor, but the Primarch's reflexes were faster and so Najenda blocked the attack which was so powerful that the air around them exploded in purple energy, cracked the earth beneath them and spread a shockwave around both which knocked down several trees.

Bella was sure that even though, the Primarch blocked the attack she was at least injured. the Honkai beasts didn't let the smoke of the previous attack clear out that she followed with several more strikes in a matter of milliseconds, she was giving her all to stop the Primarch from marching to the tower, she didn't care if her lips slowly got injured due to the fact that she was hitting extremely though power armor. She was about to jump away to catch some breath when suddenly her world came to an halt

The Primarch, during Bella's attacks, had grabbed her Thunderhammer and once Bella was about to retreat slammed it into Bella's stomach which sent the honkai flying several hundreds of meters away and generated something similar to a sonic boom. The Astartes who saw the actions and weren't too busy killing the other beasts around cheered for their Primarch who stood proud with her armor barely dirty

Bella was on the ground, holding her belly as immense amounts of pain filled her being, no matter how much she tried to regenerate, the pain was simply too much for her to handle, she started coughing honkai blood while trying at the same time to breathe.

Then the sound of footsteps reached her ears...for her, that sound was death incarnate...

Sirin's dream world

Anastasia, Cecilia and Sirin had spent the afternoon buying cute clothes and other accessories and things, soon the mall would have closed and so they slowly made their way towards the exit.

"We should do it more often!" Cecilia said with a big smile

"Well, I guess that we can do that" Anastasia replied also smiling

Sirin nodded energetically "Yes we totally should!" she said smiling before blinking a few times as she realized that she...was happy

"Got you" Suddenly Welt said as he stood at the entrance of the mall with a few titans and a handgun in his hands "Goodbye Herrscher of the Void"

Sirin had widened her eyes but wasn't scared since she could just squash the vermin in front of her once again, unfortunately, her powers didn't answer her call and this was because outside, Dr. Einstein was using Selene on her body but the Herrscher didn't know that.

Welt pulled the trigger and a loud bang filled the air, Sirin's face got covered with a red liquid which she immediately identified as blood...then Anastasia's body fell in front of her with a bullet hole in her chest.

Sirin was shocked and looked at Cecilia, who until now had acted like a normal woman, started fighting Welt and his titans. The realization hit her "You knew..." she whispered, looking at Anastasia "YOU LIED TO ME!" She shouted as tears formed around her eyes "YOU KNEW THAT I WAS YOUR ENEMY! BUT WHY?! WHY DID YOU PUT YOUR LIFE AT RISK FOR ME! YOU! WHO DECLARED WOULD HAVE PROTECTED HUMANITY! WHY!?"

"...because...I vowed to protect...all that is beautiful" Anastasia muttered smiling at the girl "and you...are beautiful Sirin.." she said

Those words echoed inside Sirin's mind, Anastasia's voice sounded like her mother's but she didn't want to believe that what the woman in front of her was true but her heart was telling her that Anastasia was being honest "You're lying..." she whispered

Anastasia slowly reached out with her hand and gently placed it on Sirin's cheek "I wanted...to show you that it's still possible for you to live happily..."

"After what I have done...it's impossible" Sirin replied

"You...underestimate me..." The Empress replied before closing her eyes and her hand fell to the ground

Siri widened her eyes and shook Anastasia's body "Wait...You can't die like this...You...You're...you're a Primarch! The offspring of the Anathema! Your brothers were destroyers of worlds!" she shouted as tears started pouring out of her eyes "A BULLET IS ENOUGH TO KILL YOU!? YOU WHO LED SO PROUDLY YOUR SOLDIERS TO ME AND YOU'RE NOW DEAD BECAUSE OF SOMETHING SO LITTLE?!" she shouted before looking down at her "You're choosing to die...just to prove yourself to me? Do you think that I'll revive you because you were nice to me!?" with those words she bit her lip as the world around her started collapsing and everyone found themselves back on top of the tower.

Sirin saw a giant robot standing on top of her and that once it realized that she was awake, it jumped away. The herrscher looked down on her arms, where Anastasia was back in the Dreamworld and saw that she was no longer there. She then looked in front of her and saw that she was surrounded by the Honoured Hunters with their Primarch Samus Aran, the Valkyrie that she fought before acquiring all of her power Theresa Apocalypse, Cecilia, Siegfried and in finally, standing in front of her with her flaming sword in her hand, The Empress.

"Tricked once again...you humans are liars and cheaters...like always" Sirin muttered clenching her fists

"Everyone, lay down your weapons" The Empress ordered, her voice echoing in the minds of everyone. She then started walking towards Sirin and once she was standing less than a meter away from her, extended her hand "I always keep my word, Sirin...give me the cores and I'll give you the life you desired"

Theresa stared at her sister in shock, just her appearance was shocking for her but her actions were on another level.

Samus was staring at Anastasia with a serious expression, she was perfectly still, she didn't want to cause an unnecessary fight to break out, managing to acquire the Herrscher cores would be achieving a Great Victory.

Sirin looked conflicted and looked down at the battlefield...soon the imperial forces will eliminate all of the honkai beasts, the sky was already cleared of all of her projected battleships "What about Bella?"

Anastasia's mind halted as she blinked a few times "You mean the judgment-class Honkai?" she asked getting a nod from the Herrscher, she used her psychic powers to look over the battlefield, searching for the humanoid honkai

She saw Najenda standing over it with her hammer raised, ready to deliver the second and final blow that would have destroyed the pseudo-core inside the honkai and end its life "Najenda stop!" The Empress boomed inside the Primarch's head "Capture her"

Najenda slowly lowered her hammer and sighed "There's no need to shout" she muttered as she picked up Bella by the arm "Bring me something to keep her bound" she ordered to her Astartes

Anastasia looked at Sirin "She has been captured" she said calmly "If you join us, no further harm will be done to her"

Sirin looked down at her hands "What will happen once I give you the cores?"

"Sirin will die" Anastasia replied without any hesitation "killed by the Empress of Mankind"

the herrscher clenched her fists "So you lied to me...like all the ot-"

"The Empress of Mankind, on her way back to Moscow, found a girl who became Orphan because of an Honkai beast and decided to take her with her as her own daughter" Anastasia interrupted her "At that point, the girl will decide what to do in her life and how to live it"

Silence fell, even the sounds of battle couldn't be heard in that moment, Sirin slowly placed her hand on her chest causing the cores to slowly come out of her body.

Imperial defensive trenches

At the same time, Otto who was standing in the backlines, standing next to him there was Fu Hua and the Vice Commander of the Valkyrie Order Cheng Lixue. The group had been sent away from The Empress much to Otto's disgust and rage, in that moment, he was so close to getting the answer he wanted from the Honkai God but once again, Anastasia took away his possibility...

Suddenly the Overseer felt a splitting headache and fell to the ground as his vision went blank. When he was able to see again, he found himself standing in a white void, in front of him there was a throne, sitting on it there was a person without any feature, just like a mannequin. As soon as the two looked at each other, the figure took Otto's appearance.

The overseer felt an immense pressure upon him and was forced to kneel...he immediately understood that he was standing in front of the Honkai God. He was about to speak his question when God created a projection of Anastasia

"W-What?" Otto muttered confused

Kill the child of the Anathema and I'll give you what you want the most

Those words filled the Overseer's mind before he found himself back in the real world, he was surrounded by Fu Hua and Cheng who were looking at him with a worried expression. He pulled himself up before looking at the Babylon tower with a determined expression

"Overseer?" Cheng asked confused by the man's behavior

He raised his hand and placed on his ear where his earpiece was "To all Valkyries and Schicksal troops, the Imperium of Man has been confirmed to be plotting with the Honkai, our truce is over, attack before they can react!"

All the valkyries across the battlefield froze in place, dread filling their hearts as they looked at the thousands of thousands of Imperial soldiers all around them unknown to them, the transmission was also caught by BB who has been monitoring both of Anti-Entropy and Schicksal's communications, she immediately informed Anastasia of course.

The reply came shortly after...

"To all Imperial Forces, Schicksal has turned hostile in our regards, if any Valkyrie engages combat with you, it is your duty to defend yourself with any mean necessary...even deadly force if it is impossible to neutralize the threat"

At those words, the guardsmen who found themselves around the Valkyries immediately turned their weapons against them, the only thing holding them back from opening fire was the Empress' orders, usually, the Krieg never gave the luxury of surrender.

Back on top of the Babylon Tower

Anastasia internally sighed after giving that order to her forces, Samus and her Astartes were focusing on Sirin though they also kept an eye on Cecilia, Siegfried and Theresa, they didn't want any surprise coming from them.

Sirin had her cores in her hand and was about to hand them over when suddenly she like she had been struck by lightning and the cores flew back inside of her.

Anastasia's expression turned into one of pure shock "Samus take all of our forces and retreat back to the trench line, tell our fleet to go in Orbit and if you find him, capture Otto" she ordered grabbing her sword and pointing it at the Herrscher

"I can help you!" Samus shouted back

"No! You must coordinate our troops!" Anastasia barked back "Cecilia, Theresa go away"

"NO!" Theresa shouted "I will not leave alone again!" she shouted as Cecilia nodded in agreement

Siegfried grabbed his sword "We are not your soldiers your orders mean nothing to us!"

Anastasia threw a glance at the man which forced him to pale "You're not ready" she shouted before looking at Sirin and pointing her sword at her "You finally showed up...God of the Stolen throne"

Sirin's hair turned white and an amused smile appeared on her face "Said the instrument of the Anathema" she replied with an ethereal voice "Just like your brothers, you are nothing more than a mean to an end. You think you're free but in reality, you're just a pawn in his schemes...in the end, you're still chained by the will of someone, once it was Otto's and now it's the Anathema's, why are you letting them do this to you amuses me greatly"

Anastasia pointed her sword towards the God with an emotionless expression "If you think that these words of yours will make my resolve weaker than you're more naive than I was told...It is true since I was just a child I've been manipulated and used for someone's else objective and when I was freed I discovered that most of my life has been a lie...but not all of it, I encountered people who genuinely love me and was shown the potential of humanity, I could have chosen to just destroy everything or to leave to never return but instead, I chose to be chosen, I chose to follow the objective of the Master of Mankind."

"Do you think that this idea is yours? Do you really think that he didn't implant this idea into your mind?" The Honkai God replied with a smirk

"And so? If that's the case I wouldn't be able to tell anyway, I just know that protecting humanity and the people I love from you is the right thing to do and I'm willing to die for it" Anastasia replied with a stoic expression

The God looked at Anastasia with disgust "You're just like all the other fanatics of the Anathema" she said as a massive pair of wings made of Honkai Energy sprouted out of her back.

The sky turned pink as a storm seemingly appeared out of nowhere, the Imperial Ships went into Orbit and their navigators confirmed the presence of a Warp Storm. The Imperial army made its way back to the trench line under the order of Samus, the Valkyries who had surrendered were also brought to the trench while those who chose to fight found their end.

Another storm appeared out of nowhere, this one generated from Anastasia. The earth itself was shaking due to the sheer power of the Honkai God and Anastasia. Cecilia and Theresa felt an immense amount of pressure which made them feel like they were about to faint...They looked at the Honkai God and Anastasia who started flying thanks to their wings, the two stared at each other for a few moments...time seemed to have slowed down as the storm creates hurricanes around them, their bodies flickering with pink and golden electricity.

It happened in the blink of an eye, with what could be compared to the loudest thunder ever heard, the Empress and the Honkai God clashed each other, a sword of Honkai energy fought against the Empress's sword, their psychic powers were clashing against each other as with each strike the earth was caught by Earthquakes while the winds sent flying whatever was on their path.

Anastasia felt the massive power of the God clash against hers, it was strong...but it was holding back...she started to wonder why the Honkai God would do such thing...but then she saw Sirin's body starting to melt apart due to the massive energy...unfortunately, due to this lack of focus, the Honkai God managed to summon a spear and stab it between her neck and the armor, Anastasia had tried to stop it with her vectors but it was to no avail, that lance was launched with too much power.

This action sent the Empress crashing against the tower and going through it before creating a crater on the ground. The Babylon tower started falling on itself, causing Cecilia to grab Theresa and jump down to safety along with Siegfried.

The Empress quickly got up and removed the lance from the base of her neck...she was breathing heavily but the nanomachines and the blacklight were already healing her. The Honkai God blurred in front of her already swing her sword, Anastasia quickly blocked the blade with her before channeling her psychic powers in her lightning claw and fired a stream of lightning bolts at the God who blocked them with her free hand although the action started to melt off her arm.

Anastasia pushed away the Honkai energy sword and then used her claws once again but not to launch another psychic attack but to punch with all of her strength her enemy. It was the turn of the God to crash on the ground wounded. The body of her Herrscher was slowly crumbling apart.

Suddenly, to Anastasia's horror, Cecilia, Theresa, and Siegfried jumped on the wounded God thinking that now was their chance...they were wrong. Before Anastasia could close the distance between her and her enemy, the Honkai God electrocuted Siegfried, used gravity to throw Theresa against a boulder created by the crashlanding, breaking most of her bones. The Only one left was Cecilia who had used her weapon to block the lightings and as support in order to not be pulled by the God's gravity, the Valkyries infused her weapon with her own blood and launched it towards the Honkai's will...who simply blocked it with her hand.

Cecilia widened her eyes but before she could react, two spears stabbed themselves in her, one in her belly, one in her chest. She fell on her knees as blood started tainting her clothes and to drip out of her mouth, she threw a lock at Anastasia before falling on the ground.

A warcry boomed all across the battlefield as Anastasia launched herself once again against the Honkai God, this time, she let her psychic power run unchecked, rage, and hatred filling her being. The two started exchanging blows, each hit violently shook all the area around them, it felt like the Earth was about to crack. Finally, Anastasia felt her strength overpowering the one of her opponent's and so she reached out with her clawed hand and ripped off one of the arms of the Honkai before ramming her sword into its belly.

Everything stopped...the wind that was devastating the area disappeared along with the warp storm and the earth stopped shaking. The Honkai God looked down at its wound and smirked

"Return" Anastasia hissed with unseen rage "To the immaterium...scum!" she then shouted before banishing her opponent back from where it came from...

The Empress was completely exhausted from the fight, she never thought that she would have to fight the Honkai God so soon even though it was just a possessed body, if this was a fight against its real form, she would have lost...but she won but it was not over.

Anastasia turned around and immediately rushed to help Cecilia and the others, she used her vectors to heal Siegfried and Theresa but Cecilia was the one in worst possible conditions. She removed the lances stabbed in her body and closed the wounds but for some reason, she wasn't getting better no matter how much psychic energy was put into them...then she realized that Cecilia's body was being corrupted by the Honkai Energy.

Theresa and Siegfried immediately woke up as soon as they were healed, their eyes looked for the Honkai God and were relieved to see its corpse on the ground until they saw Anastasia trying to reanimate Cecilia. They immediately rushed to her side both crying while still clinging to the hope that the Valkyrie was still alive

Seigfried grabbed his wife's hand and brought it to his chest "YOU CAN SAVE HER RIGHT!?" he shouted at Anastasia's face as tears fell from his eyes "YOU KILLED THE HONKAI GOD THIS SHOULD BE A PIECE OF CAKE RIGHT!?"

Theresa placed Cecilia's head and her lap "Cecilia open your eyes!"

Anastasia looked at her friend's body unable to think straight when suddenly she felt someone's hand on her shoulder. She looked behind herself and saw the Emperor smiling at her "You already know the solution to your problem, appease your emotions and see it" he said calmly

Anastasia closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths before a familiar stinging sensation came from the back of her neck, she found her answer. She placed her hand on Cecilia's body and started purifying it, this was just a temporal solution since soon the honkai energy will restart spreading.

The Empress was about to call for a ship but suddenly a scream reached her ears, she turned around and saw Sirin crying her heart out due to the pain she was experiencing due to her missing arm and hole in her belly.

"Ana..." Cecilia whispered as she regained a bit of consciousness "...you promised...to save her..."

Anastasia nodded and made her way to the former Herrscher and knelt next to her, inspecting her body...unfortunately, there wasn't much she could do to save the body, the wound created from her sword could not be healed...

"It hurts so much..." Sirin cried pressing her hands on the wound hoping to stop her blood from pouring out but to no avail.

Anastasia placed her not clawed hand on Sirin's face and used her psychic powers to 'turn off' Sirin pain receptors allowing the girl to calm down "It's going to be fine Sirin..." she said with a calm and soothing tone

Tears fell from the little girl's eyes "I don't want to die..." she muttered

"You're not going to die...I will keep my promise" The Empress replied before Sirin's eyes became empty.

What happened after this was something that her father thought her, soul manipulation. She had used her vectors to kill Sirin's body and, as a consequence, the soul was about to go within the Immaterium but Anastasia didn't let it and instead, she took it and stored inside her own body as a temporary measure until she will make her a new one.

She then looked at the body and saw the honkai cores inside of it starting accumulating energy in order to explode and destroy most of Siberia. The Empress sighed, she really wanted to get her hands on those cores to seal them so that they could not be reused, destroying them was just a temporary solution since they will reappear with a new Herrscher and also she couldn't be sure to be able to destroy them without making everything explode...She used her vectors to extract them and then banished them back to the Immaterium where such an explosion would not be too much trouble anyway...The second Honkai War was over and a new world was forged.

Stigmata Imperial Palace

Magnus, Kitten, Dorn, Magnus, and Kallen were eating popcorn while sitting in front of the Golden Throne from where the Emperor was projecting what was happening in Anastasia's world from his mechanical eye.

"Well" The Emperor started to say "For being her first real first fight after my training and the fact she fought against the honkai god, that was acceptable, could have been better but I can't complain much"

"Acceptable?" Kallen said shocked "She was awesome, that thing knocked out three of Schicksal's best agents like nothing"

"Yes, but by my father's over the top standards, that was acceptable" Magnus replied sighing "While I personally think it was good fight, there was some lack of experience yes but still a good one"

"Mmmh I would have preferred to avoid harming the Tower, it looked well built" Dorn said in a monotone voice

"I thought that was a great fight! Worthy of a Primarch!" Kitten said excited as usual "I would have liked to charge those beasts just like the old days of the Great Crusade but it was also nice to watch"

"Oh here she comes" The Emperor said as he stopped projecting causing everyone to look at Sirin's body, which had appeared out of nowhere "Rise and Shine"

Sirin groaned before slowly opening her eyes and slowly rising up, her vision slowly returned normal and froze when she saw all the people that were staring at her and the place she was in "Did I die?"

"Nope" Magnus replied with a laugh "You're inside Anastasia's stigmata world, your body was beyond salvation and so she took your souls here while she makes you a new one"

"Wait...I recognize your voice! You're uncle Magnus! How was I so blind to not recognize you in my illusion world!?" Sirin shouted shocked

Magnus laughed again "Well if you insist I shall explain it to your simple mind!"

"Anastasia used her psychic powers to keep you from being able to recognize us thanks to the memories the Honkai God shared with you" Rogal replied cutting off Magnus

Sirin's expression turned grim "So she's been controlling me all this time..." she muttered before a hand made of psychic energy lifted her and placed her in front of the Emperor "Y-You are..."

"The motherfucking Emperor" The Emperor replied causing Sirin to froze in place "Now listen here you ingrate little shit, you should kiss the ground Anastasia steps on for not blowing your mind as soon as she laid eyes on you because let me tell you, she could have done that at any given time. You're alive because she saw what happened to you and decided to forgive you despite what you did. She is way more merciful than I am but you probably know that since you saw what I'm capable of" he said enraged before letting Sirin on the ground.

"All that Anastasia did, was removing the Herrscher's presence from your mind which allowed your need for affection and positive emotions return once more" Magnus explained calmly "What most people seem to forget are that psykers and, in your case, Herrschers still keep their humanity at least for a while, I have no doubt that if Anastasia would have seen no humanity left in you, she would have ended your life, fortunately for you, this wasn't the case"

Kallen crouched next to the girl with a kind smile "She knew that you've been through hell...she probably saw herself in you"

"I...destroyed a city though... I have the blood of many innocents on my hands..." Sirin muttered looking down at the ground

"I mean...those are rookie numbers to us..." Kitten said thinking at the massive amount of kills that the Imperium does in a good day

"Yes, nuking a city doesn't look so bad when you're used to seeing planets turned into Ashes" Rogal added

"And usually, the people giving the Exterminatus order don't regret it" Magnus said

"If you think that the forgiveness given to you is underserved" The Emperor spoke with a solemn tone "Then you must earn it, how is up to you"

Silence fell upon the room

"Well...this is awkward" Kitten muttered under his breath

Suddenly someone who was standing at the entrance of the room cleared his throat, it was Alex "I don't want to interrupt you business but there's someone looking for Kallen, I told her to wait in your room"

The valkyrie raised an eyebrow as she got up and walked past Alex "Who?"

"I Don't know" he replied shrugging "pink fox girl, her name starts with S and ends with Akura" he said smirking

Kallen widened her eyes and literally raced to her room, she slammed the door open causing the person inside to stare at her startled for a few moments before smiling

"Hello Kallen" Sakura said gently...

On the road to  Novosibirsk

Cocolia stopped the car, in front of her there were the remaining soldiers of the Soviet Army, she gestured to Alexey's wife to get out which reluctantly obeyed.

"Miss Zaychick" General Colonel Ivan said as he came out of one of the trucks of the convoy. He was a tall man with pitch-black hair and green eyes who was wearing the typical soviet general uniform "Where's Alexey?"

"He died" Cocolia replied as she got out of the car "The Honkai killed him"

"Dammit..." Ivan muttered under his breath "We have to go, we'll make a plan at Severobaykalsk"

"I'm not with you" Cocolia said "I didn't accept Alexey's deal, I just want to leave this woman with you and return to my orphanage"

"why? We have to take back our country!" Ivan shouted

"Why?! Have you seen the news Ivan? Have you seen them?" Cocolia shouted back enraged "There's nothing left of our union, what we can do now is surviving"

Ivan clenched his hands "You'll regret this..."

"I doubt it" Cocolia replied while getting back in the car and driving away.

The woman was nervous as hell, she looked back with the mirror of the car to see if they were going to shoot her but instead, they all got back inside their trucks and left. Cocolia kept driving and driving, she needed to get back to her orphanage ASAP, she was scared that those honkai beasts killed all of the children. She widened her eyes when the car she was driving ran out of fuel leaving her in the middle of nowhere. She punched the steering wheel enraged while cursing against the machine when suddenly someone tapped against the window.

The woman widened her eyes when she saw the biggest tank she ever saw in front of the car while several gas-masked individuals were surrounding her car, she recognized them...these people were the imperials who had conquered Moskva. She was tempted to pull out her gun and try to escape but she knew that it will not end well for her. Cocolia lowered the car window while starting to sweat a bit.

"We're the guardsmen serving under the glorious Empress of mankind, under her order, the citizens must remain inside their houses until the emergency is over, why are you here outside citizen?" the man who tapped on her window asked with an imperative tone

"My name is Cocolia and I'm a soldier of the Soviet Union" she replied causing the men around her to point their lasguns at her "I...Under the Empresses' orders, I'm going to Moskva to surrender"

The man near her remained silent for a few seconds before slowly nodding "Step out of the vehicle with your hands in the air" he ordered before Cocolia obeyed. He then looked at his companions "Call the Valkyrie and tell them we have another one"

The guardsmen nodded causing Cocolia pray that she didn't earn a ticket to hell "What happens now...?" she decided to ask

"You'll be taken to Moskva and questioned, you'll swear loyalty to the Imperium and will be released" The soldier replied...

Babylon tower

The war was over, the few remaining Honkai beasts around were purged, the Imperial forces had fully occupied the area, the Adeptus Mechanicus were extracting any data from the collapsed tower, the guardsman and Spartans were keeping the captured valkyries in check. The Apothecaries and Hospitallers were taking care of the wounded while the titan legion secured the area.

The Magos Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus were waiting for their transport to take Cecilia to the Eternal Protector. Siegfried was honestly freaked out by the mechanicus and wasn't really happy with letting those people touch his wife but Anastasia reassured him that they will only keep her stable until she will be apple to attend to her herself.

Theresa was standing in front in Anastasia who, especially due to Theresa's small figure, was looking down at her. The two had yet to speak to each other but an overwhelming awkwardness was keeping both from doing so...

The small Valkyrie sighed and looked around herself "So...this is what you've been doing since you left?" she asked

Anastasia nodded "Yes...I've been all around the galaxy gathering all of this and preparing for this day"

"So planetary conquest is the next step?" The Valkyrie asked a bit worried by the thought of such thing

"No" Anastasia replied shaking her head "or at least not now nor in the way you are imagining"

"What are you going to do with the captured Valkyries?" Theresa asked

"They will be asked to join us, if they refuse we'll return them to Schicksal...Cecilia though will not return" Anastasia stated serious "But she already decided to join so it's not a big deal"

"I want to join you!" Theresa suddenly said staring into Anastasia's eyes "And I will not take a 'no' as an answer! You told me to wait! And so I did! Now I don't see any reason to keep doing that!"

Anastasia intensely stared at her silently before nodding "Sure" she casually said surprising the white-haired loli "I already have a mission for you already"

Theresa's eyes lit up "Yes?"

"I want you to infiltrate Schicksal and be eyes and ears inside of it" Anastasia said "I want you to create an army of Valkyries against the Honkai, I saw in Cecilia's mind that she wanted to build a School to train valkyries...Saint Freya Academy, I like the sound of that...an associate of mine will help you with funding it" she explained and as Theresa was about to complain she raised her hand "But, you and I will be in constant contact through our stigmatas, I will not let Otto wipe out your memories or stuff like that and you will be able to talk me on any given time and be able to see me in your sleep"

"But..." Theresa muttered

"We all have a job to do Theresa, there will be the time for us to catch up but only when humanity will be saved" Anastasia smiling "Now, Cecilia died when fighting me, she tried to take me down after my fight with the honkai God but I was still strong enough to kill her, you hate me for it and decided to follow Cecilia's last wish" she said before looking at Siegfried "You will hate Otto because of his crazy order which led to Cecilia's death, you hate me for killing her and so you'll join Anti-Entropy"

"Wait, you already included me?!" Siegfried asked

"Yes, you're Cecilia's husband after all" Anastasia said "You'll be my man in Anti-Entropy"

"Wait...my daughter Kiana is still at HQ" the man replied

"I know" Anastasia replied as Alatan approached the group

"My Empress, the Execution Force has been dispatched..." he said darkly knowing very well what was about to happen

"An execution force?" Theresa asked confused "What does that mean?"

"It means that anyone in the Schicksal HQ will die of a horrible death for the exception of Kiana and someone to tell the tale of what happens when you betray the Imperium" Anastasia said "Fortunately, most personnel is either captured here or retreating to Europe..."

Somewhere in the Tundra

A small child was standing near the ruins of a firey house, he just witnessed his sister being taken away from him but he didn't mind because she would survive at least, he looked around himself and saw that his end was near as a Ganesha Honkai Beast came out of the tree line around the house.

The boy saw his dad's hunting rifle on the ground and picked it up, he knew that it wouldn't do much to the monster which was slowly making its way towards him but he felt like he should at least put up some fight. He was scared of death, but there was nothing he could do and that realization made him accept his fate along with the fact that at least, his sister was safe...

He aimed the rifle and started shooting while the beast got closer and closer. The boy didn't stop until he ran out of munitions but even then he kept pulling the trigger, he closed his eyes as the beast lifted its body to crush him and then...nothing.

The boy reopened his eyes only to witness the tallest men he ever saw clad in red power armor tackling the Honkai Beast by himself before stabbing its head with a large sword which seemed to emit electricity.

After a few seconds, the beast turned into dust and the man retrieved his weapon, he then looked at the boy who was staring at him awe. The man looked at the debris of the house and back to the boy "Are you alone?" he asked getting a nod "Your bravery saved your life, the gunshots led us to you"

As he said that several other armored men came out of the tree line "Chapter Master, the Area is clear" one of them announced

The man nodded and knelt in front of the boy "Come child, there's nothing left here" he said offering his hand to the boy who just nodded before being lifted from the ground by the man.

He threw one last glance at his house as the Chapter Master took him away...

Schicksal HQ

Amber was inside Otto's office, taking care of the preparations for providing aid to the injured Valkyrie. Otto had told her through remote communications that he would come back before the others in order to take care of Kiana since he had great plans for her.

Even so, she was actually surprised when Otto barged in looking a bit enraged, she got up and bowed "Milord Otto, I wasn't expecting you this early"

Otto mostly ignored her and sat behind his desk "Where's the Kaslana's daughter?" he asked serious

"She still is in Cecilia's apartment here, after our conversation I ordered two A-Rank valkyries to guard her" Amber replied

Otto smirked and walked to her before placing his hand on her cheek causing the woman to blush "Aren't you one loyal valk" he said with an odd tone before stabbing a small needle in her neck with his other hand.

Amber started convulsing before falling to the ground seemingly lifeless. In reality, she was completely paralyzed exception made from her eyes, she tried to speak but she was unable to.

Suddenly, a man wearing a nanosuit similar to Anastasia's appeared next to the overseer. What Amber didn't know is that the Otto she was seeing was a Callidus Assassin while the other one was the newest addition to the Officio Assassinorum assassins, which were provided by Malcador the Sigillite in secret along with the Crimson Slayers Legion, named Crytek Assassin.

This new assassin was specialized in hacking, turning the enemy's systems against himself, espionage, stealth operations, electronic warfare and retrieving data. He wore a nanosuit but with the safeties on since all those who volunteered to wear one without safeties all died.

"I'll pick up the girl" the Callidus said to the other assassin who nodded and put Amber on the chair behind Otto's desk and made her watch the video feed of the camera's of the base "Make sure she will not remember of my ways...she's our witness but there are things that must remain secrets"

"It will be done" the Crytek replied darkly as he placed his hand on the computer accomplishing his secondary mission, infecting the entirety of Schicksal's software with the virus called Parapluie provided by the machine mastermind, Elisa.

He then looked at Amber and placed his hand on her head as a drop pod fell from the sky into the courtyard of the base.

The Valkyries guarding the place cautiously approached the unknown object before with a hiss it opened...and death fell upon them.

One of the valkyries found a needle shot in her throat, she immediately started convulsing before falling to the ground dead with an expression of horror on her face. A second was about to shout when her head exploded soon after a loud bang. The remaining valkyries managed to understand that what was happening was the doing of the object which just fell from the sky...but that was all they could before the bringer of death fell upon them.

The Eversor Assassin launched himself at one of them, his Neuro Gauntlet pierced through one of the valkyrie's chest causing the woman to scream in pain as the neurotoxins of the needled fingers amplified her pain beyond measure, the assassin then threw at the side but his killing spree was far from over, without wasting a single millisecond he relentlessly charged to a group of Valkyries who were paralyzed by his barbarous cruelty. Another head exploded as the Eversor fired his Executioner Pistol, he then stabbed one of the woman's eyes before pulling and ripping her head from the body.

At this point, the remaining targets started panicking and running away from the beast that had descended upon them. With a screech of psychotic rage caused by the drugs in his body, the Assassin gave chase to his targets, those who were lucky got their heads exploded while those less lucky were ripped apart and injected with neurotoxins.

The alarm of the base went off and an SOS signal was launched, the mechs protecting the base activated and rushed to the Eversor who without hesitation unsheathed his power sword and launched himself at them with a warcry, he started relentlessly cutting the metal of his enemies.

A group of valkyries with long-ranged weapons placed themselves far away from the Assassin on top of a building in order to keep the mad assassin from getting close. they aimed to take out the threat from a safe distance...but they never managed to fire a single shot. Each of the valkyries found themselves with a hole in their head courtesy of the Vindicare Assassin who had opened fire on them.

Inside the base, the valkyries who were told to defend the facilities started to feel anxious, observed, paranoid, their stigmatas were weakening as if they were being jammed by something, even the mechs around them were malfunctioning... None of them noticed the Culexus Assassin behind them until it was too late, the honkai energy fueled his powers and after a few moments, everyone on his path was on the ground lifeless, both valkyries and machines.

Meanwhile, The Callidus assassin had made his way to the residential area of the base, he could hear the sound of firearms and behind him along with the terried screams of the personnel of the base being mowed down one by one as her colleagues made their way deeper and deeper in the facility killing everything in their paths as they were instructed to do.

The assassin peeked around the corner and saw the valkyries guarding the corridor back to back hoping to be able to save each other by relying on each other. The assassin smirked as he ran out of the corner resuming his interpretation of Otto while panting heavily as if he was being chased

"Lord Overseer!" One of the Valkyries called lowering her guns "What's going on!?"

"We're under attack by the Honkai sent by the Herrschers, we need to hold on until the main force returns" the fake Otto said before looking at the door "Is she there?"

"Yes, milord" The other Valkyrie said nodding

Otto gave them a nod and pointed at the corridor "Prepare for battle" he ordered as the two women pointed their guns at the corridor. The Assasin got behind them before pulling his Phase sword and Neural Shredder which he fired causing on the valkyries to drop on her knees before falling to the ground spasming before dying as her nervous system completely melted.

The second Valkyrie had turned around in the meantime, understanding what was happening and aimed her handguns at the fake Overseer, she was about to shoot but instead, she found her neck stabbed by the Assassin's sword who made sure to look in her eyes as life slowly faded out from them before removing the sword and dropping the body next to the other.

The assassin heard some footsteps coming from behind him but wasn't worried since when he turned around he saw the Vindicare Assassin walking towards him carrying his massive rifle along with some sort of giant suitcase

"It is done?" The Callidus assassin asked

"Targets inside. Can't shoot. Eversor and Culexus are taking care of them" The Vindicare replied before looking at the door "Secondary target?"

The Callidus nodded before opening the door and entering the apartment in complete silence followed by the Vindicare. They made their way to the bedroom where a small girl is sleeping, the Callidus took out a small needle infused with a narcotic substance and stabbed it in the girl's neck making sure she wouldn't wake up during recovery. He lifted the girl and let the Vindicare finish the job.

The sniper assassin removed the giant suitcase from his back and opened it revealing a clone of the little Kiana made with UNSC tech...their mission was now completed and so, as the gunshots across the base died down, left the base...

A few hours later, the real Otto, along with his escort, arrived at the base only to witness the slaughter which had taken place in the base, every single Valkyrie, knight, and mech was killed or destroyed, the corridors were stuffed with their corpses. The Overseer made his way to his office only to find an empty-eyed Ambver who was staring at the monitor in front of her

Otto placed his hands on her shoulders but the woman was unresponsive, he could see her breathe so she wasn't dead. He traced Amber's gaze and saw the camera recordings of the base, he skimmed through them and saw the Execution Force hunting down and brutally killing the Valkyries of the base, he was in shock, none of the defenses was able to prevent the slaughter.

He then watched as the Culexus Assassin wrote on one base's walls the words 'Betrayal Comes with a price, none is sheltered by the fury of the Imperium' with the blood of his victims

Suddenly, one of his bodyguard valkyries walked in "Milord, we have found the girl, she was hiding in her home and is safe...milord...what happened here?"

Otto paused for a few seconds before looking at the woman "An Honkai force sent by the Herrscher attacked us while we were in Siberia...the lack of the best Valkyries of ours made any resistance futile..."

Admitting that Anastasia was the sender of the attack would make him look weak and would plant the seed of terror within Schicksal's ranks and he can't allow that. He saw what happened and that's what he needed, he will improve the defenses and rebuild his army...

Another Valkyrie came in "Milord! Theresa-sama is back!" she said surprising Otto

The Overseer looked at the woman surprised as he got up and went back to his ship where the captured valkyries and Theresa were located. Anastasia had released those who have surrendered seemingly out of goodwill, but he knew that was yet another mockery. He then saw Theresa standing in front of him with a grim expression, he collected himself

"What is it Theresa? Disappointed to be back here?" Otto asked earning a few glares from the Valkyries behind the small one much to his confusion

Theresa remained silent and approached him, she stood a few inches away from him before slowly hugging him "She killed Cecilia..."

Otto widened his eyes, that was the last thing he was expecting to hear

"After the Herrscher was defeated, Cecilia tried to attack her thinking that Anastasia needed to recover...but...but..." Theresa's voice broke as tears started falling out of her eyes

The Overseer returned the hug and smirked "Don't worry, my little Theresa...your grandpa is here" he whispered

Several weeks later

Theresa was in her room, in front of her there was the blueprint for a massive complex called Saint Freya Academy, she was smiling as she looked at it. Otto had partially funded the project but due to Schicksal's current state he needed to rebuild his own forces but this didn't worry Theresa in the slightest.

Someone knocked on the door and when Theresa opened it, she wound herself looking at a blonde mature woman "Sir Integra I presume?" she asked calmly

"Yes" Integra replied with a smirk as Theresa let her in and walked her to the project. The woman looked at it while smoking her cigar "Gothic Structures huh?" she said getting a nod "Very well, the funding is already transferred, can't wait to see the final result"

Theresa was about to reply but Integra simply walked back to the entrance "I have to go, there are a lot of things to take care of, this was not the only task I was given" she said before leaving

3 years later, Imperial Capital, Russia

Anastasia was in the research facilities inside her still in construction Imperial Palace, looking at the bodies of the sisters that were recovered upon the arrival of the Imperial Forces on Terra, today the health support system of their power armors will be removed, due to their condition after being turned into Primarchs they needed one but finally their bodies recovered from their wounds and the surgery. After the Honkai eruption, she spent her time focusing on making her new sisters and fulfilling her promises, especially the one made with BB while the other Primarchs secured all of the Imperium's land.

Since then, great innovations struck all the land occupied by the Imperium and this was thanks to the latest discovery...the STC database inside the Ark Mechanicus, BB had used the full power of the Moon Cell to recover it as part of the deal with Anastasia but even she had problems dealing with the immense amounts of data and since then she had been processing all of that info in order to put it to use.

New methods of construction, new weapons, new vehicles and so on were discovered and thanks to them the urbanization of the cities, the improvement of the army and of many other fields was proceeding as fast as it could even the location Anastasia was in is the result of this. She had asked Rogal to make the project for the city and the palace, he was really happy to help her, the Adeptus Mechanicus had worked non-stop since the discovery of the STC, they were eager to construct what it showed them, they no longer doubted Anastasia and every word of her was considered holy.

The former citizens of Russia welcomed Anastasia mostly thanks to the propaganda of the Brotherhood had done during the period of the Soviet Union, the people from South America were grateful to her for protecting them from Sirin's attack but were still somewhat fearful of the Imperial Forces. The same could not be said for the Turkish people, there were several riots for quite a while but stopped once Anastasia's public life improvement took action. The cities became safe, clean, advanced and problems like little resources, hunger and so on disappeared thanks to the presence of terraformed worlds which were literally giants farms and cultivation all managed by the Imperium.

Another very important improvement was on the general knowledge of the people, thanks to the Moon Cell which had recorded several millennia worth of human culture, Anastasia literally bombed her population with books, movies, videogames and many other forms of entertainment, she didn't want her citizens to feel sad or isolated from the rest of the world and so she struck deals with several countries to give them Honkai Energy extracted from the moon.

The Imperium based all of its technology on Aldnoah Energy, so giving the honkai energy to the other countries didn't impact them in the slightest, thanks to this action no country was willing to attack the imperium and no embargo was placed as suggested by Schicksal.

A happy population was the key for her plan of world conquest. In order to keep society pure from moral corruption, the Inquisition became public and was given the task to watch over the imperial officials in order to keep them from abusing their powers.

Anastasia knew that hers, was an extremely authoritarian regime, but it could be way worse and it was necessary for the war to come...