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Deep beneath the rushing currents of the Yangtze River, a young woman sits alone.
Every one of the Previous Era’s designated shelter areas have been built underground, buried under miles of stone and massive bodies of water to escape the Honkai’s prying eyes. Shelter No. 812 is no exception – situated under Shenzhou's longest river, it had once served as the largest hidden MOTH base in the area, and a key converging point for the MOTH operatives that made it into the current era. As time passed and their numbers steadily dwindled, those who were left established an unshakeable routine.
Every ten years, the remaining Pioneers will hold a meeting.
Officially, these group meetings serve a purely functional purpose – but although nobody spoke of it, the truth is that it also gave them a certain peace of mind. Even if there’s nothing significant to report, even if there hasn't been any real progress to their respective missions…
At the very least, they should be able to see each other, and know that they are not alone.
So even as the years blurred together, even as she methodically discarded her own memories with Fenghuang Down and allowed the centuries to wash over her without truly feeling anything, Hua continues to make her way down to Shelter No. 812 like clockwork.
She is Shenzhou’s Divine Guardian. Phoenix. The Immortal Celestial.
But once a decade, when she reunites with her old comrades, even if it’s just for a fleeting moment – she will be “Hua” once more.
…At least, that’s how it is supposed to be.
04:57
04:58
04:59
Under the dim glow of the holographic screens, Hua watches the last couple of seconds slip by, signalling the turn of a new hour.
05:00
It will be dawn soon, and she has stayed awake the entire night. But no matter. The body of a MANTIS does not need much rest, and she cannot go to sleep now.
After all, Kevin and Su will be arriving soon.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they should have arrived more than half a day ago, in the early afternoon. Hua doesn’t expect a face-to-face meeting – after all, she hadn’t actually seen them in person for centuries – but any of the hundreds of MOTH bases around the world would have allowed them to appear as holographic projections, and they’d always held their previous assemblies like this.
It is neither in Kevin, nor Su’s nature to be late. Which is all the more reason not to hold this against them; she knows they must have a good reason for their delay.
07:42
During their last meeting, Kevin and Su had tuned in from Shelter No. 907, under the River Tamesis. Su told her that it was a land called “Britannia,” located on some tiny peninsula off the coast of northwestern Europe. He’d invited her to come see it, once, but she told him that she had her duties to attend to in Shenzhou.
10:15
It’s been ten years since then. Hua wonders if they’re still in Shelter No. 907, or if they’d gone somewhere else.
14:08
…Ah.
It is so quiet here.
The sun will have reached its peak in the sky by now, but there is no natural lighting so deep underwater. The chairs that should have been occupied by Kevin and Su are still empty.
Soon, she tells herself. They will be here soon. It has now been more than twenty-four hours since their designated meeting time. Something significant must have happened, to keep Kevin and Su for so long.
Could it have been an Eruption? Another Judgement-Class Honkai beast? Even that should not have posed a significant threat to two Pioneers.
Surely.
23:51
Under the Yangtze River, this artificial sanctuary seems to stay in stasis – yet that is just an illusion, as time continues to slip by like the fleeting wisps of wind against her cheek. The clock ticks, marching relentlessly forward.
Minutes. Hours. Days.
Through it all, Hua remains seated at her spot before the meeting table, and does not move.
She stops looking at the clock. There is no point. Hua can meditate for days and weeks on end without eating and sleeping if she has to, but enough time has now passed that she can feel the stirrings of fatigue, casting a blurry fog over her mind and making her slump ever so slightly from her perfect upright posture. Still, her comrades remain absent.
Soon, she tells herself once more, and closes her eyes.
Deep down, Hua knows that she will never see them again.
What could have caused this tragedy? Just how much of a terrible calamity must it have been, to wipe out two Pioneers at the same time? They couldn't have been caught by surprise. Calm, collected Su would have seen it coming. Kevin was with him, too – and if nothing else, Kevin had always seemed so...indestructible. Even at the worst of times, even as she watched him strike down her beloved mentor and felt a fierce, searing hatred for him in her heart, his figure had always stood firm and unyielding as he led the Flame-Chasers into battle.
Over time, her resentment for Kevin had dimmed to a faintly smouldering ember, replaced by the quiet affection of camaraderie between those who have already lost too much. Still, the unexpected gravity of the loss she feels in that moment is so painful and raw that it leaves Hua momentarily short of breath, swaying unsteadily in her seat.
(“Take care, my dear brothers,” she’d last said to them. “I’ll see you in ten years.”
And she’d believed–
Everyone passes away eventually. But for her fellow flame-chasers, she’d truly believed...)
It is so quiet. It is so dark.
Out of the corner of her eyes, the clock rolls over to the start of a new day. Hua is no longer certain of how many days had passed since she’s descended into Shelter No. 812, and the rational part of her knows that she should have left a long time ago. There is nothing left to accomplish here, and it would be wasted time to keep lingering without a purpose.
There is also no good reason why she should feel this way. For flame-chasers such as herself, loss is already a terribly familiar concept, and she should have been ready for these farewells. And it’s not as if the three of them were especially close – they’d never spent much time with each other, not in the previous era and especially not the current one, since Kevin and Su had taken to travelling the world while she picked a place to settle down and never left again. Even though Su had originally hailed from the same hometown as her, he didn’t seem to have any interest in visiting its cultural successor of Shenzhou, and that is perfectly alright.
They are simply comrades, fighting for a common cause. They are not family, and certainly not friends.
But out of everyone who has made it into the New Era, at a time where so many others have already departed...for a very long time, the three of them had been the only ones left.
…No.
She is the only one left, and the shelter feels so very cold.
Soon, she tells herself. Soon, I shall return to the surface.
Yet, she cannot bring herself to go. Hua loses track of how long she remains in place, seated alone at the meeting table in this dark, silent room. Despite everything, a tiny, pathetic part of her continues to hope that if she waits just a little bit longer, the other seats will light up again and they will be able to carry on their meetings as usual.
In the end, no one arrives. It’s only when the hologram interface of the machine begins to beep, signalling the presence of someone repeatedly activating the emergency communication protocols from outside of the underground shelter, that Hua finally rises from her chair with numb, stiffened limbs and leaves the empty room behind her.
“Master Phoenix!”
The Book of Fuxi is waiting for her outside. The small machine flits from side to side like an anxious bird, relief apparent on her tiny face as she takes in Hua’s appearance. “Phoenix, you’re okay!” the ELF exclaims. “Thank goodness. You always go down by yourself so I wasn’t sure if something terrible had happened, but it’s been so long, I couldn't help feeling a little...”
“At ease, Little Book,” Hua murmurs. “I’ve gone to attend these meetings countless times before. There is no reason for you to worry.”
“No reason?!” the Book of Fuxi pinches her brows together. “Master Phoenix, you’re usually gone for no more than an hour or two at most! But this time, you…”
She makes a wild, flailing motion with her hands and looks at Hua expectantly. Hua merely blinks, and waits for her to continue.
The Book of Fuxi’s expression twists, aghast. “Were you not aware? It’s been almost a whole month since you’ve stepped into the shelter!”
…Oh.
A month. Had she been waiting for that long?
She'd remained inside the main communications room this entire time. If Kevin or Su had even a moment to try to establish contact, to send a distress signal, anything – then she would know. So if a month had already passed without notice, they must truly be…
Ah, but she’d known this already.
These tiny, lingering slivers of hope in her heart are nothing more than the remnants of her own naive weakness, and Hua crushes them to dust as she inputs the commands for the shelter to conceal its presence beneath the Yangtze River once more.
“Um, Master Phoenix,” the Book of Fuxi hesitates. “Did something happen?”
“No,” Hua says. “Nothing.”
“Then, did Master Kevin or Master Su–”
“Little Book,” Hua interrupts her. “Has there been an emergency, for you to initiate the shelter's communications protocols? Or did you just want to verify my location?”
“Oh!” the ELF perks up. “Right. I was worried about you, Master Phoenix, but I didn’t want to bother you unless it was absolutely necessary – there’s been rumours of corruption in a nearby village, though, and I couldn’t handle that on my own.”
“Then we shall head there at once.”
“But what about your meeting? I hope I didn’t interrupt…”
“There will be no more meetings,” Hua says. She holds her voice steady and flat, aloof and utterly dispassionate. “You’ve interrupted nothing, Little Book. Our priority is to eliminate the Honkai, so please take me to the scene of the corruption.”
That’s right.
The last of her comrades have finally left her. All that remains of their previous era has disappeared, clouding the future in monochrome and leaving Hua all alone, but there is no time to rest, and no time to mourn. She still has her mission, and the land she has promised to protect.
And so, as long as this body still draws breath–
She will continue to fight. For humanity. For her fallen friends. And…for them as well.
That is all she can do now.