Kiana
DING.
The elevator doors to Level 42 slid open, and Kiana didn't wait for them to fully retract. She bolted through the gap, her pistols drawn and held close to her chest.
Mei was right beside her, her katana unsheathed.
They emerged into a wide, pristine lobby. It was terrifyingly quiet.
There were no guards. No mechs. Just the stale walls of the laboratory sector and the blaring screeching of the emergency alarms.
"Which way?" Mei asked, her eyes scanning the corners for automated turrets.
Kiana raised her left wrist, tapping the display of the bio-tracker Theresa had synced to Kenji's vitals before the mission.
"The signal is close," Kiana said, frowning as she adjusted the frequency. "It's strong. Really strong. He's just down the main corridor, near the secondary loading docks."
She looked up, a fierce determination burning in her blue eyes.
"Hang on, Kenji. We're coming."
They took off sprinting, their boots echoing against the floor. They passed empty security stations and abandoned checkpoints.
Papers were scattered on the floor, and coffee cups had been left overturned on desks—signs of a hasty evacuation.
"Something's wrong," Mei murmured as they ran. "Where is the resistance? I thought Cocolia would send stronger opponents. We haven't seen a single robot since the elevator."
"Maybe she was bluffing?" Kiana said out loud, though she didn't believe it herself. "Or maybe she ran away when she saw us coming—!"
"—Kiana! Mei! Can you hear me?!"
Theresa's voice exploded over their comms, loud and distorted by heavy static. The background noise on her end was a cacophony of screeching metal and explosions.
Kiana tapped her earpiece. "Auntie? We made it to the top! We're heading for Kenji now!"
"Listen to me!" Theresa yelled, panic edging into her tone. "The situation down here has changed! We aren't just fighting Anti-Entropy anymore!"
Mei slowed down slightly, pressing a finger to her ear. "What do you mean? Did someone else break in?"
"No, we have multiple perimeter breaches! Hundreds of Honkai Beast signatures that just appeared out of nowhere! They're swarming the facility!"
Kiana skidded to a halt, her eyes widening. "Honkai Beasts? Here? But I thought this base was shielded!"
"It is!" Theresa replied. "That's the problem! Most of the beasts aren't even attacking us, and they aren't attacking the mechs! They're ignoring everything and heading straight for the Central Spire! You two need to hurry, or else hundreds of Honkai Beasts will get in your way!"
The two froze, instantly connecting the dots in their heads.
The shields were up. The perimeter was secure. Yet hundreds of beasts had converged on this location simultaneously, ignoring potential threats to rush toward a single point.
This was Kenji's doing. He's attracting Honkai Beasts to his location again. He's trying to break out!
"This should make it easier for us. Just a little more and—!"
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Kiana's wrist tracker suddenly let out a high-pitched shriek.
She looked down at the display.
"What the?"
The screen that showed Kenji's vital signs and energy readings flickered.
In its place, the screen flooded with a jagged, angry crimson waveform. The numbers tracking his vitals were all overshadowed by one skyrocketing metric.
HW (Honkai Watt) output.
"Whoa!" Kiana tapped the screen frantically. "Is the tracker broken?! It says his Honkai Energy levels are... wait, these numbers can't be right. It's over 3500HW and climbing!"
Mei grabbed Kiana's wrist, staring at the readout. Her face went pale, but not from confusion. She knew exactly what she was looking at.
"The Herrscher…" Mei breathlessly said. Both scared at another Herrschers' awakening, yet confused as she can't sense the other Herrschers' presence.
"So it happened..." Kiana breathed, the realization settling in her stomach. "The Herrscher inside him woke up."
"Yes," Mei confirmed, gripping the hilt of her katana so hard her knuckles turned white. "Kenji isn't in control anymore..."
"Look at the signal!" Kiana pointed.
On the small holographic map, the red dot representing "Kenji" flickered.
One second, it was in one location. The next, it zipped across the layout of the facility to the eastern sector.
"What is he doing?" Mei said, watching the erratic blip. "Is he trying to escape?"
Kiana stared at the erratic red dot, which was now moving in circles, seemingly checking rooms at impossible speeds.
"A herrscher is in control of Kenji's body…" Kiana asked, her voice hardening. "Great. Just what we needed."
"We need to get to him quickly and subdue him," Mei warned, "We have no idea what this Herrscher is like, and the longer we wait, the stronger it will get."
The realization hit them both. They weren't just racing to rescue a friend anymore. They were racing to contain a living natural disaster.
The glow around Mei began to brighten.
"The signal is all across the facility. Should we head there now?" Kiana asked.
Mei looked down the long, empty hallway.
The air tasted metallic, charged with the same electric static she had felt during the eruption in Nagazora.
"Let's go to his previous location first. Maybe we could get some clues as to what happened." Mei whispered.
Kiana grit her teeth. She slapped her cheeks, forcing the anxiety down.
"Alright... I don't care if it's a Herrscher," Kiana declared, raising her guns. "If Kenji is in there, we're getting him out. Even if we have to beat the other guy up to do it."
"Right," Mei nodded, though her eyes remained shadowed with worry. "Let's go. But remember, Kiana... be careful. That thing isn't our friend."
Kiana wanted to object, as Mei herself had a Herrscher inside her, and Wendy was a Herrscher too. But the hardened glare on her face stopped any words from coming out.
She kept her mouth shut as the two raced to Kenji's previous location.
/ — /
Mei
Mei led the way as they rushed towards Kenji's previous signal location. The air grew heavier with every step, thick with a scent that made her stomach churn.
It wasn't just the metallic tang of blood. It was the sharp, high-density Honkai energy that threatened to consume her.
"You were right," Kiana whispered from behind her, "Not even a single thing to block our way? Very suspicious."
"It is," Mei answered simply, stopping in front of a scorch mark on the floor. "Be careful, we made it."
She held her blade steady in her arm. They had reached the blast doors at the end of the hall.
The heavy steel, designed to withstand containment breaches, was dented outward. The metal was warped as if something massive had been thrown against it from the inside with enough force to destroy it.
Mei didn't need to touch the control panel to open it. The locking mechanism was gone—melted into a puddle of glowing metal that was still cooling on the floor.
"Be ready," Mei warned, her grip tightening on her hilt.
Just as they stepped in front of the broken entrance, they stopped in their tracks. Their eyes widened as they saw the room completely covered in blood.
Kiana almost gagged at the sight, "What the fuck..."
The floor was flooded with a viscous green fluid, and the walls and ceiling were painted with red, soaking the pristine white panels in dripping blood.
But it was the damage that froze Mei in her tracks.
The room was filled with impact craters. The reinforced concrete walls looked like they had been hit by wrecking balls.
Massive gouges had been torn out of the floor, exposing the rebar and wiring beneath. Yet, despite the signs of a massive battle, there were no bodies of the beasts left.
"The Honkai Beasts..." Kiana stammered, stepping carefully over a crater that was still smoking. "Where are they? Did they run away?"
"No," Mei said, "For the room to be empty... it means they were all killed."
She looked around the massive space. There must have been dozens of them, judging by the damage. But they were all wiped out quickly, if the silence now was any clue.
Mei crouched down near a puddle of red liquid that wasn't evaporating. Unlike the beasts, human remains didn't disappear. But there were no bodies of the scientists either.
Just... blood.
A shredded lab coat lay in a heap, soaked in still-warm blood. A single shoe. And a fine, red mist that coated the far wall like spray paint.
"This wasn't a fight," Mei said, her voice trembling slightly as the realization hit her. "It was an execution."
She spotted something gleaming near the center of the room, half-submerged in the green sludge. She walked over, her boots squelching in the grim mixture on the floor.
It was a pistol. Or what used to be one.
The barrel had been crushed, looking like it had been squeezed like playdough. The metal was discolored, warped by intense flash heat that had fused the slide to the frame.
"The Herrscher," Mei whispered, the word tasting like ash. "he completely butchered everyone in here."
"This is nothing like Kenji…" Kiana looked around, her eyes wide from shock, frantically scanning the room as if hoping to find a survivor.
"I know Herrschers can be the complete opposite of their hosts, but this… Maybe the Honkai Beasts did it before they died? "
"Honkai Beasts eat their prey or maul them," Mei countered, standing up and holding out the melted gun. "They don't melt weapons. And they don't liquefy people into mist."
She gestured to the shattered remains of the massive transport pod at the end of the hall. The glass was broken from the outside in, and the metal frame was twisted like a pretzel.
"The Herrscher woke up," Mei analyzed, the scene playing out in her mind as she pieced everything together.
"The beasts came for him because of the energy spike and freed him from this pod. He destroyed the beasts. And then... he killed the researchers who were holding him."
Mei felt a chill run down her spine. The lingering energy signature in the room wasn't just powerful; it was angry.
It was a sensation she was too familiar with.
It felt like a scream trapped in a bottle, a chaotic storm of resentment and violence.
"We have to find him."
She tossed the ruined gun aside. "We can't let him escape ME Corp. Right now, he's a walking catastrophe."
Kiana nodded, though her hands were shaking as she reloaded her pistols. "Right. We stop him. We—"
CRASH.
The ceiling directly above them exploded downward.
"Look out!" Kiana yelled, tackling Mei to the side.
Debris, dust, and a heavy metal grate rained down into the bloody slurry on the floor. A silhouette dropped from the darkness of the ventilation shaft, landing in a crouch with a heavy impact that shook the room.
Mei rolled to her feet, lightning crackling around her blade, ready to strike. Kiana aimed her pistols, her finger tightening on the trigger.
The figure stood up, shaking dust from their short green hair.
"Ow," the newcomer groaned, rubbing her head and grimacing. "Note to self: Use wind before slamming headfirst into reinforced walls."
""Wendy?!""
/ — /
Kiana
""Wendy?!""
Kiana lowered her guns, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding. The adrenaline spike from the explosion slowly faded into relief.
"You scared the crap out of us! Why did you come through the ceiling?!"
"Comms jammed, couldn't get your locations, so had to guess," Wendy said, standing up and brushing debris off her wind-torn outfit.
She grimaced, stretching a bruised arm. "And the shafts were crawling with security drones. I figured the ventilation system was the path with the fewest enemies. I was right, but I had no idea where I was going."
She looked around the room, a quip about the décor on the tip of her tongue, but the words died in her throat.
Wendy's casual demeanor vanished instantly. Her green eyes widened as she took in the horrifying tableau around them.
She saw the flooded floor, the melted slag of the blast door, and the red blood that painted the room.
"Whoa," Wendy breathed, taking a step back, her boots splashing in the green sludge. She looked at the shattered pod, the green fluid, the restraints.
Her expression darkened as she realized what had happened there. "They had him in a tank… Like he was a test subject…"
She looked at Kiana. "I don't blame him for this. If I woke up in that thing... I would have torn this whole building down, too."
"Thankfully, it wasn't him," Mei said grimly, sheathing her katana with a sharp click, though her hand never left the hilt.
Wendy looked at the carnage, her face paling into realization. "So the Herrscher woke up?"
"Yeah…" Kiana said, her voice hollow. "And I guess he wasn't happy."
She stepped forward, "Is Bronya okay? Did she make it?"
"She's safe," Wendy confirmed, tearing her eyes away from the gruesome sight to focus on Kiana.
"I got her to the extraction point. The Hyperion picked her up, but..." She hesitated, looking up at the ceiling. "They couldn't lock onto you guys. The comms are completely jammed down here. The Honkai energy density is off the charts—it's like standing inside a reactor. I told them I was coming back for you."
"We know," Mei said, walking over to them. She tapped the screen of her wrist tracker, which was flickering with static interference.
"It's the Herrscher. He's radiating enough energy to scramble everything in the facility. Though oddly enough, Kenji's tracker and sensor are still working fine."
Kiana held up her own arm, showing Wendy the display.
The red dot that represented Kenji—or the entity that had replaced him—was no longer flickering erratically across the map.
It was moving with purpose now, a steady, burning crimson line heading deeper into the facility's lower levels.
"He stopped jumping around," Kiana noted, tracing the path with her finger. "He's heading down to the main Hangar Bay."
"The Hangar?" Wendy asked, floating a few inches off the ground to avoid the mess on the floor. "Is he trying to escape?"
"Maybe," Mei said, her head drooping down. "Or he's just destroying for the fun of it. We never know what could happen when a Herrscher overruns the mind."
Kiana clenched her fists. The shock of the massacre was fading, replaced by a steely, burning resolve.
"We can't let him leave," Kiana said firmly. "If he goes out there like this… He will kill innocent people, and then Schicksal will label him as another enemy to take out."
She looked at Mei, blue eyes locking with violet.
"We have to beat him," Kiana said. "We have to knock that Herrscher out and drag Kenji back, before he does something he can't take back."
Mei nodded. "You're right… I won't let him go through what I did."
"Same here," Wendy added. The wind swirled around her ankles, picking up speed. "I owe him one. And... I don't like the idea of anyone being trapped in a nightmare they can't wake up from."
"Then let's go," Kiana said, turning toward the door that led deeper into the facility.
She tapped the tracker one last time.
"Ready or not," Kiana whispered to the red dot on her screen. "Here we come."
The trio sprinted out of the blood-soaked lab, leaving the graveyard behind. They were ready for a fight. They were prepared to face their friend.
But as they ran down the connecting corridor, Kiana switched the tracker to a 3D map of the facility.
Even if their comms were jammed, they still had a live map of the area. She narrowed her eyes as Kenji's signature went into the lower levels of the facility.
"What could he be looking for?" Kiana called out, not slowing her pace. "Cocolia, maybe? Could the Herrscher be wanting revenge?"
Mei answered from her side. "That could be the reason... Cocolia captured Kenji and most likely experimented on his body. Herrschers are prideful, having a human prod at their body must have struck a nerve."
Wendy nodded in agreement.
Finally, they reached the elevator shaft again.
Wendy stopped them before they could head inside.
She smirked, "Taking the elevator will take too long." With a swipe of her hand, a powerful gust of wind shot the elevator down to the lower floors.
She picked up Kiana and Mei before they could realize what she was doing. "Hold on, you two! We're flying down!"
"Wait, WendyaaAAAAAHHH!" Kiana's shouts echoed through the elevator shaft as they plummeted down to the lower levels.