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kalpasio · 1 year

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The Herrscher of Stars

"The Herrscher of Stars: Fire Moth's Biggest Lie"

A Kalpas x Herrscher!Reader fic, Chapter 1 below!

Growing up, you had always been told that Honkai was the scourge of humanity. Those words had been drilled into your head until ‘Honkai’ and ‘enemy’ became synonymous. Honkai took your family when you were still young, and it took you not long after. You didn’t die, no, you became its weapon, its puppet, a Herrscher.

“The Herrscher of Stars has appeared and destroyed three main Honkai energy reactors.”

“Three MANTISes and five MOTH squads have been gravely injured in the fight against the Herrscher of Stars.”

“The Herrscher of Stars has brought fear to the entire Atlantic coast and is now missing. When, and where will they strike next?”

“The Herrscher of Stars is a mildly popular conspiracy theory that people today are still trying to prove.”

“Good luck,” you scoffed and scrolled past the clickbait video and the four ads with Eden’s face plastered on them to reach the recipe you were trying to get to in the first place. Tugging up your sleeves, you walked across the kitchen to grab the first few ingredients you’d need. Once you’d set them on the counter, you glanced at the list again, then opened the small refrigerator in your apartment.

“It’s been four years since the disaster people claim was the work of the Herrscher of Stars,” the video began playing again. With a groan, you gave up on stopping the exaggerated narration and reached for the eggs.

“Able to manipulate gravity, and reportedly a serious threat that even Fire Moth acknowledges, but they ‘mysteriously’ disappeared in the middle of their attack and haven’t been heard from since. My bet? The Herrscher of Stars is just a coverup for a Fire Moth experiment gone horribly wrong.”

“That’s a new one,” you grumbled to yourself while cracking open the egg and smoothly dropping it into the bowl. Thinking about the incident brought a sense of pride and anger from the Herrscher still locked within your mind. She had done an immense amount of damage, were it not for you fighting against her, she would’ve leveled the coast in hours.

“Behave,” you mentally slapped the Herrscher on the wrist. “I’ll stop making the brownies if you keep trying to get out.” As if to prove the seriousness of your threat, you placed your hands on your hips and took a step away from the counter you’d been working at.

The murderous thoughts slunk back into the depths of your mind and allowed you to resume mixing the batter.

You forgot to preheat the oven.

Closing your eyes and giving a sigh, you stepped over to set the temperature.

“Thank you.” No matter how annoyed you sounded, you truly appreciated the reminder. Hearing thoughts and reminders in a slow, distorted voice had become the norm for you. Most times she was complaining about humans in general, but every so often she could be helpful.

For the remainder of the time you spent stirring, she left you alone with your music. As soon as you slid the pan into the oven, she was back.

How long?

“Twenty minutes,” you rolled your eyes. “You can see the timer just as well as I can.”

Not when you move your stupid eyeballs like that.

Looking pointedly at the timer for five long seconds, you grumbled under your breath the whole time. Causing harm was in your Herrscher’s nature, but at the end of the day, she acted more like a child. The brownies were her reward for being—mostly—quiet on your last mission. Sometimes it felt like you had to put her in a time-out corner, away from the rest of your thoughts.

That childlike behavior extended to her knowledge about the world. Most things were new to her; that had been how you regained control when she first appeared.

“You can’t enjoy a world you’ve killed already,” you had reasoned. And it worked. With a few exceptions, you have been in control of your body ever since. It had been her idea to join Fire Moth.

Hide right under their nose, she’d said. Really, she just wanted to see what it was like, but it was a good way for you to burn off her anger, and Herrscher powers certainly helped in a fight. You never used them to their full extent; increasing gravity until you could crush a building like a tin can was a little overkill, and someone would certainly notice your eyes glowing.

The Herrscher of Stars—you just called her Star—was just as afraid of being caught by the members of Fire Moth as you were. Your death meant her death, and there was still a lot of exploring she wanted to do. It had taken time, but the two of you had learned to live peacefully with humanity and help in the battle against Honkai.

“Oh? Are you going out then?” Eden stood in front of you, beautiful as ever, even after coming back from a weeklong mission.

“Kevin asked me to go with Hua as backup,” you adjusted the strap of the bag over your shoulder. “Can’t ignore the big boss man.” A sigh from you was met with a laugh from Eden.

“No, we can’t,” she sent you that infectious smile of hers, making you shake your head with a smile of your own. “Be careful. Keep Hua safe.”

“You know I will,” you gave a mock salute just to hear Eden laugh again before heading to your dropship. Hua was already on board, sitting calmly, though you could feel the anxiousness coming off of her in waves.

What’s she got to be worried about? Star sneered, making you frown. This is a big job, you thought back, she just wants things to go smoothly. Star scoffed but didn’t say anything else. “I looked over the mission briefing,” you dropped your bag to the floor and took the seat next to the young MANTIS. “It seems pretty straightforward. If I can handle it, you won’t have any problem with something so easy.” Comforting wasn’t your forte, but you still wanted Hua to know she had your support.

“I know,” she went through the motions of preparing for takeoff to avoid nervously tapping her fingers. “But missions that seem simple always end up going wrong.”

“Anything goes wrong, we’ll handle it then. Until something happens, there’s no point in worrying about ‘what-ifs.’” You fastened your seatbelt and kicked your bag under the seat. The rest of the flight was quiet, Hua meditating while you mentally argued with Star.

For someone who could manipulate gravity, she was awfully scared of heights. Anytime you got in a plane, she would start yelling just for the sake of yelling. She could easily create a zero-gravity field and be perfectly safe from falling, but the thought never seemed to help. This meant every flight you were stuck holding her hand. If something distracted you too much and you forgot, she’d start screaming again, demanding your attention.

As soon as the plane touched ground, Star was fine. She’d push you away in your mind, as though just being near you was offensive, then pretend her temper tantrum never happened. Hua got out first; this was really her mission, and you were only supposed to interfere if things went really bad.

For the most part, the job went fine. She may not be the strongest MANTIS, but she still packed a punch—literally. In the end, the mission was just you trailing behind her, occasionally using your lance to knock away a stay bit of debris, and doing your best to keep Star entertained. She was bemoaning your lack of action on the way back to the ship when the call came in.

“Agent Hua, we need you to redirect your path to intercept a different threat.” The voice was a little tinny coming through the communicator, but the message got across. Stopping, you looked at Hua, who was technically the mission leader, waiting for her response.

“Go ahead HQ,” she spoke in a very stern voice that reminded you just how serious she was about being a soldier.

“There is a rogue MANTIS twenty kilometers north of your position.” You frowned at that, and Hua shared a look with you that said she had the same thought. Rogue agents only had two outcomes. Either they were ‘neutralized,’ or captured and brought back to base. Neither was a particularly good option, and fighting a fellow MOTH—potentially a friend—never sat well with you.

“Returning this agent to base is your highest priority. Information will be sent to your dropship for you to review. Contact us once you are en route to base.” The officer on the other end didn’t even bother waiting for a response before cutting the call.

Finally! Something to do, Star cheered.

Nothing good, you thought back.

As promised, the files were sent over, causing the main console on the ship to flash in a bid for your attention. Once you knew who the agent was, the files were unnecessary. Everyone knew Kalpas, and everyone hoped they wouldn’t be the ones tasked with bringing him back that week. Between his fiery temper and equally fiery fists, wrangling him was a nightmare, he’d gone through more adjutants than you knew were even in Fire Moth. So it came as no surprise that his latest one was struggling.

You knew his current superior officer, actually. Her name was Mandy, and she was the most strait-laced MOTH you had the displeasure of knowing. Honestly, you were impressed she lasted this long—a whole two days! Kalpas must be slacking; you wouldn't last a day before putting in a transfer request.

“A straight confrontation won’t go well,” Hua leaned back in her seat as you flew to your new objective.

“No… How comfortable are you with using Fenghuang Down?” She brought her hand to her chin in thought at hearing your question.

“Reasonably. I assume you want to use that to try and stop him?”

“That’s our best bet, don’t you think?” you eyed the girl who nodded slowly. “I’ll distract him, you knock him out. We have some sedatives on the ship we can use until we get back if we have to.”

“Will you be ok fighting him?” Hua allowed the slightest bit of worry to slip into her voice.

I’ll send him straight to hell! Star was beginning to get fired up.

“Yeah, I can handle a couple of minutes of dodging,” you gave a reassuring smile.

Things had not gone to plan. Kalpas had spotted Hua almost immediately and moved faster than you could keep up with. Luckily, you caught him in time, Hua was alive, just knocked out. That meant your initial strategy was down the drain and Star chanting for you to kill the MANTIS in front of you was making it hard to think.

Shut up for a second, will you?! you shouted into your mind, eyes flashing a deep blue for a moment. Any time your anger got the better of you, she’d try to come out, but you quickly dragged her back. Kalpas didn’t notice your internal struggle, too preoccupied with trying to knock your head off.

The fight was not going well, and with Hua out of commission, you were running low on options. Kalpas zeroed in on your distraction and lunged for you. You may not have panicked, but Star certainly did.

Survival mode kicked in and you were kicked out. Less than a second later, your eyes were the color of the night sky, and your outstretched hand glowed blinding white like the stars you were named after. Kalpas was lifted into the air, where he hung for a moment. Clenching your fist, the star in your hand collapsed into a blackhole, pulling him back down to the ground and pinning him in place from the drastic increase of gravity. He snarled in frustration, but even his fire was under your control, keeping him safely away from you.

Arguing with Star, she gave you some control, ensuring that the MOTH wasn’t completely crushed. Still holding the swirling blackhole in your hand, you kneeled next to Kalpas and gave him a shot of the sedative, not letting the gravity field go until his flames were extinguished. Closing your eyes, you let out a deep breath. When you opened them again, the dark blue identifying you as a Herrscher was gone, only a barely-there ring on the outside of your iris.

With Kalpas officially down for the count, the next thing you needed to do was make sure Hua was ok. A quick nudge was all it took to get a groan from her. Now satisfied that she was working on waking herself up, you went back to Kalpas and picked him up with a grunt. Carrying around your lance was no mean feat, but you usually cheated and lowered gravity around you to make it easier to swing. With Hua walking so close to you, you were forced to carry Kalpas back to the ship the old-fashioned way.

I had a typo that said "The Bathe against Honkai" instead of "battle" and I am so sorry if there are more mistakes that bad. Also the top trending search on the HI3 wiki is "Herrschers" and I'm convinced it's because I open the tab like every 5 minutes. You would think I'd know the order by now

#I have to add a lot of extra tags because I lost my marbles #ok #so #kalpas x reader #honkai x reader #Emile (HI3) x reader #Kalpas x Emile #Kalpas x Reader x Emile #azaryawrites #tamalethebear #cross posted on ao3 #fuck needing a nap #I need to go to bed #I think that's all the tags #lmk if they need fixing #I am not lucid rn #edited finally!

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localplaguenurse · 1 year

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Just ignore the smoke and smile

Hey, so I'm trying out some OC stuff here, as well as darker content, so yeah. I don't know how regular this will be, I'm just throwing this out here to experiment. If you do not feel comfortable reading for one reason or another, I'd just skip this post.

Warnings before you proceed: mentions of self harm, referenced past sexual assault and domestic abuse, discussions of addiction. No specific scenes are described, and it actually has a lighthearted end, but it may still be uncomfortable to read. With that in mind either proceed with caution or just don't read. I'm not your mom, I can't tell you what you can or can't read. Do let me know if I missed a tag but I'm pretty sure I got everything covered.

It’s peeking around the bathroom doorway this time.

When I look up from the sink after washing my hands, I see my face in the mirror. I don’t see it, but I feel it watching me. It’s been watching me for god knows how long. It was easy to ignore when I was younger, when I was some hotshot rockstar sex god dipshit who pretended not to know any better. I tell myself I didn’t, but that looming figure tells me I did, that I should have known better and now I’m stuck with the consequences of my actions.

You missed your wrist.

There’s still a little leftover lavender soap on my arm. I run it under the cold water, rubbing it off with my calloused finger and feeling the bumps of old scars under the tattooed skin. I turn the faucet off, and I stare at my arm for a moment. I read what is written there. “Be my reminder here that I am not alone.”

Which was more uncomfortable for him to do? This one, or the head of Medusa on your shoulder, where she liked to stub out her cigarettes?

I yawn a little. Alice has been sick for a few days now, and has been very fussy as a result. We were going to have a little get together for her first birthday, but I don’t really want to make her go through all the commotion while she’s this miserable. We’ll do something small for her today, and when she’s better, we’ll get everyone together. Mom will be really happy to see her.

Has your mom seen that tattoo? She likes to look at tiktok every now and again. It’s mostly animal crossing, but since your husband is a tattoo artist, she probably gets tattoo tiktoks.

I turn around to dry my hands. It’s still behind me.

Do you think she’s seen the Medusa tiktoks? Do you think she wonders? That she worries?

I turn back to the mirror. My hair’s getting really long again, and I’m going to have to get it bleached back to white soon. I brush my bangs out of my face, and I see the silvery scarring next to my eye. A sexy little battle scar to go with these pretty green eyes of mine.

Sure, package it like that. If it makes you forget how that pretty smoker you loved so much smashed that cup into your face, go for it.

Why are you here?

I’m always here.

No, why are you here?

Like I said, I’m always here. You’re stuck with me, that’s the deal.

I never made any deals.

You did when you wanted to be a “better man.” You want to cut back on the drinking and the drugs? You do know you did all that to forget what happened, right?

The only reason that happened was because I was an addict.

Right. Do you remember how she used to bribe you with that shit? I mean, you were doing it before you even met her, but she had you wrapped around her finger when she had coke on her.

I shake my head and look for the hairbrush. It’s usually on the counter. Where is it?

Do you think your fans believed you when you talked about how you used to get nosebleeds all the time in high school? Your friends sure as fuck didn’t. It is weird that instead of calling you out, they memorized how to use narcan.

Wait, Oli might have left the brush in the bedroom.

Actually, it’s pretty fucked up how much they either ignored or completely missed. Not even just the obvious addiction problems, but just… everything about her, and how you acted around her.

I step out of the bathroom, flicking off the light as I do. I head for our bedroom next door. It’s a little messy right now, but the exhaustion of fatherhood will do that to you. I really should gather up the dirty laundry while I’m in here, even if I don’t find the brush.

She was a massive bitch, but you were thinking with your dick like you always do. Apparently that’s all she cared about. That and getting you fucking hammered on the regular. I’d ask if you remember that, but I know you don’t.

Oh, it’s on the nightstand on Oli’s side. I step forward around the bed, stepping over a stray pair of jeans to get to the brush. Oli must have used it to brush his hair while I was in the shower last night, and forgot to put it back.

It’s always right behind me. It’s breathing down my neck, and whispering in my ear. Sometimes it’s my voice, and sometimes it’s hers. Sometimes it’s just a voice, belonging to no one in particular.

It eats away at you, not knowing what happened to you. She knows something about you that you don’t. Still, you hate thinking about what you do remember, right?

I make quick work of brushing my hair. Once it’s silky smooth, I set the brush down on the table again. I bend over to pick the stray clothes up off the floor. I don’t need my husband tripping and busting his good leg, and laundry day is coming up soon.

You’re still in pain, no matter how much you pretend you aren’t. At least you could forget the world existed when you were drunk or high. At least you were only hurting yourself. Why did you give all of that up if you were going to spend the rest of your life thinking about it?

I stop when I see a little creature waddle in through the open door. She looks at me with big green eyes and smiles. She sticks her hands out as she makes her way towards me. “Up! Up!”

I set the clothes in my arms down on the bed, crouch down, and scoop her up into my arms. “Hey sweetie,” I coo, “is papa making you breakfast right now?”

“Dada up.”

“Yes, I’ve got you.” I kiss one of her chubby cheeks. “Come on, let’s go say hi to papa.”

When I carry my daughter towards the bedroom door, I still feel it staring me down, but at a distance. Once I step into the hallway and turn the corner, it’s no longer watching me like a hawk. It’s still somewhere behind me, but it always is, and I’m used to that. I don’t plan on letting it fuck up my daughter’s birthday, either, so it can stay there in the corner like a loser if it wants to. It wasn’t even invited anyways.

I yawn again, and I smell pancakes cooking in the kitchen. I’ve had my fill of misery today, it’s time to actually get on with the day now.

#oc #my writing #tw abuse #tw assault #tw s3lf harm #tw drugs #assault mention #drug abuse #tw alcohol #tw sa mention #abuse mention #cw #tw #cw abuse #sa tw #sa cw #i think that's all the tags #i'm okay #idk i felt weird about just posting this without first saying 'this isn't about me'

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