Honkai Impact 3rd AU: The Runic Anomaly

***

"Anime again? What do you find so interesting about this stuff Nuwa?"

"You wouldn't understand!"

"Seriously, it's just childish cartoons–" Nuwa leapt from her seat coming dangerously close to Himeko.

"Take that back." Nuwa snapped, clearly not appreciating Himeko's comment.

Resigning herself she sighed, "...Okay, I take it back." Nuwa observed Himeko's face for a few seconds before pulling away and reseating herself on the sofa.

Himeko's eye twitched. 'Wait just a goddamn second! I came here because Nuwa is late for the 3rd time this week!' 

She marched over to the TV and turned it off, Nuwa looking at her with the most betrayed look she'd ever seen.

"It's 10 AM already, you're late Nuwa, and for the 3rd day in a row, remember what Mobius said would happen if you were late again?" Himeko noticed Nuwa shiver as her pupils shrank and she threw herself out of the chair and rushed out of the room.

Left alone and looking at the dirty plate next to where Nuwa sat, Himeko walked over and picked it up before also leaving the room.

***

–Shhhh–

Nuwa peeked her head out from the hallway, scanning the room for Mobius.

Not seeing the woman anywhere, Nuwa sighed, 'Good, she's out for now.' But just as she was about to walk in she felt someone grab her shoulder, rather tightly she might add.

Having a bad premonition she slowly turned her head back, and what do you know, Mobius was there, staring down at her with ecstatic joy, "Nuwa, just in time, I was looking for another volunteer, you'll accept the position, won't you?"

While it may have sounded like a question, Nuwa knew it wasn't, it was a death sentence, she could only curse her love of anime for getting her here.

"Eep–" Was all she could respond with, and Mobius took it as a yes, she picked her up by the collar of her coat and carried Nuwa into the lab, the door shutting behind them as Nuwa relented herself to fate.

…

…

Nuwa was sitting beside her sister Fuxi. was happily munching on some chocolate and occasionally gave Nuwa a pitiful gaze. Nuwa herself was rubbing her aching arm, Mobius had given her injection after injection, while approved by Thor, Mobius made sure to give Nuwa a little pain along with it.

"That's why you should stop watching anime. Nuwa." Her sister said, crunching the wrapper and tossing it into the bin a small smile as she watched it actually go in the bin.

"NO! Never! I will never abandon my love for it!" She raised her fist in rebellion, "Owowowow!" She immediately regretted it as she had raised her already aching arm.

Ignoring her sister's pain, Fuxi just sighed, "Just use that... managa? Or was it manga? Whatever it is, you buy tons of it with your paycheck every week, and I've never seen you read any."

Nuwa's lip twitched, "First. It's MANGA. Second. …I'm a collector." She noticed how Fuxi was giving her a deadpan disappointed look when she mentioned being a collector as her reason for not reading the stuff.

"You wouldn't understand, you're not cultured enough, only Vill and Thor understand me, hmph." She crossed her arms ignoring the minor pain that came with it.

Klein, who was observing the sisters, just took a glance at her computer. It was almost time for them to gather for the ELF test run after holding it off for so long.

***

As the time had come for the ELF test to commence, the main group, with the addition of Nuwa, Fuxi and the four from Sundown Alley, gathered at the test field where this will take place.

While Einstein and Vill were just running some final checks, Aponia, who had been silently standing beside Thor said, "Thor-sama."

"Hmm?" He looked to her, catching that she was looking towards the ELFs on the field with familiarity. 'Must have been in one of those futures then.'

Her gaze drifted across all of the ELFs before stopping on the one that looked like a chibi Thor, she immediately thought 'Cute.' when she saw it. "These are Dr Einstein's creations, correct?"

"Yes…Is there anything wrong with it?" He now felt somewhat cautious.

"No. I don't remember any version where Vill assisted her." Thor had a small smile when she finished.

"I asked her to assist Ein in this endeavour, Vill also wasn't doing much other than tinkering nowadays anyway." Aponia didn't say anything but looked back to Einstein and Vill.

A little away from the two were Aurora, Elysia, Eden and Himeko. The four were having a discussion amongst themselves, while under normal circumstances anyone with enhanced senses could hear them, Eden had put up a barrier to prevent that.

Thor could hear them if he wanted to, but if Eden put it up, she did so for a reason, and if the way Eden and Elysia were teasing Aurora and Himeko, he could guess why.

Mei, Kevin were sitting together. Mei looked invested in the ELF test run and Kevin just had a more confused look on his face, Mei clearly had explained what the ELFs are to Kevin very 'Clearly'.

Su and Kosma were talking with one another, Sakura and Rin were also there. Along with Ato, Blanca and their daughter Griseo who was gazing at Thor and Aponia strangely.

Mobius, Klein and the twins, who were very interested in what these ELFs they heard about are and Nuwa had to be held back by Fuxi the moment she saw the ELFs, as Nuwa immediately tried to run over and grab one.

Fuxi had yanked Nuwa back causing her to fall on her backside at the time. Hua stood on the opposite side of Aponia next to Thor, receiving the occasional head pat from Thor that made her flush at being treated like a kid, Rin's glare at her was what kept her there.

Last but not least Felis was again, unfairly tasked with keeping Kalpas in check, to which she begrudgingly accepted under the condition that Thor gives her gold coins for each time she does so, something he can just create from thin air whenever he wants to.

(A/N: That is a lot of characters, sheesh. The Current Era will be painful lol)

…

"We're good to go!" Vill called out as both she and Einstein walked back towards the group.

Thor nodded and snapped his fingers releasing the Honkai energy within their cores.

Simultaneously all the ELFs eyes gained a golden light that quickly dimmed and changed to the given eye colour.

Both Einstein and Vill were monitoring the ELFs on their data pads, judging by their reactions, things were going smoothly.

Thor walked forward towards the ELFs, all of which looked up to him, recognising who he was. They all saluted in unison, prompting Thor to pause and glance over his shoulder at Vill and Einstein.

Vill just shrugged her shoulders, Einstein gave a wry smile.

Turning back to them he gestured for the ELF of himself to come forward.

It looked confused but did so, floating from the ground and stopping just a few feet away from Thor, the ELFs themselves were around 2 feet or 61cm in height.

Thor analysed the ELF noting how its whole shell has become permeated by Honkai, yet like they planned, the Honkai had merged with the Soulium, their cores began to function as hearts, pumping Honkai around its body, any components have now become part of them in full.

'So they're near sentient?' Thor wondered what Einstein would do with this information.

"Designation." Thor said to the ELF.

The ELF twitched before calmly saying, "Designation 0-Prime, Operational Status at 100% boss." Thor nodded and then looked at all the other ELFs, each of them looking like a chibi replica of everyone here. There were even Fuxi and Nuwa ELFs.

Thor looks at the Kevin Elf, "Designation."

"Designation 1-Alpha, Operational…" The same scene repeated until he had all of the ELFs give their designations and a few more bits of information.

"Are they ready for combat?" He says without looking away from the ELFs.

Einstein and Vill's eyes meet and a few seconds later Vill called out, "Yep!"

Thor smiled, "Do you guys want to play a game?"

The ELFs faces brightened, they nodded ecstatically, eyes sparkling. "Alright then, the game is called Hide & Seek."

"Oooooh!!" The ELFs looked like excited children.

Thor pointed to the forest behind the ELFs and told them that they are to be given 2 minutes to hide and then he and a few others will try to find them.

"If we find you, you can fight back and escape, but if we touch your back, you're caught ok?" The ELFs were already shuffling in place giving fast nods.

"Ready?" Two of the ELFs were already flying ready to take off.

"Set." All of them were now floating.

–CLAP–

"Go!" The ELFs shot off, disappearing from the field in less than a second as they scattered into the forest.

Thor looked back as everyone came over, he explained what was happening and many agreed to play along.

***

A/N: A SOL chapter, but don't worry soon the Honkai impactness will be back, just as a certain party occurs.

Caio