Chapter - 15

"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.

Before she could say anything the leader of the custodes took a step forward "I'm the captain-general of the current legio custodes, the Emperor sent a small group of us as additional help with the orders of following your orders in order to aid you in the great task of defeating the Honkai God"

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...

Theresa had finally come to her senses, she found herself inside the infirmary along with several other valkyries and sitting next to her there was Cecilia, who had a mortified expression on her face. Theresa brought her hand to her head as she felt a massive headache.

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?"