Rebirth

In the vast universe, a tiny figure could be seen, fragments of a planet keeping her company so she did not seem quite so alone.

Having just been through a great battle, she had fallen unconscious. Some power seemed to linger within the girl, keeping her alive in this lifeless universe.

"Mm..." The girl regained a little awareness. She seemed to hear a voice, as though it were saying, "Don't be afraid. I've come to help you. Your intense emotions awakened me, and I shall grant you new life."

The girl could not understand what the being was saying. She only felt such warmth... She curled up, wanting to hold it in her arms forever.

But the warmth did not last long before it began to slowly fade.

Panic began to seize her. No! she screamed inwardly, terrified of losing that warmth. She reached out to catch it, but it was all in vain.

"Ah!"

The surge of intense emotion made the girl open her eyes. She looked at her outstretched hand, then at her surroundings, somewhat bewildered. "Where am I?"

A sharp sound of shattering ceramic rang out. Looking toward the sound, she saw a man staring at her, his face full of panic.

"Mm! Finally finished." Lin Yu stretched with satisfaction. Tomorrow was the deadline, and fortunately, after working from morning until midnight, he had finally finished the drawing.

Quite pleased with his masterpiece, he picked up his cup for a sip, only to discover he had finished his coffee.

He got up and headed to the kitchen for a refill. After finally getting through these last few days, he was going to indulge himself tonight!

The moment he stepped out of his room, he saw a stark-naked woman lying on his couch.

He rubbed his brow. "Heh, I really have been too tired these past few days. I'm exhausted enough to hallucinate. Looks like I'll have to take tomorrow off and get some proper rest."

Believing he was hallucinating from exhaustion, Lin Yu no longer even wanted coffee. He just wanted to hurry back and get some proper rest.

Just as he was about to turn back to his room, a sudden scream startled him. His grip slipped, and the ceramic cup fell and shattered.

His whole body went rigid as he stared at her in horror. Now he understood: this was not a hallucination. It was real!

He could not understand how someone had appeared in his home out of thin air.

"Um... may I ask who you are? What are you doing in my home in the middle of the night?"

"It hurts!" The girl did not answer him, only clutched her head in pain as a voice rang out in her mind. Live on here... when the time is right, I will appear again. Then you will escape your tragic fate.

The girl murmured, "Live on here..."

Seeing that she was ignoring him, completely immersed in her own world, Lin Yu quietly slipped into his room, picked up a baseball bat he had bought at a convention and a blanket, then came back out.

If she was a good person, he would give her something to cover herself with. If she was a bad person, he would knock her out, then cover her himself.

He walked over and asked tentatively, "Um, are you all right?"

Hearing his voice, the girl looked up and met his gaze. Those blue-violet eyes were like a starry sky, threatening to draw him in, and he could not help falling into a brief daze.

Rather than answer, the girl caught his wrist and asked, "Excuse me, what planet is this?"

With his wrist caught, Lin Yu came back to his senses. Though puzzled as to why she would ask such a question, he still answered, "This is Blue Star."

Lin Yu tried to pull his hand free, but found he could not budge it at all. She was stronger than he had imagined.

The girl frowned at his answer. She had never heard this planet's name before. It seemed she had arrived on an unfamiliar planet.

She released his hand and thanked him.

Seeing that she meant no harm, Lin Yu let down his guard and handed her the blanket. "Here, put this over yourself first."

Looking at the blanket held out before her, she tilted her head in confusion. "This is..."

Seeing that she seemed not to understand what he meant, Lin Yu grew anxious. "What else could it be for? You're completely naked right now! Aren't you embarrassed?!"

"Embarrassed? What's that?" The girl did not quite understand what he was saying.

"Huh! No, you!..." Lin Yu was clearly so worked up that he could barely get his words out. Throwing caution to the wind, he simply draped the blanket over her himself, covering her stunning figure lest he lose control.

Seeing that he seemed rather angry, the girl did not stop him.

"Phew. All right, let's talk." Lin Yu wasted no time. After something like this, he needed to get a proper understanding of the situation before deciding whether to call the police.

Although he had initially wanted to call the police, there were no surveillance cameras inside his home or outside the door, and with her looking like this... he feared he would be the one arrested.

"Who are you? How did you get into my home?"

"I'm a soldier serving the Glamoth Empire. My designation is AR-26710. I don't know why I appeared here either. I was unconscious before, and when I woke up, I was here."

Glamoth? AR-26710? Isn't that Firefly's backstory from Honkai: Star Rail? Could she be cosplaying?

But on closer inspection, she really did look exactly like Firefly, with long gray-white hair tinged with pale green at the ends and a black-and-green ribbon on her head.

Her delicate, rounded face and distinctive blue-violet eyes matched Firefly from the game, and she was very pale-deathly pale, even, without a trace of color, as though she had suffered a serious illness.

"You said you're a soldier from Glamoth? Do you have any proof?"

Hearing that he did not believe her and wanted proof, the girl wasted no words. She stood up, and a silvery-white object with green accents, resembling wings, materialized in her hand.

Lin Yu was stunned. What the hell was that, conjuring something out of thin air? Magic? Without giving him a chance, what the girl did next made his jaw drop.

The girl swung the hand holding the transformation device out to one side. The wings on the device spread, and flames began to appear around her, enveloping her.

Watching the fantastical sight before him, Lin Yu even forgot that the flames were about to reach him.

When the flames receded, the girl was gone. In her place stood a towering, entirely white mech nearly two meters tall.

By then, Lin Yu was speechless. Only one word remained in his mind: Incredible!

If he had only thought she was cosplaying before, now he fully believed she was Firefly! That mech was definitely Sam!

He had never imagined he would get to see Sam's transformation in his lifetime. He could die without regrets now!

"Well? Does this prove that I'm..." Before she could finish, the mech suddenly disassembled. The girl looked bewildered. She had given no command to disassemble, yet the mech had done so on its own, as though rejecting her. It left her unsteady on her feet, about to fall.

Seeing that she was about to fall, Lin Yu set aside his shock and hurried forward to steady her, supporting her as she sat back down on the couch. Noticing that she seemed unwell, he asked worriedly, "What's wrong? Are you feeling sick?"

"My mech seems to be rejecting me."

"Rejecting you?" Lin Yu remembered that only specific pilots could operate the Glamoth Iron Cavalry, because their genes had undergone special modification, and the mechs would only activate after identifying those genes.

Of course, there was a drawback: those who underwent genetic modification would develop a disease called Entropy Loss Syndrome. This disease caused the sufferer's physical structure to slowly dissociate until they disappeared. The Glamoth Iron Cavalry served as both their weapons and their treatment chambers, slowing the disease's ravages, so they could not remain active outside their mechs for too long.

But since the mech had begun rejecting her, that meant a possible change in Firefly's genes had caused it.

"Firefly... ah, no!" Only now did Lin Yu remember that she had given a designation rather than a name. That meant the Firefly before him had not yet joined the Stellaron Hunters.

"Since it's rejecting you, does anything about your body feel different?"

Hearing this, the girl took a moment to feel it out. The pain Entropy Loss Syndrome had once caused her seemed to have lessened. Before, her body would feel heavy and painful whenever she left the cockpit. Now she felt at ease, as though she had been given new life.

At that moment, she remembered the words she had heard while unconscious: I shall grant you new life.