Fire Moth

**Fire Moth** (AKA **The Moth Who Chases The Flames**, **MOTH** as an acronym for Myrmidons of Taskforce Honkai) was a worldwide Anti-Honkai organization from the Previous Era, with technologies surpassing what even the Current Era could only dream of.

Fire Moth used Honkai powered weapons along with genetically edited and strengthened soldiers called MANTISes to fight the Honkai, being led by Dr. MEI. Unfortunately, the Honkai wiped them out, only leaving fragments of the technologies and legacies for the Current Era to use.

## History

### Pre-ICHOR Honkai Eruptions

During the 3rd Honkai Eruption of the Previous Era, Kevin Kaslana and MEI ran into a man dressed in black who was affiliated with Fire Moth. This man was sent by Fire Moth to invite MEI into the organization as a researcher, due to them reading her published paper on Quantum Mechanics. Fire Moth was impressed, seeing her as one of the best minds they'd ever seen. Kevin, refusing to be separated from MEI, also joined Fire Moth as a soldier.

During the time of the 3rd Eruption, most of East Asia was stripped of human life by the devastation wrought by the Herrscher of Thunder, including Sapphire, which was home to the school Hua went to. Hua, one of the few survivors of the destruction, was found by Captain HIMEKO of Fire Moth's Squad V and had the true nature of the Honkai revealed to her on her request, leading to her joining Fire Moth.

Thereafter, between the 4th and 6th Honkai Eruptions, Fire Moth relentlessly scouted survivors to recruit as soldiers.

### The ICHOR Project and the 7th Herrscher

3 years after the 3rd Honkai Eruption, shortly after Fire Moth defeated the 6th Herrscher, Captain HIMEKO was corrupted by the Honkai and became the 7th Herrscher, the Herrscher of Fire. She was formidable and more destructive than the others before her, single-handedly burning Australia to the ground and slaughtering her squad, except for Fu Hua, who managed to survive. In order to counter the 7th Herrscher, DR. MEI proposed the Soldier Project.

The Soldier Project detailed extracting DNA from Emperor class Honkai Beasts, and inserting them into humans to grant them abilities surpassing humanity and a stronger Honkai resistance. These genetically edited humans would be called MANTIS, an acronym for Massively Augmented Neo-Tech Integrated Soldiers. In order to adapt to the beast's genes, the human would also need to take a gene construct called ICHOR, designed to help human capability.

The pain and extreme damage from the ICHOR would be, however, irreversible. Kevin, who had risen to be one of Fire Moth's best soldiers, volunteered as a test subject. The ICHOR surgery was a success, and Kevin then led Fire Moth in the fight against the 7th Herrscher. Fire Moth came out triumphant, with ice piercing the 7th Herrscher. However, Kevin was strongly affected by the ICHOR, which lowered his average body temperature to -30° Celsius. Eden had been performing in Australia at the time, with very few people surviving among her audience after the disaster. She then signed up to join the MOTHs, and eventually became a MANTIS.

### Post-ICHOR Project Honkai Eruptions

6 months after the 7th eruption, Su joined the MOTHs after spending months attempting to persuade a MOTH researcher. A few months after that, as he became a MANTIS, the 8th Herrscher awakened. The 8th Herrscher caused over 2 million people to die, and ended up possessing Paul Long. Luckily, the 8th Herrscher was found and defeated thanks to the time Su bought by incapacitating it alongside his teacher, who had unfortunately died.

After a few months, the 9th Herrscher was awakened. The Herrscher of Earth fired a black hole towards the continent of Mu, home to over a sixth of humanity, and birthplace of Eden and Griseo. In an attempt to save Mu, Professor EINSTEIN banished the entire continent to the Sea of Quanta, creating a bubble universe. Kevin managed to single-handedly slay the Herrscher with the Judgment Of Shamash. The aftermath of Mu's disappearance created the Marianas Trench, and the remains of one of its cities ended up on the very bottom. That city would become known in the Current Era as The Deep.

While Mu survived, its human population would ultimately die out within 50 years due to Honkai radiation, leaving only the ELFs as the survivors. Before this happened, EINSTEIN modified the ELFs in Mu by giving them a fourth directive, the right of freedom, which allowed them to eventually form their own civilization in the continent's remains with her help.

### The 10th Herrscher and the Keys of Domination

6 months later, the 10th Herrscher made their appearance, when 1000 individuals, including the original Klein turned into Herrschers, each individually much weaker than previous Herrschers. The first noted case was when MEI and Kevin were attacked by a restaurant chef who had gone invisible. Many more cases were found and reported globally with people acting unusually and manipulating some sort of element. Finally, when a member of the MOTHs was infected, routine Honkai energy level monitoring and checkups were held. Despite their weaknesses, they managed to cause a lot of destruction and havoc due to their numbers and ridiculously coordinated assaults. Dr. MEI created the Key of Blankness, a Divine Key that took the form of a battlesuit that allowed its user to gain power equivalent to that of a Herrscher. Tricking the Herrscher by falsely saying that the armour wasn't complete, MEI along with Kevin then slaughtered the remainder of the Herrscher's forces. MEI inserted or linked each Herrscher Core that the MOTHs had in their possession to the suit, gaining enough power to slaughter the 1000 individuals. Each time a new Core was used, the usage time decreased due to MEI's declining health. Finally, she took Kevin's Judgment Of Shamash, resonating with its Core of Fire to kill the remaining Herrscher units.

6 months after the 10th Herrscher, Dr. MEI initiated a secret experiment. The squad members taking part in the experiment believed it was a trial for the 10th Divine Keys, but in reality, it was to create more MANTISes using ICHOR. The experiment included Fu Hua who had been shunned by other soldiers due to everyone believing she was an aide to the 7th Herrscher, who was her teacher HIMEKO. She had been nicknamed the Fyrewytch's Little Birdie. The soldiers were extremely excited, and no Emperor-class Honkai beasts had apparently been detected using their radars. As the soldiers descended to the battlefield, they realized that they had been left to die: they were faced by the Emperor-class Honkai beast, Ganesha. Despite possessing the 10th Divine Keys, almost the entire assault squad had been annihilated except for Fu Hua, who had been doing recon elsewhere, unaware of Ganesha's appearance. As she attacked Ganesha, she was badly wounded and lost the fight. On the verge of death, she saw HIMEKO appear as if to take her to the afterlife, but then she remembered the image of HIMEKO being impaled by Kevin's icicles. Finally regaining the will to fight , and wishing to know why her savior became a puppet of evil, Fu Hua's Metamorph ICHOR activated, and the broken 10th Divine Key in her hand morphed into a new form as a pair of gauntlets. She sprouted the wings of Garuda from her back and defeated Ganesha, thus MEI made a breakthrough in ICHOR research which would allow her to mass manufacture MANTIS units.

### The 11th Herrscher

A few months after the MOTHs had used the Keys of Domination to awaken a massive number of MANTISes, the 11th Herrscher struck. As the Herrscher of Binding, she had the ability to create an anti-Honkai field, which could stop all bioelectric and Honkai energy impulses within its radius, with the Herrscher herself being immune to its effects. She destroyed 70% of the surviving human civilization and killed 90% of all MANTIS soldiers (who due to their powers coming from Honkai beasts' DNA, were especially vulnerable), leaving barely 13 alive. Fu Hua used Fenghuang Down to incapacitate the Herrscher, giving Kevin the opportunity to kill her. As people mourned the loss of so many MANTIS soldiers, everyone looked at the bloodstained ice left by Kevin, partially blaming him. Kevin then pulled Kalpas out of the rubble, finding him to be, surprisingly, still alive. The 11th Herrscher's body was mounted on a cross as if to crucify her. This made the MOTHs believe that the Honkai is a sinister force and had created the 11th as a response to technological enhancement, and as thus, they started calling this sentient Honkai "being" the Will of the Honkai. The Oath of Judah was forged and powered by the Herrscher's Core.

After the Herrscher of Binding was slain, one of the surviving MANTISes, Elysia, proposed to her higher-ups to group all the remaining MANTIS soldiers into a single unit under her command. The unit would've been known as "The Thirteen Flame-Chasers". Unfortunately, her proposal was rejected as MOTH's command deemed 8 of the MANTISes as either too inhuman or not heroic enough for their standards, and attempted a counter-proposal of a five-member unit that was rejected by her. Despite the setback, Elysia gathered the Flame-Chasers together as an unofficial group, with Kevin as the leader instead of her.

### The 12th Herrscher

One day during a meeting, Elysia, who was supposed to canvas an area 300km away, returned unexpectedly while SAKURA was speaking with Mobius. Whispering in SAKURA's ear, Elysia revealed that the 12th Herrscher was RIN, SAKURA's little sister. The 12th never struck, and RIN was imprisoned within Fire Moth's facility, with SAKURA being temporarily decommissioned due to her close involvement. She refused to accept her sister's corruption and broke into the facility. Meanwhile, fifty-four of RIN's guards, who'd been given a Discipline to "never give up against the Honkai" by Aponia were afraid of her, and one of them stabbed her to death in a misguided attempt to stop the Herrscher from awakening. RIN's death triggered her awakening as the Herrscher of Corruption out of rage and grief, and she turned into a sentient virus, killing and zombifying over a hundred human soldiers inside the facility, including her murderers. As SAKURA confronted RIN, the Herrscher of Corruption temporarily stopped, but then continued on its path of destruction, hijacked the base's systems and mortally injured SAKURA with its defenses. Fu Hua then used Fenghuang Down to protect humans from the Herrscher by knocking them unconscious, but was unable to block its access to the base's systems. The Herrscher then activated all the missiles present in Fire Moth's silos as a last-ditch effort, destroying the last 3 human cities and reducing their population to the 31,022 people in the base. Thanks to its psyche being destabilized by its encounter with SAKURA, MEI was able to lure and trap the 12th Herrscher in a black box, which was sealed off. The box would be obtained by Schicksal millennia later.

In her final moments, SAKURA asked Kevin to take her body to the plaza she and RIN used to frequent, where they saw the sakura trees together. While Kevin made true on her last wish, the plaza was in one of the now-ruined human cities, which had been reduced to a radioactive wasteland devoid of petals.

Remorseful over the fact one of her inventions was used to nearly wipe out the human race, Vill-V modified the 5th Divine Key from a weapon of mass destruction into an array of cryostasis facilities.

Due to humanity's near total destruction, Dr. MEI planned out several projects to both preserve what remained of the species, rebuild what was lost and eventually succeed where Fire Moth failed and destroy the Honkai. The four most important plans were grouped together as Project S.A.V.E.

### The 13th Herrscher

Fire Moth's records involving this Herrscher were erased after the end of the Previous Era. What little is known is that the MANTIS Elysia awoke as the 13th Herrscher and was killed by Kevin, on the day of his birthday.

The actual truth is far more complicated, however. Elysia, realizing Fire Moth had become divided in the aftermath of the 12th Eruption, organized a Last Banquet, in which she revealed who she really was to Kevin, Aponia, Eden, and Vill-V. She wanted to tell it to all the Flame-Chasers, but most were unavailable and Mobius refused to go, as she realized why she was doing this and didn't want her friends to see her cry. Elysia was not really a human, but the Herrscher of Origin, the first of her era, and that she was born as one. Unlike her kin, however, Elysia had come to love humanity and chose to fight for their sake. She concocted the story that she "awoke" as a Herrscher and Kevin killed her so that humanity would be rallied by him once more. After doing this, Elysia shed her physical body and died, "returning to the Honkai" and altering it from the inside, so that the Herrschers of the next era would be able to keep their humanity, if their wills were strong enough. To ensure the memory of their fallen friend would remain untarnished, the remaining Flame-Chasers erased the records of the 13th Herrscher.

### The Final Herrscher

The Final Herrscher descended after all the other Herrschers were defeated. Fire Moth sent Kevin, Eden, Vill-V, Kalpas, Kosma, Mobius, Hua and Pardofelis to fight her on the Moon and buy time for humanity. However, the Final Herrscher quickly overpowered the warriors, killing 4 of them in process, 2 within 5 minutes of the fight's beginning. By order of Dr. MEI, the Selene was brought into lower orbit and fired at the Final Herrscher, however the shot only drained 2% of its Honkai energy reserves, forcing MEI to remove the Selene's limiters so it could fire at twice its maximum strength. The supercharged shot succeeded in momentarily weakening the Final Herrscher, allowing Kevin to deal a blow to her, immobilizing her for 12 hours.

Using that time, Kevin, Hua and the remaining survivors of humanity cryogenically froze themselves with the modified Suspended Key. Eden did not join them and chose to die, as she felt she had no place on the next era. Mobius survived the battle, but her final fate is unknown. During that time, MEI finally succumbed to her long-term exposure to Honkai radiation and died.

Once the 12 hours passed, the Final Herrscher flooded the Earth with lethal amounts of Honkai radiation, completely destroying the last traces of the Previous Era. It took over 50,000 years for the 4th Divine Key to purify the world's radiation back to survivable levels.

## Cocoon

Cocoon was a black-ops branch of the Fire Moth focused on fighting with humans. The members included SAKURA, Kalpas, Dr. Mobius and briefly even Felis. At some point, the branch was disbanded and SAKURA was ordered by Dr. MEI to "clean up" its remainders.

**Fire Moth**