'Where am I?...'

'Who am I?...'

These were the thoughts of the young soul that had been brought into the world. Born from the consciousness of a girl who sought the destruction of the world, whilst she desired the love that only a family can provide.

She had no name, only a cold serial number given to her upon her creation.

Slowly the girl opened her eyes only to see that she couldn't see anything beyond the body of water that surrounded her. She could feel her body floating in the cold liquid.

"Subject K-423 has gained consciousness!! Quickly alert the Overseer!!"

She could hear the numerous shouts and whispers of surprise and the rapid footsteps that were all around her, but still she could not see beyond this body of water.

Her eyes blind to the outside world that awaited her.

"Put the subject back to sleep until the Overseer arrives."

She didn't know what was happening, but she felt her eyes grow heavy once more, and slowly they closed as she lost consciousness , being sent back to the world of endless dreams once more.

~~~

It took three hours for the Overseer Otto Apocalypse to arrive at Kolosten, former Schicksal HQ and now base of the K-series project. He had not expected K-423 to awaken this soon. Physically speaking she was supposed to be at the age of five. A lot younger than he had expected his experiment to gain any form of consciousness, but he wasn't one to turn away such a gift.

K-423 was unique to the other clones Otto had created in that she had been created with the second Herrscher core within her. Otto knew the risks of doing such a thing, but he felt the benefits outweighed them. If K-423 could be trained to master her Herrscher power to the extent where she would become a true Herrscher then Otto would not need to created other herrschers with the cores at his disposal, he could simply have them dwell within his test subject. Sirin, the second Herrscher, had already proven that a Herrscher was already capable of wielding more than one Herrscher core.

Still, there was the matter of how to approach K-423. On one hand, holding her into the soldier that Schicksal needed was probably the best way to go, a tool that would obey his every command and be at his beck and call. However, the risk of doing so was that the Honkai fed on the negative emotions of an individual. If K-423 was not happy, or at the very least satisfied, with her lifestyle the honkai would still consume her mind, no matter how physically powerful she was. That was a matter he would have to attend to once he ensured that K-423 was truly stable enough to be let out of her pod.

Otto entered the lab calmly and was immediately greeted by the Chief scientist of the K-series project, Dr.Kotsinomu.

"Lord Otto!" The man shouted as he bowed his head respectfully at the overseer. "I was not expecting you to arrive so soon."

"This project is one of my biggest investments Doctor, so when you told me the subject had gained awareness I dropped everything else just to cone here." Otto explained as he walked past the doctor with an uncaring expression, the doctor stood straight and followed closely behind the overseer. "Where is she now?"

"We put her back under five minutes after she gained consciousness. We figured you would want to be present when she was truly awakened." The doctor said as he passed a tab of statistics on K-423 towards Otto.

"Good choice." Otto said as he went through the data that had been presented to him. K-423 had indeed woken, however it seemed as though the Herrscher core within her body was still dorment and had yet to become active, probably from the lack of Honkai energy. That was fine though, it would give him the necessary time to prepare her for the power that dwelled deep within her.

The two eventually entered the lab in which K-423 was located. The modified clone once more deep within slumber as she floated in the pod filled with water. At the Otto's signal the girl was once more woken up, her sky blue eyes curiously looking around trying to see through the body of water she was in.

"Marvellous, she will make an excellent valkyrie." Otto said with a malicious smile on his face. He then turned to Dr.Kotsinomu, "Extract her from the pod and get her ready for a full medical examination. I want to know just how successful this experiment was." The overseer said anxiously.

~~~

The extraction and medical examination of K-423 took two and a half hours in total. Otto was satisfied with the results as they were. All vital and bodily functions seemed to be normal and fully operational. Nothing was amiss and her body had yet to be affected by the Herrscher core within her. All in All, K-423 had the body of the average five year old Kaslana.

However theonly problem that Otto found with the girl was that her body at the moment was very weak. He had expected this of course, seeing as K-423 had yet to use any of the muscles in her body then it was understandable that her muscles would need time and constant use to develope properly. Unfortunately the overseer couldn't give the girl that much time, the sooner she grew stronger physically, the sooner she would be able to make use of the Herrscher powers within her. And thus Otto decided he would use electro therapy to increase the rate at which her muscles developed, nothing too damaging but just enough for K-423 to start her training within a few months.

Now the other problem that presented itself was one the overseer still had trouble finding a solution to. What position should K-423 be granted within Schicksal. If she was to keep the Honkai from corrupting her them she would need something to strive for, and something that was worth fighting for. However he also needed to keep K-423 close enough to monitor her physically and mentally.

For some reason this made him think back to Theresa. When he had taken her in as his granddaughter it wasn't necessarily something he had planned, but the manner in which her actions reminded Otto of Kallen had made the overseer want to watch over Theresa. And though he would never admit it to anyone, he was proud of how Theresa stood by her beliefs and pure heart. Regardless of how much her beliefs often contradicted his own. He knows Kallen would have done the same thing as Theresa had the roles been reversed.

As he watched K-423 taking her first steps in the world, her hand being held by a female operative, he couldn't help but take note of the resemblance between her and Theresa. Perhaps he could keep the girl close by taking her in as his granddaughter much like he had Theresa. Otto immediately shook his head sideways at the thought. He wouldn't take the same approach twice and expect different results. He needed K-423 to be loyal to him, but also content with her own life. He would need her to be closer than even Theresa was.

His eyes widened as the solution came to him like a jack hammer. Would it really work though? No, the bigger question was could he really fulfil such a role in a person's life? He would delude himself into thinking he was a saint, and he hardly spent much time with Theresa when she first came around, raising K-423 would be something else entirely. For the sake of his goal however he would try.

He would take K-423 as his own child and share his dream with her. They would achieve it and together bring back Kallen Kaslana.

With his mind set up the overseer walked into the room where K-423 was still learning to walk. The operative helping the girl swiftly stood, lifting the girl as she did, and placing K-423 back on the bed that was within the room and left, making sure to bow her head as she walked past the overseer.

With only Otto and K-423, Otto noticed that the girl was nervous and cautious as she looked at him. She was obviously uncomfortable with all the new faces she was seeing today, so many people doing strange things that she couldn't even begin to understand. She probably felt like she was on an alien planet all together. He would need to build up a relationship with a child if she was to be comfortable around him.

"Hello child, my name is Otto Apocalypse." The overseer said as he slowly walked over to the bed, the girl seemed to grow more tense and disturbed as she watched him come closer to her, "I'm the one who's going to be taking care of you from here onwards." He added as the girl suddenly turned to him with a confused expression on her face.

"Taking….care of me?" She asked meekly, it seemed confidence was another issue that Otto would have to work on with the girl. But that was fine, they had plenty of time on their hands.

"Yes, you'll be staying with me from now onwards." Otto told the girl, who simply looked back down at her legs as if she was processing, "Tell me, did the people who came in before give you a name?" Otto asked, knowing they hadn't but trying to get the girl to speak some more.

"K-423, that's what they called me." K-423 once more replied as she didn't look up from her feet.

"Well that won't do now." Otto said with a smile causing the girl to once more look at him with her head tilted in confusion. "Someone as young and pretty as you are deserves an equally beautiful name. So how about…..Nora, yes Nora Apocalypse." Otto declared as he nodded his head in satisfaction all while the girl looked at him

"Nora Apoco...Apaco-" The girl struggled to pronounce the last name

"Apo-cal-ypse" Otto corrected her

"Apo-cal-ypse. Nora Apocalypse." The girl said slowly as she let her new name and identity role through her tongue. From what Otto could tell she seemed to have no complaints about it.

"That's right, from today awards you will be known as Nora Apocalypse, daughter of the overseer Otto Apocalypse." Otto said with a gentle smile, but if one looked closely enough they would see the mischievous glint in his eyes.