Quinn's Totally Realistic Oneshots (Genshin Impact & Honkai: Star Rail)

Firefly ~ "Protect"

((Modern (kinda) AU))

Firefly was everything to you. Yes, you'd only really known her for a year, but in that year, she had sadly become the most important person in your life. And also indubitably the nicest person you knew. Granted, most people you knew were grade-A assholes.
The worst of them all was definitely your father, his real name was obscured in your memories, and you only knew him by the name everyone else did, Tayzzyronth, the boss of the world's largest drug cartel, 'The Swarm'. He had been a loving father for an entirety of seven years before he'd discovered you had a moral compass. Then, in rage, he'd killed your mother and made you his personal punching bag.

Every day, you were to be subjected to abuse by him and the higher ups in the cartel. A particularly brutal one was the large man who was always in a blue suit, Scaracabaz. You were also to address your own father as 'Master Tayzzyronth', and all his friends as 'Sir'. You could also address them by their titles in the cartel, your father would be the 'Aeon' and the others 'Emanators' or 'True Stings', and the lower workforce would be just 'Stings', then. You found that too magnanimous, and unwillingly stuck to the Sirs and Masters. You knew what would happen otherwise. On top of all this fuckery, you had to manage being in high school.

Once your father had learnt that you weren't going to inherit his 'business', you had become worthless to him. You weren't really sure why he hadn't just thrown you to the streets or killed you. But he did do his best to give you the shittiest life possible. You used to be in one of the finest schools in the world, till you were seven. Now, he'd simply decided not to waste money on you and put you into a run-down little school near your needlessly large house. Despite your house being large and beautiful, you loved your trashy school more. It wasn't pretty or clean, but it was a place he couldn't enter. And when he did, he had to put on a nice face and act like a caring father. 'Gabe' was what he called himself at such times.

Everything you owned was from either your own money off of your part-time jobs, or from the rare occasion he decided to get you something. Making your belongings the weirdest mixture of extremely lavish things like bags and such to basically dollar-store trinkets, like your barely functioning phone. It was a miracle that thing was able to run Genshin decently well. You kept your nice stuff in your room, so you didn't ruin it and give him another reason to beat you up.

This was one of the many reasons you wondered why Firefly even existed near you at school.

You groan yourself out of bed and don't bother to dress for school before heading to breakfast. Yesterday was the last day of vacation, and school (finally) starts again today. The daily morning beat up is coming, and you'll have to change after that anyway. You walk into the dining hall. For a moment, you cheer up as you see some nice pancakes, like the ones your mom used to make. Then you see Sir Scaracabaz sitting at the table, and the blood drains from your face.

"Fuck." You mutter.

Unfortunately, Tayzzyronth has good hearing, "What did you say?"

"N-nothing, Master Tayzzyronth. I swear, I just saw the pancakes, and they looked good, so-"

Your father gets up menacingly, "Those aren't for you. This-" he raises his fist, "Is." His punch is in your gut. Then in your ribs, and then behind your knees. Scaracabaz gets up. Oh boy. The white floors of Tayzzyronth's mansion are stained red with your blood for the next ten minutes, until Scaracabaz leaves, and a plate containing one singular pancake is thrust in your face.
"Eat." Tayzzyronth grumbles before he walks out, making sure to step on your left thigh on his way.

You pick yourself up five minutes later and assess the situation. Nothing's broken. Just bleeding. It'll bruise painfully, you're sure. You painstakingly but hungrily gobble the singular pancake, and somehow drag yourself to your bathroom. You bandage everything and put on your usual outfit. Long sleeved shirt, trousers all the way to your ankles, and high socks, just in case. You slip on some non-bloody shoes and put on a hoodie, again, just in case. For someone who's so good at hiding their truth, you sure dress like a depressed person. Not that you aren't. You shoulder your worn out school bag and slink out the back gate so no one sees you come out of the mansion of the richest man in the country. Tayzzyronth poses as a rich merchant, and is also surprisingly good at hiding his true trade. To your dismay, no one knows of his connection to The Swarm.