Episode 21: Island Hopping
Zhongli arrives at the home of Keqing to get the word about the terrorist attack from the Red Legion. He knocks on the door to see Keqing's head maid appearing there. "Oh hello, Mr. Zhongli what business do you have here?" Mei asked.
"I am here to talk about a secret matter," Zhongli said as she lets him inside for he sees Keqing, Aether, and Paimon reading books in the living room. "Good Morning," he said as they stand up to see his face has a deep concern on it.
"Hello sir, you got back after the mess happened," Keqing said to look depressed about it.
"Yes, it is quite a state of affairs we are in right now. These Red Legionnaires are my people led by fringed opinions but their hate for the Qixing is justified. It is quite saddening that the current leadership of the Qixing seems more concerned about saving face, than people's lives," Zhongli said sounding irritated about all this.
"It does suck," Keqing said as it has been a week since the terrorist attack has happened with the city rebuilding the burned-out sections.
"Mr. Geo, your late," Paimon said.
"I was doing business with the Funeral Parlor with all the deaths going on after the attacks. I need you and the Traveler to come with me, Xiao and Ganyu on a secret mission," Zhongli said.
"To where?" Aether asked.
"There is an island to the east of the Sea of Clouds. There is a lot of Shades appearing there and I have a bad feeling something big is there," Zhongli said.
"Okay, we will get our gear and head out," Keqing said to go to her room.
"You are coming too, Zhongli?" Aether asked as he nods his head.
"Yes, there is a lot of Shade there. You will need my aid to complete this task," Zhongli said.
"This is serious huh, I better get ready," Aether said as he goes into his room to get into his travel gear. Zhongli can sense Void's presence on the island for a strong force is pulsing there.
Within the hour, the five are waiting at the docks for the ship to head for the island on the far east. "Mr. Zhongli, I am here," the captain said with her ship in tow.
"Good, we must make haste to the island. I will chart our way there," Zhongli said as they all get into the ship to go off into the wide ocean.
Aether looks down into the water on the edge of the ship to see dolphins leaping out of the water. "Nice view huh?" Keqing asked to join him by standing beside him.
"Yeah but there is a better view in front of me," Aether said smoothly to put his arm around her small waist.
"Oh; such a sweet talker, after we are done with this mission. We should relax and cool off from all this chaos," Keqing said.
"Yeah, you have something in mind?" Aether asked as Keqing nods her head.
"Yes, there is a new resort town called Ocean's Edge along the coast where all the people can just have fun on the beach. It's currently reopened with tight security after that mess last week," Keqing said.
"Yeah, some break time would be nice," Aether said to grab onto her hand to hold tightly.
"I need you, more than ever to stop this madness in this nation," Keqing said.
"I will be with you, 110%," he said as Keqing smiles at him and kisses him on the lips.
"I know you will," Keqing said as she noticed the dolphins leaping out of the water to glide through the waters to be swimming by the side. "Oh look, they are so cute," Keqing said as they see the cute mammals following the ship.
"Yeah they are cute, this feels so calming with the vastness of the ocean," Aether said.
"Yeah it does," Keqing said.
"I going to check on Paimon, she can get seasick easily," Aether said to walk away for Keqing just stares at the sea.
She summons her new Jade Cutter to look at the beautifully shaped blade for it shines against the sunlight for the green looks brilliant against it. "So beautiful yet deadly," a smooth deep voice said as Keqing looks behind her to see her nation's god standing there looking quite composed.
"Zhongli, you need something?" Keqing asked as he stares at the sword for Keqing notices this. "You are familiar with this?" she said as he nods his head.
"Where did you get your hands on it?" Zhongli asked,
"There is this guy Kendo who runs a weapon shop within the city. he collects very rare items for his clients. I got it off of him for doing something pretty embarrassing," Keqing said.
"I haven't seen this blade for a long time," Zhongli said.
"I heard this was made by the Archons," Keqing said.
"I know, I made it for my purposes," Zhongli said as Keqing looks on with her purple eyes widen by this.
"What, you made this?" she asked to stare back at the blade.
"Yes, this was my weapon a long time ago. I killed and wiped out demons, gods, and monsters alike. I lose that blade in combat over several thousand years ago, I thought it was a loss to time. This is a fine weapon, despite thousands of years it hasn't lost its edge one bit," Zhongli said as Keqing looks in awe at the weapon to feel the history and power behind it.
"Wow, seriously. I am wearing the Geo Archon's old personal weapon," Keqing said.
"It fits you quite well, I used that blade to cleanse the corruption from these lands. Now you will use it to help bring peace to our home just like I did so many eons ago," he said.
"I feel honored sir," Keqing said.
"Don't mind it, I leave the future of Liyue in your hands Keqing and this blade will serve you well," Zhongli said as Keqing felt very humbled by his words.
"It's funny, I say some harsh things about you thinking you are above everyone else but you are not that all. You truly care about us but my original point still stands. Your wisdom is a good thing but like a parent and a child. We need to grow up and stand on our two feet but getting knowledge from the past we needed as well so we can learn and grow from it," Keqing said as Zhongli smiles at this.
"Nicely said, there is nothing wrong to gain help. Like you and the Traveler aiding the Adepti against this grave threat. You have matured greatly unless other people within this nation," Zhongli groans at the Qixing's recent actions.
"Are you regretting what you did?" Keqing asked as Zhongli sighs.
"No, a new age has growing pains but in the end, it will be worth it. People like you and the Traveler will make sure of that and I will help any way I can along with the others," Zhongli said.
"Thanks," Keqing puts away her Jade Cutter to stare at the sea.
Elsewhere Aether, Paimon, Ganyu, and Xiao are on the other side of the ship to see an island within the distance covered with fog. "What is that?" Aether asked.
"Oh, that is Inazuma," Ganyu said as Aether wanted to go there to keep going on his search for his sister.
"It's so close by," Aether said as Ganyu knows what he is going to say.
"You can't go there, there is a huge blockade of the Shogun's navy around the island. If you get close on a ship, you will be destroyed by a hail of cannon fire," Ganyu said.
"Oh gee," Aether said as he and Paimon look disappointed by this.
"Beidou might have a way for you to sneak into the nation," Xiao said as this cheers up the two. "But she is off somewhere looking for treasure on the other side of the world. it will take a long time for her to come back," he said as the duo look disappointed again.
"Well, we can't go anyway since Liyue is in trouble. We need to stop the Shade and their mistress," Paimon said.
"Yeah, we have to deal with this first and then go to Inazuma," Aether said.
"Seems like a good idea. Void isn't going to stop with Liyue, her Shade armies will spread like a plague across the world if we don't stop her here," Xiao said for them to see the island to see a bunch of black creatures crawling on the beach.
"Oh goodness, those black creatures," the captain said as Zhongli calms her down.
"We will handle this, parked by the beach," Zhongli said as he summons a Geo platform within the water for the five jumps on top of it. He moves the rocky panel across the water with Shades spitting balls of darkness with Zhongli conjures his Jade Shield around them to block all incoming attacks without taking a hit.
Zhongli launches them off the Geo panel into the huge crowd of Shades. Zhongli wields his spear Vortex Vanquisher as he slams into the sands to unleash a wave of stone spears to pierces all the enemies around them.
Ganyu is freezing Shades with her frost arrows with Xiao, Keqing, and Aether using their blade work to cut down and scatter the nearby frozen enemies turning them into piles of black ice shards.
"We got ourselves a welcome party," Aether said as they go after the monsters with Xiao slicing through groups of enemies. He drives his spear into the ground unleashing series of wind spears out of the sands to destroy a mass of Shades.
Aether imbues his blade with wind energy to tear through a barrage of minor Shades and let out a powerful thrust to launch a Shade into a rock wall to see vaporize on impact.
Keqing is dodging blows and slashes with her bashing her blade onto the incoming monsters to duck under the kick of a Grunt. She powers up her blade to smash through several Grunts to leap on top of a rock to slice onto the head of a Seeker to take it down.
Then a large humanoid appears to smash through a boulder for this Shade is called a Golem to knock Aether onto the sands.
"Aether," Keqing said as she slashes at the beast for it takes her attacks to hit her pretty hard to send her flying across the beach.
Ganyu freezes the large Shade with Zhongli lobbing lots of gemstones to petrify parts of its body to stun it with Xiao dash thrusting through the center to scatter it to pieces.
Zhongli is shooting gemstones to blow away Shades with Geo explosions as he cuts down a nearby Grunt. He shoots a stone spear to take down another Golem with ease as he sees another Seeker flying at him. Zhongli calls upon a dome of Geo energy to block the Shade and made it recoil backward for he fires another gemstone to destroy the Seeker.
"Very interesting, good show," a woman voice said as the five looks upward to someone on top of a rock riding on a beautiful yet fierce-looking Phoenix.
"Hey, it's that woman with the Phoenix from before," Ganyu said to remember she escape from her and Xiao.
The human woman gets off the red-colored bird for the group to see a young petite woman who has bright yellow eyes, sickly pale skin, and standing 4'11 tall. She is wearing a pink and black jester-like dress, an oversized pink wizard hat, and pink and black mismatched knee-high boots.
"Who the hell are you?" Aether asked as the woman has a devilish smile.
"I am glad you asked my boy. I am the mistress of death and despair. I am the angel of pain and suffering. I am the witch of cuteness and wisdom. I am Abi the great and beautiful," she said doing a cutesy pose.
The air felt uneasy with a tumbleweed blowing past in front of them. "Seriously; this woman is messed up in the head," Keqing said as Abi trips onto the ground.
"Hey; Miss Busty, I demand respect because I am the bringer of your doom," Abi said to act like a child.
"Can it Abigail, you need to work on your act," the man said as Abi blows a raspberry at her teammate. "Traveler, you're that troublemaker I keep hearing about. I am looking for a good fight which can put my skills to the test," the man said.
"Who are you?" Aether asked to see another person who is a human male standing on the building beside Abi and her bird Blaze.
"Oh, where are my manners. My name is Yuri and I will put your heads on pikes very soon rookie," Yuri said with murderous glee.
Yuri is wielding a large greatsword with him clad in a white armored bodysuit clashing against his dark tan skin, orange eyes, and short black cropped hair. He stands at a towering 6'5 tall with a lean yet muscular frame.
"Abi, why does that sound familiar," Keqing thought as they see both of them sporting bright yellow eyes showing they are infused by the Shade's dark powers.
"I am guessing you are part of Void's cabal huh?" Zhongli and the others get into combat stances.
"Yep bingo but we have no time for you. We have a mission of our own on this rotting husk of a rock," Abi said.
"Indeed, I love a good fight but business before pleasure. Mistress Void wouldn't want to wait for too long," Yuri said as Abi summons a small Shade to shoot it at the volcano as the whole island is beginning to shake.
"No, the volcano," Zhongli said as the two people disappear into a dark portal with grins on their faces.
"Have fun," Abi said to have a good creepy smile to disappear within the darkness.
"Wait a minute," Aether said for Keqing to hold him back.
"We should focus on taking out the Shade here first," Keqing said.
"You are right, let's head for the volcano," Aether said as the five rush towards the forest to see more minor Shades coming their way as they blast through them trying to reach the mountain.
Soon enough they manage to reach the volcano to see a rocky pathway on the side of the mountain.
"Quite the hike," Paimon said as they go up to notice something weird.
"Shade," Keqing said as a bunch of Grunts appear to try and swarm them. "The goon squad has arrived," Keqing said as she draws out her Jade Cutter.
"Let's make quick work of them," Xiao said as he is picking off the little creatures with orbs of wind.
Aether is slicing down multiple targets to see them fall into a pile of black goo. He fires a powerful beam of wind energy from the tip of his blade to strike down several small Shades.
Keqing is wielding her weapon to slash and thrust while evading incoming claws and tackles. She blows the small creature away into a wall with Electro energy. Keqing is using several lightning infused energy crescents to turn the Shade into a pile of goo as she slashes into the last one.
"Tough little buggers," Paimon said as Aether is slashing away at the beastie.
"Aether, look out," Keqing blocks an attack with her blade to see a medium human-sized Shade wielding a sword opposing them called Troopers.
"Thanks," Aether said as they both unleash a combined attack as they let out a barrage of lightning fused wind orbs turning into one big electric blast to nail the monster seeing it burst violently with black goo everywhere.
"Nice one," Ganyu said.
"Yeah, we make a good team Keqing," Aether said as Keqing looks flushed by this sweet comment.
"Of course, Aether," she said as they continue forward to ascend the old volcano to get to the top to see an opening to enter inside to see a large basin down.
"Where did that little Shade go," Ganyu said as Keqing felt uneasy to see a fireball coming at them with her slapping it to the side with her blade.
"There is it," Keqing said as the small Shade shaped like a dark red orb as the Shade powers up to jump into the rocks to merge with the base of the volcano to start reactivating it.
"What in the world?" Paimon wondered.
"It's using the volcano to power itself up. We will need to deal with it," Zhongli said to get into a combat stance.
"Right," both Aether and Keqing said as the five prepare to fight the large humanoid shooting out of the ground with pillars of lava surrounding the beast to utter a massive roar to shake the entire mountain and the entire area.
"Wow this thing is huge," Keqing said feeling a bit unnerved by this Shade is gaining massive strength and using the lava to feed its ever-growing power.
"We got to beat this thing until it becomes small again," Xiao is slashing the air to make several wind crescents crave into its chest but the beast didn't suffer any damage.
The five face-off with the massive Shade as they dodge incoming orbs of lava with hitting them out in mid-air with their projectile attacks. Aether is slashing incoming lava orbs as he slices up multiple energy crescents to slice off sections of its arms.
Ganyu is blasting it with explosive ice orbs blown off the rest of its arms. Soon enough the arms regenerate as it's drawing power from the volcano to make itself grow bigger and more powerful.
"You got to be kidding me," Xiao said as they are evading the monster's huge fists to slam onto the edges of the volcano.
Keqing is dodging incoming fists as she gets behind a stone wall made by Aether but the fist scatters through and hits her hard to launch her into a rock. Aether looks on in terror to see her spitting up blood onto the ground as her body is aching with sharp pain.
"Keqing!" Aether shouted as he felt a sting in his chest almost feeling Keqing's pain.
"It's okay," Keqing said as Ganyu cast a healing field on Keqing with a green light covering her body. She feels her wounds clearing up and the pain melting away. "Back in action," Keqing lets out twin balls of lightning to slam onto the beast to do some damage but not being fazed by it.
Zhongli is deflecting away fire beams with his lance as the beast is only getting stronger. He is shooting a ton of gemstones to hit into the chest of the Shade to let out multiple Geo explosions to stun it for a bit. Xiao leaps up and air dash into both arms to tear off both of them.
The Shade regrows its arms again as it emits a horrible roar that echoes through the area shaking the very area under it.
"Great, now what?" Aether asked to shoot at it with a beam of wind energy as it sends out multiple fire pillars to tear through the floor to make multiple sections of its collapse.
"Time to step it up," Zhongli casts a powerful ball of Geo energy to hit the beast with enough force to recoil through several walls. "Suffer you beast," Zhongli cloaks his lance with Geo energy and swings it like a fan to unleashing a blast of sharp stones to push it back further.
Some of its lava skin is petrified for sections of its skin explodes from Geo blasts tossing parts of it all over the place.
"Not bad, old man," Paimon said sounding impressed.
"I ditto that," Aether said as both Keqing and Aether are very impressed by this.
"Indeed," Keqing said.
The chamber is starting to fill up with lava as Keqing begins to faint from the intense heat. "It's getting too hot in here," she said as it's getting too much for her as she is on her knees.
"Keqing," Aether said as the monster is about to strike her down to hit its mark, but Xiao and Aether were fast enough to slice the fist to make it explode.
"Do not touch her," Aether said as both Aether and Xiao fires off a powerful beam of wind energy to land a hit strong enough to slam through multiple walls. "Keqing," Aether checks her out to see she is unharmed.
"Thank you," Keqing said as Aether grabs her hand to help her up as Ganyu and Zhongli are unleashing barrages of elemental energy to explode on contact but the beast keeps on coming with it grows even stronger.
"This is intense, it's just getting bigger and stronger from the lava," Paimon said as Zhongli summons a powerful Geo barrier to block a huge ray of fire. He managed to protect everyone to deflect the beam back at the monster to shake off the attack.
They can see it's looming towards the clouds as it's almost as big as the volcano itself. It supercharges its fist and slams down onto Zhongli's barrier to crack it open. Zhongli made his barrier violent burst to knock the fist back.
"I have an idea. Just hold it off for a while," Ganyu said.
"What are you going to do?" Xiao asked.
"Well, the Shade is getting stronger by using the volcano to fuel its growth from the lava. We must cut off the pipeline. Hold it off," Ganyu said.
"Okay, make it fast," Xiao said as Ganyu nods her head to leap down the volcano. "Time to go all in for this one," Xiao powers up to don his Yaksha Mask for his body is surging with a black aura and Anemo energy.
"We need to give Ganyu time," Zhongli cast down a large meteor from the sky and slam into the beast to unleash a mighty explosion. The dust subsided the huge mountainous Shade is petrified in stone,
Xiao jumping very high to use his powerful wind infused air lunges. He is air dashing at the monster at lightning-fast speed to take out chunks of its body. He uses his final air thrust to slam through its head to land beside Zhongli.
The huge Shade regains its lost body parts to recover back at 100% in no time flat. "This is never-ending," Xiao said as Zhongli and Xiao are fighting off the beast with Aether protecting Keqing.
Ganyu is writing a spell on the sides of the volcano to see several icy marks emitting energy for they are ready to be used. "Time to put this to act," Ganyu said to snap her fingers to cast the spell as an intense cold sweep over the mountain as the lava is starting to cool off with the Shade becoming weaker until it became a giant ice statue.
"Time to end this," Zhongli said as he swiftly slashes the beast to appear behind it with it standing still. He snaps his fingers as the whole Shade scatters into a bunch of pieces and seeing the mountain collapse on itself destroying the beast for good.
"That was awesome," Aether said as Keqing gets back up to not feel weak from the intense heat anyway.
"That was impressive Zhongli," Keqing said for them to see the threat is over.
"Well, that was bothersome," Zhongli said as Xiao disengages back to normal to feel a bit weak from it.
"These Shades are bothersome," Xiao said as they begin to go back to the boat after their mission is over.
"Hey Keqing, are you okay?" Ganyu asked.
"Yes I am fine, just a bit of heat is all," Keqing said as they go into the ship to head back to the city. "Well, one less monster to worry about. We need a morale boost like that," Keqing said for them both to be by the railing of the ship.
"It is, we need time away from this craziness," Aether said.
"I agree, we can go to that resort town and spend a week there together. Just the two of us," Keqing said as they arrive back in the city to plan a vacation.