Interlude chapter
Fidellum Aegis: Act One
Trackdown
Two months after the end of the Stormterror crisis
The sun was just barely setting over the horizon when the latest in a series of loud cracks cut through the air over Araumi. Underneath the massive Sakura tree, a lone figure circled a wooden post with a pair of practice swords in his hands. Eyes narrowed to razor sharp points, Will lunged forward again and struck the post with the blade in his off hand. At the same time, he circled around his imaginary foe and cut horizontally at head height.
"Still a hair off target, Will," a voice echoed in his head as he backed away from the post, a voice he remembered well, even after the more than five months it had been since he last heard it in person. Yet another indent had been created in the post, this one just slightly below the fragmented splinter of wood he had been aiming at.
"Again… but what else is there left for me to try? I need to know how to utilize that skill before I leave for Fontaine. What if I need it there?" he'd replied, but his mentor had shaken his head.
"I know you're eager, Will. But I can't answer that question for you. And even without this skill, I've taught you everything else I know, both that which was taught to me by my mentor in the Fatui, and the skills imparted to me during my time in the Abyss. You shouldn't worry about it," he had reassured him. "Besides, you need both a vision and a delusion to perform this skill."
Will narrowed his eyes and slashed at the post again. "I still need to keep working on it. Who knows when I'll get hurt bad enough that using that skill is the only way I could make it out alive?" This time, his attack landed right on target, sheering the splinter clean off of the post. But to his frustration, a quick glance at his other arm revealed that he'd left his flank vulnerable. He took a few steps back and focused once again.
"Hey Will! Whatcha doing?" a voice called out, unintentionally distracting Will from his target and causing him to skim the top of the post with his sword, rather than hitting it as he'd intended. With no impact following the cut, his wrist slapped against one of the pieces of wood protruding from the post, and the practice sword flew out of his hand. "Oops… did Paimon cause that?"
Will rubbed his wrist, and then walked over and picked up the practice sword before turning back to face his two friends from across the sea. "It's no trouble Paimon," he replied with a friendly smile. "What brings you and Aether all the way out here this evening?"
"We heard from Katherine at the Adventurer's guild that someone had posted a commission about some strange figures sneaking around Araumi, and thought we'd go check it out today. But we haven't had much luck," Aether explained. "What about you? Are you out here investigating those same reports for the Tri-Commission?"
Will shook his head. "No, I was just out here training." Paimon held her hands out, confused.
"Training? What for? Didn't you and Thoma tell us that there was a lot less samurai out enforcing the Vision Hunt Decree lately?" the floating pixie asked, to which Will smiled and shook his head again.
"No, I'm not training for that, although that certainly is another thing to keep my skills sharp for. No, I'm out here training just for the sake of training. It helps clear my mind when I've got too much on my mind," Will replied. "But I could use a break from training for a little while. If you're still going to be looking around out here, do you mind if I tag along with you two?"
Aether shrugged. "I don't see why not. We were going to climb up this large tree and see if we could spot anything from there," the blonde agreed, and Will nodded.
"Ok. I'll join you up there in a moment, but first I need to store my equipment."
Will folded down each of the protruding pieces of wood and then clipped the two practice swords onto identical wooden clasps at the base of the post. After pushing it over to rest in the shade of the sakura tree, he leaped up onto the tree branch Aether and Paimon were gazing out from with a gust of Anemo power. "See anything?" he asked.
Aether shook his head. "Nothing yet… but then if there really is anyone here that shouldn't be, it wouldn't make sense for us to catch them until the sun has well and truly set."
Will nodded in agreement. "Yeah. If they knew what they were doing, they'd keep their movements to a minimum during the day. Hopefully, we'll see some activity now that the sun has gone down."
As if on cue, Paimon suddenly gasped. "Look! What was that?" she exclaimed under her breath, pointing over to the middle of the peninsula-shaped cliff. Will and Aether both followed her finger, and sure enough, there was something, or someone, moving around in the bushes.
"I don't know… but I'm curious to find out. What do you say, Aether?" Will replied, and the blonde nodded.
"Yeah. Let's move," he responded, donning his glider. Will did the same, clipping the rings on his glider onto the hooks of his gloves. Aether glanced over at the unusual design, curious. "Any chance you could show me how you did that after this?" he asked, and Will shrugged.
"If you want. It's a lot less complicated than it looks."
With that, the duo flew down to the bushes where Paimon had indicated. However, when they got there, the shrubs had fallen still, and they couldn't find much that indicated that there had been anyone there.
"Have you found anything Aether?" Will called out as he circled the bushes.
"We're not sure… there's this strange cloth that was stuck on the bushes, but nothing else," Paimon replied. Intrigued, Will walked around the bushes and kneeled down to look at the piece of fabric caught in the bushes. It was dark blue in color and could have easily been nothing more than a piece of a tent or cloth sheet. But upon closer inspection, Will quickly realized that this cloth had come from someone that definitely had no business being on Narukami Island.
"What do you think? Could this be a clue?" Paimon asked as Will looked up over the bushes. In a swift motion, he pulled both of his friends to the ground with a thud, and Paimon was about to exclaim in confusion when a firey projectile flew over them, right where her head had been moments before. Seconds later, another projectile flew right past where Aether had been.
"Stay down. I'll check it out," he whispered, unsheathing his swords and crawling around the side of the shrub. But there were no follow up attacks this time, just an empty silence echoing across the plains as Will glanced around, every sense on alert as he looked for their now-vanished attacker.
After a few tense seconds, Will breathed a short sigh of relief and turned around to walk back over to where Aether and Paimon were. The former held his sword in one hand, while the latter was sitting on the ground, trembling. "We're safe for the moment… but I wouldn't count on that staying the same for good. And I think I know who it is that this commission reported."
Aether looked up. "Who is it? Some Pyro catalyst user who got on the shogunate's bad side?" he presumed, but Will shook his head.
"Worse. We're dealing with the Fatui."
Paimon gasped. "The Fatui?! Are you sure it's them?!" she exclaimed, and Will looked around again.
"Positive. For one thing, the four-point-star shaped insignia on that sheet of fabric? That's the emblem of the Fatui. And those shots weren't flaming arrows, nor were they Pyro catalyst fireballs," he explained, kneeling down and picking up a pair of small, metallic objects off the ground. "And that proves it. These little things are called bullet shells, and they're used specifically as ammunition for the Fatui Pyrobracer Skirmishers' weapons."
"Ok… but how can you be so certain? And how could they have gotten into Inazuma?" Aether asked.
"Let's just say I have quite a bit of history with them, and I've learned how they operate by now. I don't know how they found their way into Inazuma… but I'm going to find out, and I could use some backup. Want to help?" Will replied, to which Aether and Paimon both nodded.
"Yeah, count us in. We've got some scores of our own to settle with them," Paimon agreed excitedly.
"Good. I was hoping you'd say that. From its trajectory and the angle it was moving at, I think that shot came from the base of Mt. Yougou. I'll bet that's where our assailant has made camp for the night."
"So," Aether said to Will as they snuck towards where the latter presumed their attackers were taking refuge. "What's the deal between you and the Fatui? You mentioned that you had some history with them."
Will sighed, thinking back to the picture he had of himself and Emily, the one he'd previously shown Yoimiya right before they set out to rescue Master Masakatsu. "To put it simply, they took from me the three people I loved most… my parents, and my best friend," he replied, crawling prone underneath some brambles and thicket.
"So, you want revenge?" Paimon guessed, and Will nodded.
"I guess you could call it that. But the way I see it, it's not just revenge… it's justice, for both me and for everyone else they've wronged," Will agreed. "What about you?"
Aether didn't take long to respond. "Well, Paimon and I are in a similar boat. They've hurt friends of ours too. They stole something from someone we met in Mondstadt, tricked another in Liyue into giving up something important to them, and much more," he explained.
"Could he be talking about the Tsaritsa's plan to steal the other Gnoses? Aether is going around trying to meet all seven Archons, so he could've been in the right place at the right time to see such a theft… Perhaps the Harbingers have been given orders to go ahead with the grand plan after all…" Will mused in his head. But he kept such thoughts to himself. If ever there was a time to reveal his past to the Traveler, it wasn't then.
"Well, I hope you can get those things back to your friends…" he replied instead, in a subtle attempt to bring the conversation to a close. Fortunately, it worked, and the rest of the trek was spent in silence until they reached an encampment. Even from their limited vantage point on the ground, it was clear that the camp had been there for a while, having been carved out of the very stone of Mt. Yougou itself, disguised as ancient ruins guarded by inactive Ruin Machines, similar to the others in Araumi.
"Woah… how long have the Fatui been here? Erm… maybe we should head back to the Yashiro Commission and tell Ayaka what we've found?" Paimon said nervously, but Will shook his head and drew his swords.
"There's no time. If we leave now, the Fatui could escape, and then we might never pick up their trail again until it's too late. And I don't want to risk splitting up in case the one who stays here to keep an eye on them gets caught… We'll just have to take care of this incursion ourselves," the boy replied, his eyes narrowed to slits, just like they had been when he was practicing.
Paimon gulped, and Aether manifested his blade in his hands. "Ok… if you say so…" the floating pixie agreed hesitantly, and Will smiled.
"Don't worry Paimon. Everything's gonna be fine," he reassured her, before turning to Aether. "Aether, if I cause a distraction in front, can you use your elemental powers to sneak around the back without being seen?" Will suggested as they leaned out of sight against a small cliff. The blonde haired swordsman nodded. "All right. Don't wait to attack from behind, because I don't know how many skirmishers or agents there are in that camp. So as soon as you get an opening, take it."
"Will do," Aether said. He and Paimon took off, channeling the Geo element into the ground under his feet. "And Will? Good luck. Save some for us, will you?" he added, before launching himself onto the cliffside under the cover of darkness.
Will laughed under his breath. "I'll try," he said, channeling Anemo power into his feet and soaring into the sky in a similar fashion. But unlike Aether, he wasn't concerned with staying out of sight as he landed right in the center of the camp. Dozens of Fatui Skirmishers looked up in shock at the intruder, only to be leveled by a massive blast of air that shot out in all directions. "Surprise!" he shouted, deflecting a Pyro shot with his katana and returning the attack by sending the blade flying at the gunner.
The Pyroslinger staggered as the sword buried itself deep into his skull, and he managed to fire off only one more shot while he fell backward. In response, Will spun in a circle, creating a current of wind that redirected the Pyro shot right into the chest of a Cryogunner. The round exploded on impact and generated simultaneous swirl and melting elemental reactions which sent the skirmisher tumbling to the ground, while Will blocked a strike from a hammer wielding vanguard, his odachi clashing against the hilt of the Electrohammer.
The two fighters snarled at each other, but due to their sheer brute strength and larger size, the vanguard began pushing Will back. His knees bent as the vanguard pressed down on the younger boy, but at the last moment, Will rolled to the side with a burst of Anemo power. The overcommitted vanguard crashed into the ground, and Will's odachi pierced cleanly through his chest.
At the same time, there was a shout from the other side of the camp as Aether burst through with a flash of electro power. The glowing parts of his armor flashed with a bright golden light, and a large boulder fell to the ground and knocked numerous skirmishers to the ground. Then, with a gust of wind, a tornado picked up the dazed Fatui, carrying them over to the side of the camp where Will quickly sent them flying with a blast of wind from his Vision before pulling his katana back into his hand.
Aether used his Anemo power to leap over an Anemoboxer, blasting it from above with three Lightning Blades and then slashing down his back. Moments later, however, the traveler was blindsided by a sudden attack from two Geochanters, and he was knocked backward, only to be launched in the opposite direction by a second Anemoboxer, who stopped him mid-flight with an Anemo shield and then punched him in the back.
"Aether!" Will shouted as he saw the blonde swordsman fall to the ground, the Rancour blade flying through the air and embedding its blade into the ground. He pivoted on his foot and was poised to charge over to the aid of his ally when he too was caught off guard as an Electro Cicin mage jolted him with a powerful bolt of lightning. Then, the pain doubled as a Cryo mage the assault, the electricity coursing through his body superconducting with the ice cold ray of frost freezing his legs to the ground.
The pain running through Will's body was unbelievably intense, the reactions between Electro and Cryo occurring both inside and outside of his body. Out of the corner of his eye, three Pryo Agents walked over to Aether and prepared to sever his head from his body with their arm blades. Suddenly, right before the blades connected with his neck, everything stopped as time itself seemed to have slowed down to the point of a near standstill. The Cryo Delusion hanging from Will's neck and the Anemo Vision pinned to his belt flared to life with a blinding light, and it hit him.
"That's it! It's not about just saving my own life… you were trying to tell me that all along, weren't you, my mentor?" he thought to himself. "The transformation requires a powerful drive, one that self survival alone could never reach…"
The light from both gems overwhelmed the entire camp as time seemed to speed back up to normal. Everyone in the camp shielded their eyes, as out of the light came a transformed Will, clothed in jet black and shining silver armor, with light blue and teal lines running all over it. The edges of his twin swords now glowed, one the color of Cryo, and the other with the color of Anemo, and a mask had formed over his face.
"Foul Legacy! The Eternal Storm!"
With that, he shattered the ice on his legs and leaped into the air, crashing to the ground and sending massive spears of Cryo energy bigger than anything he'd ever conjured before all around the camp. A perpetual downdraft of Anemo kept Will floating just above the ground as he rocketed towards the skirmishers standing over Aether and Paimon, forming a barrier of Anemo around his allies while blasting the Fatui away with a relentless wave of freezing cold wind. Paimon's jaw dropped, and Aether watched with wide eyes as they witnessed the Foul Legacy Transformation for the second time, having never expected to see it from another person, let alone a friend.
Vaulting over a Geochanter and skewering him from below with his Katana at the same time, Will spun around and slashed two Cicins in half with his blades, and then he saw the Pyro Agents from before. Knowing they posed the greatest threat now, Will hounded them, slashing through one of them and causing him to vanish in a cloud of blue light. The second one crashed down on him from above, but with a flick of his wrist, he was launched back into the air by a spire of solidified Cryo energy, it's caster right behind it and ready to finish off his target.
Dashing through the air, Will bounced off the wall and gave chase to the last agent from before as they desperately dashed around the encampment, doing everything they could to stay out of his reach. But their efforts were for naught, as Will came to a stop in the center of the ravaged campsite and held out both hands to his sides. His swords floated away, hovering in the air by hands made of Anemo, physical extensions of Will's body. The blades flared with blinding light, and then with a single twist of his arms, the blades spun on their own like razor sharp disks, deflecting every attack sent at him by the skirmishers and mages, and sending those very attacks back tenfold to their points of origin.
He pulled Aether and Paimon to the middle, surrounding himself and his two wounded allies with a whirling shield of Anemo as blades of ice manifested in the air like scythes, spinning ferociously around the former Fatui Harbinger apprentice and his friends, slicing through anything they came into contact with. A violent draft picked up around the camp, circling around Will, Aether, and Paimon. With a shout of determination, a deafening explosion of wind ten times as powerful as the one he'd unleashed at the start of his attack surged outward, decimating the remaining Fatui Agents, Skirmishers, Mages, and everything else in the camp, save the three who were safe in the middle of the storm.
With their foes defeated, Will gently floated back down to the ground and transformed back to his normal appearance with another flash of light, this one much less jarring than the first. But as Aether pushed himself up, Will's legs buckled underneath him, and the boy fell to the ground, breathless and exhausted. Aether managed to catch him by the arm and pulled him back up to his feet. "Urgh… Thanks, Aether…" Will said, taking a few deep breaths. "I imagine you've… probably got a few questions, don't you?"
Paimon rolled her eyes. "Well duh! Of course, Paimon has questions for you! What just happened? How did you do that? Where did you learn how to do that? Was that a Delusion?! And what about-" Paimon exclaimed, only to be cut off by Aether.
"Easy Paimon. But she is right. You do have some explaining to do," he said, and Will nodded.
"I suspected as much. It was foolish of me to think I'd be able to keep my past a secret from you forever," Will admitted, hanging his head. "But first, I need to return to the Kamisato Estate and inform the Commissioner and Ayaka of our discovery here. Meet me back at the Komore Teahouse tomorrow around midday. I'll answer your questions there, and with the Fatui being on Narukami, we may have to begin the next phase of our operations ahead of schedule."
A/N: And at long last, the next chapter is done! I wish I could've worked on this more frequently, but getting ready to start double majoring in college in a few months has been occupying most, if not all of my free time. But alas, though I was only able to write maybe a paragraph or two at a time, I am finally done with this chapter, and better yet, the chapter after this one is almost done too! Get ready, because starting now, this story's gonna get dialed up past eleven, and things are gonna get real intense, real quick.
