Fischl jolted awake, her breath ragged and her skin clammy. Whatever nightmare she had, she recalled nothing about it. Perhaps for the best, since the terror stuck in Fischl's chest like a dagger and refused to let her draw breath. She laid in the covered wagon, sheathed under a blanket whose dust irritated her nose. The sounds of a journey came from outside: the horse's neigh, the crackle and snap of a campfire, the clang of pots and pans accompanied by conversation.
But to Fischl, the noise was hollow; distant, as though it were worlds away. Isolating her from all that was well and good.
"Mein Fräulein, are you alright?" Oz knew. He knew, due to his nature as Fischl's familiar. But he at least gave her the chance to refuse.
But even if she were to accept, what could she say? The nightmare was but a symptom and pointed to the indelible blackening of her soul, shaken up by war. Everything 'Fischl' was jarred, in ways she couldn't explain despite her vocabulary. Something was… not lost, just shaken out of place, and Fischl was struck by the thought she might never be put back whole again.
"I," she hitched, "the Prinzessin is wrestling with the aftershock of such a grand battle. It is…" her sentence trailed off. She didn't want to leave Oz in the dark, but it was as though all her fears had formed an impassable wall and refused to let any description stick.
After defeating the Kaiserin, Sumeru tried to rebuild some semblance of civilization from ash and ruins, though the army of Vision wielders were welcome to lick their wounds before leaving. They took up the offer insofar as they healed up enough to head on home, not wanting to intrude.
That was three days ago.
Oz's gaze unfocused in thought. "Wait here," he said before he hopped out of the wagon.
He returned, with OSF Fischl and the Outworlder in tow.
The veteran asked, "Nightmare?" Her knowing glare didn't need an answer. The Outworlder handed Fischl freshly cooked stew. From the look in the Outworlder's haunted gaze, she shared some of Fischl's woes. She accepted the meal and ate in silence. Eating served to move Fischl's idle hands and banish these thoughts, even if for a while, and only when she filled her mouth did Fischl realize how famished she was.
"Could you," Oz paused to find the word, "help mein Fräulein? Both of them?"
The veteran tucked her legs in. "I'm not a therapist. All I really know how to do is provide company, which I'm doing now. If you want to spill - "
"Did you," Outworlder paused, "Hath thou ever been touch'd by that terrific fear? In the face of odds you esteemed as unfavorable, almost…"
"Impossible? Suicidal?" Fischl and Outworlder fell into silence since this was the veteran's area of expertise. Oz likewise deferred to the OSF, who reclined on the wagon's side. "Well, if it'd help, I wouldn't mind sharing. There was this one time…"
OSF Fischl stepped out of the shadows, since it was clear nobody posed a threat to her.
Not when these Fontaine scientists laid dying all over the destroyed lab.
Sunlight shined through the side of the building, seemingly destroyed from within. But whatever tore through the wall didn't do this to these scientists, a rampage that practically yelled 'sadism' with the broken bones and profuse bleeding in its wake. Fischl brandished her rifle at a nearby scientist. Slumped by the desk, his coat was more red than white from the blood, and there was nothing to be done for him.
She asked, "What happened here?"
"Kid…" the scientist wheezed, " … ith device. Powered up…" his dying gaze lolled over to the notes on the floor. Fischl snatch the notes up, and wiped off the blood as best she could.
Her breath caught at the project title: Endbringer.
Somehow, the innovators over at Fontaine managed to modify a Ruin Grader and upsize it. The Endbringer's cockpit was too small for an adult pilot, but a child could fit in it. And it needed a power source, which this Inazuman punk rocked up with. A Gnosis.
Name of the child: Kunikuzushi.
Date of test: today.
He'd killed everyone after learning all about the Ruin Grader. Fischl tossed the notes aside. Judging from its warpath, this Ruin Grader was on its way towards Mondstadt. Fischl whistled, jumped out of the ruined building and slid down its collapsed side, then sprinted once she hit the ground. Her Vision crackled to life. Infused Fischl with the speed and stamina beyond mortal ken to keep up with her galloping horse before she hopped on.
The landscape had been defiled with power enough to rival a force of nature. And such wanton destruction led to a village, and the back of Fischl's throat tightened at the sight. Panicked cries were carried up along plumes of smoke, the village a smoldering wreck of debris, ruins and budding fires. Fischl forced herself to leave them behind. Destroying this monstrosity would halt further loss of life.
The Endbringer's warpath was heralded by mechanical roars, its every step that caused the ground to shake, and an explosive destruction that demanded attention. Fischl felt as though she'd caught up with a tornado that had rampaged throughout the land.
She patted her horse to calm its nerves, then urged it to sprint before the Ruin Grader. Once in position, she hopped off and let her horse get to safety.
Facing down the Ruin Grader highlighted just how much larger it was up close, and the disparity in size struck Fischl with regret at having volunteered for this. The machine partially eclipsed the Sun and cast its great shadow across the land, and it would take several bursts to climb and reach the Ruin Grader's crown. It brimmed with Fontaine weapons that individually, Fischl knew how to handle. But seeing them attached to this behemoth granted them a lethality that felt like she needed all of Mondstadt's armies behind her to even stand a chance.
How the heck was she going to get out of this alive? Much less win?
"Fischl!" she heard Jean in her ear, "I'm having Oz drop off the missile launcher! It's your only chance! I'll also rally the 5th, 6th and 12th as backup!"
Not being alone in this fight was a start, Fischl reminded herself. She spotted 'old reliable' Oz, her own mechanical carrier bird. It dropped off a package, its fall being slowed by a parachute while Fischl chased after it. Inside, Fischl found a black, tubular chute, to be hefted over her shoulder and fired at the Ruin Grader.
The Ruin Grader must've noticed her, since it came to a lumbering halt some distance away.
Fischl called out, "Kunikuzushi?"
A vox blared, "You. You and your puny barbarian land were protected by your 'divine wind' during both Inazuman invasions. But I'll finish what that hag started by annihilating Mondstadt! I will surpass her! I will destroy her! And along with it, this false world!" The coarse vox translated enough of the kid's vitriol, and Mondstadt being in the crosshair of such an irate kid began to irk Fischl to no end.
"Kid! You. Have. Issues." No way would she let Mondstadt be destroyed by a kid with too much power and everything to prove.
"You," Fischl gaped, "you fought that thing?"
The OSF shrugged. "What else could I do? I had to, or that brat would've leveled all of Teyvat." Gazing into the veteran's eyes, Fischl wanted to believe she knew what her doppelganger thought. The OSF didn't fight for honor, glory, or anything so lofty. She just didn't want to die, and didn't want her homeland to be destroyed.
Oz lowered his head. "And, when you won, what did you do with the boy?" The OSF's glare was his answer. "That was insensitive of me to ask. Apologies, Fräulein."
The OSF shook her head to absolve Oz. "Let me guess, do you two feel betrayed by the tales of valor?" Fischl's vision glazed over as she consulted her own heart. Indeed, there sat a skepticism towards anything to do with war, an immovable weight upon which shrugged off any attempt at lionizing these acts.
Apparently Fischl's own woes were written on her face for the veteran to see, because she cut in. "You're right to feel betrayed. Not all legends are unflappable, or know what to do at every moment. That brings them down from this pedestal folks put them on. They call me a legend, but I'm you and you," she pointed at Fischl and Outworlder, "and that means anything I do, you can too."
Fischl connected the dots. "Do you mean, I - we could become a legend too?" She shared a glance with the Outworlder.
The OSF chuckled. "Keep this up, and I might have to hand you my title of 'Boss.'" Both Fischls joined in the light chuckle. Less out of amusement, and more to cling onto any reprieve from this black despair.
Oz, though, had something to say to the veteran. "Not the kind of legend you are, Fräulein. I mean no offense, but…"
"None taken. Honestly, that makes two of us," and Fischl saw she meant it. In a way, it almost insulted the OSF to want to be like her. The feats themselves were admirable, but the situations that demanded excellence or death was something she would not wish even on her worst enemy.
The ensuing silence was welcome, not in a dead conversation but as a time for them to bask in each other's company.
The OSF pushed her way through the foliage. Their Mondstadt team had reached another checkpoint and rested there. They'd leave in two hours, enough time for Fischl to do her thing. In her hand was a signal locator, its lazy, robotic beep unable to locate its paired beacon.
Her talk with the two kid Fischls had been good for everyone, since Fischl recognized the first signs of trauma in them. They tried to hide it, and she assumed they didn't want to burden everyone with their woes, but Fischl wouldn't have any of that. It was good for herself too, since she wanted to be there for her younger doppelgangers in a way she wished someone could've been there for her. That made the talk wish fulfillment, and Fischl wasn't afraid to admit it.
After she'd done, all she'd sacrificed and embodied for the sake of victory, she wanted this in order to convince herself she wasn't such a bad person after all.
Her locator's beep picked up its rhythm, and Fischl took this chance to shake off these dark thoughts. Fischl waved her locator around, found the direction that gave its quickest beeps, and followed it.
The crinkling branches lashed at Fischl's battlesuit while dirt crunched beneath her boots, this neck of the woods dense enough to deter anyone who shadowed her.
It was paranoid, but Fischl didn't survive this long by being too naive.
Following the beeps, Fischl knew her contact would be there. They'd been in contact ever since Fischl escaped from Mondstadt, and once Fischl shoved through the remaining foliage to reach an opening, a smile grew over her face.
"Kept you waiting, huh?"
"Your impertinence shall be overlooked, in light of our urgent situation."
Fischl tossed another firewood into the gathered pile. Having reached Liyue, it would take two more nights to journey back to Mondstadt.
Hence Fischl's preparation work now.
Her heart was still wracked by Sumeru, in ways she wasn't sure if she could ever be put back whole again. But after that talk with the OSF, things were looking up. She'd found the strength to slip back into her 'Fischl' persona.
One thing she realized was that it took energy to be 'Fischl.' It had always been so easy, but she now had to gather the strength to be herself. This self, full of flowery language and queenly compassion towards her comrades, was who she was always meant to be. But during the talk with the veteran, she'd just allowed herself to be… herself.
And she had been so very tired.
Not in the physical sense. But an inner lethargy within Fischl threatened to bleed joy from all things and empty her out. Fischl refused to ever let it get its way. To let it get in the way of being who she was meant to be: Fischl. That train of thought was punctuated by one last vengeful whack of her ax. Fischl took a deep breath, and savored the burn of her muscles. It allowed her to take her mind off things, instead of staying in the wagon and wallowing in these dark thoughts.
Something flitted in the edge of Fischl's vision. She blinked, and found her bow summoned to hand. She was getting too high-strung after Sumeru, Fischl thought. Still, wariness had its perks, since Fischl wasn't sure if it was a wild animal. She was some distance away from the camp, having trekked some ways out to find good wood. Before Fischl, the edge of the clearing built up into a forested wilderness, so she wasn't sure -
Fischl's breath caught at the sight of royal purple. Those were her own colors. Was that another Fischl doppelganger? Or was it the Herrscher, stalking them? Her heart ran cold at the thought it might be the latter, and for an instant, she wanted to run back to -
And then she saw the Prinzessin.
Her jaw dropped. This person - this adult perfectly encapsulated who Fischl believed the Prinzessin should look like in her imagination. She stared into the Prinzessin's lonely gaze, her visage at once regal and ephemeral. As though she were but a waking dream, and Fischl was the dreamer. In the infinitude of the multiverse, could there be one where the Prinzesssin and the Immernachtreich existed?
The Prinzessin - not Fischl - ducked behind a tree, as though she were an actor about to exit stage right.
Before Fischl knew it, she was chasing down the specter.
"Prinzessin!" Fischl called out. No matter how fast she bulled through rustling foliage, she felt doomed to only glimpse the Prinzessin's back. "As one sovereign addresses another, I beseech thee to - um, please, just wait!" Her lungs began to burn, though Fischl's experience in the Adventurer's Guild reminded her to pace herself.
The further she went, the more the forest shut her out. Fischl had to elbow aside branches, slip through the crowd of trees, and cross carpets of fallen leaves. She had to find the Prinzessin. Somehow, Fischl knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she held all the answers.
Fischl stumbled out into a field without any fanfare, with a momentum that drove her into the dirt. She picked herself up, and realized the forest simply transitioned into a clearing as though separated by an invisible boundary. The forest had been deliberately cleared for a reason, and her gaze roamed around to find…
A gravestone in the clearing's center.
The Prinzessin was nowhere to be seen, and the deliberation with which Fischl was led here screamed 'trap' in her bewildered mind. The impossibility of a disappearing Prinzessin hung in the back of her mind, and she had to gather the strength to push on. She inched close enough to make out the gravestone's name.
#
Amy
Our dearest 'Fischl'
#
A wretched, despairing scream pierced the forest. It took Fischl far too long to realize the cry was her own.
It couldn't be. It couldn't be.
Itcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeItcouldn'tbeITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBEITCOULDN'TBE
The ground gave out under her, and left Fischl kissing the dirt while she clutched her own face. It was only rational, she told herself, that she'd died in some other timeline. Of course, death came for everyone, for it was the great equalizer that allowed the Prinzessin to empathize with her subjects.
Of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course of course.
So why did Fischl bawl her heart out right there, tear out the grass with vehemence while cursing and begging in the same breath, for reasons she knew not why? She exhausted herself acting out the throes of this nauseating, despairing blackness within her. Fischl eventually collapsed, heaving and sobbing. She recoiled from whoever knelt beside her, and only did a double take after she realized it was the Prinzessin.
"Why?! Why hath thou shewn me such a heinous thread of fate?!" This she spat at the Prinzessin, who barely flinched at Fischl's venom. The Prinzessin raised her arms, almost in curtsey, and wordlessly offered a hug. While Fischl chafed at the Prinzessin's enclosing arms, she eventually let the embrace wrap around her.
"Shh," the Prinzessin cooed, "I'm here for you."
The hug, in its own way, gave her permission to cry and let everything pour out of her.
The terror. The uncertainty. The fear and despair, it all poured out from this broken dam and was exorcised in this raw, ugly and unabashed crying fit. She sat there, curled up, and cried like she'd never cried before.
Amy cried.
Eventually, she sat there, emptied of all the good and bad. Everything in her past, washed away, which left a clean slate. Her breakdown had ebbed into a sobbing fit, and in a way, served to clear her head.
"You're, you're not…" she mumbled. Even without looking up, Fischl knew the Prinzessin understood. Fischl's flash of clear-headed inspiration took these disparate but related dots and divined a coherent narrative.
Her own wariness of OSF Fischl.
Rosaria's warning.
Strega's attempted suicide.
The Electro Archon Fischl, who appeared mid-battle.
The Prinzessin.
The gravestone.
Fischl began to glimpse the truth, and it was a testament to her own lethargy that she did not begin to act on such knowledge.
She was just so damn tired.
"Yes," the Prinzessin answered, "I'm not the fabled Prinzessin we read about. But, am I not close?"
Fischl glanced up at the Prinzessin. Indeed, she embodied a princess inside and out, her majesty immutable and absolute. She was older, but that served to cement her authority with experience. Even now, the Prinzessin possessed a halo that could bridge the chasm between royalty and commoner, and now shone upon Fischl with concern.
Fischl's wordless approval must've been written on her face, and the Prinzessin's hands reached as though to cup Fischl's face.
"I'm close to being the Prinzessin. And like I said…"
The Prinzessin's hands wrapped around her throat.
"I'm here for you."
Fischl recoiled at seeing the Prinzessin's face morph before her eyes. Her smile stretched into a demented grin, her visage blackened into a murderous leer while her eye lit up with a mad shine. So deliberate a revelation, it was clear the Prinzessin had hid her true self away until she had Fischl right where she wanted her.
Fischl lost herself to unthinking panic. She kicked and screamed, pulled and shoved and writhed and tore and punched. Everything was a target to be lashed out at, her panic only halted by a pain in her covered eye.
Whatever the Prinzessin did, it hurt Fischl in a white-hot sear that got too much for her to even utter a sound. And this agony punched through her eyepatch's blackness as she began to see beyond color, beyond dimensions. The world began to collapse into fractals of light, and whatever her covered eye saw began to fold Fischl and pull her in, her face a silent rictus as she was dragged into infinity.
Fischl glanced down at the spot of empty ground. The sight had been like water swirling down a drain, and empowering kid Fischl's eye had caused her to be pulled into the multiverse. Away from here.
Just as planned.
She giggled, and her breath gusted with mad relief. She was free, and -
"Mein Fräulein?"
Fischl's gaze snapped over to her kid self's familiar. Her expression melted in a genuine smile, "Ah, Ozvaldo Hrafnavins, my trusted servant. Art thou here to swear thy allegiance? After all, 'Fischl is destined to team up with Oz.'"
"At your service, mein Fräulein," and Oz bowed towards Fischl. She creased up, ecstatic in the knowledge she'd well and truly succeeded. Still, there was the remaining issue of cleanup. Fischl turned her focus inward. Reality jarred all around her in a deep and thorough rewrite, and Fischl sent her own gravestone back to its rightful timeline.
Fischl made a motion of clawing down over her face, the motion used to activate an illusion. Now, to anyone else she looked exactly like her younger self.
Then she waited for kid Fischl's friends to arrive. They'd stumbled through the forest after they heard kid Fischl's scream, bless their hearts. But Fischl's powers wouldn't let them in until she'd gotten rid of this universe's Fischl.
Their footsteps approached from behind, and Fischl's heart danced at the joy of meeting old friends. She inhaled deeply and drove herself into a hyperventilating fit, appropriate for the terror and hysteria kid Fischl would've felt to have screamed like that.
"Fischl! Are you OK?!" Paimon asked. They surrounded her, all to shower their wordless concern over a hunched and sobbing Fischl.
Even keeled over, Fischl covered her face with spread hands. Hands that hid the devilish grin plastered on her face.
She swallowed, "I'm… the Prinzessin is fine. Everything shall be all right now."