Chapter Text
Venti wakes up to a terrible throbbing at the back of his head.
He may be an archon, but he knows that the current form he’s taking has limits to the alcohol he consumes. It’s a shame, because even after all this gnosis from Celestia, he still doesn’t have the limitless ability to drink wine. He lets out a disappointed sigh and moves his arm to rub his temple—only to realise that he can’t move his arm. The sound of metal clanging is audible, and his brows furrow as his eyes flicker to his hand. He squints his eyes when he realises that his hand is locked with a chain. No, all of his limbs are restricted with metal chains.
A surge of panic hits him, and he tries to pull at least his hand out of its confinement. It doesn’t budge. Did Diluc decide to lock him up after he drank almost an entire stash of his wine? But this place doesn’t look like it has the usual Monstadtian decor. The walls and tiles lack their usual wooden flooring. Instead, they’re made out of cement and tiles. The room smells like chemicals too, and whoever decides to keep him here, now’s maybe the time to come out and tell him that all of this is some kind of unfunny joke.
The door slides open, and a man with blue hair steps in. He has a very odd-looking mask over his face, and something about him seems almost inhuman. Though, Venti knows that his body is like any mortal body. He tries to dig into his memories in case they’ve met before, but he finds nothing.
“Ah, good day, sir!” Venti decides to greet, keeping his voice light and airy. He ignores the constant pounding at the back of his skull. “It brings me relief that you’ve found lil’ ol’ me, so do you mind setting me free?”
The man stops right in front of him, the sound from his shoes finally coming to end. He stares at him for a while in silence, before a menacing smile crosses his lips. “And why would I do that, Lord Barbatos?”
Venti can feel his facial expression faltering. Ah, shit. If there is one thing he learned, people who know his true identity are either a friend or a foe. And right now, this man is far from looking like a friend. He assumes that this is one of the Fatui Harbingers, because they’re the only ones crazy enough to aim for a weak archon like him. He can feel his gnosis thrumming in his chest, ready to release whatever is left of his divine power if he needs it.
No matter how weak his power is, he’s still an archon, and the man in front of him is only a mortal. But something seems to be blocking him from using his gnosis, because his connection with it feels really weak, for some reason.
“You seem very confused,” the man says, bending down so that he can look at him eye-level. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Il Dottore, also known as ‘The Doctor’, and I’ve given you something to prevent you from connecting with your gnosis.”
What? Is that even possible?
“Maybe not something to stop you from using your gnosis, but definitely something to weaken you,” Dottore clarifies, pulling his face away as he straightens his back. He walks over to a counter and pulls open a drawer. “I’ve always wanted an archon as a specimen. Luckily, you presented yourself to me the moment you got yourself wasted.”
Venti can’t help but inwardly groan. Of course his excessive drinking will be his downfall. Now this man is going to—wait, did he just say specimen?
Dottore puts on his gloves and searches for something in one of the drawers. “What procedure should I use to extract your divine power though?” he muses, humming thoughtfully to himself. “Maybe…”
Venti watches in apprehension as the Doctor continues to look into the drawer. It has been so long since he has felt this kind of anxiety. Every fibre in his being screams for him to make a run for it, but no matter how hard he calls for his power, his body will remind of its fatigued state whenever he feels the burn emitting from his limbs.
The pounding in his head becomes more evident. Dottore wasn’t lying when he said he gave him something to weaken him. He can only watch helplessly when the man takes out a few pieces of equipment and approaches him, his scalpel glinting under the ceiling light.
➳
“All your plans have seemed to fail. Now all you can do is nothing but wail—”
Venti should’ve expected the harsh slap across his face. It stings, but it takes only a few seconds for the pain to fade. He lets a condescending smile cross over his lips, before he meets Dottore’s gaze with a challenging stare. He can tell; the Doctor is barely holding back his rage.
The countless experiments the man had put him through were hell, and despite some of them making Venti scream his lungs out and sob a river, he made sure that every failure the Doctor experienced would be accompanied by a rhyme. It was fun to watch the man’s reaction every time he opened his mouth. Even though it’s clear that the Doctor had the upper hand, he finds joy in the man’s frustration.
“You’ve been rhyming for the past five fucking hours,” Dottore says, his teeth gritted. He grabs him by the shoulders and starts shaking him violently. “Shut up!”
Venti could’ve sworn that if he was a normal human, Dottore would’ve torn his flesh by now with the way his nails are piercing him. But he wasn’t, so he had the opportunity to watch the Doctor getting all frustrated again without too much worry. Venti’s currently sitting on this metal table, his clothes changed into some plain gown—courtesy of the Doctor, who changed his clothes when he passed out during one of his experiments—and his entire body feels so numb, to the point that he can’t even move a single limb despite the lack of restraints.
“A-all your experiments are full of woe,” Venti stammers, his vision becoming dizzy as the man continues to shake him, “my answer is fucking no—”
Venti feels his body hitting the ground.
He holds back a choked sob, the pain shooting from all angles, but he still manages a humourless laugh as he remains on the cold floor. He can hear the Doctor approaching him, the sound of his footsteps growing louder, and this time, the scream escapes from his throat when he receives a kick straight at his midsection.
“You’re lucky that the Fatui is on good terms with Mondstadt—at the moment,” Dottore says, and he finally confirms Venti’s assumptions that he’s one of the Fatui. Venti expects for another hit, but he’s only met with the sound of his footsteps becoming distant.
Huh. That’s... unexpected. He wants to turn his body to see what the Doctor is going to do, but the action proves to be challenging when his body won’t budge. In the end, he lays there completely still, and he lets out a shaky sigh when he hears the sound of a pen clicking.
“Multiple experiments have been conducted to extract the subject’s divine powers, but all methods proved to be futile,” Dottore reads his notes out loud, the sound of scribbling audible. “A new approach towards the subject will be tested. The goal of this experiment is to forcefully activate the subject’s divine powers—”
Venti’s eyes widened in horror.
“—and turn it into a killing machine.”
➳
The last experiment has shown a greater amount of improvement compared to the previous one, though adjustments must be made in order to produce satisfactory results, Dottore writes, his eyes glued to the clipboard in his hand. Struggles made by the subject have been violent, but they have gradually reduced during the experimentations. In the end, triggering its divine powers have been successful. However, procedures must be done in order to contain the subject from—
Dottore stops when he enters the room, and he notices how the place is eerily silent. He lifts his head from the clipboard, and he motions toward the form sitting in the corner, its back hunched. A few white feathers are scattered on the floor, near the pair of wings attached to said back. There is no movement or reaction coming from the being. Only silence.
A smirk tugs at his face, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Have you finally decided to stop rhyming?”
He would’ve laughed, knowing that he had finally shut the Anemo Archon up, but he became curious instead when there wasn’t even a twitch coming from the archon. He decides to move to stand in front of Barbatos, an offensive remark ready on his lips, but his eyes widen when he realises the empty magenta irises staring in the distance.
“Barbatos?” he calls, waving a hand in front of him. No reaction. His eyes trail to the dishevelled twin braids dangling over Barbatos’ shoulder, and he feels a wide grin creeping over when he sees the tips fully coloured in magenta now. Even the tattoos that were once teal had changed into a pinkish-purplish hue.
After so many months… was his experiment finally a success?
Excitement starts to bubble in his chest as he inspects the archon in front of him. He cups the other’s chin and tilts his face, and again, nothing comes out of the archon. Not a single protest. “Excellent,” he whispers, and he proceeds to pluck out one of Barbatos’ feathers from his wings.
Nothing.
Dottore laughs gleefully and picks up the clipboard that he has dropped in the midst of his inspection. The subject has successfully been neutralised. It no longer makes an attempt to escape. He looks up from his notes and glances at Barbatos.
“Barbatos, use your power,” he commands.
He waits for the power of anemo to flow, but all he gets is Barbatos staring ahead emotionlessly.
The only flaw in this experiment is that the subject is now incapable of forming any kind of reaction, he writes, using his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Adjustments must be made for the subject to be capable of processing and accepting instructions.
➳
It has been months since Xiao has seen Lord Barbatos—or Venti, which is his current preferable name. It’s not like he expects the Anemo Archon to appear in Liyue, but the archon has the tendency to stop by every now and then just to see either him or Rex Lapis. The wind has been absent lately too, and despite Xiao’s vision being a replica, he can feel the slight change in anemo whenever he uses his powers to fight off enemies.
Did something happen to Venti? He hopes not. Even though the archon has the natural ability to make him feel slightly awkward and irritated with his rhymes, he genuinely enjoys his presence. There are some nights where Venti makes a random appearance in Wangshu Inn, only to play him the flute that he has given to him as a gift. Xiao has carefully kept the flute so that he can hear him play it again, but it seems like today might be another day with no music.
“Give him time,” Rex Lapis had said to him the other day, his eyes filled with understanding. “He may have fallen into another slumber due to his weakening powers.”
If that was the case, then Xiao didn’t mind. He can wait until his next awakening. He’s just worried if something bad happened to him, but maybe he shouldn’t, since it’s normal for the Anemo Archon to sleep for decades and even centuries. He’s been told that Venti is unable to receive his strength from his followers because of his lack of ruling. So the archon ends up having to depend on sleep instead.
Xiao’s busy patrolling the area outside of Liyue Harbour, when he feels a powerful presence approaching at top speed. He whirls around just in time to look at the source, and his eyes widened when he sees the familiar white wings, heading straight towards the harbour.
It’s Venti—no, Lord Barbatos in his archon form. He’s—why does it look like he’s ready to attack?
As much as Xiao doesn’t want to harm the archon, his priority is protecting the people, so he can’t take any risks. He knows he’ll never win against Barbatos, but he has to do everything to stop him right now until Rex Lapis arrives (if the archon is truly a threat). He focuses on his powers and teleports in between the route Barbatos is taking. Muttering an apology, he swings his spear, and he manages to stop him by knocking him to the ground.
He grimaces when he sees the archon’s body slamming into the dirt, and he quickly dashes towards him. “Lord Barbatos, why—”
The words disappear from his throat the moment the Anemo Archon pushes himself into a standing position. Whoever was standing in front of Xiao right now wasn’t Barbatos nor the Venti he knew. His movements are robotic, and the eyes that were once green are now magenta and lifeless. The end of his braids, the tattoos on his body—all of them had turned into the same colour as his irises.
“Ven—Lord Barbatos,” Xiao says, his voice coming out in a whisper as he stares at him in shock. “What happened to you?”