Chapter Text
When Childe had been dragged (he jumped rather gleefully) into the abyssal portal that opened up in the middle of an important Fatui-Harbinger-related meeting. He had expected to be taken into the depths of the Abyss, perhaps for a rematch against the monsters that dwelled there. He had happily gone along (jumped in without hesitation), and it certainly wasn’t because he had been dreadfully bored of the endless scheming of his comrades. La Signora had just returned with the Geo Gnosis and Childe in tow. He pushed thoughts of a certain Wangshen Funeral Consultant to the back of his mind.
What Childe hadn’t accounted for, was that this Abyssal portal wasn’t a normal rift, it was unstable and didn’t actually connect to the Abyss. It connected to an unknown region, and it dumped the very angry Scaramouche and himself into that world before closing behind them.
“Well…shit.” Childe managed to say as Scaramouche shot daggers at him with his eyes and shoved at him roughly. Brushing himself off as he stood up from where he had been sprawled against the paved ground that was littered with trash.
Scaramouche muttered curses under his breath. “That’s all you have to say…OH SHIT?” Scaramouche’s voice was rising in volume as he regained his senses. “Oh archons what did I even expect, you practically jumped in without any knowledge of where this might of led to.” Scaramouche gritted out, a look of disdain gracing his features.
“That being said, why are you here Scaramouche? I doubt you would have followed me in.” Childe grinned.
“I didn’t, you were all the way through the portal when the rest of us were being pulled in.” Scaramouche scoffed, tipping his hat to look around their surroundings for the first time. It seemed they were in some sort of alley, it vaguely reminded him of Fontaine.
“Then where did everyone else land?” Childe wondered aloud. The other Harbingers were nowhere in sight, not that Childe particularly cared about what happened to the others. The Eleventh Harbinger may be reckless at times, but he wasn’t stupid, they were currently in an unknown region, with no contact with her Majesty or the First.
Suddenly a large crash could be heard, and the two glanced at each other and rushed out towards the street. A Ruin Grader was standing up, just having been activated. The crowd of people were surrounding the machine in curiosity and caution. Childe could see a few of them holding up a strange little box, eyes glued to the Ruin Machine in front of them. It reminded him of how people using a Kamera looked. As the two took in the scene, they noticed inhuman-like creatures among normal-looking civilians. Some had strange colors of skin, others had horns or extra limbs. The strangeness of the people in the crowd wasn’t lost on the two, but the Ruin Machine was more of a priority.
As it powered up, Childe summoned his bow, eyes gleaming with the promise of battle. Scaramouche also seemed on edge but wasn’t about to involve himself in an unnecessary fight. It seemed that wherever they were they retained their abilities. Childe felt the power of his vision radiating from where he had it secured on his hip. As the Ruin Grader finished powering up and swung its mechanical arms around, aiming for the civilians who quickly started fleeing from the machine. Childe's grin grew wider and his eyes lit up as he notched a hydro arrow and let it fly. Striking the Ruin Machine in its center ‘eye’, applying riptide.
Running towards the machine as the crowd screams in terror running away from it, Childe summoned his hydro blades, Foul Legacy: Raging Tide, and slashed at the weak points in the machine's legs. Dodging the machine's missile attacks and the whipping of its upper limbs, Tartaglia’s entire body thrummed with excitement. He brought it down to its knees. Letting loose its laser beam the Ruin Grader started destroying the surrounding buildings, injuring some civilians in the process.
From what Childe could see they were all minor, so he wasn't too worried, his battle however was being rather rudely interrupted by people in bizarre outfits who started running around, failing miserably at trying to get a hit on the machine. Childe rolled his eyes and went back to slashing at the Grader's weak points, letting loose “Havoc—Obliteration” Childe’s lips twitched upwards as it hit, perfectly timed. Jumping back, Childe released his hydro swords, bow solidifying back into his hands.
He went to aim at the machine once more, a few more hits and it’d be down for good. A stranger in bright colored garments attempted to grab at his arm, yelling something that he didn’t bother listening to, he quickly bashed his bow into their face and kicked them in the stomach sending them flying into the side of a building. Refocused on claiming his victory the yells of other costumed people around him were drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears. The thrill of battle consumed him as he released arrow after arrow at the machine, finally rushing back in to end this fight. “Foul Legacy: Raging Tide” he shouted gleefully as he brought it down in one last killing strike.
Taking down a Ruin Grader was not a big deal for Tartaglia, he wasn’t a Fatui Harbinger for nothing. He hadn’t even needed to activate his delusion, he had hoped it would’ve put up more of a fight. His fun had ended all too soon.
As the Ruin Grader collapsed, he glanced back at Scaramouche only to see his unamused face as he leaned against the side of a building. The strange people who had been running around yelling while he fought the robot were approaching him once again. He sighed and put his bow away. Holding his hands up, even Childe could see when people were going to get hostile. He glanced towards Scaramouche only to see him covering his mouth with a barely concealed smirk.
Aizawa was enjoying his day off, for once he wasn’t working a night patrol that would lead him into the wee hours of the morning only to get a few hours of shut-eye before teaching the promising but exhausting Class 1-A during the day. So he, Aizawa Shouta Pro-Hero Eraserhead dared to say, that he was having a nice, relaxed, enjoyable day out loud with a heavy sigh. With no whiny self-destructive children to watch over and no annoying coworkers that seemed to never get bored of their own voices. This was his first day off in what felt like years. In what probably was years.
Unsurprisingly, Aizawa really couldn’t catch a break. So when he got the call of an unknown hero fighting an unknown villain slash monster slash machine, their words not his, he groaned quietly to himself and began heading towards the site of the incident. He hadn’t expected to find an oddly dressed foreigner fighting a giant robot, that was probably a few stories high at the very least, alone. Or that when another hero attempted to intervene presumably to ask whether the foreigner had a license to operate in Japan. That hero’s face was quickly smashed in with a bow and with a kick was sent flying into a building so hard the concrete cracked.
Having seen enough he activated his quirk, which did…nothing. The foreigner continued with his onslaught of attacks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a strangely dressed boy with a large hat watching the scene with a mixture of annoyance and disinterest. The kid had what looked like modified traditional Japanese clothing, and a strange sense of fashion. As Aizawa turned slightly while keeping the foreigner in his peripheral to get a better view, the kid immediately looked directly into his eyes and glared coldly.
Aizawa felt a chill down his spine and shifted his focus back on the foreigner, who, in the short time he had taken his attention off him had summoned water blades rushing back into battle.
It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, the manic grin on the man’s face made him uncomfortable. Aizawa had the gut feeling he shouldn’t interfere just yet. Low-ranking heroes were attempting and struggling to make so much as a dent on the machine, and were quickly blasted at with missiles and lasers, or knocked off their feet from the whirling attacks of the machine. Yet the stranger skillfully dodged each and every attack and did immense damage while he was at it.
Aizawa counted at least two quirks with this guy, a water quirk, and some sort of summoning quirk, he wondered if the bow was some sort of gadget or support item.
The fight ended quickly, and Aizawa watched as the bow in the man's hands disappeared and he held his hands up towards the heroes approaching him. Aizawa hung back, allowing the patrolling heroes to take care of the foreigner, while he approached the boy with the big hat, he had some questions. He intended to get answers.
Childe was roughly handcuffed, the forced smile on his face twitching as they announced he was under arrest for assaulting a hero. In his opinion, that kick could hardly be called assault, it was—well it was just a friendly kick and certainly not assault. When he was promptly asked for a hero’s license he simply let out a laugh, quieting when he saw they were in fact, not joking. The confused look on his face gave them all the information they needed.
He was led to a large metal carriage, he looked back at Scaramouche who laughed at him and gave him a condescending wave. The asshole wasn’t even going to help him out of being detained, bastard.
Childe could see a long-dark-haired man approach Scaramouche. The same one he had briefly noticed observing him earlier, Scaramouche’s taunting of him abruptly ended and the scowl on his face was enough to make anyone else flinch. Anyone but Childe who saw it much more often than he would care to admit, though he supposed the Balladeer’s subordinates got the worst of it. His view was obstructed as he was loaded into the car, which he had overheard someone call it.
The language was a close Inazuman dialect, not awfully common, yet not so rare that Tartaglia wouldn’t be able to understand it. All the harbingers were well versed in the languages of Teyvat, battles were much more fun when you could understand your enemy anyways. From Teyvat's common language to obscure regional dialects. The Fatui might be characterized as a military organization, but they were still diplomats.
As the car lurched forward, Childe’s eyes widened and he sat there in awe for a few moments before getting a hold of himself. Of course, he could have easily taken down these half-rate officers, and those impotent adults in costume, but he doubted that he was at liberty to make a scene. And the higher-ranked harbingers would probably have his head if he made them clean up his mess.
As the ride in the car continued, Childe wondered if there was any way to bring this technology back to Snezhnaya, it would make traversing the continent much easier and quicker. With a machine like this, they could cross a nation in days, instead of weeks. They could strike at one place, and strike only days after at a completely different side of the country! Their enemies wouldn’t even be able to send adequate forces.
Childe wasn’t a schemer, that job was left to his coworkers, but even he couldn’t deny the possibilities that this kind of technology could make feasible. With all these thoughts floating around Childe’s head he hadn’t realized that the car had stopped outside a tall building. The door swung open, and he was roughly dragged out of the car. They really could’ve asked him to get out himself.
Childe soon found himself in a bland room with a mirror and a metal table to which his handcuffs were chained, despite how it may have looked, the cuffs were as fragile as glass in his hands. If he really wanted to, he could shatter them and parade out the front door leaving blood and bodies in his path, of course, he wasn’t going to do that! He smiled to himself, mentally patting himself on the back for sticking to diplomacy.
This room was obviously an interrogation room he thought to himself. Of course, something as tame as this could hardly intimidate Childe, in his homeland a room like this was practically a daycare. In fact, he could see Arlechino making a facility like this for her orphanage.
All he could do was wait, which was fine with him, because quite a bit had happened, and he needed some time to think things through.
The ragged man that Scaramouche had caught staring at him earlier started to approach him. The man was disheveled and dressed in rather—distasteful clothing. The man cleared his throat “Hey kid, do you know that man?” he asked pointing towards Tartaglia getting loaded into that metal carriage.
Scaramouche turned up his nose at the unkempt man, “I’m not a child, and what if I do?” he glared. Scaramouche was practically seething at being mistaken for a child, he would never live it down if any of the others—especially Tartaglia found out.
“Then I’ll have to take you in for questioning.” the man said in a tired voice as if he really didn’t want to be having this conversation right now.
That made two of them then, Scaramouche narrowed his eyes and replied, “Under whose authority?” a subtle pry for information of who exactly was in charge.
“My own authority as Pro-hero Eraserhead,” the man—Eraserhead responded, Scaramouche let out a snort. Waving his hand in front of his face, he laughed for an unreasonable amount of time. Ignoring the death stare from the sleep-deprived man waiting for him to finish.
“Pro-hero,” he wheezed in laughter, “Eraser—Head” he mocked. Really, what a ridiculous name. In his centuries of existence, he had never heard of such an absolutely idiotic name. Scaramouche hoped for the “hero’s” own sake that he didn’t name himself.
This so-called, “Eraserhead” grimaced. “Yes, now I’m going to assume that you do in fact know that man.”
Scaramouche decided that following this Pro-hero would be in his best interest if only so he could laugh at his stupid name. More importantly, being separated from Tartaglia was probably not the best idea, and when they reunited with the others, there was no way Scaramouche was going to be held responsible for whatever stupid things the Eleventh would say.