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There weren’t a lot of times that Childe is caught off guard, at least in the middle of battle. He watches every movement of his opponent, every change in the environment. He was also used to battling all sorts of individuals, from regular citizens with weapons to the strongest of vision holders. If they had a debt to pay back to the bank, Childe’s current mission was to go collect. So there he was, collecting, and maybe having a bit too much fun with the current vision holder he was fighting. Their geo vision sent the ground cracking as chunks burst up and fissures opened up. They had excellent control of their elemental powers, being a catalyst user. The Harbinger got a little too excited, allowing himself to rush forward in an attempt to fight at close range where he had the advantage. He wanted to see what this powerful person would do to keep him at bay. Rushing in was always the Harbinger’s weakness.
With a smirk, they broke the ground open beneath him and though he dug his blades into the wall to stop his descent, they crumbled the walls and let him fall into the limitless darkness below. His eyes dilated as he thought back to a time long ago where he also once fell into what seemed like a limitless darkness. A mere child who experienced a true hell that forever changed him. Sweat pooled in his palms as the casm closed, leaving him to fall in total darkness. He screamed as the memories began to surface. A guttural cry of anguish and rage.
He saw, in the rushing darkness, a vision of his fall before. His body, so small and fragile, that it had broken upon impact. He remembered the pain. He had felt it many times after, the breaking of bones, but it had never hurt like that time. Nothing felt the same as that time. He felt empty in places, parts of him that shrank and huddled away because they would never be able to fully handle that time spent destroying his innocence and humanity. Skirk had saved him, but she had also doomed him to become the weapon masquerading as a man. That was how he survived the abyss, but that is what led to his rejection from his family and hometown. He was seen as a strangely haunted boy with a murderous anger problem. He was trouble, no matter where he went. Trouble on the battlefield for the enemy, trouble in the fatui order for his attitude, trouble in his everyday life for his status and lack of certain ‘basic human emotions’. He was trouble, but he was strong.
He could feel it this time, the difference in air rushing at him as the ground grew close. With a well timed thrust of his blade, he offset the impact of his fall. His knee hit the ground, sending vibrations of pain up his thigh and back, but he would live. He was not like what he used to be. He was strong. Childe sighed, looking around trying to adjust his eyes to the endless darkness. The human mind liked to play with the senses in the darkness. He remembered in the abyss, the way his mind would create monsters in the darkness to where he couldn’t tell if it was real or not. So he would run away even from the monsters of his mind, constantly tired and shaking. Skirk would not help him with his mind, just in making his body stronger. So where he grew strong physically, his mind had deteriorated and twisted trying to salvage the boy from self-destruction. It left him unhinged, in more ways than one.
It was no use, his eyes were useless here in the current situation he was in. So he closed his eyes, and began to walk forward with his arms out. He heard the distant roar of an underground river so he headed that way, as all water should lead out to the ocean and he could find his way from there. The dull sound of faraway rushing water let him focus. He put out his hands and followed the echoing noise, ignoring the strange growls and hissing that played as if behind him. Childe knew there was nothing there, he felt no killing intent upon him. He ignored them, just as he ignored the way his hands trembled as his fingers tentatively knocked into themselves as he stretched them out. He was just tired. There was nothing that could scare the Harbinger, especially not memories.
He couldn’t tell how long he was walking. He shouldn’t have been out of breath, but the further the tunnel narrowed in on him, the harsher his breath came out. It was irrational, that a tight space in the darkness would still cause him to begin panicking. He was not in the abyss, there were no monsters waiting for him to corner himself so that they could eat him alive. He would not be melted down by acidic saliva or sliced into chunks if he stopped moving to calm down. So why didn’t he stop? Why did he, despite that voice in his head demanding him to think clearly, feel his movements become jerky and clumsy. He knew those visions were in his head. His eyes were closed, so of course they weren’t real. So then why didn’t he just open his eyes and make them go away? Was he afraid that if he tried, only to realize they didn’t go away or his eyes were already open this whole time, that he wouldn’t be able to handle it? Ridiculous. Childe grew stronger every day. There was no way he couldn’t take down those creatures in a heartbeat. He was strong. They would no longer terrify and hunt him. His nails dug into the rock, breaking his nails and grinding the skin of his fingertips into the moist, rough rock. The river was so close, the air hummed with hydro.
Monsters leaned towards him. He let out a shuddering breath as his face felt warm, damp air. His hair brushing against his forehead from the breeze. He was near a river, the air would be moving much more from the water currents. His throat bobbed as he felt a scrape run over his arm and the warmth of blood oozed into his sleeve. He reached out, running his hands along a sharpened edge of a rock. But his eyes did not see that, instead they saw his fingers caressing a long talon. With a hissing breath, he pulled his hand back and stumbled away. There was no light in this new open area, of course, so he didn’t realize his mistake until the ground gave away beneath him and cold water smacked into his back. The shock forced his mouth open in a gasp, just as his head went under water.
Childe’s lungs burned as sea creatures wrapped around his torso and tossed him around. No, he thought, not sea creatures but the current. He tried to get his head together as his lungs screamed for breath. Childe could feel his body bruising and puncturing as he was tumbled and thrashed in the strong, relentless current. The sharp rocks turned into gaping maws that crunched on him. The water suffocating him was the thick saliva of monsters trying to swallow him down. So many visions pressed in on him, as if feeding on the helplessness as his body was pulled around until he didn’t know where the surface of the water even was.
His heart was racing and colorful spots filled his vision. His breath picked up, flooding his lungs with water and the occasional chance to spit up water when he broke the surface. He could have handled this, but his brain was busy conjuring demons and their sickening taunts. No, once again his brain and the visions it produced would not save him. Only instincts and that rage that sat heavy in his gut would keep Childe alive.
With a scream that bubbled from his mouth, the darkness was cut open by a burst of electro. The walls cracked, sending debris into the water with giant splashes that bounced against the armor of Childe’s Foul Legacy transformation. Angry, animalistic growling and screaming came from the creature that called itself Tartaglia, number eleven of the Fatui Harbingers. Right now, he was not Tartaglia. Right now, despite what he would ever admit to anyone else, he was the scared boy, Ajax, again. He lashed out, collapsing the walls and ceiling of the tunnel as he thrust his polearm out at the invisible monsters that dissipated from his blade like the mirage they were. Every taunting sound made Childe lash out with a snarl, deeped and distorted from the filter of his abyssal powers. He continued until his giant form was caved in completely by rocks, a safe place where even his nightmares stayed outside. His brain still told him they were waiting out there for him, waiting for him to leave so they could haunt him again.
They waited every night for his dreams, so they were used to the lulling safety Childe thought he could build for himself. He was just a broken boy, who was now a broken man. Curled up in the fetal position like a child, Ajax sobbed in the darkness once more. His voice sounded like the painful cries of a dying monster as he screamed for everything that he kept inside of him. For everything he lost and would never get back. His sense of safety gone with the child too young to have feared for his life every waking second for so many years, years that continued even to this day. The strong don’t need to fear, but fear was what drove Childe. So how could he ever really become strong? It was a goal to be the strongest in the world at the end of it all, because until he was the last standing, Childe would never be able to overcome the nightmares that clung to his nape and wrapped around his brain. Only death would save him, but even then Childe felt like the abyss would come calling once more to drag him down and complete his Foul Legacy, finishing his descent into madness and making him a true abyssal monster once and for all. He feared what he saw, but more than that he feared what he had become to himself and those he loved around him. The isolation it brought him. The brokenness.
Eventually Childe sat up, unfeeling like a hollow doll. He pushed his heel into the ground, electro building on his body and cracking against the rocks, turning them into dust in the small areas they hit. In one burst that no human eye could follow, the crack of thunder broken through the isolated rock just like Childe. Rock disintegrated and broke apart from the hot static lance the monster wielded, until there was only the sky and the ocean surrounding him. With a yell that sent birds soaring away in terror and seemed to overpower the crashing of waves, Childe let out the last bit of what had built up inside him in that self-made cage.
He floated to the cliff edge and felt his body collapse as foul legacy’s transformation ended. He let his eyes close, taking a moment to breathe in the salty air. He was alive, he reminded himself, and he would grow stronger. Stronger until the visions went away. Stronger until he no longer had to melt down when it built up to his breaking point. He would fight and grow so unbelievably strong that even his mind could no longer threaten him. For now, he took a moment to breathe and let the swelling of his eyes go down. It would be a while before he made his way back, but he would never let anyone know his weakness. He once again pushed those memories down, forcing himself to repress them, as not even he could know his weakness. He couldn’t have any and still hold the same confidence. Only in his dreams would he ever be weak again, and dreams weren’t real.