Chapter Text
“What?!” He flexed his shoulders. “Relaaax, Lumie, you saw how I handled the Ruin Guards that day.”
“That's a…” Lumine facepalmed. As Childe turned around with Polar Star in his hand, the empty socket in the middle of the Ruin Machine’s mechanical body flashed bright yellow as the metallic limbs within began to click and whirr in coordination with one another.
“Ruin Hunter…”
Childe whirled around, his polearm extending to full length in time to catch the pointed stinger of the Ruin Hunter. The clash sent a shockwave that bent the grass around them as Childe’s eyes widened. A swear barely left his lips before he dodged back as another one of the Hunter’s arms extended into a lance and swiped right where he was standing. The sharpened metal clipped the tips of the blades of grass, narrowly missing his thigh.
Lumine charged in and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Childe, the two of them entering their battle stances as the Hunter shuddered to life. The jet on the bottom of its chassis fired up as it blasted off from the ground, hovering at a height dangerously out of reach for the both of them, but close enough for its long appendages to strike.
“Time to put that bow to use, soldier boy.” Lumine and Childe dashed out in two separate directions as a barrage of missiles pummeled the hillside where they were standing.
“And no Delusions!” The Traveler clambered up the tree trunk and lunged from bough to bough, before leaping out and slashing downward at the clanker. Her sword barely grazed its metal skin as she fell just short of their opponent, the Hunter dodging out of the way and floating up higher out of her reach. As Lumine hit the ground rolling, the Machine was already charging up a counterattack, two of its outer vestigial arms disconnecting to form floating gatling guns that began to spin.
“Well, if you wanna play it like that...” Childe nocked an arrow and opened fire, his Hydro-infused arrows exploding violently outwardly in compressed torrents that knocked the Machine around, groaning and sputtering violently as it turned to him, its singular glaring eye flashing threateningly as it extended out its two lances again.
Grinning at the prospect of a melee, Childe extended out his polearm to full length and began flashing it back and forth in arcs of cyan blue. The Hunter advanced on him but instantly met his impregnable defense, the bladed end of his glaive clashing and ringing out every time it made contact with the Hunter’s lances. Even offguard and without his Delusion active yet, he was dancing with it into a corner.
The Hunter began to see through his attack pattern and rocketed up even further into the air out of reach, completely disengaging from the melee as the pointed ends of its blades sank back into its disembodied arms and it began spinning, letting loose another barrage of missiles. Childe was ready to slash them all out of the sky before a series of Electro discs flew to intercept them before he could, exploding them midair and creating a smokescreen.
“Ajax! Boost me!”
“B- Huh?!” He turned to Lumine and spotted her running to him at a full sprint. Without a moment to think, he knelt down and put his hands together to form a small platform. Her shoes hit his palms and using the strength imbued unto him by his Vision, he flung her upwards. The Traveler caught on the back of the Hunter, jamming her sword into a weak spot and hanging there as she clung to it for dear life while it rocked back and forth. As the machine fought to throw it off of her like a bull fighting a matador, Ajax brought his bow back to his hands magically and tried to take aim. While in any other situation he’d have fired without hesitation, he wavered here. What if he hit her by accident?
The jet thrusters on the Hunter’s bottom side kicked up as the machine seemed to realize it wasn’t able to throw her off. In a move that surprised even Childe, the Hunter put its thrusters to full throttle before suddenly barrelling straight into the tree with Lumine in-between them. The machine crashed straight through the tree at full force, splintering the branches as the upper half of the tree practically disintegrated into sawdust and crumbled under the weight of the machine. The Traveler’s body went tumbling along with the debris, rolling downhill before coming to a stop at the dirt road.
For the slightest fraction of a second, Ajax’s heart sunk straight through the ground and burrowed into a place deep, deep into the earth, before Lumine clawed back up and coughed, clutching her chest. The Traveler looked up and glared at him. “Ajax, FOCUS! This is like a 2-minute threat!”
“Me?! Focus?!” Childe demanded as he turned his attention back to the Ruin Hunter. He couldn’t find it. “I’m not the one getting-”
A menacing warble sent tremors down his body as he realized the Ruin Hunter was floating right behind him. Childe turned just in time to see the machine with its lances drawn, about to slash downwards and rip up turf.
How did something so big sneak up on him?! Instinct kicked down the door and took the reins. Childe managed to dodge the swipes and strikes of the killer automaton through a desperate dance of acrobatics as he leaped back, flipped and did everything he could to avoid getting torn to shreds by the oncoming storm of metal. Inches away, grass, stone and soil all went flying in a deadly, chaotic mess that he declined to be a part of.
As the Hunter began to slow down and lose its initial momentum, Childe saw an opening and began taking potshots at the machine, firing up and down at its chassis and knocking back further and further to create some distance between it and them. With each arrow, a splash of Hydro and Electro burst out onto the Hunter’s body, putting dents in it as it Electro-charged the machine’s body. Alas, this wasn’t like a Snezhnayan engine that could be disabled so easily.
Now at a good, breathable distance, Childe quickly stole a glance at Lumine who was running back to join the fight, sword in hand. He supposed it took a lot more than getting bodyslammed through a tree trunk to take down the great Traveler. He looked back at the Hunter to find that it was still at the distance he had left it at, but seeing the state it was in sent a cold stab of dread through his chest.
Three of the Hunter’s arms all grabbed onto the fourth at the elbow and forearm, as though it was aiming a weapon. The mechanical pieces extended once again into a thin metal drill bit, and Childe realized what was happening too late. As the Hunter pivoted forward with lance outstretched like a swimmer taking to water, the propulsion jets fired up and his enemy began to zoom forward at breakneck speeds like an arrow in flight.
Childe was about to dig deep into himself and open a door in his psyche he thought he’d kept locked away for Lumine's sake when a Geo construct shot out of the ground in front of him and blocked the way.
The Hunter came crashing through the rock and stone and zooming over Childe, dazed and confused as it tumbled across the dirt road, rolling and breaking against the hardened topsoil. Pieces and chunks of the metal came tearing right off the frame, gears and oil leaking and spurting out in random places as the machine thrashed and grabbed at random.
As its golden, singular pulsar for an optical nerve glared at him, the machine aimed its lance at him once again. Its thrusters kicked and sputtered weakly as it began to slowly jump towards him. He didn’t even need to raise his weapon as parts of the Hunter began to forcefully disassemble from itself.
Behind it, Lumine stood with her feet planted firmly on the ground as a miniature, condensed vortex churned and howled in her open palm, drafts of air being sucked into the growing sphere of pure Anemo energy in a powerful vacuum. Even as the jets on the Hunter’s rear went into full blast, fighting the pull of the handheld hurricane, bits and parts of it began to rip and tear off of itself, flying past the Traveler and embedding themselves in the dirt until only its ugly grey mechanical interior remained.
Knowing his cue when he saw it, the Harbinger nocked another arrow and drew the bow back with all his strength, his Delusion supporting his efforts as the arrowhead imbued itself with both Electro and Hydro. Exhaling, Childe let the arrow loose as it zoomed right into the dead centre of the Ruin Hunter’s eye socket. There was a brilliant flash of light, before the tension in all the Hunter’s joints ceased and the life faded from its body as its jet sputtered before failing too.
If there was any chance of it reactivating, that chance was no longer there.
Childe’s chest heaved as his gloved hand quickly felt around his belt. He had no reason to worry about the Vision, but the Delusion could overload itself from overuse. Though he hadn’t realized it earlier, the Delusion had activated itself during the intensity of the moment earlier when Lumine had been in trouble. Taking care of the Delusion was important, lest it overload his body instead. A sigh escaped his chest when his fingertips met the pristine, smooth surface of the Electro Delusion. It hadn’t rusted yet.
Lumine strode over, flourishing her sword before sheathing it and shooting him a smug grin. “So?”
“Are you okay?” Childe slung his bow back over his shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m… Fine.” Lumine groaned as she flexed her back. "Cut in a few places though."
“You- You went,” He gestured to the tree that was now split in twine right down the middle where Lumine and the Hunter had gone through. “Through a tree.”
“Uhuh. I think I’ll be okay, I’ve taken way worse.” Lumine rubbed her eyes. “Now help me move that thing off the road. I think we should flag this out to the Guild when we head back to the city.”
After a few minutes of clearing up the road with both their superhuman strength, they dragged their feet back to the campfire where they promptly collapsed next to the fire and heaved a collective sigh.