A Worthy Replacement

Chapter 24 - Toy Factory

"now now teucer, Y/N is too old for you," tartaglia scolded him.

"aww," teucer said sadly. "but... miss Y/N is so pretty!"

"you can admire her beauty, but you can't marry her," tartaglia laughed and let go of you. "come here for a second."

tartaglia leaned down, whispering something in teucer's ear that made him laugh and move back after he was done. "okay big brother!"

you gave the traveling duo a confused look to which they shrugged. "what did you tell him, tartaglia?"

"something," he said mischeviously, making you give him a blank stare. 

"i'll be leaving now, i have something i need to do," you said.

"aww... do you really have to go miss," teucer asked you with puppy eyes. 

"unfortunately yes," you said. "i only came to see the ba- your brother's speech. i have to go do something."

"okay," teucer said sadly.

"don't worry teucer, you'll see Y/N in snezhnaya," tartaglia said, trying to cheer up his sulking brother. 

"really?"

"yes really," tartaglia said, then looked over to you. "see you later."

you nodded, "yep."

after that, you simply walked away, not wanting to mingle in their business. it's not my business, you reminded yourself. i'm only here to learn to control my vision.

then, a snow owl flew in from above your head, its cries echoing around the area. it landed on your shoulder, a letter attached to its ankle. it was from mother.

"hello my dearest Y/N, please send me an update today. i'd like to hear about your progress."

you grabbed a notepad and a pen from your pocket, jotting down a quick reply and attaching it to the owl's ankle. after giving it a treat and a small pat, you sent it on its way back to snezhnaya. 

well... now i'm bored as hell. should i practice here?

you looked around, using your geo momentarily to detect if anything was around by using the ground. nothing but foliage, good. 

then, you began the cycle of playing with your geo chunks again, twirling it around above your palm and molding it into shapes. that was until you heard a very distant boom. 

"boom"? that's not good. when you looked in the direction of the sound, it was the direction tartaglia went. oh no.

you crushed the chunks into dust, running in the direction of the sound. wait, don't tell me- that toy factory is dottore's research. there's no way.

dottore, while doing checkups on you, was always muttering about a research facility in liyue. you even saw a map in his laboratory that had it marked out, and this seemed oddly familiar to you the more you ran closer.

you heard rumbling from inside, and when you got in, you saw tartaglia in his foul legacy transformation, teucer was counting facing away while the traveler was blocking incoming rocks from hitting the kid. ruin guards began to litter the place, more and more of them coming alive.

shit, tartaglia shouldn't be overusing his state right now. he needs to be in recovery. all this for his brother, huh?

you kicked it into gear, taking out one ruin guard that snuck up behind tartaglia. he looked behind and saw you standing ontop of its core, your dagger shoved all the way in its core. you gave him a simple nod, and he reciprocated it.