The Second Archon War: THE ADVENTURES OF LIGHTNING PRINCESS AMI III: AN UNKNOWN SIBLING?! LIGHTNING PRINCESS AMI DISCOVERS SUMERU’S DARK SECRET!

THE ADVENTURES OF LIGHTNING PRINCESS AMI III

AN UNKNOWN SIBLING?! LIGHTNING PRINCESS AMI DISCOVERS SUMERU’S DARK SECRET!

The deck of the ship creaked under her feet, and Ami balanced on the balls of her toes, squinting her one eye at her foe. To the side, a man lifted a single maple leaf, then let it fall. Slowly, it drifted, flitting back and forth, until it touched the polished wooden boards. 

As soon as the leaf struck, Ami shot forth like a bolt of lightning, her katana ringing against her opponents steel, only to grunt and be launched back by the counter blow.

“Ha! Not bad, kid!” Captain Beidu laughed. The tall pirate queen could have been Captain Bukdu’s twin, though with slightly different dress, and looking a few years younger. The biggest difference was in how the two women dressed, with Beidu wearing an old style Chinese martial arts style uniform, and Bukdu usually dressed in rough coveralls for her nominal job as captain of a fishing vessel. 

Ami firmed her resolve, and teleported. No need to hold back here. Somehow, Beidu saw it coming, just as her Earth Bet counterpart always did, and once more parried Amis’ blow. The two of them exploded back and forth across the deck of the Crux, which was the large three-masted junk Uncle Morax had commissioned to take Ami back to Inazuma. 

As the two battled, Mona groaned off to the side as she clutched at the railing. Despite having a Hydro Vision, the seeress had been violently sea sick the entire eight day voyage. Her eyes had dark bags under them, and her face was looking gaunt and hollow. It hadn’t even been stormy or particularly rough, with only a few clouds and light rain with a stiff breeze most of the way. 

Mona had put aside her skin tight magestus outfit, and was instead dressed in a shapeless brown linen dress, with her hair pulled back in a simple bun to keep it out of her constant vomiting. She glanced balefully over at Ami and Beidu’s duel, then turned back and dry heaved over the side again. 

In contrast, high up in the rat lines, Fischl posed dramatically, clinging with one hand to a rope, the other shading her gaze. She’d also swapped out her garb, though her clothing had been manufactured by Ami, and looked straight out of the Golden Age of Piracy. She had on an enormous tricorn cap with a large purple plume, and a large coat and lacy shirt all in black and purple, with golden brocade over the whole thing. 

“Land ho!” Fischl called, pointing with one finger extended towards the horizon. 

Ami and Beidu paused in their duel, looking up as Fischl took off her hat and waved it excitedly. “There, three points off the larboard bow!”

“I can see it!” Bennett agreed excitedly. He too was dressed in practical garb, though his was much simpler, consisting of canvas trousers, a blue striped canvas shirt, and a red bandana with his ever present goggles. 

“Excellent eyes, Frau Schiffskapitän,” Oz said, shading his own gaze with a dark wing. He had on a little tricorn cap with a skull and crossbones neatly stitched on it, and was perched atop Bennett’s head. 

“Hey, we made good time!” Beidu said happily. She slapped Ami on the back. “Next stop, Port Ormos!” 

“Bwah?” Mona said, looking up from retching over the side. She muzzily scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “That…that can’t be right. You…you said…Port Ormos. That’s…that’s not in Inazuma. That’s in…Sumeru.”

“Right! We’re stopping in Port Oromos to drop off some cargo and pick up coffee and cocoa, then heading straight on to Ritou!” Beidu explained. 

Mona groaned and collapsed to the deck, twitching slightly. “You…you mean…I…I have…how many more days?”

“It’s only been eight days, Mona,” Ami said, frowning down at her friend. “It’s a three-week voyage. Another thirteen to Ritou in Inazuma. That was always the plan.”

In response, Mona curled up into a ball and started shivering. Behind Ami, Fischl and Bennett swung down the rat lines to crouch over their friend.

“Um, maybe we should send her back to Mondstadt on a caravan,” Bennett offered, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. 

“No,” Mona groaned, struggling to rise. “I…I’ll be fine. How long are we in port for?”

“We’ll be in port for at least two weeks,” Beidu said, giving Mona a rueful smile. “But the passage between Liyue Harbor and Ormis is all coastal trawling. And we’ve had good weather. The passage between Inazuma and Ormis? Deep water the whole way. That’s where you get the big rollers and kraken!” 

Mona groaned and put an arm over her eyes. “Maybe there will be someone with the Akademiya who can prescribe me some medication for my ailment…”

“I know!” Ami said, and the others turned to her. “We can just go ask Nahida for some medication in Sumeru City! She’s always been a good friend, we chat, er, write letters all the time, and share cat…pictures!” 

The others all blinked at her, with the glass blade playing samurai who had officiated the duel earlier developing a sudden coughing fit. He managed to compose himself, then cleared his throat. “Pardon, Miss Ami, but, ah…you do realize you are speaking of the Dendro Archon, yes?”

“...she’s probably actually on a first-name basis with Lord Buer,” Mona said, squinting up at Ami. Beidu and the swordsman gave her incredulous looks, and Mona sighed and put her arm back over her face. “Fine, don’t believe me. But if we run across a single sea monster, you will.”

Ami suddenly grinned viciously. “Then I can draw my mothers blade, and smite the greatest foes! She used to send me to the Narukami Trench to slay the more aggressive monsters! Clara and I would compete to see who could slay the greatest number of foes!”

“Isn’t your mother a seamstress?” Beidu asked. Ami gave her a baffled look, and Beidu shrugged. “I mean, you spent the first day sewing you, Fischel, and Benny here clothes. I just figured…well, I mean, you’re pretty good with a sword, but-”

“She is better than merely ‘pretty good’,” the samurai said with a shake of his head. “I have never met such a young master of the Origin Bladework school. It is almost as if she actually were trained by the hand of the Raiden Shogun herself.”

Ami puffed herself up, and Fischl tittered. Bennett just looked mildly embarrassed. 

“You don’t say,” Mona grumbled, pushing herself up using the railing and leaning on it. She sighed. “Well, I did promise a certain bard I would see her to Inazuma, and I can’t break my word. He would turn me over to the old hag at a minimum.”

“My mother is a blacksmith,” Ami told Beidu, a smug grin on her face. “Amongst other things.”

“Huh. Well, Inazuma is famous for its blacksmiths, I guess,” Beidu said with a shrug. “Anyway, we’ll be in Port Ormos with the tide. You’re free to head ashore and wander about a bit. Like I said, it’ll be a couple of weeks before we’re ready to depart again. It’s a three-day trip on foot to Sumeru City, or two days by boat, so you do have time.”

“We’ll walk,” Mona said immediately. 

“You know, for a Hydro Vision holder, you sure are a landlubber,” Beidu laughed. 

“Yes, thank you, the irony is not lost on-” Mona went green again and leaned over the railing, dry retching some more. 

It was another hour before they arrived in Port Ormos, which proved to be nearly as bustling a harbor as Liyue. There were dozens of boats docked in the harbor, which was built up along the mouth of a great river that flowed between two trees the size of small mountains. The river itself was green with sediment, and you could see where the fresh water mixed with the saltwater in a great line of green and blue. 

Ami watched eagerly as a pilot boat pulled up alongside the Crux, and a Sumeruan pilot came aboard. She mostly let Beidu steer her own ship in, though regulations required that a licensed Sumeruan pilot be aboard for any ship that was docking. 

Once they landed, Ami bid farewell to the crew of the Crux, and she and her three companions set foot on the soil of Sumeru. Ami grinned from ear to ear, looking around excitedly at the people and buildings that her friend Nahida had described so well to her. Being in the real Sumeru was so much better, though! 

“You know, if the Electro Archon wasn’t obviously the coolest and most powerful Archon, and Inazuma the best nation, I’d want to spend all my time in Sumeru! The greenery is so wonderful, and the food smells so delicious! Plus, there’s the dinosaurs!” Ami said brightly as they walked towards a cafe. 

One of the strangers who passed them by on the street smirked at Ami. “Coolest and most powerful? What a childish way to rank the Archons. If the Electro Archon weren’t such an incompetent, maybe she wouldn’t have nearly suffered a rebellion on her own lands.”

Ami whirled on the stranger, even as Fischl and Bennett gasped in shock. Mona was just hobbling along with a walking stick and looking at death's door, and had apparently missed the remark.

“What did you say!?” she demanded, her eyes flashing in irritation. 

“You heard me,” the stranger said, folding his arms over his chest. He was wearing scholar's robes, and had an anemo vision on a chain at his waist, as well as a very large and ornate hat. “Out of all the Archons, only the Electro Archon has faced outright rebellion by her nation. I suppose you could count the false Hydro Archon, but she was put on trial and cleared of all charges in the end.”

“That’s not true! My mother is the most serene and noble of Archons!” Ami snarled, forgetting she was supposed to be incognito. “Why would anyone ever rebel against her rule!? She is the embodiment of Eternity, that aspect which is closest to the Heavenly Principles!”

Now Mona did turn, her eyes wide. “Ami! You’re supposed to be-”

However, the stranger's expression had gone from a sneer to cold anger. He stuck his face in Ami’s, lip curling in disgust. “Mother? I assume from your outlandish outfit and the fact that you’re in the company of Mondstadt’s resident freak, that you’re one of those pathetic children who have read too many of Yae Publishing House’s light novels, and have come down with ‘middle school syndrome.’ But you have to be truly delusional to claim the Electro Archon as your mother. Especially since she’d be the most neglectful and pathetic of parents, even worse than she is as a ruler.”

Lighting stuck out of a previously clear blue sky, and Ami began to float up in the air, a crackling corona forming about her. The stranger had deflected the lightning with a swirl of anemo, but he didn’t look intimidated. Instead, he was snarling in outrage. 

YOU WILL TAKE BACK YOUR BLASPHEMY, MORTAL. Ami’s voice rumbled. OR I, RAIDEN AMI, DAUGHTER OF ETERNITY, SHALL HAVE YOUR HEAD. 

“Haha! You think yourself a god?! This is pathetic! A child’s tricks!” the stranger cackled, himself taking off as anemo energy surged about him, twin spheres of raw power forming in his palms. “You think a little lightning will frighten me? It is you who should renounce your claim, lest your betters teach you a lesson! Child of Eternity? Ha! Eternity turned her back on her true progeny, and you are nothing but a mockery!” 

“Ami, no!” Mona wailed.

“KICK HIS ASS, AMI!” Bennett shouted, drawing his sword, which ignited with flame. 

THEN YOU HAVE CHOSEN DEATH, Ami snarled, and reached into her chest. Thunder roared, and lightning crashed, and the Musou Isshin was barred for the world to see. 

“Wait,” the stranger said, his eyes narrowing. “I know that blade.”

“Then you know she’s really what she says!” Mona cried, waving her stick frantically. “Ami, you have to stop! This is too much power! You’re supposed to be in disguise until we get you back to Inazuma! Wanderer, please! I can explain!” 

“You! Barbaloth’s wayward apprentice. She speaks truly?! She is the daughter of the Electro Archon!?” the stranger barked over the roaring storm. In the harbor, people were crying out in panic as black clouds multiplied, and a sudden gale began to blow. 

Mona looked torn, but nodded. “Yes! Well, she’s adopted, but-”

“I’LL KILL YOU!” the Wanderer snarled, and launched himself at Ami with the full fury of a gale-force wind. 

Ami parried his attack easily, but he came at her again and again, zipping about and blasting her with winds so strong that even indirect hits were stripping roofs from buildings and sending hapless bystanders flying. 

For her own part, Ami was not idle: Lightning flew from the heavens to strike at her foe, and she swung her sword, knocking down stone walls and ripping masts from boats. 

Even Bennett and Fischl were crying out, while Mona was lying down and sobbing in near panic. The wind and lightning slammed into one another again and again, neither yielding. 

HOW DARE YOU TAKE MY MOTHER’S NAME IN VAIN! Ami shrieked, and tried to part the Wanderer’s head from his shoulders with a series of lightning fast blows. 

For his part, the Wanderer laughed maniacally, his blasts of air ripping up paving stones as he kicked and thrust at Ami with the winds. “Your mother!? You stupid, arrogant child! The Raiden Shogun is the one who MADE me! Then cast me aside like a forgotten toy when I proved insufficient for her purpose!” 

LIES! Ami snarled, flashing about in bursts of lightning, striking at the Wanderer with blows that shattered ships like kindling. MY MOTHER LOVES BOTH HER CHILDREN! 

“SHE MADE ANOTHER REPLACEMENT!? BAD ENOUGH SHE REPLACED ME WITH THAT PUPPET SHE CALLS THE SHOGUN!” the Wanderer raged, and blasted at Ami again.

“Mistress!” Murasaki appeared, his little eye patch askew, Oz flapping beside him. “Mistress, remember what your mother said!” 

NOT TO COUNTENANCE BLASPHEMY OF HER NAME! Ami roared, and unleashed a barrage of lightning that shattered every window for kilometers. 

“That your sister, Tsukoyomi, was the THIRD robot surrogate she made! This young man may very well be your brother!” 

“SHE IS NO SISTER OF MINE!” the Wanderer raged, and spun about, unleashing a tornado that picked up rubble and uprooted trees, hurling them right at Ami. 

WAIT. YOU…YOU WERE BUILT BY THE RAIDEN SHOGUN? Ami asked, pausing in her assault.

The Wanderer, breathing slightly hard, though more from passion than weariness, hovered up to her height. “Yes! If it matters to you! She built me as nothing but a tool, then when she realized I was defective, she flung me aside like so much garbage!”

Ami paused, looking down at her sword. Her power flickered slightly. “I…I was adopted.”

“Yes, Barbaloth’s apprentice said as much,” the Wanderer sneered. “Some pathetic human girl was better than ME!”

“No, I…” Ami felt choked up, and closed her eyes. “I…I was possessed by a demon. My parents…they were murdered by another demon. My mother…that is, the Shogun…she saw me, and took pity. She…she reforged my demon into Murasaki-san there. And…and adopted me. I…I never deserved…I was just…so scared, so alone…”

“Tears, now?! Oh, that’s all well and good! You think they will move me to pity!?” the Wanderer laughed bitterly. “Ha! My own existence is a crime, a waste! I was tricked, betrayed, and ultimately fell into the service of another god! It wasn’t until I erased my own existence that I was finally free of the Shogun’s curse!” 

Ami looked up, tears in her eyes. “I…I know who you are, now.”

“And who is that?” the Wanderer demanded. 

Ami teleported, and the Wanderer prepared to strike again, only for Ami to wrap her arms about him. “...onii-chan!”

“I, what?! No!” the Wanderer tried to pry Ami off, but she was clinging to him tightly. “I at least demand that you properly call me onii-san! I don’t even know you!”

“Onii-chan,” Ami insisted firmly. She wiped tears from her eyes, then grinned. “Wait! That means Shogun-Neesan is here too!”

The look of horror on the Wanderer’s face would have been comical if there hadn’t been so much destruction and devastation below them in the port. “You, you can’t just- there’s no way you can call her that!” 

“I make Dalnim call me Neesan in private, so I totally can,” Ami said smugly. “And she’s the Moon God.”

“...I take it back. You must be related to the Raiden Shogun, because no one else could be that oblivious and stupid!” the Wanderer snapped. 

“Don’t make me beat you up, onii-chan,” Ami huffed. 

“As if you could,” the Wanderer snorted. He frowned down at the devastation. “...oh. Hrm. Nahida is going to be…cross…with me.”

“Um, oops?” Ami agreed. 

They floated for a moment, looking down at the utterly wrecked Port Ormos, which did indeed look as though two gods had clashed there. After a moment, a green spark appeared next to them, and a small green elf appeared in the sky.

Interesting! I must confess, I was a bit confused when Lord Barbatos and Lord Morax both wrote me a warning that the Child of Beezelbub was coming to visit me. I wondered if they had discerned the true nature of my latest Varhumana Scholar, but it seems that they meant you!

“N-Nahida!” the Wanderer stammered, reeling back. 

“Lord Buer! Ah, a thousand apologies!” Ami wailed, bowing low in the sky. “Um…sorry about the harbor…”

Hmm, this would indeed be distressing if I had not taken precautions ahead of time, the Dendro Archon said, nodding thoughtfully. As it is, I must merely take both of you to task for your lack of self-discipline. Wanderer, I think perhaps you really must allow me to delve deeper into your repressed resentment. This isn’t healthy for you!

“Who cares!? We just wrecked an entire city, and killed who knows how many people!” Wanderer snapped. “You’ll have to have me executed for real this time!”

Zero, Buer said, grinning and putting her hands behind her back as she floated in the air. 

Ami and the Wanderer exchanged looks, then glanced back at Buer in confusion. “‘Zero?!””

Oh yes. This is all a simulation. I’m afraid Ami is asleep on the Crux, and you’re still asleep at the inn. I had a little help, you see, Buer giggled. 

A moment later, a tarot card formed in the air, and from it, Mona stood, balancing on a pool of water, a scrying orb in one hand, and a grim expression on her face. “Indeed, you did. Seasickness. As if I would allow myself to be plagued by such an affliction. The very idea.”

“Wait, Mona!? It was you!?” Ami gasped in shock. 

Mona sniffed and stuck her nose in the air. “Of course. I contacted Buer as soon as I knew we would be stopping in Sumeru. I am well aware of your… predilections. And, in my scrying glass, I foresaw a terrible catastrophe if you arrived in Port Ormos without warning. Well, now one has played out. In a Dream, but still. My Visions always come true.”

“A Samsara Loop!? Again!?” Wanderer snarled, rounding on Buer, his hands clenched into fists. 

Buer just giggled and winked at him. 

“Oh wow, just like when you fought the Simurgh!” Ami beamed, then looked down. “Wow, we really did wreck the place. Am I actually this powerful?!” 

“Well, I wasn’t holding back, and I did become a god, even if for a brief time,” the Wanderer grumbled.

Buer nodded soberly. This is truly what you two could have done in a fight. Both of you wield near divine power, and in Ami’s case, actual divine power through the blade of the Electro Archon. Such power cannot be wielded lightly. 

“Such as in a thoughtless squabble between siblings,” Mona sniffed. “Really, Ami. I’d have thought your mother would have raised you better.”

Ami blushed and looked down, while the Wanderer glared at Mona. “You set this all up. Sending me to Port Ormos. Ensuring I met with those annoying bandits, and other things that increased my rage.”

“No. I merely dispatched you to Port Ormos. Your anger is your own, Wanderer,” Buer said sadly. She nodded to Ami. “I am afraid there can be but one sentence.”

“Banishment,” the Wanderer growled.

“You’re both going to go see your mother, and let her give you the spankings you both so richly deserve!” Mona huffed. 

Ami and her brother both gasped, but Buer nodded in agreement. Yes. Your fate will indeed be decided by the Raiden Shogun. However, there is one other thing…

Ami and the Wanderer steeled themselves and awaited the judgement of the Dendro Archon.

…you both have to come to my tea party, and behave yourselves! Be perfectly pleasant and polite to each other, and the other guests, the entire time! If you don’t, then I’ll have to think of an extra awful punishment, Nahida giggled. Like making the Wanderer wear his adorable butler outfit again.

“I, that was one time! You said you would tell no one!” the Wanderer snapped.

“We are at your service, Lord Buer,” Ami agreed gravely.

Excellent! When you both wake up, the Crux will be docking soon. Wanderer, find your sister, then bring her and her companions to Sumeru City, Buer ordered. Then, the Dendro Archon snapped her fingers, and Wanderer and Ami both vanished. 

Mona stood on her watery platform for a moment, then coughed. “I, ah…I do have a somewhat delicate stomach, and I’m nearly out of the herbs I brought with me…if you could provide something for the return voyage…I’d be very grateful.”

Don’t worry! I have a special tea prepared for you. It should treat your motion sickness with only some mild side effects, Buer promised.

“Thank you, Lord Buer,” Mona said with sincere gratitude. She peered down at the port, and shook her head. “Well. That’s one crisis averted. Still, I do have to get that girl all the way to Inazuma. What the Electro Archon will do when she finds out she has a daughter…”

You already know the answer to that, Nahida pointed out.

Mona made a face. “Yes, well, that’s why I’ve invested in earplugs. Until we see one another in the waking world in two days' time. Good afternoon, Lord Buer.”

Then, Mona vanished as well. After a moment, the dream faded, leaving a peaceful sleeping harbor in its ordinary state.

A most interesting development! I can’t wait to hear stories about the other me in this other world! Nahida giggled, then she, too, left the dream.