Raiden vs Leviathan, art by roxas_creations3
Kyushu, Japan. November 2nd, 1999. The day the first god decended. And the first Beast was slain.
The day the war for the fate of all Earths began. The war between Gods and Beasts, Archons and Entities.
May Heaven help us all.
- — Author's Summary
The Second Archon War
is a crossover fanfic between Worm and Genshin Impact, written on Spacebattles by FullParagon.
In which the Seven Archons of Teyvat find themselves isekai'd on Earth-Bet and proceed to get quite upset about all the troubles befalling the alternate counterparts of the lands they rule. Obviously, it means fixing things in the most awesome way possible.
Or just being a clown. That works, too.
The story can be read on ff.net and Ao3 as well.
This work contains the following tropes:
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: With a black-ops team of Japanese Vision-holders helping to kill the heck out of Nilbog before he could truly rampage, Piggot finds her opinions on superpowered people noticeably softening and keeps her kidneys fully functional.
- Adaptational Gender Identity: Venti canonically is always male, if a rather effeminate one. Here, he has no qualms swapping genders, and outright admits being a boy for the moment at one point.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Helping Raiden to slay Leviathan and being drafted into her retinue helps the man who would have become Lung to definitely put his Yakuza days behind him.
- With the Archons popping out and intervening to relieve the pressure put on Earth-Bet, Cauldron isn't as desperate to stabilize the planet through various crimes against mankind.
- Always Someone Better:
- Kenta humbly acknowledges Raiden as far above his strength level and agrees to serve her as a consequence.
- And Raiden shamelessly confesses Zhongli surpasses her as a martial paragon.
- For all the Archons' prowess and apocalyptic might, they nonetheless admit Scion still is beyond them as the local equivalent to the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles.
- Awesomeness Is a Force: An Archon unleashing their divine power tends to result in mortals instinctively prostrating themselves.
- Base-Breaking Character: In-Universe, opinions about Raiden are firmly divided. Yes, she's an isolationist tyrant who dismisses other countries' pleas for help when she has the power to deal with an Endbringer, but she also gave Japan unlimited free, clean energy, encourages a cultural renewal with the booming development of manga and anime, and she supports gay marriage.
- Then her daughter Tsukuyomi widens the gap by publicly apologizing for Japan's war crimes in the WWII Pacific theater as she's in a diplomatic venture in Singapore. Her advisers grimly brace themselves for a tremendous backlash at home, while foreign countries appear quite happy for some acknowledgement of their past distress.
- Berserk Button:
- As the Archon upholding the divine ideal of Freedom, Barbatos doesn't take kindly to the homophobic and racist rhetoric of Gesselschaft. How dare they forbid people to love whoever they choose, or deny them the right to be themselves?
- Also, don't try to experiment with bits and pieces of a dead god. The Archons remember Khaenri'ah. It won't end up nicely for the researcher.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Venti is a ditzy bard who preaches love and freedom and enjoys playing music and bar-diving, but when he's well and truly pissed off, he's often compared to an angel – from the Old Testament chapters. The ones with the Flood and the Ten Plagues.
- Broken-System Dogmatist: As the Archons start fixing Earth-Bet's problems much more efficiently than Cauldron ever could without lowering themselves to commit horrendous crimes, Eidolon gets rather aggressive and bothered by the implications that everything they did was worthless and only saddled them with the label of monsters instead of heroes. It drives him to mistrust the Archons and insist on "testing their resolve" when everyone else in Cauldron is considering forging an alliance.
- Bullying a Dragon:
- Nikos Vasil, better known as Heartbreaker, decides to enthrall the Endslayer when she's on a diplomatic venture in Canada because he can only focus on her beauty and not her extremely high threat level. Results: all his victims freed, him catching a nasty case of bullet to the head courtesy of his former plaything having a gun, and the Canadians apologizing to Raiden for the inconvenience.
- The Gesselschaft gets constantly kicked down by Venti and his rising Knights of Favonius, with their main training camp exploding, their lab for cape experimentation destroyed, and two of their brainwashed attack dogs thoroughly deprogrammed and joining the new Archon. So they decide the answer isn't to quietly slink off in a corner and admit defeat, it's to assault a gay bar whose owners are friendly with Venti in order to provoke him. He was ticked off, alright.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Archons generally are extremely quirky when it comes to mundane human interactions, but nonetheless extremely serious about destroying threats to their lands. Raiden Ei introduces herself to the world by casually slaughtering an Endbringer, only to reveal herself to be a shut-in otaku, and Venti very much enjoys kicking Nazi butt when he stops drinking and trolling people.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Sara Tengan is a voice actress who attends conventions in full cosplay. Lately, she does her best to emulate the Raiden Shogun.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Raiden freely admits she's far too focused on military applications and the art of fighting, and that's why she surrounds herself with bureaucrats and experts able to compensate for her deficiencies.
- Death by Adaptation: Daniel Hebert sacrifices himself to save Hero from the Siberian.
- Thomas Calvert is mentioned to have gone down during the Nilbog mission, though whether fatally is unconfirmed. Later it was mentioned that he survived and became the PRT Director in Brockton Bay, essentially ending up in the same position as Piggot in canon.
- Demoted to Extra: Worm mostly unfolded in the United States, but the current story is unfolding several years before canon and in other countries, so there's an extremely different cast.
- Divine Date: Firmly averted by Ei, since a god ultimately has too divergent a mindset to make the relationship work for very long, and being unable to reproduce. Venti's opinion on the subject is fuzzier, as he seems open to flirting with both genders but the feelings he expresses about Mayfly–December Friendship hint he won't get beyond casual.
- Dragons Are Divine: When Raiden handpicks Kenta as her retainer, she comments it's fitting for a shapeshifter turning in a dragon to serve as a god's companion.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- Once Raiden realizes that an Anemo Archon has appeared on Earth Bet, she sends the head of her new agency orders to find and locate them. Said person, in a fit of zealotry, interprets this as orders to kill the Anemo Archon which he gives out to all his agents.
- Sara Tengen, in a fit of misunderstanding, proceeds to also misinterpret those orders and somehow winds up following Raiden's original mission.
- Venti suspects the Endbringers of being shards of a Dead God wrecking havoc on Earth Bet as revenge for said god's untimely demise. Anyone having read the web novel will know the Endbringers were brought to life by Eidolon's craving for worthy opponents.
- Once Raiden realizes that an Anemo Archon has appeared on Earth Bet, she sends the head of her new agency orders to find and locate them. Said person, in a fit of zealotry, interprets this as orders to kill the Anemo Archon which he gives out to all his agents.
- Embarrassing Nickname: What Kenta thinks of Raiden naming him "Mushu". Yes, just like Mulan's dragon – he personally dislikes the movie as gaijin children's entertainment, but Raiden insists the character is brave and faithful and so it's appropriate.
- Fantastic Racism:
- The Archons as a rule cannot help deeming Parahumans repulsive, since they are able to see the Shard latched on their soul and feeding off their sanity, so they will tinker with the Shard to mellow it and lessen the conflict drive.
- The Middle East doesn't care about the distinction between Parahumans and Vision Holders – anyone manifesting powers will be slapped with the label of demon.
- Fantastic Religious Weirdness: Well, obviously, when horrendously powerful people start making claims to divinity and validate their claims with outright miracles, it's going to cause a great deal of waves on the religious level.
- Japan is unsure about Raiden Ei being an avatar of Amaterasu or some other deity, but they nonetheless acknowledge her as the Spirit of their land embodied to protect them in their darkest hour. On the other hand, the Catholic Church swiftly declares her an Antichrist – she's rather nonplussed by the move, as she's not interested in antagonizing the Vatican.
- The Jewish Naomi Cohen is rather uneasy with the idea of someone other than Yehovah calling themselves divine, so Venti reassuring her that he's not craving worship soothes her anxiety and she ultimately concludes he's not a god but rather an angel.
- Seeing how distressed the Muslim Bashir is with the Archons' claim of godhood, Nahida encourages him to think of them as djinns — powerful beings from the supernatural bent, yes, but ultimately as flawed as mankind.
- On the other side of the debate, Archons as a rule are floored by the very idea of monotheism, as they originate from a world in which the existence of multiple gods is a fact of life. Venti casually acknowledges Yahweh as "Israel's god" and seems to consider Jesus as the equivalent for Catholics, while Nahida deems Allah to be an extremely jealous deity.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Much ado is made of the Raiden Shogun acting just like she was still living in the Edo period, since it causes many problems in the modern society.
- Foil: Farasha and Bashir become this to the Akademiya's Sages when their reaction to a disoriented, panicked Nahida who's reeling from being in an unfamiliar world is analyzed. The Sages saw their weakened god and locked her up to waste away in sheer neglect; Farasha and Bashir saw a lost little girl and acted to protect her.
- Freudian Excuse: Invoked by Hero when Alexandria complains about Raiden kicking the American forces out of Japan, pointing the woman made her debut in Nagasaki and anyone who grew up there with the stories of the atomic horror will obviously dislike the United States.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: The author has noticed Venti and Ei's conspicuous lack of interaction in the canon game. It's alluded to when they finally meet face to face, with Venti admitting he never knew how to speak with her.
- Girlfriend From Canada: Of course, Itul has a girlfriend, you just never met her because she's living in Japan! Cookie is quite flustered when introduced to Sarah, proving that no, Itul wasn't just trying to save face.
- God-Emperor: Technically, Raiden is merely the Shogun and acting with the Emperor's agreement, but everybody knows she's the true ruler while the Emperor is more of a High Priest.
- Happily Adopted: After losing her parents to a Yakuza attack, Ami becomes Ei's ward and swiftly gets attached to her new mother, deeming her the most powerful and awesome woman in the world.
- Harmful to Minors: The Baath party's rule over Iraq isn't the kindest to citizens, leading Farasha and Qiqi to Trigger at eleven and five years old respectively.
- Have You Seen My God?: When the Archons naturally inquire about Earth Bet's native deities, people answer they don't exist or are dead. After reading about the Holocaust, Venti concludes the Terran gods likely are asleep or, worse, they just don't care.
- Honest Advisor: Raiden likes having attendants bluntly pointing out the flaws in her reasoning, to the point that she promoted Nakamura as one of her top Ministers in spite of him sending assassins after her, because he wasn't afraid to tell her how her intended policy would negatively impact Japan.
- Hope Bringer: Raiden killing an Endbringer causes Earth Bet to think their circumstances might not be that desperate after all. Cauldron later gets even more hopeful when their data points at Scion carefully avoiding Japan, implying Raiden actually could hurt him and that the apocalypse can be cancelled.
- Horrifying the Horror: Raiden outright freaks out when she first sees Scion. That's the woman who cleaved an Endbringer into halves, and she's freaking out in front of Scion.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Venti stays unaware of his accidental interdimensional travel until he meets his first car. Then he asks Capri where's the nearest bar.
- Ineffectual Loner: Ei's advisers do their best to impress on her that extreme isolationism isn't possible anymore in the era of global trade and interdependence, and Japan needs to cooperate with other countries to rise to prosperity again. Fortunately, she's open to listen.
- Kindhearted Simpleton: The author and readers often joke that Itul's power runs on "unlimited himbo energy", as he will run to fight a Nazi cape in spite of knowing his powers are a very bad matchup to hers but will cheerfully help a bartender to clean his place and gets merely disappointed instead of angry when his flirting gets nowhere courtesy of Incompatible Orientation.
- Locked into Strangeness: Receiving a Vision apparently can dye eye-colour or hair-colour, according Venti when Capri notes her eyes are turning purple.
- Loser Deity:
Word of God has decided the Running Gag of the Archons being thoroughly broke would continue. On a more individual basis:- Ei is a shameless couch potato who spends more time reading manga and playing video games than actually ruling Japan, and she sets the Imperial Palace on fire by attempting to microwave instant ramen.
- Capri bluntly tells Venti he would be an horrendous king if he ever wished to conquer Europe, with his rule being an unending succession of bar parties and morning hangovers.
- The Magic Comes Back: It's unclear if Earth Bet ever had native deities before Scion's landing, but now that the Archons are popping out, it causes Elemental Energy to slowly flood the planet – barely a few weeks after Raiden's arrival, slimes and mutated flowers are starting to develop. Nahida meets a woman wearing a genuine good luck charm, but due to the context it's unclear if it's a product of elemental energy or a scroll of the Qur'an.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: Part of the reason why Venti drifts so much. If he stays too long in the same place, then he will have to watch his human acquaintances growing old and die, constantly leaving him behind and heartbroken.
- Meaningful Name: Eidolon pokes at Venti Luft's alias, since it's basically Latin for "winds" and German for "breeze".
- The Needs of the Many: In order to slay Leviathan, Raiden had to cause a worldwide power outage for ten seconds. It caused several millions of deaths from failing machinery and car or airplane crashes, but the American President deems it spared the island of Kyushu and all the other places Leviathan would have targeted in the future so it's an acceptable price to pay.
- Named by the Adaptation: Hero, who was unnamed in the original, is called Wyatt here.
- No Periods, Period: Hinted with Raiden Ei, since Kaiga cannot remember her needing tampons or suffering cramps, ever.
- Occidental Otaku: Itul's cape costume as the Red Oni is strongly influenced by Japanese anime, and he regularly attends conventions for mangas. That's how he met his friend Cookie and his Girlfriend From Canada Sara.
- Pals with Jesus: Venti's favorite kind of relationship with people falling in his area of influence.
- Patriotic Fervour: Raiden's appearance causes an extreme surge of nationalism in Japan, egged by the right-wing parties still bitter over the atomic bombings. In a few days, citizens are dressing in kimonos and reviving cultural trappings to honour their saviour.
- Place of Power: An Archon is bonded with their land. The downside to that is a major loss of strength if they want to leave for another country – that's the main reason why Raiden Ei builds a Body Double to send on diplomatic ventures, as she doesn't want to be vulnerable.
- For the Raiden Shogun, the Japanese islands are these.
- Venti lays a claim on what used to be the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, parts of France and Italy).
- Nahida's influence will be the lands formerly making up The Achaemenid Empire (said to stretch from the Northern Balkans to Pakistan, will involve Iran, Syria, Lybia and Egypt)
- Furina will get The French Colonial Empire but downsized to Europe and North and West Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea).
- Zhongli will rule over China as it was sized under the Qing Dynasty.
- The Tsaritsa will seize everything she deems belonging to the Tsarist Russia.
- Post-Historical Trauma:
- Capri and Naomi take Venti to the library for books about the Holocaust to explain him why Nazis are the bad guys. The happy-go-lucky bard is reduced to tears when he learns just how low this land so similar to Mondstadt had sunk.
- After Tsukuyomi's public apology to Singapore for Japan's war crimes in the Second World War, several aged officials commit suicide as they cannot bear to deal with their fathers, brothers, and other relatives being exposed as criminals. Kenta's wife is also horrified by the prospect of her beloved grandpa being secretly a monster, and because Japan kept everything quiet to save face for so long.
- Power Crystal: The underwater trench caused by the Musou-no-Hitotachi slaying Leviathan is revealed to be filled with Electro crystals by a scientific vessel. Japan immediately claims mining rights to the new clean power energy source, giving them a major leg on recovering their economic prosperity.
- Power Misidentification: Unlike Shards, Visions can appear without their holder suffering a Traumatic Superpower Awakening, but since Earth-Bet lacks more context their scientists think they're one and the same. By the time Nahida arrives, some researchers have started to realize that the two are inherently different.
- Riddle for the Ages:
- As Naomi briefly ponders what it means for her to have met a fully-fledged god, Venti explains that yes, he's a god but he's not God as the one that created the world. Even on Teyvat, that seemed to have been quite a nebulous subject without a clear answer.
- Visions spreading all over Earth-Bet is hinted to be linked to the Archons' presence on the planet, since an elemental type only gets handed out after the corresponding Archon pops up. However, even the Archons have no control over who gets a Vision, and that also was the case on Teyvat.
- Ei and Venti's inquiries about Earth's native gods only led them to dead ends, and they concluded these deities were sleeping, uncaring or disappeared for some reason or another. However, Nahida thinks she detects something as she's within a mosque.
- Ruling Family Massacre: The ultranationalists launch an attack against the government at the Wisteria Wedding, attended by Ei and her adopted daughter. While Ami survives, the day nonetheless sees the Imperial family slaughtered for being too tolerant of the Shogun's policies — considering that the Yamato dynasty is the longest surviving royal lineage in the world, it showcases the complete fanatism of the ultranationalists as they have no qualms destroying a fundamental pillar of the Japanese cultural identity.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Obviously, with Raiden's intervention, Kyushu never sank with millions of civilians. Leviathan's demise also means all the targets he would have attacked in Worm canon will be left alone.
- Daniel's Heroic Sacrifice against the Siberian saved Hero's life.
- Stop Worshipping Me: Venti has no need nor want for servants or devotees, he just craves friends. Now quit bowing your heads, won't you?
- Third Time's The Charm: Tsukiyomi is the third puppet built by the Electro Archon, and the only one with the potential to truly ascend as a god in her own right.
- Token Good Teammate: As usual for Cauldron, Legend. He's disgusted by the fact they endorse the Gesselschaft to stabilize Europe and downright squees over Venti's crusade for minority and gay rights.
- Twofer Token Minority: Capri and Naomi are respectively a Roma and a Jew, and they're a lesbian couple. In Earth Bet's Germany, it's several reasons for the Nazis to constantly threaten and degrade them.
- Unequal Rites: With more and more Vision Holders appearing all over the world, it starts to emerge they are not Parahumans. As pointed out by Bashir, a Vision Holder needs a totem to channel Elemental Energy, while a Parahuman has a parasite Shard latched on their brain and wrecking their sanity for more power.
- You Killed My Father: Taylor dreams of putting an end to the Siberian for killing her daddy.
- Your Mom: Tsukiyomi gets pissed and starts chasing Venti all around Berlin when he idly sings a slightly obscene tune about her mother's thighs.
