Apocalypse City, where the streets were more corpse than concrete, still glimmered under the arrogant moonlight - white and beautiful, pretending the world hadn't ended.
Deep beneath the rubble, in a scorched basement littered with wires and broken dreams, a man in a filthy white office shirt leaned over a massive steel frame pulsing with blue light.
A stray spark shot out. He tilted his head casually to avoid it, dark hair swaying behind him.
"Nope... Too poetic. 'Moonlight's beautiful white beam of light shone down on rotten rot'?" He scoffed to himself. "Ugh, I'm losing it."
He was a mess - drenched in motor oil, old ramen broth, and maybe even some zombie blood. But he smiled anyway, teeth bright under the basement gloom. "Almost there... Hah."
He swapped his welding torch for a bundle of copper wires and began wrapping them with steady precision around a small glowing coil.
Humming a song under his breath like this was a lazy Sunday project, he clicked the lid shut and turned to face the towering steel ring placed in the middle of the room. The frame buzzed faintly with power, blue light shimmering at the edges. "I am such a goddamn genius," he muttered. "Let's see... Attempt number nine."
He lifted his right hand - and with a smooth clink-hiss, revealed a sleek mechanical prosthetic arm, black and gold with humming blue seams. He checked the digital display on the wrist. "17:59… and..."
Beep.
"18:00. Perfect. Or as Americans would say, six pee-em." He smirked.
He pressed a button on his console. The portal frame lit up in a brighter surge of light, humming louder now.
"Power: check. Particle accelerator: online." A second switch flipped with a heavy click. "Now… let's inject some gravitons to give those poor quarks a little mass and punch through the time barrier."
The portal howled.
"I mean, obviously it works," he muttered. "With controlled graviton resonance stabilizing mass fluctuations, time travel is just math. Add a little genius - voila - temporal realignment."
And then it exploded.
The world went white, a pressure wave slammed him into the wall, and everything went silent.
...
Warmth. Wood. Birds?
Orka blinked. A wooden ceiling stared back. He sat up - barely - groaning as bandages rustled across his body. The bed creaked beneath him. Not metal. Not scorched tile. Actual wood.
"Wood?" he murmured.
He scanned the room. Wooden walls. Wooden furniture. A wooden cold floor beneath his feet.
Definitely not the lab. And not Apocalypse City. It's too quaint. Wood was not accessible due to the apocalypse.
That meant one thing.
"I'm in the past," he muttered. "No synthetics. No concrete. No nanolights. It's the past."
The door creaked open.
A young woman stepped in—brown hair, cheerful eyes, an apron still dusted with flour. "Oh, thank the Archons! You're awake!"
Orka blinked. "...Archons?"
She tilted her head. "Yeah. Is something wrong?"
He rubbed his temples. "No. Just... confused. Where am I? Who are the Archons?"
She stepped closer, offering a warm, genuine smile. "You're in Mondstadt, city of freedom. I found you passed out outside the city walls- burned, bruised, and half dead. I was on a scouting mission clearing hilichurl camps."
She paused. "And Archons… they're our gods. Don't you remember anything?"
He hesitated, then gave a weak shrug. "Orka. Just... Orka. I don't remember much else."
She nodded sympathetically, glancing at his prosthetic arm, clearly intrigued but too polite to ask.
"My name's Amber. I'm a Knight of Favonius. You're safe now." Her smile grew. "Come on, I made food. You must be hungry after sleeping for so long."
In the kitchen, two plates of freshly cooked eggs, bread in the middle, and a jug of water waited. Orka stared half in disbelief. Real food. Not synthetic paste. Not ration blocks. Real, warm food.
Amber chatted as they ate, explaining Mondstadt, the Archons, the other nations of Teyvat, and her friends - especially some girl named Collei.
"You're one of the Chosen? The ones with elemental powers?" Orka asked mid-chew.
Amber nodded proudly. "Pyro Vision. Fiery girl at heart."
She noticed him staring at his arm. "Your prosthetic - it kinda looks like the clockwork tech from Fontaine."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah…? I wonder."
The truth was, he remembered everything. The particle accelerator. The explosion. The tech embedded in him. But explaining technologies and physics to people who worship gods seemed like a great way to get burned at the stake.
Better to play dumb. For now at very least.
After dinner, she invited him to the headquarters. "You don't have any plans, right? You can tag along. Might help jog your memory. Or at least you'll have fun!"
Orka sighed, eyes drifting to the coat hanging by the door. His coat - burnt and scratched but still wearable.
"Fine," he said. "I'm curious. Especially about your Knight thing."
Amber jumped up. "Yay!"
He instantly regretted it. He sighed.
Mondstadt's headquarters looked more like a cathedral. Orka blinked up at it. "You call this a building? Looks like a castle mated with a cathedral."
A guard stopped him at the door, hand raised. Amber waved him through. "He's with me."
Down the corridors, they went until Amber knocked on a door. "Master Jean, I've brought him."
Inside was a blonde woman in formal armor. She looked up from the paperwork. "So this is the man from the report… How are you feeling?"
Orka offered a half-smile. "I feel fine. Except, you know, for the amnesia."
Jean exchanged a glance with Amber. "And you brought him here because…?"
Amber scratched her head. "Well, I couldn't just leave him. I thought maybe we could help him recover his memories."
Jean sighed. "Very well. But I have a better idea. Amber, take him to see Klee."
Amber blinked. "Klee? Her detention's not up."
"Exactly. He can entertain her. Think of it as... therapy. For both of them. And less trouble for me. No, all knights of Favonius."
They descended to a thick lead door covered in scratch marks. Amber called out, "Klee! You're free!"
The door opened - and out ran a little girl with golden hair, red clothes, and pointy ears. "Sister Amber!!"
Amber ruffled her hair. "Look, I brought you a new friend!"
Klee looked at Orka—tall, ragged, black coat, mechanical arm—and gasped. "Oooo! Uncle! You've got a magic arm!"
Orka froze.
"Uncle?" he said, deadpan. "I'm twenty-eight."
Amber burst out laughing.
Klee beamed. "Okay! Brother Orka! Is your arm magic?"
"No," he said, kneeling down and removing his glove. "It's mechanical." She repeated it, slowly: "Mecha...nical?"
He smiled faintly. "Exactly."
Amber leaned in. "Klee, Orka doesn't remember much. You'll help him, right?"
Klee pouted. "Brother Orka doesn't remember anything?"
"I remember the basics. But not much else."
She frowned… then lit up. "It's okay! I'll help you remember everything! I'm really good at blowing things up - I mean, helping!"
Orka looked at her… and for the first time since the explosion, he laughed.
Not a scientist's laugh. Not a madman's laugh.
A real one.