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The skies over Teyvat burned. The Tsaritsa had done it; she’d gotten every gnosis she could find and swung wide the gates of Celestia. The Abyss surged from whatever depths they’d been hiding for so long in, and washed over the world at the command of their leader, the Traveler’s twin.
Venti set a hurricane of swirling anemo energy into a cluster of Abyss mages below him as Dvalin banked left. The mages screamed as their barriers snapped under the force of the cyclone they’d been pulled into, each element mixing with each other. They plummeted into the waiting clutches of Diluc and the phoenix of fire he created.
“Bard! On your left!” came the perpetually annoyed voice of Wanderer - Scaramouche, really - as the young man shot past him on a current of anemo. Venti shifted his stance, arrows charged with anemo flying into a flying ruin creature sparking with electro energy. The electro flared out of it and into it’s companions, and all four dropped like rocks.
“Thanks Wanderer!” he replied cheerfully as they flew across the battlefield. The young man shot him a look, but Venti could see the smirk on his lips. With the whole of Teyvat’s Vision wielders and elemental user adjacents, like the Traveler and the adepti, they could stem the tide of enemies and bring the world back into some sense of alignment. The Abyss would fall, the Fatui would fall, the Traveler’s greatest enemy would fall. All they needed to do was hold out a little longer. They could hold out they could—
Something slammed into Dvalin, sharp and hot and then Venti was free falling amongst the chaos. The dragon roared in pain, flapping ineffectually as fire and frost ate through his wings in equal measure. He pulled on ambient anemo energy around him as Dvalin shot past into the clouds below Celestia. He -felt- when the dragon impacted with the ground and Venti dropped to the city’s ground, trying to breathe. For a moment, he felt like a little wind spirit again, watching the city he’d come to love burn before his eyes. Watching his friend burn. Then it was gone.
He ended up in a group with Xiao, Zhongli and Diluc, standing a pillar of conjured Geo while the three held the monsters around them at bay. With the two Anemo wielders, the fire that Diluc created surged around them into a cyclone of heat and pain. The barriers Zhongli provided were strong enough to stave off the pain, though Venti’s blouse and tights were soaked to the point of being sheer. Two archons with an adeptus and Diluc was a formidable combination in itself.
Until the Cryo and Hydro Fatui started to appear. The big men with their guns were frustrating enough, but the mages that joined them made it a mine field of mirrors and patches of ice. Worst still, Venti couldn’t pull them into a cyclone energy to keep them disoriented and together with the hurricane of fiery wind around them already. He could only do localized flares of anemo under their feet to try to unbalance them.
He shattered the Cryo tank on one of the big guys as he heard the sudden cracking sound of ice behind him. Something shattered behind him and he turned in time to see Diluc’s pyro vision fly into the wall of fire and explode as the red haired young man dropped to the ground in -pieces-.
The witch smirked at Venti, shards of mirror floating in her hands. The bard shot forward, phasing through her with a flare of anemo, and sank an arrow into her skull before the mirror shards left her hand. Red splattered his face as the woman dropped.
The tornado of fire sputtered and began to fall around them. He shot forward again, no longer really thinking. He shot himself into the air, pulling on Wanderer’s tricks, and shot from above, taking out two more as he rushed towards the pillar of Geo and the archon and adeptus fighting against it. The pillar shattered as he landed, Zhongli’s own spear pinning him to the remains of it. The archon screamed, form warping and twisting until Rex Lapis - the real one, not the adeptus vessel - broke free of the spear and barreled his death throws into the Fatui. The Geo Archon vanished beyond the edge of Celestia with an explosion of rock.
Something red hot boiled in his belly.
Xiao moved to his side, bloody and bruised but still standing. “Bard, you have to go. Bard, find the Traveler. They can stop this. Bard,” he said, blocking several shards of mirror and spikes of ice with his spear. Venti summoned a surge of anemo around them to deflect the incoming blasts of ice and water.
“I’m not leaving you here, Xiao,” he said, firing through the roiling swirl of wind with quick shots. “You can’t take all these on your own.”
“Bard, help the Traveler. I am not—”
“Don’t even try it Xiao. Don’t even think it,” snarled Venti, the feeling in his belly spreading through his limbs. He recognized it as rage and anger, the way his voice went sharp and hard and how he glared at their enemies.
“The karma will consume me… you know this,” replied Xiao as he threw the mirror witch off his spear to roll along the ground dead.
“This isn’t up for–!” Venti felt the slice of a dagger barely slice through his corset and blouse as he was spun to the side. Xiao grunted behind his yaksha mask and turned the odd bladed tonfa that the Fatui wielded back on their wielder, setting them aflame with a flare of swirling anemo energy. The adeptus laughed with an edge of madness and shot around the small circle of wind to stab the remaining attackers with precise movements.
The smell of blood came to Venti’s nose and he stared at the path of blood that followed Xiao on the wind. No, no, no no—-
The adeptus staggered back into Venti as the rest of the Fatui fell around them. He caught him, falling to the soaked ground with his friend, his silent companion, his -love-. Xiao gasped, mask breaking under the karma and wounds he’d taken. A bloody hand came up to gently touch Venti’s face.
“Bard… Barbatos. Go to them. Please. I… made you a path. Use it.”
Xiao smiled at him, eyes saying the words that he never said.
His hand fell from Venti’s face.
Pure anemo energy exploded from the bard, a hurricane of hurricanes of force that took the bodies around them and launched them away. The rage in his chest swelled until it swallowed him whole. Wings sprung from his back, anemo tearing his clothing from his body and revealing tattoos that glowed bright with energy.
The wind around him converged and snuffed out, leaving him floating a few inches off the ground. Barbatos’ face was blank except for his eyes. His eyes, glowing vibrant blue under his dark hair, held a storm of vengeance that roiled and promised death and pain.
The Anemo Archon shot across Celestia, Xiao’s censor at his waist, to bring a world shaking storm down on anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way.