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Jean-Baptiste hits the ground with a violent discharge of lightning that lashes out around him on the impact.
Covered in blood, and creeping black veins from the vicious strikes of the once High Vanguard, once Priest of Dusk and the World Wound she wielded against them.
The Aegis of the Golden Sentinels shatters, consciousness leaving him as he sees Beatrix raise the negative void-blade for the killing blow.
I'm sorry Aelys, everyone... is his last thought, echoed through their sigils weakly.
As the blade comes down in its sickening, consuming, strike, Synnove screams, shining magic, like sunlight glaring on water and the cold heat of the stars bursting from around her. Katari sprints for their friend, screaming out in vain, too distant for it to matter. Neither Valor, nor Theagus can do anything but watch in horror, too far to reach him in time.
In less than an instant, a sucking, sinking, pull of shear, crushing, pressure that folds in on itself in the air in front of the blade appears. The radiating blast that follows happens even faster, turning the surrounding area empty of anything but darkness for a fraction of a moment.
There is a reverberating shockwave that tears through the air, roses of ice blooming in greeting. A high pitched whine of feedback shreds through the fabric of reality, and pierces through the minds of everyone present..
As the world returns and the dust clears, a dark figure, dripping in ichorous shadow and devouring the light around its edges, crouches low over Jean-Baptiste's unconscious body, jagged, clawed hands coil around the blade that sings to its other piece in a discordant refrain.
Void-like shadows of negative energy blur the air around the three figures but the sound is clear as the Herald of Endings snarls.
“ You will not touch him .”
The duplicate voice, discordant, and shifting pulls the echoing high pitched whine inwards, until all that is left is ringing imprints of roses.
“ He is mine– ours. They all are, and you will not take them from us .”
Beatrix Avalon pulls at the blade in a fervent desperation to release it from the Herald’s grasp, as the words lash at her in the space between them.
More than hands keeps the blade in place, and Beatrix with it. Tendrils of the void licking like tongues up the arms of Herald, coil and twist and twine from the blade to its true bearer. In the face of Beatrix’s wild, frenzied, panic, the Herald is still as ice and calm as the second before a storm.
None are close enough to hear save for the once High Vanguard, unable to push past the radiating pressure to approach.
“ It is ours- take it- take it -” The voice comes from the Herald but not in the same duet as before, lower, sharper. Followed by a more feminine voice, solo as well. “It is ours. Give it back . ”
The pressure expands infinitely, exponentially, eternally, and instantly as the void of the World Wound seeps out of the prison of the blade, slowly, and then all at once as the sword shatters like ice in the Herald’s hands.
Beatrix’s eyes widen in shock, her mouth open to speak, and then those shards tear through her, through time, through space, through reality. They hang in the void for forever, or a moment, and then rip back into the Herald’s shadow with a blast of force. Beatrix Avalon is unmade at the moment of completion.
After eternity passes, or perhaps seconds, the pressure relents, the void wends its way into the scars on the body of the Herald of Endings, and the vestments of Ichor retreat to reveal Aelys, changed, but there.
With the crushing, pushing, pressure that seemed to have slowed time now gone, Synnove sprints to Jean-Baptiste’s side, kneeling next to him, opposite Aelys.
A sob leaves her as she lays her hands on JB’s shoulder, tears streaming down her face as she looks at her friend, mouthing “Hey Sugar,” before pulling twilight over JB’s skin to heal him.
When Jean-Baptiste opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is impossibly long white hair, far too pale skin marked through with jagged scars, and a faint aura of void-shadow. Aelys, what she was now, looking down at him with inky tears in her eyes.
Tendrils of shimmering cerulean coil and twist in greeting, joy, and deep sorrow, Aelys looking away with something like guilt, or shame. Jean-Baptiste sits up with a groan and pulls her into a fierce hug.
“You came back. Thank you.” His voice breaks beside her ear, and the two cling to each other, their ki singing in harmony at the other’s return.