A twisted mirror of Lumine stood before us, her dress and accessories were swapped with Aether's outfit instead of being predominantly white with blue trim, hers were black and red.
"Aether... What happened to you?" Lumine asked softly and Aether snorted as she looked out past the cloud of darkness that carried her army of abyssal beings.
"Don't you mean what happened to you?" Aether retorted before grimacing. "When that unknown god tried to seal us away to wait out our lifespans she realized we were immortal and rather than try to directly meet us in combat when she could only seal us, she attempted to fuse us into one being, and once our minds were broken from the experience she would just throw us out of Teyvat," Aether said and then she raised her feminine hand.
"I awoke earlier than you in the merging process... And it turns out the sleeping and dreaming mind is more powerful than the one that is awake, I was forced to take upon your essence and my form once I was freed from her control became a mirror of your own... Besides having your ratty hair of course." Aether said almost smugly as she tilted her head back and forth to swish her hip-length hair compared to Lumine's shoulder-length hair.
"Why didn't you just come to meet me? Why are you with the abyss?" Lumine asked tiredly after a moment of silence and Aether sighed looking at her sister with naught but pity before she spoke.
"Because this world is broken and we cannot escape from it even if we got our powers back Lumine... So I am breaking open the shell of this world and saving the people I was once friends with while you were sealed." Aether said with steel in her tone but I sighed getting her attention.
"And attacking Liyue with an army of monsters will help accomplish your goals?" I asked as I met her glowing yellow gaze.
Aether looked back to Lumine instead of answering and spoke. "Wow, you already snagged a beau after only being awake for a couple of months, good on you sister. But did you tell him how we will inevitably leave him behind?" She taunted and I felt Eula tense beside me but I gently patted her on her back before I cut in.
"She told me from the very start about you travelers never sticking around and settling down. And I respect that even though I would likely enjoy seeing other worlds as well. But I got a question Aether?" I spoke and she raised an eyebrow and waved her hand as though to ask me to get on with it. "With your body matching Lumine, do you have that same mole on her right ass cheek?"
Aether's face went utterly flat before blushing bright red but before she could react and actually use the dark blue and black abyssal energy gathering in her hand she got cold-clocked in the back of the head when I summoned a Glyph that summoned the punching arm of a ruin guard.
"Eula freeze her! Abyss magic users can teleport!" I shouted as I tried to create a prison of Geo crystals around her to bind her hands, and hearing my words, Lumine who was clearly about to freak out on me instantly joined us as we have had many abyss mages teleport on us before leaving us looking like dumbasses.
"I forgot about your little summoning trick... Magic from a different world huh?" I heard Aether whisper as she flexed her power making the dark blue and black elemental magic of the abyss pulse outwards slamming through our elemental attacks and destroying the glyph that was attempting to fully summon the Ruin Guard to capture her.
"At the end of the road my dear sister. After you learn of this world's secrets I will speak to you in-depth... And you Jake Bariss, I thank you for showing your hands early in only attempting to knock me unconscious or something. Either way, I will pay you a visit someday to account for that underhanded blow." She finished giving me a cold smile before waving her hand and creating a pillar of abyss energies.
Even as Lumine dove after her, she only dived through the pillar and came out the other end as she had no abyss energies to resonate with the portal and seeing their princess leaving, the abyss Heralds and the more intelligent abyss monster left as well with a teleport, while the other more feral abyss monsters were dropped into the city of Liyue making curse but before I could dive down off my hurriedly summoned anemo elemental that caught Lumine, Eula and I. I saw the more pressing issues.
Being how Morax was fighting, Ghuizhong Ahzadaha, and Childe in his Foul Legacy transformation. The Fatui Harbinger had to use his abyss-tuned Electro energy that came from the Delusion to survive in the battle between gods.
"Let's get Childe out of the fight to even it for Morax. Eula, you help the people." I said grimacing as I heard the people of Liyue screaming as fatui agents and monsters cut through the populace as its native vision wielders and the Adepti did their best to slaughter those who dared to invade the city but they were still heavily outnumbered by the sudden blitz of invaders.
Eula dived for the ground before opening her wingsuit and I could hear her landing on the back of a Mitachurl with her claymore piercing through the back of the monster's head with all of her momentum and that was the last I saw of her as Lumine and I created a hail of geo crystals that shot at Childe, hitting him with some of them and exploding on impact making him curse with his voice muffled and twisted by the abyss energy that filled his body.
"Fuck you Childe, You are a cunt!" I roared as I leaped off my anemo elemental with Lumine as I overloaded the core of the Anemo Hypostasis and I could hear Childe curse as it glowed with bright green light and a howling explosion of winds rang out as the anemo hypostasis self-destructed with all of its condensed Anemo energy.
Even in canon I never liked Childe at all. When he realized his plan to get the Geo gnosis was a failure as he desecrated the Adepti body Zhongli left behind in his faked death. He threw the mother of all tantrums and unleashed the caged insane god of Vortex's Osial to attack Liyue who even now was fighting Ningguang who was operating the Jade Chamber to keep the god busy and away from Liyue.
But now with fucking Guihzhong returned to life somehow and being kept under some kind of mind control I was ready to send this bastard back to Sneznhaya in a body bag just like how Signora got her ashes mailed back in a damned envelope.