Separation.

She pleaded for him not to do it. Ishtar screamed in his mind to stop, despite knowing she would’ve done the same in his place. Will burned himself out, nearly fried his brain. He tried to squeeze every last bit of aether left in himself, and it burned him.

Ishtar took over his body just as Will passed out, but it didn’t change the fact that they were all out of juice. Barely conscious and laying face down on the cold ground, she couldn’t move even a finger. Her voice wouldn’t come out, either. She thought she could hear Johana fighting, but it sounded far, far away.

Ishtar also heard the girl, Helga, breathing hard. “You…! You imprudent son of a bitch!” She kicked her on the shoulder, once, twice, thrice. Either Ishtar felt too numb or the kicks carried too little strength to hurt at all.

“Hah… Ahahaha! Luck is always on my side! Even your second wind was little more than a dying gasp! Pathetic!” She was laughing, and though Ishtar could only glance high enough to see her legs, she had an idea of the face she was making. It pissed her off.

She saw Helga turning around, looking towards her men fighting Johana, most likely. “What? Are you kidding!? They’re losing to a single woman!?”

Ishtar would’ve laughed if she had the strength. What did Helga think? That a bunch of random dudes could fight an amazon?

“Shit. Shit…”

Johana would be done in a minute and would notice Helga standing over Will. He had managed to reach the peak of his power for a split second before passing out and took out three of Helga’s little puppets in the blink of an eye. Johana would have no trouble, and if Will was right and Helga had fully given in to greed, she wouldn’t kill Will if she really wanted him.

Helga was pacing around in a panic. Ishtar tried as best she could to glance up without moving and she did manage to catch something. Helga was holding something. A small blue stone, almost like a rough gem.

Helga then stopped and tensed up. Ishtar could feel it, too. It was familiar, reassuring. The clear sensation of a signal of aether in the sky, just not any kind of aether. It was sexually-attuned aether. Two signals, in fact, both diving straight down from the sky at high speeds.

“What the fuck are those! Shit! FUCK! AGH!”

Then, another surge of aether, this one basic and unrecognizable. There was a shift in the air current. Helga summoned another green puppet. It grabbed Will’s body and threw it over its shoulder.

“STOP! STOP!”

Azazel’s voice rang loudly, and seconds later a thrown spear pierced Helga’s shoulder.

“AAAAAHN!” The girl let out a painful cry and fell to her knees, blood staining her clothes and spilling on the floor. The spear was stuck in her to the middle of the long wooden shaft. The puppet, however, did not vanish. It continued moving with Will’s body, with Ishtar still on its shoulder.

That was when she was able to see the source of the unrecognizable aether and the shift in the wind. A floating oval of flowing, deep blue energy. Is that a portal? Where did it come from?

Helga struggled to her feet, cursing and moaning in pain. The green puppet walked into the portal, with its master following closely behind. The last thing Ishtar managed to see was the panic and anger in Azazel’s face as he landed from the sky, rushing towards them before the portal closed.

***

If the modern-looking apartment wasn’t enough of a clue, the air around them, the lack of aether-related pressure, told Ishtar they were in the real world.

The green puppet held her, still hanging across its shoulder while Helga cursed and kicked a couch behind them.

“Shit, shit! Uuuugh, it hurts! It hurts…!” She picked up her phone and began to make a call. “Hey, it’s an emergency. Come to my place, right now! No, I can’t go myself! I’m bleeding, asshole! Come right fucking now!”

Helga hung up, then kicked a small table, making it fall and breaking a base with flowers on it. A big piece of white crystal fell on the marble floor as well, right in the middle of the puddle of water from the broken vase. “To think I was **** to…! FUCK! It’s your fucking fault! You made me use that spell quartz! Such a fucking waste! I was going to sell it…! Aaagh!”

She pressed her hand against the would on her shoulder. The spear, a construct made purely of aether from the other world, had vanished the moment they crossed, leaving a nasty hole in the girl.

Ishtar took at least some comfort in the fact she hadn’t left unscathed. If she and Will got out of this one, she’d have to praise Azazel for that shot.

“I even lost the mirrorkin, too! You better be worth the money and blood lost. Shit… I can’t wait until the doctor’s here. I’m taking you right now.”

Helga crouched slowly and picked up the crystal. With it in hand, she approached her green puppet and grabbed a handful of Will’s hair.

“Come here. I’ll make you mine, too!”

Oh. Oh no. Oh fuck no.

Ishtar felt herself losing control of Will’s body. She felt her essence, her spiritual being being pulled. It was strange, and it was painful. Over their time together, Ishtar’s essence had become intrinsically linked to William’s, like two threads spun together to make a rope.

She didn’t understand how, but Helga was somehow forcefully pulling her out, and in doing so was tearing apart her connection to Will. It hurt like her skin was being ripped off, but worse than the pain was the absolute terror of what was actually happening.

She would be separated from Will. Her William.

No, no, no.

She promised to be with him forever! She couldn’t leave him alone, not ever but especially now of all times! Her essence, her being made of pure aether, was being sucked into that white crystal.

She felt the threads being separated, felt her connection to Will being ripped apart. It was done. She no longer felt the world through him, no longer felt the air in his skin, no longer heard a thing through his ears.

She was no longer a part of William.