The Spark [Xiao x Aether]

"Do you love me?" |

The moment the strange dust cleared out, the Gods got back to their senses. Xiao stood there staring at the huge hole in the palace in disbelief. Aether couldn't have possibly decided to leave again, right? No way, after all those years together, right? The boy walked closer to the hole and inspected it. It had somehow managed to leave burn marks on the high-quality palace. This made no sense.

"Where is he!?" The Yaksha questioned in an angered voice. He didn't want to believe his lover left him again. Did he agree to come to the banquet just so he could escape? There were many possibilities. The first the Adeptuses could do was ask the archons what happened, but they all looked at each other until one finally spoke.

"It all happened so suddenly. A...tall person...no, creature broke inside and filled the room with dark smoke. It must have taken the God of time with him." Ei spoke in a shaken tone.

"But how could a creature so simple take one of the most powerful beings in Teyvat so easily? It makes no sense." Another God added.

None of the Gods seemed to know what exactly happened. Xiao could tell they were all more shocked than worried, so he took matters into his own hands. In the banquet room for the Gods, there were many weapons in glass frames on the wall. They were meant to be a decoration, but the Yaksha had no time to waste. If he hurried, maybe he could catch up to the strange creature.

Using his elbow, he broke one of the glasses behind a polearm and was about to jump out of the hole in the wall and search for footprints, but right as he got ahold of the weapon, a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Xiao. You shouldn't. Let us deal with this. Who knows what kind of entity that was." The Geo archon spoke in a calm tone as he took the weapon from the Adepti's hand.

The boy pushed Zhongli's hand away. Was Morax crazy? There was no way Xiao was going to stand still and pretend his lover didn't suddenly disappear into who knows where. He lost Aether once. He wasn't going to let that happen again.

"My powers may not be close to those of Gods, but let me com-"

Before Xiao could continue speaking, the Dendro archon, Nahida, sealed the hole with some of her Dendro powers to prevent the boy from escaping.

He rushed over to the seal and pushed his full body weight on it in an attempt to break it. It didn't work. He kept doing it until his shoulder began hurting, but even then, he didn't give up. The Gods around him all tried getting him to stop and telling him that strange creatures like the one they recently saw weren't something those with power lower than a God's should deal with.

The constant banging on the seal continued until someone finally came up with an idea to put a sleeping spell on the Yaksha. Some of his blood ended up splattering all around the seal. He couldn't teleport because the mysterious Dendro archon's powers managed to make it impossible for anyone to escape. The main entrance was also shut down.

He fell to the ground after the sleeping spell eventually started to get to him. Morax stayed with him until he was fully asleep while the rest of the archons ran to announce something since everyone was still stuck in the palace. They had to care for their people.

Before Xiao was completely out, he managed to hear a faint voice of the Raiden Shogun announcing that the whole palace would be on lockdown until she and the other Gods figured out what happened. His head was spinning, and the last thing he saw before passing out was Zhongli's face.

"We can't risk it, Xiao." A faint voice in the distance whispered.

Everything went black. The Yaksha tried fighting it but couldn't. Right before he closed his eyes, he reached his hand out to the seal one last time. He failed.