That was fair. Duke wasn't hearing any of them anymore, so focused on what he was doing, what he was sensing as he focused all his attention and energy on the aether.
Croatoan howled, brought up short by Lucifer's grabbing and struck in the shoulder by the thrown knife. It was a wound he wouldn't blink at normally -- and a grip he felt he should have been able to shrug off. But for all his ego, he actually had nothing on a real celestial, and the knife, imbued with its own aether from a troubled family of yore, had him bleeding black gore.
Which started to dissolve into black mist. And then scattered further into nothingness.
"You can't!" he shouted at Duke. "You're a slug, a filthy, reeking parasite, you cannot --" He broke off with a choking noise, more black goop pouring from his mouth, his nose, his ears, and vaporizing.
Duke himself was leaking, too. Thinner strands of black oozing from his closed eyes, his ears, from under his fingernails. He noticed, but didn't care; it was the aether, the stuff of troubles now undone, allowed to finally unwind and dissipate into something less than matter.
The small chunk of aether that was Octavia's trouble crumbled away inside her, to be exhaled as little more than a wisp of smoke. And the effect echoed out from here, spreading out over Haven. Some would feel it happen, more would never notice until their particular trouble didn't activate when they expected it to. Until it never activated again.
And if it meant Croatoan melted, Duke was fine with that. If it meant he melted -- that wasn't fine, no, but it was a price Duke was willing to pay.
Re: Trap! Confrontation! Battle! Deeeeath!
Croatoan howled, brought up short by Lucifer's grabbing and struck in the shoulder by the thrown knife. It was a wound he wouldn't blink at normally -- and a grip he felt he should have been able to shrug off. But for all his ego, he actually had nothing on a real celestial, and the knife, imbued with its own aether from a troubled family of yore, had him bleeding black gore.
Which started to dissolve into black mist. And then scattered further into nothingness.
"You can't!" he shouted at Duke. "You're a slug, a filthy, reeking parasite, you cannot --" He broke off with a choking noise, more black goop pouring from his mouth, his nose, his ears, and vaporizing.
Duke himself was leaking, too. Thinner strands of black oozing from his closed eyes, his ears, from under his fingernails. He noticed, but didn't care; it was the aether, the stuff of troubles now undone, allowed to finally unwind and dissipate into something less than matter.
The small chunk of aether that was Octavia's trouble crumbled away inside her, to be exhaled as little more than a wisp of smoke. And the effect echoed out from here, spreading out over Haven. Some would feel it happen, more would never notice until their particular trouble didn't activate when they expected it to. Until it never activated again.
And if it meant Croatoan melted, Duke was fine with that. If it meant he melted -- that wasn't fine, no, but it was a price Duke was willing to pay.