Ajani - Duplicates Bolas via his soul

With a mighty leap, Ajani dived into what remained of the maelstrom. It enveloped him, suspending him in the air, filling him with a rush of mana that overloaded his senses.

With even a fraction of the power of the maelstrom, Ajani was overwhelmed. He couldn’t believe Bolas had held any more than that—he felt the efforts of thousands of mages all at once, channeling their magics at one another, feeding him with their power.

Ajani closed his physical eyes, and his inner one opened.

***

The voices of every spellcaster in Alara spoke to Ajani at once. Their near-limitless knowledge, for one cacophonous moment, was clear to him. Ajani could see it. Deep inside Bolas was a spark, an eternal essence, just like any other mortal being. Perhaps he wasn’t bound by the same rules as other beings; the power Ajani perceived there was blinding, mind-splitting. But the dragon still shared that simple, essential core of consciousness, that quintessence that some called soul. And though Ajani couldn’t strike down that soul, he could do the reverse—he could nurture it, cause it to blossom, and will its essence into being.

“You’ve always brought out the best in others, Ajani,” he imagined Jazal saying. “That was always your gift.”

Ajani evoked the essence of Bolas.

Energy coursed out of Bolas’s chest like a stream of star-encrusted aether, crashing into the depression left by the maelstrom, and splashing against the rim to curve in on itself. The stream warped and distorted as a form took shape.

At first it looked like a dragon made of surreal air-distortion, suffused with an ultraviolet glow. As it continued to cohere, detail after detail resolved like a distant image coming into focus until it was a glowing, astral reflection of Bolas himself.

The two dragon-beings regarded one another, their movements curiously alike. Their mimicry infuriated one another, and they howled, a sonic mirror. The two dragons crashed into one another, grappling each other in rage. They both knew that they were the greatest threat to one another in all of Alara. They both knew each other’s power and treachery, and knew that giving an opening to the other would mean their own destruction. Magical energies pulsed out of them as each one struggled to conquer the mind and soul of the other, trying to use the other as their pawn; both of them countered the other with magic designed to prevent the psychic assault. They surged with the power of the mana storm, one in the form of scaly flesh, the other in the form of starry aether.

***

Alara Unbroken, Chapter 111