Crystals

[Cilia]

Which is weird, because Ifrit tried to temper us, and that didn't happen to him. His was a big wave of fire, and Garuda's was much more of a targeted tornado on us, so perhaps it has something to do with that?

I'd like to think so; Ifrit's wave was for a group of people, so there was probably less effort put into it, leading to a weaker reaction. Since Garuda specifically targeted you, she was likely putting more effort into it, leading to the feedback phenomenon from the Echo.

We know it takes some amount of effort to temper mortals based on the Company of Heroes' strategy for besting Primals, so it's not out of the question.