And back to the actual story~ 

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Banshee found Amy's house and knocked on the front door.

A woman that looked about fifty answered the door, rubbing her eyes. "Yes, how can I--"

The woman froze, mouth hanging open, her eyes bulging as she was now well and truly awake.

Banshee lifted a hand in greeting and gave her a smile. "Hi! Does Amy live here?"

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" muttered the woman, smacking her palm against her forehead a few times. She glanced at Banshee, almost suspiciously, like she suspected a trick. "Am I dreaming?"

"Hmm," said Banshee, putting a hand under her chin and attempting a concerned look. "That depends, are you in your underwear or lacking pants?

"Am I--" The woman glanced down and laughed. "Well, I suppose I'm not."

"Helen?" someone called from inside the house. "Who's at the door?"

"Banshee!" the woman called back. "There's a Luminary at our door, Fred! Can you believe it?" She laughed again, a blissful sound that Banshee could have listened to for hours. "But I'm being exceptionally rude--you said you were looking for Amy?"

"Indeed I am," said Banshee, holding out a slip of paper. "She asked me to help her retrieve her crayons at the offerings today."

The woman held out a hand towards Banshee and bowed from the waist before Banshee could stop her. "Bless you, Banshee. You truly are a blessing from Skypillar." A man that matched her age appeared in the hall behind her as she turned. "See, Fred? I'm not crazy just yet. Amy lives two doors down that way, Banshee. May Skypillar guide your steps."

Fred seemed far too stunned to actually make a comment on the matter, and after a quick farewell, Banshee made her way to the right door, well aware of the stares and excited chattering from the woman behind her.

Before Banshee knocked on Amy's door, she could hear the arguments within. It sounded like a few kids and their mother in an all-out verbal war, not unlike those that had once been fought in Olivia's house many years ago.

She knocked on the door.

Excited squeals followed. "She's here! I told you mum, I told you she'd be coming!" Footsteps. The door thrown open. Amy's face staring up at her, completely beaming with smiles. "You came! Mum said you wouldn't so we should go to bed but I knew that you'd come so I--"

Banshee glanced up at an exasperated mother. "I'm sorry if I made bedtime infinitely harder for you tonight."

The mother sighed and gave her a tired smile as Amy's rambles continued. "It's okay, Banshee. I suppose this is a special occasion. Thank you for coming--it means the world to her, just in case you couldn't tell."

"It's no problem at all," said Banshee. "Would you mind if Amy were to show me where I'll be retrieving these crayons from?" Amy went to run out the door, but Banshee stopped her. "Ah, ah, not until your mum says it's okay. I'm just a visitor. She's in charge here."

Amy's raised eyebrow was more than a little hilarious. "What? But you're a Luminary!"

"And she's your mother," said Banshee. "So, mum, is it okay with you, or should I come back tomorrow night?"

"I'm not sure I can handle two nights of her excitement," said Amy's mother. "You can go with Banshee. Listen to her and do whatever she says. Don't pester her."

"I won't!" said Amy, grabbing Banshee's hand and dashing past her. "It's over this way!"

In the middle of Amy's jumping and talking and skipping, the thoughts that'd been haunting Banshee in the past hours were pushed out. She let herself be caught up in Amy's excitement, joining in with the bouncing and jumpy movements as Amy attempted to locate the crayons in the gutter.

"They were here!" said Amy, pointing to the groove carved several inches deep into the starstone. Her fingers poked through the starstone grate as she knelt down, pressing her eyeball against it. "This is where Caleb dropped them!"

Banshee crouched down. "Hm. With the storm, there was probably a lot of water--how about we look a bit further downstream?"

So they did. Banshee followed Amy's lead, who needed only the occasional nudge in the right direction. They went more than a few blocks before they came to a slightly sharper bend in the gutter where most of the crayons had appeared to have been caught.

The box was in tatters and the crayons scattered, but Amy's careful counting ended with a smile on her face.

"Thirteen! They're all there!" she announced, puffing her chest out.

"Great job finding them, Amy," said Banshee, drawing Joy from its scabbard on her back. "Now, if you'd step back for a moment, it's time for me to do my part."

Amy did so with wide eyes glued to the glinting dagger in Banshee's hand.

Banshee gave her a wink and twirled the dagger before kneeling down to the starstone.

Starstone was a weird material. To her, there seemed to be a hundred different colours each with different properties that could be mined and made through certain methods. Leave it overnight and the auroras would infuse it, which meant different things depending on the type. For the rose coloured starstone that made up the majority of the city--its streets, its buildings, its platforms, stairs, bridges, canals, gutters--that meant the auroras healed any damage it'd taken in the previous day.

As such, she didn't feel particularly bad when she stabbed her dagger into the ground and carved a section of grate away from the ground. It wasn't the first time she'd retrieved something from the gutters. The rose starstone could only be damaged by something of Skypillar's or the Other's power.

She had more than a few spectators when she laid down on her stomach and stuck her arm into the gutter, fingers fishing around for the crayons one by one. By the time she picked the last one up, Amy was struggling to hold onto them all.

"Want me to help?" Banshee asked..

"Nup, I have them!" said Amy. "Thank you, Banshee!"

"My pleasure," said Banshee. "Let's get you back home before your mum completely kills me for making you miss bedtime."

"Mum couldn't kill you, you're a Luminary!"

Banshee tapped the side of her nose. "I told you though, she's your mum. She'd be pretty scary if I got between her and her babies."

"I'm not a baby."

Banshee ruffled Amy's hair. "Well, you aren't an adult yet either, kiddo."

Amy eyed her. "Neither are you. You're seventeen, aren't you? Mum says that Lumi's are always picked at sixteen and you've been a Lumi for a year so I think that means that you're--"

"Noooot quite a year yet," said Banshee with a smile.

"I hope Skypillar chooses me to be a Lumi when I'm older," said Amy. "I wanna fight with you! Kick those Manifested right in the butt!"

"We don't kick the Manifested," said Banshee, then amended, "Much. They're people, even if the Other's corrupted them. It's our job to save them and bring them back. Sometimes we have to fight them, but we only do what's necessary to save them, not just to intentionally hurt them."

"Don't your daggers hurt though?" asked Amy, almost dropping a few of her crayons. "You cut through starstone. They have to be sharp."

Banshee drew Joy once more and touched the edge that felt blunt despite its razor point. "They only hurt what I want them to, otherwise they're like sticks. And if we do have to hurt the Manifested person to stop them, Skypillar heals their bodies once the Other's presence has left them."

"Like the auroras do with the starstone!"

Banshee nodded. "Exactly."

They arrived back at Amy's house to find her mother conversing with several of her neighbours, all of which looked either shocked, ecstatic or confused at Banshee's presence. After a goodbye hug and hustling Amy back inside with her crayons, Banshee stood to face Amy's mother.

"Sorry about making bedtime difficult again," said Banshee. "Kinda forgot about that, if I'm honest."

"Please, you did us a great service tonight," said Amy's mother. "Which... sounds a little ridiculous, since it was only crayons, but thank you all the same. It means the world to her. She loves you."

Banshee rubbed the back of her head. "I'm just glad I was able to help. I--"

She forgot what she'd been about to say when her tattoo went cold.

Manifested.

Banshee glanced around. She'd never been transformed when a Manifested had been made before, and her first instinct to look for a place to transform took a moment to conquer. She started looking to the shadows, watching the way they bent, telling her that the Manifested was close. It was like they were being sucked a few metres away to the mouth of the street.

Banshee followed them, drawing Grief and Joy to her hands. She tapped her tattoo twice and stepped around the corner, shifted to shadow and ready to fight.

An enemy didn't strike her, but nausea did. The Serpent's aura was localised but thick in the air--far thicker than it'd been at the nest. Banshee steadied herself and focused her breathing, forcing herself to look past it, to ignore it, to accept it into her movements and account for it as she kept forward, cautious.

The alley was narrow and blocked much of the light coming from the moons overhead, but the shadows didn't hinder her sight. She was part of them. They were an extension of her own movements, wrapping and sliding across everything they touched as they felt them out--and there was something human-sized and crouching just around the next corner.

Banshee didn't give them a chance to flee. She ran at the wall, running halfway up its length before she pushed herself off, aiming straight at the crouching figure. She was too slow. The shadows were shaken off by a faint blue-white light, shrouding the figure from Banshee's sight. It was barely a heartbeat, but that was all the time they'd needed to slip away. By the time the shadows had rekindled, the figure had fled, but there was only way they could have gone.

Up.

Banshee jumped. She landed gracefully on the roof, ready to spring forward but found nothing but empty air and the faintest shimmer of pale blue that disappeared before she could be sure it was even there. A glance to her right showed more of the same, just another strange, blue shimmer, but--there! Three rooftops ahead--that same blue-white glow, and she'd have sworn it was in the shape of a scaled tail.

Part of her didn't want to believe her luck. Hydra had once had a tail exactly like that, with the same blue-white spirit energy she'd commanded as a Luminary. It seemed to good to be true. Ella had been here. She could catch her and end this Starsong-given mission right now.

But as Banshee prepared to leap after Ella's trail, the shadows shifted, being pulled back towards Amy's house.

It was enough to make her hesitate, but the childlike scream was the reason Banshee twisted and launched herself back the way she'd come.

Banshee hit street level with the faintest puff of smoke, her stride unbroken until she reached the front of the house. The adults were still gathered, their nervous excitement replaced by confusion and fear. It only fed off Banshee's presence as they realised that something was indeed wrong.

"Where did the scream come from?" Banshee asked, just hoping they'd be coherent enough to give her an answer.

It was Amy's mother that pulled through, pointing towards her front door. "Inside--it sounded like Amy, but--"

That was enough for Banshee. She darted through the front door, scanning each room as quickly as she could before moving onto the next. The hall was empty. So was the living room and the kitchen.

"Amy?" Banshee called as she cleared the side room and swung herself up the staircase. "Amy, where are you?"

She relied on her ears. Another scream on the floor above, cut off by a choked sob. A thud as Banshee ran up the stairs. The sound of thirteen crayons hitting and rolling across the floor when she was just outside the door.

The growling that underlaid it all.

Amy was on the floor, pinned down by the Manifested whose claws were at her throat. Banshee didn't give herself time to think about why this Manifested didn't even look remotely human as she flung herself at it and tackled it into the wall.

They crashed. It swiped. She dodged. Banshee leaned back and brought her knee around, slamming it into the Manifested's chest. It recoiled from the force she put behind it, but she knew it was temporary. She couldn't fight this Manifested in an enclosed area. She needed to get it out onto the street, which meant she had to get Amy out.

With a shove to make sure the Manifested was completely off balance, Banshee retreated, scooping Amy's limp body up in her arms. The Manifested recovered quickly, and on the stairs from the second to the first floor, it landed on the banister between them and the door.

Banshee's body acted before her brain caught up. She shifted Amy to one hip, drew Grief, and threw it straight at the Manifested's chest.

She could have hit it anywhere. It was too enraged to notice the quick movement that sent Banshee's dagger flying at its face, but the already injured chest made sure the Manifested fell backwards off the ill-advised perch it'd made of the banister. With it down, Banshee swiped Joy in an arc through the banister, felling a semi-circle sized piece of railing on top of the Manifested's chest before using it as a stepping stone to the doorway.

She'd barely stepped onto the street by the time the Manifested tore the starstone to shreds and righted itself. She was all too aware of its gaze, flicking occasionally to Amy, but now solidly resting on her--the new threat. It was how these Manifested--the monsters--always worked. They had a fixation, and they had a threat assessment that trumped it. They lost any form of human emotion or interaction, and there was no reasoning with them. No distracting or delaying them with words.

Which meant she had to do this the hard way.

With the Manifested now stalking towards her on all fours, Banshee passed Amy to her mother. Half the group had moved further up the street, but a few of them were still lingering, transfixed on the gleaming, black scales of the Manifested's body.

"Run!" said Banshee, feeling the double tap echo through her tattoo as it warmed. "Go hide inside or something, don't just stand there!"

Amy's mother smoothed Amy's hair down, pressing her close to her chest as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Caleb!" she said, her voice wavering. "Caleb's in the--" She cut off, her eyes going wide. "Oh, Skypillar, no, please, my baby boy, he can't be--"

Banshee grabbed the woman by her shoulders, making an effort to hustle her away. "I'll save him. The Other won't keep him, I promise, but I need you to move." She glanced to one of the others who seemed slightly more coherent. "Get them to safety. Hide Amy. Don't let the Mani see her if you can help it."

They nodded, and Banshee separated herself from them, giving them space, ensuring the Manifested's attention was well on her. Grief lay on the floor somewhere under the starstone rubble, but she still had Joy.

It was going to have to be enough until Cryo showed up.

Out under the twin moon's light, the Manifested almost seemed to glow. Its scales reflected an aura off its body as it prowled forward, particularly the larger ones that rose up over its shoulder blades and spiked along the wicked looking tail. Its eyes were like black crystal, and its hind legs reminded her of the large, feline creatures she'd seen pictures of that were supposed to live in the wilderness around the other cities. What were they called? Panda--panthers! This Manifested reminded her of a really large, scaled, deadly looking panther.

That realisation didn't seem to count for much as the Manifested lunged at her.

Shifted to shadow, Banshee dodged it easily. She danced around its attacks, trying to get different angles on its body in her search for the fragment lodged on its body but no matter where she looked, she couldn't seem to find it. The Serpent's aura hung over her every movement, a buzzing at the back of her thoughts. It was the tiniest distraction, but it was enough to thoroughly annoy her.

Banshee feinted back and leapt to the side to get a glimpse of its behind, but still no fragment. That meant the only place left was its underside, and how she was going to get it to expose its stomach was probably something that Cryo would have yelled at her about, had he been there to witness it.

When the Manifested next pounced at her, Banshee held her breath, shifting deeper into her shadow, and let it make contact.

It was caught completely off guard. The Manifested's claws dug into her shoulders as it pushed them back, felling them both and slamming Banshee's back into the starstone, but she felt nothing. Lighter and more intangible than ever, she slipped straight through the solid mass of the Manifested's claws like a wraith and got a close-up view of its underside.

She almost missed it, but she found what she was looking for. The Manifested's fragment was wedged under a scale along what would have equated to its breastbone had it been humanoid, just beside the heart. She released the breath and returned to her usual shadow shift, once more becoming corporeal. One hand wrapped around the Manifested's body, holding it down as best she could, while the other grabbed the fragment and, after a few attempts, yanked it free.

The Manifested's scales evaporated into black mist along with the Serpent's aura. Banshee's arm was curled around the chest of a boy, perhaps about ten, with hair the same colour as Amy's. She held him against her, stroking his hair, her other hand holding the fragment as far away from him as she could.

As the boy, presumably Caleb, stirred and lifted his head, Banshee gave him a smile.

"Hey, buddy," she said softly. "How ya feeling?"

Caleb blinked, understandably confused. He pushed himself up, one hand almost awkwardly placed on her chest before he redirected it to the ground and scrambled off her.

"Ban--Banshee!" he said. "I thought you were getting my sisters crayons, I--why am I outside?"

"The Other tried to take you, but we got you back," she said gently, sitting up and closing her fingers over the fragment to hide it from view. "The important thing is that you're okay now."

"I..." Caleb trailed off, his eyes focused on his hands in his lap. "I don't remember. I was in my room and Amy wouldn't shut up about you or the crayons and... I dunno. I guess I got jealous. When the faerie came in, I didn't really think about it."

"Faerie?" said Banshee. "What kind of faerie are you talking about?"

Caleb shrugged. "It was kinda bluey white and really shiny. It came through my wall and said that it could help me make my sister jealous of me for once." He covered his face, his voice quivering. "I'm--I'm sorry, Banshee. I didn't mean to let the Other take me like that, I--I--I--"

"Shh," said Banshee, pulling him into a hug with one arm. "It's all good now. We got you back, and now you know better than to accept help from rogue faeries, don't we?" She glanced up at Amy, running over to Caleb. "Besides, I think someone's happy you're okay."

"Calebbbb!" said Amy as she tackled him back to the starstone pavement. "Caleb, you're okay! When you disappeared and the scales happened and you made that really weird noise and--and it's okay now though! Banshee saved you!"

Banshee stood up as Amy clung to her brother's arm like it was her sole link to life itself, unable to help the smile on her face.

"Nothing to be jealous of either, Caleb," said Banshee, giving him a wink. "Assuming you don't put any more crayons down gutter grates, I'd be more than happy to help you out sometime too if there's anything you need."

She spent another minute or so ensuring Caleb was well before retrieving Grief and making her move to leave. It bothered her what Caleb had said about the faerie, and if her hunch was correct, it could be about to make their Starsong mission a whole lot harder.

Banshee caught sight of her ice-winged partner and leapt up onto the rooftop overlooking the scene to join him.

"Slowpoke," she said. "And before you argue, we have bigger problems. I think Ella just made a Manifested."

Cryo frowned. "Explain."

She gave him the run-down on the blue-white shimmers she'd seen on the rooftops and about Caleb's 'faerie' before showing him the fragment in her palm.

"The fragment's corrupted," she said, holding out the crystal that seemed to negate light itself, almost like an anti-star. "Thought I'd show you before I crushed it, just in case. The boy who was Manifested didn't retain any of his humanity. Could have been cos he was young, but he was like some kind of monster. Went after his focus then re-targeted me as a threat after I threw Grief at him."

"You said you were following the trail until the second Manifested appeared?" said Cryo. Banshee nodded. "If your guess is right and that was indeed Ella, it would appear she has transformed, which could be where the wind is leading me now." He lifted a hand in the same direction that her shadows were being pulled. "Outer Cevinari?"

"Andrew," said Banshee. "She has to be heading for him. If she's anything like a regular Manifested, then both him and Melissa might be--"

Cryo turned, presenting her his back. "Get on."

Banshee crushed the corrupted fragment into a wisp of emerald mist before she leapt onto Cryo's back, and after a quick positional check from Cryo, they shot off into the night.

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A/N - Yay NaNo time, second chapter for the week! Half posting this in the hopes that it'll hurry my butt up with the writing. Super behind on NaNo  *dies* 

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