Cryo was hovering over the canal bordering inner Aeledrae to Sylrael, wondering if he should go further or not when a flash of light somewhere in Cevinari and a single tap on his tattoo answered his question.

Bringing the frozen winds of Skypillar under his command, Cryo sped towards Cevinari far faster than he'd left it. He'd trusted his partner enough to leave without an explanation, but it sure made everything a whole lot harder to plan for. His thoughts were racing, trying to find a reason for the flash of light. He'd seen Ella--Hydra? climbing out the window after Banshee, who'd presumably handed him her fragment. Why Hydra hadn't turned back to Ella he didn't know, but that flash of light had to have been Hydra's primary ability.

It meant they were in a whole lot of trouble, but they'd been in trouble before. In his mind's eye, the amulet's vision kept replaying through his head, over and over as terror crept into his frenzied movements. He couldn't stop feeling like he'd arrive moments too late and be forced to watch Banshee's lifeless, civilian body lay there all over again for a second eternity.

Cryo smacked himself across the cheek and pushed his speed even further.

It took him almost a minute to reach Cevinari and even if he hadn't been able to track Banshee, the giant, glowing Hydra was a literal beacon. The blue-white spirit energy radiated out from its body, illuminating the buildings around it, and the blasts from its mouth were almost blinding until they hit the starstone and fizzled out of existence.

Above the air whistling in his ears he heard Banshee's voice, clear and strong above the chorus of screams underneath it.

"You two, help her out, I'll stop the blasts if they come! Move!"

Cryo breathed, a fine, white powder of snow riding the air expelled from his lungs.

She was alive.

The Hydra's leftmost head turned to face the opposite side of the street to Banshee. Cryo watched, confused, as his partner instantly abandoned the group of people she'd been ushering out of the building and sprinted for the target of the Hydra's gaze.

Was she hoping to dodge it? On the ground, she could likely move faster than the blasts. So why was she moving so early and leaving those people unguarded?

Cryo didn't understand what she was doing until, when she was halfway across, the Hydra's left fired a blast of spirit energy straight at another fleeing group.

Even as Banshee leapt in front of it and dissolved the blast with a slash of her daggers, the right head's attention was back on the ground she'd just left behind, the glow in its mouth saying it was about to fire. Banshee's feet had barely touched the ground before she was off and moving back the way she'd came, playing a deadly game of catch with the Hydra.

It wasn't attacking her--it was attacking the civilians.

Cryo dropped, sweeping a wave of ice up from the ground with a gesture. Hydra's blast hit his ice, shattering both the blast and the wall upon impact to leave the Hydra screaming.

"Situation?" he asked Banshee without looking at her as he swept yet a second wave of ice from the middle head to intercept a spirit bolt.

"Ella told it to destroy onlookers and ran off," said Banshee, her voice somewhere behind him and followed by a word of thanks from a civilian. "She also told me the Hydra has a heartstone. We break that, we dismiss it."

Another wall of ice shattered. Cryo froze a muzzle around each head's jaws. "Why would she help us?"

"No idea," said Banshee, beside him now. The edges of her robes were singed and the hand of one glove looked charred, but aside from that she looked unhurt. "I couldn't see it on the exterior, though I've been fairly distracted."

Cryo wracked his brain, trying to recall what he'd read. Every Lumi's primary ability had a drawback, the energy required aside. His Living Ice required a split focus. Banshee's Scream required her to stand still. Heartstones--he knew they were another weakness, and they were--"The Hydra's heartstone will be within its body."

"That might be a problem. I tried deep shadow shifting earlier to get through it when it blocked me, but its insides felt like lightning." Banshee wiggled her charred glove. "I don't recommend it."

The Hydra was thrashing. Still muzzled by his ice, its tail lashed out. One head slammed itself into the buildings, desperate to break the ice. One succeeded, and though Cryo re-froze it immediately, the heads had all learned.

It bought them a precious minute as the Hydra walked over to a nearby corner and began smashing its heads into the side, snapping at each other as they inevitably collided.

"What are our chances of wearing it down?" asked Cryo.

"See those tiny holes on it where the light's leaking out of it? That's where I've got it, but unless I plunge it straight in with two hands, it won't do anything, and it mostly heals as soon as the dagger's out again. Throwing and general swipes did nothing." Banshee glanced behind her. "Should we evacuate these people first?"

"Out of immediate danger, yes. But a full evacuation is not possible. So many individuals cannot outrun something with legs three times their height, especially not with children. We have to take it down, and we don't have the time to wear it down. One mistake and we'll have casualties."

"Plan?"

"Show me Joy." As she held out the dagger, Cryo froze its blade over with ice and nodded. "Pierce Hydra's hide. I'll attempt to use my primary ability once it's inside."

"You sure about using your ulti so quick?"

Cryo nodded. "Yes. We're out of options. I won't use much. I'll have several minutes before I dim afterwards."

"Kay, featherbrain," said Banshee, twirling Joy in her grip. "Let's do this."

Banshee pushed off the ground. Shifted to shadow, the Hydra didn't notice her weight as she landed, but it definitely noticed when she gripped Joy's hilt with both hands and plunged it straight down into its hide.Hydra's scream, muffled by the muzzles of ice, was still almost enough to shake Cryo's concentration. Banshee stayed perched on Hydra's form a moment longer, her grip still on the dagger. She absorbed the Hydra's thrashing movements with her legs, and after standing and seemingly ensuring Joy was well in place, leapt off.

Cryo didn't see where she went. The ice around him lit up as he activated his primary ability--the walls, the shards scattered across the streets--all of it but the one piece he needed.

With a curse, he flew closer. His range was usually no problem. Skypillar, once he'd even been able to sense the ice cubes in the freezer of a cafe, but the Hydra's essence blocked whatever it was that let him connect with the ice on Banshee's blade.

Closing the distance helped. He felt it, and though it was still fuzzy it'd have to be enough. He shattered the ice on Joy into several pieces to remove it from the blade. It was far harder than it usually was to control it. It lacked his usual precision. The commands felt delayed, but after steadying himself with a breath, he knew he could work with it. With the exception of one shard, he broke the pieces smaller and smaller until they numbered a few hundred, and in a swarm, moved them around the inside of the Hydra's body, hoping to hit the heartstone before Hydra hit him.

Time worked against him. Driven into a frenzy by Banshee's attack, the Hydra quickly removed the ice around its heads and immediately turned its attention to Cryo. Normally, he might have been able to freeze more while maintaining his living ice, but under these conditions it required his full attention and he couldn't risk losing it. Even when the connection was clear, the smaller the piece of ice, the harder it was to establish or reestablish a connection with it.

The Hydra's three gazes locked onto Cryo, and he had the feeling it was well aware of what he was doing.

Its heads reared back, mouths glowing.

Cryo widened his stance and brought his wings in front of him, prepared to take the hit, but he didn't have to. As the blast launched towards him, Banshee intervened, cleaving it in two with her remaining dagger.

She pointed Grief towards the Hydra. "Hey, scalebutt! He's not an onlooker, that's cheating!" She tapped the dagger against her chin. "Or maybe he does. Cryo, were you looking when Ella told scalebutt here to attack people who couldn't defend themselves?" As the Hydra released another blast in his direction that Banshee once again intercepted, she picked up a nearby piece of rubble and threw it straight at the middle head. "My ice bird! Not yours! Mine! Go find your own to blast off the streets!"

Cryo ignored her and closed his eyes as he continued to sweep Hydra's interior with his icy swarm of shards.

Somewhere about halfway through his improvised grid search, his swarm hit something. Closing in on it, he covered it in the frost. The Hydra's screams of rage pierced his mind. Its footsteps shook the ground as it closed in. It was done with the spirit bolts. It was time for these annoyances to meet his fangs, for him to hear their screams as he ripped them apart and--

Cryo tore his thoughts free--fangs? What was--

"Cryo! Hurry up or you're gonna be food!"

Banshee's voice tore his thoughts free, pulling him back to his own body but it was already sucking him back in. The heartstone echoed and called, dragging him back into the bond that didn't feel natural but that he slipped into so easily. He could meld--he could--

"Cryo!"

With one, final effort, Cryo grabbed the single, sharpened piece of ice he'd left in the Hydra's body and stabbed it straight through the heartstone.

The explosion of light that followed completely broke his connection to the ice. He was knocked off his feet and thrown backwards as Hydra seemingly collapsed in on itself. Cryo landed awkwardly on a wing, trapping its bottom half beneath his back as Banshee was flung almost horizontally over the top of him. Lighter in her shadow shift, he heard her grunt as she hit the wall behind them.

But the street was clear. Once more, the shadow of night had settled over the streets with only puddles of streetlights to banish it.

In the dark, it was an effort to untangle himself from the crystals of his wings. Cryo was attempting to figure it out when Banshee was at his side, her hands working quickly with her instructions to lift his arm or roll over, and under her guidance he was soon free.

"Well, that was fun," she said. "How long do you have before you dim?"

"I'm unsure, but I'm not in the final stages just yet so I would estimate at least five minutes," said Cryo. "Are you well?"

"Perfectly well," said Banshee, making a face as she mimicked his voice. When Cryo didn't have it in him to retaliate, she cleared her throat and rubbed her arms. "I think the Serpent aura when it exploded did more of a number on me than the impact did. I can still feel it. Feels all... slimy. Like it's just not right."

"I still seem to be immune to its effects," said Cryo. "I feel nothing unusual."

"Weird," said Banshee. "You good though? Blast knocked you back a fair way."

"I've endured worse," said Cryo as she took his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Thank you for defending me."

"And good job taking out the heartstone," said Banshee. "It was so very much not happy about that."

Cryo frowned. "I think the Hydra was conscious. As you spoke to me, I believe I may have heard its thoughts."

"That's... odd," said Banshee. "I thought it was just a projection.Though I guess if it were a projection, it would have disappeared with her when she dimmed, right?"

"She dimmed?" asked Cryo.

Banshee nodded. "Yep, just after her third command to the Hydra she looked like a regular person and ran off after telling me about the heartstone. The fragment was weird too. It was grey until I took it off her, then it turned black and she turned into... well, the actual Hydra, what she looked like when she was a Luminary still. You still have the fragment?"

Cryo lifted his right arm where he'd frozen the fragment into the ice just below his elbow. "Indeed I do."

"Give it here," said Banshee, holding out her palm. When the fragment rested in it, she attempted to crush it but failed. The concern in her face growing, she took Grief and tried to break it that way, but once more, the fragment resisted. "Welp, that doesn't seem good."

Cryo shared the sentiment. "This may be something we need to confer with the elder Luminaries about. Until then, I would suggest we store it in temple grounds, particularly in the Starlight Hall. The golden starstone will ensure its protection."

"Good plan," said Banshee, tossing the fragment in the air a few times. "And speaking about golden starstone, I think we should move Andrew and Melissa there until we're sure this Ella thing's been dealt with."

"That seems a wise course of action."

Banshee tapped the side of her face. "You think this counts as saving Ella, by the way? Y'no, for our amulet thingys? I kinda figured something magical might happen when we did it, but I guess not. That, or she isn't saved yet." She sighed. "Go recharge, Cryo. I'll do damage control and get things rolling. Meet me back here when you can."

And so he did.

Atop the skyshrine, Cryo dimmed and went to place Sae in the auroralight bath when the Ascended rested his beak on the heel of Jason's hand and looked at him with one clear, icy blue eye.

"You okay, buddy?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Sae," said Jason. "Recharge as quickly as you can. Banshee needs us."

"If you say so."

Ten or so minutes later, Cryo once again soared the skies.

He located Andrew and Melissa's house and zeroed in. He'd read texts from the first civilisation about the time before Skypillar, when the Other's grip on humanity had been complete, and the streets around him now seemed to match the warzones described in them.

Though not as bad as it could have been had Banshee not held the line, at least two building fronts were partially collapsed. The streets themselves had easily a hundred gouges from the Hydra's claws. Starstone rubble littered the entire area, and displaced families stood at the edges of the destruction, huddled together under blankets. Temple-owned Gleamerbikes lined the streets, and sure enough, Cryo found several of their members moving through the crowds of nerve-wracked people.

The auroras tomorrow night might be able to heal the starstone, but it wouldn't be able to heal the terror that Hydra's attack had left in their thoughts.

Cryo glided to ground level, unfreezing his wings once he landed. A Speaker approached him, and when Cryo asked, informed him of Banshee's location. With a word of thanks, Cryo sought her out.

He found his partner speaking with a few of the families. He watched her as she touched the nose of a child on their mother's hip with the tip of her finger, after which both of them broke out into smiles.

Cryo waited in the shadows. She had such an easy way with people. She didn't act like what most people expected Luminaries to be like, but that just seemed to make her all the more endearing. According to his mother, Luminaries were supposed to be Skypillar's chosen. They were supposed to be perfect. Flawless. They weren't supposed to be touching the noses of children to make them laugh and forget their worries--but Cryo admired Banshee all the more because she did.

She doesn't do it out of duty for Skypillar, he realised. She does it to protect the people that live under it.

After a few more minutes, Banshee left the family with a wave and made her way over to Cryo, confirming his suspicions that she'd known he was there all along.

Banshee held out a hand to him. "Lay it down?"

He slapped his palm against hers, almost mechanically. "And down it's laid."  

"Hey, featherbrain," she said, nudging him with an elbow. "All nice and recharged?"

"Indeed," said Cryo. "Is the situation here handled? Do you require my assistance for anything?"

"Situation is perfect," said Banshee. "But let's talk about you for a minute. You okay?"

"I'm perfectly fine," said Cryo.

"Okay, no you're not," said Banshee. "What's wrong? You're particularly stiff at the moment, even for you."

"I'm not--"

"'Are you well? I've endured worse.' C'mon, Cryo. I know you better than that. Spill."

"I was disheartened by an interaction today during my civilian life," he said after hesitating. "I misjudged someone. I believed I could place my trust in them. I was mistaken."

"Ah," said Banshee, her fingers on her chin. She opened her mouth as if to say something but seemed to change her mind as a smile sprung back on her face and she wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "Well, looks to me that they weren't worth your time anyway, Cryo." She winked at him. "Besides, who needs them when you've got me?"

"Who indeed?" murmured Cryo.

"But seriously," said Banshee. "If you ever need someone to talk to or help you out with anything, you can always count on me, Cryo. Even if you just need someone to talk to, I don't mind transforming and meeting up with you somewhere. Tap it twice and I'll be wherever you need me to be. Okay?"

"It would be breaking our honour as Luminaries to be so frivolous with our powers."

"Excuse me, Cryo, but it'd be breaking my honour as your friend to not be there for you when you need me," said Banshee. "And I care a lot more about my duty as a friend and your partner than whatever pact we got dragged into when Skypillar lured us up to the Celestial's eye like a year ago. I didn't choose to be a Luminary--though I'll be the first to admit I freakin' love it--but I'm choosing to be your friend."

Cryo looked at her for a long minute. "That's an... interesting way to put it, I must say."

"Interesting is what I do best!" said Banshee, her arm still around his shoulder as she pressed her cheek to his, side by side. "You'd be so bored without me, Cryo."

Cryo's eyes slid over to her face. "What are you doing?"

"Bonding."

"Bonding?"

"Bonding."

After a few more seconds of 'bonding', Banshee released him from her death grip and gave him a hug before stepping away.

"But really," said Banshee. "If you ever need me, literally for anything--"

"You got the point across the first time, 'Shee," said Cryo, holding up his hands. "Believe me, I don't need another lecture on friendship and magic. I got it."

She gave him a wicked smile, flashing her teeth. "Good. Best you remember it too, because as soon as you forget I'm gonna smack it right back into your head. Anyway!" She stretched her arms upwards. "We'd best make sure that Andrew and Melissa make it to the temple safely and put Ella's fragment somewhere safe, and then I'd say we should call it a night. Agreed?"

"Agreed," said Cryo, a smile pulling at his mouth.

"Good," said Banshee. "Because honestly, I gotta be up early tomorrow and I'm gonna die if I don't get at least some sleep tonight--but first, you're gonna give me a proper one of these."

Banshee held out her hand for the second time.

This time, Cryo just shook his head, unable to stop his smile from overtaking as he slapped her palm with his gaze on the stars.

"There we go," said Banshee with a wink. "Now, Let's go, cupcake!"   

As Banshee leapt off the ground and onto the rooftops out of earshot, Cryo sighed, turning his gaze to the stars as an unusual warmth spread across his face.

"I think I preferred featherbrain."

*+*+*+*

A/N - I don't think I'm going to beat NaNo this year xD I'm so very far behind, oh boy. I'll still call worth on it though, I've been in NZ since friday and here for a few more days yet, so hey ;D (earthquake didn't affect me either before anyone asks, wobbled for a few minutes but that's about it) 

ANYWAY, HAVE A CHAPTER. 

VOTE. 

COMMENT.

TAKE A COOKIE.

IN THAT ORDER PREFERABLY BUT WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT REALLY <3 

LOVE YOU GUYS <3