They didn't have time to argue.

Guided by DragonFae's scale, Banshee and Cryo left the Starlight Hall and headed towards outer Kaladrel. Shadow shifted and perched on Cryo's back, Banshee couldn't tear her eyes away from the scattered lights of the city below them. If Fae's scrying was correct, Harpy was still here, somewhere, in Kaladrel. Like Wyvern, they'd been so close to her so many times.

But tonight, they were getting her back, even if they had to tear this city apart piece by starstone piece.

Banshee hung on tight as Cryo dipped low over the water. Here, the tower-like buildings extended out over the water, far past the edge of the sandy beaches. People milled about on the smooth white starstone that looked almost as if it floated just above the water's level, their quiet conversations giving a soft, carefree buzz to the night. The starstone caught the silver light of both moons on every sliver of detail.

Cryo landed them atop an unoccupied starstone pavilion that sheltered the top of a tower's roof. He lifted his arm, where DragonFae's scale, frozen into the ice on his wrist, glowed with an encouraging light. "Fae's scale is indicating that both Golem and Harpy are within this vicinity."

Banshee stepped off his back, her boots silent as shadows. "I don't hear Golem or any kind of commotion that'd tell us he passed by. It's too quiet."

"Wyvern I can imagine slipping through unnoticed," said Cryo. "But you're correct about Golem. People would have noticed."

Banshee thought about it for a moment. "Unless he went dim, walked through in his civilian identity, then transformed back again afterwards."

"That would be extremely dangerous. It would risk the Serpent seeing his true face."

"True, but the Serpent can't remember everyone it sees," said Banshee as a few purple flecks danced around her hand approvingly before disappearing. "Cameras don't work around it, so if it's here, Golem knew his face couldn't be recorded. The Serpent won't be worried about a regular civilian just walking through. Golem probably knew Fae would call us too, so he's given us more time before the Serpent realises we're after him, though that's assuming Wyvern hasn't already marched into them and called them all idiots."

"Regardless, we act with the same caution as if they knew of our presence and our plan," said Cryo.

"Agreed," said Banshee. The breeze blew a piece of her fringe across her visor which she brushed away. "So what is the plan? Start asking people, look around, what?"

Violet flecks answered her question. They shimmered into existence from DragonFae's scale, hovering for a few moments before they zipped over the edge of the pavilion's roof. With a raised eyebrow, Banshee followed them and hung herself over the side from the waist. Sure enough, she spotted a staircase that led down into the tower's lower floors.

She pulled herself back up to her knees and looked at Cryo. "Stairs. Purple flecks going down there. I guess that's where we go."

"Before we begin, I wish to establish a temporary tap-pattern in case we are separated," said Cryo. "One tap, we've found Wyvern. Two, Golem. Three, Harpy. Four, Serpent sighting. Five, as usual, indicates urgency. Repeat it back." Banshee repeated it back, and Cryo nodded. "Good. The corridors in this location run underground and underwater, but they are wide enough to accommodate my wings."

"You know the layout of this place?"

"Not well," said Cryo. "I have been here on occasion, but I wouldn't rely on my navigation alone."

"Gotcha," said Banshee. "One last thing then. In case we need a signal to identify each other through the Serpent's hallucinations, this will be it."

Banshee placed her palm over her tattoo, lifted it, slapped it down and swiped it off to the left. Cryo copied her gesture, his hand coming down and sending an echo across her chest.

"Let's do this, Cryo. We stay low and quiet."

"I'm with you."

She flashed him a grin as she grabbed the edge of the roof. "I know."

Banshee rolled off the edge of the roof and used her grip on it to flip herself under and stick the landing. With a rush of air, Cryo joined her, and together, they followed Fae's magic down into the mouth of the spiral stairs.

It was quiet. Any noise from outside was muffled by the narrow walls of the stairs around them, which made the click of Cryo's claws against every step that much louder. Banshee pressed her lips together and told herself it sounded enough like a pair of heels that it wouldn't be suspicious. Despite herself, the idea of Cryo strutting down the stairs in heels and a tiara was too much, and she giggled.

Banshee clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The sound echoed down the stairs and into the rooms beyond, deafening in the silence.

"Hello?" said an unfamiliar voice from somewhere below them.

Still with her hand over her mouth, Banshee gave a wide-eyed look to Cryo, who stood still as snow.

"Hello?" called the voice again. Banshee's gaze flicked down the stairs, half expecting to see someone below, but they didn't sound like they were getting any closer. "Miss? Are you returning?"

"I thought she was in the other tower," muttered a second, quieter voice.

With the stealth option screwed, Banshee took a deep breath and lifted her hand off her mouth.

"Oh, yes, I'm coming down soon!" she called down in a high, warbly voice. Cryo's eyes flashed her a warning. Banshee gave him a little apologetic shrug and kept talking to the people below them. "It's so wonderful up here! You should join me. The stars are magnificent!"

Her gamble paid off. The first voice spoke again. "You shouldn't stay up there longer than necessary, miss. Your father will be looking for you soon."

"Oh, he can let me have some fun once in awhile!" said Banshee, motioning Cryo forward. He froze shards of ice between his fingers and took the next few steps down, his claws clicking on each one. "I thought I spied DragonFae just before. She was over the rooftops, but she was gone before I could be sure."

"DragonFae?" replied the unknown voice. "I think perhaps, miss, you should come down now. We wouldn't want you catching a chill."

Banshee glanced at Cryo, who gave her a sharp nod. She let go of a breathy sigh, swishing the longer fabric of her tunic around her. "Oh, I suppose, if you insist."

"Thank you, miss," said the unknown voice as Banshee shifted to shadow, her movements slipping into silence like a glove. "I'm glad you've enjoyed your time tonight." Banshee moved past Cryo, who was still taking the steps at an even, steady pace. "Your father will be pleased, I'm sure."

Banshee reached the bottom of the stairs. Still no sight of either speaker. They'd probably worked out something was wrong and were waiting for her to show. She placed her back to the wall beside the bottom step and drew both Grief and Joy. With Cryo two steps from the bottom, Banshee held up three fingers towards him. He nodded. She mouthed the words, dropping a finger with each one.

Three, two, one.

Banshee stepped out first.

Three starstone guns were pointed straight at her. She ducked low under the first shot and dropped her shadow shift, relying on the strength of her legs to catapult her body upwards and drive her shoulder into the locked arms of the first gun wielder. He staggered as his shot hit the ceiling, lighting the room up in a flash of yellow, and Banshee made sure he didn't get a second. She kicked the back of one of his knees, and as he went down, she shifted back to shadow and snatched his gun straight out of the air.

Without him in the way, the other two had no reservations about shooting at her, but Cryo had her covered, coating the second starstone gun in a thick layer of ice and freezing the foot of the third gun wielder to the floor.

The first's gun still in hand, Banshee vaulted over the second and planted her foot in the elbow crook of the third, dropping her shadow shift again to let her weight slam into them. They had no chance of holding onto their gun. Once more back in her shadow shift, Banshee covered the third's eyes and balanced on his arm before a neat, backwards push off his chest into a handstand saw her collect the fallen gun from the ground.

Banshee flipped back to her feet with a gun and dagger in each hand. It looked cool, but she couldn't use either effectively holding them like that, and the second had just freed his gun of Cryo's ice by smashing it into the wall. Cryo lifted his hands to re-freeze it when the first, weaponless but recovered from Banshee's initial attack, charged into Cryo's waist in an attempt to knock her partner over.

Cryo's wings flared and lifted him and his attacker off the ground, turning him into the easiest target ever at a five metre range from the second's gun. Without time to do anything else, Banshee threw one of the guns in her hands straight at the arms of the second, knocking his aim off enough to miss Cryo.

The second turned his gun on her instead.

Dodging the blasts, Banshee retreated a few steps and kicked her remaining gun across the floor, away from the fight. With her hands now free, she threw Grief just to the side of the second's neck, and in that split second where he inevitably looked at the dagger and moved to step away from it, Banshee launched herself at him, slammed Joy's hilt into his fingers and took his gun.

She flicked the gun's setting to 'stun' and raised it, but there was no need. Opponents one and three were locked up in ice, and a few seconds after, two joined them.

Banshee walked over to pick up Grief, stabbing the dagger through the three starstone guns as Cryo took over interrogation. On their current mission she couldn't confiscate them, but she could at least ensure they remained useless until tomorrow night's auroras.

"Who are you working for to be in possession of starstone weaponry?" asked Cryo as Banshee positioned herself on the opposite side of their captives to Cryo after a quick glance up the other stairwell to their right.

"We--uh--we guard the Miss for her father, of course," said the third--the one she'd been speaking to in the stairwell. "We weren't expecting Luminaries such as yourselves or we never would have attacked."

"What proof do you have of this?" asked Cryo, catching Banshee's eye.

"We, uh--well, the Miss is up the stairs! I'm sure she could vouch for us. We--we have messages on our Liaisers, too. Work orders! This is one of the Miss's favourite places in recent weeks. We've experienced no threats but have been on high alert."

As they spoke, Banshee watched them. Two of them had dark chains around their necks, the end of which disappeared low under their shirts. The third's fingers kept twitching towards their front shirt pocket.

"This Miss wouldn't happen to have feathers and a snake for a father, would she?" said Banshee as she crouched down beside the second--one with a chain--and started to chip away at the ice closer to their neck with Grief's tip. He wiggled around inside the ice, making every effort to get away.

"No! Stop! What are you--"

"I'd stop wiggling if I were you," said Banshee, continuing to chip away. "These daggers won't hurt you unless I want them too, but they're still sharp." Cryo flicked a hand, and ice secured the captive to the ground. "Thank you, Cryo."

She made it through the rest of the ice in the next few seconds, removing the chunks necessary to pull the chain up from under the man's shirt.

Sure enough, a fragment hung off the part previously concealed under his shirt.

"Fragment," said Banshee.

Ignoring the slew of curses the man threw her way, Banshee broke the chain and pulled it up to rest in her hand. It looked like any other fragment but grey--just like Ella's had been on their first encounter, before it'd become completely black and corrupted.

Did that mean these three could also give in to a similar, corrupted transformation like Ella, or had she been special? Even when her fragment was still grey, like these, Ella had been able to harness Hydra's abilities, albeit in a twisted, warped state.

After a year of being bonded to an Ascended, they mark you.

They found the other two men's fragments--one on another necklace and the other concealed within a pocket watch.

Banshee held the three grey fragments out on her palm. "What could the Serpent promise you to make you turn against this city?"

"We didn't turn against this city!" said one with a snarl. "We're trying to save it!"

The man beside him kicked him for that. "Shut up, idiot!"

Cryo stepped towards Banshee and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "We don't have time for this. We must focus our efforts on finding Harpy."

"You won't find her!" the third said with a cackle, writhing on the ground. "Harpy will be lost in the labyrinth forever until she dies fighting her own mind!"

A wave of cold dread shot through Banshee. She looked to Cryo. "Let's move."

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh nooooooooooooo," said the third in an evaporating voice. He arched back, his weight balanced on the toes of his feet as they bent the entirely wrong way. His eyes rolled back in his head. "Nooooooooo no noooooooo. You're not going ANYWHERE."

A crackling noise ruptured the air inside Banshee's ears. Splitting pain shot through her head as she cried out and pressed her fists at her temples. The fragments she'd been holding scattered across the ground.

"Banshee?" said Cryo. She felt his touch and climbed back up through the subsiding pain to find his face. His attention swapped between her and his surroundings, his wings flaring protectively with a coat of frost around them. He grabbed her again. "Banshee, what's wrong?"

"You can't feel it?" said Banshee, choking on the words. She swallowed them down and shook herself free of the aura's grip on her. "Serpent aura--Cryo, the fragments!"

All three fragments were bubbling and frothing on the ground, their grey sides turning a dark, sickly green. With a curse, Cryo crushed one beneath his foot. The other two flashed, physically pushing both him and Banshee backwards and as Cryo scooped her up and flew them to the other side of the room, the two remaining fragments erupted into a horribly familiar black mist.

Banshee pushed through the sudden shock of the Serpent's aura and drew Grief and Joy as the two Shimmers reared up to their full height and, just like the first Shimmer they'd ever faced, began to steal her shape.

She swayed on the spot, the air turning to sludge around her as the twin Shimmer-Banshees curled their fingers around replicas of Grief and Joy.

"Banshee," said Cryo, his arm out in front of her like he could block the Shimmer's leech. "Let me deal with them. You go and find Harpy. They can't copy me like they can with you. I'll deal with them and catch up."

Banshee grit her teeth. It was getting harder to remain steady. "I can't exactly walk past them, Cryo. They're blocking the way."

"No, they aren't," said Cryo. He froze a layer of ice and sent it shattered towards the Shimmers to keep them at bay. "Look at Fae's magic. It started going berserk at the wall panel behind me when the Shimmers appeared."

As Cryo flung more ice at her copy cats, Banshee turned her back to them and faced the wall, slashing Grief across it. The wall shimmered, and with a few more strikes from her daggers, it disappeared entirely, leaving a dark, cold corridor that plunged into the ground.

Banshee stepped down into the passage where Fae's violet flecks were waiting for her before she glanced back at Cryo. She could no longer see the Shimmers he faced, but a solid piece of her faith set into place as she glimpsed her partner's behind from an unusually low angle.

With a grin in spite of herself, Banshee lifted a hand to her mouth.

"I'll see you soon, Featherbutt!"

With that, she shifted into the shadows of the passageway around her and threw herself into the waiting dark.

*+*+*+*

A/N - HEEEERE WE GO. 

Question, if I were to look into doing some kind of t-shirt/hoodie print run with ShadowSong related art, would anyone be interested? What kind / price range?