No vote goal on this chapter~ See A/N at the end! <3

Olivia was dropped home after the auroras by Jason with their usual farewells.

As soon as he was out of sight, she sent a message to her parents telling them she'd either be home late or staying at Ericka's because of this Starsong role change. Then, she left the side alley, took a few minutes to find a quiet place, and transformed.

Banshee headed to the Starlight Hall, her mind focused on one thought: retrieving Ella. She didn't care if she had to spend the next three days and nights sleepless to do it. Before the festival was over, Ella would not be at the mercy of the Serpent.

She would not find another ex-Luminary down in that pit.

Banshee landed in front of the Starlight Hall and tapped her tattoo twice as she walked inside. Two taps came in reply a few moments later, which reminded her to take a breath. She and Cryo would get Ella back, but she needed to stay cool. She needed to listen to him, even if--

"Banshee!"

Banshee glanced around to find Aurelia approaching her, hands folded. "What?"

A flicker of annoyance passed over Aurelia's face. "I wondered if I could have a moment of your time to discuss something rather important."

Banshee rubbed her temples. "Is it as important as the Serpent holding Ella? Have you perhaps discovered her location? Is someone dying?"

"Well, no, but I--"

"Then it can wait," said Banshee, not giving the High Shadowspeaker another glance before she walked up the steps to the Luminary common room. "Fae? Golem? You around?"

Golem emerged a few moments later. "Welcome back. Twice in one day, a rather rare event, eh?"

"So is an ex-Lumi getting kidnapped," said Banshee. "Has Fae had any luck with her scrying?"

"Not as of yet," said Golem. "Are you and Cryo intending on attempting to find Ella?"

"Yep," said Banshee.

Golem nodded, resting a hand on the back of an armchair. "I must admit, I feel useless to you and Cryo lately. A Luminary is not supposed to play a mere bodyguard, and the burden it puts on the two of you is unfair."

"Not your fault, grandpa," said Banshee with a smirk. "You have to take care of grandma DragonFae and great-grandma Harpy, we get it. It's nothing Cryo and I can't handle. Who needs sleep anyway?"

Golem's laugh was low and rough. "Ah, Banshee. Never change." The stones on his face re-arranged, the shape of his eyes more sorrowful than they'd been before. "I still feel that we're failing you as the elder Luminary pair, however. The majority of the burden should fall to us."

"Hey, you guys have the biggest burden of all," said Banshee.

"Which would be?"

"Dealing with the High Speakers." Banshee's tattoo warmed on her chest as Golem chuckled, and she rested a hand over her sternum. "Cryo will be here soon. He'll give us the brief and then we'll be--"

Almost as soon as it'd warmed, her tattoo froze on her chest: Manifested.

Banshee's gaze lifted towards Kaladrel. "Seems a little early for tonight's Manifested. Usually they're at some ridiculous hour in the morning. I'll see you later, Golem."

"Skypillar be with you, Banshee."

Banshee shifted a little deeper into shadow and at a dead sprint, followed them across the temple grounds, straight towards Kaladrel.

As she reached the wall of the outer temple buildings, she jumped, leaping from the ground onto the roof in one, clean arc. The bells chimed as her feet touched the roof. She didn't stop, pushing off the temple rooftops onto those of Kaladrel.

Even without her shadows telling her which way to go, she would have found it easily. The early night air was clear, giving her a good view as she bounded her way towards the unmistakable yellow flashes of Lightblasters coming from an edge of Central Kaladrel. Past the wind whistling in her ears, she heard screams.

The Pillar guards were posted at Skyshrines, too far for them to have found and engaged the Manifested already, which meant the fire wasn't friendly. Banshee kept that in mind as she dropped onto the street behind one of the shooters, and in one smooth movement, grabbed his Lightblaster and simultaneously covered his mouth with her hand, holding him off balance against her chest.

He definitely wasn't a Pillar guard, judging by the way he struggled in her grip, clawing at her wrists through her bracers.

She checked the Lightblaster's setting. Stun. Good. She shot him in the butt with it and placed him on the ground, moving onto her next target.

Banshee repeated this process twice more in fifteen seconds before she realised she was yet to have seen the Manifested. Quickly, she took stock of the situation. These people were shooting away from temple grounds, like they were trying to stop someone from reaching it. There were Gleamers around them, still running, like they'd planned an escape.

Following an instinct, Banshee leapt onto a nearby wall and headed a little further in the direction they'd been shooting. Just around the corner, she found a crashed Gleamerbike and a corrupted Manifested of sleek, black crystal crawling around the wreckage. Only a Lightblaster shot every few seconds seemed to be keeping it at bay.

Banshee went in.

She dropped down on the Manifested's back, driving Grief into its hide. It gave a crystalline scream and bucked, but she dug her fingers in and held on. Fragment--where was the frag--there! By whatever starlight blessed luck, it was barely half a metre in front of her. With the Manifested still writhing, trying to throw her off, Banshee edged forward and drew Joy.

With one, easy movement, she dug it out with Joy's tip and crushed the corrupted fragment in her hand.The Manifested's crystal coating evaporated, leaving a blonde woman unconscious but perfectly unharmed on the ground.

Banshee moved over to the crashed Gleamerbike, her daggers drawn. She couldn't see anyone on the other side, but there had to be someone there. "Luminary, don't shoot!"

"B--Banshee?" came a familiar voice.

Banshee didn't dare to believe it. She leaped the last few metres, landing directly in front of where the voice had come from.

On the other side of the crashed Gleamer, sitting among the pieces of cracked starstone like she'd dragged herself back to it, was Ella.

She didn't look good. Her fringe was plastered across her face with a smear of blood from a cut on her forehead and nose. Her arm had yet another nasty gash, and more blood was seeping through her pants on her thigh, staining the ground beneath her a brilliant crimson. One of her pigtails was out, the black hair spilled across her shoulder that she held with a white-knuckled hand.

"Ella," said Banshee, dropping her daggers to the floor to check Ella's wounds over. They were bad, but none seemed immediately fatal. "Ella, how--"

But other, stranger voices were closing in on them, carried on a frozen wind.

"Banshee is with the target!"

"Take out the target through whatever means necessary!"

"Cryophoenix above!"

Banshee set her jaw, retook Grief and Joy in her grip, and stood. She clenched the daggers so hard that her fingers hurt. Instinct flickered at the back of her mind with one thought commanding it.

None of them were going to get anywhere near Ella.

Like Cryo had read her mind, winter claimed the world around them in a flurry of snow.

Banshee didn't know exactly where her partner was, but she trusted him. She focused on her own task: taking out the remaining threats. They were easy to spot. With the Manifested cleansed, her enemies were firing again. They gave away their positions every time their Lightblasters flashed yellow, aimed either at herself or Cryo, and once she knew where they were, they were done.

Banshee took them out one by one, quickly and effectively. She collected their Lightblasters as she went, turning their own weapons against them. Once they collapsed, stunned, Cryo's ice locked them down on the starstone.

It was barely a minute later when no more Lightblasters flashed in the snow. Banshee knew she hadn't got them all. She'd just got enough for them to flee, and that was fine with her.

Banshee ran back towards Ella and dumped the last Lightblaster onto the pile she'd made beside the wrecked Gleamer.

A few seconds later, Cryo landed beside them. He cursed as he saw Ella, crouching beside her and freezing a thin layer of ice over her injuries.

Banshee's gaze roved over the snow-covered street, looking among the faces of the civilians that'd come out to investigate the aftermath. She found herself staring at a few of them, wondering if the Serpent's minions were among them, the weeds among the flowers.

"Ella?" Cryo said. "Are you okay?"

"Never... never been better," Ella said through clenched teeth. She groaned as she pulled her trembling hand away from her shoulder for Cryo to ice. "Wasn't gonna let them have me. Woulda made it but one...one of the bastards actually managed to hit the Gleamer I stole and the steering on the damn thing just shut... shut down on me..., then they sent a Man... Manifested..."

"Ella?" said Cryo, but Ella's eyes were closed, her head rolling to one side. He scooped her up and stood. "Banshee, we need to get her back to the temple now."

Banshee nodded, every part of her body still geared up for a fight. "They're all dealt with anyway. A few ran, but I don't particularly care about them right now. Let's go."

*+*+*+*

They made it back to the Starlight Hall quickly, despite the fact that Cryo couldn't exactly fly with Ella's condition.

Banshee followed them, her eyes on every part of their surroundings, watching, daring anyone to try something. When they reached the common room of the Starlight Hall, her fingers were locked so tight around the hilts of her daggers that she wasn't sure she could let go of them even if she'd wanted to.

Ella. Ella had fought her way back.

Banshee still couldn't believe it. Couldn't force her hands to stop shaking, her breath to stay steady. Starlight, she'd begged Starsong, she'd prayed to anything that was listening, yet she hadn't expected anything to come of it. Ella was back. She was harmed--but they could fix that. She was back. The Serpent hadn't got its scales onto her. She was here, safe in Cryo's arms. Safe behind Banshee's daggers.

Cryo laid Ella on the couch and called for Golem and DragonFae. They arrived quickly, DragonFae in Golem's arms.

"Ella's injured," said Cryo, laying her on the couch. "Fae, can you heal her, or should I take her to the medical wing?"

DragonFae's eyes were wide, her hands reaching out in front of her. "How did--" Her eyes flicked to Banshee before the elder Luminary shook her head and regained her composure. "Yes. I can."

Golem helped DragonFae adjust, Cryo froze a block of ice for her to sit on beside Ella's head. DragonFae's violet light filled the room, caressing each of them gently with an almost electric touch. It prickled Banshee's skin wherever it made contact, and she fought the urge to swat it off.

As DragonFae worked, Banshee told them how she'd found her.

"There's no Serpent residue on her," said DragonFae. "That, at least, is a good sign that she may have escaped his clutches in time. However, there is still the possibility that--"

"Ella is not bad," said Banshee with a snarl. "She's on golden starstone, isn't she? And no Serpent aura--that should say something."

"We do need to consider the Serpent's goals for today, however," said Cryo. "In kidnapping her, he had a goal. He may have released her on purpose as he did Wyvern."

"What if it was to create distrust between us?" said Banshee.

"That is indeed possible: it would be a cunning move that relied upon us to do the damage to ourselves." Cryo was quiet for a moment. "Regardless of whether the Serpent has once again corrupted her or not, we do not treat Manifested as evil. We do not defeat them; we save them. The same is true for Ella, no matter what."

"She was going stir-crazy locked up," muttered Banshee. "Maybe he's counting that we'll do that again."

"I believe we'll learn more if we allow her freedom," said Cryo. "With a guard escort, of course, but the Serpent has demonstrated that we cannot protect her as we might wish. Would you agree, Banshee?"

With words stuck in her throat, Banshee gave him a sharp nod instead.

Golem moved to sit in his usual armchair. "You seem to have a plan, Cryo."

"I have a several potential plans in the works," said Cryo. "Though the details depend greatly on the next few days."

The room fell silent for a minute until under DragonFae's light, Ella stirred. Her injuries were little more than thin red lines on her skin as the violet magic reversed the damage.

Beside Banshee, Cryo drew a breath, one that puffed out his chest a little more than usual. It was enough to catch Banshee's curious glance a second before he spoke.

"Also--DragonFae, Golem," said Cryo in a quiet voice. "I realise this is not the best time, but I did have additional questions about the aurorastone when we have a chance. I have a few scenarios in mind, but the information I need is rather vital, especially since we moved it here."

Golem's eyes flicked to Cryo, his expression of stone as unreadable as always. "What is it you needed to ask?"

"Since we realised that Harpy bonded the aurorastone to her tattoo, something has been frustrating me," said Cryo. "How are we supposed to separate the two of them if she remains comatose? The cracks that are beginning to show on Harpy's tattoo concern me."

Banshee resisted the urge to ask Cryo what he was talking about by redirecting her attention to the ceiling for a few seconds. Cryo knew the aurorastone--or rather, the focuser for the aurorastone--was in Banshee's possession, and she'd never mentioned anything about cracks.

She glanced down to Ella, whose eyes were just starting to flicker open as she lifted a hand to touch the dry blood on her healed forehead.

Only one person in this room didn't know that Cryo was lying.

DragonFae's wings rustled behind her as she leaned back and shook the remaining flecks of magic off her fingers. "I believe that may be a conversation we have elsewhere, Cryo, but no, my magic would not affect it as such."

Banshee sheathed her daggers before she crouched down by Ella's side, resting her hand on Ella's shoulder. "Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Not well," murmured Ella, frowning as she glanced from one healed injury to the next. "I feel really... tired, I guess."

"My magic speeds up the healing process," said DragonFae. "But it requires something to be drawn from the source. She'll fall asleep in a few minutes to recover the energy the healing took from her."

"Ella, do you remember anything?" asked Cryo.

"Green diamond knocked me out," said Ella. "Next thing I knew, I was waking up in some underground starstone tunnel with one of the crimson siblings trying to tie my ankles up, so I kneed her in the face, grabbed her Lightblaster, shot her, then ran for it."

"You shot her?"

"It was on stun," said Ella quickly. She rubbed her head. "I... think. I was in a little bit of a panic if I'm honest, but I remember checking it. Plus, I don't think they would have left it on kill. They could have done that a million times before that point. They wanted me alive."

They asked Ella a few more questions but the information wasn't a whole lot of help. She told them where she'd come out at street level from their underground network, but the location was vague at best. She'd been running away, not making a note of locations and what everything looked like.

After everyone else's questions ran out, Banshee finally asked one of her own.

"Can you still feel your fragment?" she asked Ella quietly.

Ella lifted her hands up, resting them just over the centre of her chest where Hydra's sigil marked her skin. "Not like when he had it yesterday. It... I can still feel it tugging me, but it's like a faint pulse at the back of my head. My memories are fuzzy again."

"Do you think you could locate it if you tried?"

Golem made a rumbling noise at the back of his throat. "Banshee--"

Ella was shaking her head. "No. The tug is like... like it's all around me. I'd be walking in circles for days trying to follow it."

Banshee opened her mouth to ask another question but clamped it shut instead. They needed to know why the Serpent had let Ella go. Every single piece of her being still believed that Ella was good, that she had not been corrupted. She had the utmost faith in her friend. Yet she was also beginning to understand exactly how the Serpent operated. He didn't make impulsive decisions like she did, following her gut on the spur of the moment.

She turned around to glance at her partner.

The Serpent was like Cryo. They both looked into the distance when they made their decisions. The Serpent had been playing this game for so long, against who knew how many Luminaries in the past. Harpy and Wyvern in their twenty years hadn't been able to stop him from taking down other Luminaries, let alone defeat him. The Serpent had brought them down strategically, placed them, played them. Just like he'd countered DragonFae's self-healing by forcing her to use the magic elsewhere.

Looking at Cryo's face now as he discussed several things with the rest of the room, however, Banshee knew the Serpent had a new opponent. There was an authority behind Cryo's words. One that said he would no longer take a back seat and rely on his elders. She wasn't sure what had changed, if it'd been Ella or some other reason, but the glacier had begun to shift.

And she would never let him face down a challenge alone.

DragonFae fluttered her wings to regain the room's attention. "Please excuse an old grandma's worries, but Ella needs her rest. If there's anything final you'd like to say to her, we should be letting her sleep soon."

Banshee bit her lip, her eyes dropping lower than her voice as she spoke. "I'm sorry I wasn't there this morning, Ella. I got separated from my Ascended in the chaos and couldn't transform." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I really, really tried. I would have gone Dark if it'd meant saving you. You have to believe me."

Ella poked Banshee in the centre of the visor. When Banshee opened her eyes, she found Ella's narrowed eyes glaring back at her as Ella's finger pushed, tilting Banshee's head back and holding it there.

"You'd better not be serious about that," said Ella. She withdrew her finger, tucking the arm back against her chest. "You're not allowed to go Dark until you smack some sense into that Other-damned reptile, Banshee. Especially not for my sake."

Banshee gave her a wry smile. "I make no promises."

"Yes you do," said Ella, her eyes closing. "You... you made me one already."

"One at a time, then," murmured Banshee, moving Ella's fringe off her face with a finger as she fell asleep.

*+*+*+*

A little while later, Banshee and Cryo left the Starlight Hall together.

With a gesture from Cryo, they took to the rooftop of the Starlight Hall, standing together under the light of the twin moons and their million stars.

"I've been considering the vision and Serpent's possible goals within the context of recent events," Cryo said quietly. "In the vision, I originally believed you were either Dark or dead, given your own vision of darkness, but I've been considering another theory."

Banshee's stomach twisted into a knot. She hated that damn vision, mainly because she couldn't tell Cryo where she was in it: that Banshee, Olivia, and the girl on the ground were all the same person. Aside from that necessary deception, the vision didn't bother her all that much anymore. She'd just have to fight harder than vision-Olivia-slash-Banshee had.

"I believe that you triggered Vengeance in the vision," Cryo continued. "I've considered it from multiple angles, placing myself in the Serpent's position. We've discussed it before. You are the single biggest threat to him. He can't hurt me without your revenge, nor anyone else. But what he can do--what he still could be doing--is manipulating you through your obvious empathy for others."

"You think the Serpent is trying to bait out Vengeance with Ella."

"Yes," said Cryo. "I don't necessarily mean she's been corrupted, either. She may be genuine, but it doesn't change the fact that earlier today..." He stopped, the ice crystals of his wings pulling together in a tight cluster. "I saw the look in your eyes, Banshee. You care enough about Ella that it could trigger Vengeance. The Serpent has evidence of that now. I have no doubt he has eyes inside the temple."

"You sound like you have other evidence still?"

"It would also explain why Vengeance seems to be lurking in your shadows so soon, even after barely a year," said Cryo. "According to my research and DragonFae, the previous Banshees took two to three years before they felt Vengeance for the first time."

"Maybe the Serpent has been pushing me this whole time, seeing how I can break," said Banshee. "Not just with Ella, but with Harpy in the pit. He released Wyvern so we could find her, so we could find the mockery those guards had made of her." The memory left a bitter taste in her mouth. "And why his hallucinations showed me you, dead, when you were only trapped with Golem."

"Yes," said Cryo. "But Ella is the key to it all. Ella is the one that Starsong singled out for us to save."

"Before festival night, which is only a few days away."

"Yes."

"And you seem like you have a plan to deal with this."

"Almost," said Cryo. "There's a few other details I need first, but I'm concerned that someone else may overhear."

"Say no more," said Banshee. "I trust you, Cryo."

She held out her upturned palm.

"Let's do this, featherbutt. Lay it down?"

He brought his hand down on hers.

"And down it's laid."

Banshee grinned. "The Serpent is going to learn to love that phrase by the time we're done with him."

*+*+*+*

 A/N - This is the bonus chapter for week 1's vote goal #3! Will be another chapter up later today for Wednesday's chapter <3 

You guys completely smashed the vote goals for last week. THIS WAS UNEXPECTED. I HAD TO WRITE MANY WORDS.