Previous vote goal still in effect: this is a bonus chapter earned by purplewatergirl hitting 5k words in a day for NaNo <3 

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Cryo's worst nightmare was coming true.

There were small differences. The sky wasn't yet dark. Ella's words were different. She wasn't taunting him. He wasn't bound by her spirit magic. Aya and Alma were present.

But none of those differences mattered, because Olivia was still in lying on the golden starstone, thrown by the explosion that had resulted from his attempt to freeze Ella's spirit blast. She was still lying there in the silver dress that had haunted him for the last month, her auburn hair splayed across her face and her body so very, very still.

Cryo flared his wings.

He didn't know if he'd stopped enough of Ella's blast to save her. He didn't know if she was unconscious or dead.

He didn't get the chance to check.

Ella's spirit magic wrapped around his wrists, entangling around the ice crystals of his arm-frozen wings and dragging him down to the starstone. Cryo tried to claw through them, but these were different to the heads he had so easily severed just a few minutes ago. They were everywhere, wrapping around whatever they could get themselves on, and within a couple of seconds they covered his arms up to his shoulders.

Maybe he could have got out of them, but his mind wasn't on that problem. It was on Olivia. Nothing but Olivia, who still hadn't moved. Who was still just lying there--

"What did you do?" said Cryo, half begging, half demanding as he blindly struggled against his restraints. "Ella, what did you do?"

Ella just stared at him with blank, empty eyes.

Alma sheathed her one remaining Lightblaster that Cryo hadn't been able to get rid of as Aya sauntered over to where Olivia lay and nudged her with the heel of her boot.

Cryo's power surged up with the roar from his throat as his aura unleashed.

The crystals of his wings became bladed. Ella's spirit bonds froze and shattered around him. The snow turned to sleet, audibly hitting the starstone as his talons cracked the starstone under his feet. With one downward flap of his wings, Cryo went airborne, ripped a chunk of golden starstone out from the ground below and flung it straight towards Hydra.

She barely saw it coming. Though one of her spirit heads deflected it, she just stood there, staring at it in shock, but Cryo was done with chances. He screeched and swooped on Hydra. His talons dug into her shoulders. Her spirit heads lashed out at him, only to be severed by a swipe of his razor edged wings. When new heads attempted to emerge from her back, Cryo wrapped a band of ice around Ella's back and slammed her onto the ground, freezing her in place.

"Hey, Cryo!" Cryo snapped around at the sound of Aya's voice to find that she'd lifted Olivia up from the ground and was now holding her Lightblaster to her head. "She's alive! How about you cool it down, lover bird, before I--"

Cryo swept his wings forward, channelling a stream of sleet straight at Aya's head. The tiny, sharded icicles bombarded her, so thick that her words choked off as they dug into her skin, her clothes, their combined force enough to shove her back and make her drop Olivia.

She's alive.

Cryo swept his arm around, softening the sleet to snow and curling it to spiral under Olivia. Instead of starstone, she landed in a cushioned pile of snow.

Alive.

Cryo turned to Aya, who was hunched over and gasping for air, her face now covered in red welts.

I will ensure it stays that way.

He froze thick walls of ice in a dome two-thirds of the way around Olivia, enough to absorb at least a few Lightblaster shots before he turned on Alma.

Her Lightblaster was already aimed at him. He flung another stream of sleet at her, but she was ready for it. She fired, the Lightblaster shot going straight up the stream and forcing him to cut it short and dodge. He whirled around, slamming a blast of ice in her direction that Alma's Lightblaster exploded in mid-air. In the resulting cloud of ice, she didn't see him coming until he was already there, talons outstretched towards her.

Alma ducked, one of the knives in her belt already drawn as she slashed at Cryo's leg. The blade remained stuck in the thick ice that covered Cryo's shins. He kicked his leg backwards, attempting to pull her off balance, but she saw it coming and moved with it, using it to get behind him and lift her Lightblaster to fire a direct shot that would block his powers.

Cryo lashed out with a wing, catching her across the cheek with one of the razor-sharp crystals of his wing.

Alma cried out in pain and staggered away, clutching her face. Blood the same colour of her hair was already seeping through her fingers, running down her cheek and dripping off her chin.

"Nobody hurts my sister!"

Cryo threw up a wall of ice just in time to block the two Lightblaster shots from Aya's dual wielded Lightblasters.

She rushed him, firing the left Lightblaster. Cryo took to the air, aiming another blast of snow at her. Aya dodged it and fired again. There were tiny pricks of blood on her face where his sleet had hit her, making her look all the more deranged. One of her eyes was swollen shut, and she was having trouble keeping her right arm steady.

Cryo regarded her from the air coolly. He felt nothing except a frozen kind of satisfaction, and now, it was time to end this.

He descended on Aya.

A blast of spirit energy stopped him, but it didn't leave behind a white-blue mist.

It was black.

Cryo froze Aya's finger to her trigger and turned to find Ella rising from the ground, her movements more like she was resisting an invisible hand dragging her to her feet than standing by her own will. On her back, three new spirit heads reared into existence, but as Cryo watched, their white-blue forms changed. Like someone had dropped black dye into water, the inky void that had been previously contained within the mouths of the heads was leaking into the rest of them.

It was seconds before all three heads were a complete, total black.

Nausea crept up on Cryo. It stuck to the back of his throat, clinging to his power and making it feel heavy and sick.

He spun around to find Alma's hand over the corrupted fragment at her throat. Black lines webbed out under her skin. Blood still seeped from the gash in her cheek.

Cryo looked to Aya. She was the same; fingers at the fragment on her forehead, black spiderwebs under her skin, a sneer on her face and her gaze totally focused on Ella.

Hydra straightened, her face completely blank.

Cryo went to blast the twins with frost, to knock them over, to stop whatever they were doing to Ella, but Hydra was faster. The void heads struck, their jaws clamping down on the primary crystal of his wings. They dragged him to the ground where they bit down on his wing and shattered it.

Pain that shouldn't have been there shot through Cryo's back muscles. It was so unexpected that it stole the breath from him, costing him precious seconds to dodge the next attack. He barely saved his second wing from the fate of the first, managing to slice at the void head. Instead of cutting clean through like it had with the spirit heads, his wing became stuck. With a great effort, he pulled it free, leaving the spirit head bleeding black mist into the air.

Hydra didn't give him a moment to breathe. She was on him with her trio of void heads, and Cryo could barely keep up. Her barrage of attacks refused to let up. She didn't let him get behind her. She kept him corralled with blasts of spirit energy, didn't give him a chance to heal his wing because he always had to be moving to avoid her, to stay one step ahead even though he knew he was playing straight into her hands.

It was all Cryo could do to try and fend her off.

Banshee, I tried. He deflected Hydra's void head strike with his ice-covered forearm. The force of it jolted up his arm. I tried, but you aren't here to salvage the situation this time.

He managed two, sharp taps on his tattoo.

Nothing came in return.

Cryo steeled himself with a breath. Behind him, Aya and Alma were ignoring Olivia in her icy shields, their attention entirely focused on Hydra.

But I will not surrender.

The Serpent didn't want him dead. He could use that to his advantage.

Cryo launched himself forward, straight towards Hydra's chest. It was so sudden, so completely reckless that Hydra wasn't fast enough to stop him as he slipped his arms either side of her chest and reached up to her back. His claws dug into the semi-solid base of her void heads, injecting frost into the punctures. The black mist burned his fingers, but he held on, using his grip to lift Hydra's slim frame off the ground and throw her.

Hydra landed on her feet, dropping low and ready to strike. She gestured, but her heads weren't as fast as they'd been in responding. Cryo hadn't frozen them solid: he'd just significantly slowed them down. She looked back with a hiss, clawing at her back, but she couldn't quite reach the spot Cryo had, not could she sever the void heads to regrow new ones.

With her void heads out of action, Hydra raised both hands, each crackling with the same pitch black energy that her void heads were formed of.

Hydra launched both hands at Cryo. He leaped back, still grounded by his ruined wing. Hydra's void energy hit empty ground, but it didn't fizzle out like it had before. Instead, it festered with a keening hiss, consuming the golden hue from the starstone under it and turning it a dirty white exactly as it had when Ella had Manifested.

The void energy grew, and with it, the nauseating feeling climbing up Cryo's throat. He could barely find his frost to try and smother the growing void. It clung to him, made it harder to reach his power, like he was fighting through water instead of air.

Hydra only seemed to grow stronger, however. She walked through the void on the ground, absorbing its essence back into her body and lifting her hands for round two.

As Cryo readied himself to dodge, Hydra's gaze lifted to the air behind where he stood.

That was when Cryo heard it.

Wings, and--

"Incomiiiiiiiing!"

The sheer force of the newcomer's landing was enough to nearly knock Cryo off balance. Hydra, without talons to anchor her into the starstone, was blown back several steps and left reeling as her own charging power hit her in the face.

Cryo lifted his face from behind his shielding arm to find either his salvation, or the next level deep of his nightmare.

The newcomer had long, white-blonde hair pulled over his shoulder in a ponytail that went down past his waist. His hooves clopped on the starstone as he staggered, regaining his balance after that spectacular crash landing on two palomino coloured legs covered in light blue pants that stopped at his knees. His open-chested shirt revealed his tattoo that confirmed exactly what the two magnificent wings had already given away.

Skypillar had Ascended a Pegasus: the Cloud of Skypillar.

"So!" said Pegasus with a grin. He stretched his wings out for balance behind him, revealing the true beauty of their blonde, pale blue, and brown-barred pattern. "Need a hand?"

"Where's your partner?" asked Cryo, never taking his eyes off Hydra.

"Uh, I'm not sure," said Pegasus, his enthusiasm deflated. He puffed out his chest and spread his hooves apart in an attempt at a fighting stance. "Buuuut she should be bringing along our prisoner!"

"Prisoner?"

"He, uh, well he kinda seemed to want to be caught and said you might need some help outside the Core chamber, so we kind of figured--"

"Adande," muttered Cryo, unsure whether it was a good thing or not. "Hydra is dangerous. I can barely keep up with her and that's without her trying to kill me. She won't show restraint against you. Go and find DragonFae and Golem: tell them we need help."

"What?" said Pegasus. "Why? Where's Banshee?"

"Dimmed already," said Cryo. Hydra seemed to have finally recovered. "Now--"

Faster than Cryo had anticipated, Hydra flung a ball of void energy at their feet. Cryo went to shove Pegasus backwards, but Pegasus had already taken off into the air with a shout of surprise.

Cryo flared his one remaining wing, still unable to find the right channel of frost to repair his other one. He had to keep Ella's attention on him. Had to stop her from killing one half of the new Luminary pair.

"Hey, Hydra!" Pegasus called from above, his wings flapping with a distinct lack of grace. "Have another one!"

Once more, he crashed into the starstone with an almost calculated absence of skill. The air shockwave didn't quite have the same effect on Hydra as it had before, but it was still enough to knock her backwards.

"Your wing," said Pegasus as he quickly landed behind Cryo, his hooves heavy on the starstone. "Lemme help with that."

Cryo went to object when Pegasus plucked a few feathers from his wings, instantly turning into white, fluffy cloud. With a few, uncertain movements, he pulled and prodded the cloud with his fingers into a straight line, which he stuck awkwardly onto the side of Cryo's ruined wing. Then, Pegasus grabbed the edge of the cloud and yanked it outwards.

As soon as the cloud left Pegasus's touch, it turned into a white, see-through, shimmering membrane.

Cryo flared his wings. The membrane, though it felt restrictive and fragile, acted as if it were his own wing.

"Ah ha!" said Pegasus, snapping his fingers and stepping back to admire his work. "Instant wi--aaaah!"

Pegasus once more took off into the air as Hydra launched a void bolt towards him, narrowly missing the new Luminary.

"I'll deal with Hydra!" called Cryo. "Get DragonFae and Golem! Don't get hit by Lightblasters or your powers will be blocked!"

"Yes, mister Cryophoenix sir!"

Cryo met Hydra without a real plan except to keep himself enough of a threat that she couldn't engage someone else, but the more void energy she threw out, the harder it was to reach his frost, like he was fighting it for control and losing. His one saving grace was his wings: he took to the air and used his talons to caught the damage. Pegasus's crafted wing held up admirably, though it still stayed painfully obvious in the back of his mind that it wasn't quite right.

Below, Aya and Alma had moved closer to Olivia. Cryo couldn't risk swooping near them, not with the way Hydra was throwing void bolts in his direction, but if they got any closer he was going to have to do something.

That chance came when a crimson-haired figure emerged from a nearby temple building, his hands casually in the pockets of his black coat with a figure of cyan and green trailing behind him.

Adande, escorted by Pegasus's partner with no idea what she was walking into.

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A/N - THINGS WERE BAD AND THEY'RE STILL BAD AND OH NO

As above note said, the vote goal on chapter 89 is still in effect~ Currently 24 votes away from goal! This is a bonus chapter earned by the most motivating cupcake around, Purplewatergirl <3 

Also~ Pony boy chicken wing here to make your day a little better~  Art by 46Kibahime

he has been annoying me for screentime since the start of book 2 someone h e l p