Banshee was drowning inside of Cryo's frost.

She hadn't believed Wyvern when he'd said Cryo had frozen. Wyvern hadn't had to explain what frozen meant. She'd seen the dangerous, detached glint in her partners eyes enough times to know that it lurked within him, but he'd always walked away from it. He'd always been strong enough to fall and stand back up. Every time she'd watched him freeze in the hallucinations, she'd never believed it. It'd never been real. Her Cryo was stronger than that.

But now, if he wasn't listening to her, if she couldn't reach him--

She couldn't see past the white, could barely feel the sting of the snow as it pelted her. She covered her head with her arms and was barely able to do that. Her mind kept screaming at her--not real not real not real--but it had to be real. She'd got out. She'd escaped. This was real, but it didn't feel like it. Nothing felt real.

Starlight, it'd be so easy to let herself drown in this snow, to fall back into that comfort of telling herself that nothing was real. Torture and liberation at the same time. If nothing was real, nothing she did mattered. She had no responsibility. She could let go. Stop trying. Give up.

But not here. Not if this Cryo was real and he needed her.

Inside, something sparked. Her thoughts pulled together and it no longer mattered if this body still didn't feel like hers. She had a reason for trying to wrangle it back under control.

It was just too late.

Banshee choked on the snow that was now up to her neck. No matter how she writhed inside Cryo's thick mound of snow, she barely moved. The snow felt heavy on her chest, blinding her sight, and numbing any sensation she might've had. Struggling left her head spinning, the room blurring and fading around her. She could barely breathe, let alone speak, and Wyvern was still frozen to the wall.

She squeezed her eyes shut and burrowed deep in her mind, searching for something. Anything.

One thing was there: the aurorasong.

It lurked in the layers of Cryo's snow on melodies of crystal frost, dancing free in wisps about the winter-claimed room. Impossibly, it'd found her again. She couldn't be sure--it still felt several beats ahead of her--but it felt like it was calling to her, speaking in a language she couldn't understand the words, but could guess from their inflections. There were no other Songs, no Shadowsong, no Frostsong. Nothing but the aurorasong that was singing, resonating with Banshee's tattoo, and without another option, Banshee opened herself up to it.

The effect was instant.

The snow vanished from around Banshee, swept away on an invisible breath, and Cryo's onslaught of frost stopped. He shot a look at his outstretched hand, clearly trying to access his powers and finding nothing.

Without the snow to hold her up, Banshee's knees hit the ground, her arms shaking as she caught herself. She managed one, desperate gulp of air before her vision snapped up and she saw Cryo advancing on her, claws outstretched and ready to grab her. Exhausted and backed into the corner, there was no way she'd be able to avoid him.

It didn't stop her from trying. Banshee threw herself to the side, shoving herself off the wall and along the floor with a foot, rolling away from him. Cryo grabbed her ankle, dragging her back towards him with far more strength than she had, even at her peak. The aurorasong keeping Cryo's powers on lockdown were the only thing giving her half a chance.

"Cryo!" She slammed her shin into his other hand as it reached for her arm, managing to knock it away for half a second, but his first grip was still too solid, and she couldn't kick him away forever. Already, her legs were barely responding, her head pounding as she used up energy that she didn't have. "Cryo, what's the goal here? What do you want with me?"

"I've given you enough chances to surrender," said Cryo. Starlight, his voice was so cold. Cold and thin and ready to snap. "Blocking my abilities will not ensure the success of the trap you've laid. You will be coming with me, regardless of what I have to do to achieve it."

"Cryo, I swear to the stars, it's me," said Banshee, kicking his claws away again. Behind Cryo, Wyvern was on his feet and attempting to creep around the barrier of Cryo's wings. "What can I do to prove it to you? What happened while I was gone? For the love of Starlight, talk to me!"

Cryo didn't reply. Instead, he reached back and snapped one of the razor-sharp crystals off his damaged wings. He held the ice-blade outwards, ensuring that if she kicked him again, it was going to end up imbedded halfway in her leg.

He dragged Banshee a little closer and reached for her arm again.

She had no idea what had got him into this state, but he wasn't entirely frozen, either. He was still in there, but there was a deep layer of frost covering it. This Cryo was dangerous, and in her current state, she couldn't stop him from doing something that he'd regret later. She'd have taken a million cuts if it meant getting through to him, but she knew that if he thawed with her blood on his hands, he'd never quite come back from it.

Banshee couldn't do that to him. She had to get out. She had to leave until she was strong enough to beat some sense into him for a few hours.

She dove back into the aurorasong, still entangled with Cryo's Frostsong, grabbing whatever parts of it she could find and shoving it straight back into Cryo.

Snow exploded across the room as his powers returned in one, huge blast, stunning him for a few precious seconds. His grip weakened on Banshee's ankle enough for her to wriggle free and dart between his legs, scrambling to her feet and dashing for the door.

Behind her, she heard Wyvern's shout and a huge crash, like two bodies had just slammed into the floor.

"Run, Banshee!"

Banshee didn't have time to stop and curse the dumb bat for throwing himself in the way after she'd gone to such an effort to save him in the first place as Cryo's roar shook the air.

She practically fell out the building, finding herself in a narrow tunnel--something that might just be enough to buy her time to get away from Cryo--and rushed down it, trying every door she passed. The first four were locked, but the fifth's handle went down, catching her entirely by surprise as she shoved open the door and hurled herself inside with half a glance backwards to find Cryo stepping into the tunnel, right on her trail.

Banshee slammed the door shut, not bothering to place a chair behind it when Cryo could simply blast it open. She ignored the door straight ahead and darted up the small staircase to her left, sparing half a thought of apology for the people who owned this place. She'd barely reached the top step when she heard the door bang open below.

Cryo didn't call out to her, which was almost worse than if he had. As she ran along the hallway, checking each room for another exit, nightmares began to surface in her head. Nightmares of being hunted and stalked, as helpless as she was now. At least then, she'd had energy. She hadn't started the chase with her head spinning and her heart pounding so hard that it shook the ribs in her chest.

It didn't matter. She just had to keep going, had to find a way to get Cryo off her trail. There were no other doors up here, no other way up, but there were windows. In the furthest room from the stairs, she forced open the window and stuck her leg outside. Almost all the buildings in Cevinari had a small strip that encircled the building just within foot-reach of the windows that jutted out a few centimetres from the wall and this one was no different.

Banshee climbed out the window, holding herself to the wall with the window ledge as she shoved the tips of her boots as far onto the thin strip as she could. There seemed to be a significant number of people on the streets outside, but none of them noticed her as she looked for her next move. There was another window left along the wall that would have been a laughable jump with her abilities, but without them, it might be pushing it.

Inside the building, she heard Cryo's footsteps and realised she didn't have time to think about it.

With a short exhale, Banshee adjusted her feet on the strip and launched herself towards the window.

She barely caught the corner of the window in her fingers. Her bandaged arm screamed in protest. Her body swung underneath it, threatening to rip away what grip she had. One hand came away, but with a grunt, she shoved her hand further onto the ledge, scraping together enough effort to pull herself up on an elbow and get her feet back on the strip beneath her. The window was closed with a small latch on the inside, and when Banshee reached for Joy to slit between the gap and open it, she found its sheath empty.

Banshee gave a quiet curse as she remembered she'd left it on the floor she'd woken up on.

Operating on borrowed seconds until Cryo stuck his head out the windows to check for her, Banshee turned her head away, brought her non-bandaged arm up and shoved her elbow through the window. It took three strikes for the starstone glass to crack enough to shove her wrist for and open the latch. With little regard for the shards, she hauled herself up and over the window ledge.

Banshee tumbled onto the ground inside the room, grateful to find it empty. She allowed herself three steadying breaths to calm her shaking before she forced herself back onto her feet. As soon as Cryo checked outside, he'd see the broken window and know where she'd gone. She'd bought herself a brief window, but it wouldn't last long. Not from her partner.

Quietly, Banshee crept to the door. There were faint voices somewhere in the building, but they sounded like they were downstairs. Carefully, she pushed open the door and stepped out into a hallway identical to the one on the adjacent building. Like in the first, there was another staircase at the end of the hall, but this one went both up and down.

Her first instinct was to get on the rooftops, but without her usual agility, rooftops were dangerous. Indoors were safer, where Cryo's wings were a hindrance.

She headed down the stairs, hoping she could sneak back out the narrow tunnel she'd been in before, but the back door leading to it was locked with a key, given the way the latch failed to budge. She bit down on her lip, looking around. There were two more doors, one presumably leading to a storage room like it had in the others, and the main door that would lead to the shop front, but was also where the voices were.

Her best chance was the locked back door. She tried forcing her way through and failed. Stepping away from the door, she looked around the room, desperately scanning the room. If she'd hidden a key, where would it be?

Easy. She'd keep it on her, which meant she'd have to go to where the voices were to find it.

Banshee covered her face with her arms for a moment, trying to calm herself when she heard a loud thud upstairs.

Cryo was already inside.

She swore, but just as she was about to throw herself against the locked door one last time, the door to the main shop front opened.

A woman came through, almost falling straight back through the door as she spotted Banshee. "Skypillar's peak! You're--"

Banshee stepped towards her, holding up her hands. "I need to get out the door before Cryo gets down here. Do you have the key?"

"People are saying you're a Manifested," said the woman warily.

Starlight, Banshee needed to figure out what had gone on while she'd been gone sooner rather than later. "I was kidnapped, but think I might've been replaced by an imposter, who Cryo thinks he's chasing. He won't believe that I'm me and--"

Another thud above her, the creak of the stairs

Banshee shuddered but pushed on. "--I can't let him do anything he's going to regret later. I need to get away."

She wasn't sure the woman was going to help, but as steps started down the stairs, the woman rushed towards the locked door and shoved a key in the lock, twisting the handle open.

"Go," said the woman. "You helped me once. I'll buy you as much time as I can."

"Thank you," breathed Banshee, and bolted out into the tunnel as the door clicked shut behind her.

The tunnel was slick with ice and ankle-deep snow, making it hard to run. Unsure if Cryo was keeping in touch with the snow and feeling for her footsteps, Banshee left it as fast as she could, clutching her arms with a shiver. Her garments were wet with snow, and she was fairly certain that powerless or not, the physical durability of her transformation was the only thing keeping her from collapsing on the spot and freezing to death.

Banshee made it out into a wider, shorter archway that passed under the building block. She looked both ways, glancing at both the crowds and her limited view of the sky for any sign of Cryo. Finding none, she cut across the archway and headed to the opposite section of narrow tunnel with the store back doors.

She hurried along and checked the each door for a lock, knowing that when Cryo came back out into the tunnel, she needed to be out of his direct line of sight. The first three doors were locked on either side. The fourth was open, and she went inside.

Unlike the previous ones, this one had people already crowding the back room.

Two of them screamed at the sight of her, and Banshee's heart sank. The other three stepped forward, lining up shoulder-to-shoulder and blocking her way.

"Manifested!" one yelled even as another ran out into the store front and took up the cry. "Even if she's not, she's corrupted! Don't let her near you!"

Banshee fled back out into the tunnel, but the damage was done. She heard the warnings called out behind her, heard feet behind her as two of them chased her down, shouting after her.

"She's over here!"

Banshee didn't stop to check the other doors. She just kept running, pushing herself as fast as she could and barely staying ahead of those chasing her. She reached the end of the tunnel and emerged into daylight, finding herself submerged in the depths of a sullen crowd milling at the edges of a road.

For a brief moment, she was one of them, then they noticed. Their distracted, concerned expressions transformed into a myriad of reactions. Shock, distrust, hopeful, every face she glimpsed was completely different. None of them seemed to know exactly what to do with her until the people chasing her caught up and screamed at them.

"Manifested! Get away from her before she gets you!"

"I'm not--" began Banshee, but her own voice was drowned out by the many.

"Manifested!"

"She'd never Manifest! Whatever the Luminaries are doing, she's trying to help us!"

"We can't trust them--they're all corrupted!"

"It's Cryo!"

Banshee looked back over her shoulder and dread clenched her as she saw her partner soaring in the skies above her, his gaze locked onto her.

Banshee took off through the crowd, dodging and weaving her way through the maze of bodies, heading for the large archway in the building across the crowded walkway. She avoided the ones who grabbed at her and took the ways for those who stepped aside. For every set of hands that grabbed her, there was another set who helped her, either pulling her up when she stumbled or holding the others back as all the while, Cryo dove down towards her.

"Step away from the Manifested so I may remove her from the area!" declared Cryo from the air.

Banshee ignored him and just kept moving, staying focused on the archway. Almost at her goal, a hand shot out and grabbed her good arm. She tried to shake them off, but their grip was unrelenting, and they forced her to turn and face them.

Crimson hair peaked out from under a hood, and for a moment, panic gripped her. She thrashed in his grip but he pulled her close, and she saw his forest-green eyes and stopped.

"Adande?"

"Come with me," he said. She hesitated. He pulled on her arm a little harder, a desperate note in his voice as the crowd around them shuffled away. "Now. I can't scale-stun Cryo or the Serpent's going to--"

Above them, Cryo dove, wings pulled in like a bladed cage aimed straight for her.

Adande swore, pulled a Lightblaster from his coat, and fired at Cryo. Cryo veered to the side and out of the way, avoiding the shot but also pulling out of his dive. In the moment that Cryo pulled his wings back into position to orient himself in the air, Adande darted back, away from the building she'd been aiming for and around the side of it.

With no options better than what Adande was offering her, Banshee followed.

It didn't matter if Adande was only luring her back into the Serpent's clutches, she told herself as Adande fired another few backwards shots to slow Cryo's pursuit. She couldn't evade Cryo forever, not like this, with the way the world was tilting around her, and she couldn't give him the chance to catch up. It didn't matter if she had to spend the rest of her life in agony, as long as Cryo wasn't the one who'd directly done it to her.

Adande led her into a narrow alleyway and strode forward, his eyes on the ground. He stopped over a place where the design on the ground was different as Banshee pressed a hand on the wall to try and keep herself upright.

"Over here," Adande said as he glanced up at her and swore again. He ran over to her and wrapped an arm around her waist, taking the majority of the weight off her trembling legs and helping her over to the spot he'd selected. He pressed her head into his chest, something that she was lacking the energy to protest. "Hold close."

Something in his hand flickered, and the ground beneath them vanished. Adande held Banshee's head still for the moment they fell, landing with a grunt of effort. His arm stayed on her waist, holding her steady as she lifted her head to figure out where they'd gone.

They were in some kind of underground tunnel, illuminated by the sunlight filtered through the rose-coloured starstone from the City above. From below, the starstone that created the streets and walkways of the City above was transparent enough that she could see up into the world above, while buildings remained as opaque sections.

Because of it, Banshee had a near-perfect view of Cryo's reaction as he swooped into the alley and found it empty. She heard his roar shake the starstone around her, and in one blast, cover the starstone she watched through in snow.

"C'mon," said Adande, pulling his hand free of her waist and starting forward. "We need to move before anyone finds us."

Banshee just stood there, staring up at the snow-covered starstone above.

"Banshee?" said Adande, turning back to her. "Banshee, I need you to move."

"Where are we going?" she asked, using the words to stall, to stare for a few moments more.

"Outside the City limit," said Adande. "It's the only place I can think of where the Serpent won't be able to reach you. I don't know why he let you go, but if you're outside the City, whatever game he's playing won't matter."

"He didn't let me go," said Banshee, hesitating. "I escaped."

Adande's jaw set. "You shadow stepped out somehow, which surprised him, but he knew exactly where you were when you came out of it, even before Wyvern reported back in to him."

Her heart skipped a beat. "I don't--"

Adande pulled his hood down. "I'll explain later, but we need to move now, before--by the peak, you can barely stand up."

Banshee tried to push herself off the wall and stand up alone but failed. She kept her hand on the wall, which seemed to help steady her spinning head. "I'm fine. I can walk."

She managed to walk for another minute before her legs refused to go on any further.

When that happened, Adande stopped beside her, reached under her arms and picked her up, half-slinging her body over his shoulder and kept walking.

*+*+*+*

A/N - Eeeeee. 

Since a bunch of you asked last week: Vote goal for bonus chapter - 225. Not an easy one, but doable. Patreon hearts on their chapter count for double so that's like 12 off the bat. <3

Also, Kiba outdid herself. I'm just gonna hold in the paragraphs of fangirling I could do and show you.

Art by @46Kibahime - "Frosting Over"  ((prints available on her DeviantArt coughcough))