Author's Note – I'd like to say sorry to guest waitwhat for making him/her cry because of my story. And congrats to kramer53 for single-handedly bringing my big reveal crashing around my ears. Also thanks to everyone else for the review and favorites and follows.
-TheStanfordExperiment
I got a safety torch, but I do not own Frozen.
Chapter 19 – What Was Stolen
Ignus' brain already felt like it had been thrown under a stampede from the battle.
Now this?!
He couldn't make words as he stared into the aged face of the man from his past, the man who had killed his parents, and the life Ignus once knew.
And now he was back again.
Ignus clenched his teeth in hatred. "You? This whole time it was you?!"
The Duke/Channel stared at him loathingly, then threw him across the rooftop. Ignus landed hard on his arm.
"It was always me. Ever since the day you destroyed what I had built, I followed you."
"What I destroyed?! You killed my parents, you sick psycho!"
The Duke said nothing, walking slowly towards Ignus.
"You were aware of my past, yes, fire brat? You knew what life was like for me."
Ignus spat, red drops dripping from his mouth. "Yeah, I know. You were a scummy mercenary. You lived like an animal. It was more than you deserved."
"I lived like I wasn't alive. It was utter hell. I spent days gathering enough money to feed myself with by killing others for petty money. My background was too depraved for those of wealthier stature to ever consider hiring me. I ate dirt, I slept on sidewalks, I was cursed and ridiculed by pathetic, weak townspeople." The Duke's teeth ground loudly.
"That was, until I discovered a mineral deposit. When my life became something more."
"You mean when you went from a morality-depraved rat into a slightly-wealthier morality-depraved rat?" Ignus said, viciously.
"Silence. I found my fortune, selling the valuable rocks I had discovered. Gunpowder above all was my meal ticket. I had discovered a secret vault of the rare weapon, and every army, every country wanted a share. They paid me top dollar, until I was richer than I had ever been before."
"I trained, day in and day out, to stay intimidating and fearsome. To keep my competitors away, and if they ever got to close…" His greatsword flashed. "They'd regret it."
"But soon, as with everything, my luck began to run dry. I had started to run out of things to sell. Supply was dropping, and soon I'd have nothing left."
"Until we came across your pathetic farm."
Ignus' eyes flashed with anguish.
"A lifetime's supply of minerals, simply laying beneath the feet of three idiot bumpkins. I thought I could persuade your father to a deal, pay him off for a fraction of what the land was worth. He certainly looked stupid enough to believe me."
The ground around Ignus had begun to smoke.
"But he refused my offer. So I gave him a bigger one. He refused again. Time and time again, he did not agree."
"He saw through your deceit." Ignus said, bitingly.
"No. He was a stubborn old fool, putting his pride before his needs. Before his family's needs." The Duke's eyes fell upon Ignus', which were full of intense flames.
"So I went for the more effective approach. I tried to force him off the land. And then…" his hand went to the burn mark on his face, "…you decided to be a big boy."
"I used to regret doing that." Ignus said, narrowing his red eyes. "Recently, though, someone helped me understand that what you did was not because of my anger. It was because of your greed and lack of a human soul. And I gotta say, that mark looks as ugly as it did the first day I put it there."
The Duke's hands clenched.
"I had sworn to myself that I would never go back to my life before. That life of a rat…living for scraps. I refused to let a foolish old man and his insipid family get in my way."
"So I burned down your precious farm, knowing that you'd receive the blame because of your curse. I knew the villagers would chase you out."
"But what you didn't know," Ignus interrupted, looking like his entire body was about to erupt into flames from his fury, "was that I was coming for you. To pay you back in full."
The Duke said nothing.
"And we all remember how that went, right?"
Images flashed into Ignus' mind. How he had torn through the Duke's defenses like tissue paper. How he had let his sorrow and anger shoot out of his body with his fire, torching everything the Duke had.
"I left you with nothing." Ignus whispered through clenched teeth. "Making you the rat you always have been once again."
They stared at each other. I was impossible to tell who held more hatred for the other.
"I had one thing." The Duke slowly replied. "I had you."
Ignus' gave him a disgusted look. "What?!"
"The knowledge that you were alive. It gave me new purpose. One purpose."
The Duke slammed his greatsword to the ground.
"To make you suffer for the rest of your life. Every moment of every day you would be in pain, from hunger, thirst, physical or mental."
"What little money I had left I used to infiltrate this pathetic cult. Its leaders immediately welcomed me. They were thrilled to hear that I sought nothing more than to wipe out one who had been cursed with fire."
"After the leaders took a permanent leave of absence," the blood on the rooftop seemed to shine for a moment, "I took over. I used the cult to steal gunpowder, which I sold illegally to build us up. To make us stronger. I hired mercenaries, assassins, cutthroats, psychos, anyone who would agree to kill for money."
Ignus' eyes shook. Eddie's words came back to him.
People started getting paid off to join. Mercenaries. Cutthroats. It was turning into a madhouse full of loons. They got better weapons, more bodies.
"You…you were the one who upgraded the River."
The Duke, again, remained silent.
"You sent them to chase me for years…to make my life miserable…"
"I sent them to make you afraid. They were never to kill you. Only to beat you within inches of your life, if possible."
Ignus suddenly realized something.
"Elsa."
His eyes went scarlet.
"Why…were you after…Elsa?"
The Duke said nothing. Then he smirked, evilly.
"When I heard about the Queen and her powers, I knew you'd be drawn to each other. Two devils, walking the Earth together, how could they not?"
"Don't call her that."
"At first I wanted nothing more than to make sure you knew that there was another like you. And then kill her before your eyes, throwing you into complete isolation. The avalanche and Bankmen were supposed to do that."
"But then…something even more brilliant happened. You saved her life. And she started to fall in love with you."
Ignus' eyes widened.
"And you with her. It was more than I ever dreamed."
He raised his greatsword.
"Know this. When you die here, at my hands, it will not be until I force you to watch the life slowly seep out of her wretched body."
Ignus' face was a shadow.
"You tried to kill Anna, Kristoff and Elsa…just to make me suffer?"
The Duke looked at him, the smirk gone from his face.
"That is correct. And it appears that I succeeded with that last bomb."
Ignus' eyes burst open, glowing like blood-soaked suns.
His body erupted into an inferno of black fire, Ignus howling in fury it did so.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
He shot towards the Duke, crashing his fist into his gut.
The Duke staggered back and swung at him with his greatsword, which grazed Ignus' shoulder. Ignus didn't notice.
The pain all but gone from his mind, Ignus fought like a demon, accenting each of his strikes with pitch-black fire and a guttural howl.
The Duke was unfazed.
"You think you can beat me with your fire? I've gotten reports on you for years! Every time you fought with my Bankmen and were foolish enough to let them live they reported back to me on your moves. I trained specifically to kill you, devil. And this armor was forged specifically to smother your flames! And this sword, Stryk, was created for the sole purpose of extinguishing your pathetic flames from this world forever!"
Ignus' only response was his infuriated attacks. He didn't notice that the Duke's words rang true, that his fire licked against the metal plates harmlessly, that he was slowly being pushed back by the Duke's counters.
He only noticed when the Duke slammed him across the face with the butt of Stryk.
Ignus crashed to the ground, his fire normal once again, and slowly disappearing. His sword skittered away and fell off the roof.
The Duke strode towards him, each footstep ringing maliciously.
"You will remain here as I retrieve the girl. And then I will kill her in front of you. And then I will put this blade through your worthless heart."
"No. You won't."
A blue streak shot towards the Duke's chest, hitting him dead-on and sending him flying back.
Ignus, with difficulty, looked up and saw Elsa, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, but unharmed.
Elsa ran towards Ignus and helped him up. She blinked back tears at the sight of how beaten he was.
"I'm here, I'm here, Ignus. You're okay." She whispered in a panicky voice.
Ignus could only smile at her.
Suddenly, Elsa looked up sharply, causing Ignus to do the same. The Duke had gotten to his feet.
He clutched his frozen chestplate. "Cursed wench." He growled.
Elsa narrowed her eyes at him. Ignus looked at her, silently pleading her not to fight him.
Elsa looked at him once again, and gave him a small smile. "No sacrifices. Don't worry."
Then she got to her feet and shot a frozen pillar, conjured out of thin air, towards the Duke, who had to roll out of the way, barely dodging it.
He turned back to Elsa, bewildered. She didn't let up.
She shot ice at the ground, which turned into hands, pummeling the Duke, who could only block so many. She froze the ground beneath his feet, causing him to slip and fall, and then followed up by dropping a frozen weight onto him.
The Duke was utterly overwhelmed. He had trained to fight Ignus' fast and furious fire style. Elsa's magic was unpredictable and diverse. He just couldn't keep up.
Elsa raised a pillar under his feet, throwing him into the air, and then created a tree of ice below him. The Duke hit almost every branch on the way down.
"That was for the Kingdom you nearly buried."
She shot another blue streak of magic, which knocked Stryk out of the Duke's hands.
"That was for tying my sister to a chair."
Hail rained heavily down upon the Duke.
"That was for hurting Kristoff!"
She slammed a gigantic fist of snow into him.
"That was for trying to kill me!"
She picked up Ignus, and held him next to her. She raised a hand, frost and wind swirling around it, building up.
"And this…this is for the inhumane suffering you have put Ignus through."
She looked at Ignus, who looked back, completely in awe of her fight.
"Ignus?"
"Wha-? Oh…oh yeah, right."
He held up his arm next to hers, fire building in his fist, pointed towards the Duke.
"This is for my family. And for everything you've done to Elsa."
Fire and ice blended together between their outstretched arms, connecting together to form a purple, glowing magic.
The Duke looked up, on his knees, gasping for breath from Elsa's icy onslaught. There was nothing but utter loathing in his eyes. He got up and ran towards them, yelling and raising Stryk.
"Now!" shouted Ignus.
The purple magic shot from their arms, hitting the Duke square in the chest, sending him flying over the rooftop, down to the ground. They heard him scream as he fell, the purple magic covering his body, enveloping him, before finally flashing into a brilliant burst of color.
Ignus and Elsa stood there, breathless, looking out at the battlefield. The Rivermen had either surrendered or fled. Everyone that remained was captured and put in chains.
Ignus looked at Elsa. "We need to get them out of the Dam." He said, his voice a bit shaky.
Elsa looked at him, confused by his choice of words after what they had just done. "Why?"
Ignus closed his eyes and breathed in. "I'm going to evaporate this River."
Elsa looked at him, and then nodded. She created a ramp of ice and slid down to the ground, ordering the Arendellian army to retreat outside the Dam.
Ignus waited for the army to exit. It took about 15 minutes. He found his sword and sheathed it.
Then he looked down at the ground, closed his eyes, and let the fire that had burned within him since the day he started running burst from his body.
It was like a bomb went off. Fire blew out over the walls of the Dam, destroying every building, setting fire to every wall, every inch of what used to be the hideout of his greatest enemy.
Elsa looked at the inferno, waiting with held breath. It was like watching every worry in her body catch fire and burn away.
Then the fire subsided, leaving the Dam in a state of destruction, never able to hold an army or any cult ever again.
Elsa watched as Ignus slowly walked out of the falling ash, like he was walking through a light snowfall.
Ignus reached the army and looked at Elsa.
He gave her a small smile.
Elsa said nothing. Then she ran forward and nearly crushed him in a hug.
"We…we did it." She said in an awe-struck
Ignus hugged her back. "I know." He put his head aganst hers.
"Thank you."
The Arendellian army cheered thunderously as Elsa and Ignus continued to hold each other, the sun setting behind them, casting a light glow over the plains, as if the sky itself was celebrating their victory.
End Chapter 19