Chapter #?
Awoken
Kristoff led Anna around the dance floor to the beat of the band. They stepped in rhythm, each looking into the other's eyes with passion. Elsa and Arianna observed their dynamics from the head of the ballroom, the Queen standing in front of her throne and the Protector standing next to her, hands clasped behind her back.
"They really love each other, don't they?" Elsa asked to no one in particular, face beaming for her sister's happiness.
"Yes, they do indeed," came a curt reply from her right. Arianna had answered, but her mind was clearly elsewhere as her eyes surveyed the crowd for potential threats.
"Oh come on Ari, who's going to attack Arendelle now? You've made the whole of Europe afraid of us. Despite my opinion on that subject, you should try to relax."
Arianna just shook her head. "Those who attack now are they who stay in the shadows, behind closed doors. We are a threat that cannot be tolerated for their devious plans to succeed." She paused, trying to think of an example. "Whatever those plans might be."
"At least try to act relaxed," Elsa sighed.
"Mhmm," came the response.
Seeing she'd get nowhere, the Queen turned her attention back to the ballroom. Just as she did this, a gunshot rang out. When she reopened her eyes a second later, a wall of ice had erupted in front of her automatically. Encased within was a rounded cylinder.
"Son of a bitch," cried Arianna, "get down, Elsa!"
Elsa did as she was told, diving to the floor. Arianna scanned the crowd frantically. Nobody with smoke around them down here, she surmised after a few moments, looking to her powers for a clue. Tracing the hot air marking the bullet's path, she found a hooded figure in the rafters with a metal rod aimed downwards. Though the assassin didn't seem to be aiming for them.
With a panic, Arianna looked for the target, and she hoped she was wrong. Just as her eyes landed on Anna and she shouted her name, the princess responding with a smile, another gunshot rang out.
"ANNA!" Kristoff screamed.
The world stood still for the royal sisters.
Anna's eyes went wide, face instantly paling. Her smile became a look of horror as she grasped her chest, a red wave spreading across her clothes over her heart. Spitting blood, she mouthed "I'm sorry," before collapsing to the floor. Kristoff knelt down and cradled her in his arms, weeping.
Elsa saw her sister shot from her position on the floor. "ANNA!" she screamed, scrambling up from the floor and dashing to the center of the rapidly expanding circle free of people. She pushed Kristoff out of the way. "Anna, no!" The queen screamed in anguish, cradling her sister's unmoving head in her arms. And she cried, frost instantly covering the ground around her. This just increased the amount of space between her and the circle of people, but also caused Kristoff to shiver.
Arianna's mind was in overdrive. Ignis, come to the ballroom right now. Anna's been shot.
Oh shit, came the reply, and two seconds later the metal maiden came right through the ballroom doors, not bothering to open them. Where is the sorry sack of shit that did this? she asked, after surveying the scene.
Up on the rafters to the right of me. Do not kill them. They need to witness this. Bring them to me.
Ignis gave her a look that disapproved, but said nothing. Instantly large wings of fire burst forth from her back, causing nobles around her to jump back in fear, and she took off into the air, barreling down on the unsuspecting and very surprised assassin.
Arianna rushed over to Anna and Elsa, the former already checked over by Adrian, who had his glasses in his hands and was shaking his head, eyes closed. Elsa was sobbing, her sorrow filling the air around her with a frozen white cloud. Anna's cold eyes stared upwards, unblinking. No signs of life were present in her still form. Arianna just hoped she wasn't too late.
"Elsa, Adrian, Kristoff, move away from her," Arianna ordered.
Adrian immediately complied, but Elsa looked at her as if she was mad. "What? No! I am not leaving my sister!" Kristoff seemed to be of a similar disposition.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose, the girl replied with impatience. "We don't have time to argue this, Elsa. I might be able to save her. Get away from her. Now."
Elsa's eyes grew wide. "What? How? She's dead! My little sister is dead!"
"Not for long, if this works, but I can't work with you freezing her over and we're running out of time," replied Arianna. "So BACK. AWAY."
Slowly nodding, Elsa laid Anna's head down on the ground and moved away, dragging Kristoff, his head in his hands. There was now a good three meters of space around the dead princess and the pool of her own blood gushing onto the floor.
Arianna calmly walked to Anna's still body, then ripped open her dress, leaving only her undergarments intact. Several prudish nobles turned their heads away, but everyone else knew there were more important matters now than dignity. Arianna did what she so rarely did, and looked directly at Anna's heart. The light of magic was still present, though it had a hole in the center the size of the bullet, and was fading fast. If she was going to do this, it was now or never.
Arianna huffed to herself, hoping she was right. It's still just a theory, after all, she thought, but it's Anna's only chance. Holding up both hands, she made an intensely dense ball of plasma between them.
"Elsa, I need you to hit this ball with the most powerful ice blast you can generate," the girl said with immense concentration.
"Will this save her?" Elsa asked, no hope left in her eyes.
Grunting, Arianna yelled back, "YES! NOW HURRY UP!" Another grunt, and the plasma ball began to distort into other shapes, starting to escape containment. Still seeing Elsa's hesitation, she knew the Queen must be pushed over the edge. "I can't do this without your assistance, Elsa."
That did it. A determined expression overcame the usually reserved queen, and she reached out a hand. A second later, an extremely powerful ice blast was headed for the ball of plasma, cracking sounds following it as the air itself froze. But Elsa's aim was off. Just in time the crimson haired girl repositioned her hands, the plasma ball soaking the entire blast up. Immediately the ball changed color to a deep blue, and almost looked like water. It began to glow, and became inlaid with bright sky blue lines. Overjoyed, Arianna held her hands up for all to see. "Haha! YES!" She cried, then slammed the ball into the hole in Anna's chest, directly through her heart. It gradually sank in, sealing the hole behind it with flawless skin. The color began to return to her body, spreading outwards from her heart.
Jumping up, the Protector moved to the edge of the circle.
"What was that?" asked both Adrian and Elsa, clearly confused.
Arianna just smiled back, clapped happily, and said "Watch!"
A second later, Anna's body convulsed. Gasps flew around the room, but dissipated when nothing further happened. Kristoff looked up, his face looking happy once again for a moment, then falling right back to despair. Even Arianna looked disappointed until it happened again. And again. Convulsions kept coming, the delay between them getting smaller every time.
Eventually the convulsions stopped, and a sky blue glow began to form around Anna's body. Her limp form rose into the air, drawing further gasps from the crowd. Then it got weirder.
Most balls have a banquet, and though a lot of nobles drank wine, there was still a large container of water for those who did not. This proceeded to explode, the water inside racing out and flowing through the air. It formed three rings around Anna's body, glowing with a bright light. The water in the cups of those who had partaken of the container also flowed up, joining the rings in smaller streams. Those who had wine in their cups found it to be defying gravity, rising up in small orbs of liquid. Abruptly, these orbs lost their magic and splashed onto the floor, or whatever nobles had managed to get under them. Then the rings around Anna broke, and her mouth opened.
Elsa gave a little gasp of hope at this, and Arianna simply looked proud. Kristoff managed to get back on his feet with help from Adrian, both men staring at the scene with wide eyes.
For a couple of heart pounding moments, nothing happened. Suddenly, the water slammed into Anna's open mouth, flowing seemingly into a stomach of infinite size. As soon as the water was fully absorbed, her mouth closed. The glow around her body quickly ramped up to a blinding light, and everyone could hear the princess taking a deep, hoarse breath. The light faded back to a tolerable level a few seconds later, and her eyes opened.
"Uh, Elsa! Help please! I'm floating! And... uh... glowing?!" Anna cried out, looking very confused. Just as she said this though, she rapidly approached the ground, landing with a solid thump. As soon as she hit the ground, the glow faded completely. Everyone's mouths were hanging open, including Adrian's.
Hah. Finally he's impressed, thought Arianna with a smirk.
Elsa's shock was the most short lived though, as she ran to her sister and embraced her. "Oh Anna, I thought we'd lost you there," the Queen sobbed.
"Lost me? What are you talking abo...?" Anna began, then memories of recent events flashed in front of her eyes. Panicking, she reached down to her heart, only to see the smear of dried blood on top of an otherwise perfect surface of skin. "How did... I'm alive...What?"
"Allow me to clear up some misunderstandings. Elsa, if you could help her up, please," dictated Arianna.
Elsa stared in awe at her. "What did you do?"
She didn't have much to answer her with. "Well, most of this was guesswork. Bits and pieces I've managed to assemble in my head. Only a theory, until now."
"Get to the point."
Clearing her throat, the girl continued. "Right, well. You know how our powers protect us? When a projectile like that bullet is headed at you in a deadly way, they automatically raise an ice shield. Mine they simply melt or vaporize the threat."
Elsa looked at her suspiciously. "So?"
Arianna glared at her, but continued. "So, I theorized our powers did a whole lot more than that. Though it seems that we can get sick from viruses, hostile bacteria get wiped out. Our bodies regenerate at much higher speeds than others. My theory is that our powers have some kind of sentience. Olaf, Marshmallow, and Ignis are proof of this. They will do whatever is necessary to keep us, their 'hosts', for lack of a better term, alive."
"What does any of that have to do with me being alive?" asked Anna impatiently. "I don't have powers."
Arianna chuckled, then held out her palm. A fireball formed above it. "Yes, well. About that. In order to save you, I had to do something you... may not like."
Elsa had a hunch, and didn't like it. "I don't like where this is going, Ari."
"Would you rather Anna be dead then?"
Elsa looked horrified. "No, of course not! How could you say such a thing?"
Anna shook her head, running her temples. "So, wait, what, hold on," she grimaced, trying to wrap her mind around all this, "you gave me your powers?"
Arianna laughed. "No, don't be silly. It appears powers can't be transferred."
Kristoff had been quiet up to this point. "So what are you saying then, Ari?"
She smiled, looking quite proud. "I control heat. Elsa controls cold. Please hit this fireball with ice, Elsa. Then I will demonstrate."
"Uh, okay," she responded, then fired a small ice blast at the fireball as she'd done on a larger scale earlier. The fireball melted the ice, and soon Arianna had a boiling ball of water above her palm.
"Ice is frozen water. Fire is a heat source. Put those together and you get liquid water, the relatively neutral temperature point between our powers," Arianna explained. "In order for me to control water, or any matter, the substance must be above a certain temperature. Likewise, Elsa seems capable of manipulating anything below a certain temperature. If I, for instance, stop heating up the water, it goes beyond my control." She proceeded to do this, with the water landing in a splash on the floor.
"Put two magic-infused extremes together, each from an extraordinarily powerful elemental," Arianna continued, pointing at herself and Elsa in turn, "a ball of plasma and a cryonic blast, you get a ball of water filled past the brim with elemental magic."
"And? So? What?" Anna prodded.
Arianna just smiled. "Anna, I want you to reach out with your mind. Just look for something. Anything that pulls on you."
"Not sure why, but okay," Anna replied, closing her eyes. A couple seconds later she gasped and her eyes shot open, staring in wonder at her twin. "How did you do this?"
"Do what, Anna?" asked Elsa in a nervous tone.
"Just… uh, just watch," came the unsure reply. Anna looked to the puddle on the floor and concentrated. The puddle vibrated a little, then levitated off the floor, flowing through the air towards her outstretched hand. She turned to look Elsa in the eyes, a guilty smile on her face. The queen didn't realize what had happened for a few seconds, then her eyes became as wide as Anna's were previously.
For the water was now hovering over Anna's palm in the form of a ring.
And it wasn't boiling.
Elsa looked to Arianna in wonder. The twin chuckled and confirmed her suspicion. "Yes. Anna is now one of us."
Just then Ignis landed, her wings dissipating to wisps of smoke in the frosty air. On the ground in front of her was the hooded figure.
"But I will get into the details later. For now, I have an assassin to confront." Arianna got up, then slowly walked over to the figure. She roughly grabbed the neck of the figure, then pulled back its hood, revealing the man beneath.
"Eugene?!" Elsa gasped, shock written all over her face. He sneered at her, then spat on the ground near Arianna's feet.
Arianna stared at the Prince of Corona's face for a few moments, then smiled. "No, not Eugene. Though someone thinks they can trick us into thinking so." Walking around the man once, Arianna figured it out. She focused intently on his body, locating the clearly active heat signatures. "Heh, clever bastards." The man raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. "Ignis, you sense them, don't you?"
"I did. Was not sure what they were; so like me... and yet, not," the metal maiden replied.
"Haha! This is absolutely wonderful!" exclaimed the girl, jumping about in glee. "Do tell me, whoever you are, how does one acquire nanotech in the 1840's?"
The man's jaw dropped. "How the hell do you know about those?"
Arianna smiled. She'd got him. "So I was right. Man, whoever sent you here has no idea what they are dealing with." She turned her head down to look at him, a sly smile on her face. "Or rather, who."
His face paled as she leaned into his ear, her voice barely a whisper.
"You were likely sent here to fix a rupture in the timeline. Unfortunately for you, that rupture is not an event. It's me, and I hope you said goodbye to your world. It won't exist for much longer. For that I am truly sorry, but humanity's downward spiral must be redirected."
Turning to the room, she put on her best regal voice. "This man is not Eugene of Corona! He is an impostor, using magic to look like our cousin's husband. Someone wanted to start a war," Arianna declared, "but it seems nobody factored me into their plans. I'm going to break this enchantment, and then we shall see our real killer!" The crowd erupted in cheers. She turned back to the man on the floor, then apologized. "I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt."
He sneered at her.
"Alright, have it your way. Now it's going to hurt a lot." Arianna focused on the multitude of heat signatures, forcing her power into the microscopic machines. They all gradually fell under her direct control, and luckily they seemed to have the man's original face pattern stored. So she sent three commands to be executed in sequence; revert, set my gauntlet as home, and return home. Once those had been acknowledged, she sent one more. Execute.
Various places on the man's body began to glow a dull orange, shifting and contorting into a different shape. He screamed in agony, his face twisting around. Several nobles gasped in horror at the Protector's methods, including some who had gotten used to her ways. When the screaming was over a different man lay unconscious at her feet. A swarm of orange lights lifted out of his body and flew into her gauntlet, making it glow momentarily.
Arianna smirked. "Anybody know this man?" She asked the room, not bothering to turn around. Even if someone did know him, they would not step forth. Being accused of attempted assassination is not a way to make oneself or one's country look good. "Didn't think so," she continued, motioning for Ignis to take him away.
Turning to the gathering of nobles, she announced that which would greatly scare anyone involved in the plot. "He will spend an evening in the dungeons, then a morning with me. I will discover his masters, be sure about that."
Nobody in the ballroom was stupid enough to believe this meant she would sleep with him. They pitied that man and what would become of him. Seeing the abject horror on their faces, Arianna knew her job was finished, and so she exited the ballroom.
Not a person on Earth would dare make another move against the Royal family after this night.
-LB-