"Concentrate, Elsa!" Elsa snapped out of her daze, and ducking instinctively. Merida's arrow pierced the wall, bringing Elsa back to the present.
"I am!" She huffed in Hiccup's direction, standing up, only to jump away again when Ralph trundled past.
Muttering under her breath, Elsa looked around, her eyes locking on a tree nearby. She ran over, creating a snow pile so that she could reach a branch. Levering herself upwards, she crouched on the thick limb, taking a moment to gather herself.
It was over a week since the party, and Hiccup had surprised them all, with his Virtual Reality training room. It was all a game, but it felt scary real to Elsa.
In the three times they had used Hiccup's advance technology toy, he had placed them in maze which targeted their fears, and made them use their powers, they had been stranded on a sandy island with only one another for company, and endless threats, from poison fruits, to rabid animals. The aim was to keep everyone alive until help arrived.
The third and final one was the direct opposite. Stay alive. Was all Hiccup had told them, but Elsa had never thought that had meant they were battling each other!
Down below, the rest were all still fighting. Tooth, who didn't have much to use against others, was flying in mad circles, confusing anyone who tried to get her. Merida, had been given a bow from Hiccup to 'enhance' her powers, and now that she was armed, she was quite possibly the most dangerous one out there.
Ralph, of course was another strong opponent. Elsa had taken to calling him 'The Hulk', inside her head of course, because as soon as he was riled up and fighting, it took a while to calm him down.
Rapunzel could have been the strongest enemy out there, if her gentle nature didn't override it. She could do just about anything with her hair, trip people, lasso people, the possibilities were endless...
Elsa peered around a cluster of leaves, searching for a certain head with white hair. She didn't see him, but just before she could wonder what had become of him, she felt the tree shudder.
Spinning around, and almost falling off her limb in the process, she saw Jack grinning at her.
"Hey, snow queen." He said, balancing on Elsa's branch.
"Jack." She said calmly, even though her heart was racing. How could he be so calm after what had happened!?
Thinking back to that, Elsa blushed, looking down at the ground below them.
"Do you think we're allowed to partner up?" Jack was suddenly crouched right behind her, chin actually touching her shoulder. Elsa stiffened, and cleared her throat, managing to choke out, "Maybe... Hiccup told us to stay alive."
"May the odds be ever in our favor." Jack growled dryly.
Elsa jerked her head around to look at him, the surprise of the reference making her overlook the fact that their noses were two millimeters apart.
"You've read those books?"
"I do know how go read." Jack chuckled, and Elsa rolled her eyes.
"Obviously. I just didn't think you read for pleasure."
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me." Jack's icicle blue eyes twinkled, and the butterflies in Elsa's stomach intensified.
"You ready?" Jack broke the silence.
"Wait, what?"
Elsa never got a response, because Jack pointed at Merida, held a finger to Elsa's lips, stunning her into silence, then aimed a hand at the redhead on the ground.
The floor Merida was stalking on began to frost. She glanced down in surprise to see her boots frozen to the ground. Not finished, Jack made the ice curl up and around her legs, hardening and rendering her immobile.
Huffing away a strand of curly red hair in anger, Merida glared up the tree where the two icy teenagers sat.
"Aw, look at Jack and Elsa, sitting in a tree." She mocked, before loading her bow and aiming it at them.
She let it fly, only for Elsa flick her hand, freezing the arrow in place. Now that Merida was out of the equation, Jack narrowed his eyes at where Ralph had cornered Rapunzel.
"Ready?"
Elsa nodded, watching Jack jump out the tree, using the wind to get him from one tree to the next. Elsa stood and began climbing higher, breathless thanking Anna for dragging her around those obstacle courses, which was her little sister's favourite part of parks when she was young.
Now on an even higher branch, at least 20 ft of the ground, Elsa paved herself a bridge of ice that reached from one tree to the next where Jack awaited. Elsa stepped onto it, preparing to dash across, when something above her caught her eye.
There where the fake sun shone, was a red button. The button was identical to the one in the center of the maze, and the one in the helicopter that had rescued them from the island. The winning button. The button to end the game.
She spun around, wobbling slightly on her thin bridge and waved to catch Jack's attention. He squinted up to where she pointed, then broke into a big grin.
Jumping out of the tree, he flew to where she was, "Can we hit it?" He questioned.
Elsa shrugged. "I suppose. Unless you'd prefer to stay in here."
Smirking, Jack started forward, only to stop when he heard a sudden terrified shriek.
Spinning around so fast he got whiplash, he was just in time to see Elsa's bridge crumble, falling back to the ground, and taking Elsa with it.
-i-
Elsa squeezed her eyes shut, snuggling deeper into her bed. She didn't want to wake up yet, but someone, probably Anna, was shaking her shoulder and calling her name urgently.
"Anna!" She groaned, pulling away and snuggling deeper into the snow. Hold up, Elsa stiffened and did a mental rebound. This wasn't her bed, which meant this wasn't her room, which meant that wasn't Anna.
Opening her eyes and blinking under the florcorent lights, she glanced around the room.
Her accomplices...the remaining members of the SSS, were gathered around, but instead of paying attention to her, they were having a mini argument.
"You could have killed her!" Jack was yelling at the guilty looking Ralph who stared at his giant fists in dismay.
"I didn't mean to." He answered the enraged Junior meekly. "I just see something...and I gotta wreck it."
Jack stared at him in slight astonishment. "I can't believe that's your excuse!"
"Jack," Rapunzel began. She and Toothina were the only ones who had noticed Elsa had begun to regained consciousness, but the rest were all to busy arguing to notice.
"Just saying, Elsa shouldn't have taken such a risk, walking across a bridge like that." Merida added. Jack gave her a dark look, and she was silenced.
Elsa propped herself up using her elbows, and groaned again, alerting the others.
A turmoil of questions hit her, while she squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the room to stop spinning. The group fell silent, until Elsa sat up properly, opening her eyes and looking around confused.
"How do you feel?" Rapunzel asked her older cousin urgently.
"Okay." Elsa responded, rather daunted by everyone's eyes on her. She reached up to brush an annoying strand of hair from her face, only to cry out in pain when she moved her right hand.
Ralph reached out hesitantly, regret flashing in his eyes as Elsa flinched away. Elsa swallowed, and telling herself to calm down, let Ralph examine the painful hand.
"You've broken your wrist." He told her, looking back down at his own hands in distress.
"How do you know?" Merida asked curiously.
"Felix...my stepdad, he's an orthopedist...a doctor who specializes in bones. He taught me the basics when I was younger." It was the longest sentences Ralph had ever spoken, and they were all silent, processing what Ralph had said, and realising they all knew little about their comrades.
Rapunzel startled them all as she suddenly shivered, reaching behind her and taking a strand of her long hair. Without a word, she began wrapping it around Elsa's arm, humming to herself all the time. Ignoring the confused stares she was receiving, she finished wrapping and began murmuring a song. Elsa jumped slightly as the hair around her began to glow with a strange light.
Eventually Rapunzel finished singing and the glowing faded. Still ignoring the others shocked stares, she unwravelled her hair from Elsa's hand and asked in a whisper.
"How does it feel?"
Elsa stopped staring at her cousin and slowly moved her gaze into her hand. She moved it slowly, wiggling her fingers, and then looking back up at Rapunzel.
"How did you do that?" she hissed, feeling her heart rate increase, signalling one of her panic attacks. Forcing herself to remain calm, she listened to Rapunzel's explanation.
"I found out a couple of days ago. I slammed my finger in my drawer, and... I don't know...like i just did it. like...like an ancient instinct." Rapunzel shook her head vigorously, hiding her face behind her golden locks.
"Why didn't you tell us!?" Hiccup cried, rather offended.
"I didn't have anything to demonstrate on...and then you might have strapped me to a chair and performed some creepy test on me." Rapunzel pointed out.
Before any of them could say anything else, they heard the heavy steps of Stoick Haddock coming down into the basement. Having rehearsed this a million times, Elsa and Sandy (who hasn't been forgotten!) began to braid up Rapunzel's hair, Jack and Merida grabbed the study books, and spread them across the table, and Hiccup pressed buttons on his dashboard urgently.
Tooth hurriedly grabbed her discarded dress and flung it over herself, hiding the wings. When all of this was done they jumped to the table and opened books, appearing to be deep in concentration when Stoick opened the door and peered in to check on them all.
What he found was seven high school students sitting around a table, bent over their books in deep concentration. The whole room was deathly quiet, adding to Stoick's growing suspicion that he was hearing things, and that the old widow was finally losing it.
"Everything okay, Dad?" Hiccup asked innocently, looking up from his text books.
"Uhhhh... yeah..yeah i was just uhh... going to see Gobber... you'll be alright on your own?"
Hiccup nodded, and his father said an awkward goodbye, and headed up the stairs, feeling extremely confused.
Later when he discussed the topic over a game of pool with Gobber, his old wrestling friend had a rather strange theory.
"Trolls!" He said triumphantly, as Stoick sighed.
"I know it's them!" The blonde giant of a man continued, as he lined up to hit a ball. "My garbage has been knocked down and all my left socks are disappearing!"
"Racoons, Gobber. Racoons." Stoick sighed, starting the long waging argument once more. "Racoons knocked out your garbage, and you always loosing your socks at dry cleaning."
Gobber grunted, ignoring his friend's logic as he successfully hit three balls into the hole thingys.
Stoick began his turn, but paused, looking up at Gobber. "Even if it is trolls. Hiccup would be okay, right?"
Gobber looked at him darkly, amd the silence only worried Stoick further.
-i-
As the last one to leave the Haddock Residence, Elsa was surprised to see Jack waiting for her.
"Can i walk you home?" He asked, and Elsa was so dumbfounded, all she could do is nod.
They began down the road to their own neighborhood, a comfortable silence between them, gathering her scrambled thoughts, Elsa managed to comment, "Well, you sure are full of surprises today, aren't you?"
Jack smirked, breaking out of his daydream as he responded. "Nah, don't get used to it."
They laughed and continued walking, but Elsa couldn't help feeling there was something on Jack's mind, that he wasn't sharing.
"Is everything ok?" She asked, looking up at him quizzically.
"No." He answered, keeping his eyes firmly on the road ahead. "I'm not at all traumatized by your dramatic fall from 20 odd feet, and clearly you aren't either."
Elsa's blue eyes widened in surprise. "Oh!" Was all she could say, rather awkwardly. "Well... I'm okay now."
Jack mumbled something that she didn't quite catch, staring hard at the ground.
Elsa thought back to her frightening fall, and realised something. "You made that pile of ice that saved me, afterall...so thanks." Jack shrugged, answering "No biggie," But still feeling as if he could have done more to prevent it.
Elsa glanced around the quiet neighborhood, watching a robin flit from one tree to another, before stepping around a slippery patch of ice.
She stepped to wide, stumbling into Jack, and Elsa practically felt her heart stop when she found herself in his strong arms.
Looking up, mouth forming a comical 'o', she stared into his blue eyes. Neither moved their position, for all was quiet on that chilly January afternoon, and they were not disturbed by anything.
"Elsa..." Jack murmured her name, leaning ever so closer until their noses were almost touching...when Elsa ripped away, shaking her head.
"No." she shook her head sharply, feeling her heart break in two at the pained look in Jack's eyes. "I'm sorry...but i can't."
Elsa spun away, snowflakes swirling around in response to her turmoil of emotions, trying to comfort the teenager...but they couldn't. Nothing can.
Jack ignored the fact that anyone might have seen the rejection, instead watching the blonde run further and further away. Then, dropping his head, he continued down his own road.
But unfortunately for them both...they were too wrapped up in one another, to notice a sleek black car, with tinted windows slid away, a camera lens still whirring.
..o..
Oh my goodness gracious me! i am so sorry y'all, last chapter i was apologizing for a three day interval and now I've missed how many?
anyway, here you have your daily dose of cliffhanger, and a knife to the soul! Sry about the Jelsa rejection, kinda a spur of the moment thing, but it will be explained in the next chapter :-)
And of course, what you are all wondering is, FAF101, where is the surprise party? and i know! i should have dedicated some of the chapter to that, but i changed my mind.
So we also see a new side of Ralph, and an extension to Rapunzel's powers! Yay! And as for Hiccup's virtual reality game that he created...think of Hiccup as a genius...like Hiro Hamada genius.
(Is that a reference for BH6 characters? no comment ;-)
and now my reviewers (fav part)
Thank you to Gabbie and Nikolai for your support from chapter one, and to the newest guest, as you all had such wonderful advice when Au over Canon returned...
And as for you, Au. I understand you don't like Anna, but i am not making it a villainessAnna au. That's it. I would suggest that you get your own account and write your own stories.
Enough about them, though. Again thank you, hope you enjoyed, and see you all in the next chapter :)
-Foreverafangirl101