Chapter Forty Three

A Thousand Different Annas

ANNA

(The version we're familiar with)

"Go away, Anna." A muffled voice came from inside the room.

"You got to be kidding me." Anna gawked as her younger self sighed, gave up and began walking in her direction. What was she looking at here? What was the point of this? To her surprise, the younger girl walked right through her, as if she didn't even exist.

"Hiro! What's this?" Anna cupped her hands over her mouth like a funnel and shouted at the empty hallway. "Is this some kind of a joke? Coz it's not very funny! What did you do to me?"

"Calm down, it's just a simulation." His voice echoed around her ears as if they were bouncing off the walls of the castle. "This place is known as Earth Four, one of the worlds where after this moment, you gave up on reaching out to your sister, and this younger version of you grew bitter and cold."

The scene suddenly switched, and she found herself now in Elsa's bedroom, looking on at a scene where a teenage Elsa was cowering in the corner, with her hands raised and trembling, pleading to be left alone. An older Anna, presumably the same one from before, stood above her with a kitchen knife in one hand.

"This happened right after your parents…" Hiro trailed off. "Sorry, I had to do a little bit of digging into your past with all these other versions of yourself."

"What's going on?" Anna shouted in dismay as she watched her alternate self advance towards the cornered Elsa. She turned away and shut her eyes. "Stop this!"

"Look, bear with me. Please." Hiro said sympathetically. "I'm trying to help you see. Okay, maybe you didn't need to see this exact part. We'll move on."

The scene abruptly changed, and she now found herself in the Audience Chambers of Arendelle's castle. An older version of her was seated on the throne, and Elsa was…visibly absent from the scene.

"This is a couple of years later. After your parents passed, something in you snapped and you decided that the only way Arendelle was going to survive was if someone replaced your 'useless recluse of a sister'. And so you killed her in cold blood and usurped the throne by force." He said uncomfortably.

Anna felt her eyes begin to water, blurring the scene playing out in front of her. So in this world she was every bit as bad as Eleanor, and perhaps even worse. Eleanor hadn't personally killed Deirdre, but in this world, Anna had a hand in literally killing Elsa. No, no, no, this is sick. How could this be true?

"Okay, let's move on. Sorry, please bear with me."

The scene changed again, and this time Anna wasn't sure what she was going to see. Instead, she saw yet another familiar sight. Her sister's coronation party.

"Earth Fourteen. In this world, your sister's coronation went as it did in your own world. But then after your sister accidentally revealed her powers and fled, instead of going after her to bring her back home, this version of you felt incredibly betrayed and angry."

Anna looked at an eighteen year old version of herself speaking with Elsa for what was the first time in years. She didn't have to be near them to know they had been talking about chocolates and about having the gates opened. This version of her…seemed so similar.

"And so you allied yourself with the Duke of Weselton and gathered up your army to go after Elsa. This Anna took on the role of Queen by force as well, making it her personal mission to see her "witch of a sister" killed and burnt at the stake."

Anna winced as she watched herself and Elsa giggle together. Who knew that one small change of emotion and decision could have resulted in a cataclysmic change of fate for both her and her sister?

"And then at some point in this reality, your sister joined the League of Sorcerers under the vengeful guidance of a figurehead called the Pilgrim. Elsa, also bitter and resentful of you, eventually killed the Pilgrim and took her place. Prepare yourself for this next bit."

Anna braced herself for the scene change. This time, she found herself standing in the middle of a battlefield, with all the Arendellian soldiers on one side, allied with the Southern Isles as well as Weselton's forces, and on the other side, a long thin line of sorcerers wielding all sorts of abilities.

She saw a much older version of herself, in her late twenties most likely, at the seat of power, giving the order for her allies to begin the battle. And on the other side, Anna saw an also much older Elsa with dyed black hair issuing the command to meet the challenge.

Both sides collided in a bloody battle, and both the older Anna and Elsa rushed into the battlefield to join the fray to find each other for one final confrontation between both estranged sisters.

Anna didn't need any explanation for this one, as Hiro had sensed. He sighed. "I'm sorry. Let's move on."

Another one? "Good god, I think I've seen enough." She said loud enough so that Hiro could hear her.

She wanted so badly to rip the goggles off and crush them beneath her boot, but there was something magnetic about seeing all these other worlds that kept her glued to the scenes before her even though it was causing her great torment.

"This next one is slightly different." Hiro stated. "As you can see."

This time, Anna was standing over Hans with a bloody knife in her hand, the villain laying motionless at her feet. She could infer that in this reality, this version of herself had killed Hans. The scene before her told her enough that this took place after she had un-frozen from her cursed state, and had angrily stabbed Hans for his plan to try and destroy their family.

"But then your thirst for blood grew from there, and you still tried to take the throne from your sister, and even raised an insurrection to overthrow your sister." Hiro sounded pained. "And I don't need to show you what happened for you to guess how that ended up."

"The same as every time." Anna's voice cracked. "It doesn't matter who wins. We all lose in the end."

"Unfortunately, yes." Hiro said. "And alright, I won't show you this next one. But suffice to say, the Earth Three version of you and the real you are quite similar. You and your sister were close and ruled together, but the only difference is that you infected her mind and she became a tyrant too."

"Which is no better than the rest." At this point, Anna couldn't hold back her tears any longer, but yet she couldn't wipe them since the goggles were obscuring her face.

"Alright. This one. It's quite different from the rest, but you'll get the message."

Anna was transported to yet another world. Earth Fifty Eight this time, as Hiro informed her. For the first time, Melody, Tracy and the other Warriors were on the scene, engaging some uniformed people in a fight. But there was one very noticeable difference. Elsa and herself was missing.

"What's this?" Anna couldn't help but ask.

"Well, in this version, you never joined up with the Warriors." Hiro explained. "And your sister, well, she was killed on one of the missions. Without you as the team's moral compass and guiding light, the entire team descended into becoming no better than the criminals they were fighting.

"Before long, they were being hunted down by almost every major law and justice agency in the world. And…" Anna could see that all the uniformed men were dead in one way or another, one with a slit throat from a sharp arrow, another with a magic blast straight through the midsection which left a gaping, unsightly hole, and another quite literally ripped in half by brute inhuman strength. "…as you can see, no one really stood a chance against the Warriors who had gone rogue in every sense of the word."

"This is horrible. Please. Stop this." Anna pleaded. She'd seen just about everything, but perhaps this one might have been the worst. Sure, this version of her didn't have a hand in personally killing Elsa, but because she didn't want to join the Warriors, they eventually turned into stone-cold killers, no better than the League of Sorcerers before Elsa had joined to make some changes.

"Alright, final one. Earth Thirty Two." Hiro apologised.

Anna closed her eyes and breathed out an extremely long breath. She didn't know if she could stand it any longer. Opening her eyes, she found herself in the middle of a horrific scene.

It was winter in Arendelle, and the Arendellians had been gathered in the town square. At the centre of it all, were three individuals. The first one she recognized as Hans, the second the Duke of Weselton and the third - oh god - was a version of Colonel Frederick.

She barely recognized her sister, who had cut her hair short and dyed the spikes black, and had abandoned her traditional blue ice dress for something far more gothic and sinister. The look on this version of Elsa's face told a complete story. She was a cruel, heartless witch who looked like a worse tyrant than anything the Empress could ever aspire to be.

Then Anna looked around in confusion. Where was she? In all the previous versions except for the last, she had been around in some form or other…and then it hit her. In this reality, she had probably died and because of her passing, Elsa had descended into madness.

"On this world, did I…" Anna's voice trembled. "…am I dead?"

"Yeah." Hiro said quietly. "Losing you drove your sister mad. You see, without you as the only positive light in her life, she became this heartless despot, killing anyone who stood in her way or opposed her."

Anna looked back at the scene to see Elsa form a sharp icicle in her hand and stab Frederick right through the heart. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears stream down her cheeks. "Enough, I don't want to see anymore. Please. Pull me out."

To her relief, Hiro did as she asked, and the screen went black. She pulled off the goggles and handed it back to him with trembling hands, happy to be rid of that wretched device.

"Tissue?" Baymax extended a round hand with a soft piece of tissue paper gripped between his chubby fingertips.

"Thanks." She used it to dry her eyes. "That was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my entire life, and I've seen some really strange stuff." Then she turned angrily to Hiro. "Why did you have to show me that?"

"You know you could have taken off the goggles anytime of your own free will." He pointed out.

He was right, Anna pouted, her eyes still puffy."But still…why?"

"You think you're a bad leader that resulted in your friends and sister paying the price for your actions. And now what do you think? You've seen all these other alternate versions of what you could have been."

When he put it that way…It certainly helped her to gain a little much needed perspective. Again, surprisingly for his age, he was right again. It was almost annoying, but she found that emotion drowned out by this newfound revelation that she was not as bad as she thought she was.

"I…" Anna stuttered, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue.

"Or would you have preferred to be the one from Earth Fourteen?"

"I get it, I get it." Anna held up her free hand. "I'm not perfect, but it could have been much much worse."

"Finally." Hiro smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry I had to take the hard way, but it was the only way I could think of to help you understand."

"You know, if you weren't such a genius, I would slug you one." Anna sniffled and sighed. "But I still don't get how in all these other worlds I could be ever make such decisions."

"Don't try to rationalise it." Hiro said. "You'll drive yourself mad."

"Fine." Anna finished using her tissue, regaining some of her usual composure. Baymax gently lifted the tissue out of her hand and placed it in a bin at the corner of the room.

"Are you feeling better after your therapy session with Hiro?" Baymax asked, betraying a slight sense of humour.

"Yes," Anna managed a smile. "Thank you."

"Shall I perform another scan to assess you now?"

"No, thank you," she said hastily and then turned to Hiro. "It's a pity I can't take him with me."

"Don't get any ideas," he warned and she gave a weak laugh.

"So what now?" Anna said. "You said you were doing this in your free time while you were…running automatic…something?"

"Ahh, yes." He whipped out a small device that was the size of a modern cell phone. It had a screen like a regular phone, and it automatically lit up when Hiro took it out. "But we should wait for your friends to return."

As if by clockwork or some orchestration from the heavens above, a knock came at the door of the garage.

"Who is it?" Hiro called out in a loud voice.

"It's us, Melody and Maui." Melody's muffled voice came from the other side. "Your aunt said we would find you in here."

"Come in."

Melody and Maui entered the garage, and immediately had the exact same looks on their faces as Anna had had when she had walked on the scene.

"Woah." Melody's eyes went wide and Anna couldn't help but smile. Was this what she looked like when she had first entered too?

"Welcome, guys." Hiro said, still holding the device in his hand.

"Hello, I'm Baymax." The lovable giant robot lifted one chubby hand in salutation.

"What's this?" Maui blinked and pointed at Baymax. Amusingly, they were about the same height, just that Maui was layered with muscles and brown-skinned while Baymax was white and well…round.

"A robot nurse." Anna answered, hoping they could quickly get a move on.

"What's a robot?" Melody asked.

"No time to explain." Anna said hastily. "Look, Hiro's done with the device. Right?"

"Yeah. Wasn't very hard to figure out since I'd already done research before this." Hiro held out the device in his hand to Anna. "It lets you choose which world you want to transport yourselves too. Think of it as the black hole you described to me, the way you were sent here. Only this time, you get to choose which black hole you want to enter, and without the falling bit."

"Wow." Anna gazed at the device in her hand.

"But please, a word of caution?" he said. "Don't use it unless you absolutely have to. We don't know what kind of rules this dimensional hopping thing has. Theoretically, bumping into an alternate version of yourself for real could cause some unforeseeable results. Even I don't know what could happen."

"Alright, we'll avoid using it. Except maybe just for this once." Melody agreed.

"Good." Hiro said. "I managed to narrow down which earth you guys came from. Surprise, surprise, you guys are from Earth One. The epicentre of where everything began."

"Unbelievable." Melody whispered.

"And this, I discovered, is Earth Twenty Four." Hiro chuckled. "Interesting to learn that I'm not the original. I wonder what the Earth One version of me is like."

"I doubt we'll ever get to find out." Anna said. "We're from the past too, remember?"

Hiro sighed. "Yeah. I remember. So, you want to set your source point here," he touched the screen of the device which was still in Anna's hands. "And then you can set your target point here." He tapped another spot on the screen, and she saw the numbers Twenty Four on one side, and One on the other. "You can even set which part of the world and what time period you wanna exit at"

"That could come in useful." Anna glanced at Melody and Maui.

"Yes, well, on the way here, I had the beginnings of a plan." Melody glanced at Maui. "Thanks to some insight our resident demigod provided, my head's a little clearer now, and I know what we can do."

"What can I say except 'you're welcome?'"

Anna rolled her eyes. "What's the plan?"

"We know that the Empire isn't going to stop. They're headed for Arendelle." Melody said. "Use the device and head back to Arendelle and start assembling your council of war. Or do whatever you have to do to keep your kingdom safe. Maui will go with you in case you need anything."

"And what about you?" Anna asked.

"I'm going back to the Insurgency base." Melody sounded confident like her usual level-headed self. "If anyone can make a stand against the Empire, it's the combined efforts of the Insurgency and the Warriors…whoever that's still alive at least."

"Find my sister." Anna said, a wave of emotion washing over her as she felt a longing to see her sister's face, hear her sweet voice and hold her icy cold hands again. "Save her. Make sure she's alright."

"I will." Melody said. "But first I need to get a new bow. My old one was lost during the fight with the Empress."

"A bow?" Hiro looked thoughtful. "Actually I have something I think you might like." Hiro jogged over to a crate by the wall, and lifted open the hatch. He pulled out a modern looking bow, with beautiful curves and pulley mechanisms built into the contraption. The entire thing was made of a thin metal and had a matte black finish, and it quite literally gleamed.

"What-" Melody gawked as he handed it to her.

"It's a compound-recurve hybrid." He explained. "I modelled it after an Oneida Eagle Osprey, just for fun."

"For fun?" Anna couldn't help but laugh.

"Try it."

Melody undid the flap on her backpack, and reached for one of the arrows. She nocked it, pulled back the bowstring, aimed and fired into a target board on the wall, all in one swift, continuous motion.

"And?" Hiro said gleefully.

"It's…" Melody lifted the bow in her hand and gazed at it in awe. "Perfect. The draw weight, the ease at which I can pull back the string without worrying about the tension…"

"Yeah, compound bows are meant to take the weight and tension off so that you get more stability and you can focus on aiming and shooting faster." Hiro explained. "Here in the future, people use compound bows more since it's easier to use and has more power compared to a standard recurve bow."

"But," he went on. "The recurve bow is a lot more portable. That's why I designed this hybrid. Jerk the bow forward."

Melody did as he said, and before her very eyes, the bow began to recoil in on itself, folding up to become a simple layer of short, portable metal in her hand with the riser still at its full length and intact.

"This…" she stuttered. "This is phenomenal."

"Oh, you're too kind." Hiro said jokingly. "Keep it. Don't really have much use for weapons, other than building them for fun."

Melody gaped at him before the realisation set in. "Thank you."

"Take care of the bow." Hiro said like an anxious parent handing off custody of a child to a schoolteacher for the day. "It's one of a kind."

"Don't worry, I will." Melody gripped the collapsed bow in her hand. "Promise."

"Well then," Hiro extended his hand to Anna who was standing the closest. "I guess this is where we say goodbye."

Anna gave him a hug instead. "Thank you, Hiro. We couldn't have done this without you."

Baymax joined in and enveloped both Hiro and Anna in a gentle warm hug.

Releasing Hiro and patting Baymax on the arm, she turned to Melody and Maui, who had resorted to verbally thanking the two locals instead. Anna tapped the screen and a blue-lit, rectangular shaped vortex opened in front of them.

"Shall we?"

"About time." Melody nodded.

Together, the trio disappeared into the blue vortex after bidding Hiro and Baymax one final goodbye. It was at long last time to get back to their home world, and time for their second attempt at putting an end to the tyrannical reign of the Empire.

Author's Commentary:

Who knows, maybe the alternate worlds concept could come into play in future stories? It'll be interesting to see Anna and the rest confront evil versions of themselves.