Time seemed to stop for everyone.
Elsa went completely still, rigid, out of breath, unable to assimilate what had just happened. How should she feel? How should she react? What should she do? Her world had just changed forever, and sadly this time an act of true love couldn't fix it. Feeling her vision blur from her tears, she slowly relaxed her muscles and dropped to the ground. Her pain was so great, so unbearable, that she simply disconnected to feel nothing. She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the darkness.
"Pfew! So close!"
Elsa opened her eyes on sheer instinct, hardly aware of it.
"Oh, poor Anna! Ugh... what a horrible way to die! Lucky that I have been able to escape in time."
Elsa saw a humanoid-shaped shadow tapping her sister's body with her foot as four small lights gently orbited it.
"Anyway... time to move on!"
The darkness within her completely disappeared, replaced by a sudden fury that ran through her entire body. The pain, the frustration, the tiredness... everything disappeared. She got to her feet with the help of Astrid, who had just reached her side, though Elsa hardly noticed her. In her mind, there was only one thing: to wipe that monstrosity from the face of the Earth.
"Come on, let's finish it," Astrid told her, gripping her ax hard.
"No!" Elsa snapped, blocking the Viking with her hand. "Stay out of this."
Her apparently serene tone exuded a hatred so deep that it made Astrid unable to reply. She backed away until she met Hiccup. A glacial cold spread rapidly in the environment and the Vikings could feel their muscles numb, so they moved a little further to avoid freezing.
Elsa, her body thrown forward and her head bowed, stretched her arms back, took a deep breath, and then clawed hard at the air, throwing her arms in front of her in a perfect cross. Thin threads of ice came out of her fingers and joined to form a web that was advancing at full speed. The shadow had no time to react and could only cover itself with its arms.
That web went through it without doing a scratch, since Elsa hadn't used any tears to create them.
"What a scare you have given me, Elsa! For a moment I thought my end had come!"
By the time the shadow realized that those threads had become entangled in the lights of the forest spirits, it was too late. It tried to hastily cut them, but before it even touched them, the powerful bolt of magic Elsa had launched through the threads struck the spirits hard, freeing them from their bonds.
"Please, help me," Elsa asked.
The lights flew quickly to her, settling on her back. Then, slowly, they introduced in the body of the Arendellian. The symbol of the flower of the five spirits appeared on Elsa's forehead, glowing.
"Oh, come now!" The shadow complained.
Elsa opened her eyes and shot herself into the spirit, propelled by a sudden blast of air, as an ice sword materialized in her hands just in time to deliver a powerful thrust. The shadow stopped her with its bare arms without difficulty.
"Wow... I was expecting more, to be honest," it said, somewhat disappointed. "Not too bad, but still..."
Elsa's sword suddenly burst into flames that engulfed the shadow. It was forced to retreat before the circle of fire closed around it.
"That is better."
Elsa launched herself on the attack again with another powerful and very fast attack, even more than the previous one. The shadow could block her again, but the Arendellian didn't give it respite and she kept attacking again and again, increasing her speed more and more, looking for any corner or fissure in that impenetrable defense. As she attacked, as she grew accustomed to the magic of the forest spirits, her attacks became faster and more accurate, and the shadow soon began to have serious trouble defending itself. Finally, Elsa managed to sneak a quick punch through the shadow guard, hitting its face directly and throwing it back hard until it slammed into the wall of ice around them.
"What?!" The stunned shadow said when it felt a tremendous pain in its being.
Elsa just lunged for it again, oblivious to anything but this death fight, and the shadow pulled away from her just in time to avoid another blow that shook the foundations of that thick wall.
The spirit didn't understand how a naked blow could affect it so much, but it was clear to it that it must take this battle seriously if it wanted to survive. Before Elsa charged again, it decided to get ahead of her and harnessed the powers of the spirit of corrosion to launch a wave of acid against her. However, she impassively launched herself towards that wall of destruction, crossing it easily thanks to a rock shield that completely enveloped her for a few moments. As soon as she put one foot back on the ground, she jumped into the shadow ready to launch a strong kick. Oblivion dodged her and counterattacked with some vines that caught the girl's feet in the hope of slowing her down a bit, but she disposed of them with a quick fireblast without even flinching to launch herself once more time against the spirit. The shadow slapped its hand on the ground until it reached the ground beneath the snow. A large amount of sand billowed out of it and swirled over it, spinning at full speed and making a high-pitched, deadly sound. With a gesture, that whirlpool flew straight towards Elsa, who simply surrounded herself with water to wet the sand and cause it to fall back to the ground, disabling the attack.
"Alright... Now you pissed me off..."
The spirit clapped its hands hard, then slowly spread its hands, as if it cost horrors. An electrical blast formed between them and a multi-tailed whip materialized. With it, it launched attack after attack against Elsa, creating powerful bolts that hit the ground and the wall, creating great explosions wherever they fell. Elsa could barely dodge them, but she still kept herself composed.
"Let's get this over," the shadow said in a sinister voice, feeling itself at an advantage.
It raised the whip with both hands and slammed it down on Elsa. Dozens of lightning bolts shot out of it and sped towards the Arendellian. Just when they were about to reach her, a gust of wind came between the lightning and her and redirected the entire electrical storm back to its source. The lightning struck hard at the shadow, which fell to the ground with large holes in its body.
Oblivion had to do a big effort to keep the spirits it had subdued within it. The parts of his body that still remained were reconfigured to regain the humanoid form, although it was now much smaller than before. If it played its cards right, it could still emerge victorious from that situation.
"Alright! Alright!" Said the shadow, resting on one knee and holding its belly with one hand. "You win!"
Elsa showed no mercy. She lunged for it again and kneed it tremendously right in the face, sending it rolling backward. That attack overcame its ability to withstand and some colored lights escaped from its battered body. Its body shrunk again.
"Please, Elsa! Mercy!"
This time it was a kick to the side that caused more lights to leave the spirit's body.
"I beg you... stop now..." it asked with a broken voice.
It knew that it no longer had a chance to win.
Elsa, on the other hand, didn't seem willing to stop, so the spirit decided to play a last trick.
"You know you cannot kill me, right? If you kill me now, I will reborn again in some weak heart. Believe me, I have seen it with other spirits that I have taken... Unintentionally, of course. Learning about your powers stuff, you know. What I mean is that, if we die, sooner or later we are all reborn of our element, and if the world is full of something, it is weak, so please stop this now. If you do, I promise I will get out of here and never come back."
Elsa raised her arms and a great amount of water, fire, earth, air, and ice swirled over her to form an imposing creature similar to a leviathan.
"Elsa, please... Please..."
The shadow could not take its eyes off that creature that slowly opened its jaws, ready to pounce on it at any moment. That's why it didn't see Astrid, sneaking up behind its back until she managed to touch it with a small crystalline vial. Just an instant later, the shadow disappeared and the vial was deeply dark. The Viking hurried to close the bottle.
"In that case, it would be best not to kill it, don't you think, Elsa?" Astrid said joying.
Elsa held still for a few moments, the leviathan hovering above her head, as she searched desperately for the shadow to finish it off. Then she noticed Astrid and, understanding what had just happened, she regained control over herself.
"But, where do you get—?"
"The spirits of the forest," the Viking replied. "We managed to get them from the castle, but as we were coming here they began to vibrate and, when we were looking at what was happening, they fell off and... well, they broke free and these empty jars were left. The point is, we thought it was worth a try."
Astrid shrugged and Elsa couldn't help but a small, incredulous laugh escaping as she fell to her knees, exhausted. The leviathan slowly unraveled.
"Thank goodness..." Elsa said, almost without strength. "I thought I wouldn't be able to hold out."
"I'm sorry," Astrid continued. "I didn't want to rush in and ruin everything."
On the other side of the wall, the shouts of victory from the allied army spread like wildfire. At last, it was all over.
The forest spirits slowly left Elsa's body and materialized in their usual forms, approaching the Arendellian to offer her all their affection.
"Anna..." she suddenly remembered, feeling the weight of reality.
With the help of the water spirit and Astrid, she rose to her feet and clumsily advanced with her heart in a fist towards the place where her sister lay inert.