Chapter Seven: Elsa

They had been flying back to the Pole for several minutes when Elsa suddenly gasped and her grip on Jack loosened for half a second.

"Whoa! Your hands went extremely cold there for a second. Like abnormally cold. What's up?"

"I just realized what I agreed to do," Elsa said faintly.

"You agreed to find and rescue kids," Peri said, flying beside them.

"In public. And the worst part is I'll have to be around defenseless kids with my uncontrollable powers. Suddenly I don't think this is such a good idea."

"Don't worry!" Frozone called from where he surfed below them. He didn't waste any more breath, however. He was already having a difficult time keeping up as it was.

"Elsa, we'll help you learn how to control your powers," Jack said. "Right, Peri?"

"We promise, Elsa."

Luckily, they had reached the arctic, and Jack set Elsa down again. She knelt on the ice and slowed her breathing. She felt like she was totally and completely losing control once more, and she was glad Anna wasn't there to get hurt.

And yet…she missed her sister so much. Perhaps even more so than the years they had spent apart in the castle.

Elsa wasn't sure how long she stayed there; eventually she regained control, but she became so sad she hardly wanted to move, even though the cold was biting her now. A gentle hand fell on her shoulder, and she looked up. It was Frozone, only without the mask.

"Come on, Elsa," Lucius said.

He helped her to her feet and supported her inside to North's study, where she sank slowly into a chair by the fire. Peri and Jack seemed to have finished relating their findings to North, who was nodding thoughtfully.

"Tooth, Sandy and I are doing all that we can to help search. In the meantime, if you are going to work as a team, you need some touching up. I was watching you the other day at your snowball…war as it was.

"Elsa, you need control. When focused you can build castles and fully functioning machinery that rivals even my ice sculptures. But under pressure and stress, or when you stop and think to much, you lose it. With some help, that can be mended.

"Lucius, you only use ice. That is good, but sometimes you need to use snow. The only time I have really seen you use it was when you saved Dash from falling. You need to practice with snow.

"Periwinkle, you are a very gifted, talented fairy. But you are too gentle. You need to be more fierce. This isn't your friendly Pixie Hollow anymore. This has officially become war. You need to work on your self defense and offense.

"And finally, Jack."

"I'm perfect," Jack said with a smirk. Even Elsa couldn't help grinning. "I've mastered snow, ice, frost, and control. Heck, I even know my center now. What more is there to learn?"

"I talked with Elsa earlier this morning," North said. "Before I got the call from Tooth." The smile slipped from Jack's face, and now it was Elsa smirking. "She created two live snowmen who could think and talk intelligently."

Jack's jaw dropped and he stared at Elsa, who was suddenly uncomfortable with the attention.

"Well," Jack said at last. "You've surprised me yet again. So you want me to try and create life?"

"Just experiment. It probably won't be a necessity," North said. "I'm simply giving you something to do. Now, you all will practice this afternoon while I design a practice test of some sort for tomorrow. Dismissed."

"He's really worried," Jack said as they made their way outside. "He's not even acting like himself."

"I don't see why shouldn't he be worried," Lucius said, replacing his Frozone mask. "It's a very serious matter. Alright everyone, break up and practice individually."

"Who put you in charge?" Jack asked.

"I'm the oldest here."

"I'm three hundred years old."

"I'm the maturest around here."

"I…I can't argue with that," Jack admitted. "I like being an immature kid just fine, thank you! Say, Elsa, how did you make those live snowmen?"

"Oh…I don't really know," Elsa said, still walking away from the Pole. "The first time I was using my powers for the first time in years. I was just really happy, and free, and just full of emotion. I did it without thinking about it, and I didn't know Olaf was alive until he came with Anna to my palace. I guess I made Marshmallow cause I knew I could create life and I knew what I needed. Marshmallow wasn't as…for lack of a better word, intelligent as Olaf. Somehow he couldn't speak in complete sentences, and Olaf could. I made Olaf when I was happy, and Marshmallow when I was scared and needed a protector. I think they act on your emotions, but that's all I can tell you. Sorry."

"No, it's fine. It's going to be a long shot anyways."

Elsa waited patiently in the center of the arena. North had told them the test was ready, and thrust them in here, but hadn't told them what to expect. Only that they had to survive. The problem was that Elsa didn't know what to do.

Circling in place, Jack held his staff in defense, eyes narrowed at the encircling wooden walls. Peri fluttered above them, her hands glowing with the ready frost. Frozone stood silently upright, stiff as a board. His goggles were down, so she couldn't see what his eyes were doing.

Suddenly a trapdoor opened and a wooden object came speeding out. The air was filled with creaking, roaring sounds. Frozone instantly blasted it to smithereens. North laughed from his viewpoint above them.

"If they touch you, you temporarily lose your powers," he called. "And they can freely attack you. Good luck."

More trapdoors opened all over the arena. Now Elsa could see the figures took the form of little flying dragons, about two feet in length, and not very tall.

Everyone spun around, firing shots anywhere they saw a brown blur. Playing to her size, Peri ducked and dodged, freezing the joints and wings of the toys whenever she could. Elsa shot blasts of rough ice from her hands, but when it hit the dragons it more encased them than destroyed them. Although it slowed them down considerably, they were still there and dangerous. Frozone's natural ice seemed tuned to the correct consistency to destroy the wood, and Jack quickly fixed his ice as well.

Just when it seemed the numbers were thinning, the trapdoors opened again, and something else flew out. It was shiny and metal, and knocked Peri to the ground. Jack flew to the rescue, but the ice that worked on the dragons wasn't working on the metal birds. Peri got back to her feet and, forgetting her powers weren't supposed to work, frosted the whole thing over. The crane shivered and fell to the ground.

"Frost the birds and blast the dragons with ice!" Jack yelled.

Frozone struggled the most, as he was more used to ice than anything else. One of the cranes flew down and pecked him hard with the metal beak and flapping wings. Peri came over and frosted it for him, and Elsa shot a dragon flying down towards him.

Suddenly she heard the creak of the doors reopening, and even more dragons and cranes flew out. Elsa found herself facing both at the same time. She held out both of her hands, trying to send frost from one and ice from the other.

Now it really was like her powers wouldn't work. There was a slushy sputter, and then nothing. She panicked. Elsa raised her arms in front of her defensively, and felt a wave of ice leave her entire body. Even though she knew the others were ice prone, she didn't move. She was afraid that something had gone horribly wrong.

Then Elsa felt gentle hands lower her arms, and she gasped at the touch, not realizing she had been holding her breath. Frozone pulled her into a hug.

"Elsa, we're ok," Peri said softly.

North jumped down from the spectator's box and tramped over to them, grinning.

"Now, what have you learned from this?" he asked in a teacher voice.

"We can only control one element at a time," Jack said. "But Elsa..."

"That isn't all you should have learned!" North thundered. "You didn't work together and you failed miserably. The only times you did help each other is AFTER your fellow member was down and out. That was crude, and in a real battle you all would have been dead like that!" He snapped his big fingers, which echoed in the empty clearing. "Work on working together, and find out which element suits you best."

Elsa knew she wasn't ready. As Jack had said, Norh was so preoccupied with the children that he wasn't turning out to be a good teacher. He had told them what to work on, but not how to achieve those goals. The Just-Ice League had spent the past few days working hard on their powers, switching from ice to frost to snow to frost to ice as quickly and randomly as they could, shooting down ice targets Jack had made for them. Everyone told Elsa that she had improved, but she knew still targets were a lot easier than moving targets. Her fears were confirmed as soon as North started talking.

"This test will be a little different," he announced. "You will find your foes reacting a little differently than before, and there are some new allies for them as well. You also now realize that they can't take away your powers, only a clever bluff on my part."

Without anymore talk or warning, North pulled a lever, and all of the trapdoors save one opened simultaneously. Only this time, the dragons breathed fire.

"Make an ice shield!" Frozone yelled.

Elsa and Jack had no problems with this, but Peri, whose element was definitely frost, could not make something out of ice so easily. She resorted to sticking by Frozone's side, or dodging the flames.

Everyone kept their eyes alert and moving. They tried to stand in a small cluster formation, but they soon were drawn apart in the chaos. Still, they kept within eyesight, and shouted warnings to each other in the abbreviated code they had created and practiced on their own.

"Jack, r-f!" Frozone yelled across to him.

Jack turned to his right and frosted a metal bird, spotting a dragon above Elsa as he did so. "Elsa, u-i!"

Elsa raised her shield as dragon fire spewed down at her, then blasted it out of the sky. She was quite surprised, this was the first time she had managed to actually hit her target dead on, with the right amount of force and consistency, and caused it to explode. Of course, her shield had warped to the point it looked like a boneless child, but she easily remedied that.

But there was no time to rejoice in Elsa's small victory. North pulled another lever, and the last door opened. The wooden dragons and metal cranes were joined by something small and clear, and a loud chirping joined the creaking, roaring, and crane bird calls.

Frozone and Peri were hit first. They were small hummingbirds, made completely of glass, and there was a whole swarm of them. Peri tried frosting them, but that only seemed to make them grow stronger. Frozone couldn't find a good consistency to blow them up, but he found that encasing them in ice was extremely effective. He passed on this information to the others.

Elsa lost all sense of time, just fighting to stay conscious and not get attacked. She found herself resenting North for this. She needed more time and more practice; bit by bit, not all at once. Elsa was a queen after all, why didn't she get a say in her training? Why didn't she get a better teacher?

"Elsa, focus!" Jack yelled, stepping in front of her and blocking dragon fire with his ice shield.

He was almost too late; a spark flew past him and burnt Elsa's arm. She cried in pain and clasped her hand to the mark, instantly coating it in ice.

"Ice isn't working on the hummingbirds," he said. "They're chipping their way out with their beaks!"

"So how do we stop them?"

"Snow!"

And with that, Jack dashed away to help Peri, who had been separated from Frozone again. They weren't far apart, but a few feet meant all the difference with small magical objects like these.

Just as she realized this, a swarm of hummingbirds mobbed her. Elsa threw snowballs in every direction, but it didn't seem to help. For every bird she cut down, it seemed like five more took its place. Elsa fell to the snow, curling up in a ball in defeat. If only she had a whole heap of snow that could constantly fight back...

Marshmallow.

Elsa extended her hands and simply thought about a protector that would stop the pain. Not a happy go-lucky snowman like Olaf, or a rage monster baby like Marshmallow. She needed a protector, someone who could obey orders without hesitation and be gentle when needed.

A gallant knight. That's what she needed.

The hummingbirds stopped, and she could no longer feel the painful pecks of their sharp glass beaks. Looking up, she saw a suit of snow armor, just like the ones in Arendelle, waving its arms around and knocking the birds out of the air.

North blew a whistle, and the objects dropped motionless to the ground. He descended the steps and faced the four of them, who tried to stand respectfully to attention. It was hard when they were panting for breath and bleeding in various places.

"You all have done very good this week," North said. "In a real fight where all the elements are needed, Jack will control snow, Frozone ice, Peri frost, and Elsa can make live snowmen. But usually, ice is the most lethal and threatening. So practice that. If there is time, tomorrow I will teach you how to sword fight like the Russians!"

But Elsa had zoned out when North assigned her an element.

'Yeah, Elsa. Make live snowmen to do the dirty work for you. Hide behind them and don't do anything else.'

She sighed and left the arena, walking towards her palace. She couldn't help it, she felt tears roll down her cheeks in frustration.

"I'll show them," she muttered fiercely to herself. "I CAN and I WILL master my powers." She turned to the snow soldier, who was following her. "You, your name is...Lancelot. Guard my castle, but don't hurt anyone."

The silent armor saluted and turned on the spot.