Part Two

Elsa, kneeling on the stone amidst the frozen remnants of the battle from moments before, sobbed for what felt like an eternity. No! Anna can't die. She can't, she can't… A tear fell towards the pavement, but it froze during its short flight down.

With that thought the waves of sadness and despair within her gave way to determination and searing hot rage, burning white at her fingertips. Around her, the temperature dropped even further. The soldiers standing nearby could soon see their breath. I will save you, Anna.

She was on her knees for no more than eight seconds. After that she stood up. Her face was devoid of emotion.

She began speaking, and her voice was flat, almost a monotone. The conversation around her stopped as she spoke, the faces on the soldiers clearly broadcasting their trepidation. "Colonel DeBoer, a word."

The Army man looked at her in surprise. How did she recover so fast? "Um, yes, ma'am." He followed Elsa a few steps away from the group of his soldiers. "What do you want to talk to me about, Your Majesty?"

Elsa responded in a soft, deadly-calm voice. "Colonel, before we begin the effort to retake the castle, I wanted to make you aware of something. I assume that you know I was kept separated from society for most of my teenage years?"

"Yes, ma'am. Everyone does."

"What I imagine is less commonly known are the details of my education during that period of time. I was tutored by multiple people, experts in their respective fields. One of these tutors was named General Odin, and he taught me everything there was to know about military tactics and theory back then. I know that I am out of date on the current tactics and procedures, but I want to make sure you know that I am not inept, and I am not an idiot. Clear?"

"Perfectly, ma'am."

"Excellent. Now, to our tactics…" The Queen and Colonel conversed for exactly 97 seconds. By the end of that time, they had assembled a complete assault plan on the palace. The flabbergasted colonel jogged over to where his men stood.

Lieutenant Colonel Fredrick Rutledge and Her Royal Highness Princess Anna sat in a pair of chairs in front of one of the attackers, their hands resting alone on a hastily cleared table. All of the other people who had been working in the center (there weren't many of them, this is a castle, not the Federal building after all) lay along the wall facedown, their hands interlaced behind their head and ankles crossed. Two more attackers stood guard over them, their Uzi submachine guns held ready, while their leader stood at Lt. Col. Rutledge's desk on the phone.

"DEPOT, this is RAINMAKER. We are in the basement of the castle and require immediate extraction…Sir, what did you just say?...Understood. Out." As the man put the phone down, his hand was shaking like that of a man on death row. That was understandable, since he had just been told that they were on their own.

On the other side of the room, Anna was having a breakdown. "I'm so sorry," Anna quietly sobbed. "This is all my fau…" She stopped abruptly when the cold barrel of an Uzi touched the back of her neck.

"Stop talking," the attacker behind her quietly stated. He was not a stereotypical bad guy, and he knew that he did not need to yell or scream to get his way. This is what worried Lt. Col. Rutledge over everything else. "You will not make another sound, is that understood?" Anna, afraid to answer, jerked her head up and down. "Excellent. If you do, there will be a hole in your right shoulder before you know it. Don't test me." Rivers of tears ran down her face.

The entry door was pounded on three times. "Attention Attacking Force, this is Colonel Mark DeBoer, Arendellian Army, demanding your complete, immediate, and unconditional surrender. Failure to comply will result in the use of extreme and overwhelming force. If we detect any signs of immediate danger to the hostages, we will move in. You have one minute to comply."

The attackers moved into defensive positions. The team leader moved inside a storage closet just inside the command center, Uzi held ready to cover the hostages, while the rest of the team hunkered down along the wall. However, there were still two other attackers who were covering the hostages in addition to the team leader.

They were perfectly in tune with their senses. They saw everything and heard everything.

However, they did not pay any attention to what was going on behind them.

Thirty feet away, behind soundproofed wall paneling, there was an old chimney left behind from the days long past when kitchens inhabited the space that the command center now occupied. Inside that chimney, sheets of ice slowly began to cover the stone, and a blanket of thick snow covered the bottom. An otherworldly figure dropped to the bottom, flexing its knees and making no sound when it hit the snowy bottom.

It turned to face outward, towards the paneling and the command center, and drew two ice swords. It then listened intently to the radio headset frozen firmly in place over its ear. This isn't going well, it thought. The swords carved a doorway through the paneling, the wood falling forward onto another patch of snow not four seconds old. The figure stepped forward.

At the entrance to the command center, Col. DeBoer once again shouted into the command center. "When are you going to surrender?"

The response came back from the invaders. "When Hell freezes over."

From the back of the command center, "I can arrange that, if you wish." The assault team turned around.

In front of a hole cut in the wall, dressed in a new and improved ice suit, stood Elsa. Now with a face mask as well, which completely obscured her features, she was one hundred percent covered in dark-blue ice. Around her, a maelstrom of ice and snow surrounded her, lifting up any papers that were unfortunate enough to have been left on a desktop when the center was taken into the air. In each hand was a double-edged sword, sharpened as much as possible. "I suggest you surrender, for your own safety," she calmly suggested. "We wouldn't want to interfere with your trials." The Army took the chance to move in. As soon as the first man entered the center, the attackers dropped their weapons and placed their hands on top of their heads. A squad of Arendellian soldiers took them into custody while the rest covered everyone else in the room with their firearms. It never hurt to be too careful. "And by the way," she continued, the rage boiling to the surface, "I'm going to be your judge and jury."

Ten seconds later, 'Clear' began echoing across the room. When Elsa found Anna and saw that there was no longer a threat from any of the invaders, she ran over to where Anna was and hugged her, the extra ice vaporizing until she was only wearing her customary ice dress.

"Anna," Elsa whispered, "I thought I was going to lose you!"

Anna was not happy. "Elsa," she began, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT!"

Elsa was surprised and took a step back. "What do you mean?"

"You just fought with…with…these…SOLDIERS, and, in case you haven't noticed, you aren't a soldier! Get that in your head! I…"

Rutledge then stepped in. "Your Majesty and Highness, I think that we should take this somewhere else, don't you agree?"

"Who are you?" Elsa asked.

"Lt. Col. Rutledge, ma'am. Castle XO. May we move?" He pointed towards his office, and both followed him in, Anna barely controlling her temper while Elsa was just trying to figure out what had just happened with Anna.

Rutledge immediately decided to take the role of mediator. "First off, Your Highness, what is the problem?"

Anna took a deep breath. "I hate it and it scares me when Elsa decides to go to war by herself against people who we have no knowledge of. For all you knew ahead of time, their guns would have punched right through your armor like a sword through rice paper! That is RECKLESS, Elsa!"

Elsa looked back at her in amazement. This coming from the girl who wanted to get married to a man she met just hours before? "Anna, I had to do something. It was either I confronted them outside on my terms or we hid from them inside and fought on their terms, and as Sun Tzu said, 'One mark of a good soldier is that he fights on his own terms or not at all.'"

Anna just shook her head. "How can you remember that?"

Elsa smiled. "What do you think I did for all those years?"

Anna stepped forward and hugged her. "Just, please don't do that again."

"If our recent past has anything to say, I'll have to again. First I saved you from the NSA, and then from attackers in our very own basement. It's time you saved me!" Elsa replied jokingly.

Rutledge's head snapped around at the mention of the Agency. Wait a second. The attackers went after Elsa and Anna once they got into Arendelle. The attackers looked just like how the government agents always look in American Hollywood movies. I wonder… He decided then and there that the Defense Minister would be getting an urgent report once the royals were out of his care.

But as his attention returned to the two ladies, Rutledge looked on in amazement at how quickly the argument had been resolved. I wish I got along with my brother like that, he thought. He turned, exited the room, and stood guard outside the door, now convinced that there wasn't going to be a murder.

Elsa and Anna just stood there for a while, content to know that they had both survived.

Outside of the office, the soldiers were cleaning up. The hostages were frisked, (you never knew if there was a wolf in sheep's clothing among the flock) the room was checked for explosives, and the filing cabinets were checked to make sure that everything was still there. The papers now scattered about the floor would have to wait.

The attackers were thoroughly searched, handcuffed, and led out into the courtyard. They were then placed aboard the Black Hawks under armed guard, while the rest of the soldiers secured the perimeter and waited for the police to come. Colonel DeBoer called the Federal Building and requested that the Prime Minister's helicopter take off and head for the castle. With the chopper on its way, DeBoer knocked on the office door. The queen opened it.

"Your Majesty, I have an official helicopter on the way, and it will be here any minute. If you and Her Highness would please follow me?"

"Helicopter?" she asked.

"We flew in onboard helicopters. We had a few sitting in the courtyard when we came inside earlier. It's a…um…carriage that flies."

"Oh," she replied. He led them out of the command center and into the entrance hall, where the soldiers snapped to attention and saluted in perfect military fashion as they passed.

"Arendelle Control, this is Victor-India-Papa-One-Niner-Zero, landing at the Castle," the pilot of the VIP chopper declared over the radio.

"Copy, one-niner-zero, you are cleared to land at your discretion."

The pilot moved his craft over the courtyard while his copilot called out altitude and speed. He came to a hover fifty feet over the cobblestone and, after checking for people under the helicopter and seeing none, began to descend. Finally, he touched down and changed the pitch of the rotor blades so that they created no lift. This was a technique known as feathering, and he knew from experience that the VIPs loved it, since it didn't mess up their hair. He looked aft and saw the sergeant in the back opening up the side door to let the VIPs board the aircraft, however, the pilot couldn't see his new passengers yet. He pulled out his logbook and looked back at his instruments. Huh, he thought, the oil pressure is running a little low…

He heard his co-pilot whisper an expletive, and was about to verbally bite his head off (VIPs don't like hearing such bad language) when he noticed that the man was looking back into the cabin. Curious, he looked back as well.

The logbook dropped from the pilot's limp fingers. Before him were the two people whom he had learned so much about in Social Studies class in primary school. They had also been the focus of a week of his High School Arendellian History class. He had a picture of the blond one in his office, just like every other military officer in his country. And they were right here. "Uhhhhhhhhhh…"

The colonel in back with them walked up to the cockpit. He noticed the pilot's expression and grinned. "I know, right? I barely believed it at first, too. I assure you, though, that this is the real deal. Who would have thought, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Getting down to business, though, could you guys get us to the Federal Building quickly?"

The pilot found his voice. "Sure, uh, Colonel. We'll get you there as fast as we can. One thing though: can we use the call sign?"

DeBoer grinned. "Sure. Enjoy yourselves." He walked back to his seat beside the blonde and across from the redhead. The pilot noticed the sergeant in back grinning and shaking his head at him. The pilot pinched himself. He was awake, and there was work to be done. He checked that the passenger door was closed and then got back on to the radio.

"Arendelle Control, this is Victor-India-Papa-One-Niner-Zero. We are changing call signs. We are now Arendelle Royal One." This was the call sign that had always been thought of as arbitrary…until now. It was reserved for any aircraft carrying the King or Queen of Arendelle, but there had not been a royal person in Arendelle for 200 years. Helicopters had only been around for about 60 years.

"One-Niner-Zero, please say again?" the bewildered voice of the controller said.

"Control, we are changing call signs to Arendelle Royal One. This is the real thing, ma'am."

There was a short pause. "Copy, Royal One."

"Control, Royal One. Request permission to take off from the Castle with a direct flight path to Federal Building helipad."

"Royal One, Control. Request Granted, the city airspace is yours. Godspeed."

The helicopter landed at the helipad behind the Federal Building, in the midst of a large lawn. The helipad consisted of ten strobe lights on the lawn that would turn on whenever it was in use. Modeled off of the White House South Lawn in Washington, D.C., this system actually worked better.

The Federal Building was quite a large building. Home to the executive and legislative branches of the Arendellian government, as well as multiple government agencies, including the Ministry of State, over two thousand people worked in this building alone. Most of them had heard the helicopter pass overhead. As a small side note, Arendellian building code mandated that each office space that was full of cubicles had to have its own windows, to cut down on stress. It was because of this fact, and the basic human curiosity that everyone on Earth shares, that at least one person in each set of cubicles walked to the windows to see who had just flown in. As soon as they noticed the blue cape, recognizable to each of the workers since childhood, (they all had the obligatory picture on the wall) they all rubbed their eyes and looked again. When they then noticed the red-haired girl get out of the chopper, they pulled out their cell phones and began yelling for everyone else in the room to come look out the window. Some pinched their arms first.

One of those people who had first walked to the window had been bored earlier and had been checking the news. She couldn't believe that Brooke Jacobs was back in rehab again. But when the helicopter went overhead, she already had the CNN app up and running. When she had noticed who it was walking in, she had immediately tapped the iReport button and began recording. Luckily for her, her office was on the first floor, and was remarkably close to the door into the building from the helipad. The video recording had an excellent view of the helicopter, Arendellian Air Force clearly visible in white lettering on the side, the Colonel escorting the two women into the Arendellian Capitol building, and, of course, the blonde-haired, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed woman who was instantly recognizable by any Arendellian. The office-worker ended the recording as soon as the party had walked inside, and immediately began uploading the twenty second long recording to CNN.

Luckily for her, Arendelle had just recently finally gotten LTE service. This made the upload speed much faster than it would have been just a year and a half ago, and after just 7 seconds, the video was in the cloud. It instantly appeared in the empty inbox of an analyst at CNN's Oslo, Norway office. This analyst, a huge Arendellian history enthusiast, just by happenstance, who was about to go to lunch, decided immediately to instead watch the video before leaving to eat.

Twenty-two seconds later, the editor for the shift was called to the analyst's desk. The analyst immediately began to play it for his boss, who watched intently but had no clue what it meant. The analyst spent the next 16 seconds explaining the video's importance. It took 4 seconds for the editor to hurriedly tell the analyst to forward the video to his computer, and 3 seconds to sprint to his own nearby office. Once there, he grabbed his contact book from his drawer, the one he used for his many sources, and found the one entitled 'Arendelle Air Traffic Control Center'. He dialed the phone, which rang only once before being picked up by an elated man. 14 seconds later, the editor now knew that the Royal One call sign had been used, and also that there had been a shootout at the Castle, (that was what the analyst had been researching during those 14 seconds after he had sent the email, it was on the front page of the Arendelle Gazette's website) and attached this information to the iReport email before he sent it off to Atlanta. 1 minute, 55 seconds had elapsed from the time Elsa had walked through the door to this point.

Once in Atlanta, it arrived in the 'New Information' inbox of the CNN Breaking News editor, who was just about to pack up to go home, but was dreading the traffic that came with working in the city and living in the suburbs. He therefore saw the new iReport as a way to do something work-related, so that he could get paid overtime, while being able to avoid the rush-hour traffic on the way home later. Therefore, 4 seconds after receiving the e-mail, he began watching the iReport, and afterwards began reading the attached information from the editor in Oslo. When he was done, 34 seconds had elapsed since it had arrived in Atlanta.

The editor, thoughts of home now forgotten, grabbed his phone and called up the producer to get things moving. This, he decided, was important enough to interrupt the commercial break currently playing on the channel, and waited while the anchor was rushed from his office and made up, and while the news story was entered into the TelePrompTer. 4 minutes and 27 seconds after receipt in Atlanta, the director began counting down until they went live.

This was just 6 minutes and 22 seconds after Elsa had entered the building in Arendelle.

It is also a truth across the world that all national intelligence services watch CNN and other news stations to learn what new events are happening. (Budget cuts) On this day, in the infirmary at NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, Agent Stevens lay in his bed recovering, where he was also watching CNN.

The Newsroom came back on during the middle of the commercial break, interrupting a commercial for cheap adult diapers. "Breaking News here on CNN, we have just been informed that some historic events are under way right now in Arendelle, a small country located in southern Norway. CNN has just learned that the former ruling monarch of the country, Queen Elsa, who has been missing for 200 years, has been spotted at the Arendellian Federal Building stepping off of an official Arendellian helicopter, the same one used by their Prime Minister. We have also learned that the same helicopter used the 'Royal One' call sign that designates that the ruling member of the royal family is onboard, much like how the US Air Force uses the 'Air Force One' call sign for the President. The 'Royal One' call sign has never been used before in the entire history of the country. Why? There has not been a member of the royal family alive since 1814."

The anchor took a short breath while a cinematic played on the screen. "This just in, CNN has also just learned that there was a major firefight moments ago in downtown Arendelle. Sources say that an unknown attacking force invaded the historic Castle compound and opened fire. These same sources say that Queen Elsa was the target of the attack, and that during the confrontation, hostages were taken. Now, I know that this sounds a little far-fetched, so we turn to our Chief Scandinavian Correspondent, Justin Markoway, in our newsroom in Oslo, Norway. Justin, your thoughts?..."

Stevens nearly choked on his smoothie. Attacked? Oh, please, no. This can't be happening… "Nurse!" He shouted. She ran into the room. "Am I hallucinating?"

The nurse walked over to him, concern etched on her face. "Why do you ask?" she questioned cautiously.

Stevens pointed up at the TV. "Tell me what you see on the TV."

The nurse looked up and watched the TV. Then she began speaking. "Well, I see that they are talking about Arendelle, and a battle that happened at a…castle?...and about an old queen. They are showing…"

Stevens nodded. "Excellent. Thank you. Please get my doctor in here." The nurse left, looking at him like he had lost his mind.

On minute later, the doctor entered. "Doctor," Stevens began, slurring his speech because of his jaw, "am I mentally stable and competent?"

The doctor gave him a funny face. "Well, let's check, shall we?" The doctor began asking him questions and also gave him some mental tests. After around two minutes of that, the doctor sat back and declared, "Agent Stevens, it is my pleasure to inform you that you are mentally competent and in one hundred percent control of your faculties."

Stevens looked as if he had just been told that he was going to die. "Thank you, Doctor." The man stood up and left to see the next patient.

Stevens looked at the telephone next to his bed for a few seconds before picking it up. He cleared his throat and dialed the NSA switchboard.

"NSA Switchboard, how may we direct your call?"

Stevens asked in the clearest voice circumstances allowed, "Please connect me to Director Ryan."

"One moment, please."

Stevens waited for two rings to sound on the phone.

"National Security Agency, Director Tom Ryan. Who am I speaking with?"

Minutes earlier

Elsa and Anna followed the Colonel through the Federal Building garden door. When the Colonel crossed the threshold of the door, the young guard on duty saluted and greeted him, "Good morning, sir." When Elsa and Anna entered, he behaved quite differently. He snapped to attention and yelled (nearly screamed) "ATTENTION ON DECK!"

Don't pull a muscle, Elsa thought.

Colonel DeBoer chuckled to himself, while the sisters' eyes momentarily widened in shock. "Your Majesty, Your Highness, please follow me."

They followed him through the depths of the Federal Building, winding their way through the narrow corridors within. As they walked, they noticed dozens, if not hundreds of people shoving their heads up against the glass walls that separated the hallway from the offices. Elsa was astounded. "What are they looking at?"

The Colonel did not even turn around, he just continued striding powerfully down the hallway. "Please remember, Your Majesty, that to them you are not simply the Queen. You are a legend and a prophecy, one that they never expected to come true in their lifetimes."

Gulp. "Ah."

They arrived at an elevator, where the elevator was already open, held open by a young sergeant, waiting for them. "Colonel, I have one question." Anna asked as they stepped in. "Why is it that Arendelle seems so heavily militarized?"

It was the Colonel's turn to gulp. Time for a big story. "Well, ma'am, about seventy years ago, the world was consumed by an arms race called the Cold War, the war where no shots were fired. On one side were the Russians and their allies. They wanted Communism and Socialism to become the dominant force in the world. On the other side was the Americans and their allies. They believe in individual freedoms and free markets. Arendelle was aligned with America. We were ideally positioned to help out militarily. We were near Denmark, serving as a backup base for Allied carriers, submarines, and battle groups, including our own, in theatre running deterrence patrols throughout the conflict. We are also physically located near Russia, making us an ideal place for strategic bombers and interceptors. Plus, the mountains were an excellent training ground for troops that could be deployed to Russia. Because of that, we received a lot of military hardware and funding from the West. We now have the largest military in Scandinavia and, arguably, in Eastern Europe, excluding the Russians."

Anna, unlike Elsa, didn't understand a word he had just said. "Huh."

The doors opened into an opulent hallway. Down its length, the soldiers lining the walls snapped to attention, wide-eyed. The colonel led them to a doorway, then stood to the side. "This is the cabinet room. Most of the ministers should be here by now. However, I'm afraid that this is where I must leave you, Your Majesty."

Elsa nodded. "Of course, Colonel. Thank you for your service." He snapped a salute before opening the door for them.

The walked in, and the door closed behind them. Spread out before them was the largest wooden table Elsa had ever seen. Polished to perfection, it stretched out twenty feet long, easily. Arrayed around the table were numerous people, all dressed in business attire. Not one of them noticed the royals walk in, so involved were they with arguing with one another.

"We need to increase taxes!"

"No, we need to lower them!"

"What about the defense budget?

"Jeff, think about something other than death and killing for once!"

Behind Elsa, a soldier screamed out, "National ROYAL Command Authority, arriving!" The conversation immediately stopped, and all heads turned to point at the two ladies.

Elsa had already begun feeling uncomfortable, but this just pushed it over the edge. Only a few months prior, she had run away from a group like this. They are envious, deceitful, and under their statesmanlike auras, they are incredibly disrespectf…

They stood up as one, and began applauding. "My God, the Queen has returned!" one of them exclaimed.

Any thoughts of self-doubt were removed from her mind. They aren't too bad after all.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Note: Sorry about the whole delay, I was having writer's block for most of the chapter and was busy dealing with life. Tell me where you want it to go in the reviews, and also, please don't hesitate to tell me what I am doing well or not well. I can't improve if I don't know what to improve. Also, favorite and follow, pretty please. The next chapter will be out in a much shorter time than was the case with this chapter.

Thanks!