Author's Note: Nothing but violence this chapter. Again, if the rating needs to be changed, just let me know! (Either through a review or a PM, it doesn't matter).
Fracturing
The world was agony.
All of Hans' nerves felt like they were on fire, his voice growing hoarse from his blaring shouts at the pain. He curled into himself, holding onto his head for dear life as the land's voice boomed around him, its presence so tangible that it was crushing into his very being.
Each time the land spoke, the earth underneath Arendelle rumbled along with it.
Destroy the sorceress! the land commanded. She continues to threaten the balance of nature with her accursed magic!
To his horror, he felt himself start to push from the ground against his will.
No!
Straining, he resisted the involuntary pulling of his muscles, fueled by a desperation to keep the people around him safe. He locked his joints, barring them from making any more movement.
You fool! She is going to destroy me! the land called out in panic. The earth shook even more, the iced ground around Hans formed fractures in the cobblestone in a thunderous cacophony. A surge of cold lanced through his veins, and a haze of darkness started to emanate from the cracks around him. Seeing the unnatural phenomenon caused the crowd of people around him to flee in terror.
He could feel a presence at the edge of his mind, trying to barge its way through. It's a wonder how long he'd been able to resist so far. It could have been seconds, or minutes, or even hours; it certainly was far longer than he had been able to in the past.
But he knew he couldn't stop it.
He felt a darkness overtaking his thoughts, muddying what little clarity he'd been able to muster against its intrusion.
"Elsa!" Hans screamed, hoping his last plea was able to force its way through his strained vocal cords. "Run!"
Be safe, he added mentally as he felt his control slipping.
A barraging wave crashed into his consciousness, and he was forced away into a corner of his awareness, helpless to rise against the entity that possessed him.
###
"An earthquake?" Kristoff asked, wondering at the trembling ground after he failed to keep himself upright on the frozen courtyard. He turned his attention to a skidding Anna beside him, "Did you know Elsa could do this?"
"That's not Elsa," Anna said, eying something in the distance in disbelief.
The screaming man sounded familiar, and Kristoff dreaded to confirm his suspicions in seeing who it was. It was just like reliving those terrible moments Hans shattered those doors a few days ago all over again.
Except worse.
"Everyone needs to get to safety!" Kristoff heard Granpabbie instruct in the distance to the individuals who were struck motionless by surprise and fear. Some of the trolls even prodded and pulled at a few who continued to stare at the spectacle in disbelief.
The earth continued to quake, the trembling increasing in intensity.
And then the most horrific sound clamored around him.
The sturdy walls that encompassed the perimeter of the courtyard and castle creaked and groaned before collapsing in large chunks in areas that couldn't handle the stress of the tremors anymore. A loud crack and Kristoff looked up to see a large fracture forming along a wall of a nearby tower of the castle, the tall stone structure leaning precariously towards the newly-married couple on its last grips.
It was going to fall.
"Get out of the way!" Kristoff called to a group of people that were standing too close to the collapsing tower as he and Anna rushed to avoid the large debris. One of the chunks impacted the side of his head, causing him to lose his sense of balance and tumble to the ground, blacking out briefly.
The scenery around him swam in a haze as he tried to regain his bearings, the world filled with a cloud of mortar dust from the collapsed structures, his ears filled with the shouts of terrified people.
Anna... Where was Anna!?
He braced his arms in front of him, pushing against the floor with all the might he could muster to bring himself to his feet.
He couldn't move.
And that was when he noticed the resistance against his lower body. He tried to crane his neck behind him to see the problem with his legs, but he found that he couldn't turn himself over to assess what damage he sustained.
He felt around himself, trying to figure out what was wrong. His hands rans over a gritty surface where his legs should be, hard and heavy.
A large slab of stone had pinned him to the floor.
…why couldn't he feel his legs?
"Anna!" Kristoff called, pushing against the slab, hoping to lift it off of himself. But it was no use, he was laying on his front; there wasn't enough leverage to free himself from the stone when it was behind him. "Anna, where are you!?"
"Kristoff!" came the panicked voice of the princess. Her form parted through the dust cloud, crawling on all fours. Her face lit up when he found him, but then she screamed in shock. "Oh no… Kristoff! Oh no. No, no, no. I-I'll get you out, okay? You're going to be fine." Tears started to flow down her cheeks, muddying the dirt that got plastered on her face.
"H-how bad is it?" Kristoff asked in apprehension as Anna set herself to the task of trying to free him. "It's hard to tell what's going on when I can't feel my feet." He chuckled half-heartedly, trying to ease the direness of the situation. Anna's mouth set itself into a thin line, the tears continuing to trail down her face as she grunted in effort against the stone that trapped him.
He tried not to panic when he noticed dark puddle forming around him, and the similar shade of red covering the princess' hands as she pulled away to recuperate her strength. He hoped it wasn't his.
But he knew the look on Anna's face said otherwise.
That wasn't good.
"Princess Anna!" Granpabbie called out, trying hard not to stumble from the shaking ground as he made his way over. "It is not safe here. That tower just collapsed and there is no telling if more of the castle will suffer the same."
"It's Kristoff – he's stuck! I can't get him out!" Anna sobbed, trying to budge the slab to no avail.
"Elsa!" Kristoff heard Hans shout in the distance. "Run!"
In that last, final plea from the tormented prince, it was as if all bars on the land's fury was unleashed.
The earth groaned as fractures raced across the still-frosted courtyard, a shadowy aura creeping out of its depths. Something inside of him instinctively wanted to be repulsed by it, shivering in intense disgust.
"Anna, you need to leave. Now," Kristoff ordered, trying to keep his voice calm.
"I can't leave you," Anna replied, aghast at being told to do such a thing.
"You need to make sure Hans doesn't get to Elsa."
"But—"
"Anna, I will take care of Kristoff," Granpabbie said. "The other trolls and I will try to figure out a way to help him."
Anna bit her lip in indecision, her steps shifting slightly.
"Okay," she said after deliberating a few moments more. "Promise me you'll be okay, alright?"
"I promise," Kristoff said.
And so the princess took off into the chaos to look for her sister.
###
To say things were going badly was an understatement.
The kingdom was literally crumbling to pieces around her, the horrified screams of the people flooded her ears, and her magic was swirling out of control. Each time an accidental stream of ice and frost flew from her hands and feet, the ground shook even harder, making it difficult to keep herself oriented and upright.
It was her fault. All of this was her fault. Why did she have to be born with these powers in the first place?
But out of everyone else in the kingdom, she knew that she was the most capable of stopping the land's rampage. If she could be spared a moment to just stop and think so she could be able to reverse whatever damage she was causing with her magic, maybe she might even be able to come up with a solution.
But wasn't that what everyone was doing anyway? There might not be a solution.
At least not the solution she wanted.
The queen had to duck out of the way when she saw the tower falling, the rubble skidding and bouncing dangerously close to where she stood moments prior.
"Sorceress!" growled the borrowed voice of Hans, warped with an inhuman undertone, face as impassive as stone. "Your blight upon the world must end!"
He raised his hand, summoning the scythe into his grip. She only had a moment to react and twist out of the way before he rushed her and made a downward swipe with the blade. Icicles jutted from the floor where she once stood, impaling Hans in the arm.
Elsa gasped when she saw droplets of blood spatter upon the frozen ground. Her stomach bottomed out when he yanked his arm away, face still belying no reaction.
He made another swing, widely missing her this time.
But it was apparent he wasn't aiming for her, the blade of the scythe impaling deep into a crack in the earth in front of him. With a twist, the fracture grew wider, more of the darkness seeping through the opening. It grew more opaque, separating and molding, forming into globular shapes.
Shadow people.
Upon closer inspection, she recognized the faces of all the people Hans had executed during his stay in Arendelle, though their forms looked to be eternally cast in darkness, their expressions blank and bleak. It was as if they were without hope, and that they knew they can't do anything about it.
Was this the fate of all the souls who've fallen victim to horribly incredible circumstances?
All their work, all of their attempts at trying to make light of a horrible situation… How could it have gone so wrong?
"Rise, my subjects!" commanded the land through Hans. "Show this realm what it means to show solidarity against me! They must continue to pay for refusing to heed my anger!"
With a reluctance that was evident in their movements, the shadows ambled their way around the courtyards with a dizzying speed, taking the fearful and unwilling wedding guests and citizens into their grasps and tossing them into a group at the middle of the nigh-destroyed courtyard.
A single, solid hit of the end of the scythe's handle against the ground, and a wide, bottomless sinkhole appeared beneath the unprepared crowd causing them to plummet into its dark depths.
"No!" Elsa screamed, rushing to the edge of the hole in a desperate and futile attempt to save them.
"Continue to gather the others, I will deal with the sorceress," the possessed prince said to the shadows, walking menacingly to Elsa.
She brought her hands up, readying herself for the impending attack, inching slowly away from her precarious position near the sinkhole.
"Please, stop," she begged. "Hans, you have to fight it! I know you're in there somewhere. Please, I know you can fight it."
"This mortal you speak of is dead. He was too strong-willed to do my bidding, so I deemed it best for him to cease existing."
"No." Elsa's knees started to buckle, almost giving in to her despair. He couldn't be gone. Not like this. Please, not like this.
It was like losing Anna all over again.
"Fate can't save you now, sorceress," the land said, pulling off the gloves that covered Hans' hands, tossing the stitched leather aside. "With this body under my control, there's no barrier in the way to stop me. Now it is my turn to determine your future."
Elsa rolled away when he made a lunge to grab her, throwing up a wall of ice to thwart another immediate attempt at getting her. The earth beneath her feet began to rumble, preventing her from being able to recover from her evasive dodge as the scythe sliced through the ice, creating an opening.
"I don't want to hurt you," she pleaded. But it seemed like it had to come to it, if this disaster were to end.
"You already have, and your existence proves that you will continue to do so."
"Then tell me how to stop, instead of killing everyone who's innocent in all of this!"
"Humanity's ignorance shows that they are just as guilty, and so they too must suffer as I have."
He strode closer to where she was as she shuffled slowly away, her back finding a portion of the courtyard wall that hadn't yet fallen.
Resigned, Elsa closed her eyes, calling forth all the ice she could muster, knowing that all she could do would be to protect herself and her people was to end this. Permanently.
But she couldn't.
Not when it came to killing someone she loved. Though the essence of who Hans was didn't exist in those emotionless eyes anymore, his body was still there.
And despite everything, she still hoped he was still there. Somewhere.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to make the decision.
###
"You're going to be okay, Kristoff," Granpabbie soothed, grunting every so often as he and the other trolls tried to lift the stone slab off of him.
"I can't feel my legs," Kristoff whispered, dreading what that implied. He felt a sob beginning to form in his throat. It almost escaped him, but was released as a choked gasp instead. Bulda took his face into her hands, staring sadly into his eyes.
"We will do what we can about that, sweetie," she said. "But you'll be okay. You're going to make it."
"Are you sure? I-I've never been so scared in my life."
"Of course I'm sure. A mother knows these things." She smiled somberly. "In fact, if you'd like, I and maybe even a few others can stay with you as you recover, make sure everything goes as it should be. I just need the queen's permission."
Kristoff liked the sound of that. While he would be considered an incredibly independent person, able to function without seeing his family regularly – though he still visited them frequently enough just to ease their worries about him – the thought of having to recover from an injury like this was daunting. Sure, he would have Anna with him, but he knew he needed the foundational support of his troll family to keep him sane.
Because having to be kept off his feet for a good few months would certainly drive him crazy.
Though the situation was dire, the thought was able to keep him from falling into despair at his predicament, causing him to smile genuinely back at Bulda.
"I'll make sure to run that by the queen," Kristoff said.
With a final grunt in unison from the trolls, the slab was heaved high enough for Bulda to grab Kristoff by the arms and drag him out from underneath.
Just in time, too, since it looked like the situation regarding Hans had escalated rapidly, specters of darkness darting this way and that to grab unwitting and unprepared guests and citizens.
One of them made their way to reach the vulnerable Kristoff, but hesitated when he saw the trolls that stood between them. The shade hissed in disgust and turned away, seeking out another victim.
That was incredibly lucky.
Kristoff wondered how Anna was faring. Was she even still alive?
###
"Elsa!" Anna cried desperately, being held back by Hans' brothers, looking on helplessly at her sister's imminent demise. She knew her sister couldn't hear her, not with all the tumult of anguished cries of people continuously being tossed to their deaths, of families sobbing in fear as they ran to flee the shadows chasing them, of the guards as they tried to battle off the phantoms that prevented them from trying to save their queen; not when she was so far away, hiding from the shades of executed convicts with some of her least favorite people in the world.
How was it that the brothers were able to find each other and stick together, while everyone she loved was going to die? Even that Count Mikelo guy was with them, for goodness sake!
"Not so loud, Princess Anna," Prince Aleksander hissed, gripping his hands together with white knuckles as he witnessed the destruction around them. "Do you want to be tossed in the sinkhole next?"
"But he's going to kill her!"
"And how do you suppose we stop him?" Prince Rasmus asked, panicking as much as everyone else was for once.
"I-I don't know! I can't help Kristoff, and now I can't help Elsa. I can't lose both of them!"
"What about you, King Pieter?" Prince Magnus asked. "The pixies feared you, maybe you can somehow get to whatever's controlling Hans at the moment?"
"That's only if he was even paying attention," Prince Jakob huffed.
The vacant look still persisted in the king's eyes from witnessing Elias' death from earlier, the calamity around him not registering on his face. The brothers still weren't aware of what happened to the eleventh brother, so their tangible annoyance at his unresponsiveness warned her that she needed to intervene before anyone added another complication to this already out-of-control mess.
"Forget him!" Anna bit. "If he's not ready to face this, then he's not ready."
Aleksander flinched back, holding his chest in shock. "K-Klaus?!"
They all turned to where Aleskander was looking, and in the distance they saw an apparition coming between the queen and the rampaging body of Hans.
But instead of a black shade, it was an ethereal being of white.
###
"Do not lose hope, Your Majesty," whispered a voice in Elsa's head. Shocked, she opened her eyes, their gaze falling on the straining white-glowing form of a man as he grappled with the scythe in Hans' hands. "My brother still lives, and he continues to fight. For this, I suggest you do the same."
Brother?
Was this… Prince Klaus?
"How? I… I can't kill him." She stood frozen still on the spot, unable to will herself to move due to fear.
"You must seal his heart," the apparition mouthed as he turned to her briefly, but the sound resonated in her thoughts. He turned back to his task, beginning to buckle under the strength of his possessed brother. "The land won't be able to reach him."
"How?"
"You must freeze it."
Freeze his heart?
No… she can't!
"That will kill him!" she gasped.
"No. His love for you will keep him alive. Your love for him will keep him safe."
"But won't love thaw a frozen heart? How can we be sure this works?"
"The part that belongs to him that he's given to you can thaw, but the part that belongs to the land will not."
Klaus was then tossed aside, his ethereal body landing into the clutches of the dark apparitions.
"You must do it now, Your Majesty!" his voice resounded in her head as he fought the black specters against him. Three light-glowing spirits rushed to his aid.
The murdered Coronians.
The light and dark battled against one another, and though the white, ethereal beings were greatly outnumbered, they were holding up surprisingly well; enough where the shades were distracted enough from killing more men and women to fight against them.
But it was a stalemate. There was no telling how long they would hold up if the land were to join in their battle.
With shaking limbs, Elsa resolved herself to action, once again bringing her powers to surface. The scythe descended once again upon her and so she twisted to the side. But with little room to make a proper evasion, she felt the blade tear into her side, tracing a wound along the length of her body.
If it was any closer, she just might have suffered damage to her bones.
Elsa cried out in pain, tears blurring her vision as she shot her magic into Hans' heart. She collapsed from the agony that burned from her wound, her blood seeping through the conjured fabric of her dress.
Enraged, the land thrust out Hans' hand to grab her, pulling her close to his face. The pain from the natural wound in her side was nothing compared to the torment she experienced of the pixie's curse.
The world was so bright. Too bright.
"You think you could defeat me?" Hans' distorted voice growled. "You are a fool! Now your soul will belong to me!" But just as this was being said, Elsa saw the distinguishable streak of white forming in his auburn hair.
Her frozen heart curse was taking hold.
Whether it was going to be her end, or even if freezing his heart was going to work, Elsa couldn't stay conscious for long, her body rejecting every stimuli of pain that was carried along her nerves. She fought the creeping darkness in her vision for as long as she could, however, just long enough to see the hardened, impassive face of Hans slowly melt into an expression of relief and terror as he released her from his grip.
###
The world was still. Silent. Holding bated breath.
The shadows were gone. Even Klaus and the Coronians were nowhere in sight. The darkness that crept out of the fractured, frozen ground beneath his feet were no more. Even the sinkhole and fractures themselves were slowly disappearing, the earth mending itself. The same could not be said about the castle, the walls that surrounded it, or even the buildings in the town nearby.
Was it better that Hans was all too aware of the destruction that was going on? Was it better that, despite how long and how hard he fought to regain control, all he could do was watch as many people died, his body not under his control, his mouth forming horrible words that weren't his?
Would it have been better if he was unaware like those first incidences where he lost control?
"Monster!" cried an impassioned voice, piercing through the relative calm after the calamity. A chorus of voices followed along, screaming similar accusations into the air.
"Murderer!"
"Demon!"
"Abomination!"
"Kill him! Kill him before he gets anyone else!"
The roars around signaled that the people were rallying together to mob against him, footsteps echoing though the leveled courtyard. He didn't move, allowing their advances.
"Stop, don't touch him!" shrieked the voice of Princess Anna.
Hans turned around, worried that the princess had put herself in the line of danger. Somehow, Anna was able to halt their advances, but it didn't look like she would be able to do so for long.
"Your Highness, did you not see what he has done? He must pay!" argued a person in the mob.
"Let Queen Elsa be the judge of that," she argued back.
"She's clearly out of commission! Look!" pointed out an Arendellian citizen.
"Then as next in line, let me say that she spared him for a reason! I think I should act on that as well!"
"Did he spare my children? No! Why should we show him that mercy?"
Anna looked between the mob and Hans, appearing torn as to what she should do in such a precarious position of negotiation.
"I will give him a fifteen-minute head start," Anna said at last to the angry crowd.. "If you find him, then you may do as you please." She approached Hans, warning him in a low tone, "And I suggest you take it. Though I'm sure it wasn't really you who hurt my sister, I'm still pretty mad about all of this. Elsa didn't want you to be hurt for some reason, despite it being obvious she could have bested you, so make sure you don't get yourself killed by these people."
Mouth agape, Hans wasn't able to register much of the situation unfolding around him. So he ran, the cloak Elsa made him billowing as air rushed around it, scythe still within his grasp for some unknown reason.
And little by little, as the sounds of a mourning Arendelle grew further into the distance, and later the voices of an angry mob coming for him, he could feel himself growing colder and colder.
So cold that he found he felt nothing.
Author's Note: And there goes the official final chapter of this story! Don't worry, there's an epilogue, but I'm going to categorize this as "complete" for my own "officialness' " sake.
Now's the time for me to unveil my plans that I've been waiting on to reveal to you guys for the longest time: This is the end of "book one" of a trilogy.
Yup, you guessed it, there's going to be a sequel.
I had all these ideas from the start, of things I wanted to happen, of things I needed to cut and add due to pacing. Well, I originally intended to add the missing scenes later on into the story. But then I realized that they all had very distinct "arcs" to their themes. So I decided, "hey, why not split them up into a trilogy?"
And there you have it.
Thank you, thank you guys so much for helping me to write the longest work I've ever completed in my entire life so far. Each review, follow, and favorite has helped inspire me and drive me to write. I'll say again that without you guys, this wouldn't have happened, and you've helped one really awkward girl accomplish something she never knew she could have ever done. Thank you guys again from the bottom of my heart!
###
"Ending credits" songs:
Classical "soundtrack"– "Danse Infernale" from "The Firebird Suite" by Igor Stravinsky (whom I named as a very minor character as a "cameo" of sorts.)
Something more modern – "Counting Stars" by OneRepublic (which has lyrics that ties in with the upcoming epilogue and hints at the plot to come in the next "book.")