Chapter Twenty-Nine: To Shake The World!

As the sun settled into its highest point, one of the Dusk Coven, allies of Loki, grinned and released her astral form to observe the coming battle. The dark-vala Tara, the lowest in rank, had been chosen to observe, her mind linked to their leader to report back to Loki. Tara grinned, her body far behind her mimicking the action, as she prepared to watch their enemies be crushed. As Hans ordered his first wave to charge, Tara watched closely.

A large group of men were approaching from the enemy side, apparently eager to die. Tara's grin faltered at the Sight of them. Fiery orange magic surrounded them, as if they themselves were set ablaze. The ethereal smoke that rose off of them formed the shapes of wolves and bears, the men themselves roaring like wild animals. She focused her Sight to see their eyes and shrieked in terror. They burned orange like the magic, but more than that … it was the all-consuming fury. These men had become animals, ready to destroy without prejudice.

As the wild-men clashed against the first wave of corrupted huldrkarl, Tara was in for a greater surprise. One man struck a behemoth and sent it flying, scratches from the man's elongated nails bleeding like a waterfall. And there were two-dozen of these monsters rampaging across the field, turning the Legion's first wave into a mass of broken bodies and severed limbs!

The word Berserker echoed through her mind, supplied by her mistress. Men blessed with the animalistic fury of the All-Father, whose very name meant "The Furious One". The most feared warriors of the Time Before, fearless in battle with the strength of twenty men. They shrugged off mortal wounds like thrown pebbles and would not stop fighting until they were killed. These berserkers were not as bad as the legends - they were worse!

Tara hissed as she felt Loki's displeasure, his frustration. She was certain that a part of him had expected to destroy the resistance in one fell swoop. Clearly, with these monsters to lead the charge, that would not happen.

Tara quickly flew back to her body, awaking with gasp. She stood to join her sisters as they prepared to unleash their magic upon the battlefield. If steel would not destroy these things, then magic would. Loki sent forth his second wave, comprised ogres and more huldrkarl.

As the coven prepared to launch their attack, the group paused in surprise. A wave of violet light had spread across the field, forming an undulating protective ward. The coven shook off their surprise and Tara herself scoffed at the clearly-feeble ward of the reborn Freya. What could one untrained woman, no matter who she had been in a previous life, do against all of them?

The coven released threads of magic into the sky above that halted and collected into meteors of death to plunge toward the battlefield. Tara laughed as she prepared to watch them detonate upon impact. And detonate they did … upon the violet protection! No, it wasn't possible! Did they have more mages in their ranks?!

Viola screeched as she slashed an ogre's head clean off its shoulders, her wood talons dripping with yellow blood. She spun into a duck underneath another's swing and sprung into the air to claw out its eyes. And through all of this, the melodies of Fell's violin washed over her like a soothing waterfall, washing away her fatigue while they plunged the enemy into a whirlpool of confusion and strain.

As another charged at her, she nimbly sidestepped its club and leapt forward to deliver a searing, literally searing, kiss to its cheek, forcing the creature under her thrall. Under her compulsion, it turned on its fellows and began to draw their attention, allowing her to plunge into the earth and return to her charge.

Viola panted as she caught her breath, spitting to rid herself of the taste of ogre flesh, her gaze turned from the chaos of her forced champion to her charge. On the surface, Fell seemed utterly peaceful with his eyes closed as if playing for a silent forest rather than a raging battlefield. But Viola could see the sweat beading on his throat and forehead, see the tenseness of the muscles in his neck and shoulders. And she could sense the energy he poured into his instrument, infusing the music with his magic. It had to be exhausting.

Viola sighed and stood up to face the next group of idiots who dared approach the boulder that was Fell's impromptu stage. She focused on the wood covering her body up to her chin like armor, yet left little to the imagination, strengthening it to the hardness of steel.

Time to get to work.

Hans grit his teeth in silent fury as he watched the battle. He refused to join until the Residuum revealed themselves. And to his unthinkable frustration, they hadn't! His every instinct had screamed at him that they would lead their army into battle, try to preserve as many of their own as possible. He would meet them and destroy them as his forces overrun theirs.

But they had sent those cursed berserkers in first, an admittedly clever move to soften his first wave. Or more accurately, decimate it and force him to deploy his second to keep up the pressure. And they had responded with another unorthodox force.

Sending those whores of tree spirits to attack had made him laugh at first, until they had shown their true ferocity. The female creatures swam through the earth like water, like tree roots, and burst from the ground to claw down his troops before falling back into the soil to find a new target. And the panic left in the berserkers' wake had left plenty of targets. Some of them had even learned to place the stupidest ogres under some kind of thrall, to make them attack his own troops in faux-devotion.

Then there were the musicians. If Hans had known how effective they could be, he would have used more than one to draw out Odin so long ago. The water-spirits' melodies sowed confusion among his troops and washed away the fatigue and fear of their own. Hans, growing up in the court of the Southern Isles, had always had some idea of the power of music, but this took it to a completely different standard.

And if that weren't enough, there were these dark-horse sorcerers. The men were like an army by themselves, their prowess unmatched with blades and magic alike. Even when the berserkers had finally fallen, these mages had moved in to spare their momentum, to widen the cracks in Hans's army.

And still the Residuum refused to show themselves! He would have expected it from Odin, perhaps from the thieving son of Balder. But from Anna, who wore her heart on her sleeve? From Rapunzel, who seemed to drip with sweetness? Or even from Elsa, who spent more time fearing for the sake of her people than for herself? This was unthinkable!

Hans grit his teeth as he came to a decision. "All charge!" he shouted, Shifting into a falcon to better see the battlefield when they arrived. A small part of the redhead wavered at the choice to send his entire Legion in one fell swoop, but it was quickly silenced by anger. He wanted these fools dead, and when their forces were decimated, he would find them and destroy them!

Hans floated on the updrafts as he searched the battlefield, inwardly sneering as his forces began to surround the mages. So focused was he, that a wave of magic nearly knocked him from the sky when frost spread across the backend of his armies. Hans flew low and cursed when he saw an army of ice-forms, of soldiers with shields and spears in a phalanx formation, of giant golems like the one at her ice palace, of wolves and bears, and hawks to tear through his Legion.

And in the middle of this pincer, in a burst of green fire, emerged the Residuum. Hans couldn't help but grin, even in the midst of this disaster, unleashing a mental summons for his trump card. Cut off the head and the body will die. Time to cut off some heads!

It was chaos in the middle of Hans's army as the Residuum appeared and began fighting. Caught by surprise, the Legion had no time to react as scores of their numbers were killed, if not destroyed, in a matter of seconds.

As Kristoff swung Beskytter to smite another ogre, he felt a wave of … something … wash over him. Something familiar, and yet not. It was like dread, dread of something long since coming. Something that had already happened. The ground began to tremble, then shake, then heave like the sea under a storm. And from an explosion of earth and soil in the distance emerged the final Great Serpent.

And setting his eyes upon this serpentine monstrosity, he felt all of the fear and anger and desperation in his heart converge, sharpened by memories not his own into a blade of destructive force. He gripped his hammer and charged it with lightning before slamming it to the ground with a shout, a bolt of pure energy shooting along the ground to strike at its target.

As the Serpent writhed in surprise, Kristoff charged with a speed he had never known, jumped with strength he had never expected, and summoned more lightning to strike at the Serpent's head just as his hammer did.

As Kristoff rolled across the ground after his attack, he wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth to deal with the cloud of poison that hung around the Serpent like a deadly musk. Memories from Before assailed his consciousness, memories of Thor fighting this monster's sire. Memories of striking the final blow and taking nine prophesied steps before dropping dead. Kristoff gripped his hammer tighter at the shaky visions, as the Serpent turned to him with unthinkable hatred burning in its gaze.

There was no way in hell he was letting this thing hurt Anna or the rest of his family. With that thought, he pushed the ground up from under him, sending him flying toward the beast.

With inhuman strength, Rapunzel swung her shield like a blade and cut off a draugr's head. Without thinking, she settled into a stance to block a club from an ogre, the runes around the edge of the weapon flaring gold before sending the force of the attack back where it had come to blow the ogre away. The princess quickly glanced at the clearing she had made, one that was shrinking as Han's forces prepared to try and destroy her. Try being the operative word.

Rapunzel braced herself for the onslaught … and a terrifying sound brought the ogres and draugr to a halt. A fearsome, warbling howl that echoed across the battlefield. One that Rapunzel had never heard in person, but recognized immediately. One that she had been waiting on.

After all, she had a promise to keep.

A series of shuddering crashes heralded the approach of a fearsome, red-furred wolf, its eyes blazing crimson. The beast itself was larger than the dragon she had fought, parts of its skin torn open to reveal muscle and bone as if it had been grown by brute force. Black fluid dripped from its over-long teeth, the ground sizzling and blackening beneath its huge feet. Rapunzel could feel the heat radiating off of her like a furnace. Like some mockery of the sun.

"You know," Rapunzel said lightly, "I was expecting a lot worse." The princess grinned and readied her shield, eyes locked with her adversary. "Let's do this," she goaded and charged for the wolf.

Anna grunted as she swung at some monster she had never seen before. It was like a pale man with a prominent nose and ebony hair, its eyes tilted and avian. Blackened claws adorned the hands that held a thin ebony sword that it and its fellows wielded with chilling precision.

The creature darted forward and swung, meeting Heidur in a burst of sparks. Like lightning, she flicked his blade aside and swung around at an angle. A moment passed before his head and left shoulder and arm fell from his body in a spray of gore. Without slowing down, Anna spun and hacked off the leg of an ogre that had tried to come at her.

Anna searched for another of those avian things, valravns she idly thought, and darted for another. These things were good swordsmen and had decimated Elsa's nearly-mindless ice-soldiers. Anna struck fast at the valravn as it was engaged with three such soldiers, her blade shooting forward to strike at its heart. She yanked her blade free to let its corpse fall.

Anna quickly cast her magical senses out to feel for anymore of these valravn. Sensing none (they were apparently pretty rare), Anna turned her sights onto the circle of witches that hurled spells from the back of the enemy army. Anna charge with a cry, sword swinging like an executioner's blade as she cut apart anything in her path. As the former goddess of magic, these women were corrupting her domain. And that wasn't something she could tolerate.

The woman broke out of their trance as Anna approached, their expressions ranging from fear to fury to excitement. One dark-vala conjured lightning into her fingers and shot it toward the princess. Anna jerked her hand up, bringing a boulder from the ground to take the attack. The stone exploded with the force of the energy and Anna magically took hold of the pieces. With a flick of her wrist, they were sent hurtling back at the coven at deadly speed.

The witches conjured wards, magical shields, to protect them from the debris. Upon lowering their defenses, Anna darted forward as her magic augmented her speed. Before the witches knew what was coming, one of them was dead with her head severed from her body.

The witches all escaped her range in their own way. Some turned into birds of beasts and attempted to flee. Others tried to sink into the earth and escape. And still others simply tried to will themselves away with magic. But whatever they did, it did not work. The animals struck a barrier that resembled amber - the earth refused to budge - the air itself seemed to harden and prevented Vanishing.

And as it all happened, Anna glowed with the magic at her disposal. She was untrained - but she was also a fast learner. She learned by doing and by instinct. And in a duel to the death, especially among those accustomed to "structured" magic, that was the most powerful way to spellcast.

"Let's do this!" Anna shouted with a harsh grin as she prepared for the fight, her sword in one hand and green flames in the other.

Eugene laughed as he took a punch from one of the enemy huldrekarl, the force of the blow barely moving him. He dodged another strike, maneuvering so that the hulking brute struck another of its kind instead of him. In all, this had been a really exhilarating battle. Fighting, he had realized, was so much fun when you knew you couldn't actually be hurt.

Of course, according to Alphonse, there were actually still two things that could hurt him. Mistletoe, of course. Thanks for that one, Pops. And the other, much more likely in this fight was magic itself. So as long as he avoided any rogue witches in this battle, there was absolutely no way that he could-

On sheer instinct, Eugene forced himself flat to the ground as a comet of solid flames sailed over the space where his torso had just been. Why did I have to tempt fate, Eugene asked himself wryly. But as he stood up, he experienced something that terrified him far more than any bolt of body-mangling magic ever could.

A sinister, throaty, feminine chuckle. In a hauntingly familiar voice.

Eugene slowly turned to find a face that had haunted his nightmares for months after he had met Rapunzel. He grunted with discomfort at the feel of a sharp phantom pain in his torso, where an old wound had killed him. A wound that this woman had given him.

Mother Gothel smiled widely, insanely, as she soaked in Eugene's visible terror. "Well, well," she sneered, "what have we here?" Eldritch flames of angry red surrounded her raised hand, reflecting the mad gleam in her eyes. "A wandering thief." Her grin faded into a fearsome scowl. "And a murderer," she spat.

"Gothel," Eugene chuckled, "you're not still mad about that little incident in the tower, are you?" Eugene yelped and spun to the side to avoid another fireball. "It kind of feels like you are," he commented.

"Ramble all you like, Rider," Gothel growled. "You won't be so lucky this time!" With that, gothel stopped talking, focusing all of her considerable willpower into every destructive spell she had learned in her brief new life. She would earn her freedom over this insolent thief's dead body. And she would relish every moment of it.

As an ogre charged toward the pair of it's master's targets facing it, it never felt the ice-cold shaft of an arrow pierce its forehead or the muted thud as its body hit the ground. Elsa herself didn't even need to watch to know her target was dead and moved on to the next. In a span of six seconds, just as many distant members of Han's Legion were dead. And counting.

As Elsa' picked off distant minions, Alphonse whirled his spear with deadly grace, each sweep and strike both precise and fluid. Every few moves he would release a lash of burning magic that would sear a target to ash, his movements uninterrupted. As he spun and decapitated a draugr, he felt a chill run down his spine, heard a series of nearly-metallic noises. A line of icy spikes had interrupted a charging force of more ogres, breaking up their formation.

A few lashes of magic to make some of the remainders explode and a barrage of ice spears took care of the rest.

Alphonse spun Skordare into a relaxed position and looked to Elsa as he panted from fatigue. The queen herself was no better. On impulse, Alphonse muttered in his runic language and placed his palm on Elsa's forehead. The magic of his charm flowed out of him and closed the minor wounds the queen had sustained, filling her body with renewed energy.

Even as Elsa was rejuvenated, Alphonse couldn't help the slight stumble as he felt a wave of exhaustion settle over him. Elsa looked upon him with a conflicting mix of chastisement and gratitude, her gaze promising a stern talk after this was over. Assuming both were alive, at least.

As more minions gathered around them and prepared to charge, a piercing shriek washed across the battlefield. The Han's troops halted in their tracks and began to back away, wariness and outright fear etched in their faces. Elsa and Alphonse looked to each other before they looked up, twin gazes settling on a rapidly-growing speck in the distance.

"Here he comes," Elsa said, steel in her tone.

With a grating cry, Anna swung Heidur for a final time, the head of the last dark-vala falling from her shoulders. As an added measure, Anna jerked the sinuous vine wrapped around her hand, the other end tightening and snapping another one's neck with a sharp crack. Anna planted her sword in the ground and leaned on it like a cane, her breathing ragged and sweat rolling down her face. With a slight shake and an effort of will, she dissolved the remaining shreds of the wards that surrounded her like a second skin.

Anna had taken to wards, magical protections, very well under the advice of Alphonse and the guidance of Freya in her Dreams. And it was a good thing she had learned so fast and so intently. Any weaker and the dark-vala's curses and spells would have torn her apart. But each act of protection had taken its toll, however slight, on her magical endurance. "Fortitude", Freya had once called it.

Anna brushed off her tiredness and hefted her sword, ready to launch herself back into the fray, when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Dread welled and hardened in her gut, her breath stolen from her. Without thinking, Anna darted for the main body of the battle, her sword flashing and whip cracking as she cleared her path straight through.

She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did. Kristoff was in trouble.

As the princess fought her way across the battlefield, she had no idea how right she was. Kristoff hurled Beskytter at the monster, knocking a few of its remaining teeth from its maw. Even as he recovered from the throw, he forced the earth to push him into the air, the Serpent's counterstrike with its massive tail still missing by mere inches. But there was nothing he could do against the coil that followed just a little higher and struck him full in across his body.

Kristoff had to have bounced a good dozen times, his unthinking command for the ground to soften beneath him the only thing that saved him from severe injury. He held out his hand, willing his hammer back to his grip even as the Serpent struck out at him. The hammer returned and he met his foe with a blistering swing to the jaw, lightning bursting from the point of impact and knocking the creature aside. A thick stream of god-killing venom sprayed from its maw and into the distance, melting a contingent of draugr in the main battle like acid.

Kristoff brushed off the aches running through his body and stiffened his stance, Beskytter held in a two-handed grip. The cold, logical part of him knew that he was unlikely to win, and therefore unlikely to survive. It had taken both Elsa and Alphonse, two of the most powerful individuals Kristoff had ever heard of, to take down one of these things. He himself was beaten nearly to a pulp by the few attacks that had be unlucky enough to connect, and his reactions were getting slow even as the monster itself learned, actually learned, his patterns.

And after everything he had hurled at it, all of the lightning and boulders and mountain-shattering impacts with his hammer, the worst it had endured was burns, some abrasions, and a bunch of lost teeth. That cold part of him faintly wondered if this was how Thor had felt as he fought Jormungander, his will slowly fraying as he fought a battle that Fate, the unbreakable certainty of the Before Times, told him the best he could do was a stalemate, a mutual death.

In an instant, he knew his brief respite was over. The Serpent coiled and prepared to strike again. Kristoff prepared himself to avoid, but paused at a very, very familiar battle cry. Like a lance of shining fire, something flew from behind him and struck the Serpent in the face and exploded into green fire, black toxic blood pouring from its ruined socket as it wailed in agony.

As Kristoff stood in shock from this intervention, Anna landed in front of him. Her sword was absent, likely what had just taken the Serpent's eye, but her body language screamed aggression, a whip of braided vines lined with vicious thorns clenched in her hand.

Anna looked back to him over her shoulder, her gaze brimming with relief that she had made it. And in that relieved and determined gaze, he saw a message: Thor may have died to this thing's sire, but he was alone. Us, we take it together! And in that moment, Kristoff knew he had never loved her more.

The mountain man hefted his hammer and stood next to his wife. And as exhausted as he was, as he knew Anna was, he couldn't help the grin on his face. It was time to kill this thing, once and for all!

Rapunzel shrieked as she rolled from Hati's lunge, her shield held up to cover her as she regained her feet. As soon as their duel had started, Rapunzel had learned that the beast's size hardly affected her speed. If at all. She was quick despite her size. The only real problem was her lack of maneuverability; Rapunzel could leap and dart around her like a butterfly and the she-wolf's bulk would get in the way of her own movements.

Of course, that was cold comfort against the litany of cuts, bruises, and even a number of broken bones that she had healed from, their phantom pains wracking at her and wearing her down underneath the haze of adrenaline.

Rapunzel struck her open palm forward and unleashed a burst of blinding golden light, pure fury of the sun itself, and darted past the blinded monster and into a deep trench carved into the ground to catch her breath. As she tried to calm her racing heart, Rapunzel tried to keep track of the she-wolf's frustrated snarls as it looked for her.

Think, Rapunzel, think! she chanted to herself, mind scrabbling for a solid plan of attack. She had fought so far with agility and what brute force she could muster, but that wasn't working. She had beaten scores of Hans's thugs like that, but this was different. It was huge and full of hatred. And hatred, as much as she disliked admitting it, had power. It was the opposite of love. And while she firmly believed that love was the superior force, hatred was almost as strong. And Hati was running off of it like a forest fire.

Back to her current dilemma, Rapunzel tried to analyze everything she had done up until now. She had used every move, every strategy that her powers gave her, and could do no lasting damage. Hati was too big and too full of hate. Whatever wounds she sustained were masked by that burning wrath. Frankly, if this was how her "brothers" had been, it was a wonder they had been killed at all.

Wait, how had Skoll and the original Hati been killed? They had eaten the sun and moon … and disappeared from the poetry. It was as if … Rapunzel clenched her fist as an utterly insane idea took root in the strategic part of her mind and blossomed into an even more insane plan. There was no way this would work!

Then again, she didn't have any other ideas, insane or otherwise.

Rapunzel leapt from her hiding place, reaching deep within for the essence of the sun that slept within her very soul. Her skin glowed like a golden beacon, her hair like strands of spun gold and her irises like gold coins. Her wounds closed in an instant, leaving unmarked skin it their wake. All in all, she was unmistakable.

Hati turned to her with fury in her eyes and, without the slightest hesitation, leapt for her with jaws gaping. Rapunzel steeled her resolve and leapt as well to meet her. She curled into a ball, made herself as small as she could … and sailed between the beast's teeth.

Hati crashed against the ground, digging a long trench in her wake. She stood stock-still for a moment, shock taking over, before tossing her head back and howling with malicious joy.

Joy that was halted in its tracks by a burning sensation that arose in her belly. The burning escalated in a matter of seconds, driving Hati to her knees in agony. She tried to return to her human form, but her body and the magic within resisted her efforts. It was as if her body rebelled against her mind's wishes, an instinct deeper than even fear warning her of the dangers.

Hati fell to the ground on her side as the heat grew ever greater, the massive she-wolf writhing in agonized seizures. Her skin began to glow red under her fur, stream beginning to seep from between her closed eyelids. Finally, her entire body began to smoke as the all-consuming power inside her reached a head. The she-wolf cried out in torment before lying still. The glow faded away, leaving charred flesh beneath her blackened fur.

After a few moments, the she-wolf's mouth was forced open and Rapunzel pulled herself out to roll onto the scarred earth of the battlefield. The princess wretched and threw up, then tried to scrape away the juices of the beast's innards.

"Never … doing … that … again," she muttered to herself.

Even as his wife had finished her enemy, Eugene was laughing as he darted and weaved through Han's forces, balls of fire and huge stones missing him with inches to spare. Yes, he knew his life was in unbelievable danger far greater than ever in his criminal career. No, he was not insane. (Well, maybe he'd revisit that later.) But he did know, without a doubt, that this was what he had missed most about thieving.

The buzz of adrenaline. The rush of testing his skills against those of another. The bone-deep knowledge that a single mistake could mean his end. And as terrifying as that was, as it always had been, it was matched only by the thrill of it all.

Eugene grunted as he slid between the legs of an ogre, not pausing to look back as he continued his escape. But he did hear the ogre roar in terror as it was roasted alive by a hate-fueled ball of fire. And he heard the grating scream of frustration as Gothel climbed over the creatures charred corpse and kept up the pursuit.

His body occupied with running and avoiding deadly magic, Eugene considered all that had led to this once-in-a-lifetime scenario.

As Gothel had begun her assault, Eugene had expected her offensive to be as he remembered from their thankfully-brief altercation so long ago. Quick, precise, deadly. Her actual attacks, while definitely the latter, now lacked the subtlety of when she had killed him before.

Her actions now more resembled a sledgehammer than a dagger. She hurled everything she had at him regardless of his actual position, as if hoping to wear him down or catch a lucky hit. And while he wasn't sure what had caused such a change in tactics (maybe her new arsenal of spells, maybe her time in the afterlife, maybe just raw hatred of him; perhaps a bit of all three) he was not regretting it. Her assault was powerful, but sloppy, and she hit more of her own forces than she even got close to him.

And that was the other part of what made this so fun! Gothel was taking down more of Hans's forces than he could have hoped to remove on his own. And, as far as he could tell, she didn't even realize it in her all-consuming focus on killing him!

Avoiding another thrown boulder, one that cast up a fog of dust, Eugene hid behind the convenient body of one of Hans's freaky stone golems. Alphonse had said before the battle that they were the "new bodies of semi-resurrected jotun", but Eugene didn't really care about the details. What he did care about, was that it was there and would be good cover.

Eugene held his breath as Gothel rushed past his hiding place, gaze casting about for him. In her rush, she hadn't even considered that he might have hidden himself. Of course, given that she had been chasing him for the better part of an hour, he supposed he could understand that.

With footsteps as quick and silent as a fox, Eugene lunged forward with a very particular weapon.

Gothel barely had the chance to gasp as white-hot pain in her lower back shattered her concentration, her hold on her magic slipping away in the currents of anguish. Her legs failed her and she collapsed to the ground as blood leaked from her.

Gothel's eyes widened as she looked up at Eugene. Gone was the easy-going levity of Eugene Fitzherbert. Gone was the sly charm of Flynn Rider. In its place stood a deep scowl, a figure of vengeance holding a dagger stained with red.

"Payback," he growled, cold growing over Gothel's body. And not just from loss of blood, but from sheer panicking fear. She was going back, back to that place from before. Back to the place she could not remember. She felt the familiar chill settle over her limbs, cutting like a mountain blizzard. She felt the weight that seemed to press against her chest as it became more and more difficult to breathe.

And with a final rattling gasp, Gothel's eyes unfocused. The witch was, once again, dead as a stone.

Eugene had a split-second to acknowledge Gothel's death before he was struck in the back by an ogre's club and sent hurtling across the battlefield. As he stood up from the shallow trench he had carved with his landing, utterly unhurt, the thief could only smile.

Something told him that this little conflict was on its way to ending.

As the growing outline of the red falcon drew ever nearer, both the Snow Queen and her Champion braced themselves for any form of attack. As the falcon made its final approach … it dissolved into mist and scattered into the winds.

A slight tremble in the earth was the only warning as Alphonse grabbed Elsa and jerked her backward, the uppercut of Hans's sword missing her by a hair's breadth. As Hans emerged from the ground, Elsa lashed out with a flurry of ice spikes. Alphonse grunted as he took the brunt of their fall, quickly rolling to his feet and pulling Elsa up.

Hans flicked his wrist and a wall of compressed air blocked the spikes. But the force of their impact still forced him back to slide on his feet against the ground. With a flourish of his unholy blade, Hans sneered and snapped his fingers. A half dozen mounds of gravel rose from the ground to surround the pair, coalescing into duplicates of Hans.

With a flick of his own wrist, Alphonse whipped a rope of burning-red magic that lashed out in a half-circle to destroy four of the doppelgangers. Elsa snapped her fingers and froze the water within the last two, turning them to man-shaped masses of frozen mud that promptly shattered back into gravel.

"This is pointless, Hans," Elsa declared. "You can't win. Look around you," she gestured at the rapidly-dwindling chaos around them. The remaining Avvisade mowed down the last of Hans's troops with metal and magic, Elsa's ice-soldiers finishing off anything they missed. The final Great Serpent could be seen in the distance, unmoving in death. To the mystically sensitive, the very Earth around them seemed to be sighing in relief.

"You have nothing left to gain with more violence," Elsa urged. "Lay down your sword and surrender, and I will ensure a fair trial."

Hans laughed at her words, a full-fledged insane laugh that seemed to echo. "A 'fair trial'?" he asked. "For me, a fair trial is an execution!" The humor left his eyes like the snuffing of a candle, replaced by a cold glimmer of hate. "And what do I have to gain?" He bared his teeth in a snarl. "Your death!"

In a blur, Hans flew forward on a blast of wind with his sword outstretched. And like answering lightning, Alphonse drove his spear forward to intercept. And while he struck the sword off course, Hans curled inward and struck him in the exposed ribs with a blistering kick. The force of Hans's kick, augmented by the wind he had ridden, sent Alphonse hurtling back across the plain. Elsa barely had time to turn and face Hans before he lashed out at her with a jotun-esque backhand, sending her flying as well.

Elsa groaned as she rolled to her stomach and pushed herself up, her entire body aching with trauma and sheer exhaustion. She glanced over her shoulder to find Hans stalking toward her and Alphonse with deliberate slowness, the glare in his eyes that of an arrogant predator. Elsa pushed herself to her feet, eyes closed tight against a war's worth of bruises and cuts, and turned to face him.

Elsa relaxed just a bit at the sound of heavy footfalls behind her, sensing the approach of Alphonse. She glanced to him, eyes widening at the sight of blood dripping from his chin. The mage spat more crimson and winced.

"Just some internal bleeding," he groused. "I'll be alright." Elsa narrowed her eyes at his cavalier attitude to his own injuries and took his hand in her own, lacing their fingers in a lover's grasp. Alphonse gave a fleeting smile in return and they turned their full attention to Hans.

Hans himself halted in his tracks at the sight of his greatest enemies so … calm. Did they not know he would never stop? That he would continue to fight until his body had been hacked to pieces? That they would never be safe as long as his heart continued to beat?! The mad prince clenched his fist in sheer, insane outrage, his sword trembling with the force of his rage.

With a fearsome howl, Hans darted forward. With matching silence, Elsa and Alphonse charge to meet him. Elsa forged a spear of ice to mirror Skordare, its head burning with white faux-fire and Alphonse set his spearhead ablaze with violet flames. They drew ever nearer, the sheer thought of backing down long abandoned.

Ten yards - seven - five -three - one-!

ENOUGH!

The ground between the adversaries burst apart, the force sending both parties hurtling backward. Elsa twisted in midair and formed a cushion of snow to break her and Alphonse's fall; even then, their landing was far from graceful.

Both stumbled to their feet as more tremors shook the battlefield, holding each other tight as waves of some horrific force emanated from the crevice that had halted their final attack. The earth seemed to roil like the waves in a sea storm, sending both crashing back to the ground, only to shakily rise again.

Finally, a crowd of small boulders rose from the ground and unfurled to reveal the trolls of the Valley of Living Rock. Pabbie strode with purposeful steps to face the risen Hans from across the chasm. Hans leapt and crossed the crevice, his sword flashing toward Pabbie with a shrill cry.

With calm to rival the stones themselves, Pabbie simply lifted a hand palm-outward. An undulating field of Skylights appeared before him, deflecting Hans's attack in a flash like lightning. Hans slid on his toes to halt a few feet away, his gaze murderous.

"Begone, troll shaman!" he demanded. "Fate has come to its head and you stayed away! You have no right to interfere!"

"In the Quaking, perhaps," Pabbie responded serenely. "But then, from what I see, the battle is over. As the Snow Queen so eloquently explained, your forces are dead or dying. The only one left standing … is you." Hans snarled, his face red as his hair.

"And I am all that is needed! I am the one who marshalled these forces! I am the one who brought all of this together! And I am the one who will burn the world, to allow a new one to grow and cultivate it in my own image! And you, shaman, cannot stop me!" He cackled at that and readied himself to strike again. But before he could, the sound of Pabbie's chuckles stopped him in his tracks.

"I cannot, it is true," the shaman agreed. "But then, I don't have to." the grandfatherly glint in Pabbie's eye turned cold, his smile terrifying. "Now that you have proclaimed your crimes, there is someone else who would have words with you." As if in agreement to his words, the earth resumed its trembling, cracks and chasms opening in the ground.

And from the ground rose a serpentine figure that made the Kjempeslange seem tiny. Crimson scales covered the monsterosity, broken by stripes dark as death. Sinuous legs ended in feet as large as Arendelle Castle, capped with wicked claws longer than a bridge. A head shaped like a scythe blade turned to face them, its mouth emphasised by a row of yellow fangs as large as a ship. And they felt its eyes, burning green like the most vile of poisons, settle upon them.

Elsa nearly doubled over with the sheer panic that rose in every fibre of her being, every cell in her body straining to flee even as it was paralyzed by crippling terror. For the first time in her life, she felt cold. She felt her sanity fraying from the sheer horrific sight of this entity, even as she couldn't force herself to look away.

DEATH HAS HAD ITS FILL … Elsa grimaced as she felt those words, in a voice like crumbling mountains and shrill, raging blizzards, in her mind. THE CYCLE HAS BEEN BROKEN. Was that … the dragon?! THE SLATE MUST BE WIPED CLEAN.

The abomination opened its jaws, revealing a maw that could swallow all of Arendelle, to release a maelstrom of blackness. The obsidian cloud emitted a screeching wail like the torment of millions of souls and turned toward them. In a flash of intuition, Elsa knew what they were. They were the souls of the damned, incalculable evil restrained by this thing.

The mass spread and seemed to cover the battlefield and the sky alike, blocking out the sun like a storm front. The corpses of the fallen, of Loki's Legions, were dragged by the black spirits into the air, each malevolent spectre returning to the monster's gaping jaws with a corpse. Even the burned body of Hati and the massive dead Serpent were taken by the black tide.

After what felt like eons, but was likely only a matter of minutes, the cloud of damned spirits and corpses fully returned to the monster, which closed its mouth and swallowed with a hissing growl. The thing turned to look at them again and once again opened its mouth, a thin sliver of the mass returning and darting toward them. AND NOW, FOR THE LIVING.

The tormented spirits wailed as they latched onto Hans, covering him from his toes to his chin. Hans shrieked in fear, falling and freeing his arms to scrabble at the ground. The shades, however, refused to let him go and dragged him, ever-so-slowly, toward the dragon.

Finally, Hans lost his grip and flew back with a terrified wail into the depths of pure damnation.

Its task seemingly complete, the abomination settled back to the ground and sank, the earth seeming to swallow it up in the same massive tremors that seemed as if the world itself were trembling in fear. And the tremors stopped and all was utterly, painfully still.

Pabbie, even the great troll-chieftain seemingly shaken by the experience, turned to address them. "It is done," he whispered.

And with that, Elsa's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell into soothing blackness.

Holy mother of mercy, that was tough!

Sorry about the wait guys! A sudden severed inspiration (and computer problems that took a whopping TWO WEEKS to fix) kept this for over a month! I am so sorry to those who were waiting for this update.

Never fear, for there is a final chapter/epilogue! Stay tuned for that!

For all who have followed this fic, I thank you for you never-ending grace and support! You have no idea how much I appreciate it! I hope beyond hope that this Final Battle held up to your expectations.