Elsbeth Dronning was tired of playing at law-abiding. She longed for the thrill of falling, swooping, swinging, shrouded by shadows. Baring her cyborg arm, the weight of her gun wrapped in her fingers. Of tiptoeing on the line between life and oblivion. There was once a time when she feared the rath of the law and followed it with all her might, but now she wondered how she ever could stand it all. Being illegal was just so much more… free. And so much more efficient.
A drop of perspiration slid down her temple as she stood, spine erect, fingers twisted, in the San Fransokyo police headquarters. Though that probably had more to do with the broiling August heat in the Japanese province of the Eastern Commonwealth that with any nervousness she felt. Nervousness, worry, unease; they were simply practiced emotions to fool the world.
All things considered, she could be a rather convincing actress when she wanted to be.
"You know hon… Elisabeth is it? Never understood you EU folks and your odd spellings, you might be cooler if you took those gloves off. You look like you're about to boil alive in that get up. Is that what they wear where you're from?" The secretary, a pudgy middle-aged Korean woman with streaks of neon pink through her hair, regarded her shrewdly. As she ran her eyes over the long sleeves of her blouse and tight, knee-high boots, Elsbeth fiddled with her gloves, deftly checking to make sure no metal parts were showing.
"Elsbeth." She corrected her automatically, withholding a comment of how Asian names were just as hard to pronounce, especially when attempting a passable Scandinavian accent. She glanced at the name card nestled in a fat, chuckling Buddha statue. Ryo Seohyeon. Try as she might, she was at a lost. "Please, just call me Elsa."
"Oooo, that's much easier. Pretty too. I bet you'll be driving the boys at SFI crazy next semester, 'specially with that accent. Makes you sound mysterious. I'll have to tell my daughter about you. She's been begging to dye her hair platinum blonde. And you said it's natural?"
"Ja."
"Lucky. Where did you say you were from? Sweden?"
"Norge – I mean N-Norway." Elsa replied, mock-flustered. The blush that infused her cheeks with warmth helped.
Pretty?
No. Not pretty. Never pretty.
Never mind the boys at SFI, if Seohyeon ever had the misfortune to see her…eccentricities, Elsa imagined her wide nose would scrunch in disgust. After she turned her over to the police for being an unregistered cyborg.
"Oh! Norway." The secretary exclaimed peering at Elsa's records on her wall-net. "I've always wanted to go there, but they say there's a really nasty vigilante running around there. Have you ever heard of him?"
Elsa stiffened, a swell of anger lapping behind her serene expression. She knew what they thought of "him", swore she'd grown indifferent to the naysayers, assumed to could simply ignore it; she knew why she did this, the reasons, the need. She and others like her single-handedly saved them from some of the most dangerous of Earth's villains. Successful completion of her mission here would rid them of the worst. It shouldn't matter what they thought.
Concealing annoyance, but pleased with the cloak of anonymity that shrouded "his" identity, Elsa nodded, widening her eyes for effect. "I've heard rumors. He calls himself the Black Swan, or Svart Svane in Norwegian."
Seohyeon perked up, no doubt drawn to the prospect of fresh gossip, "The Black Swan?"
Again Elsa nodded, weaving her customary tale with a slight smile.
"Ja. I don't think many people get the reference, but in the second era it was thought that black swans didn't exist and those who thought so were stupid to believe it."
She paused for effect. Seohyeon seemed to hang onto her every word. Fortunately, her fingers stilled over the files meant to transfer Elsa's updated citizenship records to her ID chip. Perfect. Time to work her magic.
"But then they found out they did. It wasn't suppose to exist, not according to leading scientists, but suddenly, there it was." Elsa shrugged. "That's about all I know. Except that the crime rate went down drastically in my city, Arendelle, since he showed up. Some people look to him as a symbol of hope, I suppose."
At the word "hope" the spell was broken. Wrinkling her nose as Elsa suspected she might, Seohyeon resumed her work.
"I hope you're not one of them." She huffed. "This city takes a lot of pride in its real heroes."
Elsa didn't respond, though on the tip of her tongue was the retort that heroes couldn't pull off half the work she did. But arguing was pointless. Vigilantes were only a step above villains as far as most people were concerned. God forbid they find out she didn't actually have powers, she mused, grinning on the inside. They'd want to catch her phantom self even more.
As Seohyeon tapped several lines of text into her file, Elsa casually gazed around the police headquarters. Her eyes skimmed over a net displaying the accolades of San Fransokyo.
Flinched, leaped back.
She froze, breath stalling, the swell of anger in her chest turning to fear and crashing like a wave against her heart. She'd recognize the slicked auburn hair, those calculated green eyes, that mocking smirk anywhere.
Hans Weston.
Her fingers crawled up her left arm, her cyborg arm, stuffing down her fear with hatred. Perhaps her mission was to catch the Martian, but she swore that if she ever had the chance to capture that traitor, he'd pay ten, fifty, a hundred times over for what he'd done.
"Sweetie, I need your wrist if you want the transfer."
"Wha – oh! I'm sorry." Elsa peeled her right glove from her sticky wrist and thrust it out for Seohyeon to scan. The older woman flashed her scanner across it, not knowing it downloaded much more than her new identity. Elsa tugged her glove back into place, pale turquoise against plum and onyx.
"Um, thank you for your help," she said, clasping her hands. "I wouldn't have known what to do by myself."
Legally that is.
Seohyeon beamed, "You're very welcome hon. Good luck at SFI. I'll bet that you'll have a handsome boyfriend a week into semester." Her eyes flittered back to her net.
"Um, thank you. Have a good evening." Elsa muttered, sidling towards the exit, forcing a smile before leaning against the door and slipping out into the artificially lighted night.
A moment later, Ryo Seohyeon raised her head, prepared to say goodbye to the delightful, if not strange Norwegian college transfer.
"You too – oh!" She peered around the immaculately kept police headquarters, lips pursed between her plump cheeks. Where had she run off to? She lifted herself halfway from her chair. Held the pose as she stared out the windows. Slowly lowered herself to her chair. Mentally checked off her monthly exercise goal.
"Odd." She murmured to the empty room, but shrugged and returned to her work.
And groaned, her mind boggled by the card game waging on her net screen. She was losing and the time had come to admit defeat. Steeping herself once again in the mundane necessities of her job, she didn't notice the tiny scrawl of text that alerted her of an error. After a full two minutes the words disappeared and poor Ryo Seohyeon wouldn't know about the stolen file until her superior called her into his office the following morning and presented her the pink slip.
It wasn't until she reached her apartment in downtown San Fransokyo that Elsa let herself fully relax. Her tensed muscles loosened. Her impeccable posture became less so. Sweat trickled down her back, chilled as it came into contact with the blasting air-conditioning.
Sagging against the closed door, she let out a long breath as she pressed her left hand, her cool, titanium hand to her damp forehead. She let her gloves drop to the floor in a heap and tugged her tucked blouse from her skirt, removing her cyborg hand from her brow and twining it and her cold metal arm around her waist. Groaning with delight, Elsa let herself sink to the floor, tearing off her boots and flopping her bare legs against the icy linoleum. The cold seeped into her calves and the sensation of sweetest relief made her consider never getting up.
Until Hans Weston's face suddenly swam behind her closed eyes.
"Elsa hjem Elsa!" The high cry of a familiar robot pricked against the audio interfacing in her left ear. Elsa winced, despite the small smile curling her lips. She adjusted the sound with a thought, mentally connecting to the chip imbedded at the base of her skull, and its piercing chirps became bearable. Teasing out the pins edging her bun, she tugged her hair loose. By the clumsy thing rounded the corner, toddling to her side uncertainly on its disproportionate treads, she'd fanned the snowy blonde waves over her shoulders. "Home Elsa home!"
"Sun, moon, and stars Olaf, how many times have I told you to turn your volume down?" She chided lightly, reaching out and tapping out the access code on its panel, adjusting its volume manually. Olaf's paused mid picking up her discarded clothes with its pronged hands. Its lights blinked twice.
"Olaf Elsa help Elsa. Elsa Olaf stay away Mel. Mel mad Olaf Mel gal."
"Mel is not crazy and if he's mad at you, it's probably your fault." She drew her legs up under her and stood with a spine-popping stretch. Her bare feet were silent as they padded across the cool tiles as she walked to the kitchen, the complete opposite of Olaf's noisy, rumbling treads and whirling fan. It rushed ahead in awkward bursts of speed then randomly guttered to a painfully slow crawl. Had it not been for the sentiment that clung to it like a maglev train to the skyway tracks looping around San Fransokyo, she would have reprogrammed the silly robot years ago. At least now it mostly spoke universal English instead of rambling in Norwegian. She'd rather avoid the neighbor's stares.
"Where is Mel anyway?" She peered into the fridge, wrinkled her nose, and scooped up a pint of strawberry ice cream from the freezer. Riffling through the silverware drawer, she found a spoon before the rising hair on the back of her neck alerted her of another presence in the room.
"Cleaning up the mess that piece of junk made. I thought we agreed to deactivate it when we relocated here." A low voice growled behind her. Olaf squeaked and darted behind her legs, ineffectively hiding its bulky body. Elsa patted its head, sighed, and pivoted to face a glowering Mel, fisting a hand to her hip. The other was occupied with a liberal scoop of frozen pink cream.
Towering nearly a foot and a half over her mere five foot four stature and built like a famous, second era bodybuilder, the only features that passed him off for her "brother" was his mop of white-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Had it not been for the thin, contoured line carving into the side of his cheek – necessary to get to his access panel, but an engineering flaw on her part – it would have been impossible to tell that Mel wasn't human. Fortunately, with a little face paint, it could easily be disguised as a roguish scar. Unfortunately, passing him off as human tended to drive the female population crazy wherever he went, so during the day Elsa kept him confined to their…base whenever possible.
"No," she finally replied around a full mouth. Swallowed. "You demanded that I deactivate Olaf and I said I'd think about it." She ran her tongue over the last drop on her spoon before glancing back at him. "And in case I wasn't clear, the answer's no."
"You were not clear. I don't recall you ever giving me an answer one way or another."
"Exactly my point."
Mel scowled and pushed away from the door frame, striding across the kitchen to cross his arms sullenly when he reached her side. "That's not very healthy." He commented, gesturing at her ice cream.
"Mel Elsa leave alone. Ice cream good krem."
"Shut it Olaf."
Elsa ignored them both, digging into the pint and mining another massive scoop. Despite his impressive understanding of human emotions – never mind his utter inability to grasp sarcasm – Mel never understood her decision to keep Olaf. He would be of better use sold as spare parts or at least holed up back home where he couldn't jeopardize their mission. She never tried to explain despite Mel's railing. How Olaf – for all his rambling gibberish and clumsy bobbling – was the closest thing she had of her.
"Did you accomplish what was needed at the police station?" Mel asked, snapping her from her reverie. Elsa offered him a triumphal smile in response, set the ice cream aside, rolled up her sleeves, and dashed her fingers across the tiny net implanted in her cyborg arm. Immediately a blue holographic screen flared up, displaying a root folder marked with a red CLASSIFIED.
"You took the whole file?!" Mel grunted incredulously, glaring at her. "It could have trackers on it! What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that it's impossible to sort through details when I'm not physically connected to the computer. Besides, I couldn't just take of the city's blueprints, now could I?" She said calmly, running diagnostics for tracking devices.
One, two, a hidden third.
"You were actually thinking that?" Mel asked a moment later when her diagnostics completed their search and came back clean. Elsa didn't bother to answer. "Oh…that was sarcasm wasn't it?"
The hologram on her arm suddenly flashed with white light and a line of text scrolled across the blue disk.
ELSA, INCOMING CALL FROM JONAS GJETER. ACCEPT?
She immediately lurched upward.
"Call accepted"
Blue suddenly bathed the kitchen. The form of a balding man in his late forties appeared standing in the middle of her kitchen. He gazed around with eyes that always seemed to take in everything. Finally he turned them on her and observing her bedraggled appearance, his mouth quirked.
"Rough night?" Jonas asked kindly. In a fatherly sort of way that made her chest twinge.
"Hardly. I've had much worse." She picked up her ice cream again, gnawing at shred of strawberry, watching as his brow puckered and his usual smile creased into a frown. Her stomach churned. "Is something wrong?"
"Depends upon your definition of wrong." Jonas replied, his expression unreadable. "You risking your life again to find Number Thirteen, after ten straight missions, that's wrong in my book."
Sighing, Elsa returned her ice cream to the freezer, knowing otherwise it would be soup by the time she returned to it. "We've already discussed this." She said quietly, letting the waft of cold from the freezer settle across her skin before spinning around. "And you agreed that I'm the only one qualified to do this. No powers, remember? That's essential to the mission." Waving her arm at Mel and Olaf, "please, if you two would leave us alone for a moment?"
"Olaf Mel Olaf follow!" It zipped out the door to the hall, out of sight.
"I do not take orders from you."
But grumbling, Mel did indeed follow the smaller robot's lead. Jonas waited a minute before knotting his arms across his thin, wiry chest. As her old mentor always did when settling in for an argument. She tensed.
"You don't have to do this Elsa." She hiked a challenging brow.
"I don't have to do this, or you don't want me to?"
"Both."
Pressing her lips together, glowering fiercely, Elsa mirrored his stance, annoyed he stood nearly a full head over her.
"Don't be ridiculous. You of all people should know why I have to do this. We've never been this close before Jonas. How can you ask me to throw thirteen years of my life away when I almost have him?"
"Because it's too dangerous!" Abruptly shouting, Jonas threw his hands up, and Elsa was taken aback of how anguished he sounded. "The others – Mimic, Shadow Touch – they were just stepping stones, necessary villains in the way of Thirteen. You didn't care about them. But him…" he shook his head, "you're too emotionally attached to the situation and he'll know it. He'll use it against you." His eyes pleaded with her. "You're like a daughter to me Elsbeth. I can't lose you like this. You've done enough. Whatever revenge is driving you to keep at this just let it go. Please."
"Who says I'm going to lose? I've never lost before and I don't plan to start now." She snapped, clenching her jaw and jutting out her chin. Raking her hands through her hair she turned her back to him, so she didn't have to put up with his begging. "And while we're on this topic, who says this is all about my revenge?! You know what Thirteen is capable of and if he's come to Earth it can only mean one thing. So no, I'm not abandoning this mission. People here need me. It's my duty to protect them. I have leads in San Fransokyo. Good leads. And once I start at SFI, I'll have more than enough to end this for good!"
Elsa hadn't realized she had been shouting until the sound barrier she'd installed in the apartment sent her a message. Drawing in angry gasps of breath, she uncurled her clenched fists, wincing as her nails left half-moons in her palms.
"Elsa –"
"I'll send you a comm. after I do recon."
"But –"
"Good bye Jonas." Jabbing her net, she ended the call. She grabbed her ice cream from the freezer before stalking to her room. Mel and Olaf were in the hall, and tried to look occupied when she passed them wordlessly, though they knew that she knew they'd been eavesdropping.
In her room, she fell into the squishy down comforter and breathed in the soothing scent of lavender and chamomile, though the familiar fragrance did nothing to calm her. She flipped over on her back, snapped her fingers and the solar hologram on her ceiling winked into view. Filling her mouth with icy strawberry she zoomed in on Pluto, small compared to the rest of the planets, but studded with settlements.
Home.
Or at least, home as she remembered it to be before the war.
Only after she'd drank in enough of the sight of the artificial atmosphere that cast the planet in pale blue, of snow covered mountains and a picturesque fairy tale castle that seemed to be entirely made of glass did Elsa remember that she'd forgotten to ask about her.
Her long gone best friend.
The girl who didn't know of their beautiful home world.
Her precious, darling little sister.
Anna.
A/N: Sorry. I know I'm a little late, but better late than never right? Thanks devourer of books (I love your name btw) for your follow. And Anonymous for your review.