A/N: Elsa was having a normal day. And then she wasn't.
Also celebrating the first dedicated DOOM X Frozen Crossover
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER
Elsa was not a normal girl, nor had she ever been. And she had spent years wishing that she was.
For you see, Elsa was a very special princess who had been born with the power to create and control ice and snow with her mind. Simply by imagining it, she could freeze an entire room and turn it into an ice-skating rink. She could create snowmen in summer and could convince people that it was Christmas in the middle of July. She could prank her parents by freezing their food solid while they were raising it from their plates to their mouths. She could freeze her sister's underwear if she was ever being too much of a brat, and she could jump off of the castle towers and land safely in a pile of powdery snow, or create a giant slide and let Anna in on the fun.
Those first few years truly had been glorious.
But then, one day when she was seven years old, tragedy struck: While playing with her sister, she had struck her in the head with her magic. She didn't nail her in the face with a snowball or drop a block of ice on her head, you understand. No, what Elsa had accidentally done was hit her sister in the forehead with raw winter magic. Magic that changed the very nature of what it came into contact with.
Had it not been for her parents knowing where to look for magical trolls who knew how to reverse her magic, Anna would have died that night.
And so, she had shut herself away for thirteen years. She had avoided coming into contact with anyone. Her parents scarcely talked to her, Kai and Gerda weren't allowed to come around too much, and she deliberately avoided coming into contact with Anna because she was terrified.
Later, what she had been through would come to be known as solitary confinement – A torture method used to deprive humans, who were social creatures, of social contact. All while she was forced to bottle up her emotions lest she accidentally destroy them all. That was additional emotional damage on top of rigorous imprisonment. And then her parents died as their ship was lost to a storm.
All in all, not a very pleasant decade and a third.
She did, eventually, reveal her powers to the public. Through an intense emotional trial, she reconciled with Anna, and regained control over her powers, realizing that her powers were a part of herself, yet were a force of nature at the same time – If she was afraid, then her powers were afraid, and they would do anything to protect their physical vessel, regardless of whom they had to hurt to do so. But with love, her powers would gladly be molded to improve the situation.
There had been more trials in the years to come. She had to save Arendelle from being washed away, pestilence, Anna's vengeful ex-boyfriend, and at one point, Anna had to save her to-be-husband from Elsa as she tried to kill him for getting Anna pregnant before marriage. Good times, good times.
That had been five years ago.
Anna was now on baby number four, and after three boys in a row, she was hoping for a girl. The royal physicians said that she could give birth any day, so Elsa had come out of her magical forest to help out while the Queen of Arendelle was indisposed.
Elsa had resigned herself to the life of a spinster. For one, thirteen years of no social contact had left her unable to socialize, meaning that she had to be the first woman in history who, even with all her beauty, could repel men within minutes of an honest conversation. She wasn't vain, but she also wasn't stupid enough to not realize that she was incredibly beautiful.
Two, her powers. While she had excellent control over them, and there was no doubt that she could teach her kids how to control them as well, should they inherit any, they posed a problem. Should any of her children inherit her powers, someday, down the line, there would be someone of her blood with the ability and ambition to rule the world. She could be the best parent in history, but somewhere down the line, something would go wrong eventually, and that single error would result in the rising of one of the greatest mass-murderers of all time.
Best to let her powers die a quiet death. There was no reason for something like a bloodline to determine who was awarded terrible power and speed. Even the right to rule, a tradition that had been carried out for centuries, was slowly coming to an end. The United States already had a democracy, and there were other states that were following in their footsteps. Anna's grandchildren would likely be the last generation of ruling class in Arendelle.
While some people argued that her powers were vital, given that a single person under the oppression of the British Empire could potentially overthrow their tyranny, she countered by saying that if the British had a single person like her in their ranks, the entire world would be under the eternal rule of the British Empire. Her powers did not dictate whether the user would do good or evil; Only the capacity to conduct either.
Third, she wasn't fully human. While she guessed that she could sire children with other people, she was built different. Ever since she had embraced her powers at her coronation, she had almost stopped ageing. Anna and Kristoff were showing hints of age lines on their faces, but her skin remained unblemished. She retained her youth through the years.
By her estimate, she would naturally have five more centuries of life, a millennium or more if she really wanted to live longer.
There was no point in living that long. She would outlive twenty generations descended from Anna, and if she ever had kids, she would outlive those that did not inherit her longevity. So would she outlive a significant number of her descendants, and she couldn't bear to bury her children. So, it was better to abstain from all that in the first place.
In the end, it all came back to her powers. They had haunted her for a large portion of her life, and the negative effects from that still hampered her functioning to this day. It was not an exaggeration to say that she would've been better off without ever having received powers in the first place.
But today…
Today, she was wishing for more power.
It had been a normal day. Elsa was acting as Anna's regent, the city was preparing a celebration for Anna's latest child, and Kristoff was busy trying to explain to his eldest son what was happening with his mother.
Then, Anna had gone into labor. Elsa had immediately been there to hold her hand, and the news had spread cheer through the city in minutes. Everything had been fine and dandy, save for Anna going through some of the worst pain known to humankind.
And then the screaming started.
It had taken Elsa a few seconds to distinguish it from Anna's own screaming, but it had instantly made the hairs on the back of her neck rise and she had left immediately to check on it. Hey, she might've been a sister, but she was also the acting ruler of Arendelle, and a bunch of people screaming in horror did not bode well.
The second she opened the castle doors, she had been showered with blood as the upper half of a man was sent flying over her head. It had taken her a solid minute to understand what was happening.
Monsters.
The city was being attacked by vicious, bloodthirsty monsters.
And they were razing everything to the ground.
They came in varying sizes and shapes, but they all possessed power and speed beyond that of ordinary people. Sure, every now and then, someone would decapitate one of the smaller ones, but no one could do anything against the brutes that had arms larger than Oaken.
Elsa had immediately surrounded the castle with thick layers of reinforced ice, and had once more unleashed winter upon her own kingdom. She formed thousands of ice soldiers, and even some golems like Marshmallow to fend off the monsters and get her citizens into the castle.
She had commanded Kristoff to stay put with the kids and to make sure that Anna didn't do something suicidally stupid like chasing after her. Shutting her out of her life combined with their parents' deaths had given her little sister abandonment issues, which is why she clung to her so closely, regardless of her own chances of survival. But she was a mother now, and she needed to be there for her children more than she needed to support her big sister.
Just as a precaution, she had frozen the door shut. The physicians had everything they needed inside. And then, she had assigned squads of ice soldiers to her guards and had personally set out with them into the city to gather all the survivors they could find and escort them to the castle that she had turned into a fortress.
She had lost her breakfast at the sight of what the monsters had done to their victims. The patterns they had drawn with the blood and entrails of her citizens served to show that these weren't monsters; They were demons.
For hours now, she had been fighting the demons. Her powers were ample enough to defeat any that she had run across, but their numbers worried her. She couldn't be everywhere, and no doubt people were dying because she could not use her untrained powers to instantly kill all the demons.
At the very least, the snowstorm over Arendelle made sure that nothing caught fire. That would make it much easier for search and rescue operations.
A giant, red-skinned demon charged at her, but a burst of pure magic shot from her hand and hit it in the chest, instantly turning it into an ice sculpture. With a single thought, it shattered, and the shards flew into the air and pierced the round, floating creatures. The smaller, people-sized ones threw fireballs often, but she found that she was lucky enough to be immune to fire, and had killed them all by stabbing them through the chest with ice spikes.
All the while, she was looking desperately for survivors. Every mutilated corpse left her wanting to throw up again, knowing that it was her own lack of competence with her powers that had allowed things to escalate so far. Every time she found an individual or a group, she would cover them in a ball of snow and hurl them at the castle: The snow would cushion their landing and the speed would prevent them from being ambushed. Her magical security could handle it from there.
And when she was hunting for survivors, she was also hunting for demons. She killed them without hesitation, and at some point, she had stopped stripping herself completely in order to replace her bloodied ice armor, and had accepted that she would look like a genocidal maniac for the duration of her genocidal rampage.
She rounded a corner and saw an enormous, fat demon knock down the door to a house, and she could hear the screams of terror from inside.
Elsa summoned her magic and leapt forth without hesitation, her magic reinforcing her body so that she could go beyond mere mortal limitations.
These things were destroying her city, killing her citizens, and threatening the lives of her family.
To the demons, she showed as little hesitation as she did mercy.
The Doom Slayer had been to innumerable worlds in his conquest to thwart and cull the dimension of hell. They attacked any world with souls that they could convert into energy for themselves. They were indiscriminate about whom they attacked and did not care how many of their own they lost in the process. Like ants trying to kill an elephant. Sure, the ants would lose billions, but that was barely a fraction of a percentage of their population, and they could regain those numbers in a week.
And when they could not conquer a world with sheer numbers and brute force, the Dark Lords of hell seduced the powerful natives with false promises and shady oaths. It was how they had taken Argent D'Nur. It was how they'd taken all the worlds that had sufficiently advanced technology to easily dispatch the demons back to where they came from.
And he was the one who hunted the demons across time and space. For eons, they had tried to kill him, but ultimately, all had failed. For he was the unchained predator who relentlessly fought the infestation that was hell.
But he didn't fight them because it was 'the right thing to do' or something to that effect. Sure, that was the reason why he had first engaged them, but his motivations had quickly changed.
He fought because he hated them. He hated them with the burning fury of a thousand stars. And fueled by his hatred, he had become the nightmare of the dark realm. They knew that he was out there somewhere, and they knew that he would hunt them down sooner or later, and there was nothing they could do to stop him. No way was he allowing anyone to drop another cursed temple on his head.
He had learned from his mistakes, and always remained prepared for any eventuality.
Which is why stepping into a winter wonderland did not surprise him. He had been to planets that were entirely covered in fire or ice, and the civilizations had evolved and adapted accordingly.
What was novel to him was a person made entirely out of ice that was using a spear to fight off a Whiplash. A few meters away, there was a large, white golem that was looming over a group of people, and a few more meters away, a similar golem was throwing hands with a mancubus that matched it in size. The mancubus' flamethrowers threatened to melt the snow creature, but it seemed as though the hurricane they were in kept repairing any damage done.
"In addition to hell energy, I am detecting another kind," VEGA said through his helmet. "It has a unique readout and seems to operate on a similar wavelength to Sentinel Energy. I will analyze this information further."
Maybe these snow creatures were the Wraiths of this world.
Thoughts for later.
He deployed the flaming meathook mounted under the super shotgun, the burning metal piercing the neck of the mancubus. In an instant, it yanked him forward until the barrel of his gun was right in its face.
BANG!
A single shot eviscerated the head of the demon. He turned as he jumped off its chest, drawing the heavy assault rifle as he did, taking a potshot at the whiplash. It was stunned, and the ice person did not hesitate in stabbing it through the neck with its ice spear.
With the action dying down, the civilians let out a sigh of relief, and the sole human who even appeared to be combat-ready stepped up to him and began speaking in a language he did not recognize. VEGA immediately activated a translation program, and luckily, the language the man in front of him spoke was already documented as Norse. Apparently, he was in Norway, in the 19th century if the architecture around him was anything to go by.
"Good sir!" The man exclaimed. "Would you be so kind as to help me escort these people to the palace?"
The Slayer took a moment to look around, instantly taking note of what was undoubtedly the palace. Well, at this point, it was more of a fortress. It was covered in massive layers of self-regenerating ice, and there were more ice soldiers there, killing any demons that approached.
It was an excellent defensive structure, but it wouldn't hold out forever. Regardless, it was undoubtedly the best place for the people of this city to hide in while he dealt with the invasion.
"The area is saturated with energy anomalies, so I am unable to pinpoint targets," VEGA said through the helmet. "And the weather is making it difficult to form any kind of reliable map, so you will have to navigate on your own for this mission.
"On a brighter note, this is the only city on this planet that is suffering a demonic invasion, and the demons are being contained by the hurricane. For now."
Losing navigation was a blow, but he had managed without for eons. At least the demons would remain in a specific area long enough for him to hunt them all down.
He nodded, switching weapons. He was protecting civilians now, so he needed something precise that wouldn't cause collateral damage. So, no explosives and no wide-spread fire. The HAR was the ideal weapon for the job, and the shotguns would work for anything that got too close. The plasma rifle would make the list, if it not for the fact that the snowstorm would greatly hinder its effectiveness.
As they walked, the snow creatures sifted through wreckage, looking for survivors. And while VEGA could not use the high-power sensors aboard the Fortress of Doom, the sensors aboard the Praetor Suit worked just fine. Sure, they lacked the range, but they could detect pretty much everything within a 5-block radius.
He kept the HAR up, taking potshots at any demons that he detected, avoiding an encounter in the first place. The shrapnel from a Revenant's rockets could kill the civilians, and that wouldn't do, so he simply shot them before they ever got a chance to do anything. It was fortunate that they had only run into lone demons up until this point, because a whole squad would be notoriously difficult to defend against, especially considering that the people he was trying to protect were normal, unarmored people who could die if they slipped on a banana peel.
Of course, sooner or later, all good fortune ran out.
It happened without warning – Another group of civilians sprinted into them, along with a dozen or so demons on their tail. There were imps, hell razers, a hell knight, and just to make a bad situation worse, a fucking archvile.
The second group also had their own ice protectors, but it was clear that they couldn't stand up to the overwhelming numerical disadvantage. The ice creatures of his own group doubled their numbers, but it was still three-on-one.
The odds didn't matter to the Slayer, for he was a lone man who had taken up arms against an endless army. He only ever knew extremely stacked numerical odds.
But this was different. He could easily tank a hit or dodge, but the normal people he was protecting couldn't. A hell razer could kill them all with a single wave of its arm, and the shockwave from the punch of a hell knight would turn all the civilians to paste. And the archvile would continue to stack the deck against him.
Which meant that he had to act rapidly and without hesitation.
He sniped off a hell razer's head as he leapt to a nearby roof. Noting that the archville was at a safe distance, he let off a full lock-on burst at it. For a second, he used the microwave beam to stun-lock it, before switching back to the HAR and sniping hell razers and imps. He leapt down as he detected movement, crushing the arachnotron that came out of nowhere.
Two of the giant snow golems had gone into battle mode, sprouting sharp spikes of ice all over their bodies and took on the hell knight, while the other two armored themselves and huddled around the civilians. The smaller ice soldiers threw themselves at the demon horde, stabbing and slashing relentlessly while remaining uncaring of the damage they took, as it was all repaired in seconds.
The hell knight was faster, but two ice golems were enough to stalemate it. But it was a problem because a single hell knight was distracting almost half of their fighting forces, so killing that was priority one.
A ballista shot to the head disoriented it, and a hail of precision bolts stunned it long enough for the golems to stab it, putting it down for good. He dashed and jumped over the golems, drawing the crucible and cutting the archvile in half. It did manage to summon a gargoyle, but one of the ice golems simply ate it, the icy spears for teeth making short work of the demon.
The Doom Slayer was slightly more pissed off than normal. This was because the 30-second confrontation had felt as intense as a full-scale arena battle. While hordes a hundred or even a thousand times larger than this one were just another Tuesday for him, having to guard civilians made this a lot harder than it needed to be.
He saw movement, and immediately dashed towards the civilians, grabbing the invisible pinkie before it could get to them and ripping its jaw open.
"Oh God," A woman whimpered, horrified. "Is that what ate Frida?"
The Slayer wordlessly got to his feet, using the destroyer blade to cut down several cacodemons in one shot. Once more equipping the HAR, he began marching towards the ice fortress, the traumatized civilians following behind. They were close, making this the most dangerous segment of their journey.
This, of course, was due to the demon horde trying to break into the castle. The castle had ample defenses that held solid, even against fireborne barons. There were hundreds of ice golems and ice soldiers, who all worked in sync to open up small pockets, allowing survivors through.
Although, there was a problem.
A tyrant.
While the fortress could launch giant spears of ice that could kill a fireborne baron in one shot, they were far less effective against the tyrant, especially considering the fact that it stayed out of range, blasting away at the defenses with its rockets and lasers. They repaired themselves, of course, but more and more demons were switching their avenue of attack. Hell razers, mancubi, and fireborne demons handled the ice golems and ice soldiers, the heat retarding the regenerative properties, while imps, revenants, and cacodemons targeted the defensive weapons alongside the tyrant.
The fortress would fall in under thirty minutes at this rate.
Not on his watch.
He motioned for the soldiers behind him to maintain cover, and then he casually stepped out from behind the house, carrying the chaingun in mobile turret mode. He walked towards the demons without hesitation, checking just how long it took them to notice him.
It took them a full thirty seconds. An imp screeched, and as one, a thousand demons turned to face him.
As one, the demons roared, but their roars were drowned out by the roar of his chaingun, the quadruple barrels turning hundreds of lesser demons into mincemeat in seconds. His equipment launcher lobbed grenades into the jaws of several dozen cacodemons in rapid succession, staggering them all.
He wasted no time, meathooking towards the closest one, ripping out its eye. He switched to the full-auto shotgun, and jumped to the next cacodemon, firing down at it as he used it as a stepping stone. He sprinted over the cacodemons, killing them all with the full-auto mod as he stepped on them. He killed the last one and switched over to the explosive shot, firing the projectile into a crowd of imps.
BOOM!
The ballista came out, the destroyer blade slicing the revenants and hell knights in half. An arbalest shot to the face of a baron stunned it, allowing him to leap over its head, grab its horns, and yank it downward with such force that he buried it in the ground all the way to its knees, headfirst.
He fired three rockets in rapid succession and detonated them using the remote detonation mod. Dozens of demons were reduced to paste, with only the largest surviving, albeit with severe wounds. Micro missiles made short work of clusters, and he microwave beamed a mancubus until it popped, the already explosive nature of the demon combining with the microwave beam destroying every demon in a 10-meter radius.
With the doomblade, he sliced off the legs of a hell knight at the knee and killed it by crushing its skull under his boot. A blast from the Super Shotgun eviscerated a few dozen more that had gotten too close. He quickly deployed the chaingun shield, just in time to tank the tyrant's missiles. He waited for the shield to overload and then launched it. As the tyrant recovered from the hit, he sent a burst of lock-on rockets and began charging up an arbalest shot.
Just as it regained its bearings, he fired right into its exposed, bright-orange guts. A second later, it howled in pain as the explosion carved a chunk out of its torso. The heat had made it so that there was no snow close to them, so the plasma rifle came out and he laid into the tyrant as he charged, the residual heat of the plasma accumulating in the heat sinks. He double jumped up to its face and unleashed the heat blast, throwing both of them backwards.
He skidded to a stop, pulling out the Super Shotgun and firing the meathook into a flying revenant. He was reeled in, and just as he passed it, a single shot erased it from existence. His momentum carried him upwards and forwards, and at the apex of his flight, he extended the doomblade. He began descending rapidly and with tremendous force, and with a single swipe, he cut the tyrant in half, vertically. After a second or two, both halves fell apart.
But the Slayer did not take breaks while there were enemies in the area. The flame belch lit up a dozen demons that thought sneaking up on him would be a good idea, and an explosive shot finished them off. He fired a rocket with the remote detonation mod, burst into a sprint and jumped on top of the rocket, riding it to the fortress. He jumped off as he approached the demon horde still fighting the ice golems, and manually detonated the rocket. The fireborne baron didn't even have the time to react as he crashed into its back to soften his own landing, and then finished it off by crushing its head underfoot.
An orca made of ice leapt out of the frozen fjord, bit down on the final baron, and took it along for a swim. A few well-placed precision bolts finished off the remaining demons.
Things finally quietened down, leaving everyone to observe the aftermath. The creatures of snow and ice were stained red, and the civilians, covered in demon as well as human blood, looked at him with wide, horrified eyes.
The remaining groups came over the bridge, with each of the human guards looking upon him in awe as he remained vigilant. The ice creatures paid him no mind, continuing to obey the human guards that they accompanied.
"Is that everyone?" He heard someone say. Turning around, he saw that it was another human guard, but his armor was notably fancier. The guard captain, then.
"We went as far as we dared, sir," The guard he had met first said. "The far reaches of the city are lost to the demons, and we cannot step in there. Anyone beyond that is lost."
"Alright, everyone, mark your areas," The Guard Captain said, pointing at the map. "Once we've got everyone, we can begin our escape."
For a minute, each guard came up and marked out the sections that they had cleared and marked enemy territory as well.
"And while we're at it, is anyone going to explain?"
The Slayer saw the man make a motion towards him. Ah, of course, this was a planet untouched by the legends of hell. They had no idea of who he was, and they were right to be cautious of him. They had probably barely invented muskets, and here he was with a handheld railgun and a lightsaber.
"I don't know, sir," The guard he had first met answered. "We found him during our search, and he killed the demons attacking us. And, well, those." He said, pointing at the hundreds of demon corpses he had created in the past five minutes.
The Slayer chose this as an appropriate time to step up to them. A lot of hands immediately went to their swords, but others either knew that there was nothing they could do against him and/or assumed that he was there to help them with their demonic invasion problem.
"Hello," VEGA said through the external speakers. "My name is VEGA. My companion, who stands before you, has lost his voice to time immemorial, and I speak on his behalf. He is only known as the Doom Slayer, and we are here to kill the demons."
The Guard Captain looked like he was about to speak up, before there was a lot of angry screaming on the other side of the castle doors. All of a sudden, they were thrown open, revealing a short, sweaty, strawberry-blonde woman.
"Your highness!" One of the maids protested. "You cannot wander into a storm like this, especially after just having given birth!"
"Where is my sister?!" She roared, grabbing the captain by the neck of his armor. "Where is she?!"
The Guard Captain looked very confused.
"Lady Elsa has not returned? But she set out for the orphanage, and her chariot came through half an hour ago!"
In the corner of his vision, the Slayer saw a damaged chariot made of ice. Well, it was more of a bus than a chariot with how big it was, but that was besides the point. What was important was that a single person was out there, fighting the demons.
"Well then, stop sitting around, and FIND HER!" The red-faced redhead yelled.
The Slayer tapped the side of his helmet, prompting VEGA to speak up.
"I will recommend that you all take shelter," The AI said through the external speakers. "We will hunt down the rest of the demons and bring an end to this nightmare."
"Who are you anyway?" The redhead spoke up, not backing down even though he towered a foot and half over her. "And why exactly are you so good at killing these demons?"
"The Doom Slayer is their eternal foe. For eons, he has waged war against the dark realm. He is their nightmare."
"So they're here because of you?!"
"No. We are here because of them."
The woman calmed down somewhat, but she was still glaring at him. He had to admit, he was somewhat impressed – She had probably given birth less than an hour ago with her sister missing in the middle of a demonic invasion, and instead of falling into despair, the fire within her simply burned hotter. In another life, with proper training, she'd have made a fine Night Sentinel.
"Then go. Find my sister. Please."
"If she is alive, nothing will stop him from bringing her back."
Elsa was getting tired. Fast.
Sure, an ordinary hurricane wasn't much; she could maintain one of those in her sleep, but the problem was that these demons were powerful. They had strength that was more than simple muscle, same as her, and they had magic that was far too complex to understand.
She could sense that the demons had only come to Arendelle and that the surrounding lands were free. So, she had to keep the hurricane so cold that any demon trying to leave the kingdom would be frozen instantly. And this she had to do while running around and fighting demons personally.
They were strong. Ferocious. Relentless. Fearless. They kept coming at her with no regard for their own lives, gladly sacrificing their numbers just to deal some damage. And damage they had dealt. She was sure that she was covered head to toe in bruises, had at least three broken ribs, and had internal bleeding.
And that was despite her ice armor which had saved her life about seventy times.
Gone was the elegant white dress that made her appear otherworldly – Her armor was a full inch of reinforced ice all over her skin, further thickened around her feet and arms to form spiked boots and gauntlets. Her hair had been mostly burnt off at some point, so she had used it to her advantage and had made a full helmet. On her back, she had created a pair of wings that were twelve feet long from tip to tip – They came in handy for defending against ranged attacks, slicing melee fighters apart, and using the icy feathers as ranged weapons.
Surrounding her was a horde of her own creation. Tigers, bears, wolves, hippos, octopi, and even a dragon – All made of magically reinforced, self-regenerating ice. However, these were unlike her other creations. Unlike the others, which were made to take hits, these were specifically designed to kill in the most efficient way possible.
She had meant to go back to the castle, but one look at one of the fifty-foot monstrosities of flesh and metal had told her that no stronghold would be able to defend against them. Escaping the country was also useless, as it meant that the demons would still live to destroy another kingdom.
No, the demons were contained in Arendelle, which meant that they had to be exterminated in Arendelle. And she was the only one in the world with the ability to do so.
One of the fat demons appeared from behind a house, but she did not let it distract her from the floating meatballs above her. She waited, allowing the demons to roar at her and get into ideal positions.
In a flash, her dragon leapt into the air, mincing apart the floating demons with its razor-sharp teeth and claws. The octopi wrapped their tentacles around the arms of the fat demon, allowing the tigers to go for the neck. She dashed forwards, creating a sword, and used it to stab the muscular demon that jumped over the fat one. But she missed and stabbed it through the heart instead of the neck. This allowed it to let out a dying roar, and she was immediately beset by enemies on all sides.
Her own creatures roared in response, and the fight was on.
Even with her own horde of ice monsters, the fight was hard. The enemy was too crafty and too violent to predict, not to mention with a wide variety of attacks. Some spat acid, others threw fire, and that one snake-like type could transmit slashes through the air.
There were twenty-five-foot-tall flaming beasts with enormous strength and speed that could launch devastating energy blasts. There were fifteen-foot-tall flaming beasts that were slightly weaker, but in exchange had twice the aggression. Fat ones the size of a house that could launch either fire or acid from their arm-cannons. Skinny ones that could jump like grasshoppers and toss fireballs. Flying meatballs that spat purple fire, which had disorientation magic embedded within. The occasional fifty-foot monstrosity of flesh and machine that had bright orange guts.
And the worst of all, some nine-foot beasts that summoned more demons. Those were the worst, and Elsa went straight for the head whenever she saw one of them.
The fight ended in minutes, leaving all her creatures as well as herself soaked in red, and she had to replace her helmet to see through it.
She had a mission. While escaping the orphanage, she had noticed the demons building some sort of structure made of flesh. And then it had summoned several more demons. She had destroyed it, which unleashed a small horde upon her. She had understood.
To kill the demons, she needed to destroy any and all of these structures that they had built throughout Arendelle. Only then would this nightmare be over.
With her magic, she could approximate their locations by sensing their own corrupt energies. There were five in total, and she was closing in on the second. They resisted her attempts to freeze them, so she could not simply wipe them all out in one shot.
It was a horrific thing, an amalgamation of flesh and teeth, channeling energies to create a gateway between her world and theirs. It was surrounded by a few of the weaker demons which were quickly dispatched.
Elsa stared at the… thing….. for several seconds. This was an unholy abomination that had been given form using the blood of not just men, but women, and children too. It was a testament to evil, and it had been built in her kingdom, on her land, with the lives of her people.
Yellow ice formed over her gauntlet, forming a large spike, which she promptly thrust into the heart of the gory construct.
A horrible screech sounded out, and Elsa immediately jumped back to get to a vantage point as red flashes began appearing. Her creatures were on the demons in seconds, ripping them apart, but the stronger demons could put her creations out of commission for minutes, and as her stamina dwindled, the recovery period grew longer and longer.
And worse, the more exhausted she got, the harder it was to focus on her surroundings, and losing focus while surrounded by demons was a surefire way to get killed. Which meant that she had to draw on more power than she ever knew she had to maintain the storm, the castle's defenses, her creatures, and her awareness.
One of the skeletal ones jumped at her, but the ice on her arm extended into a spike, piercing it through the chest. She swung it around, throwing its corpse at the charging demon with the ridiculous overbite, disorienting it. By the time it regained its bearings, she was already behind it, stabbing into its back with a large spike.
Another skeletal demon targeted her, this one with things on its shoulders that launched some sort of missiles that exploded violently when they hit something. A shield rose from the ground to weather the impacts, but it wouldn't hold up for long. Mostly because it was never meant to. As the demon was distracted by the wall, permafrost spread across the ground, freezing it to the spot and travelling up its legs, freezing it down to the bone in seconds.
Elsa was already moving, flapping her wings to fly and launching icy blasts from her palms, freezing solid the eyeballs of the floating meatballs. She was grateful that such powerful demons had such a glaring weak spot.
And as usual, there was no time to enjoy the fact that her targets had a weak spot, because there were dozens of enemies on the ground that saw a flying creature (such as herself) as a target. Her wings flapped harder, launching her into the sky with incredible speed. Catching the wind of the hurricane, she sped up further, building up momentum as the hurricane took her for a full spin. She blasted any demons she could see, and as she came around to her starting point, she allowed her magic to build up around her. Her wings flapped even faster, propelling her beyond the speed of sound. At the last second, she flipped herself around to land feet-first, the impact combining with her magic to create an explosion of ice that killed every enemy within two hundred feet of her.
For a few moments, the only sound she could hear was the roar of the hurricane and her own labored breathing. That had taken a lot more out of her than she had anticipated. The attack had minimized the chances of her getting hit and had minimized the duration of the battle to conserve stamina, but it had come at the price of going over the limit for a few seconds.
She felt a burning sensation under her skin, which was a first, given that she was immune to fire. But this burn was from channeling too much magic through her body; More than what she was ready to handle. She was already continuously pumping so much into the hurricane in the first place, and such an attack on top of that…..
One of her snow golems picked her up, and they began moving to the next summoning structure. There were three more-
Two.
There were two more, where there should've been three.
Which meant that some poor soul had managed to destroy one of them. Hopefully, it was a squad of guards that had some of her creations with them and not some poor civilian.
There was a pulse of magic, and she could feel another one of the demonic flesh pillars die.
Which meant that there was someone out there who was capable of fighting the demons. Either that or her guards had figured out how the demons were summoned and had decided to launch a suicide attack by eliminating the structures and allowing her to flash-freeze the demons that they summoned.
A crackling sound interrupted her thoughts as red sparks began appearing out of thin air. Sparks, which quickly formed a line about ten feet tall. And then the line turned into a circle, forming a hole in reality.
And from within the hole emerged something that made Elsa's hair stand on end.
It was humanoid – More so than any other creature she had encountered today. It was clearly male with skin almost as pale as her own, scars ran all over its torso, and it had a pair of horns on its head. Its glowing, red eyes were menacing, there was something that looked a lot like a musket at its waist, and as it walked, it pulled out a staff, which ignited to form an axe, the blades made from pure energy.
She could tell – This was an enemy with real power. Even if she was at the peak of her powers, this one would be a genuine challenge. As she was now? She was probably going to die.
"To think," It spoke in a deep, terrifying tone. "That I would be sent after someone other than the Slayer. But your blood is precious, and the dark realm needs someone like you to recover from the loss of the wraiths."
She tried to catch it off-guard by hurling a beam of pure magic at it, but it deployed its own magical shield, its color the same red as the axe. Her attack was deflected harmlessly, and she felt her heart begin to race. The demon magically summoned a ghostly wolf of its own. Her own creations roared as they charged.
Things were not going too well. The wolves the demon summoned were easily dealt with by her own creatures, but the demon itself was far too fast to be hit by any of hers. This meant that she had to accelerate her own body to keep up with it. Even so, it was stronger and faster, and its weapons were far more deadly. Its musket could crack her strongest shields and there was absolutely nothing that could stop the axe as it instantly melted through everything but the most magical of her defenses, but those required more power than what they were worth.
And the demon was as relentless as the rest of them, continuously coming after her without letting her catch her breath. That axe was lethal, even at range, as it could send blades of energy flying through the air, each one strong enough to shatter her armor.
It was tough too – Surprise ice spikes shattered against its skin. Magical blasts that would've turned another demon into ice barely gave it frostbite, and it had the physical might to crush any of her creations with its bare hands.
She created a disk of rapidly spinning ice crystals, like a miniature hurricane two feet across and as thin as a piece of paper, with wind speeds far exceeding the speed of sound. Fast enough to shred a person to dust in the blink of an eye.
She tossed the disk of destruction over its shoulder and proceeded to blast the demon with a continuous burst of ice. It summoned its shield to defend, and she had to take a moment to thank God that these things were as dumb as bricks when it came to things like this. With her mind, she pulled the disc back, slamming it with all her might into the base of the demon's spine. The sheer rotational speed of the disc allowed it to cut through the skin, but it was not enough to sever the spine as she had hoped. It roared, and Elsa had to put up her best guard while leaping backwards as it seemingly teleported right in front of her and swung its axe.
Even though she only received a small cut across the left side of her face from her forehead to her jawline, the shockwave from the blow threw her back. Her snow gorilla caught her and prevented her from crashing into a house, but she could still feel the force behind the swing.
Fortunately, her eye had not been damaged at all, the axe blade having barely brushed against her eyelid. She could tell that there would be a vertical scar that spanned her face, but that was nothing to be concerned about. What was concerning was the fact that the demon had been holding back, and a single punch would break her in half, even with all her armor.
As a royal, she had her combat lessons, but the experience it gave her was laughably little. The children of the guards had more combat experience than her. As such, trying to fight a massively superior opponent was absolute suicide for her. Fighting cleverly was the only thing she could do, but she could not hope to win. Her ice powers only somewhat gave her a chance at survival, but the thing in front of her was bred for combat. She had a snowball's chance in hell of walking away from this fight.
She launched two more discs, sending them to either side, letting them cross over behind the demon and go for the ankles. Her wings flapped with tremendous force, sending her flying sideways to avoid the energy blade that flew through the air. But it was simply the energy blade she had avoided and not the demon itself, which dashed at her without giving her room to breathe, outrunning the discs that chased after its heels.
Her wings folded up and she had to dive through the gap between its legs to survive. Her own discs flew by her with millimeters to spare, but they failed to deal any sort of lasting damage as the armored boots absorbed most of the force. Elsa assumed that its armor was made from some unearthly material, but that information did not help her at all.
With another flap of her wings, she shot into the air and buried the demon in an avalanche of snow. She was under no delusion of damaging it that way, but there was a small chance that she could smother it this way.
Scratch that, there was no chance. With a wild swing, all the snow was blown away, accompanied by a tremendous burst of heat.
But Elsa had already taken advantage of having distracted her opponent. Ice formed around her right hand to form a spear, the strongest one she had forged all day, and the ice around her left hand formed a shield. In the moments where it had been blinded, she charged in at top speed, aiming right under the ribs.
Her aim was true, and her spear penetrated the body completely. She willed it, and the part inside the demon sprouted extra branches, and the icy structures began growing within the demon, invading all the space that they could find. Within an instant, the glowing red of its eyes was replaced with the freezing blue of her own powers.
She allowed the body to collapse, and then took several steps back herself, stopping when she found herself leaning against her ice dragon. Hesitantly, she looked at her left arm.
Or at the very least, what was supposed to be her left arm.
The demon had retaliated with its axe, the blade having cut through her shield and her shoulder. Her arm had been cleanly chopped off, and she could feel herself getting dizzy from the blood loss. With a final bit of effort, she sealed the wound with ice, forcing her blood to remain within her body.
And then there was another circle of red appearing midair, and another demon, identical to the one she had just killed stepped out.
Elsa knew that she was in no condition to fight, let alone win. Fighting one had left her drained and sans an arm, and now she had to fight another one, again, without an opportunity to rest. Her creatures had all been destroyed, so there was nothing to help her either.
There was no stopping this.
So, she began to draw on her powers, on the very essence of her life. If she gave it her all, and converted even her very essence into magical power, she could maybe let off an explosion that would decimate the kingdom and everything in it. A lot of people would die, but there was no option left. She was the only thing standing between the demons and her sister, and if there was even a small chance that Anna could live, she would take it without hesitation.
Either way, it would be better if she died by her own hand rather than the demons'.
But before she could detonate it, a red projectile flew through the air and landed next to the demon. A split second later, the projectile exploded violently, sending the demon stumbling.
Through the blinding hurricane, a man in green armor leapt forth, firing another red projectile from some sort of giant crossbow. This time, it landed right on the demon, the explosion knocking it off its feet. It got back up almost immediately, but the man in green drew a musket from somewhere, which shot a flaming hook that embedded itself in the demon's chest.
And then the hook reeled the man in, bringing the double-barreled musket right up to the demon's face.
BOOM!
The tremendous bark from the musket indicated the upper half of the demon being erased from existence.
Elsa ceased her buildup of energy and her jaw dropped.
She had struggled so much against this type of demon, and this man had jumped in and dispatched it with contemptuous ease. It had taken him less than three seconds.
Just who was he?
Elsa's curiosity turned into wariness as he began approaching her. His boots left deep imprints in the snow, implying a greater-than-you-initially-thought mass, and his weapon dispersed into thin air. She readied her magic to defend herself but found that it wasn't necessary as the man simply held out his hand. Hesitantly, she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet.
"Greetings," A slightly inhuman voice said. "From conversing with the guards, I assume that you are Miss Elsa. My name is VEGA. The man before you is mute, so I speak in his stead. We are here to kill the demons."
Elsa was wondering if the blood loss was making her lightheaded.
"Who… Who exactly are you? And what is happening to my kingdom?"
"My companion is only known as the Doom Slayer. Including his real name, much knowledge about him has been lost to time. What we have determined is that he is a warrior from a time long past, and is the single greatest threat to the demon realm.
"The event that we currently have found ourselves in is a demon invasion. They invade and consume worlds, torturing souls to fuel themselves. It is fortunate that the weather has kept the demons contained within this city."
"I can't hold it for much longer," Elsa said, wincing. "I've used too much of my power already, and that last demon was too much."
"On the matter, I would like to ask: Why did a marauder come after you? They are few in number and great in power, and are only dispatched to fight the strongest of warriors who cannot be overcome by numbers alone."
"I'm afraid I don't know. It said something about replacing some sort of wraiths? I cannot make much sense of what it said."
Under the man's glass visor, she saw his eyes widen in what appeared to be alarm. Just for a second though, as the man blinked, and his eyes were once more filled with anger and focus.
"That is a long story, Miss Elsa, one which we do not have the time to tell right now. If your power is waning, then we must end the demonic invasion as soon as possible."
"You intend to seek out and destroy those flesh pillars, right?" She asked, and the Slayer nodded in response. "I know where the last one is. This way."
Icy wings grew from her back once more, launching herself into the hurricane. The Doom Slayer took a mighty leap, following her into the sky.
The Doom Slayer leapt from roof to roof as he followed Elsa. He kept his senses open, allowing him to take potshots at any demon unlucky enough to get within his line of sight. But not once did he let himself fall behind Elsa.
Replacing the Wraiths…..
On Argent D'Nur, the Wraiths had been looked upon as guardians, or even minor gods. They were fearsome creatures, drawing unfathomable power from sources unknown. Hell had used the desecrated corpses of three Wraiths to perpetually fuel a massive portal to Mars.
Which meant that he had two major problems on his hands.
One, if Hell was trying to replace the Wraiths that he had laid to rest, they were probably planning some sort of large-scale invasion, most likely within the decade. Regardless of whether or not they accomplished their goals, such an action meant that they had already begun amassing their forces. He would need to find them and finish them as soon as this planet was safe.
And Two, Elsa had been considered to be a suitable replacement for creatures that had been feared for their strength on a planet of the only warriors in the multiverse to fight and win against Hell. Hell had feared the Wraiths, and with good reason. While Elsa was showing a phenomenal display of her abilities, they were nothing to write home about. But she was young, probably not even 40, by his estimate. If her powers continued to grow with time, then she would one day be capable of striking fear into the very heart of the Dark Realm. Which meant that Elsa had the largest target in the universe painted on her back.
Even if he won here, the demons would be back. They would return as many times as it took, sacrificing as many of their own as were needed, and make as many deals as they had to, just to acquire her. And no doubt, with time, there would be others like her. Maybe there already were.
He would need to keep track of this planet for eternity, or until the Dark Lord was destroyed, whichever came first.
He was snapped out of his thoughts as Elsa folded up her wings and dropped out of the sky. She softened her landing with one last flap, and he landed solidly next to her.
"Over there," Elsa said, pointing past a house. "I feel it."
She didn't need to tell him; He felt it too.
That was a Gore Nest, alright.
His incandescent rage bubbled forth, causing all snow and ice within a foot of him to sublimate. The demons had murdered and desecrated thousands of humans. All for what, pathetic structures that would allow a primary assault?!
No matter how many times he saw it, no matter how many worlds he saw it on, he felt rage. And he couldn't even punch anything in frustration, because accidentally using too much power meant that he'd destroy the planet himself.
His fury was blinding, but he'd had to learn to see through it.
He stomped up to the Gore Nest, and without hesitation, ripped the heart out. There was a screech, and with numerous flashes of light, demons appeared around him.
He was not in the mood.
Jumping a hundred feet straight up, he summoned the rocket launcher in one hand and the ballista in the other.
What followed was thirty seconds of carnage. The demons never stood a chance.
An arachnotron tried to escape and rush Elsa, but with a wave of her hand, a spike of ice rose from the ground, impaling it through the middle. She raised both her arms, one now made of ice, and thousands of human-sized icicles formed in the air next to the Slayer. She brought her arms down with speed, and the icicles smashed into the earth at thrice the speed of sound, impaling all the remaining demons in the area.
The Slayer landed solidly, and without explanation, picked Elsa up and dashed for the fortress, ignoring her complaints. They were there in seconds, and the Slayer jumped to the top of the structure, carrying Elsa with him.
This was an optimum position. He was at one end of the hurricane, which meant that he was facing all the remaining demons on the planet. He could hunt them down individually, but that would take time. Time which he did not have, given how progressively tired Elsa was becoming. He needed to finish this, now. And lucky him, he had the perfect weapon to do so.
Out came the BFG.
"Miss Elsa, I would advise you to cover your ears," VEGA said. "This particular weapon has a tendency to be loud."
Elsa did so, and the Slayer pulled the trigger.
What followed next made Elsa's jaw drop. A single BFG shot was launched through the air at 200 kilometers per hour. It crackled loudly, tendrils of green electricity occasionally leaping off, zeroing in on any source of Hell energy they could find.
Within moments, the BFG shot crossed the eye of the storm, killing every last demon on the planet.
"There are no more demons in this world," VEGA confirmed. "You may rest now, Miss Elsa."
"Is-Is it true?" Elsa asked. "Is it finally over?"
The Slayer nodded, sharpening his senses to the highest degree, just for good measure. No demon had been left alive.
She gasped, and he was quick to catch her as her body went limp. The howling winds died down, and before their eyes, the storm began to dissipate.
The Slayer gently jumped off the roof, grabbing onto the stone wall to slow their descent. Twenty feet from the ground, he kicked off, switching to carrying Elsa with both arms. His landing cracked the stone under him, but the woman in his arms did not look affected. He set her down on her feet, her barely having the energy to stand.
It was not callousness, but necessity. She was royalty, and her actions had saved millions of lives on this world alone. It was necessary for her to appear standing on her own two feet after such an ordeal.
Her wings and the bulky portions of her armor fell away, just in time for the castle doors to open.
"Your majesty!" The guards cried out, immediately dropping to one knee.
"Rise, all of you. Today is not a day for pointless formalities."
The Slayer relaxed a little, grateful that Elsa wasn't someone with the personality of Marie Antoinette. There was wisdom and rationality in that head of hers, which was all the more reason to keep in touch.
"ELSA!" The redhead from earlier screamed, jumping over the kneeling guards and throwing herself into her sister's arms. "Don't you dare do something that reckless ever again, you hear me?!"
Elsa swayed where she stood, barely retaining consciousness as Anna tackled her. Her vision blurred, the exhaustion of the past few hours finally catching up to her.
The last thing she saw was a portal of blue light forming out of thin air, and their savior stepping through.
Aboard the Fortress of Doom, the Slayer sat down in front of a computer. He removed his gauntlets and began typing away.
"You wish to compile information regarding Hell and their modus operandi for Miss Elsa?" VEGA asked. The Slayer nodded, already selecting UAC files and adding them to a new one. "Very well. I shall make a compendium of our knowledge of the Wraiths and why the demons may be after her."
The Slayer nodded once more and got back to typing.
The reconstruction of Arendelle had begun.
They had all taken a day off to mourn the lives that had been lost.
Yesterday had been a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. Never in human history had such a massacre occurred. And for that, Elsa allowed everyone a day to weep for their loved ones, while her ice soldiers dumped the bodies of the demons in a pit and set them on fire.
They took whatever happiness they could find. Anna had given birth to a healthy daughter, Astrid. She had been born during their darkest hour, but also during their greatest miracle.
While Elsa would have liked to mourn for a lot longer than a day, people needed to eat, and the castle stocks were already empty. There was work that needed to be done.
No doubt other kingdoms would hear of what happened, and there would definitely be some who would seek to conquer their lands. The Christians would find out what happened, and a church would likely launch a crusade against the pagans that had allowed the demons to gain a hold in this world. Many would send assassins after her, or even after Anna and her children in an attempt to blackmail her.
Going through a tragedy did not mean that they were no longer beset by enemies.
But it did not mean an absence of friends.
Elsa had sent a message to Rapunzel, her cousin, the princess of Corona, by ice eagle, and she had responded within the day. Food and supplies were incoming, and several more of their allies had agreed to help out as well.
Elsa oversaw the rebuilding process, her ice soldiers and golems helping carry heavy loads and clear rubble. The sun was shining brightly, and slowly but surely, they were pulling themselves together.
Today looked like a brand-new day.
She was broken out of her reverie by something falling out of the sky. A piece of cloth emerged from it as it neared the ground, slowing it down. By the time it landed in the wreck of a house, Elsa was already there.
She caught it in her arm of ice and looked it over.
It was sealed by an unknown mechanism, and the only method of interface appeared to be a set of buttons with numbers on them. Attached below was a piece of paper with the number 568143 written on it, which she quickly slipped into her sleeve. She turned the box around some more, and then she saw it.
The same mark that their savior had.
The mark of the Doom Slayer.
A/N: Elsa lives to fight another day! The demons that tried to conquer the planet? Significantly more mortally challenged than they were before.