Frozen

7.62

Anna felt the bitterness of the cold chewing away at her soaking skin as the brightness of the light stung her eyes and her hair clung frozen to the shattered ice beneath her head. Her eyes hadn't had time to adjust before she remembered exactly what was at stake and tightened her empty grasp futilely as she rolled to her right over her broken arm and staggered weakly to her feet. As her eyes adjusted to what was unfolding before her, she could see the thick glazing of ice around her flash-frozen winter coat, and struggled helplessly against the hinderance.

"You know it doesn't have to end like this, Anna." Danny said calmly as the raging wind bombarded the two of them and pierced Anna to the bone. Her eyes searched the blanket of white snow for any sign of her broadsword as Danny began taking slow steps towards her with his hands out in front of his disemboweled torso as if he weren't a threat. Anna could barely move inside of her icy prison, but managed to move backwards a little further to give herself some time to think. As she scanned the blank canvas back and forth for the position of her weapon, a warm, bronze glow caught the corner of her eye from a few feet behind Danny. "We don't have to kill each other, we're friends, remember?"

"You're not Danny," Anna said furiously as she lifted and bent her legs to crack the ice restraining them at the knees and hips. "Danny died when you cut his fucking guts out!" Anna trudged across the ice, breaking through to the ground with every step as she met Danny in his advance and slammed into him with her left shoulder, shattering the ice covering her torso to pieces. She felt another blast of warmth, this time from her kneecap as the Diadem opened its possibilities to her and she could feel the excruciating pain of the bones in her right side healing themselves rapidly. She reached forward and, with a weak show of telekinesis, dragged her sword out from beneath the snow to skid across the ice. Anna used Danny's chest as a springboard forward and slammed against the ice on her thighs as her fingertips yanked her sword back into her grasp and she maneuvered up onto the ice on her butt before collapsing through the thin layer.

"And yet you still didn't take the Diadem for yourself, when you could've easily beaten me with its help..." Danny trailed off as he stood up from the ground and took the Diadem off of his belt loop once again. "I hope you're prepared to die now, Anna."

"Whatever happens here, I promise you we'll both be dying." With that, Danny nodded respectfully and placed the Diadem back atop his head and Anna watched it conform to the shape of his head and grow jagged spikes in the shape of a silver crown with two purple eyes in the intricately carved centerpiece, which was a small, silver bat with elongated wings. Anna knew that Danny wearing the Diadem meant that its pure celestial power was probably going to be pumping through his veins, but she accepted that she was the only one who could stop him, because she was the only one who was there to finish it. Danny's hands circled themselves and extended diagonally as a long, iron rod began to form before their eyes and Anna anticipated his decision before he had finished creating it. Anna placed her feet shoulder width apart as she inhaled deeply through her nostrils and watched Danny's hand rub the flat end of his new scythe's blade sensually, as if it produced a pleasant response in his synapses. Danny hopped over the ice and snow with his scythe handle twirling around his waist as his hand closed around the weapon and he swung downwards on Anna's position as hard as he could.

Anna flipped backwards and rolled over her shoulders as her feet plunged beneath the snow and Danny used his scythe as a pole-vaulting stick to close the distance between himself and his enemy. Anna slashed horizontally at Danny and slit a large gash in the chest of his torn, bloody shirt as he brought his scythe up defensively and deflected Anna's secondary slash. Danny grabbed the blade of his scythe and swung it around his head as Anna tried to move away from the attack and caught the iron pommel brutally to the side of her face. She could feel the cracks in her skull throbbing in excruciation as her face hit the solid layer of ice and the piercing cold immediately dredged her from the motionless cocoon that she had fallen into. Anna crawled weakly away from Danny as she blinked hard to clear her shattered, fuzzy vision and her elbows buckled under her weight, driving her into the snow chin-first.