Frozen

Armageddon

Anna turned to face Danny as he shook the snow out of his hair and pushed himself to his hands and knees weakly.

"Missing something?" Anna asked and recoiled slightly at the cliche as she furrowed her brow and stood with her right hand held behind her back to taunt the Ancient inside of Danny's empty vessel. Anna twirled the Diadem around her index finger and placed the crown on the top of her head, lurching forward as purple light flashed concisely from her mouth and eyes. "Holy shit that feels good, I understand why you want this back so badly."

"Return my Diadem to me or die like your love." Danny presented her options as Anna tilted her head in mock consideration and shrugged her shoulders without a word. "So be it," Danny continued as he reached into his chest from his disemboweled stomach and, with a tremendous amount of effort, produced a long, blood-red katana with a simple, gray stone placed in the hilt. "This is where you die, Annalise."

"Can't wait to go," Anna replied as the ice surrounding her shins stung her nerve endings like a hornet and she used her newfound energy to melt the snow in a hundred meter radius to ice cold water. She used her index and middle fingers to raise the foot-deep blanket of water into the air and condensed it into a pillar as she pushed her hand forward and spiked the dense column of water at her enemy. With what little power reserves Danny had left to exhaust, he managed to turn half of the column to steam before the other half slammed into him and sent him skipping across the muddy ground for ten feet. Anna advanced through the thick mud and watched Danny rise to his feet once again before getting into a fighting stance. Danny was the one to make the first strike, swinging diagonally at Anna as she effortlessly parried his attack, swapped her sword to her right hand, and stepped into his comfort zone for a hard elbow to the head.

Anna's arm straightened behind Danny's neck as she stepped behind his left leg and used both hands to swiftly limbo under his left arm. Anna rolled over Danny's wide back with his arm still in hand and heard the appendage crunch gruesomely as she flipped him and slammed him to the ground in front of her. Her foot came down into a full-force axe kick to Danny's windpipe as she stomped down harder and used both hands on her sword to repeatedly stab her former friend in the face until it looked like ground beef with a human lower jaw. Panting like a dog on a summer day, Anna staggered backwards and nearly collapsed to one knee as she stared at Danny's absolutely motionless corpse for any sign of life. After about thirty seconds, Anna allowed herself to rest and lowered herself bumpily to both knees, resting her forehead on the hilt of her broadsword.

"Did you really think it would be that easy?" A warping, distorted voice spoke as Anna's eyelids slid open to gaze upon the most horrific sight she had ever seen. Danny's disemboweled body hovered an inch off the ground with his collapsed windpipe, broken arm hanging at his left side, and his bloody bottom jaw and shreds of human flesh and muscle tissue hung like frills around the neck of a purple crystalline bat head with giant amethyst wings protruding out of his back.

"I figured I'd give it a shot," Anna replied fearlessly as she felt the Diadem pulsate atop her head and she returned her right hand to the bench for this fight. "Do you have any tricks left?"

"Just one," Danny said confidently as he knelt down, raised his hand to the sky, and reverse fist pumped before standing up and sprinting directly at his enemy. Anna sidestepped gracefully and attempted to swipe her sword through Danny's Achilles' tendon as he rocketed past her like he couldn't stop.

Anna, Alex's voice shouted in Anna's head, something's coming from the sky! Anna glanced upwards at the four, massive falling spears zeroing in on her position and began to sprint after Danny as the first of the spears struck the ground like a missile and sent shockwaves through the ground that raised the permafrozen earth in a thirty foot radius like a destructive tidal wave. Anna was hurled eighteen feet into the air, tumbling rapidly as the second and third of the spears pierced the ground around her and she fell into the shallow chasm that the projectiles had created. Anna gasped for a breath as she propped herself up on her right elbow and raised her hand in the direction of the last of the four spears, heading directly for her. With the pure strength of her willpower, Anna managed to divert the spear's course and sent it hurtling towards Danny vengefully.

Anna clambered out of her crater and crawled across the ground for a couple feet before making her way to her feet and staring across a twenty foot gap into the center of a separate crater that held the greatest evil that her home planet had ever encountered.

"Are you dead?" Anna asked exhaustedly as she stared into the settling dust for movement.

"Not yet," the bat head's voice spoke menacingly as it dragged Danny's body out from beneath the rubble and shook off the dirt from its wings. "That was a cheap trick."

"You would've done it to me," Anna replied quickly as the bat head nodded and stood down for a moment.

"I haven't had a proper opportunity to introduce myself, have I?" The bat head asked as Anna stood in stoic silence and a hearty chuckle emerged from somewhere within Danny's body. "My name is Vestra, I am the Ancient of the Cerebellum, seeker of the Mind Paragon, and the reason your kind can even use your brains."

"I don't give a fuck who you are, I'm just here to kill you."

"You think you can kill a god?" Anna smirked slightly as that question escaped Vestra's lips and graced her human eardrums.

"Oh, I'd fucking love to!" With that exchange finished in both of their eyes, the two mortal enemies advanced and their swords sparked against each other as Danny dropped his blade and landed a solid elbow on the back of Anna's head. Danny caught his sword before it hit the ground and ran Anna through her back as he took two steps backwards and ripped his blade from her torso. Fueled by pure adrenaline and the power imbued in her by the Mind Paragon, Anna remained on her feet and forced the cells in her body to dematerialize as she rematerialized behind Vestra with a sword through the back of the neck. Anna stomped out Vestra's knees and slammed her to the ground as she half-decapitated the Ancient at the neck. Half distracted by her handiwork, Anna barely had time to react as Vestra's wing clapped shut and caught Anna's sword arm in the trap.

Vestra managed a front handspring from the ground and slammed Anna down on her right side as her arm was released and she felt the Diadem sliding off her head slowly. Anna stabbed upwards with her sword and caught Vestra's arm with three of her fingers crossed around the Diadem as the both of them thought of the exact same thing simultaneously. The sky darkened to an inky blood red as the clouds writhed and churned like the ocean and the two combatants both tightened their grasp on the silver tiara between them. An excessive, ten thousand count volley of flaming, extinction event sized meteors began to rain through the crimson sea of clouds as Anna's face tightened in exertion and blood began pouring from both of her nostrils. As the meteors hurtled closer to the ground and Vestra began to gain the upper hand in the tug-of-war for the fate of the universe, Anna made a decision that could cost her everything, but would give humanity a fighting chance against the Paragon.

Anna used the last of the power she could muster from the Diadem to force the meteor storm to impact more slowly less than a hundred feet before they had hit the ground and Vestra snapped the ornamental headpiece in half like an explosive wishbone as the two enemies were launched in opposite directions by the blast. Anna's protection seemed futile as the meteors collided with the Earth's surface and blew numerous craters into a ravine the size of India and hellfire incinerated twenty five percent of the Earth across the frozen Northern hemisphere.