Alan and Hilde, Part Two: Let Loose the Wolves

How long had it been since she’d been imprisoned in this durance of light? This radiant place that resembled a celestial cloister, something out of the stories of heaven in many cultures and religions? Yet this radiant prison was that: a jail, a tortuous cell of pure light that burned away at her undead flesh twenty-four hours, seven days a week without leaving a single burn, leaving her in perpetual vampire’s agony. She needed to scream, but no one could hear her. She could barely hear herself over the perpetual hum of solar light, its forever-scorching incinerating every extremity of her body and melting away at her core – all while simultaneously keeping her agonizingly alive.

The Mundilfari heiress – the Countess – the prime minister’s crimson eyes were clenched shut. It was all she could do to try and forget the light burning her moment-to-moment.

That was the curse of Majestic Maximillian. That was the hell that he’d prepared for undead like Viola Mundilfari. Not the hell of fire and brimstone, of sulphur and isolation from God. No, this was a celestial hell that Majestic Max had crafted specially for the dark champion of Arendelle.

It was morning. Or was it night? It didn’t matter, not anymore. Her gaol was perpetual. Majestic Max telepathically suspended her naked body in the air of her own throne room in Mundilfari Keep, paralyzed, melting away forever with her consciousness cruelly intact. He smiled sadistically as he enjoyed the crackling of sunbeams wrapping around Vi, having watched her in this state of torture for over several weeks.

“Don’t blame me for savoring my victory, even if you didn’t put up much of a fight,” he laughed. He flicked some dust off the blazer of his three-piece white suit, before vainly brushing back his immaculately set blond hair. He adjusted his glasses, eyes flashing. “Unless you break my Lunar Seal – and that chance passed for you long ago – you have no chance of resisting me.” He pursed his lips, pacing back and forth about Vi’s chamber.

“Now that you’re bound to me, and I’ve had my fill of playing with you, I shall use you to infiltrate the Arendellian inner circles. You shall introduce me as an aristocratic friend with plenty of noble titles. And once I’m bored of LARPing, I shall unleash my powers inside Arendelle Castle and wipe out everyone – including your precious Anna.”

He glanced up at Vi’s suspended body, bathed in tendrils of constraining, constricting, choking light. “Isn’t that a simple but brilliant plan! When Mother truly awakens, she’ll reward me well!”

But before he could finish, the door to the throne room unexpectedly burst open. Max whipped around, unable to hide his shock – he was sure that no one knew of his presence in the keep except for Vi, and she was his prisoner. “Who dares interrupt?” he demanded.

He found himself staring into two pairs of enraged eyes – one of noble green, the other of canine yellow. Hilde’s upper body, rippling with lean muscles, slowly moved in Majestic Max’s direction as she let out a quiet growl simmering with fury. To see her mistress in such a state of tortuous, agonizing suspended animation was unbearable. But she moved with purpose and priority, military woman that she was, and the first task at hand was to subdue, to crush, to beat the Moonborn. Alan felt likewise. The commander of Queen Anna’s Borealis Corps raised his saber, his face twisted in rage.

“Moonborn,” he growled, “Screw you, Moonborn!”

His voice rose in tenor and pitch as he burst forward with little introduction, howling with rage. Majestic Max quickly raised his hand, and from above and below four beams of light shot directly at Alan. “Hah!” laughed the superhuman being. “The Countess couldn’t escape my Lunar Seal’s abilities. How can you, a mortal, hope to do so?”

But something was off. Majestic Max realized that while Alan was sprinting at him, the ground was shaking with… something. And as if in response to the pillars of sunlight hurtling at Alan, a storm of ice shards erupted from the castle stone, blowing a hole in the floor and enveloping Alan in a fierce blizzard. The sunbeams melted through the initial layers of the ice, but the froststorm was unending and Majestic Max’s attack fizzled out. Alan was getting closer, and Majestic Max stepped back, raising his hands and snarling, “Who are you, boy?”

Above the roar of his ice storm, Alan said coldly, as he slowly unbuttoned his military cloak, revealing a lean torso with sculpted, trained muscles, “You’re not worth my contempt.” Bare-chested, clutching his sabre, amidst the howling indoor storm that was blowing apart the windows and sending glass flying everywhere and the chandelier above swinging dangerously, he pointed his sword at Majestic Max, and that was when the latter realized that it was his blade from which the storm was coming – an endless funnel of spinning, howling, raging rime and snow and frost – that Alan was at one with the elements.

“Your sunlight is but another element for me to take on,” growled Alan, as he suddenly lashed out at Majestic Max, thrusting his ice-entwined sword in the outraged, roaring Moonborn’s face…

*

Some weeks earlier

They were in the forest clearing some distance from Arendelle, fighting ferociously. This was the big day. The day when Alan showed Hilde just how he could help her save Vi, and in doing so, protect Elsa and Anna.

This was Hilde’s final test, after what seemed an eternity of training. Alan would describe it more as being beaten down repeatedly so that he could be reformed, and Hilde was one tough teacher. But now he was duelling her – truly tussling with her as a near-equal, and his heart sang with pride as she finally took him seriously enough for her wolf’s fur to begin emerging, for her to transform real-time as she danced a martial ballet with Alan, testing his reflexes and nimbleness as he thrust his saber at her repeatedly, swirling shards of ice and hail dancing around him. For the first time, Hilde felt a cut opening at the side of her arm as one of the sharp, space-cold pellets struck her, and her eyes glowed as her face began to distort and elongate, before she struck Alan with a single punch, hurling him several yards away and sending him crashing into a tree. Only the storm of ice around him softened the impact, and Alan knew that it would have been over, had it been the old him.

But this was not the old him. He was far more than his former self. Commander Hilde, to her credit, had made sure of that.

“Rime to Skadi,” whispered Alan, “Secret Von Altheim weapon incantation.” He pointed his sword at the werewolf stomping towards him, with Hilde’s blonde ponytail completely disappearing amidst a rich, thick coat of fur. “Hey, you showed and taught me this. Don’t blame me.” From his blade’s tip erupted a stream of hail that shot at Hilde, and the werewolf catapulted into the sky, far above the canopy of the forest, before hurtling down like a meteor, crashing past branches and leaves, and slamming into the ground, forcing Alan to roll away and send several barrages of ice at Hilde. Hilde swatted them away with her massive claws and arms, before spreading her limbs and howling bestially at the sky.

“Aaaawooooooo!”

Alan grimaced. “Effortlessly metamorphisizing from werewolf to woman, and back again, with no thought of a full moon. The Von Altheim clan’s secret arts are terrifying indeed, and even this relatively unknown spell – one that you thought I’d be best suited to control – is leagues above any technique I’ve ever tried.” He stared at the snarling Hilde’s fierce eyes as she exhaled, steam issuing from her razor-sharp teeth and saliva slipping down her jowls. “You said that it’s powered by my emotions, and my strongest is that of my love for Elsa. So that means…”

Hilde sprinted at Alan again, and in a few terrifying moments was already in his face, her long claws raised to shred him to bits if he didn’t fight back. He roared to meet Hilde’s superhumanly strong swing, blocking her claws with his sword as he summoned a new hailstorm to pummel her from below, ice smashing into Hilde’s lycanthrope body. He’d actually managed to hit her, and hard.

“… that means that my love makes me stronger than anyone who’s ever used your Rime to Skadi! I wield the power of the old goddess of frost,” cried Alan, thrusting at Hilde again and forcing her back. Hilde’s eyes glinted as she circled around Alan, growling softly. Alan’s eyes darted from side to side. “Haven’t had enough yet, Teacher?” he said, panting hard. Keeping his focus with so much elemental power from his incantation was hard, he had to admit. It was why Hilde had insisted on fortifying his body and mind before even beginning to teach Alan how to invoke the spell without even uttering it from his lips.

“You want to test me further? For Vi’s sake? For the sisters’ sake?” Alan licked his lips. “I can train and spar all day, Teacher. I’m not scared of you anymore – at least, not as much as I used to be. Let’s go.”

Hilde let out a bloodcurdling howl and flew at Alan again, fangs bared.

*

Present day

Majestic Max was horrified as he conjured, just in time, a golden protective forcefield that blocked Alan’s sword from stabbing into his face. My spell should have melted his sword, he thought in panic, as he suddenly felt Hilde smash into his shoulder with a mighty left hook, sending him flying across the throne room and crashing on the other side. He scrambled up, the shield of light wrapping around him in a sphere. Yet his command of ice seems to match my mastery of light, of my brother’s lordship over wind, of…

His eyes widened as he saw Hilde’s hateful eyes glaring at him, and he couldn’t react in time as she threw a lightning-fast punch at him at the same time as Alan swung his blizzard-encased sword on Majestic Max’s head. The Moonborn’s golden bubble, already straining and cracked across like a boiled egg about to be shattered, finally broke apart in a splinter of light from Alan and Hilde’s combined attack, and he was flung back, his beams of light no longer able to match Alan’s all-consuming rime-storm or Hilde’s blinding lycanthrope speed and deadly force.

“Impossible! A Moonborn like me… on the back foot against lowlifes, devolved creatures like you?!” he screamed in outrage.

“Deal with it,” snapped Alan, raising his sword for a finishing strike. “Hilde, get to Vi! Save her!”

*

TO BE CONTINUED!