𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕖𝕥 {𝕍𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕩 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣}

-Chapter Twenty-One- Ready As I'll Ever Be

/now it's time to step up/ or it's time to back down/ and there's only one answer for me/ so i'll stand up and fight/ 'cause i know that i'm right!/ and i'm ready, i'm ready, i'm ready/ ready as i'll ever be!/

-ready as i'll ever be, varian and the tangled cast

By the time Ruddiger returned to the lab, Varian and Y/n were nearly ready for the inevitable battle that was to come.

The queen was still unconscious. Y/n had bound her mother's hands with rope, and the woman was lying against a black rock on the other side of the room.

The automatons were done. Once they had completed the first one, it was stupidly easy to replicate it again and again. They had over a dozen now, and the two had just finished planting them in the tunnels of Old Corona, ready to burst out the second a motion sensor was triggered.

"We're sure this is going to work?" Y/n called out hesitantly, turning from the drill she had been repairing. It was the same as before, but with one modification- there was a space for something to be fed through and coat the tip.

Specifically, Rapunzel's hair.

"Positive!" Varian shouted over the whirr of a smaller drill.

He pulled his mask back up and rested it on his head as the drill spun to a stop. He was on the other side of the laboratory, and was working on his custom automaton. Unlike the others, he would be able to pilot this one directly, and it was their last resort if this didn't go well.

As the mechanism stopped, he turned to Y/n with a cold smile. "The king will want to launch a full-scale attack to rescue the queen, but Rapunzel will convince him otherwise."

Y/n nodded, pushing the drill aside, the glow of her golden streak glinting on its tip. "Right, and they'll try to launch a stealth attack, using as many people as they can find for a diversion, while Rapunzel and my father try to sneak in here with the tunnels. The automatons will target the diversion group, and we have the trap ready for Rapunzel and the king when they get in here."

She glanced up at Varian. "But that's not what I'm talking about. Are we sure that Rapunzel can break the amber?"

Varian sighed, and looked away. "Yes. She has to."

Y/n didn't force him to say anything else on the matter. Instead, she checked the pockets of her coat- a dozen spheres of her modified amber compound, and one vial of the original.

She smirked as she looked at her mother, asleep on the ground.

This is going to be fun.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

The queen woke up several hours later.

She refused to speak, and hadn't uttered a word since the compound had worn off. The queen hadn't bothered to remark on the automaton, or Y/n's glowing hair, or the massive tarp in the center of the lab. She kept glancing at Y/n, though, as she finished their preparations. Varian had left the house to go check on the automatons in the tunnels, so Y/n was left with her mother, who just kept looking at her.

She looked... disappointed.

It made Y/n furious.

"I would have left you in that storm, you know." Y/n commented nonchalantly, like she was discussing the weather. Her back was turned to her mother, but she heard the queen's footsteps as she turned to face her youngest daughter.

"Rapunzel sent her boyfriend and her gang of thugs to save you and Dad." Her fists clenched. "I just think you should know that if it were my choice? I'd have let you freeze."