Reprise

Chapter 18: Omis Ravir

The manticore gargoyle pawed the ground, thick haunches rolling up on its stone body. Full length, it had to be twenty feet long.

"What do we do?" Ariel asked.

"Maybe it's friendly," Rapunzel said.

It leaped forward, charging them. Ariel dove to one side. Rapunzel to the other. Elsa stumbled back, leaving a jumbled growth of ice spikes where she stood. The beast crushed them with its stone pillar legs. It raised a leg before Elsa.

A blast of light knocked aside the canis's face.

"Hey, over here!" Ariel shouted. She held out her trident, aimed at its head.

Seeing a more immediate threat, the colossus turned towards a new victim. "What do I do? What do I do?" Ariel shouted.

"Shoot it!" Elsa said.

Ariel blasted it with lightning. Its stone head jerked back, but couldn't be hurt.

Elsa saw her chance. A smooth patch of ice spread under the monster's legs. As it stepped on, the ice cracked into a spider-web. It must have weighed tons--too heavy to slip up.

Ariel backed against the border of the clearing. "Help me, guys!"

Rapunzel backed against a tree. She heaved her hair over a branch and skittered up. After a few more wraps, she made a leaping dive off. She swung in an arc across the clearing, screaming like a savage. The beast craned to look, but its neck was too thick for a full turn.

Rapunzel landed on the monster's back. She slammed her frying pan down with a resounding iron clang. "You. Leave. Her. Alone," she said, each word emphasized with a blow from the pan.

Its eyes squinted with each blow, head bouncing with each jolt. Ariel ran back to open ground.

The beast shook its haunches like a wet dog, slower and heavier.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rapunzel wobbled back and forth until she couldn't hold on anymore. She flew off headfirst, toward a nasty fall on the hard ground.

Elsa followed her with her hand. A snow drift appeared in front of Rapunzel where she landed, buried. She popped up, a pyramid of snow on her head. "Thanks," she said.

Elsa nodded, hiding her annoyance. She had the best chance of defeating the beast, if she wasn't spending all her time saving the others. "Ariel, get behind her," Elsa called out.

While Ariel maneuvered away, Elsa concentrated on forming jagged balls of hard ice. The beast turned its head. The ice chunk fell on the monster's head, jarring it. Then another. Another. Another. All it did was make it madder. She tried bigger ones. No reaction.

Elsa gritted her teeth. She shot melted ice shards at the colossus. A jagged glaze of frost coated its head, belly and front legs. The beast shook it off, pawing away the bigger chunks.

"It's a rock, Elsa. It doesn't care about freezing," Rapunzel said while Ariel helped her out of the snow.

Elsa didn't listen. Bigger ice. More ice. A blizzard as intense as the arctic. She would bring down this monster or die trying.

Elsa's eyes faded into a white glow. Constant ice shot out of her hands. The monster ran forward. Elsa was concentrating so hard, she didn't think about getting out of the way. She had to stop it.

Ariel fired her trident. Two shots hit it in the jaw. The third sideswiped its legs.

It burbled in pain and lost its footing. Eight tons of stone slid straight toward Elsa, scraping away topsoil. Rapunzel tackled her out of the way.