Thana slammed into the roof of a massive apartment building. She rolled over, staring into the empty hood of its cloak. It struggled against her, reaching with its sharp, bony fingers towards her throat. With a swift kick, Thana sent the vulture hurling back. She jumped up to her feet and twirled her scythe expertly in her hand. The vulture staggered up again, and with a screech, shot towards her, talons extended. Thana, with the deadliest look of anger in her eye, swung her scythe up, watching the tip break through the top of the vulture's hood. It exploded in a shriek of purple flames. She looked up just in time to see the second vulture smash to the roof, its once frozen body shattering into pieces. They too erupted into small bursts of purple.

Jack landed softly beside her. She was breathing heavily not from fatigue, but from rage. The scythe was gripped in white knuckles.

"Thana-" Jack began.

"It isn't over yet." Thana muttered. Her eyes were fixed on a wispy, black cloud in the distance. As it grew closer, Jack's eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. Like a swarm of flies, the vultures sped towards them.

"Gunza is with them." Thana said, though Jack wasn't sure that it was for him.

"Gunza?"

"The Hela. The Warden of Helheim." She turned to him and just as always, her eyes made his heart jump into his throat. Thana looked back at the ever-growing swarm of vultures and exhaled. "Jack Frost, I think it's time for you to go."

Jack blinked in shock. "You… are you telling me to leave?"

"There isn't any way around a fight, Jack. This isn't like the war you had with Pitch. This isn't just the happiness of kids. This is the decision of life and death. I'm not the Archangel, Azrael, for just any reason. Just as you were chosen to protect the joy of young children, I was chosen to act as a guide for the passing. The Grim Reaper, the Angel of Death, Charon the Ferryman of the river Styx, Thanatos the God of Death, whatever the hell you want to call me. This is what I'm supposed to do, not you. So to put it simply, yes. I'm telling you to get lost."

Jack was aware that the swarm was nearly there. The screeches of the vultures slowly began to prick his ears. But he couldn't get himself to move. He couldn't even speak. He could only stare at the ghostly image of the girl before him. The sun had begun to set, sending a palette of reds, oranges, and yellows through her skin. Her face was so slim from the way she held her jaw. He knew that behind her soft lips were the needles of teeth, and that behind the loose strands of long black hair were the eyes colored the wrong way. He knew that under the hoodie covered in eyes were the black feathered wings, and that behind the scythe were the souls of billions. But that didn't make him any less sure that he wanted to cup her face with his hands, brush his thumb across her lips, and tuck her hair behind her ears. Any less sure that he wanted to see those wings fully extended and carrying her through the skies, and see those souls get where they need to be. Jack wasn't sure what he felt. He didn't know what to say or how to express the fire that burnt in his heart, but he did know for certain that he wasn't going anywhere.

The swarm descended, the two spirits attacked. Jack took to the air, shooting bursts of blue lightning from his crook. He doged and ducked, twisting away from claws and jabbing at them with his crook. On the roof, Thana moved like a dancer, with the ferocity of a tiger. Her scythe spun around her body, slashing vultures left and right. She flipped and dodged, twisted and turned like she could see the vultures' attacks before they moved. Jack caught a moment where she twisted in the air and slid across the floor and instantly he remembered the day Jaimie had introduced him to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thana's body attacked like Zuko whenever he was angry, but she so gracefully carried herself like the airbenders.

The purple flames that rose from the destroyed vultures turned the shifting sunset sky into a hazy, purple fog. The spirits were fighting well, but they were losing their strength. Just as his first time fighting a vulture, Jack's body was suddenly littered with cuts and marks. Below, he could see that Thana was growing sluggish. A long gash stretched from the back of her jaw to the curve of her nose, and her shoulders rose and fell with heavy breathing. In his moment of distraction, a stroke of burning pain raced across his back. He only had enough time to yelp before talons wrapped around his arms and dragged him from the sky. He hit the roof hard, knocking the wind from his lungs. A wave of nausea spread across the back of his eyes and his body turned to lead. He tried lifting his head up, and found that the two sets of talons pinning his arms down made it much more difficult to do so. In his blurred vision he could see a group of four vultures all standing around Thana, but they weren't fighting. It took him a moment to realize that like him, they were keeping her held down.

A shape plummeted from the sky down onto the rooftop. A pair of black wings unfurled to reveal a woman. Now, Thana had mentioned the Hela briefly, and of course Jack had used his imagination as to what she looked like. But when the Hela turned out to be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, Jack found himself starstruck. Her long, white hair billowed out around her as if she were under water. Her skin was milk-white and had a glistening touch to it. Her body was draped in a deep, black garment that turned out to be shadows. They crawled from her neck until they swirled into the floor, making her appear as if she stood in a tornado that hugged her body tightly. Two, ivory horns crawled out from behind pointed ears until they stood like a crown on her head. When she smiled, two sets of fangs poked out from her lips.

Thana, surrounded by the vultures, bared her teeth at the Hela. A wolf's snarl rolled in her throat. "Gunza." She growled. "What do you think you're doing?"

Gunza made a noise that sounded like a bird in agony and just as Jack was sure his ears were going to bleed did he realize that she was laughing.

"Oh, my sweet and ignorant Azrael. I'm doing exactly what I need to do."

"Destroying the humanity of whatever souls you please? Cursing everyday humans with a painful existence? Forcing people to die?!"

"Yes, yes, and YES!" She squealed in delight.

"You cannot just decide to break the order of things because you want to roll in power!"

"But Azrael, that is exactly what I am doing! Don't you understand how much I've longed for my beautiful shadows to roam this realm once again? They miss the fresh air! The blue sky!" Her face changed and became morbid. Angry. "The pitiful screams of lost and unfortunate souls."

Something inside Thana broke. A fire in her chest spread to her lungs and the angry cry of a banshee burst from her throat. Her jaw split like a canine's mouth, her needle teeth reaching all the way back to her cheek bones. Her black wings burst from her shoulders, tearing two of the vultures to pieces. The other two had no time to move before they were reduced to purple flames by way of her scythe.

"That is not how it works!" She screamed.

"Then perhaps how it works does not work!" Gunza screamed back. Her once golden eyes burst like flames and she bared her fangs.

"We are a linear, Gunza!" Thana went on. "There is purpose in Edri's existence and there is purpose in mine! We are cogs on a wheel! A system!"

"And it is clear to me, that whatever being put you here, was gravely mistaken!" The haze of purple around them began to thicken, making it harder for Jack to see. His crook was strewn to the side, just inches away from his fingers.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Thana held her scythe in both hands. Gunza shook her head, laughing once again.

"You've spent too much time on this miserable relm, Azrael! You are so disconnected from the world of the dead that you bring souls without any idea what is happening. That fool of an Anubis sorts the dead with a blindfold! He sends souls left and right, all of them towards Hades while my dungeons and streets of nightmares are left to rot."

"Edri sorts as an Anubis. Your kingdom being empty has nothing to do with him."

"Anubis is soft hearted and believes that everyone is good. He is biased and we were better off without him."
"How can you think so selfishly? You dare destroy the realm of humans because there is less evil? You try to bring Cassius to share the blame?"

"Hades is affected just the same, Azrael. While my streets are free from the screams of tortured souls, his are overflowing and cramped. He is tired, Azrael. Lines miles long stretch from his throne with souls all waiting for his word."

"And do you think that justifies killing those who were not meant to die?"

"You know… I now realize that it means that the old way was right. Hades and I were far greater without the likes of you or Anubis." With a flick of her wrist, a long, leather cord extended out from her wrist. The black whip was tipped with a large barbed thorn, that Jack could have sworn had steam rising from it. "Don't misunderstand me. I didn't originally plan to kill you, but now I see. If I want to rise again, that is exactly what I must do."

The haze suddenly vanished as the two burst into the sky. Wings fully extended, the two battled in a frenzy of black feathers. Jack could see out of the corner of his eye that the vultures holding him down were focused on the battle above. Their talons were less gripped around his arms and he found that he had the ability to move. As quickly as he could manage, his arm extended out and his fingers looped around his crook. With just a flick, the first vulture was a block of ice. The second vulture shrieked and flapped its wings. Its talons gripped around Jack's arm like a vice. He tried to shoot at it, but it just dodged out of the way and lashed out with its other talon. The boney claw was a mere centimeter away from his throat, when the force of a flying object knocked it away. The talon slipped off of Jack's arm as the body began to light up purple. Jack ducked as the object came flying back, and followed it back to the blue paw of none other than the Easter Bunny.

"Bunny?!"

"Sorry I'm late, mate." He threw two more boomerangs just as another vulture swooped from the sky. Jack shot jets of ice at two more.

"Why are you here?!"

"Nice to see you too, Frost."

"What happened to Pitch Black and fighting him?"

"I followed you to Ireland, mate. Saw what happened to the Autumn season." A boomerang shot back into his paw, and he back kicked a vulture straight into dust.

"Does this mean you believe me?" Jack leaped over him, freezing another vulture.

"The fact that I'm here says that exactly."

From above, the howl of a hellhound pierced their ears. The two fell to their knees clutching at their heads as the horrifying sound rendered them imobile. Jack's gaze shot up. Thana's wings had spread as wide as they could, feathers ripping away from its base. They hurled towards Gunza, swarming her and attacking her. It took the two Guardians to realize that they weren't feathers. From within her wings, hundreds of ravens attacked the Hela with ferocity. Pulling at her hair, attacking her wings. Gunza shrieked again and erupted into a body of golden flames. The ravens burnt up, leading a trail of fire straight back to Thana. Her eyes went wide and she instinctively tucked her wings back in.

"Wrong move, Angel of Death." Gunza threw her whip, cracking around Thana's body. She threw her arm down, sending Thana straight into the ground, twenty stories below the roof. The ground broke underneath her with a mighty crack. A smile as wide as a snake split Gunza's face. She slowly floated down to the ground where Thana lay, sprawled with crooked wings.

"Gunza…" she coughed out at the Hela. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand."

"Azrael," Gunza began, touching the ground. "You are not a ruler. You do not have a kingdom, or subjects. You don't have the responsibility of watching over the souls, you just bring them here. You don't decide their day to day. Their eternity once they are brought wherever they need to be, is decided not by you. But by myself, and Hades.

"The way it works, as you hold so highly, doesn't work. While Hades' streets are clogged with spirits, mine whistle in lack of them. And neither you, nor the Anubis contributes to the improvement. I had hoped for you, Azrael, don't get me wrong. With your contribution to our realm, you have made it so that we can focus on our subjects rather than finding new ones. But now, you just add to the flame that burdens us."

Thana stared up at the woman cloaked in darkness and smiled. This woman who Thana had looked to like a sister was now the same woman who was going to kill her. That was unavoidable. She laughed, causing Gunza to frown.

"What's so funny?"

"You aren't going to succeed, Gunza." Thana said. "You can kill whoever you want, but in the end, you will be stopped. The Guardians of this world will stop you."

"Pfft, the Guardians are going to stop me? A boy who froze to death and an oversized bunny rabbit?"

"All of them. Even the ones who protect the darkness. They will stop you, and you will fail."

Gunza's eyes drifted over Thana's body, until a glint a few feet away caught her eye. Thana's scythe rested untouched on the ground. Her eyes lingered on it, before she picked it up. Thana's smile disappeared.

"Not without this I won't."

As Gunza raised the blade, Thana connected her eyes with her. Where they once held a passion, now they truly only were demonic eyes.

"Goodbye then. Hela."