As the embodiment of the winter season, Jack Frost had never felt cold since he had been resurrected. However, the moment he stepped out from the flames, the uncomfortable pricking of rising goosebumps flared up and down his body. Jack and Cassius had manifested into an unforgiving storm of ice and snow, barren of any sign of life.

"Oh, JEEZ!" Jack shouted, clutching his arms for warmth. "Why is it so cold?!"

"Why does everyone assume that Hell is hot?"

Jack glanced beside him, ready to shoot back when the sight of Cassius made his jaw drop. Gone were the black and grey pajama pants, stained, white t-shirt, and matted grey robe. Gone was the beaver dam mess of blonde twigs, and gone was the smell of stale coffee. Cassius stood next to Jack in ripped, black jeans adorned with silver chains and a studded belt, a denim black vest littered with patches over an Iron Maiden T-shirt, and thick, black boots that almost reached his knees. There were gunmetal and silver rings all throughout his ears, lips, and around his fingers. His hair had been braided in the front, pinned back with a gunmetal olive-branch clip. If that wasn't enough, he sported two tattoo sleeves, another massive tattoo on the left side of his neck, and Jack could see more through the rips in his jeans.

Noticing Jack's surprise, Cassius snorted back a laugh.

"Well don't you clean up fast!" The winter spirit shivered.

"Hey, it's been ages since I've been outside." Cassius said, starting to push through the snowstorm. "Might as well look good while doing it." He started forward, beginning to cross the snowy mountains. Jack wobbled behind him, trying and failing to float on the heavy gales.

"Where are we going, anyway?!" He shouted over the storm.

"The Warden's Keep!" Cassius shouted back. There was a wild grin on his face, as if he enjoyed the violence of the weather. "That's where The Hela sits, watching over this place!" He pointed his finger at a wide angle, to a thin, forked peak that stretched high above the reaches of the storm. Jack's jaw dropped.

"We have to climb all the way up there?!"

"Scared?!" Cassius teased him.

"Of course I'm scared! Do you know how long it's been since I've felt cold?!"

The King of Elysium rolled his eyes. "Oh come on! You can't be nipping at your own nose! Where's your sense of adventure?!"

"If you have any clue of the adventure I've had up to this point-"

"Yeah yeah yeah, quit whining and let's go!"

As they hiked up higher and higher towards The Warden's Keep, strange phenomena began to appear around them. The mesh net of wind and snow was suddenly entangled with faces and bodies. Black eyes and empty mouths flashed in the distance. Horror-like nightmares etched into view. Ghosts and apparitions appeared before Jack's eyes, swiping and trying to grab at him. One appeared inches in front of his nose, teeth flashed and eyes filled with hatred. An angry scream disappeared into the wind with it. Jack yelped, falling in surprise.

"What are those things?!" He shouted to Cassius. The king turned, quickly pulling Jack up to his feet and holding him by the scruff of his hoodie.

"They're spirits of the damned!" Cassius pulled him along. "Fragments of the humans that they once were, confined to walk through the Fields of Punishment for eternity!"

"I thought hell was more of a seven circles kind of thing!"

"When the guilty are tried as such, Gunza analyzes their sins and sentences them the way she sees fit! In this case there are two kinds of walking! The winter roam, on this side, and the summer roam on the other! It's the same thing but instead of ice-capped mountains they're trailing through neverending desert and sand dunes!"

"Sounds better than this!" Jack stumbled beside him.

"You ever been under a fully risen sun longer than an hour!? Cassius laughed. "I didn't expect a winter spirit to ever consider the heat!"

"Consider a personal preference!"

Cassius yanked Jack forward. More and more spirits started popping up and Jack could tell that they were all sprouting from the direction of the castle. They were close. Slowly, they fought through the roar of the storm, until finally, nearly 3 hours later, they reached the summit. Far along the chain of the mountains, Jack could see them change from white and black, to a radiant, and fiery gold. A wave of heat distorted the rest of the desert, and not one, but two massive suns beat down on the sand. Perched right between the gradient was a giant, stone tower, like a black chess piece.

"The Warden's Keep," Cassius half-whispered. Jack glanced at him. There was a look on the King's face that Jack couldn't place. An internal war almost. He could hear the back and forth conversations going on in Cassius' head, preparing him for what was going to take place. Shivering, Jack squeezed the King's shoulder.

"Come on. Let's finish this."

The entrance to the Warden's Keep was the spitting image of the gates of Mordor. Two towers loomed before a massive black gate, fixed perfectly in between the forked mountain peak. A defining line split the moment of snow and sand, right up to the split in the gate. Behind the gates stood the chess piece. A hurricane swirl of clouds thundered above it, wispy shapes weaving in and out like crows.

"Over there!" Cassius whispered, pulling Jack behind a mound of snow covered boulders. At the base of the desert tower, one of the cloaked shadows began to flap its wings rising to the top while a second shadow floated down. Shift changes. The new shadow disappeared over the top of the tower. Cassius sprinted from behind the boulders and threw himself at the shadow. Jack stared as the cloaked figure slammed face down into the snow, writhing against the incredible power of the king. Cassius held it until it stopped writhing and dissolved into a cloud of purple smoke. He beckoned Jack over and the two pressed themselves against the wall of the tower.

"How did you know to do that?" Jack asked him, trying hard to prevent his jaw from beginning to tremble.

"The shadows were just as much mine as Gunza's. So you could say I knew how they ticked." He kneeled and started to dig through the snow. With a grin, a long, black feather clasped in his hand. Jack's fingers began to buzz at the sight of the feather, memories of the shadows reaching him. An image of Thana's face flashed behind his eyes and he tore his gaze away from the feather.

"This is our ticket in," Cassius said, twirling the feather by the stem."

"The feather?" Jack questioned. "Does it camouflage us or something?"

"It's a little morbid, but when Gunza and I first created the shadows, we did so with the purpose of using them for everything, including protection. So if we needed, we could pluck one of their feathers and be teleported back to the realm of the shadow's origin."

"You're saying we can just Santa Clause our way into Guza's living room?" Jack stared at him in disbelief. "We couldn't have done that from Elysium?"

"Each realm has its wards of protection. Gunza wouldn't just let us walk in as we please. One doesn't just pop in on the Death Queen. But because this shadow originated from here, she won't know that it's us. It could just as easily be the shadow. All she'll know is that a feather from the shadow was used to-"

"Alright alright!" Jack waved his arms around. "Let's get out of the cold already, I can't feel my fingers anymore."

Cassius nodded and placed Jack's hand on his own shoulder. He took the feather in two hands and in one motion, tore it in half down the stem. A black line split the view before them like a zipper and a vacuum sucked them down into darkness.

Gunza's living room, as Jack had put it before, definitely wasn't a room to watch T.V. The two stepped out from a shallow alcove into an open hall. To their right, a set of black, iron doors, towered 30 meters tall. From the doors, the hall stretched nearly a kilometer to the other side, more empty alcoves fitted into the walls. Intricate Celtic knots were carved up the hall's support columns, throughout the doors, finally stopping at a curved ceiling. Jack's eyes followed the scenes painted above to the other end of the hall.

The tails of nine Celtic dragons jutted out from the base of the ceiling and crawled down the wall. Their heads flared out at the floor, creating a massive throne. A different sword sat in the mouths of eight of the dragons, and at the crown of the throne, the ninth dragon held Thana's scythe.

Jack felt his throat dry up at the sight of the blade. Before he had even thought of what to do next, Cassius put a hand on his shoulder, signaling him to stay. Jack watched as Cassius strode out confidently into the hall, towards the throne.

"GUNZA!"

His voice filled every corner of the throne room. He could have imagined it, but the hall seemed to rumble.

"Oh?" Jack shivered as Gunza's voice crawled through his ears. "What a surprise, Cassius. It's been years since you've appeared past my gates."

A hissing sound like rain spread through the hall, as some of the shadows in the darkest parts of the room sprinted towards the throne. They covered the throne, creating a black sphere and evaporated in an instant. Gunza sat on the throne in their place. Just as Jack remembered her, she was regal. Queen-like. Her hair still floated around gracefully and her horns still looked like a crown that would put any others to shame. Rather than a cluster of shadows to make up her dress, Jack was surprised to see her in black basketball shorts, an oversized grey hoodie, and without any shoes.

"I must say Cassius, I'm surprised. Not only are you visiting me in person, you even got dressed for it." Gunza said with a smirk. 'I knew this would work' she must have been thinking to herself. That Cassius looked so refreshed because he suddenly had much less of a burden on his shoulders. She leaned her elbows on her knees, watching as Cassius walked closer to her. "But what brings you here? Surely a special occasion of some kind? Knowing you, you'd never leave Elysium without a serious purpose."

Cassius stopped at the dragons that formed the base of the throne. He gazed at Gunza with a look in his eye that made her frown.

"I've missed you, Älskling."

Jack thought for a moment that he was daydreaming. Gunza's porcelain white face flushed a rosy pink. Her composure broke and her lips parted, aghast.

"Älskling…?" She stammered out. "It- It's been nearly a century since you've called me that." She tried to glance away, flustered and unfocused.

"You know," Cassius said with a mischievous grin on his face. "I don't know what happened recently. But the lines in Elysium have suddenly grown shorter. For once I feel like I can really sleep, and I've never felt better." He climbed over the dragon heads until he was mere inches away from her. Their legs brushed together, making Gunza twitch. She watched him with wide eyes.

"And I can't help but think," Cassius kept speaking, his voice dipping into something of a growl. "That you had something to do with it. Am I wrong?"

"I…" Gunza searched for something to say. "I may have-"

Jack suddenly turned away, crouching deeper into the alcove. He clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. Even then, he could still hear the gentle snapping sound of kissing bounce around in his head. Jack knew that Cassius had a plan but he didn't expect it to be this. Then there was another sound. It was beyond kissing now. Jack squeezed his ears even harder.

'Jack,' Cassius' voice floated around his head suddenly. Jack's eyes flew open.

'What the hell are you doing?!' he thought back to him.

'Your friends are in the stone chambers. The dungeons in the underground portion of the castle.' An image flashed in his mind of a massive room filled with prism shaped cages on the floor and sphere cages that hung from the ceiling. He could see Idyss and Pitch each inside one. Another image of Gunza's vultures standing in front of a massive section of stone wall flashed in his mind. Suddenly, Jack knew almost exactly where he needed to go.

'Get them out, and bring them to the roof of the tower. Got it?'

'What about you?'

'I'll keep Gunza off of your radar.

'Well… I can certainly see that,' Jack thought with a giggle.

'Shut up. I know this probably wasn't what you had in mind, but you're gonna have to work with it. This is the best chance you have.'

'You and Gunza, huh?'

'Oh please. You knew that she and I were the first beings of this realm and never considered the possibility that we had been in a relationship? This isn't some PG-13 disney movie. Now get moving!'

Cassius' voice disappeared from his head. Jack peered around the corner towards the throne. It was empty now and the two deities were gone. Jack stepped out from the alcove. He flew over towards the throne. On each wall beside it was a passageway out of the hall. Jack took the one on the right but quickly stopped. He turned back towards the throne and stared at Thana's scythe. His chest ached at the sight of it. He floated up to the tallest dragon head and tried to pull it free. The scythe wouldn't budge. Jack gritted his teeth.

'I'll get it." he said to himself. "I won't leave here without it." With that, Jack turned back towards the passageway and with a burst of speed, flew through the opening.