Hey guys, sorry for the wait again. To make it up to you guys, this is an extra long chapter. The story is almost done, and this chapter has lots of action and pain. I cried writing this, is that normal? Anyways, enjoy! :D

Disclaimer: Only Nyx is mine.

As I prepared to lunge at her, swords drawn, a burning pain shot up my left wrist to my elbow, making me cry out and drop my weapons.

I looked down, confused, holding my wrist up to the dim moonlight that shone through the tunnel. There was an emerald rune carved into the inside of my wrist, glowing a florescent green through my gauntlet. It seemed to be burning, singing the surrounding skin and setting my nerves on fire. As I watched, my left gauntlet slowly melted away, leaving my wrist bare. The skin was black and charred, molten veins glowing green and visible, snaking their way up my arm. The rune itself was a maze of swirls and lines, completely unreadable. Yet I could feel the heat and power emanating from it. Where previously I had been blinded by pain, now I gritted my teeth and forced myself to think.

Where did it come from? What does it mean? How can magic effect me in my demon from? The only thing that could effect me would be-

"It seems," Hela observed, "that even if you could find Loki again, there would be nothing there to save." She stepped forwards, her pointed nail digging into my chin as she brought my face up to hers. "You're," her eyes drove into mine like bullets, "too," a savage smirk lit up her features, "late."

And my claws swiped across her stomach.

She reeled back, clutching her stomach, black blood gushing between her fingers. She was injured, not dying. She could heal, she had magic. I don't. I won't think about what this means until she is dead. I can't think about him until she is dead. I don't think I could survive thinking about him now. Not that I'm sure that I'll survive either way.

"You bitch." Hela stood up, her staff gleaming through her fingers. I could see the skin knitting itself back together underneath her slashed armour. "I should've killed you when I had the chance." Fathomless black eyes gleamed as the staff lit up, somehow glowing with darkness. I managed to duck and roll to the side seconds before the beam of magic charred the wall where I once stood. "You're a disgrace to your kind!" She moved towards me, sword in one hand and staff in the other. Her wound was fully healed.

I wanted to stop, appear calm, and say something infuriating. The Demon within disagreed. Instead, I smiled, razor teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and teleported. Hela whirled around, weapons raised, yelling curses in a Demon language I didn't understand. Her eyes showed anger and rage, but betrayed a single hint of fear. I played with it. Staying incorporeal, I started laughing. A slow, deep laugh that echoed through the hallways, source indefinite, bouncing off the walls and making Hela spin 360 degrees, slashing her sword through the air. "I have no kind." My voice was deep, demonic, laced with the souls of all those whom I had killed.

The beast that had been caged for eternity was free, and having its fun. I was content to let it. I knew that when I regained control all it would bring me would be pain and grief and self hatred.

"Face me, coward. Taunting is for those who lack the ability to fight." Hela yelled, her black tendrils of magic swirling around her body like vipers.

Before I could even think to plan my next move, I had teleported behind the Queen of the Dead, and sank my teeth into the flesh of her wrist, tearing her hand from her arm. Woah. Blood spurting from the stump of arm, her sword clattered to the ground as the severed hand was spat across the tunnel. It lay there, lifeless, as Hela screamed and whirled around to face me. She tried to stab me with her staff, but before she could swing it towards me, I was gone, grinning and laughing the whole time.

I reappeared next to her, and swung a roundhouse kick to her side, where my claws had slashed her before, and she was sent reeling to the ground. Hela swung around to land on her back, swinging her staff at the same time, magic swirling around it like vines. It hit me before I could teleport, and I was flung to the far side of the tunnel. Shit.

I lay there, on the ground, a slumped figure in the shadows. The force of the blow had knocked the wind out of me, and I was fairly sure I had broken a rib. I felt the warm stickiness of blood running down my left side, from a deep cut, pooling on the ground beside me. Without magic, that won't heal. Wincing, I shifted so I could see Hela get up off the ground, clutching her severed wrist to her chest, and start towards me. She hauled me up by my hair, bringing me up to standing and resting the tip of her staff at my throat. Her other hand gripped my side, where the cut was, my blood pooling out between her fingers. I gasped for air and kicked out at her, my blow made contact and she hissed and tightened her grip on my side. I growled low in my throat.

"My magic exceeds all power you could ever have. No matter how much you embrace your demon side, you will never be a match for me." She laughed in my ear and whispered, "I want you to know that before I kill you." She pressed the point of her staff deeper into my neck with the hand that wasn't fisted into my cut, effectively cutting off my airway. I struggled for a grip on something, anything, so I could lash out, but I was running out of air. Fast. I went limp in her arms.

Her foul breath tickled my ear as she hissed, "you should thank me, this way you get to see Loki again."

I waited until I felt the magic from her staff emanate onto my skin, seeping in and burning away my armoured chest plate. The smirk on her face told me the spell was supposed to kill me slowly and painfully.

Just as she was relaxing her grip on my hair, I span around and sank my claws into her throat.

Black blood ran down my hand and onto her chest ad she stared at me, black eyes wide with alarm and fear. Blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth as she opened her mouth to speak. A strangled "how-?" escaped her lips before she coughed, and blood sprayed from her mouth and onto my neck. She was still alive, I could feel her magic rushing to heal the wound in her throat. I didn't remove my claws.

Instead, I leaned forwards, my body pressed flush against hers, my claws digging deeper into her throat, poking out of the other side. I whispered in her ear much like she did to me, "magic can't effect me in this form. If you really knew the true extent of my power you would know that."

Hela's remaining hand clutched at my wrist, and her mouth was open and streaming blood. I was close enough to her to smell the decay and rot emanating from her, and that all of the blood she lost from her throat, arm and mouth went onto me. Where her blood touched the metal of my armour, it burned it away. But I did not remove my claws.

Hela's eyes betrayed her fright. "You won't kill me." She whispered, her voice croaky and strained through the claws in her windpipe. She was dying, and she knew there was no way to avoid it. "You need me." She wasn't even struggling against my grip anymore, she was desperate, afraid.

"I don't need you." I spat in her face, and she winced. I twisted my claws, minutely, and she screamed again, blood streaming down her chin and onto me. "It's too late to save yourself." I twisted my claws in her throat again. "It's." Twist. "Too." Twist. "Late."

I removed my claws from her throat, and she crumpled to the ground.

I fell to my knees next to her, tears of blood streaming down my face and teeth bared. My side was burning and throbbing with every heartbeat. Hela was still alive, writhing on the floor, breath rattling out through her slashed throat. She tried to haul herself up into a sitting position, but I lunged, both sets of claws sank deep into each side of her stomach as I straddled her. She looked up at me in fright as I looked down at her in fury.

"You're," she coughed, more blood spraying onto my face and increasing my headache, "a monster."

A growl started in my chest, rose up and out of my mouth and sounded more animalistic and evil than anything I had ever heard. "I know." Was all I said through gritted teeth, sounding strained, crimson eyes shining with a crazed light. And then I brought my claws out of her body, and back in, and out, stabbing her dozens of times as the life faded out of her eyes and all of my pent up rage escaped. I was using her as a punch bag and a pin cushion, long after she was dead, stabbing her all over her torso and covering both of us in her blood.

After the fit of rage passed, I collapsed and rolled to the side of Hela's tattered corpse. I lay there, screaming, crying, yelling in languages I had never spoken or heard before. Blood streamed from my side, and down my face, and covered my entire body. My hands and claws were coated in her blood, dripping onto the floor. Tears ran down my face, mixing with the layers of grime and blood and sweat that coated my skin. My head was bleeding from somewhere along the line, and the blood was sticking my hair to my head along with the grime. My armour was tattered and almost gone, covering only the bare minimum and leaving my stomach and back bare. My vision was blotchy, my head was on fire, and my side was sending millions of electrical sparks through my entire body. I was exhausted, my body heavy with sleep and something else, slumped and unable to move.

I was losing blood. Fast. Too fast.

I had been weak to start with, running off the energy Thor had lent me.

Thor. I glanced across the tunnel, and saw him, still crumpled in a heap on the ground. Unconscious. But alive.

"You're a monster." Hela had said. When the Queen of the Dead calls you a monster you must be.

I glanced down at my hands, my vision blurring out at the edges. They were covered in Hela's black blood, and my red blood, but under all that was the red skin that marked me as a demon. The claws that were coated in black marked me as a murderer. A monster.

I knew I was going to pass out.

I knew Loki was dead.

I knew I didn't want to wake up.

Those three things were what drove me to muster up the energy to raise my wrist to my mouth, and sink my teeth into my flesh. The skin was tore from the bone, flying across the floor in what seemed like slow motion, and the blood splattered onto my face, blinding me even more and filling my senses with the coppery smell of blood. Tattered shreds of skin stuck to my teeth and hung grotesquely from my chin. Like a monster. My hand thudded to the ground, and the sound echoed in my mind. My head hit the floor next, and I was overwhelmed by the smell and taste of blood as my vision was consumed by blackness. As my mind numbed and quieted, and my heartbeat slowed then stopped, all I could think was that Hela had been right.

This way I do get to see Loki again.

And there it is! This was actually really fun to write, even if it was seriously painful. Poor Nyx...

Has anyone seen Dracula: Untold yet? I swear that film is amazing.

Please rate and review! I swear I will update more often...