Aforementioned god was rapidly approaching the Rainbow Bridge with his wounded brother in tow. Hela was fast on their heels, though, exploding through the palace doors with tendrils of darkness trailing behind her. "You will not escape from me!" She hissed. "I am the Goddess of Death, and the Queen of Asgard!"

Stumbling along the bridge, Thor groaned. "Is that how I sound whenever I talk about it?"

"A bit less maniacal," Loki responded, "but about right. Maybe a bit heavier on the 'holier-than-thou' bit, I suppose," came the off-handed addition.

The blue-eyed God sighed. "I can't believe you managed to endure that without stabbing me."

"I did stab you," his brother reminded him. "Many times, in fact."

Thor nodded. "Justified."

Loki snorted in response. "That's what I always said, but, for some reason, my plight was consistently ignored."

They had just made it to the bridge when their pursuer caught up to them. "Weaselly runts," she growled. "You can't-" She cut herself off with a snarled scream as the two continued their trek down the bridge rather than stop to listen to her monologue. "Stop running from me! I am the Goddess of Death!" Hela repeated in anger. "What are you two the gods of? Hammers and jokes?!"

Ignoring his adoptive sister, Loki called out to the figure who seemed to be single-handedly fighting half of Hela's army. "Rose! We've got incoming!"

The Brit's head shot towards him, and she nodded quickly. She took off at a run and made it over to the godly duo in record time and wasted no time before yelling at Loki. "Oi, thanks for leaving us you tosser! Bugger," she gasped as she took in the state of Thor's body. "Am I healing or fighting?"

That question was answered as Hela once again exploded through Asgard's infrastructure, stepping down on a staircase of tendrils that were placing themselves underneath her feet as she stepped. "Finally... You can run no longer, Asgardians," she gloated.

Loki, obviously panicked, shrugged his head over his shoulder. "That answer the question?"

"Lovely..." Rose said sarcastically. "Bloody hell. You go on, mate. I've got this one." She walked warily towards the woman, who was regarding her with no small amount of disgust. "Fuck are you, some sort of My Chemical Romance spokesperson?"

Hela blinked. "Some sort of- What?" She shook her head. "Never mind that. No Asgardian can possibly hope to stand against me! Get out of my way and kneel, and I'll consider sparing your pathetic life." The witch giggled before regaining her composure, but the act still pissed the self-proclaimed 'Queen of Asgard' off. "Has your brain broken, you imbecile?"

"No, no..." Rose replied, still finding it slightly humorous. "It's just... I'm not an Asgardian." And, with those words, she sent a bolt of red magic at Hela, who braced herself to block it. The Bombarda, however, exploded upon contact, sending the Goddess slamming back into the wall behind her.

The self-crowned woman spat out a small amount of ichor and shook her head as she rose to her feet. "Oh, I am going to enjoy killing you."

Thor and Loki looked behind them at the sight of Rose blasting Hela into the wall. "Doing better than us already," Loki remarked.

His brother grunted. "We weakened her, obviously. I stabbed her in the shoulder, and you got her in the side."

The God of Trickery shrugged. "I suppose. So, want to say what that little haziness you got after that speech back there was about?" He raised an eyebrow expectantly.

The blond sighed, breathing deeply. "Father talked to me. He... he said he was proud. Of us. Something about being glad that I 'finally understood what he had been trying to teach me'. But... mainly, he reminded me that Mjolnir was always meant as a focus for me. It was not the source of my power. And, he reminded me what power was always meant to be used for."

Loki nodded, remembering the teachings the Allfather had tried their best to imbue into them both. "Power is for defending the things you care for."

A watery smile was sent Loki's way as Thor nodded. "Like your people... and your family. Because family is not decided by blood." He suddenly clasped Loki into a deep hug. "True family is the people you choose to keep the company of."

Loki let out a choked agreement. Not because he was overcome with emotion, but because his brother was hugging him tightly enough that he couldn't actually breathe.

Below the embraced duo, in the rushing tides, the Hulk and the wolf were still fighting. The wolf chomped down on the Hulk's leg and swung its head around, tearing him through the depths of the river before the Hulk decided he had had enough and slammed his fist into the beast's nose, sending it reeling off of the edge of Asgard into the abyss as it unclamped its jaw to howl in pain. The green giant nearly followed, but managed to grab onto a rock and haul himself back up.

As the last of the warriors were being destroyed, the ship that the gladiators had arrived on was being used to evacuate the Asgardian people. Skurge looked at his battleaxe in disgust as he finally comprehended what he had almost done by bending his knee at the first sign of trouble and betraying his people. He grabbed a cloak and wrapped it around his head, disguising himself as people began to be ushered onto the ship, and allowed himself to be herded along to safety.

"I've figured out who you are," Hela murmured as she took in Rose. The witch gave an expectant raise of her eyebrow as she waited for the Asgardian to finish her sentence. "You're the one that my domain has been talking to me about ever since I returned. An intruder... One who doesn't belong in this existence. An anomaly, one which must be rectified. You're the supposed 'Mistress of Death'."

"And you're the supposed 'Goddess of Death'... I guess it does have a ring to it. Maybe I'll nab it once I'm done..." Rose thought aloud. Suddenly, black spears made of darkness shot at her. Rose destroyed them with some simple Bombarda charms. They weren't strong, but they were sharp and fast. While they wouldn't kill her, they would certainly hurt. "Excuse me, I was speaking. No need to interrupt. Honestly, people these days." She rolled her eyes and sent a few curses in reply, her left hand not leaving her hip in a sassy pose.

Hela had learned her lesson, using more dark tendrils to block the curses instead of assuming that they wouldn't cause her any damage. "While you are no goddess, you are certainly still strong. Why don't you join me? What can these fools offer you? I rule over our shared domain. You would be a valuable assistant to me. I could-" She was cut off by Rose rolling her eyes and giving her answer.

"Give me everything I want beyond my wildest dreams? Please, heard it before, no thanks. You villains all have the same lines. Do you get them at the same villain store or something?"

This only seemed to serve to enrage Hela, who created many more tendrils and seemed to throw them at Rose by tossing her arms forward. "Oh, just fucking die already, then!" The goddess rushed forward behind her projectiles as more shadows formed in her hands, swords materializing in her grasp, only for Rose to jump backwards and land in a roll for even more distance, and the Brit took aim, holding her wand with one hand and supporting her arm with the other.

"Confringo! Oppugno!" The Gryffindor yelled, causing a large, powerful explosion, destroying the tendrils and reaching through to knock Hela backwards and sliding into the bridge, the goddess having been taken by surprise by the different nature of the spell. The Oppugno spell then took effect, and the shards of the weapons she had previously been using were sent back towards her, and Hela howled as the small shards embedded themselves into her body.

"Haven't you figured it out?" The Brit chided, her tone patronizing as she walked forward and her neck craned down to look at Hela. "Hasn't your domain been telling you the truth, rather than these delusions you're choosing to spew?" The Mistress of Death began to crouch downwards slowly, the skin on her right arm beginning to pale as black veins slowly began to spread through it. Rose didn't pause, though. Her vision was starting to tunnel in on Hela, and the noises of the battlefield began to get quieter and quieter as the sound of blood rushing through her head grew in intensity.

Something Hela saw in her expression seemed to scare the Goddess, as she began to panic. "Stay away!" She yelled. "I will kill-"

"You know you can't kill me," the dimension-traveler interrupted, her voice oddly flat, with her blood-red eyes staring, unblinking, unceasing, at the Asgardian. "You've heard what Death has been trying to tell you the entire time I've been here. To bow... to kneel. Because... you may be the 'Goddess of Death'... but you are merely given power by the domain. Whereas I..." A slow smile spread across Rose's face. "I control it. Now... be a good girl... and die." Death raised one... pale... hand...

Hela's scream was cut off like the snip of scissors across a string.

Their victory was short-lived. Honestly, they had so little time that Loki still hadn't been able to ask Rose exactly what she had done to defeat Hela. He had been looking away at the time, and for a single moment, the world had frozen and flashed black and white. The average Asgardian wouldn't have been able to see it, but he was an expert with miniscule moments and incredibly adept at noticing the slightest changes in the environment.

Worried, he had looked over at where the two had been fighting... only to see a smoking crater. And, in front of it, was Rose, who was holding one arm out and breathing heavily. In front of his eyes, she collapsed to her knees, and then fell face-forward into the ground. Around them, the last of Hela's minions collapsed onto the ground and disintegrated, as did the remains of the already-slain monstrosities, the dust floating into the wind and falling into the sea surrounding the Rainbow Bridge and Bifrost.

"Is it... over?" Thor murmured softly.

"I... believe so, brother."

Thor scrunched his eyebrows, confused. "But... Ragnarok? The prophecy... I don't understand... Asgard was destined to be destroyed."

"Perhaps we've finally gotten a break, then?" The God of Trickery shrugged hopefully.

The God of Thunder shrugged back in response. "Perhaps..." He stilled for a moment. "What is that? A rescue ship, perhaps?" Loki turned, confused, to see what his brother was looking at, and froze in fear.

"Oh no..." He spoke solemnly, before his voice became urgent. "Brother! Tell them to get out of here! Leave! Get them to leave at once!" He pointed at the ship of gladiators. "Valkyrie, grab the green one!" The woman nodded, immediately springing into action.

"Go, brothers!" Thor heeded at once, yelling as loud as he could. "Leave for Earth! Heimdall, guide them!" The orange-eyed warrior nodded seriously, and the Asgardian citizens didn't need to be told twice, and the ship's engines began to scream as fuel was pumped into them. "Now, brother, who is that? Why is that ship so scary?"

Loki was practically paralyzed with fear, but he forced himself to move. "Come, to the palace. That's our only chance to survive this." He started moving, only stopping to grab Rose's unconscious body.

"Loki!" Thor called from behind them. "Who is that?!"

Loki paused for only a moment. Then, he spared a single second to stare at the visage of the Sanctuary 2 that had just entered Asgard's airspace. Then, he spoke only one word, and he tried to ensure that it carried as much weight as possible. "Thanos."