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To her right, at first, she saw a portal open and the four largest Ravens from Castle Niflheim fly out.Then, in the blink of an eye, they were running across the ground on their clawed feet.A heartbeat later, there were four, tall, striking, broad shouldered Warriors, in black armor adorned with the same runes as her own, all carrying exact replicas of her Nightsword.

“Holy shit!”She breathed.“You guys are… guys?”

“Only for you, Goddess.Only in your name, we fight to protect.We give our lives, our blood, and our loyalty to you and only you.”Four deep voices, thick with the accent of the Northmen, all sounded in her head as they marched toward her.

Before Hel could respond, the Scrub cackled mockingly.“Not quite a fair fight, Goddess, but you have served your purpose.”

“My purpose?”

Acting as if Hel hadn’t spoken, the Big Scrub continued, "You have brought forth the Raven Guard at precisely the right time.They have been gone for so long, nearly a millennium.Had I known all that was needed was to threaten your worthless life, I would have played with your sisters’ minds with a little more force.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Hel pretended to be irritated while listening to every plan Carys came up with and wondering where the hell Liv was and why she’d closed off their mental connection.“I’ve heard it all before.I’m not a spring chicken over here.Every bad guy in all the universe thinks they have to wax poetical with some stupid monologue before they attempt to take over the world.Thank the Great Goddess, in your case all I need is a crop duster full of insecticide and you and your googley-eyed buddies will be toast.”

"You can try,” the Scrub haughtily dared.“Maybe you’ll have better luck with that than you did all the people who’ve teased and taunted you over the years.What was it they said?”

Shaking with the strength it took not to raise her Nightsword and strike the Scrub down where it stood, Hel inhaled deeply.Eyes sliding to the right, she slowly shook her head as the Raven Guardsmen prepared to attack and rip the giant bug into tiny pieces.For an instant, she entertained the thought of finally letting Carys out to kick some ass.

But they had to wait.The bug had more to say.There was no doubt about it.

Hel knew she had to have the upper hand to do anything at all.Unfortunately, in that moment, she was still on the defensive.That simply would not work.She had to be the one throwing the punches and her enemy had to be the one staying down for the goddess to be assured a victory.

Suddenly, she had an idea…

Forcing a chuckle, she nodded with the utmost authority and confidence, "I don’t remember.Most of them were so stupid that I barely heard them, let alone remember them.Why don't you tell me?Go on.Make something up on the fly.Try to piss me off.Force my hand.We both know your belly was still scraping the floor of whatever slimy pipe until about five seconds ago.I was here before you and I’ll be here long after you’re gone.Sticks and stones and all that happy horseshit, Bugface.”

Waiting for a single beat of her heart, Hel added, “Hit me with your best shot.Give it all you got.It may be your only…”

“Silence!”Tapping where her chin should’ve been on her flat, misshaped face with the tip of the top claw on her right side, Scrub pretended to instantly calm down and think before slinging her next claw full of shit, “Oh, you know what’s better?"Not waiting for an answer, the bug kept going, “How about I tell you what your ‘sisters’ really think of you?”Uncrossing her arms, the three that she’d just laid over her bulging, scaly chest to add emphasis to her chin-tapping contemplation, the bug tasked, "Well, Einn thinks you’re a privileged pain in the ass, who won Daddy’s favor by kissing his butt and acting like the victim.Tveir thinks you somehow fooled Odin into giving you your godhead with some trick you learned from your fucked up DNA or your even worse brothers.She has even entertained the idea that your mother, that great oaf of a Giantess had something to do with it, but then she figured out that Angrboda was even worse in her treatment of you than the rest.Of course, that made the Giantess her hero."

“Great!”Hel scoffed, still moving the opposite way Scrub did to keep the huge bug talking.“I always knew Einn and Tveir were clueless, so, I’m not surprised.Nor do I care.I truly hope their mother is at least half as horrible as mine.That way my belief in the justice of The Powers That Be will be confirmed.”

"Oh, sure you care,” Scrub scoffed.Rolling her shoulders forward and holding up her top set of claws, she held the pinchers together like a humans did when they were making the sign for a little bit.“You’ve got those tiny little feelings that get hurt so easily just like your daddy.”Straightening up to her full height, she opened those same arms wide.“I blame it on the fact that the All Father, his little wifey and that Valkyrie of yours always protected you.You’ve never had to fight fairly or depend on your own strength and wit to get out of anything.”

“You are such a…”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, I’m still speaking.”

“Let me out,”Carys growled.“Just let me out and give me five minutes.I’ll teach that bug some manners.”

“You’re gonna get your chance, my friend.Don’t you worry about that.I always keep my promises.”

Leaning forward, her sneer widening, the tips of Scrub’s fangs lengthened.“They should’ve let you take the abuse, not given you everything in the universe and shipped you off to live out your immortal life somewhere safe.If they had only let the world and those who saw you for the weak piece of shit you are toughen you up, imagine what a great goddess you could’ve been.”Pointing at the four Warriors standing right behind Hel, she cackled, “But then again, you wouldn’t have called the Raven Guardsmen, and they wouldn’t be here for me to present to Beelzebub and claim my reward.Oh, how I will be…”

“I didn’t call…”

No longer able to hold Carys back, not that she truly ever had been, Hel freely accepted the copious amounts of Pure White Dragon Magic flowing into and around her and let herself slide to the back of her psyche just as they had secretly done so very many times.Watching through the eyes of the Dragoness with whom she shared her soul, the goddess laughed out loud when Scrub and all of her buggy army squealed in shock and horror.

Unlike before, Carys did not Shift into the stories high Dragon with wings unlike any other and take to the skies.No, on this occasion, things were different in every possible way and then some.Tremors shook their body.Their blood ran cold.Then it flipped to boiling hot in the blink of an eye.A split second later, and icy calm filled every cell of their being, while their body contracted and contorted in a much more controlled and deliberate fashion than she’d watched happen to Einn.

Before she could ask, Carys’s voice, low and gravelly echoed in the depths of Hel’s mind.“Soon we will take the form of our compact, indestructible Warrior Dragon.I never thought it would be necessary, but as I see I was…”

That was as far as the Dragoness got before the Magic of the Ancients beat against their body from the inside-outside.Weaving around every fiber and even the tiniest shred of tissue, the large, elongated muscles they’d used for flying contracted and condensed into their chest, biceps, quads, and sides.The ground beneath their feet shuddered as long claws jutted from their toes digging into the soft, grass-covered earth of the mountaintop.

An inferno, like flaming shards of silver, sliced through the flesh and bone of their back.The tips of their wings curled downward, immediately turning upward toward their shoulder blades.The second they touched their body, the razor-sharp edges pushed through the thick layer of fiery red scales that had already appeared, tearing through their body as if it were no more than wet paper.

Bone shattered and muscles tore until they no longer possessed wings at all.Instead, they had what looked like huge blades of an oversized Dane axe jutting from either side of their spine with long, venomous finger-claws extending from the razor-sharp edges.Moving them up and down and forward and back, Hel smiled as visions of slashing Scrub and her insect army to ribbons while injecting them with acidic poison for which there was no antidote flashed through her mind.

The talons at the ends of their fingers doubled in size and girth, their barbed tips tingling with the need to rip through all enemies standing in their path, especially those who had dared to threaten their Mate.The time to end all the bullshit, find Hopper and make sure Liv was okay had come.Carys was spoiling to end the pregame, as she called it, and get down to business.