Hel's body convulsed in fits of laughter. There was a look of panic on everyone's face as her laughter soon gave way to tears, and there was nothing they could do about it. "Daughter…daughter," Hel sobbed as her body continued to rock violently.

Janus immediately kneeled before her and held her mother in her arms. The black tears dropped off the reapers' face and onto her mother's body.

"Please...mom, tell me," Janus said, trying to remain calm in a storm of tears. "Is there anyway to reverse this curse?"

Hel's lip trembled as she forced words out of her mouth. "This...is a common curse...but someone at Anguish's level...this is her hallmark...and how she...killed her victims…"

Janus looked helplessly at Mena and Ashlan. May was tending to Leo's unconscious body, but even she met Janus' gaze.

"The rarely shed tears of a sandile," Ashlan remarked very quickly, "but they're native to the deserts of Autolycus, not here."

"Please!" Janus said, but her mother reached up and felt her daughter's face.

"It's...too...late for me," she cried, withering away in misery. "Even you can sense it…"

Janus nodded slowly and Hel's face eased into a smile. "You were always your daddy's girl."

"I know…" Janus said, "But that doesn't mean I don't love you too."

Her mother...choking through tears managed to whisper, "Come here…"--and she reached and touched Janus' forehead with her shaking hand.

"Mom…" Janus said softly. "What in Death's name are you…doing?"

Hel's eye turned as black as a skull's socket. With those words she chanted, "Death is life...and life is death. With my powers, you can raise those without breath…"

Hel weakly winked at Janus. "Show those villains that you'll reap the wretched harvest they have sowed...in the name of us, Harvestars."

"Mom!" Janus cried as her mother's arm slumped and settled on her bed of dirt.

Anguish started to slowly cackle, before she erupted into a bevy of guffaws. "With a half a face like that, I'd cry til I died too. See what happens when you disobey me, reaper creeper?"

Janus was dead silent, but she rested her hand on her mom's face. It was still warm and soft. She closed her mother's eye and turned around to meet Anguish face to face.

As tears dripped from her Janus' face, Anguish pursed her pale pink lips. "I don't know why you're so sad, bonehead. I simply did your job for you. Surely you didn't want to take your mother's life when the time came…"

Janus held out her hand and her neon pink, heart shaped scythe materialized in it.

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"Janus…" Mena said, a look of shock on her face. "What are you doing?"

Janus wiped away her black tears with the sleeve of her cloak. "I wasn't going to ever kill her…because I didn't have to."

"But you're Death!" Anguish snickered. "You said so yourself."

"Correction," Janus said in her sweet, but jilted voice. "I am the daughter of Death and Hel Harvestar, a living, breathing human being."

"And your point?" Anguish sneered.

Janus swung her scythe in the shape of a heart. "I choose to exist for every living creature and allow them to live full lives til they come to pass...that is my Deathiny!"

All of her friends and former friends, watched in awe as she raised her bony scythe with a passion for the living. With a glint in her eye, she howled like a demon,

"On the eve of midnight,

No one can escape the zombeasts about to strike!"

Anguish traded looks with her dark daughter and the gaggle of witches as a tremor surged through the ground.

"Whoa," Mena shouted, "What's going on?"

Her question was answered by a crack in the ground and low, soft moans. Skeletal arms penetrated the ground's crust as Janus slammed dramatically on her scythe screaming the chorus of Crone Jett's famous song, "I Love Death and Bones."

The skeleton hands formed horns with their fingers and Ashlan's eyes illuminated in the midnight. "Oh right! Hel Harvestar was a bokur and now Janus just inherited her powers."

Skeletons of lions, zebras, giraffes and rhinos all emerged, bones rattling as they straightened their heads and joints.

Suddenly a familiar ape bounded across the landscape. Upon closer inspection, it was Monkler in a black-and-white striped jumpsuit.

"Anguish," he guffawed, "Your loyal servant freed me from that loathsome prison of animals. I'm hardly fit to be a jail bird or even a…jail chimp."

His eyes buldged upon seeing the angry mob of skeletal animals and he turned to Anguish. "Did I come at a bad time?"

The purple skinned Dark Mena slammed Monkler in the ribs. "What's going on, butt monkey," she demanded.

"Ahem," he said, straightening his frame. "That's Butt Monkler. And this temple doubles as a burial grounds for our lesser evolved animal pets."

"You picked the wrong pet cemetery to mess with me," Janus exclaimed, and she commanded the zombeasts to lunge forward.

But Anguish did not flinch, rather she laughed in a foul tone of voice, "You may not believe it, but we too have an army of zombeasts, only ours are clothed in flesh and fur."

There was a certain look of disarm on Janus' face, but she remained strong. "What do you mean?"

A loud "ommmmm" sound circled from the trees and an enormous army of Bourgebeasts emerged, including Toyah, Mr. O'Ryan and Maximilian, the lion mayor.

"What the huh?" Mena gasped. "Why do they look brainwashed?"

"Mom! Dad!" Ashlan cried.

Giggling filled the air as a mysterious shape emerged from the shadows at knee length. A pointed hat, curly white facial hair and rainbow pinwheel glasses indicated that it was none other than Roy G. Bivion, their teacher and the founder of Nightdream Academy.

"What did you do to my mom and dad?" Ashlan roared.

The tiny wizard snickered. "What those snooty beasts didn't know was that my yoga class was really a brainwashing hippie cult: The Age of Selfish."

"So that's why you were skipping classes early in our semester!" Mena exclaimed.

"Correct-o-mundo!" the rainbow wizard laughed.

Gemini's dream bubble showcased the Clown Prince with a troubled expression. "Roy G. Bivion, you were the teacher of my uncle Archibald and myself...but why have you resorted to such wicked deeds?"

Dark sinister swirls appeared in the old man's multicolored glasses. "You know what they say, my boy...If you don't die a hero, you live long enough to become even more awesome."

"That's not how the saying goes," Gemini said, non-plussed. "But I should remember that two hundred years down the road."

"Plus!" Roy G. Bivion said, "I've always been the new age sort who wanted a cult. And now I got one!"

The heroes and villains all glared each other down with two armies ready to do battle. "Time for the ultimate jungle clash!" Anguish cackled. "Yuppies versus zombies!"

"What's the difference?" Dark Mena snickered with a mischievous grin.

As the two armies marched forward, Janus closed her eyes and smiled. "This is for you, mom. Thanks for putting me on the right path."