Chapter 1: Family Matters
"Open the damn door, Anders!" Two men stood at the front porch of their brother's home, pounding on the door incessantly. "It's an emergency!" When they received no response for the fifth time, they grabbed the spare key from under his mat and opened the door themselves, shutting and latching it before moving into the hallway. There was no sign of their older brother anywhere, though they knew he was home because his car was in the driveway.
"Let me handle this...now that things are back to how they were...I'll have no problem waking him up," Ty stalked past his brother, and Axl nodded with a shrug as he turned and headed to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. All of them needed at least three cups this morning, as well as a bottle of vodka.
"Shit!" Axl's head snapped up at the sound of his brother's yell from the other room. "That was cold! How did you do that?!" Axl shook his head as he helped himself to a cup of coffee.
"Your own damn fault!" came the snappy reply of his younger brother. "We told you to be up and moving before we got here."
"You are so lucky I don't have a girl over..."
"Yeah, right...You haven't had a girl over in at least a week."
"Fuck, man. Don't rub it in..." The voices were getting louder, and it wasn't long before a shirtless Anders shuffled out after having thrown a pair of jeans on, his hair full of icicles and his expression severely annoyed. Ty came sauntering out behind him, his face smug as he watched his brother towel off his hair.
"Morning, sunshine," Axl handed Anders the pot of coffee so he could make a much needed cup himself.
"What is so important that requires you to force me out of bed at nine in the morning on a Sunday?" the blonde grumbled as he practically dove headfirst in his coffee. "Especially since I didn't get home til four..."
"We have to wait for the others," Ty answered, sitting on the couch and making himself comfortable.
"Does this have anything to do with the fact that Ty iced my head to wake me up?" At the frown on his brothers' faces, he released a deep sigh and glanced between them. "Shit. I thought this was all over."
"So did we," Axl sighed as well and ran a hand through his hair. The three brothers sat in a thoughtful silence, each caught up in the what ifs of the upcoming conversation. A knock on the door caused all of their heads to turn before Anders walked over and pulled it open to reveal Mike, Ingrid, and Olaf standing there with frowns on their faces. What shocked Anders the most was that Olaf looked like his younger self again...though he looked far from happy about it.
"You look like I feel..." He stepped aside for them and shut the door, locking it behind them. "Why is Ingrid here?"
"Nice to see you too, prick," she retorted, knowing he usually had a sarcastic or dirty comeback and preparing herself for it. However, she took one look at his demanding and troubled face and thought twice about it.
"This gods and goddesses life was supposed to be over," he continued. "If Ingrid is here, that could only mean..."
"We found another potential goddess..." Mike finished for him.
"Not potential, Mike. She is a goddess," Ingrid corrected, staring at her hands.
"That's great for her. Let her live her life in peace, and let us fucking move on with ours," Anders turned away to start making himself breakfast.
"Anders..." Mike's tone was warning him. Anders sounded so bitter and snappy.
"Look at everyone we lost because of that life! Look at everything that happened! We are finally going back to normal," his younger brother argued, throwing his hand up. "Just leave the poor woman alone...she'd be better off without any of us."
"Loki may try to use her to return to Earth," Ingrid's voice made him stop cold as he turned to face her again.
"How?" His anger was barely contained.
"This goddess can travel the worlds between Asgard, the underworld, and Earth. She's a messenger. If he latches on to her energy, he can return here," Olaf explained grimly. "I saw it happen in a vision."
"So we have to stop her from connecting with him? Does she want him to return?"
"No. She doesn't know about any of this. We have to protect her," Mike stared at his brother, who looked thoroughly confused. "Once he is on Earth, he will try to kill her to cut off the communications between worlds."
"If you kill her, the world will go into chaos. No ways of travel or communication...everything shuts down..." Ingrid continued on.
"Fuck," Ty glowered over his shoulder.
"We have to find her," Axl decided, prompting a collective groan from the group. They all knew he was right. They couldn't sit back and let her die. "Mike, can you use your powers to track her?"
"Actually, we need Frigg," he replied, looking over at a nodding Ingrid.
"Why?" Anders folded his arms and glanced at Axl, who had tensed up.
"Because the messenger goddess works for her. If anyone would know her whereabouts, it would be her," Ingrid answered.
"Then let's go. We don't have time to just sit here. If I know Loki, he'll want to strike as soon as possible." Axl stood and headed towards the door. Anders grabbed the shirt he had hung up the night before and slipped it on before following his family out and locking up.
Hanna had opened her boutique an hour ago and was in the middle of measuring a bride-to-be.
"Stay still!" she laughed, trying to get the correct numbers for the trembling woman.
"I'm sorry! I'm just so excited!" Both women laughed as she finished and quickly rifled through the dresses on the rack. The bell of the front door rang as customers walked in, and she poked her smiling face out to greet them. However, the welcoming smile on her face faded when she saw the Johnsons and Ingrid standing there, each expression on their faces a mixture of aggravation, concern, and anxiousness.
"Brie, why don't you look through the dresses for a moment while I take care of these customers?" she suggested before striding up front and standing in front of Axl with folded arms and a tense glare.
"I don't like the look of this..." she began.
"We need to find your messenger...now," he answered simply.
"You're in luck. Stacey's here right now before she goes out for the day." She opened her mouth to call her but Axl cut her off.
"Not her." When her eyebrows furrowed, he sighed and took a deep breath. "The one that travels worlds..." The color drained from her face as she took a faltering step backwards.
"H-how...How did you find out about her?" she asked breathlessly. "I hid her for a reason! You were never supposed to know..."
"Loki?" Mike guessed, and she nodded at him, her eyes softening at her lover. "Well, that's kind of the reason we need to find her. We think he may try to use her to return."
"Damn it...hasn't he caused her enough pain?" the goddess murmured to herself.
"Can you help us?" he asked softly, one hand on her arm meant to comfort her.
"I can try to locate her," Hanna nodded and glanced over at the customer shopping for her wedding dress. "At least let me finish with her so we can have the shop to ourselves." The group went to sit in the back of the shop, all huddled together.
"A hidden goddess...I can't believe she's been keeping this a secret from us. It's not like it's a small secret!" Ingrid whispered fiercely.
"She was trying to protect her. There's nothing wrong with that," Axl defended her.
"We know something is wrong here, though..." Ty spoke up.
"What's wrong?"
"Anders isn't trying to coerce his way into that woman's pants..." he laughed with a raised brow at his older brother. Anders glared over at him in response.
"Okay, first off...she's engaged and is shopping for a wedding dress...even I have a line I don't cross..."
"Since when?" Mike asked, not trying to be as rude as Ty but honestly curious. "That didn't stop you before..."
"And second...fuck off," Anders acted like he hadn't heard his eldest brother talk about Gaia and sat back, lost in thought. The rest of the group exchanged glances with each other. Ty was right. Something was off about Anders.
"Okay, we're all alone," Hanna told them as she stood in front of all of them about twenty minutes later. Brie had told her that she'd come back another day to pick a wedding dress because she needed to get a little more information from her mother first before making a decision.
"We need to know more about her," Olaf was the first to speak.
"Her name is Angela Holt," she began.
"Her real name?" Axl prodded gently.
"Gna. She is one of my handmaidens..."
"You mean servants?" Anders scoffed. He had never been a fan of the handmaiden thing, as it implied servitude. He never had servants as a god, and he liked it that way. Dawn was different. As his personal assistant, while she put up with a lot of his crap, she was still there for him. And behind the smartass facade, he appreciated her more than he'd admit to.
"Angela is one of my dearest friends, and that is why I picked her for the job...At least I don't have to persuade her to remain loyal..." It was not Hanna but Frigg who challenged him, raising her head up to stare at him. There was a flash of anger in his eyes, but it was the only physical response out of him.
"Stop it, you two," Mike groaned in annoyance. "Hanna, go on."
"Phones, internet, mail...they all exist bcause of Gna. Her presence allows humans to communicate, as well as the gods. She is one of the only goddesses whose essence remained in the mortal body because of the kind of goddess she is. She travels to the underworld, Asgard, Earth. Gna understands every language, even Old Norse. Her parents were killed when she was younger, before her ceremony, so I helped look after her until she turned twenty-one. We've grown incredibly close in the years since. She is like a younger sister to me, and if she's in danger, I'd rather rip my own limbs off than see her hurt. She may be a goddess, but she's no warrior. She won't be able to fight Loki if he comes after her."
"If he kills her, the countries of the world will not be able to communicate. Wars will erupt. There will be a blackout of technology and mail services around the world," Olaf sighed heavily.
"Utter chaos...just like the asshat likes it..." Mike growled. "Ragnarok. He is bringing the end."
"And with no way of traveling to the other worlds...he will be able to stay on Earth and watch the havoc he wreaks..." Axl stood up and began to pace back and forth. "Locate her, Frigg. Please..."
"I need your hands, Anders..." Hanna came to sit across from the blonde man, who glanced at her with bewilderment.
"Why me?"
"You're the god of persuasion and inspiration," she explained. "I need all the help I can get." With a nod of understanding, Anders reached out and took hold of her hands. The both of them closed their eyes, channeling their powers towards each other. It was a strange feeling, having their powers back and using them. He was almost getting used to not having them.
"Find her. Find the goddess Gna...the goddess along the winds..." Anders whispered before he felt something he'd never witnessed before. He had heard of his brothers having visions of their past selves as gods in Asgard, but he had never experienced it himself, until now. A flash of a blonde woman dying in his arms rushed through his mind the moment Hanna located her. As Hanna saw her in her mind's eye, Anders was getting a completely different view of the woman they were trying to locate. An invisible stab of pain struck his arm, and he gasped at the sudden sensation.
"Uhm...guys...Anders is bleeding!"
"What the hell?!"
"I...I found her...there's another presence attached to her energy..." Hanna sounded panicked.
"She's hurt," Anders continued for her. Ty held his hand over the bloody scratch on his older brother's arm.
"Let go...sever the connection!" Axl commanded as he watched his brother's face contort with more pain. Both of the connected deities released each other and stared around them. Hanna was on the verge of freaking out, and Anders was disoriented. Right before they cut the connection, he had felt overheated, like he was sitting in front of a large fire.
"Man, what the fuck just happened?" Ty asked his brother while he got up to get something for the small wound.
"I don't even know...when Hanna saw her, so did I...I somehow felt her pain when she was injured...she was attacked by something..." Anders answered honestly.
"How could he connect with her on such a physical level?" Axl glanced to Hanna.
"Don't look at me...that's never happened before..."
"Let's go! Where is she?" Olaf asked as they all stood up.
"Five miles away. I saw them in the woods next to her stable..." Hanna began to run ahead of them. "We are running every damn red light from here to there."
"That presence...was it Loki?" Mike asked her as they climbed into his car with Anders, while the others in the group jumped into Axl's car.
"At first it was, but then something else took over...this was darker. It was malicious and pure evil..." Hanna shook her head as they squealed off. "Anders, are you okay?"
"Fine...it's just a scratch...just keep going," he reported shortly. Mike glanced in the rearview as he pressed hard on the gas pedal. Anders looked immensely troubled, and Mike wondered if something else had happened during the connection. Anders, on the other hand, sat there remembering the genuine fear in Angela's heart at whatever she was currently facing down. He could not explain the sudden and smothering necessity to find her and protect her at all costs. When he had felt her mind connecting accidentally with his, he had sent her one message that he hoped would make it through.
Hold on. We are coming. He only hoped that he could deliver on it before it was too late, and they lost another goddess.
