I figured they weren't expecting me until tomorrow night, so I could just camp out and get the drop on whoever showed up with my mom. However, my plan didn't exactly work out like I had hoped. By the time got myself together and ran to the alley near my school where I, well, blew up at Dylan and his gang, there was already, not a person per say, but definitely something there.

I stopped short and tried to figure out what was going on and where it was coming from. It looked like a blob of yellowish, golden light, suspended in midair, however, as I drew closer, it solidified into what looked like the vague outline of a person, or at least a humanoid shape.

It was eerie, standing in a dark alley in the middle of the night to meet with my mom's kidnappers without their ransom, only to find a weird light that appeared to move and shift as if alive. It seemed to call out to something inside me, and I couldn't help but move forward towards it. As I reached out to touch it, my fingers hovering but never quite making contact, I felt a pull. It felt as if someone had yanked me from inside, shoving me face-first into the light.

I tumbled out in a completely different location, somewhere I had never seen before. It was a small clearing in the middle of what looked like a huge forest. Everywhere I looked there was green, with the occasional splash of color from wild flowers, but the thing that really caught my attention was the floating balls of glowing blue lazily floating throughout, illuminating the clearing. I could see more of them deeper in the forest, but they were largely obscured by the thick cover of trees.

The thump of shoes on the ground brought me back to reality as I spun around, raising my bat to defend myself. To my surprise, however, I found my hands empty. As I stared down at my hands in shock and frantically searched to see if I had dropped the bat, a voice rang out in the clearing.

"You're here early, I see you are more reasonable than your father at least." I looked up to see a group of probably the most strangely dressed people I've ever seen, and I go to school with teenage girls. There were six people total. Four were men, and two women, and all looked like they were going to a high-end Ren Fair.

The voice came from the man in front was dressed in silver-plated armor, leather breeches and boots, with a silver helm adorning his head. He was missing an eye, which looked quite painful as the skin around the eye patch he wore was red and irritated. I idly found myself wondering how he lost it, and if it hurt. That's a stupid question, of course it hurt. He lost an EYE.

As I was contemplating the pros and cons of missing a body part, you look like a BAMF but it seems super inconvenient, I realized three things. One: I was awkwardly staring at this guy's face, two: he was talking, a lot, and three: I was unarmed and facing six strange people who probably had my mom and could control light maybe. It's unclear.

"-et her go." I tuned in just in time to hear the end of his sentence. I was never known for my impulse control, so naturally, the first thing out of my mouth was,

"Sorry, what?" They all began to shift angrily and it was at this point I noticed the very sharp and very real looking weapons they all had equipped somewhere on their person. A spear for two of the really tall buff guys, a hammer of all things for another, a sword each for the two women, and a sword and a spear for the last dude. Right, because one deadly weapon just wasn't enough, Mr. Overcompensation.

"I said," the man ground out as if he was physically restraining himself from hitting me over the head with his, frankly unnecessarily huge, spear. Which, looking back, he probably was. "Once you have returned her to us unharmed, we will release your mother safely." Ah, there it was again, the ransom: Her. Her who, I wanted to scream, but because I have some semblance of self-control, I didn't. Although what I said probably wasn't any better.

"So you are the ones who took my mom, well listen up because I have no idea who this "her" is or what the heck you're talking about. Some weird crap has happened today and I just want my mom back, so if you give her back right now and promise to never come near us again, I won't call the police on you guys." Okay, so definitely not my most eloquent way of putting things, but it got the job done.

The group looked as if they were about to protest to my less than polite comments (they were kidnappers, so what did I care about being rude), but the man in front, who by now I've identified as the leader, held up a hand and they stayed silent.

"You claim to not know what we are talking about, yet you have been using the power of your heritage and managed to travel here through Frigga's portal." I'm guessing the woman to his left was Frigga by the way she straightened up and smiled when he said her name. She looked the most inviting out of all of them. "You must think us gullible, son of Loki, to come here and attempt such blatant trickery. It seems I was wrong, you are just foolish as your father."

Father, what father, my dad died when I was a baby.

"Wait, what? Son of who-what the heck are you going on about. I've never met my dad, he's been dead for years. How do you know him?" I questioned in response, my confusion clear in my voice.

It was at this point that another one of the big buff dudes (or BBD as I had dubbed them), Mr. Overcompensation, stepped forward. "Do not play innocent fiend, give her back at once or I will strike you down where you stand. This is no game, we will go to war if there is even a single hair out of place on her head!"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" I nearly went hoarse yelling, but I was sick of them talking about things I had no idea about. He was threatening me over something I didn't understand, but knew I didn't do, and I was just so done.

His face contorted in rage, and he drew one of his, multiple - seriously you need that many weapons, swords and charged at me. The rest of the group shouted out, but by then it was too late. I raised my arms above my head to defend myself even though I knew it would do nothing, I mean come on they're swords, just as he brought the blade down upon me.