Beta note (Warm Tea): Kari has been down for the count because of the evil police officer who didn't have any proof she did anything yet still took her home and got her in trouble. She just got the computer back a day or so ago so the next chapter will be up sooner.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon don't shoot me. I know that this stuff isn't mine. Mutant Enemy Grrr Arrrgh.
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"What!" Fenrir screamed. "You mean to tell me that you are going to allow yourself to be summoned the entire time we're here because of a debt you owed to a human!"
Loki winced. "Now calm down. It's not like I am going to go back home or."
They were in an underground cave on the outskirts of town. Loki was trying to explain matters to his three children. Fenrir, who was currently in his human form, wasn't taking it well. As he grew more and more disconcerted his wolf form began to show itself.
"No, its worse. You are allowing yourself to be controlled by lesser, insignificant beings. This is sacrilege." Fenrir began to pace. As he talked his green eyes began to glow yellow. His long black hair shortened and grew coarse, and his hands began to grow claws. "You can't expect us to go along with you. I won't. I refuse to lower myself to that position."
Loki suddenly grew until he towered over his son. "You will do as I say! How dare you presume that you can act so arrogantly toward me? Don't forget, my son, I have more power then you and more control. Or did you forget where your scar came from?"
Fenrir brought his hand to his left cheek, which had a scar torn across it, as if someone had cut his face open with a blade. "No Father." Fenrir sulked.
"And what do you plan to do with us while you are gone Father?" A woman stepped forward out of the shadows. She was beautiful and hideous all at once. The left side of her was perfect and unblemished. She had flowing brown hair, and was wearing a fluid black dress. But her other half was not so flawless. Her right side was a decaying, putrid corpse. Worms wriggled out of her empty eye socket, and gray brain matter leaked from a hole rotting in her head. Her dress became frayed and torn, and as she walked dead pieces of flesh fell from her decomposing body.
Loki seemed to soften. "Not to worry my dear Hel, I don't expect you or your brothers to join me in my jail. Quite the opposite. I was hoping that you three could cause some harm while you were here. It's not healthy for you to be cooped up all day. Go out and have fun. I have heard that there are slayers in town. Can't miss out on an opportunity like that."
Hel smiled. "I heard that as well. It seems as though there was some sort of mix-up and now two slayers were called at the same time." She walked over to her brother and put her decaying arm around him. "Let's go hunting."
Fenrir smiled. "You always know how to cheer me up."
Loki beamed, and without saying another word, left with a pop.
Fenrir sighed. "I suppose he's been summoned then."
"I doubt it." Hel said. "He's always doing things like that. Still, I don't think that he will contact us until we can go home."
"No, you're probably right." Fenrir glanced contemptuously at the figure in a dark corner of the cave. "In the meantime, what are we going to do with him?"
The figure moved. It didn't so much walk as slither toward Fenrir and Hel. It seemed as though it was trapped between a human and a serpent. From the waist up it was humanoid, only covered in scales, and oily black hair covered its face. It had no legs, but instead was supported by a powerful tail.
Hel scowled. "Oh, yes. I had forgotten. I suppose we must let him come along with us. After all, he is our brother."
Fenrir sighed. "I guess so."
The thing lifted its head. "Hey, no fair. Father said to be nice to me," it whined in a nasally voice.
"Jormungand shut it." You are in no place to be making demands. We're barely letting you come along with us." Fenrir said condescendingly.
"There's no I in team." Jormungand whined back.
"There's no u in team either. So I guess if you're not on the team, and I'm not on the team, then there's no goddamn team. The team sucks!"
"Stop it, both of you." Hel cut in. "This is no time to be arguing. We need to come up with a plan. Something that the slayers won't expect. What's the fun in hunting if you don't enjoy the kill?"
-
"So, at least we don't have to worry about Loki anymore." Willow said. Everyone was back at Buffy's house in the living room. Willow and Tara were sitting together on the couch with Dawn, while Angel and Spike did their dark and broody thing by standing around and occasionally pacing.
"Yeah, but what about his kids?" Buffy said. She was sitting on Faiths lap as Faiths arms encircled her waist "Do we still need to worry about them?"
Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses. "I'm not sure. Loki said that he isn't able to control them, but I don't know if we should consider them as a threat. We ought to do research on the three remaining children."
Buffy groaned. "That's what you said you were going to do before we left to go train."
"Yes well we got a little sidetracked. Besides, now that Xander and Anya are back they can help us."
"Hey, just where do you think you two are going?" Faith asked. Spike and Angel stopped. They had started to sneak off when Giles mentioned research. "No, no, no. If I have to research so do you. Sit down."
"Do we have to?" Spike complained.
Angel agreed. "Yeah, you're bad at this kind of stuff."
"Yes." Buffy told them. "I'm worse at this then you are, quit moaning."
"Yes Buffy." They said in unison.
Willow and Tara got up and went with Giles to retrieve the research books that they had stored in their rooms. Meanwhile Anya was trying to teach Xander to shift realities. Xander was having trouble getting the concept.
"Try shifting your pyridine… Think outside the box." Anya told him.
"Hey, the box is there for a reason. I like thinking inside it, I feel safe in here." Xander retorted.
Anya lightly hit him upside the head. "Can you try to concentrate? If you can't figure out how to do this then we can't go to the hot springs in Caralle for our vacation!"
"Oowwww. That hurt." Xander whined.
"Baby."
"Hon, we don't have to go to those particular hot springs. I promise, if I can't figure this out by the time we go on vacation, I will take you to Iceland. The hot springs there are almost as good as the ones in Caralle."
Anya sighed. "Very well. Now try again."
Willow and Tara came back with the books.
"Trying to shift realities?" Willow remarked.
"Yeah. It's not as easy as you guys make it look." Xander gave up and leaned against Anya.
Tara grinned. "Just make sure that you don't end up in that reality with only shrimp."
Willow made a face as she put down the books. "Uggh. That was horrible. I can't eat shrimp anymore."
Buffy leaned over and grabbed one of the books. "What do you think?" She asked Faith. "Does it look not confusing?"
"It's as good as any. I'm sure they're all equally filled with hences and wherefores, and other annoyingly long words." Faith picked up a particularly large book and hurled it at Spike and Angel. "Start reading."
"At least you changed out of that idiotic shirt." Spike grumbled at Angel as he opened the book.
"Will you ever let that go?" Angel asked.
"Of course not. You think that I'm going to forget something like that? Not a chance."
"Fine. Do I need to remind you of the time I caught you with that prostitute in Prague?"
Spike looked horrified. "You wouldn't."
Angel smirked. "I would."
Buffy cut in, confused. "Wait, so what if Spike was with a prostitute? I mean, ewww, but it's not that big of a deal. He was evil back then. I'm sure you slept with your share of women."
"Let's just say that it wasn't a female prostitute."
Xander looked perplexed. "Wait. If it wasn't a chick then…." His face lit up. "Oh my god. You slept with a dude? You slept with a dude!" Xander pointed at Spike and laughed.
Dawn nearly fell off the couch she was laughing so hard. "I can't believe it! Just my luck, the guy I have a crush on turns out to be gay," she said, gasping for breath.
Tara tried to stop laughing. "Hey. It's not like it's a bad thing that Spike is bi."
"I'M NOT BLOODY BISEXUAL!"
"Seems that way to me." Faith added.
"I was young! I wanted to experiment!" Spike protested.
"I was just experimenting when I was in college. Look how it turned out for me." Willow smiled at Tara. "I've got a beautiful girlfriend, who would be my wife if those stupid republicans weren't all homophobic with their anti-gay-marriage laws."
Tara stopped Willow before she could go into full rant mode. "Honey, let it go."
"Stupid republicans." She grumbled under her breath.
Spike was still mad that Angel had brought it up. "I thought we agreed to not bring that up."
"You agreed. I never actually said that I would keep it a secret."
"Fuck off." Spike opened his book. "It's not like you never did anything for the other team," he said under his breath.
"Yeah well, lets just not get into that." Angel picked up a book and started reading.
"Oh! I found something!" Willow exclaimed.
"What?" Buffy asked.
"It says here that Fenrir is the oldest child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. He is a gigantic and terrible monster in the shape of a wolf. When he was still a pup the gods had nothing to fear from him, but when the gods saw one day how he had grown, they decided to render him harmless. However, none of the gods had the courage to face the enormous wolf. Instead, they tried to trick him. They said the wolf was weak and could never break free once he was chained. The gods then proceeded to create a magic chain. They ordered the dwarves to make something so strong that it could hold the wolf. The result was a soft, thin ribbon: Gleipnir. It was incredibly strong, despite what its size and appearance might suggest. Fenrir saw how thin the chain was, and said that was no pride in breaking such a weak chain. Eventually, though, he agreed, thinking that otherwise his strength and courage would be doubted. However, suspecting treachery, he in turn asked the gods for a token of good will: one of them had to put a hand between his jaws. Finally, only Tyr agreed, and the gods chained the wolf with Gleipnir. No matter how hard Fenrir struggled, he could not break free from this thin ribbon. In revenge, he bit off Tyr's hand. The gods then carried him off and chained him to a rock a mile down into the earth." Willow paused. "But that doesn't explain how he's here, and not chained to the rock underground in his own dimension."
Buffy cringed. "I don't like the sound of that at all. The gods were too afraid to go near him? We had enough trouble facing down Glory. I don't want to have to go through all of that again."
Faith took Buffy's hand. "B, you worry too much. You got me now; we can take whatever comes at us."
"Yeah, you're right." Buffy smiled. "I got you now."
Willow and Tara looked at each other and smirked.
"Hey!" Dawn whined. "You guys are giving each other that look again. What's going on?"
"Nothing." They said together.
"Look what I found!" Xander suddenly cried.
"I found it." Anya complained.
"Look what I took credit for finding!"
"What did you find?" Giles interrupted, before Xander and Anya could start to bicker.
"It turns out that Loki freed Fenrir from his underground prison. Loki didn't like that the gods had trapped one of his sons without his permission, so he unchained Fenrir and sent him to live with his siblings."
"It says here that Loki had another son, Jormungand, and daughter, Hel. Jormungand is a giant serpent who was trapped in the Midgard Sea until Loki freed him."
Giles added, "Hel, the youngest of Loki's three children, is a very odd and gruesome fiend. One half of her body is attractive and young, while the other half is that of a rotting corpse. Upon birth Odin threw her into Nifilheim and gave her control of the nine worlds. Nifilheim is the ream of the dead and is broken up into several parts. The first layer is Valhalla, where the heroes who died in battle go to feast. Another is reserved for the elderly, sick and those who were unable to die gloriously in battle. The lowest level resembles a Christian hell, where the wicked are forced to live forever,"
"That's all very interesting, but how do I kill them?" Buffy asked.
"It says that Hel's weakness is women," Spike answered. "Hel is strongest when men oppose her, for they are both attracted to her and repulsed by her, and can't function because of their conflicting feelings. Jormungand is strong, really strong, but not the brightest crayon in the box. Fenrir, however, is both cunning and has brute strength. However, he cannot resist showing off, and can sometimes be tricked."
Faith yawned. "I'm tired. I think I'm going to go take a nap. You coming?" She asked Buffy.
"Yeah, I could use some sleep. I guess training wore me out." They both got up and went upstairs.
"Now will you tell me what's going on?" Dawn whined.
"No. It's none of your business." Willow answered.
"Awe, you guys never tell me anything."
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