Chapter XV: Frozen Hell
A/N: This chapter took a lot longer than I wanted it to. A lot happens in it, so hopefully that makes up for the wait. Thanks go to theicemenace for her beta work. Enjoy the story! SSD
Hanna looked around as she rose to her feet. For the first time, she actually felt her body acclimate to the temperature around her. Normally this was something that happened without her notice.
"We shouldn't be here," Hogun murmured.
"That's an understatement if I've ever heard one." Hanna began her limited telepathic scan of the area. She could not sense anyone, but then again that did not mean very much. Hanna was not Ragnar when it came to telepathy on any level.
"Let's move," Thor ordered.
They all followed eager to return to Asgard before they incurred the wrath of the Allfather.
###
Never had Hanna been as thankful for her abilities as she was right now. Her magic kept her warm while they were searching around.
Hanna could feel Loki's eyes on her. She had long since gotten used to that.
The level of destruction still evident on Jotunheim from the war was… Hanna had no words strong enough to describe it. Parts of buildings were crumbling down around them.
"Where are they?" Sif wondered aloud as they came up to what appeared to be one of the few relatively undamaged buildings.
"Hiding. As cowards always do," Thor scoffed.
Shortly after Thor said that, Hanna felt several presences that were not part of their group.
"Oh, they're not hiding Thor. They are just using their superior knowledge of the area to remain unseen."
Hanna was in the middle of group as they walked further in, before hearing a voice growling, "You've come a long way to die, Asgardians."
Thor shouted back, "I am Thor Odinson."
"We know who you are," the owner of the voice was still unseen.
"How did your people get into Asgard?" Thor growled back.
"Right to the heart of the matter, Thor. To the point." Hanna thought as she kept her hand close to her sword. She was getting a horrible feeling that they were going to have to cut their way out of this mess.
The owner of the voice was sitting on a throne of sorts and was looking at them, for some reason his red eyes lingering on her before turning back to Thor, before accusing, "The house of Odin is full of traitors."
Not pleased at all with that answer, Thor angrily answered back, "Do not dishonor my father's name with your lies!"
Moving surprisingly quickly for a being so large, the Frost giant stood up before snarling, "Your father is a murderer and a thief!"
"Damn it. This is Laufey we're dealing with." Hanna mentally groaned. Leaving here was going to get infinitely more difficult.
Laufey continued on, sneering "And why have you come here? To make peace? You long for battle, you crave it! You're nothing more than a boy trying to prove himself a man!"
Thor was less than thrilled at that statement, before saying back, "Be warned, this boy grows tired of your mockery…" More frost giants were filtering in.
Ignoring Thor for a moment, Laufey turn his attention onto Hanna. "And who's this? A daughter of Sven Olafson? Perhaps I should send him one of his precious daughters back to him, in pieces!"
Hanna may have thrown a fireball at the Jotun king, were it not for Loki squeezing tight grip on her wrist before making his way over to Thor.
"Thor stop and think. Look around you, we're outnumbered," Loki tried coaxing Thor down.
"Know your place brother," Thor snapped.
Laufey turned his attention back to Thor in his usual growl, "You know not what your actions would unleash... I do. Go now, while I still allow it."
Loki still had to restrain Thor, before saying in his best diplomat's tone, "We accept, your most gracious offer."
They began to file out, Hanna thought
"Perhaps we'll be getting out of this unscathed."
Of course one of the Jotuns closest to Thor had to say, "Run back home, little princess."
Loki groaned, "Damn!"
"I thought too soon. Dammit!" Hanna thought to herself. She drew Ovader in a smooth motion, flames sheathing the blade.
Thor grinned and swung Mjolnir, knocking the Jotun clear across the room.
"Next?"
All Hell broke loose.
###
"For once, it may be a good thing that I am so short. I'm harder to hit," Hanna thought as she dodged the first jotun that swung his blade at her. She sheathed her blade in the blue-green flames (no time to hide the green core, she needed all the energy she could spare).
Also she decided that aiming to maim instead of kill was a bad idea. The Jotnar would give them no quarter, so Hanna would give them the same.
No quarter at all. She had to focus on getting out of this mess alive.
###
"Of course Thor losing his temper would blow us getting out of Jotunheim without a fight," Loki mentally snarled/groaned.
Taking advantage of his opponent's larger sizes, dodging as well and throwing a dagger, shattering the ice in the jotun's hand.
Suddenly a jotun came at him. Loki moved aside and hid, leaving a double in place. He grinned as guard fell through the illusion and into the abyss.
He vanished the illusion and looked around for his apprentice. Upon seeing her, Loki saw that she was mostly using short bursts of flame to distract the jotuns while she slashed at them. Hanna wasn't doing too badly and wasn't in any immediate danger of being overpowered at the moment, as long as she kept herself on her feet.
###
Volstaag was fighting off a jotun when it managed to get a grip on him shortly before he dispatched it. Looking at the extreme form of frostbite, he yelled,
"Don't let them touch you!"
###
Hanna barely heard that out of the corner of her ear as she finished off the jotun she had been fighting.
As she turned around, she saw Loki get grabbed on the arm, by one of the jotuns. Before a sound could escape her mouth, Hanna saw Loki's arm turn blue.
Her eyes went wide. Hanna shook her head while thinking over and over,
"It was just a trick of the light. Just a trick of the light."
###
Meanwhile Fandral was switching his sword hands easily while fighting the jotuns. What was not so easy was the dodging of the shards of ice that could and would shoot up to try and spear them at first opportunity.
Just as he tossed his sword from left to right, one of those pesky shards of ice came up and impaled him straight through the chest. Loki got the jotun responsible with one of his throwing daggers.
###
Sif yelled, "Thor!" trying and failing to get his attention.
Hanna ran over and helped Volstaag and Hogun slowly move Fandral off the shard, so that the one or both of them would be able to carry him and run as fast as was possible.
"We Must go!" Loki yelled, hopefully getting through to Thor.
"Then go!" Thor growled back.
Shortly thereafter, Hanna had to dive to the ground to avoid being hit by Mjolnir. Thankfully, her sword was already back in its scabbard, ready for the running back to where Heimdall could get them back to Asgard.
Taking full advantage of the fact that the unwelcome guests from Asgard were mostly preoccupied with keeping Fandral from bleeding out (at least the cold was worth something), Laufey used the jotun specific ice magic to release something. All but Thor looked up at the rumbling and the low growling.
Wasting little time, Volstaag hoisted Fandral onto his shoulders, before bellowing, "RUN!"
To say that they ran like… whatever the beast was that was about to start chasing them, would be a gross understatement.
"It's a good thing I was always able to beat my cousins at the foot races. Though I never thought I'd be running from this," was Hanna's final thought before putting more focus onto running and less onto thinking.
###
They were just barely keeping ahead of the monster was chasing into them and knocking into things.
The beast was swinging its spiked tail and nearly got Sif. Thor was still far behind them, in full berserker mode.
"Come on, keep up!" Loki barked as he yanked Hanna towards the middle of the group. Mercifully she did not trip.
Suddenly the ground started to fall out from beneath their feet. The beast was caught first as it fell into whatever abyss that was there. Fandral chuckled a bit at that.
Now they had to jump across chasms of increasing size. Thor had definitely used Mjolnir.
As they got to where they had come down, Hogun yelled, "Heimdall, OPEN THE BRIDGE!"
And the beast which had thought to have fallen into the abyss suddenly came up in front of them.
And just as suddenly, Thor flew in (and through) the beast, killing it immediately. Then as he came back down and turned around grinning, his grin melted away. Hanna, even though she did not want to turn around, did so anyway. What she saw, what the entire group saw was far from good.
Hundreds of Frost Giants. Short a miracle, they were not going to get out of this one with their hides intact.
There was one spell that Hanna had been working on of late. It was a detonation spell that was incredibly dangerous and hard to focus. The resulting firestorm could turn around on them just as easily it would work on the Frost Giants.
Before she could unleash it and just as the Jotuns were about to rush them, a strange sound emanated from the sky, Hanna knew exactly what the noise was.
The Bifrost was being activated. And as the light cleared, there was only one possibility that had come.
There were only two people on Asgard who could manage the eight legged horse Sleipnir, and one of them was standing slightly in front of her. Odin apparently had found out where they'd gone.
"Father, we'll finish them together!" Thor yelled, his voice filled with joy.
"Silence!" the Allfather hissed.
Thor promptly shut up.
Laufey came up so that he could stand eye to eye with Odin atop Sleipnir, "Allfather. You look weary."
"Laufey. These are the actions of a boy, so treat them as such," Odin was trying to salvage the situation.
"He'll get what he came for. War," Laufey snarled.
"So be it." Then they suddenly all got yanked through as the Bifrost activated to bring them back to Asgard, where there would likely be hell for them to pay!
As they got back to gate room of the observatory, Odin instructed, "Take him to the healing rooms!"
Loki gave her a look that told her to scram and quickly. Hanna teleported out, she didn't need or want to see what was likely about to happen.
###
A few hours later, the whole group, sans Thor who had been banished were sitting in chairs around a fire. Hanna had her nose back in the book that she had been reading from before they left, but that did not mean she wasn't listening.
"We should never have let him go!" Volstaag muttered.
"There was no stopping him," Sif shot back.
"At least he's only banished not dead. Which is what we'd be if that guard hadn't told Odin where we'd gone" Fandral pointed out.
Then Volstaag asked a question that had been on Hanna's mind for a bit, "How did the guard even know?"
Loki spoke for the first time since entering, "I told him."
Fandral asked, "What?"
Loki continued, "I told him to go to Odin after we left. He should be flogged for taking so long. We should have never reached Jotunheim."
"You told the guard?!" Volstaag interrupted.
"I saved our lives. And Thor's. I had no idea Father would banish him for what he did," Loki finished as if he had not been interrupted.
Sif got up from her seat and pled, "Loki, you must go to the Allfather and change his mind!"
Loki's voice was deceptively calm as he hissed, "If I do then what? I love Thor more dearly than any of you, but you know how he is. He's arrogant, he's reckless, and he's dangerous. You saw how he was today. Is that what Asgard needs for its king?" He then stalked out of the room.
Hanna shivered. Something had changed, but she couldn't figure out what, just yet.
###
Sif spoke shortly after Loki left saying, "He may speak for the good of Asgard, but he's always been jealous of Thor."
Volstaag said back, "We should be grateful to him, he saved our lives!"
Hogun then spoke, getting all of their's attention as he didn't speak often, "Laufey said, there are traitors in the house of Odin. A master of magic could bring three jotuns into Asgard."
An eerie calm permeated the room. Fandral cut it with, "Loki's always been one for mischief, but this is something else entirely! And for all we know, he could still be watching!" Fandral flicked his eyes over in Hanna's direction.
Anything else they may have said dried up. While Loki may have left the room, his tactics had not. Sif and the Warriors Three were not entirely certain where Hanna's loyalty truly was. Did it lie with Loki her teacher, or did it lie with Asgard?
###
As if things could not get any worse, the Allfather fell into the Odinsleep. Everything now seemed to have horribly bad timing, Hanna thought as she walked around invisible.
Hanna then saw a squad of Einherjar guards bending knee as Loki walked out of the Allfather's rooms. He was holding Grungnir in his hands.
Hanna now knew who was king of Asgard for now. Loki.
"What is going to happen next?"
A/N 2: Well things are starting to get set up. I am looking for some ideas for flashbacks over the course of the past 80 years of the apprenticeship in chapter 17. So… what do you all think?