Chapter Text
So here I was getting my head chopped off by Alex again. Or at least he was trying to. I was doing my very best to avoid dangerous head chopping and going for minor cuts and bruising instead. Luckily, I had gotten quite good at avoiding his garotte and blocking it with my shield. Unluckily, he had gotten quite good at slicing my shield to smithereens. But then you have your sword. You might be thinking. Technically I did. Technically I’m not very good at sparring. And you have no idea how difficult it is to block a wire. Because even if you manage to block it, he wraps it around the sword and then yanks it out of my hands. I hated that quite a lot.
“Hey, Jack.” I yelled over to the sidelines where he was watching me get killed as usual. “a little help”
“Hey, hey, no fair Magnus, you fight me with honor. Or you don’t fight me at all.”
“That second option sounds pretty good” I was without a sword and trying to stay alive for as long as possible. But I had the vaguest idea that he was just toying with me since he was just throwing it haphazardly.
“Well, sénor you do have to get better at sparring we have Ragnarök coming up after all. And as it is right now you would die within the first two minutes if you didn’t have me” my own sword teaming against me. This truly is the worst form of betrayal. Especially since he had been doing that for weeks.
“Jack please I could really use a sword right about now.”
“Oh, and why should I”
“Because Alex is going to kill me if you don’t”
“Are you Alex?”
“If he can’t get his sword then I might.” I had been trying to but since it was about a meter behind Alex, I didn’t see how I was going to do that. And if I got closer, he just started to go for my throat so I couldn’t do a frontal assault. But there was a chair. If you don’t have my incredible strategic skill, you might not have thought about throwing said chair at Alex and then running for the sword. Unfortunately, Alex saw right through my perfect idea. (he must gotten in my mind somehow because this was a perfect and not at all generic idea) he then cut the chair right down the middle and since I didn’t think he could outsmart me like that I forgot to move and instead began charging after the sword. He then spun around, did some fancy garotte things, and cut my head off. Even though the first time he had killed me. It was like that I didn’t feel too nostalgic towards it.
I woke up as usual in my bed. What was not usual was Jack over by the microwave making popcorn. He at least made a valiant try to open the microwave without cutting it to pieces. He tried.” Why are you making popcorn?” I said as I was rising from the bed. Or my deathbed you could say. “And why are you dicing the microwave”
“Accidents. Just like your morning voice.”
“what’s wrong with my morning voice” I really didn’t get this. Why do you get a morning voice after dying? Shouldn’t you get like… rebirthing voice? It didn’t make sense to me. And was it really that terrible
“When’s dinner?” I usually regenerated pretty fast, so I was hoping to catch some dinner.
“You missed dinner. That’s why I'm making popcorn” apparently not fast enough. I walked over to Jack and put the bag in the microwave. “Where did Alex go after he decapitated me” I went over to the closet and took out a green Hotel Valhalla t-shirt and some good-looking gray pants courtesy of Blitz.
“Well down to dinner obviously”
“We started sparing in the afternoon, didn't we?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. I then called him over to my neck and I immediately felt bruised, battered, and incredibly tired.
“what have you been doing” I yelped and fell to the floor whilst I began healing some of the bruises and fatigue.
He began buzzing in my mind” I started sparring with Alex. Duh”
“of course you did,” I said totally exhausted. Well. I wasn’t getting dinner today. Or at least not a feast for dinner.
Now see this is why microwaves were installed in every room. If you got killed during the day you could simply get some hot pockets. Whoever invented microwaves. Thank you. Imagine what humanity would be like without Pop-Tarts. Awful to think about. I tried to stand up, but I ended up faceplanting down into the grass instead. I didn’t quite believe that even Jack could get that tired sparing. So, either Giants had invaded the hotel while I had been dead, or Jack was being an ass. I decided on the latter.
“Are you still mad about your epic?” I said to the grass, I did actually say it to Jack, but I might as well have spoken to Grass, which I was doing. So that meant that he was very mad. Since when’s he’s usually mad, he just sings Selina Gomez all day long, but now he was quiet. I turned around so I wasn’t eating grass. Instead, I tried to fall asleep. Because I was not getting up in the next couple of hours. But while I was doing that a knock came from my door. And before I could respond Alex came barging in. How rude.
“Hello, you got mail. There was a crow out there knocking on your door. How did you not… why are you on the floor?”
“I’m tired. You can blame Jack?
“I won't. But you got a letter from Annabeth.” I raised my head to look at what he had in his hand. And sure enough, there was a letter. Which he had so conveniently already opened.
“You know. In some cultures, it's actually considered rude for people to read each other’s mail.” I laid back down and looked at the branches of Yggdrasil above me.
“Well,” he said while lying down beside me popping his head in his hand. “she’s invited you over to her camp thingy. And she also invited me. You gonna go?”
It had been a while since we had seen each other so I would love to go. And Alex was apparently going to. To be honest I could really take a break from Valhalla. Seeing that I constantly died here, I still hadn't gotten very used to that yet.
“Does it say anything about when we leave?” because I really don’t think I could leave anywhere between now and at least 24 hours.
“I thought we could leave now. And no, that isn’t an offer.” He said while getting up.
Well- damn
“So,” he said, “Where’s the banana?”