He didn't understand all that well what had happened.
All in all, he should be going down, not up towards the sky. I mean, usually he was indeed going up, flying through the winds as he pleased, but given the circumstances it shouldn't be possible.
And it wasn't even he who was flying; a girl was holding his wrist, pulling him up with her as she rode a horse that reminded him of his own occasional companion. She wore a green scarf around her head and kept glancing at him, alternating between frowning and grimacing, as if she were having an internal debate with herself over him.
Now, a lot of weird stuff had happened to him, starting with his own birth. His entire life was one parade of impossible stuff after the other, but for some reason this particular event didn't register in his mind. He was too stunned to shout, fight or even ask the girl who she was or where she was taking him.
Eventually it didn't matter as a fog started clouding his mind, lulling him into unconsciousness as he finally heard the girl speak, her words hazy like morning mist.
"I'm definitely getting fired this time"
When he woke up all he saw was white.
The ground was solid underneath him, and the building that rose in front of him was too big for his brain to make sense of it. White trees littered the courtyard, their golden leaves defying nature in a way he should be used to by now. Walking closer to the building he could make out huge doors with knockers in the shape of wolf heads, and the sight brought him some peace; the wolves were always a reminder of home.
He absentmindedly brought a hand to his chest, startling when he found only solid muscle and his clothes feeling like new. He looked down at himself and didn't understand what he was seeing.
By all means there should've been a couple of holes right where his heart was currently beating.
"Hey kid!" A voice called through the yard.
His head whipped up, looking once more in the direction of the huge wooden doors of the building. One of them was partially open, a burly man with a beard that put his father's to shame leaning out. He could make an axe glinting in the man's belt. Oh gods, was he in trouble?
"You coming in or what?" The man shouted, gesturing for him to come in already.
He didn't know what else to do so, preparing himself for the unexpected, he marched inside.
The building, which looked to be polished marble from the outside, had the interior of a wooden lodge. A huge fireplace roaring in the far wall, with people both young and old laying around in couches covered with animal skins. The whole place was full of animal pelts, actually. A few boys and girls around his age ran around after each other, laughing as they wielded spears and axes. A girl threw her spear at the boy she was chasing, hitting him square between the shoulders.
He yelped, a phantom sympathetic pain flaring on his own back as he saw the boy fell to the ground, his face boring an expression of annoyance rather than surprise or pain.
The man who had guided him in shook his head, patting his shoulder. "Don't worry, it's not permanent. He'll be back by dinner" The man walked off to the other side of the room, where an overturned boat served as desk for a man with an even bigger beard than his guide. "I'm Hunding, by the way. Doorman of Hotel Valhalla"
"Valhalla?" He'd heard of it. Of course he had, he wasn't so closed off as to never have seen a Marvel movie or read about the world's other mythologies.
Hunding hummed, nodding as he guided him to the boat-desk. "Did you bring any luggage?"
"Luggage? N-no"
Hunding sighed. "That's fine. Here we are, you need to check in"
The man sitting by the desk stood up, leaning forward to shake his hand in greeting. "Welcome to Hotel Valhalla, young hero. My name is Helgi, the hotel's manager"
"Um, hi" He muttered, still overwhelmed by everything that had happened so far.
"Alright then, seems you have been upgraded to a suit!" Helgi said cheerfully, ignoring Hunding's muttering of 'only suits in this hotel anyway'. Helgi typed something on his computer and frowned. "Ah, seems the system is acting up a bit. Nothing we can't fix later!" He pulled out a stack of paper notes and dug a pen from the confines of his beard. "Could I have your full name to finish up your registry later, young man?" He looked expectantly at him, obviously already knowing his name but still wanting to play the part of proper manager.
"Jason" He said. "Jason Grace"
The tour of the hotel passed right over Jason's head as he followed Hunding through hallways, rec rooms and what looked like a torture chamber. He was just too confused, too dizzy yet hyped at the same time. A few hours ago he had been stabbed through the back with a spear by a crazy immortal roman emperor, and now he was whole and well, walking through the halls of a hotel where people seemed perfectly fine with killing each other left and right, since everyone was already dead and would wake up again after a while.
"Here we are lad" Hunding said as he stopped in front of an elevator. "Floor 19 is where you'll go. A bunch of troublemakers, that lot" Even though he worded it as a complain, Jason could tell the man was terribly fond of said lot.
"Why floor 19?" Jason asked. He had so many more questions he could be making; why was he here, who was that girl who picked him up from Caligula's exploding ship, why did everyone like axes so much when swords were clearly superior. But at this time that seemed like the only question he could get out.
Hunding herded him inside the elevator, pushing one of the lower buttons of the hundreds of ones littering the wall. "It's the floor where heroes your age live. Upper floors are for the oldest ones. All depends on your age at the moment of death"
Jason's stomach twisted. He really was dead, wasn't he? He knew he would die the moment he told Piper about the prophecy, but it still didn't process completely. Oh gods, Piper. He didn't even know what was of them. Had Apollo managed to get them out? Were they safe?
The elevator dinged as they reached their destination, the doors opening into a huge hall with doors lining both walls. He followed Hunding into the hall, seeing the names in each door as he passed. His eyes strayed in one in particular.
"Magnus…Chase?"
"Ah yes" Hunding said with particular affection in his voice. "That boy really is something else. Appeared one day, not knowing anything about us—quite like you! and then proceeded to take the place by storm, receiving prophecies and going on world-saving quests"
Jason hummed. "Sounds like someone I know"
"Here it is" He stopped in front of the last door of the hall, his name in a plate hanging on the wood. A strange shape was on the door, no handle to be seen. "Here's your key"
He handed Jason a smooth stone with the same shape carved on it. On his hand, the little drawing—a rune, his mind provided—started glowing, along with the one in the door. He brought it up to the door, slotting them against each other and seeing the door open for him. "Woah"
Hunding nodded. "Well, then. This is it for me. You get comfortable and, when you're done settling in, I think your floormates are in the common room on the other side of the hall. They can bring you up to speed on how everything works here" He patted Jason's shoulder once more, turning away and back into the elevator. "Good luck!"
Jason blinked at him as he left, and finally opened the door and stepped in. And he almost stepped back out.
The room was like something straight out of his dreams; so much so it almost scared him. The main room seemed to be modelled after Camp Halfblood's outdoors, with green grass carpeting the floor and four huge pine trees rising far into an open ceiling, which didn't make sense considering he was inside a building in the lower floors. The pine trees looked exactly like the one his sister had been turned into, the one holding the Golden Fleece on the outskirts of Halfblood Hill. The sight of them brought him both a deep sadness and a sense of peace, as if they represented the presence of Thalia in his afterlife and wanted to make him company, trying to soothe him.
In the middle of the room a miniature version of Hestia's Hearth roared with a warm fire, but he could feel there was no danger of it setting fire to anything in the room. In one corner was a small fully furnished kitchen with a minibar Helgi had been adamant he take the keys to. A door to the left of the room led into a bathroom so big it had its own thermae, a copy of the traditional roman baths they had in New Rome. To the other side of the room opened the bedroom, white marble walls decorated with both wolf and eagle motifs, with an architectural style and decorations that seemed to blend his Greek and Roman bedrooms seamlessly. Annabeth would've loved it.
"Annabeth" He frowned, remembering the name in the door he'd passed by. He didn't really understand why the name pulled at something inside of him; Chase was a very common name, it didn't have to mean anything.
A knock on the door caught his attention. Well, more like someone had repeatedly brought a battering ram down into it.
He opened it to find an angry-looking girl with a wild mane of red hair standing outside, arms crossed as she stared at him.
"There you are. Do you plan on leaving us waiting all day or just until Ragnarok comes?" She said. He remembered reading a couple of names in the rooms that could belong to girls, but seeing her hair and hearing her accent he could place a name to her.
"…Mallory, right?" Jason asked, stepping outside and closing the door behind him. "Sorry, I'm still taking all this in"
Mallory hummed, hands moving to hook on the pockets of her jeans. "It's fine, you just got here after all" She held out her fist. "Bring 'er here"
Jason complied, fist-bumping her with a smile. "I'm Jason Grace by the way"
"Yeah, yeah, I read your door. Now come on, you have to meet the rest of the gang before they send us to battle"
Jason blinked in confusion, following after her. "Battle?"
Mallory hummed. "In preparation for Ragnarok. Every day after lunch we set off to the fields and battle to the death. It's fun"
Jason remembered the boy in the lobby, being skewered by a spear the same way he'd been killed by Caligula. He'd have to go through that again?
They reached the room Hunding had pointed at him, Mallory walking through first with Jason following. The room looked like a mix of a rec room and a common dining room, with a table with multiple chairs around it and filled with snacks, couches around the room and a flat screen TV mounted on the wall. Most chairs around the table were occupied as who he assumed were the other residents of the floor surrounded what looked like a game of monopoly, but instead of moving forward with little figures the would stab a dagger in the square they were in.
"Hey Mack!" A boy wearing a blue military jacket waved. "Your turn is next!"
Mallory moved to plop back on her chair, picking up a card and then removing her dagger to stab it 3 squares forward. "Guys, this is our new roomie. Say hi"
"Won't you introduce him?" The huge guy sitting next to her asked, his long wild hair very fitting with the hotel's aesthetic.
"Mallory shrugged. "Am not his mom"
Jason stepped forward slowly, rubbing his arm. "Hi, I'm Jason Grace, nice to meet you"
The one sitting closest to him stood up, a boy with a striking resemblance to Kurt Cobain, except his hair was short and his eyes were a soul-searching grey he'd definitely seen before. "Magnus Chase, welcome aboard" So this was Chase? Jason was second guessing his initial thought after finally seeing the guy. "You already know Mallory. These are Halfborn, TJ and Alex" He gestured at the huge guy, the one in the blue jacket and another one he hadn't seen at first with a mop of green hair.
"Hi" Alex said. "Just for future reference, I'm a girl until I tell you otherwise. She/her"
Jason blinked at her blunt introduction, but nodded. "Of course, don't worry"
Alex nodded, a pleased smile on her face as she reached over the table to steal the bowl of pretzels for herself amidst the distraction of his arrival.
Jason turned to look at Magnus who was still standing next to him. "So, Magnus?" He asked. "Could I ask you something?"
Magnus tilted his head, but nodded. "Sure man, shoot it"
"Okay, this might sound weird but, do you know someone called Annabeth?"
Ending up in the middle of a battlefield with thousand other dead people with the cousin of Annabeth Chase who also just so happened to be a demigod of a completely different set of gods was not how Jason expected the afterlife to go by.
He expected Elysium, an eternity of pleasure and happiness while he waited for his friends to drop by with him so they could spend afterlife together. He didn't know why he ended up in the afterlife under jurisdiction of a completely different god. Hades was probably so pissed right now; or maybe not, since the Underworld was kind of overcrowded, according to Nico.
Another twist of his stomach at the thought of his cousin. He knew Nico—and Hazel, for that matter—had felt when Leo died (and there was another friend he would be thinking about all day as well), and wondered if they'd felt his death. Did they already know? Did Piper or Apollo manage to get a message across to both camps? How would his friends react to the news?
"Jason watch out!"
He saw the arrow before he heard Magnus' shout. His instincts kicked in and he dodged in time for it to zip past his head and embed itself on the chest of the guy standing a few feet away from him, sending him down with an annoyed 'fucks sake' as he died like it was just another day.
It was, in a way.
Alex snickered behind him. "Nice moves, Superman"
"Oh I haven't been called that in a while" Jason threw back, dodging more arrows, axes and a table leg thrown his way. This people really knew how to single out new blood.
He should have felt conflicted about having to fight in this battlefield, but the truth was this wasn't that much different from the War Games they would have at Camp Jupiter; people used to die there quite often, as the games pulled all the stops to prove your worth as a warrior. Having to kill people though, he'd have to get used to that. Magnus had told him he still didn't like it, as his focus was more on healing and making sure people didn't die. Jason wondered if it had been the other way around Magnus would've been a child of Apollo.
"Haven't we lasted a bit too long already?" Magnus yelled over the battle screams and cursing of people dying left and right.
"I wouldn't worry about that!" Halfborn shouted back from Jason's left, firing arrows towards a group huddled together half a mile away. "It's Thursday!"
The comment was so out of place Jason momentarily lost his focus. "Thursday? What's that mean?"
Alex pointed upwards. "It means that!"
Just as Jason looked up, a dragon the size of the Argo II landed on him.
Waking up laying on his bed in his new room wasn't even a shock at this point, considering how he shouldn't even be existing anymore after a dragon butt turned him into play-doh, but he still was around after the spear to the back, so he was willing to believe anything.
Someone knocked at his door, softer that Mallory had done but still with a firmness that made him march to the door as soon as he got up.
Outside his door stood the same girl who had pulled him—or his soul—from the ship where he had died. Her scarf was down on her neck, her brown hair spilling down her shoulders. She kept the same frown/grimace she had when carrying him through the sky when looking at him.
"Jason Grace" She greeted with a nod. "I've come to take you to the Feast Hall"
Jason hadn't been there yet, Hunding saying he'd be taken for dinner so no point in showing him; he supposed it was dinner time already. "Uh, sure, but first of all, can I ask who are you?"
The girl blinked wide eyes at him, as if just realizing she hadn't introduced herself. "Ah, sorry about that" Suddenly she looked much more approachable, and Jason felt more at ease about her. She reminded him of Reyna. "I'm Samirah al-Abbas, your Valkyrie" She said. "You can call me Sam"
"You're the one who brought me here"
Sam sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Yes, I picked up your soul from your dying body and brought you to Valhalla" Her conflicted expression came back while she said this.
Jason wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, but felt it was best if he didn't. "Is...something wrong about that?"
She hummed. "Probably" She didn't elaborate. "Come on now, we'll be late"
She took him down the elevator and through enough turns and halls to convince Jason she could find her way through the Labyrinth easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Jason was grateful he'd dined in halls where fauns and nymphs flitted around the tables, as it made it much easier to accept the flying Valkyries, the giant tree, the milk-dripping goat and the waterfall in the middle of the room. He could see the others from floor 19 waving at him from the table they occupied, but Samirah brought him to another one, empty near a long table that most likely sat important people.
"You are the only einherji today" Sam noted as she sat down next to him. "I was hoped someone else would be here, to take pressure off us"
Jason chose to ignore the pressure comment; people here seemed to be as cryptic as the oracles. "Inwhat?"
"Einherji" She repeated slowly. "Inhabitant of Valhalla. The plural is einherjar"
In that moment a group of people busted into the room, talking loudly and laughing and palming each other in the back heartily. They walked towards the big table and sat down. The seat—throne—in the middle remained empty.
One of them, whom Jason realized was Helgi, stood up and addressed the whole room. "Einherjar! Valkyries! Welcome to another fantastic end of another fantastic day! I know you are raging to tear into your Saehrimnir, but first we must welcome our new arrival" He gestured towards Jason, and then the entire hall was looking at him expectantly.
Samirah looked down at her hands, clutching the hem of her shirt until her knuckles turned white.
Helgi bellowed once more. "Then, let's begin the presentation!"
A holographic screen materialized in front of the tree, the image flickering a few times before tuning into a scene that turned Jason's blood to ice.
It was a view from above of the Julia Drusilla the Twelve, the ship Caligula had been in when they got captured. The camera moved around in the sky, unable to look inside and only catching the movement of pandai and mercenaries on top—and the screams of pandai they couldn't see getting their hearts ripped off—until an explosion shook the air and made Samirah lose her balance for a moment, the image shaking with the force. The explosion, the one Jason had made to free him and Meg from the Venti, had split the ship in two, giving Sam a way to look into and reach the throne room. Jason saw Meg fell through the hole in the side, followed by Crest the pandos jumping after her, and then Sam had moved in, peering into the room while the fight started.
He saw Apollo clutching his chest, blood staining his shirt as Medea stood by him, making sure he didn't die before she killed him. He saw Piper, getting up from the floor as blood dribbled from her mouth, a huge bruise all over her jaw. He saw himself, arrows embedding themselves into his limbs as he fought Caligula on top of Tempest.
The hall watched the scene entranced. Whether it was from the surprise of the explosion, the horse made of storms, the inhuman creatures or just the thrill of the fight Jason didn't know. They seemed to be keenly following his sword, though.
Then it happened. Jason had made eye contact with Apollo, and had used the chance to shout at him to leave, and to remember his promise. He could hear his voice clearly, still over the distance. In that extra second he repeated the words to Apollo, Caligula rounded up behind him, and the hall gasped as his spear drove into his back.
At that moment the camera zoomed in into the scene, except it wasn't zooming in; it was Samirah flying in and stretching her hand out to him. Jason gaped as he saw himself—his soul—leave his body and grasp her hand unconsciously. Then she was pulling him up and away.
The screen faded to black, and the screen disappeared. The hall broke into applause and hollering, but Jason felt as if another dragon—one maybe smaller, made of bronze—had squashed him again. The people on the big table were muttering with each other, nodding in agreement. Finally Helgi got up again.
"Magnificent!" Helgi clapped. "Truly a hero worthy of Valhalla. We're sure you will be a mighty warrior once Ragnarok comes, Jason Grace!" He looked towards the empty throne, where now two ravens were perched. "Does Odin wish to intercede?"
The throne remained empty.
"All right!" Helgi turned to Jason once more. "Jason Grace, do you know your parentage?"
Samirah winced next to him, hunching in on herself.
Jason seemed at a loss all of a sudden. "My…my parentage?"
Helgi nodded. "Indeed. Are you a mortal, or were you born from a god?"
Jason waited for a moment, then nodded, lifting two fingers to mean the second option.
"Excellent! Then by all means, reveal your godly parent"
The whole hall went silent, looking at him expectantly.
Samirah said something under her breath he was sure she'd get her mouth washed for saying at home.
Jason gulped. "My godly parent" His voice reverberated through the hall. "Is Jupiter, King of the Roman gods"