It bothered me. To see it again, even just a little part. It was on my mind the rest of the night.

Alex must have seen me fretting over it, since she's asked, "Magnus, what are you worried about?"

There was no point in lying to her. "I saw the wolves, the blue ones."

Alex raised her eyebrow. "You mean you saw the wolves that killed your mom?"

I hated that Alex faced problems head on, yet I also admired her courage. I grit my teeth, "Yes. I just saw a tuft of their fur, but I know it was them. They like to attack at night, so we need to be prepared."

"I'll ask our floor mates to say the night," said Alex and rushed off to do so.

As she did that, I herded all the kids into bed early. "What the Helhiem is happening, Magnus! We get free time after dinner!" they complained. Unfortunately they had picked up our use of Norse curses. I ignored them and put them in their beds. As I closed the doors, I swiftly locked them. I hoped that the kids would take a hint and stay in their rooms.

I headed up to my room, not to sleep but to prepare. I gathered all my personal possessions and placed them in a safe place. I put on some armor. Although I was determined to pull an "All-Nighter", my body refused. I had just done a tiring battle and my body needed rest. Before I crashed, though, I summoned Jack.

"Hey senor! Wait, am I allowed to talk?" Jack said

I wearily nodded. "Hey Jack, I am too tired to stay awake. Do you mind waking me up if anything goes wrong?"

"Alright. I can use that time to plan our next sword fighting lesson!" Jack said excitedly.

"Hey! Don't talk about that so loudly," I complained. Jack had been telling me what to say during my classes since I was clueless when it came to teaching. With that, I fell asleep.

It felt like it was only a minute before I heard it. A piercing, cold howl of a wolf. I bolted out of my bed and looked out my window. A faint blue haze was slowly approaching the mansion. I could hear a quiet growl of the wolves.

"Uh, senor, there is something outside," Jack said.

"Yah think!?" I replied. "Go wake up Mallory, Halfborn, and T.J. I will wake up the rest."

"Uh, wait, senor, I do-" I didn't hear the rest of his sentence because I was already out my door. I sprinted to Alex's door and knocked furiously. She opened the door immediately. She was already dressed for battle and her golden garrote was in hand.

"I saw them," she said, and we ran to wake up the rest of the crew. Fortunately they weren't too mad at us once they understood the situation.

"Sheesh boy, you should have woken us early!" Blitzen said as he tugged on his chainmail tuxedo. There was no point in complaining. When we came up to Halfborn and T.J's room, the door was cleanly sliced off. T.J and Halfborn were already ready, with Mallory talking to them.

"Oh hey Magnus, ready to kick some wolf butt?" Mallory said.

"Yep, but uh, why is the door sliced open?" I asked.

Jack floated up to me. "I tried to tell you I don't have hands! I had to cut the doors open to wake them up."

"Couldn't you just, like, knock?" I replied.

"Trust me Magnus, Jack's method was better," Halfborn said cheerfully. He wasn't wearing a shirt (typical Halfborn) and had his battle-ax (named: Battle-Ax) strapped on his back.

"So what's the plan?" Samirah asked.

"Frontal charge?" T.J suggested.

"Wait, isn't a frontal charge an attacking strategy? All we need to do is defend," said Alex.

Everyone nodded and thought a bit. "What side are they coming from?" Mallory asked.

"From the front side of the house," I replied. "There seems to be a whole army of them."

Suddenly the whole house shook, and there was a banging on the front door. "No time to plan, just kill as many as you can," Samirah said before flying out a window (which she promptly broke).

There was a flurry of movement as the front doors splintered into wooden shards. Wolves spilled into the entry hall. They were much larger than normal wolves and their fur was tinged with blue. Icy blue mist hung around them. I grabbed Jack and swung at the first wolf. Jack sliced through its neck easily, and the body crumpled into dust. The dust started steaming and the steam headed into the ground, heading back into the Ginnungagap.

It was chaos. Halfborn was wading through monster dust, swinging his ax wildly. Samirah was outside, blasting wolves with jets of light from her spear. Hearthstone used the Kenaz rune, the fire of life. It blasted the wolves into ashes and warmed the hall to a toasty 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

"We have to get them back outside," yelled Mallory, stabbing a wolf in the eye with her knife. She was right, we were fighting in too close of corridors.

"I have a plan everyone!" Blitzen yelled. "When I say 'Go' everyone get behind me... GO!!!" We all scrambled behind him as he chucked two metal things that looked like grenades. As they fell they started to expand. I realized that they weren't grenades, but Expand-O-Ducks. By the time they hit the floor, the ducks were the size of a small car. They landed on top of each other, creating a wall of metal duck. The wolves growled and howled as they tried to get around the ducks. The ducks shuddered, but held.

We hurried out the side door and raced to the front lawn. This was when we first saw the size of the wolf army. There were at least 100 of these wolves that swarmed the lawn, growling at us. Samirah was flying about 25 feet above them, still blasting them. The wolves immediately rushed at us when they saw us. We plunged back into combat.

For a moment I thought we were winning. I sliced through multiple wolves at a time and a fine powder of monster dust littered the ground. We pushed them back into the street, which was vacant. Yet as the battle continued, I realized that we were still hopelessly outnumbered. The wolves started to circle us and forced us into a small circle. We fought back-to-back, just a small dot in a sea of wolves.

I heard a scream from my right. Alex was clutching her forearm, blood seeping through hand. She had dropped her garrote and retreated behind me. "Alex!" I shouted. I was filled with rage and concern. I looked at her too long. A wolf grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me through the wall of wolves. I yelled and slashed at it. By sheer luck, I hit it's snout with the flat of my blade and it let go of my. Unfortunately I was now in the middle of the sea of wolves, alone.

I felt the searing of pain erupt from my legs and arms. Wolves were biting me, but gently, only breaking the surface. How cruel, I thought. The wolves were bleeding me out, trying to cause as much pain before I died. Black spots danced across my vision and my knees gave out. This was it, the end. I was strangely content with dying (I mean dying again) for real this time. I stopped fighting and closed my eyes, awaiting death.

Instead, I heard a noise. A strange whistling noise followed with a dull thud. I felt something fall next to me.

"Fire again!" said a voice. Curious, I opened my eyes and immediately closed them again. A flurry of arrows were soaring toward me. I heard the sounds of thumping and then... noise: shouting and yelling. I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by monster dust. Arrows were scattered on the ground. I looked up and saw my saviors.

Isaac and a group of kids had bows in their hands standing on the second floor balcony. They were already shooting toward the mass of wolves that surrounded my friends. I heard a battle cry and looked toward the smashed front entrance. A battalion of Chase Space kids, decked out with armor and weapons, had rushed outside and toward the wolves. They had taken off the cloth on their blades and must have somehow gotten around the ducks. Leading the charge was the rest of Bozos, Wesley, Jayden, and Ronald.

The wolves didn't stand a chance. The kids sliced their way to my floor mates and together they finished them off easily. After the last wolf was killed, everyone cheered, except for Alex. She seemed to be wildly searching for me, and when she spotted me she raced over. "Oh Magnus," she said, looking at my injuries.

"I'm alright," I stuttered. I tried to sit up, but fell back down because I almost blacked out. The next hours were a blur. Alex and Halfborn carried me back to Valhalla (and finished me there) while the rest watched over the kids. When I woke up in my Valhalla bed it was already morning. A little bit tired, I went back to the Chase Space.

Light streamed into the dining room, shining on everyone who was eating breakfast. The smell of pancakes wafted through the house and I hurried downstairs to join them. I sat next to Alex, who was talking to the Bozos.

"So how did you guys do that?" Alex asked.

"Well, we heard growls and then a large breaking sound," said Ronald.

"We thought it was burglars so we decided to lay low," Isaac said.

"But then we heard you guys fighting something so we lockpicked the doors open," said Wesley, with a piece of bacon hanging from his mouth.

"We snuck in and saw you guys fighting these wolves so we hurried and unlocked the doors of the other dorms," said Jayden.

"We're the wolves blue," I asked tentatively.

They looked at me quizzically. "Why on Earth would a wolf be blue?" Isaac asked.

I shrugged. "No reason. So what happened after that?"

"Once we got everyone up, we went into the room where you stored the weapons," Wesley continued.

"Wait, you weren't supposed to know about that," I said.

Jayden shrugged. "We know about a lot of things that we aren't supposed to know. Anyways after that, we spent a couple minutes unwrapping the cloth from the weapons."

"Then we suited up," Ronald said, "and headed into the entrance hall. But there were these cars in the way along with a bunch of wolf carcasses."

I must have looked confused since Alex mouthed "Glamour." Ah yes, the mysterious barrier that shielded mortals' vision from the true horrors of the world.

"I took the archers up to the balcony and we saw you being bit, so we fired on the wolves," Isaac explained.

"And we managed to squeeze through a gap between the cars to get outside," said Jayden.

I nodded. "Well you did good, guys,"

They shrugged. "It was more like a team effort," they said together. We all sat there in silence, them eating as much as they could while I stared fondly at everyone. Alex was right. I was like their father, nurturing them, teaching them, loving them. And as I realized this, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride, so strong it brought tears to my eyes.

"Uh Magnus, you good?" said Ronald.

I nodded. "I am just so proud of you guys." They rolled their eyes in embarrassment and looked away. Oh yeah, these kids were my kids.

WOW! My first planned and now completed book (Game On doesn't count)! Thank you all for reading this book, I appreciate every one of your votes, comments and reads. Just for good time sakes, wanna do it one more time on this chapter? :)

Seriously, I can't express my appreciation for you guys. Y'all rock ❤️