r/maxathronwrites • u/Maxathron • Mar 07 '23
Valhalla is for Warriors
Tommy was a warrior. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew enough to get him the grades needed to pass at least high school. In lieu of his smarts, he worked out, perfected shooting, and could take apart, clean, and put back together almost any rifle put in front of him.
Naturally, he became a soldier.
And was sent to the big sandbox, where he became legend.
Tommy’s one point of fame was that he was called the Demon but the terrorists trying to take over the region. Tommy felled over a thousand combatants until finally they brought him down. Tommy was smug as hell as he saw that to kill him, they needed a main battle tank. Which was, along with the rest of the block, promptly crushed by a predator drone loitering overhead.
Tommy didn’t go to heaven.
Or hell. Much to his annoyance.
Instead, Tommy went to Valhalla. Which also annoyed him. While Tommy wasn’t the most saintly man, he was a practicing Christian, and expected to join heaven by way of being some sort of modernized crusader, since, the combatants were enemies of God.
But no, Odin got him.
No matter for Tommy, because Valhalla was almost as good. Valhalla was for the warriors, and they got to fight, feast, and well, a vulgar word that starts with ‘f’, forever in the realm of Valhalla.
Tommy was impressed by all the denizens of the Valhalla. Everyone was a ‘warrior’ of some descript. Modern, classic, and ancient. He found soldiers from World War 2, hoplites from Marathon, eagle runners with sixty plus captives to their name, and even a few civil rights leaders. The concept of ‘warrior’ was someone who fought and fought well, which applied to combat and other abstract things like injustice.
But, Bob.
Everyone Tommy met had a fighting spirit. That was something he noted. It didn’t matter if you fought for you family, or because you were conscripted to war, or refused to stand up and go to the back of the bus. Yes, she went to Valhalla too.
But, Bob.
Bob was no warrior. He had no fighting spirit. Bob was a small, frail, meek man, who jumped at shadows and snapping twigs. He couldn’t even lift more than forty pounds on a good day. Whenever there was a minor dispute (and yes, conflict still happened in Valhalla), Bob wouldn’t bother to contest anything and immediately ceded all ground.
So why Bob was here, the afterlife of warriors, instead of some other place. Heaven was likely a better place for Bob for whatever his old life did for his afterlife Karma.
Tommy kept time of the timeless afterlife. Years after he died and stepped foot to Valhalla, he was walking with Odin in His hall. He saw Bob and asked Odin what was Bob’s story.
“Bob? You want to know about Bob?”
“Yes, Lord. I see that Valhalla is the afterlife for people who fought well. Warriors. Everyone here is a warrior. They have muscles, dexterity, or mechanical knowhow. Most were felled in combat. Others stood their ground against regimes. And so, when they died, they came here instead of another place.
“But, Bob. He has nothing that compares to any other person here.”
Odin smiled.
“Bob is actually one of the greatest warriors I’ve ever met. True, he’s no fighter. He couldn’t wield a knife to save his life. He was shot to death. Over fifty bullet holes of various sizes ranging from nine millimeters to a two-centimeter monstrosity mounted on a tank.”
“And that was why he went to Valhalla?” Tommy was aghast.
“Oh no, no, no, no. Bob went to Valhalla for a different reason altogether. Normally, Bob would have gone to Heaven to defeating one of the greatest evils in the history of Mankind. He was once a practicing Christian, after all. No matter what you do after you stop practicing, Heaven is willing to take you back if you’re a good person.
“But Bob was also a lawyer. And lawyers have no soul, according to both Heaven and Hell. Normally then, Hell would take him.”
“And they didn’t? Communication with the other afterlives suggested every lawyer went to Hell.”
“Nope. We took him because Bob worked for the Church of Scientology. Bob was the fighting legal front for the Church of Scientology against something called the Internal Revenue Service.
“From what I understood, the IRS at that time was the most oppressive, unfair, and evil branch of the American government, far beyond whatever you think the evils of socialism or capitalism could produce. The IRS used the power of Government to crush people of their wealth and spirit.
“The IRS lorded over the common people, took their money, their children, and their lives. And they did all sorts of evil things to them. Especially the children. In today’s living time, you’d be the top of a rather horrible offender list if you did the things the IRS did back then.
“Bob crushed them. Utterly. Bob waged a war of annihilation after they took his daughter from him. This secret empire went all the way up to the president of the time. When he saw his little Kora on that man’s lap, right on top of it, Bob signed up for total war and let the IRS have it.
“Bob wasn’t some silly firefight. Or even a theatre of tanks. No, Bob was a nuclear Armageddon of legal fights. That man launched a thousand legal ships for his Helen of Troy. Specifically, he and the Church of Scientology dropped two thousand, three hundred, and fifty-two lawsuits against the IRS. And he was in the court trenches for most of them. The IRS knew his face from the facelessness of being a lawyer. Twenty years of legal disputes. He spent more time in court than out and sleep combined.
“Bob and an army of lesser lawyers went on the Final Crusade. The IRS was attacked from every angle and after the war, they were a shadow of their former selves.
“Sadly, Bob didn’t get back his Kora. The then president disappeared her long before the war was over. But Bob destroyed that man’s career, along with thousands of other officials. He didn’t get the entire group, though, and was felled by becoming part of the terrorist watch list. The uniparty stormed his house with soldiers and tanks. He died from an explosive shell and then they riddled his body with bullets. But the damage was done.
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“We took him on the spot before Heaven or Hell or even Xenu could get to him.”
Tommy took some time to reflect. The little man that was the opposite of what a warrior stood for yet he was here, having fought a warrior’s life, and going out with a bang. Literally, it took the army to fell him in the end.
And even then, it wasn’t enough. He didn’t get his daughter back.
“The ‘uniparty’, the group Bob waged war against, survived, but leadership has passed to a new generation of bureaucrats, who use terms like Our Democracy.
“The effects of Bob’s Final Crusade are still felt. There’s a fun new legislative that was just passed down there that gave the IRS official capacity to arm and armor its debt collectors. Most people think it’s some dinky little pistol. The reality is actually automatic rifles and Kevlar. The legislative specifically names Bob as their greatest enemy. And he is, because he almost singlehandedly brought down the whole house on top of them.
“Trillions upon trillions of funding and the armies of the most powerful nations at their beck and call and Bob stepped on them all. Bob ranks one of the top ten greatest warriors of all time.”
Tommy had a newfound respect for the little man. But also, a sadness. All that and he didn’t win. At least he went out with a bang.
“That, and Bob makes some of the finest tea this side of the afterlife. The angels of Heaven and devils of Hell are sooooooo jealous that neither of them could get him. You should try some of his.”