"I'm so sorry for your loss," she says, sounding very genuine.

Alex sighs. "Thanks. I've gotten used to it over the years, but it still stings."

They brighten. "Anyway, do you want to meet the rest of the team? It's getting about time for dinner, anyway."

"Yeah, sure, sounds good."

They twirl out of the room. "Alright, first things first." They knock on the door to the left of their own room's.

A black girl opens the door after a moment. "Hey Alex. Is it dinner already?"

"Yep! Also wanted to introduce you to my roomie. Kaede, this is Sheila Kamber-Green, bearer of Metis, goddess of wisdom. She's a Devisor and Energizer, so she can invent things that run on their own laws of physics and absorb energy for her own purposes."

Sheila waves. "Charmed."

"Pleasure," she replies. "I do metamagic. Also I don't think I ever caught what you were deity of," she adds, to Alex.

"Oh! Tyche, goddess of fortune."

Sheila exits the room, and an Asian girl follows after her, buttoning a dress shirt. "Hi," she says. "Sandy Cheung, bearer of Nike, goddess of victory. I'm a package-deal psychic, which means I can use one of a psychic power, an Esper power - in my case Paragon - or telekinesis at a time. We're also both Exemplars, which means our strength, speed, and brainpower are enhanced beyond human limits."

"I'm gonna have my plate full of these names for different kinds of magic, aren't I."

She does not sound altogether displeased by this.

"Oh, yeah, powers theory is a lot. Fortunately nobody really minds explaining their power."

They troop over to another room. Sheila knocks this time. "Kostas, get your ass out here."

A gangly young man steps out. "Why so cheerful, Sheila- ooh, a newbie!" He sketches a bow to Kaede. "Konstantin Manos. Pleased to meet you."

"We're doing the whole introductory spiel," Sandy says. "Including Powers Theory 101."

"Okay! Konstantin Manos, bearer of Thanatos, god of death. I'm a Siren and faux-mage Energizer, that means I can do cool shit with my voice and I can absorb light and turn it into magical shadowstuff called Erebum, with which I can do magic. They call me a faux-mage because I'm not technically a wiz-class mutant, but I still have an advantage at magic."

"Kaede, otherworldly visitor, metamagic. How did this world come to have so many different kinds of magic?"

He shrugs. "Search me. All the myriad varieties of mutant powers are technically one trait expressing itself in different ways, hard as that is to believe, but there's a lot of different kinds of magic-magic too - like, Erebeal magic, what I do, is totally different from chaos magic like Alex does, which is different from the hermetic magic that school teaches by default, which is different from theurgy and blood magic and necromancy."

"Are there more people from other worlds, that you know of? Could explain a bit if there was cross-contamination."

"Yeah, it's possible. People do come from other worlds sometimes, and I guess they could've developed different magical traditions in parallel. Actually that happened within our world too, back in Ancient Greece people mostly used proto-hermetic magic while in most of the rest of the world they were using various kinds of theurgy."

"I hope I can learn to use some of this magic the regular way, it'd be great to have any that's actually mine rather than borrowed."

"Usually anybody who's a person can learn magic. There's a couple of exceptions - some people don't have souls, and that'd prevent it, but Alex would know if you didn't have a soul."

"Definitely a soul in there," Alex nods.

"There you go." They reach the final room. Sandy knocks. "Jack, Gav, get out here, we're all going to dinner with Alex's new roommate."

Two boys come out. One of them is identical to Kostas except for the color of his tongue stud (his is silver, Kostas' is gold). The other is shorter and stockier than the twins, and wears a slight frown.

"-oh, okay," the twin says in response to no apparent stimulus. "Hi, I'm Gavriil Manos, bearer of Hypnos, god of dreams. I'm a psychic and I manifest ectoplasm, which I can shape into various objects and effects.

"Are we introducing ourselves? I'm Jack Schmidt. I'm a shifter and a power mimic, if I touch someone I can use their powers for a few minutes. Are they doing the 'we're secretly greek gods' thing at you? You're going to make us all look like weird nerds, guys."

"Like you're not a weird nerd," Kostas says, rolling his eyes.

"I can also see the thing where they all have a bit of magic pointing away from them and you don't, so if they're not secretly gods they're sure something you're not," she says, grinning. "But power mimic, that's cool, do me, do me," she continues, offering her hand.

He pokes her hand. Then he frowns. "No dice. What's up with that?"

"She's from another universe, she's not a mutant," Alex explains.

"Oh. That makes sense, then, when I mimic a power it's really relying on the fact that mutant powers are all basically the same thing."

"Shame. Anyway, I can totally see a magic thing they all have and you don't, there. I can't tell what it is, yet, I'd need to stare at them for a very long time and that'd be creepy, but there's definitely something there."

Jack looks troubled. “But... if you guys are gods... why do you hang out with me?”

Sandy sighs. “You’re not as annoying as you think you are, Jack. And you have the potential to become very powerful.”

“If we end up back in our rightful place on Olympus we’re taking you with us,” Gav nods, throwing an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “Hypnos, Thanatos, Metis, Nike, Tyche, and Jack.”

“Kinda fucks up the aesthetic, but we’ll deal,” Kostas agrees, throwing his arm around Jack’s other shoulder. With Jack thus secured, the twins begin down the stairs, dragging him along.

"Surely you'll find a new name for him. Ascension to godhood must involve some sort of naming ceremony, right?" she suggests, following along.

Jack pouts. "I like my name."

"He's also terrible at coming up with names," Alex sighs. "We play roleplaying games together and he has to use a random name generator every time or he just can't come up with anything. His codename is 'Man Jack'."

"It's a perfectly serviceable pun," Jack says defensively.

"I don't have the language, what's it a pun with—"

"'Every man jack' means 'everybody'," Jack explains. "And I can shapeshift, so I can be anybody."

"—ooooh. For free or does it cost, what are the limitations of the shapeshifting—"

"It takes up energy, so I eat more than a normal human would, but not as much as some powers do - Sheila has to eat a ridiculous amount of food, because she's an Energizer, I'm just in 3000-calories-a-day territory. And I'm a shifter-5, so I can turn into basically any humanoid form and I can make functional changes to my biology: armor plating, venom, wings, the works." Demonstratively, he grows five inches taller, turns into a redheaded woman, and gains goat legs. "Power rankings are on a seven-point scale, so I'm pretty close to the top."

"That is so cool, I'm extremely jealous, the shapeshifting blessing I need to use for my occasional sex changes is very expensive, relatively speaking."