It had started out as a simple task: rob a convenience store.

Compared to the other things that Astrid had been up to of late, it should have been a walk in the park. She had strolled in casually, prepared to shift her wing and ramp things up in a timely manner. However, it seemed that her appearance had become entirely too recognizable.

She had barely been in the store for a few minutes before the employee at the desk had reached for the phone. Behind the counter was a list of known criminal mutants and their attributes. The list was a staple for any anti-mutant bigot. He had reached for his gun with his other hand at the same time as he reached for the phone.

Astrid sighed. It was going to get more intense than she had planned, and she was going to have to go faster. She grabbed a pack of twizzlers off of the shelf and opened it with an annoyed vigour. She stuck one in her mouth and chewed it quickly as she shifted her wings.

“Do not beeng calleng pulice, thank you,” Astrid said, her voice sickly sweet as she approached the employee. “More people beeng dead now.”

To punctuate what she’d just said, she stuck a crystal into the counter in front of him. It was really just for show, but it made her feel cool. Her general rule was that if it made her feel cool, it was worth doing.

Nate was still readjusting to the freedom of his life now that he was out of prison, and the amount of control he could have over his own schedule. For four years, his time was regimented and the parameters were enforced without exception. Now, Nate could devote whole hours of time to absolutely nothing, and that level of unplanned activity was magical.

New York was an interesting city, and Nate had spent the better part of his day looking at the wares of street vendors, reading a newspaper in Central park, and walking through the American Museum of Natural History, (since the Art Museums had no plans of letting him in.) He originally wanted to keep his phone at the Mansion, but for security and accountability reasons, he knew better. He was free, but that did not mean they wanted to risk him dropping off the grid.

After a busy day, Nate was craving a snack. It felt almost immature, but he was sure a soda and a bag of chips would hit the spot. He hopped into the nearest convenience store and started looking around, when his body reminded him of another need he had ignored all day.

Before he could escape the unsettling surroundings of a public convenience store restroom, Nate heard the unmistakable sound of trouble outside. He was not about to put his ear to the grime-encrusted door, but he could hear well enough the voice of a woman making a clear threat.

Nate might have to intervene, but he was not going to jump to action right away. In most cases, a robbery like this passed without incident, and the last thing Nate wanted was to be part of antagonizing an incident. He would be ready though, if things sounded like they were going to get worse…

"Get the hell out of my store." 

The store clerk had a great deal of nerve. He liked his store, probably even more than he liked most people, which meant that he did not like when it was threatened. He regarded the winged teen with an amount of distain that could only be acquired through years of working with terrible customers. This was not the first time that his store had been threatened, and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but he would be damned if he would let some mutant punk close him down. 

Ignoring the obvious threat, the store clerk continued with his phone call, and began to give the details of the scene to the 911 operating centre. His other hand still rested on his gun, ready to pull it out at a moment's notice.

Astrid rolled her eyes and slouched a little, still holding onto the crystal she had rammed into the counter. This was supposed to be easy, god damn it. She was not going to let some stupid man with a phone show her up. That wasn't what October would do, or what Gregory would do, or what Aura would do. Heck, it wasn't even what Surtr would do.

Her hand slid off the crystal as she began to make her way around the counter. She wasn't going very fast or using any kind of obvious force, since she didn't think that she had anything to worry about from the 5'6" pudgy man in front of her. However, as soon as she had turned the corner, she was met with a gun aimed at her abdomen.

Astrid groaned and slouched a little more. She hadn't wanted to do anything high profile that day. If she had, she would have hit up somewhere cooler than the local 7-Eleven. This was just lame. It wouldn't even make an interesting news story.

However, she couldn't exactly just ignore the gun pointed at her, so she moved forward with her crystal wings in front of her. The store clerk fired twice, but the bullets simply ricocheted off. It was all a bit boring for Astrid, really. He wasn't even giving her a challenge. 

The situation was not improving based on the tone of the store owner. Most places like this avoided confrontations with burglars because the lost money kept in the register at any given moment was not worth the risk. Occasionally though, there was someone who had to make a stand. Maybe he had a personal stake in the store, or he was one of those “I won’t be intimidated types,” or maybe—just maybe—he was excited at the prospect of shooting a mutant.

There was a call to 911, which was a great idea if he wanted someone to pick up a body. It was a common saying that “when seconds mattered, the police would be there in minutes.” It was especially in common with the second amendment crowd, and when Nate peeked through the small amount of space he allowed the door to be cracked open, he could spot a hand on a holstered weapon.

The gun was pulled, and Nate knew things could only escalate from there. A mutant thief with impressive crystalline wings and a middle-age man with a weapon were not going to come to their sentences and hash out the socio-economic factors that led them into this stand-off. Nate had to prepare to intervene, but the last thing he wanted to deal with was the fall out of having his face out there in a situation like this. There was a thin line between “stopping crime” an “being involved in a crime,” and it was a line an ex-criminal wanted to avoid.

Of course, being discrete in this case meant removing his clothes.

Specifically his outer layer of clothes. Nate was aware of how his secondary mutation worked; his body was converted to a unique shadow mass form, as well as any clothing clinging to his skin. His regular clothes would stay on his body, but he might need to leave them to have easy access to movement, (and to not risk getting holes in clothes he liked.) Underneath his clothing, Nate wore a blank white morph suit, covering him from head to toe. It was not the most elegant solution, but it was a great way to stay anonymous, stay safe, and avoid nudity in public spaces.

Nate was sliding the mask of his suit over his face when two shots rang out from behind the counter. He could not put it off any longer, so he sighed and stepped out into the store.

He could see the glass case under the counter shattered as well as a nearby snack shelf. The woman was shielding herself with her wing. Wait, not a woman—a kid! What was someone so young doing holding up a store like this? It was a stupid question; he of all people would know what might put a kid in a position like that.

If a fight could be avoided, that would be the ideal solution, because Nate had no desire to fight an orphan girl. ”Come on, kid. It’s getting late. Why don’t we all just agree to call it a night and leave the angry knockoff Jack Black alone.”

”Come on, kid. It’s getting late. Why don’t we all just agree to call it a night and leave the angry knockoff Jack Black alone.”

Seriously? Now some random guy was getting involved? Astrid groaned again and dropped her guard, letting her wings fall to her side at the same time. The easy robbery was getting stupider and stupider. There was no use in her leaving, either. The police were on their way either way, and she probably wouldn’t get very far at that point.

Letting her guard down had been a bad idea, though. The store clerk shot off his gun once again, this time aiming at the girl’s feet. He very clearly choked based on his expression. He had likely been aiming for more important parts of her body, but decided against harming another person at the last second.

Astrid yelped as the gun went off unexpectedly. She jumped up, narrowly missing the bullet. It left a hole in the ground where her foot had just been, making Astrid shudder. As much as she didn’t love walking places, she didn’t really care to have her foot blown off.

The teen made a guttural growling noise at both the store clerk and the random guy that had just walked in. She did not need this. She was better than this! She’d worked with Aura, and Jabberwocky, and with the Roach. She was not about to be taken down by some middle aged man in a 7-Eleven uniform. That was not how the mighty Valkyrie would go down!

"Shut up!" She yelled at both of them and neither of them, even though there was no sound coming from them at that particular moment. Instinctively, she slapped the gun out of his hand, causing it to shoot another hole in the wall behind the counter. The store clerk’s eyes bulged as Astrid moved forward, uninhibited. She pulled the crystal out from the counter and raised it, aiming for somewhere lethal.

There was something odd about standing in a morph suit beyond the fact that he was standing in public in a skin-tight morph suit. The material was thick enough to be opaque, which was important for keeping his identity secret, but it was thin enough for him to feel the air around him. It was simultaneously the most covered and naked he could feel at once.

His warning to the girl was not taken kindly, but he did gain her attention. Unfortunately, the clerk only took his introduction as an opportunity to take a wild shot near the girl’s feet. Not appreciating the older man’s lack of appreciation for Nate sticking his neck out for him, Nate now had to deal with two hostiles.

The winged girl took care of one problem, smacking away the firearm from the clerk, but the situation only escalated when she grabbed a sharp crystal and angled it at the man. This was already more of a hassle than he was anticipating. How did the X-Men do this stuff all the time?

Still in his normal form, Nate had access to his own shadow’s movements, so he willed his shadow to move across the ground, up over the counter, and toward the man. Suddenly, the shadow emerged from the ground, like matter in a state between liquid and solid, wrapping around the man’s body and enveloping him in an opaque shadow bubble. The man’s face was a mixture of shock and confusion before it disappeared within the black-grey bubble.

”Now now, here I am trying to help, and you’re there with your gun, not ****ing helping.” Nate willed the shadow over the counter and quickly dragged the bubble back to the bathroom, where it tossed the clerk before breaking the door handle from the inside so he would not interfere further.

The shadow returned to its owner, and Nate could turn back to the young thief. ”Okay, now it’s just us mutants, so how about it; leave? I don’t need you getting shot, but I also don’t need to be accessory to petty theft.” In part, Nate wanted to stop the crime and keep his sense of moral high ground, but there was a petty part of him that felt like petty theft was a level of crime that had been beneath him for a long time.

In a strange string of movements, the store clerk was carried away to the washroom in a weird sort of dark bubble. Astrid wasn't sure what it was, but it was clearly coming from the man that had just appeared. Her face contorted angrily as she watched, unsure whether she would be able to stop whatever was going on.

The man had interfered. That was not okay with her. She'd been so close to finishing him off, too. Her arm had been raised above her head, ready to strike, only for the man to move. After that, she was left standing awkwardly, unsure of what to do with her arm.

So, she dropped it to her side and whipped around to face the man with a hideous expression of outrage. She listened half heartedly to what he was saying about his wants and desires, but didn't particularly care. If he didn't want to have a part in her escapades, then he should have left before she did anything and not interfered. It was his problem that he was involved at that point.

Besides, that was her man to kill! That was her right! Whatever that man had just done to him had been stealing from her. Stealing her rights to other human lives.

She gave him a good look up and down, sneering at the weird, skintight while leotard thing. Why the hell was he wearing that? It looked stupid, Astrid decided, so clearly he was stupid. That was the logical conclusion. Plus, it was showing off way more of what was underneath than she wanted to ever see. That was just gross. "You lookéng stupid," she informed him. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to engage him, she decided, but she could still tell him that, at least.

Ignoring his statements completely, she made her way over to the cash register and pressed the little button to open it. As she scooped up all the bills inside, she realized something: maybe he actually had helped her after all. It would be easier to get away from the scene without any blood. Sure, it was disappointing, but now she was free to leave with her cash.

She held up the wad of bills and gave him a devilish grin, pleased with herself. "Thanks," Astrid snickered.

Nate was glad to get a civilian out of the way, regardless of how trigger happy the man was around a young mutant girl. Yes, there was a great chance he was a bigot, but it was not Nate’s place to guess intent when a girl was looking to rob and harm him. It was not his ideal, but he could not just side with a mutant child without question when everyone involved was at risk.

Now the only one seemingly at risk was Nate. He took a moment to remember a simpler time when he was incredibly selfish and would only put himself at risk if there was an impressive sum of money on the other end. If he ever saw Quinn again, he would chastise her for leaving him with a conscience.

The thief was not a fan of his, showing clear frustration at not getting to impale a store clerk. This was concerning, to say the least. This girl was not one of his students, and he could not give her the benefit of the doubt; he knew all to well some of the hardened youth left out on the streets to fend for themselves.

She spoke in a heavy accent, specifically French, if he was hearing correctly as she insulted his appearance. Behind the expressionless mask, he smirked. He could deal with a cheap shot, because he knew his anonymity and desire not to end up naked were more important than a street urchin’s opinion.

What was annoying was her decision to rifle through the cash register anyway, despite his recommendation for her to just leave. She clearly underestimated Nate, which was fine; it was always easier to work against lowered expectations. While she collected cash, his shadow, benefiting from the fluorescent lighting of the store, moved along the floor and around to the girl. At the moment, it was still formless, like any other shadow, so it would leave no trace of touch as it moved up the girl’s ankle to her leg to her back.

By the time she was flashing a wad of cash at him with a smug look on her face, his shadow had already moved up her arm. The shadow crawled flat against her skin until it reached her palms. It was then the shadow finally emerged from the surface, (i.e. her skin,) gaining form and weight as it burst upward like a fountain of shadow, knocking the money out of the girl’s hand and into the air, where the bills all separated, falling through the air, each one twirling and flipping along its own individual path.

Nate chuckled, because Nate was enjoying himself more than he expected he would in his first foray into stopping a criminal. ”What’s stupid is the amount of energy you’re putting into robbing a run-of-the-mill convenience store. There are better ways to express teen angst you know. Get a tumblr or something.” It was a bad idea to underestimate her, even if she was a teenager, but it was satisfying to hopefully wipe the smirk off her face.

She'd been so close. So damn close.

Hubris had been her downfall, really. She'd been too caught up in the fact that she'd gotten what she wanted to watch her back. Or her front. Or any part of herself, actually. She'd underestimated the man and that had caused her to loose her prize.

The money was smacked out her hands by some shadow creation. It fluttered around the room, landing in a scattered formation. There would be no use in picking it up at that point, she realized. It would take too long, and it would involve dropping her guard again. Plus, by the time she was done, she would probably have about a third of the meager amount she'd started with. 

She did her best to shake off the shadow thing, even using a crystal to try to stab at it. She had no idea whether or not it did any good, but she hoped that it had. 

The girl let out a frustrated growl after her struggle, and then used her feathered wings to aid her jump onto the counter in front of her. She landed cleanly, but stumbled slightly as her heel found its way into the divot she'd created by stabbing a crystal into the counter. She regained her footing after a second of scrambling.

With another frustrated growl, she turned back to the man in front of her. He'd caused her enough grief, and she was ready to end things. *"On t'a bercé trop près du mur?" She spat an insult angrily at him in French, fairly confident that he wouldn't understand it. 

She shifted her wings again, spreading her legs into a squat so that the extra weight wouldn't cause her to slip on the slick surface of the counter. She beat her wings behind her carefully, only slipping a little bit as she did so. Once she'd gained some momentum, she shot off her bottom row of crystals at the man.

---

*"As a child, was your cradle rocked too close to the wall?"

If Nate’s goal was to ruin the girl’s ability to steal a large sum of money from a non-descript store owner, he had succeeded. They knew the police had to be on their way, so collecting the money from the ground as unrealistic. If she had any sense, she might just grab whatever quick bills she could carry—maybe enough for a meal or two, if she was quick—and get away before the authorities arrived.

Sadly, sense was in short supply that evening. Nate had made the questionable decision to intervene in a crime and the thief decided his offense to her pride was enough to spend her time on the attack. Getting an unstable footing atop the counter, she eyed him venomously, insulting him in French. He was apparently right that English was her second language, as genuinely angry people tended to revert to their language of origin.

Boy, was she angry. Her large crystalline wings spread intimidatingly, as if he had angered a bird of prey. The wings started flapping, making Nate think maybe she was taking off, but she stayed (barely) grounded. It was unfortunate that the material of Nate’s suit limited his vision, even with contacts in, because his reaction to a wave of sharp crystals being fired off in his direction was poorly timed.

There was a reaction and a movement, but not enough of one to get out of the way of her attack completely. One of the crystals hit him in the right side of his abdomen, causing him to also shout something in his native (English) language to express his pain and anger.

Nate slowed his breathing and forced himself to calm down. The pain was sharp, but he was the right person for the girl to be striking. He coughed and chuckled as his body began to transform from his wound outward. His morph suit and the skin beneath it faded beneath the spreading grey, black, purple wave rippling from the crystal jutting out of him. His muscles, veins, and bones all converted, ceasing his sense of pain, along with most of his other senses. The whole process took no more than a few sentences before Nate was literally a shadow of his former self from head to toe.

The sound of Nate’s voice was echoey and ethereal. ”Je n'ai pas besoin d'entendre cela d'une fille qui peine à regarder hors du berceau elle-même.”

Reaching down, Nate pulled the crystal from his stomach, which slid smoothly out of his body, allowing the hole it left behind to fill naturally with his own shadowmass. ”D'ailleurs, si je vais être intelligent, je veux que vous compreniez.” His quips were important enough to translate into a language she could understand. Nate’s French was well-practiced, and while his accent was clearly not that of a native speaker, he was passable to all but the most elite and snobby of Frenchmen.

---

“I don't need to hear that from a girl who barely looks out of the cradle herself.”
“Besides, if I'm going to be clever, I want you to understand it.”

One of her crystals hit the man. Astrid smiled as she realized that. As much as her wings' crystal form was occasionally frustrating and difficult to deal with, it was ever so satisfying when things went well with them. She smirked as she watched him shout and try to focus on breathing through the pain.

However, rather than leaving with his tail tucked between his legs in shame, the man transformed. Of course he transformed. Astrid silently chastised herself. Just a simple shadow movement couldn't possibly be the only faucet of his mutation. Before she knew it, he was a shadow. Only partly the man he had been before. 

And with her luck, he was probably impervious to stabbing.

Astrid began to groan, but stopped suddenly. The man was speaking French.

He was speaking French.

Actually, he was insulting her in French.

She narrowed her eyes at him and listened to what he was saying. He even used proper grammar. Of course he did. Did everyone speak a second language perfectly except her?

However, she was not about to let him off the hook that easily. He'd just stopped her mid-robbery. That was not okay, even if he was one of the few people in the city that she could actually converse with. <Your accent is terrible,> she hissed angrily, stepping down from the countertop. 

This chance meeting with a young thief girl was a real eye opener to how much worse Nate could have been when he was a teenager. Yes, he was a petty thief and a go-between for small criminal organizations, but he never took pleasure in randomly impaling people like this girl appeared to. He was not sure if he should be worried about her or for her, but that was something he could work out when he stopped her from being a problem.

The police had to be approaching the scene, and while he had made himself mostly immune to what might be thrown at him, the police would likely not be so lucky. The goal was to distract her, and ideally neutralize her before cops or civilians might get involved.

Speaking her mother tongue did little to endear Nate to the girl, who he could have sworn had sneered at his comments. She dropped down from the counter, and Nate could get a better idea of what he was dealing with. Not focusing on the wings, she was thin and fairly tall for a girl who was clearly still a few years into puberty. As much of a psychotic brat as she seemed like, he had to remember that might not all be her fault.

Giving the benefit of the doubt to people was exhausting.

She insulted his accent, which was unsurprising. ”Your criminal instincts are terrible, kid,” he replied in French. He held his hands up in hopes of de-escalating the situation one more time. ”Listen, cut your losses. Get away. It’s the smart thing to do. Grab a few bucks for a Kid’s Meal on your way out.”

Could the man get any more infuriating? 

Whatever brownie points he had earned for being able to speak French had long been used up. She huffed at him as he suggested that she was a poor criminal and should stop while she was ahead.

She was not a bad criminal. She had evidence to prove that! She'd worked with the Roach to rob a bank, with Jabberwocky to destroy a government building, and with various Ragnarok members to do various chaotic things. None of that seemed like something that a 'bad criminal' would do. Ergo, her mind concluded that she was not a bad criminal. She was a rather good one, actually, she told herself.

Holding her head high, Astrid strode forward, back on the floor of the store. She did her best to elegantly pick up a few bills from the floor, but she wobbled on her heels slightly as she attempted it. It was a difficult thing to do.

She stood up and glared at the man indignantly. Sure, she was going to do exactly as he'd suggested, but that was just because she didn't want to meet the police there. She wasn't actually taking his advice. She was taking her own. He just so happened to have said it first.

"Go **** yourself," Astrid said cooly to the man. She'd picked that one up somewhere. She didn't know exactly what it meant, but judging from the way it was always delivered, it meant something bad. That was good enough for her.

She moved toward the door, intent on leaving, when it was opened for her. She whipped the hand holding the money behind her back as she realized that she was face to face with two cops.

"Someone call 9-1-1 here?"

If it was Nate’s plan to convince the young robber to run off, perhaps it would have helped if he could learn to keep his snarky comments to himself. The girl seemed frustrated, and it was starting to sink in that taking shots at her pride might not be the best way to sway her to listen. He could make a comment about how ego and pride were dangerous traits for a successful criminal as well, but for once, he would bite his shadowy tongue.

Much to his surprise, it seemed like his words had some kind of impact; either that, or she was not totally insane. He watched as she walked around in her heels like they were stolen from her mother’s wardrobe, but he stayed still as he watched her collect some stray bills. Anything under a hundred bucks was not going to hurt the store enough for bloodshed or more property damage.

She took a chilly shot at him with the one word that seemed to translate across language barriers, but Nate just smirked, which was thankfully indistinguishable in his current state. He had successfully negotiated the situation and things were starting to deescalate.

Which, unfortunately, meant the police had to make it to the scene just before the young girl could make her escape. This was… less than ideal. The girl put the money behind her back, but Nate was unsure of how much help that would be when the scene behind them was comprised mostly of broken glass and plastic, and a scattered collection of bills littering the ground.

Oh, and the pounding and shouting of an angry man from the bathroom in the back of the store.

Nate held his hands up, but nothing was going to make him look less out of place while he was in Shadowforme. He shifted out as quickly as he could so the officers could not figure out what they were looking at right away; given his situation, most of the information on his particular mutation could be located by authorities. He did leave the mask on; with so much still up in the air, keeping his face and voice obscured might still prove beneficial.

What he did do was step forward slowly, trying to get closer so he could get between the cops and the thief. ”Yes, I believe the store owner called. There was a break in, and he is in the back of the store, probably in need of assistance.”

He was still inching his way toward the police when one raised his weapon and pointed it at Nate’s chest. “Don’t get closer!”

Nate obliged, stopping in his tracks, frustrated that he could not get between the thief and the authorities. It was more frustrating because he knew what the police did not. ”Really?” he said flatly, glancing over to the girl, hoping she was not getting any bad ideas…

Things had been going so well.

The man talked before she was able to. He was explaining the situation, which Astrid assumed meant that she was done for that. That was it. She was going to prison for robbing a ****ing convenience store, of all things. She would no longer be able to call herself the Mighty Valkyrie.

However, the police didn't take all that kindly to the man's explanation. They began to point guns at him rather than her. She supposed that he did look rather suspicious, with his white costume and general mutant-ness. 

Astrid was very nearly offended, until an idea came to her. An idea that could absolve her of all supposed crime in the eyes of the authorities. It was a dastardly plan. A perfect plan.

The teen scrunched up her face and attempted to muster up any and all fake tears that she could. "He is doing! He is doing! I am try stop!" She shouted, trying to play on the emotions of the cops around. She just wished that she was cuter, or something.

The cop in front of her hesitated, lowered his gun for a second, and then raised it. "Get them both in cuffs," he nodded to the others that had arrived with him, "we need to get them both to the station for questioning. Someone get the security tape."