The world ended in a blaze of hot rock and tar. Gravity pulled in on it, drawing it down, and the hot rock did the rest. It... melted, gradually, but too fast for anyone to save, but that wasn't the first thing that had happened to cause the worlds ruin. First, one side had caved in at a colossal impact. Then, came the melting. Then, the ants. The blue of the oceans blended into the soggy green that was supposed to be land. Continents melded with seas, and little black worker ants the size of the ships fighter jets land on covered it all. The child's father bought her another world-shaped ice cream cone from the ice cream truck. Her first had been spoiled on the hot, hot street.

It had been a while since he'd heard from the end of the world. Or rather, since Elliott had heard an order from Loki, the shadowed leader of Ragnarok, the promised end of the world. He'd taken it upon himself to show some initiative and do things on his own. The few orders he'd had from Loki had been good ones, but ever since Utopia had fallen apart, things had gone strangely silent. Or maybe he'd simply fallen out of favor? Perhaps Loki saw what he was doing and thought 'Good show, boy! No need to hold your hand. Pip pop Cheerio!' His head canon for Loki was an over-the-top British gentleman, apparently.

The question Elliott had was, was the silence something other members felt, or had the person leading the organization merely abandoned him like God?

Ragnarok had a mailing list. Elliott had scratched an itch. He'd sent out an email for a little get-together between coworkers, a meet and greet. If people came, good. If people didn't come, good. He could channel grumpy cat. This was fine. The meeting would gather the cream of the crop. He'd get his answers. And maybe they'd forgive him for having the audacity to make a fake account profile called Loki2 where he pretended to be the man in charge. Because he's sent the email as if it were words from Loki on high. Surely the big man would understand and have a little faith. Or show up and kick his ass. The subject line had been an R.E.M. song title. No, not losing my religion. Though that would have fit him to a T. It had been End Of The World As We Know It. Fitting for Ragnarok. And this was Ragnarok Employee Management, so he felt fine. R.E.M. He was so clever. He needed to give himself a pat on the back!

He'd set the meeting up for a vacant warehouse by the docks, the usual place where he met a friend to train in martial arts. It was unassuming, empty, and in a place where it wouldn't attract undue attention if a lot of people showed up. Elliott had set it for around happy hour on a Friday. Maybe once everyone had bonded, they could all go out for drinks! Though more important things would come first. 

The inside of the warehouse had some scattered training equipment laying around. Punching bag. Those wooden tree things with the different pegs you kicked and hit in rapid succession. A salmon ladder. Various other gym equipment. Gym mats. Various racks of weapons, with curved swords and katana hanging on the walls. But aside from the badass secret training locale full of equipment and weapons, it was empty. 

Elliott waited patiently to see who would arrive. His arms were crossed in front of him. He'd even set up a table with coffee and doughnuts for the people. All of this was for the people. 

Astrid was feeling fine, actually. Just... a little neglected. 

She'd joined Ragnarok a while ago, and she'd expected it to be... well, organized. They'd even given her an email account. They'd told her about the faction picnic. There had been a PDF file.

Then things just... stopped. The communications from Loki that gave them ideas as to what to do stopped, and she began to hear less and less about the faction that she was in. It was disappointing, really. It had seemed so great when she'd joined.

But then she got another email. From Loki. Astrid had been more than a little excited to receive it. Things were finally happening, and she was being included again. It was proof that despite her recent mishaps, she was still important and powerful. She could do things. 

And do things she would. 

Astrid arrived at the warehouse, a little unsure of what to expect. The email hadn't told her much, just that things were happening again and that she was supposed to go to that address. She wasn't sure exactly why, since they couldn't very well do all that many chaotic things by starting out at a nearly empty building, but she wasn't about to question it. She'd been wrong before.

When she walked inside, however, she started to question things. There was no Loki. No large group of people that were discussing Ragnarok business or plotting dastardly things. Instead, it was simply October standing in front of a table surrounded by training equipment. It was a far cry from the sight she'd expected from the powerful Loki. 

"What we do?" She asked October as she approached the table and picked up a rather large donut. She was hungry. A donut sounded pretty good right about then. 

It felt like it had been ages since anyone from Ragnarok had contacted her. The faction was just barely finding its legs and already it seemed to be crumbling from somewhere within, leaving her feeling directionless and unfulfilled once more. Isabel thrived best when she had a goal to work toward and missions to fight through. When the Order finally seemed to have died for good she'd gotten into the habit of lazing around the Sanctuary for hours on end and filling her days with alcohol mostly so she'd have something to do. Zephyr provided some distraction, but he was more of an aggravation than anything else.

So when Ragnarok had come calling, and after some initial skepticism, she'd jumped at the opportunity even if the group's ambitions didn't exactly align with hers in a big-picture sort of way. Ending the world had never been an goal of hers, but there was no reason she couldn't work to throw a wrench into that plan and have her violent fun at the same time.

The email notification on her phone had come as a welcome surprise. Seeing Loki's name as the addressee was even more exciting. Finally the guy in charge of the whole thing was taking note of the stagnation in his group. She hoped there would be some good news waiting when she met at the rendezvous point. They were desperately in need of some direction.

Needless to say she was rather disappointed to find only two others already waiting at the designated warehouse, and neither of them struck her as leaders. Maybe the big boss wasn't there yet? She hoped so, because so far this meeting was looking a little pathetic.

"Is this is?" she offered in lieu of an introduction, eyeing the coffee and donuts but declining to have any. The weapons and equipment lying around were more interesting. Obviously this warehouse wasn't entirely abandoned. "Rag ain't doing so hot if this is the best they can do for a get-together."

"This next appointment is off site, we'll have to take the car." Madeline spoke from behind her tablet, her eyebrows were so bunched that they met in the middle in a very boop-able bunch of white fur. Jude refrained from booping. Just barely. The woman did have fangs after all.

She had been closer than a shadow this first week. Or maybe she always stuck that close. Sheesh. No wonder the actual Ambrose had fled. The life of the rich and famous turned out to be a lot of freaking work. He'd expected more drama. More intrigue. And a hell of a lot more supermodels.

"Anything I should know about this one?" He'd perfected the typical bored temperament, but was still lacking in "aggression" as Madeline put it. She'd actually scolded him for trying to be pay attention in their last meeting. It had sounded like JW was working on some genetic something and that was interesting considering that he was a mutant. But it wasn't his job to be interested. It was his job to act out a petulant, spoiled manchild.

"No. I mean, yes." It wasn't like Madeline to be flustered or disorganized. Jude slid into the sumptuous leather back seats of a black sedan and waited for the tigermutant to follow. She didn't. Not immediately. Jude poked his head out to check on her. She was still frowning.

"I was hoping to get you a bit more rounded out first, but someone has set the cogs in motion already." She put a clawed hand on Ambrose's head and pushed him back in. This time she followed and she let the tablet lay untouched in her lap. Something was seriously up. "It's time for you to learn to fly."

"Cryptic."

"Oh. And you'll have to call me Nidhoggr."

****. They'd been working on his Dutch, but he wasn't ready! He opened his mouth to protest-

"Norse mythology." Her tail flicked. "You're Jörmungandr, if you can convince them anyway. ANd Loki calls the shots." That seemed to amuse her somewhat.

"Oh. Is this some kind of rich guy kink club? Illuminati? Masons?"

She snorted. "Hardly."

Ambrose walked in with confidence despite his slight limp. His wings were packed uncomfortably inside his suit and considering that he'd been in meetings since 6am, that was really starting to grate on him. So this, whatever this weird rich people weirdness was, he would just have to handle.

As it turned out, the weirdness was a warehouse full of crap and three people standing around. Scratch that. 2 people and a... bug? Alien? Ambrose smirked.

"If you wanted to train, why aren't we with Cail?" Cail had been beating the crap out of him for more than a month now. "Because CEOs need to stay fit." They'd insisted. Eye roll. Surely these people with their dumb pretend Norse magic rituals would want to train properly. A glance around the table and Jude had to actually work to keep up the facade. Astrid? The fortune telling dark angel was there looking petulant. And on the other side... the bone bikini babe. Her poster probably still hung on the wall of his room at the Mansion.

"Is this everyone?" Madeline looked disappointed. Jude sure wasn't.

Astrid appeared first. She got herself a donut and asked what they should do. "Wait," Elliott said simply. "More people should be coming shortly."

The next person to arrive was Isabel Duskmoore. He knew who she was, because she was infamous. There had been a trial, and stories about her existence as a being of rage and piercing bone claws. Like some sort of angry wolverine. He had heard that she had formerly run with the Order, alongside others like her. Riots and cop killing? Yeah. He'd heard about that. The image of Aura and her pet skunk flared in his memory and he was momentarily disappointed that she hadn't accompanied the famous centerfold slash mass murderer to the meeting. If things had played just a little differently during their meeting, if he had met Aura after he'd joined Ragnarok, rather than before, maybe he could have drawn her to the dark side. Come to the dark side, he thought. We have doughnuts.

The woman, Isabel, made a snide comment about Ragnarok's current state, and he let it slide off him like water. "More will come," he said, voice level, as if the idea of it working otherwise was simply unfathomable.

A wry smile quirked his lips as Elliott clasped his hands behind his back. In his leather jacket and dark jeans, he certainly looked like he had some authority. Though maybe, he should have worn a suit? He watched the entrance for further people.

His vision for this meeting was to attract the attention of many members, including leaders. Beyond that, he had goals to increase the factions activity, to cause chaos and sow discord, to make the criminals and good people in the city quail and quake in their baby booties. And of course, to make money. Because money makes the world go round. They could discuss specifics. He'd mentioned ideas to Panu before, but the boy hadn't followed up on him about his thoughts since their pizza party in the JW boardroom.

People in Ragnarok tended to have Norse-themed code names, if Loki and Valkyrie and the choice other little names he'd heard bandied around were any indication. He hadn't liked it, at first. Code names felt like a sort of super hero thing, not really chaotic at all. But he'd found one eventually. It suited him. He'd went with Heimdall. Because he had vision.

His red eyes took note of Jaager and his tiger secretary, Madeline, as they walked into the building. The man limped, and smirked. His secretary didn't look half so amused. Jaager was attentive, cocky, pleased. For some reason, Elliott thought if the man had shown up, he'd be different. Annoyed, bored, with an underlying heat of anger that had settled quietly into the bedrock of his very being. A quiet anger, bubbling beneath the surface. One you could see if you tried to stare deeply into his eyes-- which was a really weird thought, he realized, staring into another man's eyes. One you had absolutely no romantic interest in, at least.

If you were into men, if that were your thing, then Ambrose Jaager was probably a hot commodity, so to speak. A multibillionaire playboy in a pleasing form, like the hero of that Fifty Shades book. The one who was into some weird kinds of kinks. Being a part of a faction focused on causing the end of the world was a hell of a kink, though, if you really got down to the whips and brass tacks of the matter. If a man wanted a bored pretty boy genius businessman with a desire for devastation, they could do a lot worse. Not that HE was into that sort of thing. He was more into the tormented murderous crazy bone bikini babe type, or a pretty blonde sand shifter. But he could respect men and women of a differing opinion from his own. Had he dwelt on that mental tangent for long enough for about 30 more people to file slowly into the room while he'd been distracted? No... but 10 had. And at least one of them was of that other mindset, and thoroughly checking Ambrose Jaager out.

The group was a good mix of people, men and women of various heights and weights and hair colors and ethnicities, some with obvious mutations, some without. He thought he recognized one from the Ragnarok rainbow flash mob, the one who had held the silly sign. He was with his friend, Mr. Horse head. They had sauntered right up to the doughnuts table and each claimed a cruller. These were the background people of Ragnarok, the covert operatives and taggers who didn't attract much attention, unless they did. The normal, pathetic, characters. NPCs, if you will. The ones who rarely tried to stand out.

After them, three women entered together. The Cerberus sisters. The oldest wore a slate gray pants suit complete with shoulder pads. She had salt and pepper hair, kept neck length, and had a stuffy snobby look to her. That was Cybele, the leader of the trio. Her power had to do with foresight and hindsight. She could foresee the future in vague, sometimes disconcerting, visions. She could also read objects to see their past.

Another had dark brown hair, held in a ponytail, with shades perched on the bridge of her nose. She wore black slacks and a navy blue and white vertically pinstriped button up shirt under a fashionable gray overcoat. She was the tech support aspect of the trio. Her power was bringing life to little spider robots she built by fusing current day technologies, like cellphones, with bits of metal that she animated. Her power was some sort of ferromancy, with a side helping of long distance electrical manipulation. The end result was spider robots, infiltration, and hacking. Her name was Megara.

The last one had a shaggy bob of brown hair, a wide smile, and toned arms, which she displayed gladly with her sporty tank top and pants ensemble. This was her warehouse gym. She was lending it to Elliott. Her power was the kinetic thunder punch. Kineta was her name.

Funny enough, the trio had first hired Elliott and introduced him to Jaager, in an attempt to get one foot in the door with whatever Jaager was secretly up to (since he had to be. Cybele had seen a mysterious vision of fire and greatness). They'd wound up drawing the man's ire, getting ignored, and being hired by Elliott who had interested Jaager far more. Jaager had stolen the runner from the sisters, and told him he didn't care one bit what Elliott did with them once he was on JW payroll. So Elliott had hired them and brought them into the fold, as per professional courtesy. Jaager hadn't cared. That was the way Jaager was. Quick to change, and easily bored. Which was something this Jaager didn't really have. He seemed off. But what did Elliott know? His dealings with Jaager had been minimal. The man could simply have been thinking about how to beat a particularly difficult level in angry birds.

Kineta high fived an old man with white hair, a white mustache, and dark glasses as she walked past him. He was wearing a black suit. "Hey Stan the man, what's the word?" She asked cheerfully.

"Excelsior!" The old man grinned.

Kineta walked away from him, shooting him with double finger pointing guns, pew pew! "My man!" She laughed. Then she walked over to the wall, tore a katana from its place, and rested it over one shoulder as she turned back to look at the crowd.

3 more people arrived after that. Well, actually, it was 1 person, but she was split into 3 people. The trio hit the coffee and doughnuts as the other two sisters settled, leaning against the wall with arms crossed against their chests. Megara and Cybele purposely did not shoot Jaager any dirty looks. They did not look at him at all. The weight of their inattention was heavy.

That made 19 people at the meeting, for the moment. Maybe there would be some later people. Maybe some people had decided not to come, or missed the message. But 19 was certainly better than 5.

Elliott stepped forward, and studied his watch. "Well," he said. "It's 4:30. Most who are coming should have arrived by now. Any latecomers will just have to get someone to clue them in on what they missed. I suppose we can start. Hello everyone," Elliott grinned at everyone, showing his pearly white zipper-like smile. "My codename is Heimdall. Is there a Loki in the audience?"

Would the Wizard please step from behind his curtain so he could introduce himself to the rest of the cast? Or would he hide, and drift off into the sunset on his hot air balloon the second he got the chance.

Technically, she wasn't supposed to out right now. It was past the curfew she'd been given, ironically because she had been caught outside late at night pretending to be a crime fighter... which also happened to be what she intended on doing tonight, against her fathers wishes.

It was his own damn fault in her opinion. If he would take her seriously instead of throwing ridiculous training simulations at her, she probably wouldn't feel the need to go out and prove herself in other ways.

It didn't help that this particular day had been rather quiet so far. Not even a peep of a car alarm anywhere to be found. The teen had spent the better part of the last hour sulking as she shuffled along with two twins in two, bored out of her mind and attempting to figure out something to do. Wouldn't it just be so terribly lame to go home empty handed after all the effort it took sneaking out of that stupid school in the first place?

The Native kicked a broken chunk of concrete in her path off into the road, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans for the billionth time and grumbled at her twins. She had wandered quite far this time, instead of sticking strictly to the busier parts of town. She would probably have to head back soon, or miss all the fun entirely.

It wasn't long after that that she stumbled upon something that at least looked interesting. A small group of people were heading somewhere together, and from what Elke could tell with the distance between them they were female, and dressed funny. Like, not generally appropriate attire for someone at this time of evening, and in this part of the city. Curious, she straightened her back and casually followed after them.

Unknowingly, this led to her stumbling into something much bigger than her, which she wasn't allowed to dwell on when one of her clones noticed the donuts and she was promptly abandoned by both of them for the table. With a huff, she followed them in, and took her position leaning up against the wall while her twin happily munched away.

What was this anyway? Some kinda party? The variation between guests was drastic. From obvious mutants to the more human looking variety. Elke, against her normal custom, joined in with her twins in partaking from the table as one of the mutants spoke, requesting that 'Loki' come forward.

She pondered on the weird name she sipped a small cup of coffee. When would fun party stuff happen? It wasn't every day she got the chance to crash one, after all.

The meeting had originally looked dull.

Astrid’s eyes bulged as she watched a woman walk into the formerly sad looking warehouse. Astrid knew exactly who she was. She was the bone bikini girl. The woman who’d been part of the order. Killed countless people. The teen had researched that woman to the point where she felt like she almost knew her.

It was Isabel Duskmoor. Astrid was standing in the same room as Isabel Duskmoor. The avian mutant let out a noise of excitement that was a mix between a squeal and a shriek of fear, and stood completely still, letting the noise out as her donut fell on the floor.

More people made their way into the building, including an array of random people that Astrid had never seen before. She didn’t even bother to look up at them. None of them could possibly hold a candle to the infamous Isabel.

Astrid suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious. Did she look okay? Did she have anything in her teeth? Did she look weird just standing there making that weird noise? She felt like she looked weird.

The teen forced herself to stop making the noise that she had been and stood up straighter. She looked around the room as she tried to refocus herself. Some fancy looking man had walked in with a tiger lady that she thought she might have met once or twice, and there was a whole host of strange looking people.

The meeting was starting. In a bit of a haze, Astrid walked forward and took a seat. Not too close to Isabel, but close enough that she could get away with sneaking a glance at her idol every now and then.

October was talking, but Astrid wasn’t listening. She was trying to figure out what exactly she could say to Isabel that would keep her from looking like a complete idiot, which was difficult when English was something she had to struggle for. Would Isabel even want to talk to her, though? Probably not, she decided. Compared to her, Astrid was some nobody, and all her crimes paled in comparison.

So, Astrid sat silently in the audience, zoning out slightly as she tried to figure out how she would go about approaching the woman she so looked up to.

It was a slow start, but before too long a number of other people filed in. There weren't many, but it was more than she'd anticipated. And yet the number of people that had appeared was disappointing. It was a decent number to at least keep Ragnarok running and at least a few of them could probably handle going out and looking for new members, so it was irritating that things seemed to have begun to stagnate.

And that's when Jaager walked in. Isabel's blood boiled at the sight of him and his tigerlady babysitter. As far as she was concerned it was Jagger's fault that things were going downhill and the group had to assemble in some warehouse rather than calling a meeting in his building instead. He was supposed to be the man in charge, right after Loki, and instead he was letting the group rot around him while he did who knew what.

Some green kid started trying to call things to order and locate the big boss man. Isabel took the opportunity to approach Jaager while everyone's attention started to shift. "Hope you're happy with the sad turnout," she offered by way of greeting once she'd gotten close enough. "Cuz you're the one driving this group into the ground." Then she hauled back and aimed a punch at his face.

Ugh. Embarrassing.

Jude had thought he might go say something to Astrid in French. Not to tip her off that he was Jude, but just to be able to talk in his mother tongue again. The reading she'd given him had been generic, yeah, but ultimately, Astrid had been more right than he would have guessed. He did go on a trip. He did come back changed.

The problem with approaching the girl was that she was... what was that? Did she have to pee? She was sort of dancing foot to foot and tracking Isabel with extra heavy breathing. Judebrose rolled his eyes. Sheesh. Not even he had it that bad.

> "Hope you're happy with the sad turnout, 'cuz you're the one driving this group into the ground."

"Hope you're happy with that-" face. She was trying to punch him in the face. A half step back and he caught her fist and narrowed his eyes. As much as Jude may have daydreamed about making friends with Isabel, Jaager would not take that crap. He squeezed down on her fist and inhaled to say-

"Loki passes word down." Madeline answered loudly. Probably to cut off whatever Jude had started to say to the buxom brunette as he squeezed down on her hand.

A chorus of phone chirrups and dings signaled that members at the warehouse were getting a message now, in fact.

"Try me, small fry." Ambrose growled and let Isabel's hand go while smiling out his disdain. Didn't matter that she was taller than him because he wasn't talking about height. One sentence and he could already tell that it was her mind that was small.

Any thoughts of Jaager being a little off vanished when Duskmoore aimed a punch at him and he deflected it like so much garbage. Jaager had been the kind of guy, in the few times he'd met him, who seemed fully capable of kicking ass. Not zen. Not Bruce Lee. But the kind of guy who probably had a personal trainer who didn't let him play FarmVille when he was supposed to be learning how to turn aside blows. Elliott didn't dwell too much on the paranoia, though. Delusions about people not being who they're supposed to be are less important than getting communications from the person you set the whole damn meeting up to try and contact, like some freaking seance with coffee and Krispy Kreme. Would the real Slim Loki please stand up? No, because he's too busy having a tiger preface his text messages dramatically, and being invisible in the ether.

Loki passes down the word, indeed.

Part of Elliott wanted to turn and just start flipping off imagined hidden cameras around his friend's supposedly safe warehouse dojo. Smile for the camera and just flip it the double birds. Or the '1/3 of my hand', as he liked to call it. Cuz really when you've got three fingers and ones a thumb, flipping people off the pedestrian way is impossible. He settled for standing perfectly still while people started checking their texts. He thought he saw one person juggling a tablet computer and his cellphone, trying to alternate between holding them both. There might have been a blonde man with an eyepatch on the screen, but it could have been his imagination. There was no way someone was skyping the meeting with an iPad right now.

"Well that's nice." Elliott said, just as loudly, to everyone. "I wish Loki2 didn't have to mass email people in order for Loki1 to make a move." He smiled sweetly. "People caught that, right? In the email? The sender line? Yeah. Also, if we could refrain from trying to hurt our own people in this Ragnarok meeting, I would be." He clapped his hands together in front of his body, to elevate his next two words. "So. Happy!"

He wanted reactions. He wanted progress. He wanted something. Elliott was just a little pissed about being left in the dark for so long. The question was, who else felt that way? He certainly hadn't checked his message. Maybe that would have been a good idea?

This was a boring party. Or... whatever it was. The real teen was shifting her attention between her clones and the door, pondering on slipping out the way she came.

She barely withheld a yawn, and then things started to look up for the evening. One of the women approached another dude, fired off something she didn't understand the context of, but was clearly an insult... and threw a punch at him.

Elke's interest in this gathering suddenly tripled, and she leaned forward to watch the fight excitedly. The dude caught the fist, but she was hoping it would escalate. It had been a while since she'd seen a good ol' fashion brawl.

Her hopes were dashed when another guy cut in, the one who had originally spoken once everyone (or she assumed everyone) was there. She still had no freakin' clue what any of these people were talking about, but the spar of excitement stayed.

Had she stumbled onto some kinda gang meeting? Was that what 'Ragnarok' was? A gang name?

Oblivious, her clones were still hovering around the free food and coffee, while Elke eagerly listened in on the meeting.

While it occurred to her might potentially be dangerous, it was also too cool to pass up. Her dad would be so furious with her if he ever found out!

When Isabel stood up, so did Astrid. She didn't even mean to, really. It was just that she had been so entirely focused on the woman, that when she made a move, the teen felt an overwhelming compulsion to copy it. There was a loud clatter as her chair was pushed behind her, which made her face go bright red. She didn't want people to know that she was copying the woman.

Sheepishly, she rearranged her chair so that it fell in line with the other chairs, and then matched the sneer of the person behind her that she'd pushed the chair into. She then sat down, her face still red, in order to watch the encounter between Isabel and the Fancy Man.

She really wasn't even listening to what they were saying. Her eyes, however, did widen as Isabel threw a punch at the man. Unconsciously, she mimicked the action in front of her, accidentally punching the person in front of her. Luckily, it was a very soft punch, so it only garnered her another glare. She matched it and then went back to her obsessive staring.

Her phone dinged in her pocket, momentarily breaking Astrid's concentration. She pulled out the phone that Muninn had gotten for her and glanced at it briefly. It didn't look like anything too important, so she turned her attention back to the meeting.

October was talking about something, so the teen decided to be gracious enough to listen. He seemed irked about something, but she wasn't sure what it was. Hadn't Loki called the meeting? Why was everyone getting mad at him?

Well, she didn't know the answer, so she figured that perhaps someone would explain what was going on in the meeting. Her eyes went back to Isabel, and she waited for someone to direct the meeting.

Her punch had been caught. That was disappointing, but she wasn't going to back down that easily. Isabel put her weight behind her arm so that Ambrose couldn't use it to push her around, not wanting him to feel like he had any more of an upper hand than he already assumed.

She spiked her hand for good measure, hoping to stab a number of spines into his palm before he managed to let go of her fist.

"I told you before that I've fought dragons and won, Jaager. You don't scare me, you overgrown lizard." Someone was trying to call them to order. It was that green kid again. He was starting to annoy Isabel, who was increasingly more interested in fighting than organizing.

She let Jaager break their contact and turned a glare in the green kid's direction, aggravated with being interrupted. Though she would prefer to skin a reptile the purpose of the gathering seemed to be to figure out what was going on with the group and hopefully start moving things forward again. Or in any direction, really. Working with Jaager meant she had any number of opportunities to rearrange his face. Maybe she'd take another one once the meeting was over.

“Nobody gives a sh** what makes you happy, man!”
“Did that seem a little…?”
“Self-congratulatory?”
“I was going going to say passive aggressive, but yeah. I think he just high-fived himself.”

Judebrose snerked at the commentary.

“Real clever, ***-hat!”

Murmurs and snickers were going around as people checked their phones, for the Loki2 or the Loki emails, or both.

“Is this a power play? If so, I'm out.”
“I just want to wreck s**t.”
“Hey, did you see?”

> "I told you before that I've fought dragons and won, Jaager. You don't scare me, you overgrown lizard."

“Cute.” Judebrose squinched his nose at the bone bikini babe and got out his phone once he was sure she was done worrying at the bone she had to pick with Ambrose.

And then he snorted in disbelief.

Loki said:

They say art imitates life. I say use life to make art. Red's a lovely color. Let’s paint the town red.

Wait. Was Loki advocating that they go out and murder dudes?

“There are weapons in this room,” Madeline casually mentioned for those nearby as she read her tablet’s screen.

Someone sucker punched a dude behind a young looking teen and Jude did a double-take as a small scuffle broke out behind Elke.

Wait. Elke!?

“Yes!” A chainsaw ripped to life somewhere across the warehouse. “Let’s go make some mayhem!”

“Hey, anybody wanna go tip a subway car?”
“Or flood the tubes!”
“Where you gonna get that much water, dumb***?”

Judebrose slunk over to the young Mansionite and cleared his throat. ”And what chaos will you reap, little girl?” He smiled, all wolf to her little red riding hood.

This was going poorly. Several people in the crowd were either ignoring him, or mistreating him. One had even glared at him, even though he'd been the one to organize this, the one to gather everyone together, and was basically running this freak show. Part of him wanted to make a big show of it, and maybe slap some faces. Get people to actually listen to him and treat him with respect. They had more respect for a faceless name on a computer screen than for actual authority. But then, what are you going to do when you're involved with a freaking self-proclaimed chaos faction that wants to bring about the end of the world?

One comment struck him, amid the disorganized noise. Was this a power play? He hadn't actually considered. Now that he was listening to dissenting views in the crowd, and paying close attention to Jaagermeister and bony babe, it was time to consider it. What were the ramifications of a power play? The implications? More importantly, did he give one flying damn?

The meeting had been to gather people, maybe talk about the absence of Loki, and throw some shade on the God. Organize and get people to talk about Ragnarok's direction. If they went the direction they were going, they'd get where they were headed -- destruction. Most likely, of themselves. That didn't seem very productive to him.

Elliott decided not to feed the egos of the catcallers, and opted to ignore the insults flung his way. He also decided it might be fun to blaspheme a little, so he shot Loki a text.

-Been a while. You're losing some of them. Maybe disorganized chaos is a bad idea? I've got some ideas for organizing that might help. It seems like you could use it.-

He glanced away from his phone's screen as he waited on a response. As he did, he noted the rising action in the warehouse.

Someone got too close to Kineta's weapons, and the youngest of the three sisters stepped forward, to stare them down. A woman with a katana shouldn't have been that scary. The electricity crackling down the blade's edge helped, though. "Nobody is using MY weapons." She sneered. "Get your own!"

"Raid on the gun shop!" Someone shouted. The cry was taken up.

A chainsaw revved. Several folks were really interested in the chaotic side of things, it seemed. Well, he supposed it took all kinds to make things run smoothly. Cybele and Megara moved to protect their sister and their property, as the majority of the less important background figures started rushing out to wreck s*^%.

Hum. He still hadn't gotten a reply. Maybe Loki wasn't sure how to act. How many people actually text a God? Probably far more than actually expect replies. Elliott moved to socialize. First stop, Isabel.

"Hey, Miss Duckmoore." Duskmoore, dammit. His tongue had slipped. "If you ever want to team up and take down a crime family or raze an anti-mutant hate group, call me. We need more direction up in this bi+$#." He smiled briefly, made a phone motion with his hand by the side of his head, and then moved on, hoping she had not noticed his error. Onto Jaagerbomb. And his little friend?

Elliott wasn't sure what the two were talking about, so he paused by the tiger woman and gave Ambrosia some alone time with his little girl friend. "New recruit?" He made idle chitchat. "Seems young." A teenager, like Astrid. They kept getting younger and younger.

"I'm shocked the knuckleheads who came didn't catch the e-mail thing... You'd think they'd be more careful. Anyone could have set this up, pretending to be Loki."

"I'm surprised to see Jaager, honestly." Elliott noted thoughtfully. "I haven't seen him much since Utopia fell. Glad the two of you could make it to my little shindig." Elliott shot her a significant look. "Loki's orders."

The comment about people pretending to be Loki had absolutely nothing to do with the followup comment about Jaager. Elliott didn't suspect a thing. His thinking had merely been that police could have hacked them, lured members in, and raided the whole operation. And also, he had remembered not seeing Jaager out and about, or in the media at all. He'd kind of figured the man had gone feral and holed up in his room. Or else, gotten sick. When Loki calls, you answer. That must have been what had drawn him out.