"What a lovely day," Ambrose growled, the corners of his mouth stretching up to show his terrifyingly sharp fangs.

Ragnarok was trying to keep from big attacks when they weren't organized. This was intentional; if the X-Men were called in, one member would be hopelessly outgunned, so they tried to coordinate the bigger attacks. But Ambrose had been walking by the courthouse that day, and the sudden urge to destroy it had just come over him. So, under the cover of night, he'd sneaked into an alleyway and stripped off his human skin. Now, he didn't particularly want to destroy the whole thing. Falling marble really did a number on his own flesh, especially since the courthouse was noticeably larger than he was. But that meant that he was small enough to burst through the doors and start wreaking havoc inside. He'd destroyed as much as he could with his bare... paws? before starting a fire with his conveniently located claws. Now he was perched on top of the courthouse, wings outstretched and occasionally flapping to keep himself balanced, grinning at the rush of the little beetles below.

"Stand down!" the tinny voice of a police officer, shouting through a megaphone, said. And yes, this had been the real intention behind Ambrose's attack - getting the police to come, so he could play with them a bit. "Last warning. We have you surrounded! Come quietly or we will shoot!"

Ambrose could hear the unsureness in the man's voice. He didn't think he'd be able to fit in a holding cell either. Thankfully, he really didn't intend to go anywhere. He flipped a chunk of marble off the courthouse's roof, his grin growing wider when the man scrambled to avoid getting squashed by it. This was fun.

Ever since her run in with the princess girl in the park, Astrid's life in New York had been a little different. During the days, when she used to spend her time busking, she had turned to robbing little stores and stands in order to keep herself fed and feel like she was doing enough to still be seen as evil. However, she had to mostly stay out of crowded areas and public spaces. Police warrants were tricky like that; everyone was keeping a wary eye out. While she did like her newfound reputation, it did make it more difficult to go outside during the day or to play music like she used to. She supposed that was likely the trade off of being a villain.

The nighttime had become her new stomping ground. When most people were asleep, she found that it was easier to pass through the low-lives that frequented the streets in the dark. It was also much easier to steal things due to her fashion sense and hair colour. If she covered up as much skin as she could manage, she could usually go most places undetected and unnoticed.

That night, she had just stolen a box of pizza from a man walking down the street. It had been simple, really. Once she had shown a little bit of force, he had dropped the box and ran. She then flew up to the top of a tall building and ate her plunder. From her perch, she had a great view of the courthouse. Little did she know just how helpful that would be.

It was difficult to comprehend what exactly she was watchng in front of her. It was beautiful, really. It was the best worst thing she had ever seen. Something - she wasn't entirely sure what - was destroying the courthouse. While Astrid had considered many angles of the nature of evil, she had never really thought about how threatening the destruction of property could look.

The police had gathered just below the courthouse and were aiming their guns at the creature. In turn, the creature pushed a large chunck of the marble material off the side at them. It was glorious.

Astrid knew that above all things, she wanted to be associated with the creature in front of her. Perhaps if she got close enough, people would even assume that she had been a part of the attack. Her plan of action came to mind immediately.

Standing up on the ledge, the winged mutant abandoned her pizza and flew across the road to where the scene was going down. She landed just behind the creature, sure that the police and the cameras would be able to get a good view of her.

While she had been incredibly confident on her way over, once landed, Astrid wasn't entirely sure what to do. Should she talk to the creature? What could she even say to something that incredible? For the first time ever, her lack of English felt embarrassing rather than just an inconvenience.

So, instead of saying anying, she simply changed her wings over and shot some crystals at the police. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, hoping desperately that the creature would take her seriously.

Something landed beside him, on the courthouse roof, and Ambrose had to stifle his natural instinct to swing at this intruder in case it was somebody on his side. He swung his head around to look critically at her, his vision not allowing for him to see anything other than a fuzzy silhouette. There seemed to be... wings? Attached to her back? That made sense; she had to have gotten up I this roof somehow.

But then the wings disappeared. Ambrose blinked, to make sure his vision wasn't acting up again, but yup, the wings had gone from the bright white of "alive" to the faded grey of "merely present." Something seemed to detach from her wings, flying down upon the scene below them, and Ambrose just barely registered what they were in time to let loose a warning roar at the police. Thankfully, they jumped out of the way, and none of them were hit by whatever projectiles the newcomer had launched.

Now he turned to the winged figure perched next to him on the rooftop and let out a little huff of annoyance. He sniffed critically at her, not recognizing her scent, but getting that she was young and had just been eating pizza. So if he didn't know her, why was she here?

"You shouldn't do that," Ambrose said, annoyed. "If you attack them directly, then they have a reason to attack us. And hurting a police officer is very different from hurting a regular civilian. They're quite vengeful against those who have hurt their own, you know." Essentially, he didn't want to escalate the situation that quickly just yet. He'd been enjoying himself, perched up here and letting the policemen question whether he was doing this deliberately or he'd just lost control of his mutation. Now there was no question that this was deliberate - considering he'd just warned them and spoke to the person next to him - and they'd move in more aggressively soon.

Ambrose swiveled his head around as her heard something from the ground below - armed officers were pouring out of the vans that had just pulled up, and were lining up on the ground, all of their guns aimed at Ambrose. A couple META bots were arriving as well, and Ambrose briefly caught a bit of a conversation between an officer and a META bot handler.

"One of them tried to attack us," the officer said, Ambrose's enhanced hearing easily picking it up, even through the sound of the fire and the chaos below. "Authorizing lethal force."

Ambrose was even more annoyed now. It looked as if he'd have to leave this party early. "Now look what you've done," he growled, casting the growing swarm of META bots an unpleasant glare.

Astrid held her breath as the creature turned to her, and then as its eyes followed her crystals. Her heart sank as it - or rather he - sounded annoyed.

"You shouldn't do that,If you attack them directly, then they have a reason to attack us. And hurting a police officer is very different from hurting a regular civilian. They're quite vengeful against those who have hurt their own, you know."

"Oh," Astrid said quietly and bowed her head. As much as she liked to pretend that she was confident and had everything together, she really didn't. Being a villain wasn't as easy as it was in the movies. She couldn't quite understand what he was trying to do with his attack, though. Wasn't death and destruction the point of the attack? She had thought that by helping him do that she would be aiding in a good way. It seemed she was wrong. Astrid did her best to keep her expression neutral as she watched the police react to the crystals.

Her stomach sunk further into the deep pits of her gut as she watched META bots be released. She had really screwed things up for his attack.

"Now look what you've done."

The crystals on the young girl's wings hit against each other as they lost their formerly proud, puffed out appearance. "Sorry," Astrid said quietly. As soon as the word passed her lips, she instantly regretted it. Evil people didn't apologize... Or did they? It was hard to know anymore. Everything that she had thought she knew about what she wanted to be seemed to be called into question. What did she know, really?

Unsure of what to do next or how to react, Astrid simply watched the META bots come closer. Her eyes turned back to the creature, locked on how he would react. He seemed to be the most evil thing that Astrid had ever had the chance to meet, so surely he would know what to do, wouldn't he?

"Sorry," the girl said, so quietly, and Ambrose almost felt a little guilty. He was getting the impression that she'd had good - er, evil intentions, and he'd just shut her down like that. That wouldn't do. Ambrose was all about fostering people's anarchic qualities; he was just slightly less philanthropic about it when it interfered with his own playtime. She was young, after all, and impressionable, and she seemed like she desperately wanted to impress him. What if she remembered this moment, and in the future when she was more powerful, she either rejected or outright attacked Ragnarok because of it? That was a worrying bit of foresight, but it was all Ambrose needed to go from a more destruction-oriented mindset to a more recruitment-oriented one. Recruit her, that was - if not as a member of Ragnarok, to further fill out their ranks, then at least as an ally.

"Tell you what," he said, sighing. "I was getting bored anyway." He almost absentmindedly flicked another huge chunk of marble off the roof, and nearly crowed out his excitement when it landed perfectly in the mass of META bots, crushing two or three of them. "I think you had the right idea."

Ambrose yawned, showing off rows of sharp white teeth. He arched his back and roared, and grinned as the police officers scrambled back at the obvious threatening display. Stepping forward a bit, he balanced on the very edge of the courthouse roof, peering down at the scene below him. The police officers seemed to all be armed with tranquilizer weapons - thankfully, it didn't seem like a lot of them had listened to the vindictive one who'd issued the kill order - and he knew from experience that those darts didn't pierce his scales unless they got really lucky. The dosages were also meant for someone of human size, so he estimated that he could take four or five before having to leave.

He glanced back at the girl perched behind him on the roof. "Come on, then," he said, and leapt off. The first thing he did was make a pass at the officers below. He could feel the darts clicking off his scales, and he managed to grab one of the big META bots in his jaws, before circling up in the air and dropping it from a relatively high altitude. It plummeted down and crashed into a police car, smashing the roof in, much to Ambrose's delight.

>>"Tell you what, I was getting bored anyway. I think you had the right idea."

Astrid almost couldn't believe her ears. Or her eyes, for that matter, as the creature flicked a chunk of marble off the roof and crushed a few META bots with it. The girl's throat went dry. She had thought that he would be annoyed by her or think she was just some punny child in his way. But now he was... Following her lead? Was that a compliment? Astrid couldn't really remember ever recieving a compliment.

Excitement welled up in her gut as she watched the creature's ferocious display. He was truly incredible; like nothing she had ever witnessed. Plus, he was actually acknowledging her existence. It felt like a dream, a fairytale reserved for only the luckiest of souls. Astrid felt honoured to even be in his presence.

>>"Come on, then."

Astrid cracked a smile that was so unlike the few she had let herself express in the last while. It wasn't vindictive or malicious in any way. It was... Happy? Gleeful could even be a good descriptor. It streched her face awkwardly, but she didn't mind.

She followed closely behind the creature as soared off of the rooftop with her feathered wings. It was difficult to avoid the flying darts everywhere, so she was forced to land on the pavement in order to shift her wings to crystal form. Using one as an awkward shield and the other as a weapon, she walked forwards into the crowd of police officers. 

Her one wing blocked the majority of the darts in her direction, but one slipped through her defences. It narrowly missed her arm, leaving a thin cut along the side of her pale flesh. She cursed under her breath, furrowing her brow at the shooter. 

Her free wing beat harshly behind her, almost knocking her off of her feet. After a few pumps, she let the bottom row of crystals fly. They made contact with two META bots, and hit one officer in the stomach. It was the most successful hit that Astrid had ever produced, and it caused her gleeful grin to return, somehow even bigger than before.

"We are doing well?" She addressed the creature for validation. It wasn't that she wanted to be commended for her hit, it was just... Well, she wanted to be commended for her hit. Desperately.

Ambrose circled overhead for a bit after dropping the META bot to just observe the extent of the girl's capabilities. She'd followed him off of the roof, soaring through the air with wings of her own, but she'd landed at some point for some reason. Well, it did make some sense - she was a bit fleshier than Ambrose was, and by the way her wings dimmed from "sort-of grey that means blood vessels but no real body mass" to "nearly black that means a solid object," he was guessing her powers extended to transforming her wings into some other substance. He couldn't tell exactly what, his eyesight being far too useless for that, but he could hear darts hitting them and falling to the ground. If he were to guess, he'd say some kind of stone, but the sound of the ricochet wasn't quite right for that. He supposed he'd find out the specifics later.

He heard the sound of a muffled curse, and glanced back down again to see the girl using one wing as a shield as she walked forward, as the other flapped wildly behind her. She was heading right into the throng of police officers, all of whom were still firing at her, as she seemed like a more immediate threat than the still-circling Ambrose. That didn't seem particularly intelligent. She didn't look, sound, or smell armed, so how in the world was she going to achieve anything except -

He winced as the sound of something grating against metal hit his ears, and was then greeted with the sudden sharp scent of blood.

Curious, having missed what had just happened, Ambrose circled lower. It seemed as if she'd fired off her feathers or something, because a police officer had just been impaled by something that was the same "color" as her wings. Darts were studded all across the battlefield, and her wings seemed minimally shorter. That was interesting. It was a strange mutation, using your one method of escape as a weapon, but apparently it worked.

He thudded to the ground next to her, the concrete audibly cracking as he landed. The police officers stumbled back, because a massive monster landing on the ground in front of you tended to invoke that reaction. "We are doing well?" the girl asked, hopefully, and he detected an accent and a bit of desperation. Alright then. He might be a monster, but he wasn't a complete jerk. He'd give her her validation.

"Very much so," he said. "Beautiful shot, by the way." He had been impressed by it, and the sadistic part of him was grinning viciously at the scent of panic that was wafting up from the people around him. They'd have to leave soon, though - at this rate, SWAT or some other Big Deal would be called in, and Ambrose wasn't particularly in the mood to deal with that. "Follow me," he ordered, suddenly, and leapt into the air. Yes, he may have forgotten to inform her about exactly why they were leaving, but he hadn't sounded that aggressive, had he?

Once he'd reached a sufficient altitude, high enough in the night sky that the police would need helicopters to even have a chance of hitting him, he turned and started flying towards the warehouse district of the city. He wanted to talk to the girl, just to gather some information, and now that he'd had his fun, it was the time to do so.

Astrid's heart soared high into her chest as the creature complimented her shot. It was the best feeling that she had ever experienced, like she was floating on cloud nine. The rest of the world had tuned out around her, and everything seemed sort of blurry and distorted, save the creature in front of her. He had liked her shot. Actually, he hadn't just liked it; he had called it beautiful. 

Astrid let off a bit of a sigh as she looked at the creature. She realized that she probably looked like one of those stupid teenagers that attended concerts and professed their love to people that weren't aware they existed, but she didn't really care. The creature was the most amazingly evil thing she had ever seen. 

>>"Follow me."

In all honesty, the creature could very well have told her to jump off a cliff with no feathers on her wings and she would have done it. He had her, hook, line and sinker. 

"Okay," she sighed dreamily and changed her wings back to feathers so she could fly once more. She took off, matching speed behind him. Her flying was slightly off kilter since she had fired two rows of crystals from the same wing. Flying was slightly awkward, but she tried to make it appear as though it wasn't as she did her best to keep up with the creature. She hung back just a little, though, not wanting to impose or think better of herself than she should. 

Ambrose glanced back at some point to make sure the girl was still keeping up with him, and she was. She certainly seemed enamored with his brand of villainy. That was good. He could work with that. It was much simpler to get those who were obsessed with you to obey you than it was to get a random, generic underling to do so. She seemed young, too, which was even better. All sorts of scenarios were running through his mind - convincing her to spy at the X-Mansion for him, getting her to take the fall for something for Ragnarök, and so on and so forth. She was a perfect scapegoat. Not that she had to know that, though - Ambrose was sure that if he just complimented her some more, then she'd literally attack the President and tell everyone that her pet chipmunk made her do it to if he wanted.

He could tell that her flying was lopsided, and he'd make an educated guess and say that it was because of the projectiles she'd fired earlier. But her hanging back seemed intentional. Well, he didn't want her to feel excluded - maybe they'd take a few laps around the city before landing. Ambrose had yet to meet another winged mutant, after all, so he might as well take advantage of having the ability to have a midair conversation.

Ambrose slowed down a bit until he was no longer moving, only flapping his great wings to stay aloft, making it clear that he wanted her to catch up. Once she had, he started flying again, but a little bit slower to accommodate for her newly weakened flying ability. "Jabberwocky," he said after a moment, by ways of greeting. "You may know me as Jörmungandr, if you watch the news. I serve Loki of Ragnarök." If he'd had arms, he would've patted himself on the back right then and there for those flawless name drops. If she knew of them, she'd probably be even more impressed. If she didn't, then he got the chance to explain and snatch her up before some pesky faction like the X-Men or Order got to her first. Her powers were solid but she needed quite a bit of work before she could really be useful in combat, and he'd much rather she try and affiliate herself with Ragnarök in the meantime.

The creature was slowing down. Slowing down for her. That meant he wanted her to fly next to him. Astrid had truly made it into the big leagues now. Obviously she had garnered the respect of this absolute evil, which was almost more than her adolescent brain could handle. Her heartrate had risen to almost twice the speed of normal and she wasn't even really exerting herself. 

The creature started to list of some names or words or something that went right over Astrid's head. Maybe it was her excitement or her lack of English, but she didn't really catch anything after "Jabberwocky". At least she now had something to call him by. "Jabberwocky," she repeated softly to herself, butchering the pronunciation. 

"I am Astrid," she managed through the fog of the language barrier. Then she remembered something; her name wasn't very evil. In fact, it was hardly evil at all. She needed something much better if she was going to spend time with Jabberwocky. "No, Valkyrie," she covered quickly, pulling from her memory of the winged women.

She looked down at the city below them, admiring the view. She hadn't been that high in a good while, actually. Of late she had been sticking mostly to the tops of buildings and houses where she could get a good view of things. But it felt good to get up into the higher altitude and stretch her wings a bit more than usual. It did seem strange that they hadn't landed yet or even started to go in the direction of anywhere in particular.

"Where we going?" She asked Jabberwocky curiously from her newly assumed position beside him.

Ambrose frowned. His hearing was good enough to pick up on Astrid's heightened heart rate, and he really didn't want her to have a stroke or something in midair. That was too much trouble for everybody. But she seemed excited, at least. That was good. He was getting the feeling that maybe he shouldn't have been so nice, because now it looked like she'd be stuck to him until he could politely shake her off.

"Jabberwocky," the girl said, and Ambrose tried very hard not to cringe. Okay, she was not of this country, or of any English-speaking country. He couldn't tell exactly what her accent was - French, maybe? - but it sounded vaguely European. And if she was from France, the last time he'd spoken French was in college, so he highly doubted he could help her out in her native language there. "I am Astrid. No, Valkyrie." Well, she'd covered that up quickly. He was getting the feeling that she wanted very badly to be - and pardon his metaphorical French - a badass, and a villainous one at that. Valkyrie certainly sounded more intimidating than Astrid. Ambrose couldn't help but think that if he did manage to recruit her, she was halfway to being a Ragnarök member already, with her name following Ragnarök's own codename conventions.

Ambrose turned his focus back to the landscape below them as she did as well. The city really was quite nice when you looked at it from far enough away, because then you couldn't see the filth it held. Yes, he technically couldn't see more than monochromatic outlines of buildings, with all the lights showing up as blurry bright spots, but it was actually rather nicely abstract like this.

"Where we going?" Valkyrie asked, finally. He was wondering when she'd get around to asking that. If he were a young foreign mutant, he wouldn't be following strange dragon-men at night to who knows where, but to each their own. To be honest, Ambrose didn't really know where they were going either. He was more of a "live in the moment" sort of person, so when they'd had to leave, he'd initially thought about heading to the warehouses by the Hudson to chat. But perhaps that would be a bit... sketchy.

"Well, where would you like to go?" Ambrose asked, lazily flapping once or twice so he could stay aloft. "It's not that late. And most of the police will be at the courthouse, so we have the city to ourselves for now."

Astrid's black eyes surveyed the duty below them, trying to think of what to say in response. Christ, Jabberwocky was just so cool, and he seemed to know exactly what to say and do. Unlike Astrid, who struggled to think of what to do at every turn. She hoped that if she could get the chance to spend more time around him, she would maybe pick up some of his habits. That was the best case scenario, though. She still had to impress him first.

The young girl matched his pace, only flapping her wings when necessary. It felt nice, actually. There was wind in her wings and hair, but she wasn't going anywhere. Usually, the only way she flew was when she had to get somewhere fast.

Also, their angle gave her an excellent view of the city. She could easily see the intricate grid work of New York, and the clear coast line. If she squinted, she could even make out some cars movin below.

"Go there," she decided after a moment, pointing a long pale finger at a large black building. It was the same one she had broken into and met that woman in. 

Astrid really wanted to keep up her persona of being confident, so she flew forward as soon as she said it. She didn't wait for Jabberwocky's approval, since she thought that would seem clingy. That was the last thing she wanted to seem to him. She was aiming for confident and secure.

"What you do?" She asked him while flying, referring to both his form of employment and his hobbies. "You say you on news?"

"Go there," the girl decided, pointing, and... ooh.

That looked like his building.

And, in fact, when he looked down, he could almost see the hazy white figures of people in Ragnarok's headquarters, milling around the barracks. Well, he couldn't say no now - that'd be bad form. And it was late at night, and the JW building was one of the tallest in the city, so he doubted they'd be spotted.

Anyway, she flew ahead of him confidently, so it wasn't like he could protest. But that was good. Arrogance was a brilliant trait in underlings, because then they made great diversions.

"What you do?" she called behind her in her stunted English. "You say you on news?"

Well, he couldn't reveal too much, obviously. Especially not the fact that he owned the building they were about to land on. "I build things," he said, simply and generically. "And when I said I was on the news, I meant while I looked like this." As a city-terrorizing monster, that was. "In fact, after that stunt at the courthouse, I'd say that we'll both be on the news sometime soon. New Yorkers are so very committed to filming at the most inappropriate times."

He landed on the roof, where he knew there would be open space thanks to the helipad. When he glanced down, he could see Madeline's figure in his office below him (the stairs didn't actually open into his office; there was a separate set that went straight from the ground to the top for emergency purposes only, and the inability to go from roof to his office was for security purposes), and she clearly knew he was there because he saw her bright outline flipping him off. Lovely as ever.

"And you?" Ambrose said, out of sheer politeness, even if his next words were less than that. "You can't spend all your time being a broody countercultural rebel."

Building things was interesting, for sure. Astrid couldn't ever place meeting someone who built things. Then again, she couldn't ever place meeting someone who even sort of resembled Jabberwocky. In her thinking, she completely missed the comment about him looking different than how she saw him then.

>>"In fact, after that stunt at the courthouse, I'd say that we'll both be on the news sometime soon. New Yorkers are so very committed to filming at the most inappropriate times."

Astrid beamed with joy, but looked down to try to hide her expression. She would be on the news with Jabberwocky! If there was to be anything that upped her standing in the eyes of the media, it would be that. Of course, she didn't want to see too pleased about that fact, as it seemed that her companion was far more nonchalant about the whole ordeal. If she really wanted to learn anything, she needed to do what he did, not what her young heart lead her to do.

So, instead of squealing with joy like she so wanted to, she flew next to him in silence, hoping that the dark hid her expression of happiness. It was a weird thing to have to contain, since it was rare that she ever felt it.

>>"And you? You can't spend all your time being a broody countercultural rebel."

Astrid attempted to mouth the last three words, letting them settle in her mouth as she tried to decipher their meaning. The attempt was useless, though. She couldn't remember ever hearing any of them, or even a similar root word that would give her some sort of indication as to what he was getting at.

Luckily, the first part of the sentence made sense. Her answer, though, was a different matter. What did she do, really? She spent most of her time committing petty crimes and kidnapping young shark girls off of the street. Then, she realized that she did have an answer, no matter how often she pushed it to the side for more evil purposes.

"I play cello," she mimicked the action of sliding the bow across the strings. "On street." There really wasn't a better way to put it.

The young girl looked back to the world below them and realized that they had reached their destination. Jabberwocky had landed, so she followed suit and landed next to him. She knew her place, though, so she made no movements after that, instead choosing to let him make the next move. 

"I play cello," the girl said, and what? "On street." She made a motion that was vague in infrared, but that Ambrose supposed was meant to be her miming playing the cello.

Dear lord. He had, at some point, legitimately considered getting a busker to join Ragnarok.

Well, people had to do bad things to get places, sometimes. Ambrose's job as a business leader was perhaps a bit more fitting for someone of his mental status, but he was lucky. Maybe the girl had aspirations but hadn't ever really gotten to achieve them. That was good. He could foster that. Maybe throw her out on the front lines or something if she grew really skilled. She looked threatening, after all, even if she wasn't necessarily actually a threat.

"Ah," was all Ambrose said, in response. "Is that what you intend to do for the future?" Oh god, he sounded like a college counselor. But it was a valid question, and that way he could segway neatly into the Ragnarok talk, and then it'd work out great from there. He was also doing his best to use simplistic language so she could understand him - and speaking of that. "Is English your first language?" he asked abruptly, because that was also important. If she wanted to be a Ragnarok asset, she wouldn't be much use with a translator trailing her around all the time.