June 24th, 2016.

"Right," Ambrose said.

They were seated at a big conference table. The Asgard conference room, to be precise. All the other conference rooms were uncomfortable on purpose because at some point, Ambrose had thought it would be funny to have the air conditioning in the Jotunheim room be a little strong, or the lighting in the Alfheim room be a little - well, a lot - brighter than it should be. Svartalfheim was dark and kind of hard to see in (they stopped holding meetings there at some point and stuck with presentations), Muspelheim didn't have any AC but did have a fireplace, Valhalla was the break room, Midgard was so simple that it was literally a wooden table in an empty, wood-paneled room, Vanaheim was covered in so many plants that it was hard to hold a meeting without at least one person constantly sneezing, Nidavellir looked (and felt) like a cave, and Niflheim had an actual fog machine in the corner and was sort of chilly and wet. Asgard was the nicest, and intentionally, with big arching windows that let sun in and a table that put other tables to shame. Technically, since this was a Ragnarok meeting, they'd meet in Muspelheim if they wanted to keep with the theme. But it was a really hot June day, and Ambrose really didn't feel like suffering through a stifling meeting for the sake of theme.

Seated to his left was Madeline Brass. To his right, Panu. Then, to Madeline's left, Cail Rendfur. Everyone else was just a voice from a speaker, and there were six or seven of them arranged around the table. Ambrose liked that. It felt mysterious and very supervillain-y, and - dare he say it - really worked with the theme.

"We are gathered here," Ambrose began, loftily. "Today, on this lovely June afternoon, to discuss the tragic events of Odessa, Texas that happened earlier this day."

"Cut the bullshit, Jaager," someone snapped from a speaker. Ambrose frowned. Well, that was rude. "We know you don't care. Some of us have lives to get back to, so let's get to the point." If Ambrose were Darth Vader, and that man were physically present right now, Ambrose probably would've choked him to death. Fortunately for them both, Ambrose knew that he probably would've, which was why he held Ragnarok meetings like this anyway.

Ambrose cleared his throat. "Well, then. In that case. All of you know that the events in Odessa have forced the hand of the pro-mutant and anti-mutant camps. Now, one of our cause's great missions is to eradicate the species divide. By eliminating those who care about it, we can essentially get rid of it once and for all. Does anyone disagree?"

Nobody spoke. Good. Ambrose idly wondered at what point they'd turned into the Illuminati. It didn't seem like that long ago when he'd been personally recruiting people and their ranks were solidly in the single digits, and now they were sitting in a conference room with members of Ragnarok all across the world.

"This event may have actually moved us more than a few steps closer to our goal," Ambrose stated, as he tapped at the tablet sitting in his lap. As soon as he'd heard the news, Ambrose had asked Panu to run a couple simulations, using social media and news websites to gauge the global response and see how the world might react were Ambrose to do a few select things. The results were... promising, to say the least. He quite liked one of the options, which he'd tentatively titled "UTOPIA."

"Panu?" Ambrose said with a flourish. "The stage is yours."

Panu had been a Harmaajärvi-Jaager for almost nine months. In that time he had learned many many things: how to clean blood off of hardwood, how to delete games from phones when Mrs. Brass' tail twitched in about-to-murder-Ambrose-way, and also that his new father had no idea what a technopath was.

'Simulations are on computers. Panu does computer things. Therefore Panu can run simulations.'

Probably this was the thought-train that had went through his dragon dad's head-station.

Panu was Not Let Father down. Ever. So he had gone out and he had found people who could run simulations. This was thanks to help of internet. People on forums were amazing and also had too much time on their hands and there was whole sub-forum for statisticians who were bored at actual jobs. So he had asked 'What are coolest worst case scenarios' and they had answered, and then he had asked Mrs. Brass and Cail to help him check and re-check Best Options.

Panu shifted in his seat. In this room, he was just nine year old sitting next to human-shaped dragon. On the other end of the conference call, he was Mysterious Shaded Figure (That Was At Least Adult-Sized). This was an easy edit to make, because it was so fake that it was not even trying to be real. This was point. (This was something that was easy for technopath to do.)

“The first step,” Panu said, carefully reading the script Mrs. Brass had helped him turn into Real English, “Is to light fires on both sides of the line. Pit them against each other. It will not take much. A Ragnarok member among a pro-human group, carrying a gun; another in a pro-mutant group, ready to strike out with powers. Random violence at first. Then more organized attacks--”

Utopia would be worth it. This is why he kept reading, even though it only got worse and worse. Utopia would be worth it.

June 28th.

"You're kidding me," Romeo Capitoline, one of Ambrose's two new bodyguards, said. "One month? That's impossible. No way things are gonna go downhill that fast. It's one terrorist attack - no one's gonna start a riot over that."

Ambrose had hired the man yesterday, but they'd been in communication for a few days longer than that. He'd heard of the Capitoline twins' reputation, though, which was why he hadn't been hesitant at all in hiring them. Obviously, there were legal loopholes, but as soon as they'd jumped through those, Ambrose had two new bodyguards and Ragnarok had two more members.

"Not on their own, they're not," Cail said. The three of them were in Ambrose's office, standing around a map of the city rolled out onto a table. Madeline was turning everyone else away, telling them whatever excuse she'd thought of this time. (Ambrose had heard her dryly tell someone that he was busy having a gay orgy. Thankfully, it'd just been Romeo's brother, who Ambrose had heard make a strangled noise before Ambrose stepped out, fully clothed, to put an end to that.)

"How are you gonna help out, then?" Romeo said, with a healthy dose of skepticism that Ambrose appreciated. He was involving only those necessary in what he was calling Utopia planning meetings - in this case, Cail and now Romeo - but he'd left the door open for both Madeline and Panu. Madeline had declined, and Ambrose didn't know where Panu was, but this was good enough. Romeo was only being included because he had experience, passion, and had been vetted as "very trustworthy" by Madeline, which was good enough for Ambrose. The man's mutation was powerful, too, if not obvious, which was why Romeo was stuck in the planning room instead of outside helping execute the plan.

Unlike his brother, that was.

"Not us," Ambrose said, and Cail and Romeo both looked at him, as he'd been silent for the last couple minutes. "There's a reason we're all up here. We're too noticeable." The two other men looked at him expectantly, but Ambrose let the silence hang, hoping one of them would ask "who" for dramatic effect.

"Then who?" Romeo finally said, making it obvious by his tone that he was just indulging Ambrose.

"Well," Ambrose said, grinning and showing sharpened teeth. "Your brother, for one."

Almost immediately, Romeo's eyes grew dark. "Where is he?" he asked - more demanded, really. Ambrose swiped a remote off of his desk and turned on a TV settled into the corner of the room. Immediately, a news channel started playing, showing coverage of a peaceful pro-mutant protest out in the city. Behind him, Romeo frowned, and Cail just looked bored. Cail knew exactly what was going on, but Romeo had yet to be informed.

Suddenly, even as they watched, the protest's tone changed. Their chanting grew angrier, and a smaller human protest - one advocating for removal of mutants entirely - started to throw slurs and rocks. In the corner of the screen, a familiar face was briefly visible before being swallowed by the crowd again.

"Oh," Romeo said, almost breathlessly. "That's brilliant."

The newscaster kept going, her voice gradually getting more panicky as the situation escalated. "I don't know what's going on here, John. It was peaceful just now, but all of a sudden, people started throwing rocks and a few fistfights have broken out. The police are beginning to intervene, but -"

She was suddenly cut off by a shout from the crowd, clearly augmented somehow. "Human SCUM!"

All hell broke loose.

Miles away, almost a hundred stories in the air, Ambrose smiled.

June 24th

“--Once the pro-mutant and pro-human groups are like a fireworks store moving in next to a match dealership, then the police will begin to lose time, lose sleep, lose tempers. The META bots were created to be their back up. Even with the known glitches, as officers become tired or injured, they will have to rely on them to fill holes in their ranks. That is when we will begin the second stage. The second stage is where they learn that no one can keep them safe.”

It didn't matter whether 'they' were humans, mutants, or police. If anyone had asked, the answer would be 'yes.'

---

July 7th

The META robots were a testament to man's ability to create. To take an idea in his head, to take the tools left by the past, and to build it into the world. Its construction was agile and strong, more than normal humans—more than most mutants—could match. Its processing speed, its code, was elegant and complex in ways that most people could never understand. Panu wondered who had made it, and where, and how long it had taken, and whether the person was a mutant like him except better because he (or she) (or it) could make things and they would have so much to talk about or whether they were a human and just that smart which would be amazing.

Panu thought about these things a lot. He tried not to think about them right now. No matter how long it took to make the METAs, to take them from an idea in someone's head to real functioning beings in the world, it took Panu only a few minutes to break them.

This is why Ragnarok would win: it was always easier to break then it was to create.

All he did was take off their filters. Human or mutant, guilty or innocent. This is what equality looked like.

That night, Brother Cafas was on the news. People were dying around him. He would be okay, because his power was Best for handling METAs. There was no need to worry about him. And the other people Panu did not even know. They were weak and now they were dead and that was good.

Panu lay on his bed in Jaager's mansion. The AC was on and way too cold, so he was under many many blankets and curled around a pillow but he was still shaking maybe a little.

July 7th. 4:32 PM.

"META bots are out," Madeline said offhandedly, peeking through the office door, as if she was informing him that lunch had arrived.

"Thank you," Ambrose said, politely, at the same time that the man sitting across from him said, "What?"

"Shut up," Ambrose said, more irritably. Chad Drumpf, the obnoxious-looking man sitting across the desk, gave Ambrose an offended look.

Ambrose didn't like Chad (god, who named their kid Chad) at all. In fact, if he wasn't in dire need of Chad's political leverage, Chad would probably be bleeding out, facedown in a ditch, right now. (He'd also be referring to him as anything other than Chad, but Chad insisted that he be called by his first name, and got even more annoying when he wasn't.) Unfortunately, Ambrose did need a politician who would do whatever he was told for money, and Chad was the only one disreputable enough (but not publicly so) to suffice.

His life sucked.

"Now," Ambrose said, gritting his teeth. "How much, you said?"

Still July 7th. 7:18 PM.

Well, he'd finally managed to settle the issue of bribing Chad into Ragnarok's service. It'd only taken a few million, but that was a few million more than he'd wanted. That was... annoying, to put it lightly.

The car pulled into the driveway of the mansion. He checked his phone - Panu's network showed clearly, so the boy was home. He wouldn't be for long, though - tonight, he was going on a mission with Romeo. It was about time Ragnarok got a bit more aggressive, and so they were going to be making some noise around Wall Street tonight.

As he stood in the spacious yard, staring critically at what seemed to be a cracked claw (but he couldn't really tell with heat vision, which was why he was trying so hard), he glanced over to see the glowing white of Panu's form inside the house. It looked a little... dim, though, and Ambrose realized upon closer inspection that the boy was shivering.

Uh.

He poked Romeo, who was standing by him in his full exoskeleton, and nearly toppled the man over in the process.

Romeo's face grew brighter as Ambrose heard the sound of the helm's faceplate retracting. "What," he said, unamused.

"Can you go turn off the air conditioning?" Ambrose said, and even if he couldn't see it, he could feel the incredulous look he was getting. "I can't fit into the house, so it's your job. Go."

Romeo seemed like he wanted to respond, but Ambrose turned around - pettily, he'd admit - and shut him off. He could hear the sounds of the armor clanking off towards the house behind him.

"Thermostat is on the second floor, by the stairs!" Ambrose called, before he forgot, and he could hear Romeo muttering under his breath about how he didn't expect to be doing domestic chores for the leader of an anarchic terrorist faction as he stomped off.

July 8th

Panu woke up with sun warm on face. He had kicked off his blankets during the night, and now they were mostly covering half of his foot and also the floor. He sat up slowly, groggily. It was warm. Nice-warm. He-didn't-need-to-wear-a-giant-sweater warm. This is what cats felt like in sun beams.

Panic set in a moment later. Sunlight meant morning and morning meant he had fallen asleep, he had missed mission--

Canceled, read his calendar entry from last night, last edited by Ms. Brass.

Oh. This was okay.

And on morning news stream, talk show hosts were gossiping about whether movie star and X-deputy Cafas Johnson would do more good on the streets, or working with charities like the other stars. They were showing pictures of him with dawn breaking behind and tousled hair like this was filmed on set. Brother Thor was okay.

---

June 24th

“We will shake their world until it breaks. Then we will show them Utopia.”

---

Everything was going to be okay, just as soon as they won.