Astrid's face twitched as she watched the map fall apart. She stood still for a second, thinking that it had to be some kind of joke, and that there was no way that was actually happening. Obviously, the idiot creep was just dragging the thing out and trying to be mean.

But as the map sagged onto the couch, drenched in blood, she realized that it wasn't. It was really happening.

Astrid screamed again, but this time it was more of a war cry. It was a deep, throaty growl as she charged at Memo again with her crystal raised, driving it deep into his chest repeatedly.

Maybe if she kept going it would eventually work. 

Then, she had an idea.

She sliced at his throat, trying to get to the base so that she could cut it enough to fall off. There was one headless mutant coming up.

Memo had time for exactly one wibble before the winged murderer fell upon him again, bloody crystal flashing in the casual lighting of the living room's lighting. Somehow, the room seemed both completely unsurprised at the violence and also completely unassociated with it.

He tried to raise a hand in protest, and for a moment it seemed as if she was satisfied with the repeated stabbing.

Then the feather-shaped crystal descended once more, closer to his face, and he closed his eyes as fire ripped into his neck.

A decidedly lethal amount of blood was soaking the couch now, and even as Memo's body slid sideways to hit the floor while his head stayed on the cushion alone, his array of markings determinedly turned white once more. The way his body reset was definitely describable only as mutant, and once again Memo was left unharmed but covered in blood, this time lying on the floor. Fortunately for his stomach, there was no sign of the head he'd left behind. Other than, well, the extreme amount of blood.

He started breathing again before he opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling for a long moment.

Seriously?

Seriously?

The stupid creep had somehow survived getting his head severed by a crystal. There was barely time for Astrid to celebrate before somehow his head was reattached and he was breathing again. She couldn't even describe how it happened. It didn't make physical sense.

Astrid resumed her screaming. This time, it sounded like a toddler crying because they didn't get their way. It also didn't help her cause that she was jumping up and down in order to stomp harder on the floor.

She need to find a way to get rid of the creep, but it seemed that killing him wouldn't work. But how did one get rid of someone without killing them? It didn't make any sense. 

What Astrid hadn't noticed in her extreme anger, was that her screams had drawn people to the room. There was a group standing in the doorway, watching in horror as the teen jumped up and down next to a blood-soaked Memo. 

He had a vague feeling that things weren't going well. He was staring at a ceiling, and he couldn't place it. He was lying on a floor that didn't feel like the floor he was used to lying on. It wasn't that he lay on his floor a ton, just that he remembered sensations in a lot of detail when he remembered them and, well, apparently he remembered lying on his floor and it wasn't the same as this floor.

It also felt like there was something on his skin. Something damp, since it was getting kind of cold. And something stiff smushed all over his chest. His shirt pulled whenever he inhaled or exhaled. It was rather distracting.

Nnnrrrrgghhh he should get up and figure out what was going on. Or he could take a nap.

A nap sounded really awesome right now. Yeah, time for a nap. No one'd notice if he snored anyway, probably.

Astrid kept going for a few more minutes before she realized how tired she was. Oh man, was she tired. She had been walking and flying alternately for a few hours before getting there. Plus, screaming and stabbing weren't exactly relaxing activities.

She stopped moving and gave herself a minute to breathe as she finally looked at the man again. He was... Asleep? Yes, definitely asleep. He was even snoring.

How was that fair? She had wasted all that energy trying to kill him, and he was the one that got to take the nap?

No, that was not okay.

The winged mutant lifted her clunky black boots and kicked repeatedly at the man's head. There was no way he would be able to sleep through that. But, even if he were somehow, by some magic able to do so, she could always kick harder or take out her crystals again.

The first kick would have woken Memo up even if it did come from a kid. The same went for breaking the vaguely horrified hesitation of the handful of people stuck in the doorway.

Memo rolled away, wrapping his arms around his head as he tried to figure out WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON, and the frontrunners of his impromptu rescue squad dashed into the room. One of them, a multi-armed orange-scaled individual of uncertain biological reference, attempted to tackle the winged murderess even though she had more than enough arms to just, well, grab her.

Memo settled for curling up on the ground and waiting to see if he'd get hit again.

Astrid continued to kick the stupid man on the the stupi-

Wait... What the heck?

Astrid had been tackled by some big, ugly, orange scaly thing. She couldn't even give it a proper pronoun, or look at it for long enough to rest on one. It was disgusting, and she wanted it off. As soon as humanly possible.

<Get off of me!> She reverted back to her native French and flailed at the individual that had pushed her to the ground. Being a thin, bony fourteen year old, there wasn't too much that Astrid had to rely on other than shoving the crystal that was still in her hand and covered in the idiot's blood into the orange thing's side.

The crystal was mostly stopped by the scales that lined the individual's skin, but there was an awful noise achieved, and it was obviously in pain as it rolled off of Astrid and onto the disgustingly carpeted floor.

"No close," the young girl warned the rest of the group of onlookers and held the crystal out like a sword, her protection against anything that might try to harm her.

The incredibly visible mutant scrambled backwards, screaming herself now as she tried to bend her arms around to actually get a hand against the ragged gash in her side, and did her abject best to hide behind another scaled mutant, this one a very sleepy-and-freaked-out-looking snake guy who clearly wasn't sure if he should try to stop the rattle on the end of his tail from shaking, or possibly even if he could.

Fortunately for both of them, though, their third companion was a little more ranged in ability: the teenager pulled off their gloves to expose very human-looking hands, and then proceeded to point at the feathery knife.

It was so incredibly undramatic that Memo completely missed it, as he attempted to look around and slooooowly creep away from the blood-splattered girl, until the teen jerked their arm backwards. Telekinetic. Who auto-targeted whatever they gestured at.

And could apply a whole lotta force to whatever was targeted, intentionally or not.

The orange thing squirmed off to find cover under a weird snake-looking man, who was having a great amount of difficulty looking brave. His stupid annoying tail kept shaking and making an INSUFFERABLE NOISE!

The young mutant's arm lifted in the air as she could feel her crystal start to pull away from her grasp. She tugged at it as it tried to soar through the air towards some annoying teenager standing a few feet away. She didn't particularly want to lose her crystal, even though she could very easily get another, so she grabbed it with both hands and tried to stop its path. Despite her attempt to keep it with her, it pulled away from her hands, slicing both in a nice, matching, uniform line.

Astrid screamed again in frustration at the events, looking around at the people watching. What was their problem? Had they never seen a goth mutant girl have a tantrum in a homeless shelter? She stomped away from them, making a quick detour at the coffee table to try and flip it. She was entirely unsuccessful, and instead the thing teetered to the side before regaining its position on two legs, bearing smears of her blood as proof of what had just occurred.

The mutant girl screamed again out of both embarrassment and frustration at the events, gave one final glare to all on lookers, and then left the building, her initial task remaining incomplete. It looked as though she would have to find some food elsewhere.

Under the cover of his repeated assailant's tantrum, Memo managed to get his sticky, ruined-clothing-covered butt behind the newcomers, by which time he had forgotten that he had been kicked in the head, and was mostly wondering how he'd ruined yet another shirt so spectacularly.

He was pretty sure he'd remember the sight of the winged girl failing miserably at flipping over a coffee table, though. It was... it was priceless. So priceless.

And then she was gone, and the telekinetic teenager dropped to their knees, shaking in clear post-adrenaline rush, and the snake-bodied guy let his tail flail to its heart's content while he flailed around trying to remember his long-expired middle school first aid lessons.