Having video backup of her life was both amazing and irritating. Reviewing lost memories was something the memorymancer never knew she wanted before it became an option. But videos, as it turned out, were incomplete evidence. For example, Noel could see that she went from telling Hades that she never wanted to be an assassin to ending other people's lives in the span of a day or so.

The frustrating part wasn't that the change of heart came in so short a time-span. The frustrating part was that she only had video evidence to capture the "why" of why she ever thought killing bad people was bad. And Noel wasn't a villain. She didn't diatribe. She just had that one clip.

Noel lazed in the security lounge of Jaager's building to leech off the wifi. This wasn't something she wanted to review at "home" or whatever the bolt-hole Hades had given her was.

She scrubbed through the video until she got to the right spot. If the memory were in her head, she could have done the same. But it wasn't. The phone was what she had.

"You used to work in security, were trained by no less than a master swordsman, have never been involved in shadowy world of assassins yet have taken to it like a duck to water."

"Uhhhg. Noooo. Don't put it like that. I'm a good person, not an assassin. I don't want to be an assassin."

She was still a good person, by her own reckoning. At least, she tried to do good with what she had. So why did she talk down on assassins in this clip? It didn't really make sense. Noel scrubbed back one more time.

"I'm a good person, not an assassin."

"As if the two were mutually exclusive." Hn. She briefly considered making that clip her ring tone, but it seemed a little self-centered to do so.

A calendar reminder chimed it's merry little attention grabbing diddy as it took over her screen. Some task that'd been scheduled for her despite the fact that Noel checked her calendar every morning for the day's tasks. That probably meant it was new from Panu.

"Go check out this Audubon meeting and make sure we don't have to kill them."

Huh. Sounded easy enough.

Noel stood and slipped her phone in her pocket so that she could run through her mental ready list. Phone, sword, gun, gun, knife, hair. Checks all around. Despite the summer heat, she pulled on a coat that made carrying an arsenal possible without arrest.

Just another day at the office.

Jaager Worldwide was by far the most attractive building in the Manhattan area. It was taller, sleeker, and generally gave off the appearance that there were important things going on inside. It was somewhere that Astrid had kept an eye on for a while, but had never officially looked into.

However, a day of inactivity had prompted her to finally give into her curiosity. In truth, she didn't really know what Jaager Worldwide actually was, or what they did there, but something about it gave her the feeling that she would end up liking it. She wasn't entirely sure why that was, or what would become of it, but it gave her a giddy excitement that could only be felt by a young teen.

She stood on the sidewalk outside of the building, staring at the gleaming revolving doors that were kept in constant motion by the traffic of people entering and exiting. She could have just walked inside and went from there, but she had no idea what was inside, or if they would let in a young mutant teenager who had no business being there. It was better not to risk being sent out and recognized in the future by being careless, than to keep on the cautious side from the get-go. 

Astrid's black eyes scanned the enormous building with bubbling interest. Other than the front entrance, there were no other clear ways into the building. She bit her lip; if only she had the insight of some of her favourite villains. Surely they would know immediately what to do. It was times like these that left her feeling naive and inferior to others. She silently cursed her age and inexperience, wishing for some way to quickly learn how to act like the people she so admired. 

Her thoughts were disrupted by the sudden impact of a passer-by with his phone in his hand, and his eyes locked onto the screen. "Hey, watch it! I'm trying to catch a Snorlax!" 

Astrid grunted at him and straightened her impossibly over-sized tulle skirt. She had spent long enough loitering outside; it was time to actually do something. She found herself fixated on the roof of the building. If only it wasn't so high up, or if only she had a way to get there.

...Oh...

The light breeze blowing through her black wings made her feel infinitely moronic. She had an incredibly obvious way to get there. Astrid beat her wings behind her and felt her heel-bound feet lift off of the ground. It took her a mere few minutes to get to the top, despite the height of the building. It helped that there was no strong wind steering her off of her course that day.

Once she felt her feet touch the ground, she allowed herself a minute to look around. The top of the building was basic enough, a helipad and a rooftop entrance. All in all, fairly nondescript. Astrid made a bee-line for the entrance and put her hand on the handle. She paused for a second, hoping for the best, and then turned it slowly. 

The door resisted her movements and made a familiar clicking noise once it turned far enough. It was, without a doubt, locked. She had fully expected that result, seeing as the building was very important and likely had excellent security, but that didn't make it any less disappointing. 

She wasn't about to let one punny lock stop her, though. 

Her wings shifted instantly, and she reached behind her back and plucked a crystal from the multitudes of lookalikes. With the crystal in hand, she stabbed at the door, not at all precise about where she was aiming. After a little bit and some awful clanging, the door handle fell to the ground with a loud bang. The same instant, her wings shifted back to feathered form. 

Astrid grinned at her work and pulled open the door with no resistance. The building was hers to enter. 

And enter she did. She spent no time delaying her entrance, and took no time to examine her surroundings. She simply sprinted down the steps and sauntered down the hallways that she suddenly felt ownership of. That was the way it stayed for a while, with her paying no mind to anything, and not caring if anyone saw her, until her attention was drawn by sudden movement.

It was a woman with absurdly long hair, slipping on a large coat that was in no way suited for the summer heat. Then again, neither was Astrid's thick black dress. A dull sound indicated that the woman was armed heavily under the jacket. Astrid allowed herself one small, closed lipped smile as she realized that she had been entirely right about the building and possibly its inhabitants. 

She watched her for a few seconds before making her presence known. If Astrid had been intelligent, she likely would have taken the time to realized that it was probably a bad idea to make herself known to an armed inhabitant of the building she had just broken into, but alas, that was not the case. "What you do?" She asked the woman, her voice brimming with curiosity. 

Young, pasty, winged, and with the blackest demon devil eyes Noel ever did see. Jaager kept some weirdoes around, but this was the first one Noel thought might have been sent by Satan instead. And, yeah, she'd met the firewyrm guy and the preying mantis dude.

"Morbid barbie." Noel cleared her throat as she nodded her greeting. That was probably rude. What if it was Jaager's niece or... nope. Nope. Nope. All the nope. She looked too young for that alternative.

"I'm going for a walk." Noel's lie twisted in her mouth until she was forced to continue talking her way into a truth. "Gotta go check out a potential threat. Are you...?" Noel looked around for a chaperone or something. Seeing none and caring less by the moment, Noel shrugged. She was not coming with Noel. That was for sure.

"Are you lost? I will gladly show you the front door." It was right this way and Noel put herself behind Astrid so that she could either confront Noel or walk the way the memorymancer intended.

Ooh, checking out a potential threat sounded very interesting! Far, far more interesting than standing outside of the building and wondering what was inside. Definitely better.

"Is not lost," Astrid humphed angrily, like the proud child that she was. "Search way here by myself." She stomped her foot down and crossed her arms just above her tulle skirt, ignoring the fact that it scratched at her arms aggressively.

"Can help," she added quickly, not wanting to lose the woman to other things. "Good dying people." Well, she didn't have all that much practice, but she had managed to kill that one guy several times before he came back to life. 

> "Is not lost"

Is not English. Noel's brain helpfully supplied. Also, that only tasted half true. Not that people who technically belonged couldn't legitimately get lost...

Noel resolved to get a roster of approved persons from Panu. That seemed like a security oversight for her not to have one. In fact, she checked her phone for a file that might be appropriately named...

No luck.

"I'm sure you're very good." Again, that sat sour on Noel's tongue. She tried not to twist her face up in her discomfort. "So let's help each other, okay?" Noel would help the girl out of the building and the girl could help by not being there. And by not looking at her with her weird, buggy eyes.

Yes. She was misleading the girl on purpose. She paid for that with constant acid reflux.

Ah, the exit. Noel raised an eyebrow to the security desk as they passed and then waited for Astrid on the outside. "Great job searching your way here!" She gave the girl a thumbs up with forced enthusiasm. "You can leave now."

And Noel could use her handy, dandy phone to find the location of the meeting. Wasn't it supposed to start soon? It'd better be close. And it'd better be a pokestop. Panu got the best spawns to trigger, but they were useless when she was out of pokeballs.

The loaded lady was going to help her, apparently. Astrid shrugged with a simple, "okay," and followed her down the hallway. There was something funny about the woman, though. She looked as though she was tasting something disgusting every other second. Astrid chalked it up to it simply being a bad day for her, or something. She didn't appear to be in the best of spirits.

Everything would have been completely fine if the woman hadn't lead her directly to the exit and forced an enthusiastic smile. That was not okay; not in the least bit. No matter how cool she looked or how many guns she carried, this woman did not get to treat Astrid like a child.

She puffed out her wings and crossed her arms slowly, drawing her legs into a wide stance. "Not leave," Astrid glared at the woman through stilted black eyes. "Help with the kill people." Her wings shifted back to crystal form, which didn't seem as heavy as usual with her practical stance. She made a note to try that more often.

Hopefully, with the addition of her wings, the woman would see her as someone useful, and not like someone that needed an escort out of the building. If not, there was always the option to start shooting.

"No kill people." Uh. No, wait. Noel shook her head and tried again this time in actual English. "The point isn't to go and kill people. It's to... decide... if they're a threat. And if preemptive action needs to be taken." Which meant that if the bird people were making active plans to murderize her people, Noel would stop them.

With murder.

She sighed. "Besides, you don't look exactly human. These people-" would see her. And would have opinions. Immediate potentially hostile opinions.

Noel shifted her weight as she looked at the girl with fresh eyes. She was freaky. Totally out of this world, a foreigner by the sound of her accent, and obnoxious to boot. If anyone was going to inspire someone to murder them, Noel had newfound confidence that this girl could do it.

"You're right. I do need your help." Okay. Need was stretching it. And Noel didn't exactly want to touch her either. The memorymancer indicated their direction with her head. "C'mon. But no kill until I say okay."

She checked her phone again. They'd be looking for some kind of coffee shop. "Bulletproof Coffee?"

Well, apparently the woman was coming to her senses. Of course she needed Astrid's help. Who didn't, really? She stood a little taller and flipped her tangled mass of black hair over her shoulder so that it fell between her wings.

She wasn't particularly fond of having to wait for the woman's instruction to be able to do anything, especially since the woman hadn't yet shown her that she could do anything cool, but it was a price she could pay. As long as it lead to something good, of course.

The woman said something else, and seemed like she was thinking about something. Maybe a location? The one they were going to? Astrid just shrugged at her.

They had been standing around for a long time, though. Far too much time wasted for Astrid's liking. Especially when they had things to do and people to kill. "Go now?" The question was more rhetorical than literal, since Astrid had already begun to walk backwards down the hallway, giving the woman time to catch up.

She'd read the name of the shop because she'd been hoping the girl would see it, read the sign, point it out, you know- be helpful? But that was assuming the girl could read. And that she wanted to be helpful. Both were counts that Noel found of dubious veracity.

"Bah. Yes. Come." Okay. So they were the blue dot. And their destination was that little pin. It was just a block and a half block up. They were still going to show up a smidge late.

The phone went away and Noel was off. She touched her sword briefly to bring things back to perspective. Noel was willingly putting this girl's life in danger. Unless something drastic happened, she was confident that she could protect her from humans should the need arise.

There! The shop with the cowboy font and the revolver... and the fake bullet hole stickers on galvanized pipe furniture. Wow. they were really riding the theme. Noel spared a glance to make sure Astrid was still haunting her and then held the door for the girl so that she would go in first.

"Two bulletproof coffees, small." Butter tea? What the heck was butter tea? Noel figured after a quick scan of the menu that it was safest to stick with what a place was known for. Y'know. Like it's namesake. She opened the right app and paid with her phone.

"What the heck is that?"

An overloud whisper came from the corner. Noel spared them a look. 5 men, 1 woman who was, judging by the height of her skirt and the depth of her neckline, not really there for the scintillating conversation. They were all finely dressed, which Noel had not expected. Freshly coiffed and manicured like golf buddies meeting about their latest hedge fund... something.

Astrid huffed nearly the whole block and a half to the coffee shop. She hated walking, and she hadn't exactly worn walking shoes. At least they were going somewhere cool, though. She stepped through the door that the woman had opened and looked inside. 

The whole themed shop thing was a little over the top, and that was coming from Astrid. The western thing was taken to almost every corner of the shop, including the menu.

The woman, who she didn't actually have a name for, had ordered her a coffee. Astrid didn't drink coffee, but she figured that if it was hot enough she could dump it on someone that got in her way. No one liked being burned by scalding coffee.

"What the heck is that?"

Astrid turned around and squinted at a group of very nicely dressed individuals. There were five men and one woman, none of whom appeared to just be there for the 'bulletproof' coffee or the nice scenery. They were all staring directly at Astrid.

The young winged mutant rolled her eyes at them and crossed her arms. She was used to rude stares and pointing, but that was the most direct anyone had ever been about her appearance. It was all a little bit strange. Maybe they were the people they were going to kill? She really hoped so.

"That is stupid thing to say," Astrid glared at the group and stepped closer to them, her wings bristling. She had goosebumps all over, and she was itching for a fight. If only she didn't have to wait for the woman to let her kill them.

Noel pressed a hot, steaming cup of coffee into Astrid's angry hands. There was an oil slick on top. This was apparently on purpose. The coffee was meant to distract her. It was hopefully not going to end up as yet another weapon.

"Are you guys talking about the bird?" Noel asked brightly as she grabbed a chair and turned it around in order to straddle it. Wide legs meant a wide coat. Wide coat meant not-so-hidden weapons that were facing their little group, but not the doors or barista.

It wasn't a threat. Not yet.

"Aren't you guys here for that meet up? The one where you take pictures?"

She leaned in toward the fast blinking group. Fast blinking meant fast thinking. "Sorry. Was I not supposed to bring one?"

"No. We don't bring them." A brave one licked his lips and his eyes darted between Noel and the bird girl. An actual, literal bird girl.

"We don't hunt either." Noel fixed her eyes on a guy who had his sweater pulled over his shoulders and then tied in front. He had eyes only for Noel's armory. "So if you're into that, you'd probably best be on your way." He snubbed.

"Oh?" Huh. Maybe there'd be no murderdeathkill today after all. "Then where's your cameras?"

One pulled out his phone. Phone. Phone with a silly scope-like attachment for the lense. Hipster camera. Phone. The girl produced an SLR with a telescopic lense from only God knew where.

Huh. "Well. She's real pretty." Noel quickly took a sip of her own oil coffee to drown that non-truth. "Don't you want to take a picture?"

Astrid looked between the woman she came with and the weird people in the booth. What was even going on? Why were they talking about birds? There was so much going over her head.

Her hands clasped tightly around the hot coffee that had been handed to her as she glared at the group. She wanted to stab something so, so badly, but she was going to be a good partner and do what the woman told her to do. Which, at that moment, was apparently just standing there and looking pretty.

There would be no pictures, though.

Unless they were pictures of her stabbing something.

Her feathers ached at the thought of stabbing something, but she ignored the feeling, instead focusing on the burning sensation that her hand was receiving from the overheated caffeine she was holding.

"Ohhh."
"Uh, we don't exactly-"
"Are you a pimp?"
"Evander!"

"What?"

"No, seriously, you walk in here with a young mutant in tow and you want us to take pictures? I mean, it's honestly a little sick. Is she even legal age? How many more do you have tucked away somewhere?"

Well that was taking a turn for the what the hell. "I thought taking pictures was the point." That was a question in the form of a no-duh statement. Noel was really lost at this point. Besides, she'd heard murder was also sometimes a point of these meetings.

"We don't take posed pictures. They're only good if they're out in the wild. Doing, you know... whatever the bi- eh, mutants do best." Ascot man ducked his head in apology, clearly unsure which term was most polite.

This was... weird.

"Hey." Noel really should have gotten the girl's name first. She had to take her eyes off this group of weirdly socially conscious hobbyists in order to turn toward the black winged girl. "They want you to do whatever it is you do." She shrugged. "Act natural."

There was at least one facepalm to be heard.

She was being spoken to again. She had spent most of the conversation being spoken about, but not actually to. Astrid turned her eyes back to the woman in the trench coat.

>>"They want you to do whatever it is you do. Act natural."

Act... Natural?

How did she do that, exactly?

Oh! That was her cue to stab all the things! Astrid bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet and shifted her wings. Instantly, they were lined with crystals. Since they were in a rather confined area, she figured it might not be the best idea to shoot them straight from the source (since missions were to be done well, not messily), so she reached both of her hands back and pulled a crystal from each wing to use. Then, they shifted back to feather form to make it a little easier for her to move.

The young teen stepped forward and raised a crystal high above the group of people, ready to stab something. She would have just gone for it, but then she remembered that she wasn't acting alone on this one. Astrid turned back to the woman in the coat and nodded her head to the group.

"Which first?"

Huh. She probably should have seen that one coming. And now the cameras were definitely in use. Self-protection and documentation as much as 'Ohh shiny! A power in use!'

Noel looked at them each in turn. "You're just in it for the pictures?"

Nod, nod, nodding. So many nods.

"Verbal answers please. Start with you." She pointed at the left most.

"Only pictures."
"Yes, please don't hurt anyone."
"I have a son."
"You can't just—" Oh. It was business bimbo, the girl with the most expensive camera.

"That one." The memorymancer cut her off before she got any further. Blech. Lies.

Noel pushed her way up from the table while the woman went all wide-eyed and scrambled with her equipment.

Something wizzed out of the camera when she hit the shutter.