So she was expecting Ragnorok to teach HER things? Well that was possible, though she doubted this plain infantile mutant would be able to do that. Rebecca raised an eyebrow at her bluster "I'm sure I am, I just want to find out more about it before committing, surely there's some kind of vetting you do..."

Valkyrie appeared to get an idea then, you could see the lightbulb switch on. Rebecca wondered how often that happened. She wanted her to do something important. Well, so long as it meant finding more about this organisation, she didn't see the harm. She didn't like the final sentence's tone. "I'll come with you, but please don't threaten me, it does you no favors." Yes, she was well aware that this woman could stab her at a moments notice-even though the Krav would probably help with getting out of the way. But she figured agreeing to go along with her plan would reduce the chances of violent confrontation.

The woman after all was just a winged mutant with some crystal abilities, that wouldn't mean much against sand. "So do we need to get there fast or slow?-because I'll need you to carry my purse if you'd prefer my other form. I can't transform my um, belongings,"She frowned at this admission, one day maybe she would be stronger " and I figure an unattended purse being pushed along by a wind on a main road would draw too much unecessary attention"

Did they need to go fast or slow?

Astrid took a minute to consider the question. She knew where it would start, but she would need a bit of time... The young teen pursed her lips.

She shook her head elaborately after a minute and turned around, moving her hands around to mirror her head. "I am being wrong. Not coming with me. Going home to stay for time. Meeting me at the place and not bringing stuff." She hoped that her sentence wasn't too confusing. She wasn't about to stop and make sure she understood, and she wouldn't be stopped. She was too excited about her idea. 

Hurriedly, and with a wild, excited look in her eyes, Astrid took a pen off of the ruined bar and wrote down an address and a time on a napkin before handing it to the woman. She nodded to it and then scurried off in the direction of the same address. She had a lot of work to do.

---

Valkyrie was standing on the third floor of an old burned building. It was the second time she had been there. The first had been with her colleague, and well, she supposed, friend, October. They had had an awesome time that day, and the memories had left a mark on the earth. Her shoes scraped at the charred building as she laid down the first parts of her plan.

Her wings were hidden under a hooded black cloak that obstructed her features in the already dim candle light. The room was very plain. There wasn't a lot left from the fire, but the effect was really what she wanted. It was sort of foreboding, and it looked a little like a movie scene. She had covered the room with tealight candles and arranged them in a circle in the middle of the room. At first glance, it would look like the candles and cloak were the only thing that she had done with the four hours of time between the bar fight and the meeting, but she had done oh so much more. 

She was waiting for Rebecca to show up. It was right around the time that she had given her, and she was getting impatient. 

This girl wasn't able to think through her plans very well was she? Now she wanted to take her to an address after she'd done some preparation? Wow...just... wow. The girl looked hurried, and promptly gave Rebecca a note, which she took. "If you're sure, I'll let you get on." Going home would honestly be somewhat of a relief, it wasn't too far from here.

As Valkyrie promptly disappeared, that just left the somewhat ruined bar. She turned to the bar tender who had now got the paint out of his eyes. "Right Steve, I'm going to need you to call the police, I'm sure I don't need to worry about any issues with someone identifying me? It would be very sad indeed if the security footage for the last hour was seen. It would probably traumatise those cops..." Steve nodded in understanding. "Also, I'm sorry about the damage. Insurance will probably cover it though..." most places now had insurance against mutant damages, what with the destruction being wrought by people like that black angel.

As far as the cops knew, it was just an angel that had started killing, anyone who was in the bar before the attack had run away before she'd taken her human form again. No risk to her job at Jaager. A simple panicked 911 call from the bar phone would eventually lead the police to a trail of corpses, sliced and suffocated, with an all too familiar symbol gratified on the bar.

The distorted sound of police sirens passed Rebecca as she went home. Whatever "Valkyrie" had planned, it wouldn't hurt to get there a little early. All the better for a stylish entrance.

~~~

An old burned building -how quaint! She wasn't sure of the History of the building, but somehow Rebecca doubted that the fire was accidental, for an edgy teen like Valkyrie, that wouldn't be showy enough. The address that she had given her was on the 3rd floor if Rebecca had the numbers right. Walking would be boring, it was time to fly. She'd had the common sense to change of course, into her classically Church-girl type look, very woolen, very warm, very covered. Hopefully the angel would like it.

She shifted into her sand form, breezing through the first and second floors, flying down the third floor corridors until she reached the correct door. The fire had left a considerable char on the whole building, Rebecca couldn't help but wonder if it was structurally safe. Not a problem for her, but for Valkyrie's skill set? It could prove problematic.

The wooden door of the room was charred from the outside, a partly melted iron metal number 13 completed the look, the door was cracked in many places. Rebecca was quite frankly amazed that it had stayed on its hinges. Most of the time that didn't happen.

There were plenty of cracks in the door, Rebecca would have grinned if she was in her human form. She slipped through its many cracks, the majority of her going under the door still, it was after all the easiest part to get through.

Candles? And there was somebody in a cloak in the middle of the room. The candles had been meticulously arranged, she would give Valkyrie credit for that. Rebecca was pretty sure that if she was in human form, the dim light of the candles would make it pretty difficult to see. She hovered into the center of the room. The candle flames shuddered with her movement as, if the fellow mutant was attentive, she'd know Rebecca was here. Rebecca promptly assembled in order to speak.

"Valkyrie? I'm on time as you asked, what do you have planned?" Straight and to the point. Businesslike. No need to mess around with the rather foreboding atmosphere. It was just such a shame that nobody would have seen that rather cool entrance Rebecca thought, it would have been quite impressive in a movie.

If Astrid hadn’t been standing completely still in order to complete the effect she was going for, she wouldn’t have noticed the way the candles shuddered as a mass entered the room. Astrid kept her head bowed, refusing to break character. Her wings were starting to cramp from being forced to lie flat against her back, but she ignored the urge to straighten them out.

Astrid raised a hand to signal the woman to stop talking almost immediately after she began. There would be no needless rambling in the setting that Astrid had just painstakingly pulled together.

God, she was trying hard to sell it.

“You are not talk now,” Astrid warned in the deepest voice she could muster. Just in front of the candles, there was another cloak just like the one she was wearing. She nodded her head forward, careful not to knock the hood over her tangled mess of hair. “You are wear that now.”

She stood still, falling silent again. Rebecca needed to work with the style that Astrid was trying to exude before anything real could begin.

Rebecca remained silent as she accepted the cloak. She carefully put it on and tried to look sombre. Valkyrie was obviously trying for a specific feel to the "scene" and Rebecca didn't want to mess it up for her. That said, if she suddenly broke into Latin and started playing about with a knife, then Rebecca would be gone.

The cloak was at least comfortable, and Rebecca was used to standing still. It was a weird feeling, playing some kind of game with a winged mutant again. Still, Bethany had never been into this kind of edgy gothic stuff. OK, she thought. We'll play your game. Now what are the rules? She remained standing where she was, waiting for Valkyrie to get going.

Astrid cleared her throat and then pulled out a fold piece of printer paper from under her cloak. She squinted in the dim lighting to see the translated words that she had typed out hastily on a library computer. 

"Repeat after me: I, whatever your name, by this promise to serve Ragnarok to the best of my abilities. I promise never to question the instructions given by my superiors and to spread the ideals of Ragnarok, chaos, fear and agitation, wherever I go, with the name Ragnarok. I also promise to attend any and all mandatory faction picnics and meetings or email the faction leader with a doctor's ticket apologizing for the meeting."

Astrid paused after that long spiel of poorly-pronounced English words to let Rebecca have a minute. Not everything in there was absolutely necessary, but Astrid had decided to add her own flair to things. Her initiation had been so boring, and she had made it her personal mission to ensure that no one else's would be as lame as hers. Besides, what was the good of being in a chaos faction if you didn't get to do kick ass initiations?

The teen smirked as she watched the woman. There was a lot in store for the rest of the day. Astrid had gone a little overboard, actually. She just hoped that it wouldn't be wasted on the woman. 

She had to be kidding right? Chaos? Senseless killing? All whilst never questioning this whiny teen who was presumably her superior? What was with the picnics? This "organisation" probably wasn't worth Rebecca's time, at least not the way Valkyrie was pitching it. Whoever was her superior needed to get a tighter leash on her. She wasn't going to join that! But how to play this? Well...this one seemed to like the theatrical...

While she was reading out the rest of the stupid initiation ceremony Rebecca let as much of her body turn into sand As she was covered by the cult cloak and the candlelight, it was near impossible to see until it was too late to react. She let out a little laugh, now a howling wind as she left an empty cloak to land on the floor harmlessly with a dull *thud*.

She began to fly around the room, letting her winds blow each and every candle candle out, it wouldn't be much fun for the teen, but hey, she had no time for being "edgy"... She was laughing again, further resulting in more howling, until she saw something that made her pause. Was that smoke coming from her discarded cloak?

Astrid had stayed silent while she waited for Rebecca to repeat her words. However, when she was greeted with only silence, back, she began to clue into the fact that something was wrong. She waited a second longer despite the strange response, thinking that it probably was just taking some time for the words to seep into the woman's thick skull.

After a few moments of nothing, Astrid pulled her hood off of her head. She could finally see again. What she could see, though, she did not like. Rebecca was gone, and her cloak was on the floor. In flames.

Astrid let out a frustrated, throaty groan. How could she have been so stupid? She had had a bad feeling about the woman from the very beginning, but she had chosen to ignore it, and now it was coming back to bite her. She had done so much to prepare for that night, and the woman had just left.

Stupid bitch.

Whatever. She wasn't worth is anyway. From the sounds of it, she probably wouldn't even have been a good Ragnarok member.

Astrid shed her cloak and left it on the ground next to its kin. She stepped over it as the hungry flames left by the woman ate away at the edges of the fabric. The whole building could burn, for all she cared. After all, she'd already burned it down once before. What did she care if all the work she'd just done went up in flames?

Astrid's hand balled into fist and she huffed angrily again, stepping out of the way of the path of the fire. She was done. That was it. She was leaving. She beat her wings behind her, which only served to fan the flames. She flew around the danger areas and out of the window that had been broken the first time she'd burned it down. She didn't really know where she was going, but anywhere would be better than there.

Rebecca watched as the annoyed angel left the building, gloriously beating her wings behind her as she flew off, leaving the cloak next to the other cloak, which was now setting itself alight. The flames were only going to get worse. It was not the time to stick around. She didn't know what it was like for her sand form when it got too hot, but she was not inclined to find out.

The windows were destroyed anyway, so leaving through there as Valkyrie did was probably the best course of action. She didn't need to worry about falling. She flew out of the window, then let herself fall down to the ground below. It would take far too much energy to continuously hover mid-air, at least, that high up, but here was just fine.

With "Valkyrie" nowhere to be seen , Rebecca placed distance between herself and the building, before taking her human form and watching the place gradually burn down. It was beautiful in its own right, though now it would be structurally unsafe for anyone. The cops would probably write it off as kids playing with candles too much.

Regretting nothing, Rebecca smiled as she turned away from the building, the smoke now issuing to the night sky. She didn't stay for the police and fire engines to arrive, it was time to go home and relax. Jaager Worldwide would want her for another day of work tomorrow. <end>