Astrid was bored. Very bored. She had been a little wary about going outside of late, due to her recent mishaps with the police and other nosy individuals. She seemed to have lost her stride.

So, she was having a night in. But what did a fifteen year old criminal do with a night in by themselves? Not a lot, it seemed. She was sitting on her bed in the little room under the Jaager Worldwide building that she'd been given when she'd signed up to be a part of Ragnarok, scrolling through the phone that Muninn had gotten her. 

She swung her legs on the bed as she clicked aimlessly through a series of articles by a website called 'Buzzfed'. They were mostly stupid things that she could care less about, but one in particular caught her eye. It had some dumb title, like, 'The 7 Best Supernatural Things to Try at a Sleepover', but it was the content that interested her. All the writing inside detailed various evil things that she could try to summon. They all sounded amazing.

Most of them required equipment that she didn't have, so they were immediately crossed off her list, but there was one that she only needed a mirror for. It was perfect.

Astrid jumped up from her bed and scrambled to the bathroom, where she stood in front of the expansive mirror. Not wanting to miss a beat, Astrid began to follow the instructions. She shut off the light, took a deep breath, and then began to repeat the two words that the article supplied for her.

"Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary."

Maya was on her way downtown, hopping from one reflecting surface to the next. Since it was high party time around New York, and reflections were more noticeable, she decided to take a less well-traveled route, going through the lower levels of the city. She was going to spend a night out at a club, so being on this level also took her past quite a few bars. She glanced in, looked around, then moved on, hoping to pick a place that was not too crowded, not too high-end, and probably not full of troublemakers.

As she made her way out of the last one, she found herself in the lower levels of some kind of an office building. She only had a vague idea of what part of the city she was in, but it looked kind of fancy. As she slipped from mirror to mirror - lots of reflecting surfaces here - the mirror-dimension brought her echoes of someone calling out with determination.

>>"Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary."

Maya grinned. This was just too perfect.
Scaring teenage girls at a sleepover was not exactly her idea of the perfect evening... but Mirror was still enough of a trickster not to pass a chance like that up. Slipping through mirrors she located the one that had been used for the summoning, and slipped into the girl's own reflection. She was standing still, waiting intently for something to happen - probably to see Bloody Mary. Maya did not move, wearing the reflection as a mask, as she stared back. The girl had wings. She was definitely a mutant. And one that believed in Bloody Mary...

After a few moments of complete silence, Maya lunged towards the other girl with a scream, putting her palms on the inside of the mirror.
Talk about a jump scare.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. 

There was a silence, and nothing inside the mirror. The only thing that could be heard in the room was the sound of Astrid's heavy, anxious breathing. Had the website lied to her? Was there even a Blood Mary at all? Astrid felt cheated.

She allowed the demon a few more minutes to appear, staring at the mirror intently. She couldn't see anything, but maybe-

****!

Astrid screamed and fell backward. There had been nothing in the mirror a few seconds before, but then a another Astrid had appeared with her hands firmly pressed on the inside of the glass, screaming at the 'real' Astrid. Was that what it was supposed to be? A duplicate of her? The website hadn't said anything about that.

The non-mirror Astrid scrambled to her feet and looked into the mirror scrutinizingly. Was that what was supposed to happen? She'd read that it was supposed to be a girl covered in blood that would try to kill her. Sure, Astrid was a murder, but she definitely wasn't a dead demon that wandered through mirrors. It all seemed a little sketchy. 

"Bloody Mary?" she inquired tentatively as she pulled out her phone to compare the situation with what was supposed to happen.

The girl's first reaction was pretty satisfying. She screamed and fell back, and it was all Maya could do not to burst out laughing while wearing the girl's face. Jump scares were fun, as long as you were not on the receiving end. And Maya had always thought the whole Bloody Mary thing was stupid. You either didn't believe it, and then why do it in the first place - or you did, but then why would you try to summon a murdering demon?...

The girl got back up and took a closer look. Maya smirked, holding on to the reflection, so that she still appeared like the girl, but did not follow her motions like a real reflection would.

>>"Bloody Mary?"

Maya spoke in the raspiest, eeriest voice she could muster without practice. While she could copy one's reflection, she could not copy voices. Good thing it was a Maya day.

"What... do you want... from me?"

>>"What... do you want... from me?"

Astrid blinked. That had been far from what she had expected from the demon girl. Some blood, sure. Screaming, murder attempts, general demon-ness? Definitely. But a general question about what Astrid wanted from her? Not really.

The girl opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it, furrowing her brow and cocking her head. What did she want from Bloody Mary? She'd been bored, really. She had wanted to see what would happen. She didn't actually really want anything from her. 

"Do not know," Astrid shrugged. The voice was a little creepy, but she'd gotten over the fact that the demon apparently looked exactly like her. She wasn't really scared anymore. "What you do?" She asked, nodding her head toward the strange reflection. If she was into killing, then maybe they could set something up. 

>>"Do not know. What you do?"

Okay, so the girl was not really scared anymore. No trembling, or begging, or trying to send her away. Then again, mutants, especially ones with visible mutations, tended to have a much higher threshold for weirdness than humans did. Maya was kind of sorry she did not chance on a human sorority doing the same stupid thing at a sleepover.

Shedding the girl's reflection, she appeared as her own self, leaning casually against the frame of the mirror.

"Well, I mostly scare teenage girls who think Bloody Mary is real" she answered with a s***-eating grin on her face.

Astrid's face fell as she watched the reflected Astrid shed her reflection. She was just some regular woman. No blood, no mirrored reflection, no more screaming. What a disappointment. 

It was definitely not the real Bloody Mary, Astrid realized. Probably just some mutant who thought it would be funny to pop in and pretend to be the demon. And to think that Astrid had gotten her hopes up, too. 

"You not Bloody Mary," Astrid grumbled as she walked over and turned on the light in the bathroom. There really was nothing cool about the woman in the mirror. Other than the fact that she was in the mirror, that was. 

With her lips in a pout and her arms crossed, Astrid asked the obvious question. "Who you are?" She was genuinely curious about that one. She didn't come across too many mutants with abilities like that. Especially ones that seemed to be waiting around in random places to scare young girls. 

Although, there was that shadow guy...

>>"You not Bloody Mary,"

Maya sighed. The girl did not look very impressed. She even seemed a little disappointed that the person in her bathroom mirror was not a murderous demon. Go figure.

"Nope, I'm not."

>>"Who you are?"

The girl had a strong French accent and broken English; she must have been new to the city. She wanted to know who Maya was, but she showed no signs of worry or fear. Again. Mutant.

"They call me Mirror." Maya shrugged, and hopped out of the mirror, vaulting over the sink to land on the floor. "I'm a mutant like you are. I just couldn't pass up the joke, y'know..." she gestured at the mirror "It was just too easy." she tilted her head at the winged girl. "And you are...?"

Astrid kept her arms crossed as she looked at the woman with an unimpressed expression. So she had been right. She was just some random mutant who thought it would be funny to get the hopes of a teenage girl up. Disappointment abounded.

"I am Valkyrie the mighty," Astrid told her in a haughty tone. Her chest and wings were puffed up to make herself look larger, and her head was held higher than usual. She loved to tell people her name. It made her seem powerful.

She hadn't actually given herself the title of 'mighty', actually. That had been Muninn, actually, but Astrid wasn't about to argue it. Or let people forget about it. She truly did believe that she was mighty. 

"Member of Ragnarok," she added after a second. That seemed like a good thing to add, especially since they were standing in the housing area of Ragnarok. Well, she was, anyway. Mirror was in a... mirror. She didn't know if that counted or not. 

The woman had jumped out of the mirror. That was cool, at least. It seemed that she wasn't stuck in it forever, which is what Astrid had initially wondered. That would have been a sucky power. But no, she was just a mutant that could go into mirrors and apparently got a kick out of going into random bathrooms. Creepy.

"You know Bloody Mary?" Astrid inquired. She wanted to know if the demon was actually real, and if she had any chance of actually summoning it. Maybe if the woman spent all her time in mirror she had seen her before. 

>>"I am Valkyrie the mighty. Member of Ragnarok,"

"Uh...huh." Maya arched an eyebrow. Valkyrie, she could see that. As a mythology buff, she had to admit it was a well selected name, and it kind of fit the way she looked. But mighty?... The girl was a teenager at best. Not that teens didn't usually think that they were mighty. Maya still remembered.

Ragnarok, however. She remembered reading about that faction in the briefings. The X's were not sure what their goal was, but they definitely thrived on chaos... and if they had young members like this, that never meant anything good. Maya had to be careful around the girl.

"Cool name."

>>"You know Bloody Mary?"

Maya chuckled, leaning against the wall. "Bloody Mary is not real. And it's probably for the best anyway. Why would you want a murderous spirit to haunt your bathroom mirror?..."

>>"Cool name."

Astrid nodded with the best aloof expression that she could possibly muster. The unfortunate reality was that she was far from aloof, so a hint of a smile appeared on her face. It was a cool name. The coolest. She liked hearing that.

>>"Bloody Mary is not real. And it's probably for the best anyway. Why would you want a murderous spirit to haunt your bathroom mirror?..."

Astrid's shoulders slumped. It had been what she'd feared. She had been hoping that there was still the possibility of the spirit being a real thing. That would have been so cool. The woman just didn't know what she was talking about when she said that it was for the best.

"Yes...?" Astrid shrugged. She wasn't sure that she necessarily wanted it to come try to kill her, but she had been hoping that it was real. "It being cool. Scare for others. This boring." 

She wouldn't be scared. Nope. Nothing scared Valkyrie, she told herself. 

If only that were true. 

The Valkyrie obviously liked the compliment, which in turn kind of made her look even younger. Go figure. Not that Mirror did not love being named after a Knight of the Round Table...
The girl was still moping about the lack of bloody demons, however.

>>"Yes...? It being cool. Scare for others. This boring."

"Well, thanks." Maya smirked. She had been called a lot of things, but boring was usually not one of them. Between the gender-shifting, the teleportation, the X-men, the movie walking... sure, she was kind of a smartass, and occasionally deep in trouble, but boring? That was harsh.

"There are plenty of real things out there that can scare the s**t out of anyone" she pointed out "You don't need ghosts do do that for ya."

>>"There are plenty of real things out there that can scare the s**t out of anyone"

Yes, Astrid knew that. She'd had her fair share of real life scares. Usually they involved the police and the thought of jail, though. Very few things actually scared her. Other that tight spaces. Those were horrible. She shook her head at the thought of even being shoved in a tight space.

It seemed that she didn't have to worry about that too much, though. Mirror seemed to be talking about something else. Astrid just didn't know what, exactly. Heights? Murders? Stab wounds? None of those scared her. Actually, they sounded like a regular Tuesday.

"What you need?" Astrid asked her, eyes narrowed suspiciously. If she said clowns or something, then she would not be impressed. Clowns were not scary. Not at all. Plus, she would need something good to make up for the lack of mirror demon in her bathroom.

She leaned against the bathroom counter, arms still folded as she listened for an answer.

>>"What you need?"

Okay, so the Valkyrie was getting testy. Maya understood her question as wanting to know what she could possibly think of that was scarier than Bloody Mary. The mighty one appeared to think she was hard to scare, which was another common feature of teenagers (Maya knew from experience from not-so-long-ago).

"Depends on who you are" she shrugged "But believe me, there is a lot of weird scary s**t out there... Once I was locked in a house with telepaths that could make anyone's worst nightmare a reality." she shuddered at the memory. Sure, she and Twyla and all the others were fine in the end... but the memories still haunted her. "And another time I was locked in a house that was literally trying to eat me... and do not even get me started on the reanimated Thanksgiving turkeys." Ew.

Maya shrugged. Any or none of those might have sounded scary to the girl.

"That's not the point, though. I was just on my way downtown... do you live down here?"

Most of what the woman said went right over Astrid's head. There were quite a few large, specific English words that she wasn't really used to hearing. So, many of the sentences made no sense to the young girl. She cocked her head, trying to make sense of what she might be trying to say.

Eventually, Astrid just shook her head. It wasn't worth trying to figure out what she might be saying. It probably wouldn't be all that scary anyway. 

>>"That's not the point, though. I was just on my way downtown... do you live down here?"

That, Astrid could understand. "Yes," she nodded. She lived in the basement of the Jaager Worldwide building. Why Ragnarok housing was under such a well known, powerful building, she really didn't know. She also didn't bother to inquire. 

"The downtown being that way," Astrid stuck her thin arm out and pointed in a random direction. She actually had no idea where it was from their location, she mostly just wanted the woman gone. Definitely not so she could try to summon Bloody Mary again...