Bored, Bored, Bored. Kai always imagined that running away to New York City, finding out he was a mutant, and breaking people out of some kind of creepy death camp would be more... exciting. But the original excitement waned and nothing interesting had happened in months.

"Well I suppose that when you're hiding out from the authorities, a lack of excitement isn't necessarily a bad thing... and now I'm talking to myself."

He shook his head and dug his hands into a fresh bag of black potting soil. He was re-potting a particularly picky orchid. It was supposed to be delivered to some model's house later in the afternoon if he could impress upon the plant to grow nicely for its new owners when it no longer saw him on a daily basis. He sighed. Some of them got really attached to him. Business was taking off. Both of them, actually. Though he detested the grumpy plants, there was too much money in illicit plants. The flower shop was also an excellent cover for buying fertilizer and using lots of heat lamps.

He packed the fresh earth down and grabbed a spray bottle. He looked to the left. And the right. No customers in the shop at the moment...

"Spritz spritz spritz!" Kai began skipping around, conducting his own symphony with the spray bottle. Sometimes you have to resort to drastic measures in order to amuse yourself...

Lori needed a friend. People were entirely too fallible and she didn't trust herself not to fry another puppy at the mall for "accidentally" peeing on her. Kittens were little better than vermin so plant it was. Plants were easy, right? A little sunshine, a little water... even some mild neglect seemed fine since most growing things seemed to like growing.

A little bell jingled above the door as she pushed through, but whoever was in the shop seemed rather involved in... skipping and spritzing? Lori raised a single eyebrow and held up her hand defensively before the overzealous spritzer could accidentally spritz her.

"Uhh... hey." She didn't do pleasantries and the scene was a bit awkward. I mean, it's not every day you walk in on someone prancing about their shop no matter how small and quaint and green. "Do you have anything that's hard to kill?" She was shooting for honesty because that was generally cheaper than lying about having a green thumb and then mutilating something beautiful.

Petunia was an odd person. She didn’t always follow trends or what people thought she should like, or do. In fact most of the time when it came to what she should do, like not pushing 12 year old green haired girls off of the x-men’s mansion roof, she did exactly what she shouldn’t. After all. Petunia had been named Petunia gardener and she had to show that there was real flower power in her. Even if her tactics in fights were a little less flowery and a little more powery.

There was one thing that Petunia did follow, that people expected, and it was that she did like flowers. .. .. .. Most of the time. Acutally she liked a lot of different plants. Her favorite being the venous fly trap. Because she loved the smell. She buzzed right t it, and was always sucked in by the alluring aroma. In fact that is why she was headed to the flower shop today. Carefully under her coat, she was carrying a venous fly trap that had grown a few inches in the hears she’d had it, but earlier that day, she had been buzzing around her happy little buggy self, and well. She was a bug, so what did you expect a distractible bug to do when it thought it found something tasty? She’d gotten trapped, and transformed to her human self, thus smooshing her favorite plant.

“I told you that was a bad idea.” She mumbled into her gloved hand, where a bee sat in her palm. Warm between her fingers and obviously not listening to her. Not that the bugs ever really listened to her, but today this bee and her were having a fight. It wasn’t the Bees choice to be silent and be in the fight. It was Pix’s because Pix was the boss of all bugs and she said this bee and herself were in a fight. “Don’t you give me that look.” The bee just sat there.”

With a delightful little jingle, Petunia opened the door to the flower shop, and was immediately embraced by all the different smells. She closed her eyes and inhaled as the door song shut and the bee buzzed into life, to check out all the flowers. There was a dancing boy there and a girl asking about plants that were hard to kill.

“Have you thought about Spider plants?” Of course the bug goddess would thing of that plant first. Petunia set her venous fly trap down on a counter, as a couple more bees buzzing into life and out into the air, from under the collar of her coat.

Kai pranced over to his two newest customers. His first impression with them was already shot, so he thought that he might as well go for consistency. “Spider plants, hmm? Yes, I suppose those are a fairly good choice.” He nodded enthusiastically, “They grow new plants at the end of their shoots, so you can plant them and grow more, in case the first one dies.”

He rambled in a friendly way, “We also have several different types of succulents and cacti which require very little water and aren't as picky about the kind of soil they are planted in. If you are looking for a bit of color, I recommend an Aeonium Decorum Variegata- This cactus-like one here. Its leaves grow like a rose and it changes colors, from green to yellow to red, depending on the amount of light that it receives. And it is much harder to kill.”

Kai forced himself to shut up for a moment. The cactus he was gesturing at sent him some comforting vibes. The plants all liked it when he talked, it had a positive effect on their growth, similar to playing classical music to them. (Which Kai would proudly admit to doing for his favorites on a number of occasions if asked point blank.) But they knew that his chattiness was wasted on some of his customers, especially when he started throwing around technical terms.

“Sorry Ma'am, I get a little carried away sometimes.” He smiled, and addressed his other customer as diplomatically as possible. “Is there anything I can help you with, today?”

The flouncy one pranced toward the door as a second woman entered. The woman suggested a spider plant and then shook... bees... out of her coat collar. Lori was rather busy giving the dainty bee-girl big, incredulous eyes. Lori had the phrase "bee in your bonnet" but she hadn't thought it was an actual possibility.

>“Spider plants, hmm? Yes, I suppose those are a fairly good choice.” He nodded enthusiastically, “They grow new plants at the end of their shoots, so you can plant them and grow more, in case the first one dies.”

"As long as hey don't consume their own young, I suppose growing back-ups is a good choice." But of course these were plants they were talking about. Plants didn't eat weird things. The bee-girl shuffled around in her jacket some more until she produced a somewhat smushed venus fly trap. You didn't have to be a botanist to recognize one of those. Lori blinked again as the other girl and stood decidedly corrected. There were plants that ate strange things.

Lori returned her attention to the swirly-twirly shopkeep in mid-ramble. >"... kind of soil they are planted in. If you are looking for a bit of color, I recommend an Aeonium Decorum Variegata- This cactus-like one here. Its leaves grow like a rose and it changes colors, from green to yellow to red, depending on the amount of light that it receives. And it is much harder to kill.”

"Eh. I don't have the best track record with succulents, but uhm... that one looks nice." Lori tucked a stray hair back into her springy ponytail holder. Plants weren't really her thing, but logically one must follow the chain dependents before being qualified for the next tier. Lori had graduated the fish stage of keeping things alive, and though she'd failed the plant stage so far, she was eventually shooting to not kill a puppy. Was it bad that she was just hoping to not kill things rather than actually bring them joy and have that joy returned? Probably.

>“Sorry Ma'am, I get a little carried away sometimes.”

She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for on the plant. I mean, it looked alive. Lori looked up from inspecting the flower-like vegetation to the shopkeep's face. "Seems like a love more than a job." She envied him in that and then waved him off so that he could help the smashed fly trap bee-lady. New York was full of so many weirdos.

As the young man went on about the spider plants and the pointy cacti, Petunia allowed herself to get lost in the rest of the room. With her poor venous fly trap, under her arm, now that she had brought it out from under her coat, she started loking through the rest of the plants. Her bees were busying themselves too. She checked on the plants that they just weren’t attracted to, then took some time, sticking her little button nose closer to the ones they seemed to be drawn to more. Even if her and her bee were having a fight, because she said they were having a fight, she could still trust their judgment on flower fragrances. They were bees after all. Pix would know. She could be a bee.

“Is there anything I can help you with, today?”

“Um well.” Petunia pulled away from an orchid that she had just been admiring the large white petals of. “I was wondering two things.” She held out the sad looking venous fly trap. There were several little plants but they were all at different stages of being crushed, and the largest one in the center, was the one pix had gotten stuck in, earlier that day. The center plant, that had closed around her was completely broken in half. “I’ve had this plant for a while and today it experienced a little bit of an accident.” She explained and her cheeks blushed. How embarrassing to think of yourself and an insect goddess, and then to nearly be killed by a house plant. “I’m hoping this one can pull through, but I’m also interested in purchasing a plant that has just as much of an alluring fragrance, and that might hold up better, if a really big little something decided to land on it.”… Again…

Augh, Watchmaker thought, walking down the streets of New York, ignoring the strange thoughts he and his friend Jessica gleaned. Of course the clock just had to be in the shape of the one plant you can't find in the botanical section of the library. And this Nepenthes rajah just had to be carnivorous. He was heading to a nearby plant shop to find one of these endangered plants and take it back to his shop, so that he could make a clock modeled after it. The clock would come with clockwork insects that fly into the plant, fake liquid that would look like it "digests" the clockwork flies, and an opening and closing main leaf. It was to be a masterpiece, but for Watchmaker it was nothing special. Jessica, walking right next to him, was magnitudes more complex, cool, interesting, and unique than any clock could ever be.

Jessica was a clockwork automoton. She was made out of a framework of carbon-fiber nanoweave, with an internal clockwork mechanism who's largest part was 1.2cm in diameter. She stood at 2' 6" tall, and had feet with individual toes, for greater balance. Her hands had seven fingers each, and she had one central sonar-based-eye. The eye worked in that a drum with a pin on it turned, striking a drum-like device 4 times every second or so, sending waves of silent sound around the area. When the sound reverbed back, another drum detected it and compared it to the original sound pulse. Every aspect of this amazing machine was clockwork, even down to her average human-intellegence and feelings and personality.

Watchmaker reached to door of the shop, and Jessica reached up with her arm, extending it along joints so that it became around 3 feet long, and turned the handle. Watchmaker nodded his thanks, and walked in. Walked in to a botanical discussion that left him spinning in the dust, metaphorically speaking. There were two women there already, along with the shop's owner. Interupting their conversation, quite rudely, he said "You Kai? I need a healthy Nepenthes rajah, and I need it yesterday. Money is no objection."

Ah, word of mouth. It could be of wonderful use in recruiting new clients among the upper echelons of society. Or it could bring in those who believed the world revolved around themselves. Exhibit A was the pompous man currently interrupting a conversation with a very... interesting... customer. Kai gave an apologetic smile. He hoped that she would stay for a few minutes and not be frightened away by Pompous Man. Another motivating factor was the poor venous fly trap which was whimpering at him so pathetically it was nearly breaking his heart.

“Yes, I'm Kai. But I'm sorry. We do not have endangered species on hand. If you would like to leave me with your name and contact information, I can inquire with my supplier and get back to you.” Pompous Man he added in his own thoughts.

To be honest, Kai was a little concerned about this particular request. It was true that he would have to call in favors from time to time in order to secure a certain rare plant, but this might not even be possible. The plant in question only grew at certain altitudes and had an extremely complex root system. He wasn't sure that it would be able to survive in New York for very long, even if he could procure one. But to see one up close! To talk with it!

A bee buzzed around Kai's head. He reached up slowly, inviting it to land on his hand, but the bee flew away. He sighed. He tended to like the small insects. They helped pollinate, which made his job that much less demanding. Unfortunately, they never really had much interest in him- always preferring to land on his brother. Of course, he probably smelled more like his flowers, sweet, while Kai probably seemed more like a tree.

The orchid, trying to charm its way into staying at the Flower Peddlers' shop called to him gently. When you are happy, you almost smell like us. Like a blossom.

He marched the short distance to the counter and pulled out a pad of paper with their shop name printed across the top. Maybe we should create official request forms? He thought idly. “Right then, if you'll just write down your name and address and a phone number we can use to contact you...”

Flopsy Plant Man seemed to run a busy shop shop. A busy shop with an interesting clientele. Lori found herself leaning her elbow against the table where the pretty succulent resided. The plant was long forgotten and the blonde was currently people watching in the small plant shop. Bee-girl lamented the squashing of her flytrap which seemed interesting enough considering the friends she let loose in the store.

And then a more interesting sort of man dropped in. He was surprisingly short and dark for a man that came in barking orders. Napoleon Complex? He didn't seem to mind that he'd stepped on a conversation or that anyone beyond ... Kai was even in the store. Lori's astute eyes flicked to the shopkeep, Kai. He seemed flustered but still kind and diplomatic. Your typical doormat. The man who came in had an almost sickly demeanor with his dark clothes and close cut hair, but that wasn't even the most interesting part!

There was a ... thing that came in with him. It whirred and walked and balanced on two legs. It was definitely diamagnetic which was interesting considering whatever was inside felt more like ferromagnetic material, ferromagnetic material that moved. It was a ... robot? Lori quirked a brow and wished that her senses were better honed. What was its power source? What made it able to maintain ridiculously hard to replicate upright walking balance? Curious blues flicked to the man that it followed. Did he find it? Buy it? Build it?

She was more interested in the thing, however and her eyes were recaptured there. She watched its movements carefully. What was controlling its movements? Was it receiving signal? It almost seemed... intelligent.

She couldn't affect the chassis of the thing, but Lori wanted a closer look. She manipulated a subtle magnetic field that would pull at any metallic inner workings and hopefully make the automaton correct its balance by stepping closer to a certain blonde who had stepped aside to watch the show.

Petunia was being helped. She had stepped in and she had been polite to the other girl that was a head of her in the shop because that was the nice thing to do. It’s impolite to just barge into a shop and demand attention. The 4’ 7” with high heals, girls demeanor instantly dropped from slightly cheerful, and a little embarrassed, to the complete B**** of your nightmares. Her lips pressed together and her eye narrowed on the new comer in the store.

Not even the little 2 something foot tall thing at the man’s side could puller her attention, Awa- OMG! Did that thing have seven awesome little finger on it’s hands?... Like I said. Not even the awesome seven fingered individual could pull Pix’s stare away from the rude man.

“Excuse me you pompous, gut sucking, dude!“ wow that sounded better in Pix’s head. Out in the open, once Petunia said it, it sounded completely lame. That might have been a compliment with Pix’ standards of friends. The bees that were Pix’s friends darted from all the different corners of the store, and swarmed into the under side of her collar.

“you’re not that bright are you?” She said stalking close enough to the man that she could stand on her tippy toes and try to get her face up close to his. “First off there are two very lovely ladies in this store being assisted before you even stepped a foot in here. I don’t care if your mother never practiced common curtacy or cared to show you it, but it is common sense something you apparently lack because if you had common sense and you needed a plant like yesterday, you would have been in this shop, Oh I don’t know. YESTERDAY? You see? YOU just don’t make Sense!” She jabbed her index finger in the man’s chest to to emphasize her last you. Yeah. That always worked to get a point across.

“Kai. You go a head and help the other lady over there. we’re going to wait in line.” She said as she pushed her tiny self in between the rude pompous, gut sucking dude, and the slip of paper. Her arms crossed and her face lightened into a smile. “Kay?”

Just go a head man. Make my day.

“Yes, I'm Kai. But I'm sorry. We do not have endangered species on hand. If you would like to leave me with your name and contact information, I can inquire with my supplier and get back to you.”

Watchmaker sighed. Damn the internet, not a single plant store he had visited that day had it on hand, and he had seen over twenty stores in the past six hours. They all advertised to have it on the net, but in reality he should have known that they wouldn't. This one didn't specifically say it had it, but Watchmaker was getting desperate. "Yes, yes I suppose." He paused for a moment, scratching his head. "Well, here's my card." He said, pulling a small business card out of his jacket and handing it to Kai.

Just then a girl Watchmaker hadn't even noticed stepped in between Watchmaker and Kai, insects of all sorts buzzing around her and diving under her collar. A bee landed on Watchmaker and he picked it up, squishing it between his thumb and forefinger. He then returned his attention to the girl and her tyrade against his rudeness.

"-bright are you? First off there are two very lovely ladies in this store being assisted before you even stepped a foot in here. I don’t care if your mother never practiced common curtacy or cared to show you it, but it is common sense something you apparently lack because if you had common sense and you needed a plant like yesterday, you would have been in this shop, Oh I don’t know. YESTERDAY? You see? YOU just don’t make Sense!” The girl had stepped close enough to Watchmaker that he was uncomfortable. Her finger jab was the last staw. Had she not touched him, he probably would have just ignored her. Now that was not an option.

"Jessica," he said, turning to his short clockwork friend, "There seems to be an obstruction in this man's shop. I think he would be very pleased if you removed it." Insted, however, of hearing the usual grinding voice that Jessica used, he got a sound of crunching metal, scratching gears, and pins being knocked out of place. "Jessica?" He said, and looked down at her. He gasped, as Jessica was on the floor, gyrating arms and legs wildly, all of the little doodads and extras Watchmaker had lovingly built into her going crazy.

"No!" He said, dropping to his knees next to her. He pulled a small key from his back pocket, inserted it into a hole in Jessica's foot, and turned it. The gyrations stopped, but so did all other movement. Watchmaker pulled a small box from his jacket, and opened it, revealing a set of tools so minescule that they almost looked like they were made for insects. He closed his eyes, and opened Jessica's chassis. If either of the girls or Kai were in a position to see inside of it, they would see gears, cogs, pins, and so much other clockworks that were so small it looked like they would be impossible to work. But Watchmaker, still with his eyes closed, began fixing Jessica. The problem was a small one, a single gear out of place, but a few of the gears had been bent, and most of the pins had been knocked out of place. The bent gears unbent themselves, pins slid back into place, and the single gear that had fallen inside the workings slid back into harmony.

Watchmaker opened his eyes, closed Jessica's chassis, and removed the key from her foot. A second later, she stood up. "What happened?" She asked in her gravelly high pitched voice.

Kai blinked. Once. Twice. He had noticed the weird mechanical... thing that followed Pompous Man in the store. However, the only plausible reaction at that time was to deal with the human problem as diplomatically as possible. But when the thing started twitching, it was not to be ignored any longer.

It- He called it Jessica- twitched on the ground and the arrogant little man immediately stooped down and fiddled with some gears and whatnot. Kai was abhorred, the walking, talking faux person was made GREEN CUT WOOD! He saw that all of the pieces fit together perfectly. Some would marvel. Some would call her art. Kai simply stared at the Murderer and his Creation.

His temperature began to rise. The plants in the shop shook and moved as though caught in an angry wind.

Lori laughed. Generally she wasn't so openly expressive if she could help it, but the bug chick had quite possibly made her day. They were lovely ladies indeed. Lori's wolf grin appeared echoing the scary b*** look on the smaller girl's face. "Preach it, sister."

It also helped Lori's devious mood that the bot had begun wriggling after she tried to call it to her. Apparently there wasn't enough metal in the thing for her to puppet it toward herself, but there was enough metal for her to throw it out of whack. And the rude man worried over the thing like a child. Lori was beginning to detest not only the man but especially his creation. What kind of sad, pathetic loser had to craft a girlfriend? She was sure he was the mind behind the now still automaton because only a mother could love a thing like that.

...and repair it. Lori frowned when it wriggled back to life and that seemed not to be the only thing wriggling in the store that ought not. The plants were ... whispering. Leaves slithering over each other in agitation that clearly mirrored the shop keeper's. What fun they were all having today!

A slight movement with her hand and Lori was pulling with renewed vigor at anything metal inside of the bot. She wanted those pins and cogs and anything else she could displace to be ousted and if possible broken. No more miss nice girl. She'd put him and the creation out of their misery just for being obnoxious... it seemed like bee-girl and flospy plant man would too.

"It's also rude to ignore people who are talking to you." Her voice was thick as honey. Lori quirked her brow at him and it looked very saucy from her leaning position by the succulents. It was another not-so-subtle "make my day" invitation. "I believe the lady was talking to you."

New York. As rude as people are, there are some lines that aren't crossed. Apparently cutting in line in a shop full of mutants was one of those "no no"s.

The man looked like he might actually raise a hand in Petunia’s direction. Oh just do it. She thought. Then he said…

"Jessica, There seems to be an obstruction in this man's shop. I think he would be very pleased if you removed it."

Who was Jessic? Pix looked around the shop. Then down at the little thing, that looked like it was having a fit. “Obstruction am I?” it didn’t make her mad that the man had squished one of her bees. There were more friends where that one came from. It bugged the bug girl that she was called an obstruction. Her hands went to her hips and she smile venomously as the plants started to rustle with their own activity. And it seemed the other girl in the shop got a bit of her own words in. Oh she had an interesting mutation. Pix assumed what was happening to the little Jessica was her doing.

"I believe the lady was talking to you."

“That’s right, and I’m not a normal obstruction.” Petunia was suddenly feeling very highly about herself. More than the usual. “I’m your Pain in your @**” Three Bees buzzed out from behind her collar and circled around behind the man’s backside before charging the very body part pix claimed to the the pain of. The bees aimed their stingers for his backside, and charged.

Grinding and whirring and cracking and breaking sounds were coming from Jessica, as every single cog, pin, and gear in her oh-so-delicate construction was pulled out of place. He looked over to see the woman pulling with her hand, and only a single thought went through his head before his entire body was filled with rage. A mutant Then there was nothing but fury, and the desire for revenge. A roar of pain rose in his ears, and the bee's emptying their stingers into his butt was not felt in the slightest. He had only one objective: make the woman feel the pain of losing something.

Her life would do.

With a roar of rage, Watchmaker called every single bit of clockwork in the shop to his aid. Any watches they were wearing would suddenly tighten painfully on their wrists, and shoot the cogs inside of them at their faces with enough speed to embed them. A great rumbling and clanking resounded from Jessica's chassis, and the back-hatch burst open violently. Cogs and gears and pins manufactured by a loving hand to be so precise that they were as sharp as a blade went flying out, spinning and aiming to dig into the flesh of the woman. Watchmaker pulled a pen knife out of his back pocket and unclicked it, holding it at his side firmly incase his initial attack failed.