It would be funny if he wasn't all caught up in the moment. A mutant goes to a mutant's flower shop. A fight breaks out. Repeat.

The man with the wooden girl bellowed in anger and Kai was only to happy to respond. He had come in, rudely interrupted him with other customers, and had the audacity to tell a malfunctioning wooden robot to attack said other customers. Kai distantly noticed a flurry of yellow flash by his eyes as the bees were the first to bring the altercation across the threshold to physical engagement. Now was a time to see which puffed up cat actually had claws.

Kai felt something tighten around his wrist. Just a squeeze. He glanced down to see what was pinching him, but saw only his watch. Curse mutants with weird powers- clocks?! He ignored the discomfort and concentrated using his frustration with the nuisance to fuel his own power. The English Ivy plants closest to the Watchmaker would do nicely. Kai was semi-confident that he could ask them to grow their vines longer, thicker, stronger, and... fast. Or at least fast enough to squeeze the man back before he noticed.

But... maybe the peaceful way was the best?

“Now, now.” He chided, though his voice was cold. “Let's all play nice.” He hoped he sounded authoritative and not condescending. Try as he might though, the last word was definitely pronounced with some venom. Don't mess, is what the voice said.

The plant slowly-- innocently-- creeping closer said Especially not in my shop.

Her first object: take out the pathetic girlfriend substitute seemed complete as Jessica went back into wiggle mode before ceasing all motion all together. Breaking was so much simpler than creating, but as told in The Destructors, by Grahm Greene, destruction was also a form of creation. A form of creation that Lori was keen to, and it didn't have to stop at automatons. No, as Lori made the short stalking walk from where she stood to where the cogman was shaking in fury over his doll, Lori decided that the destruction could go much further.

He turned up to look at Lori and actually let out a sort of roar of rage. Lori blinked, unperturbed except for the spittle that she now was wiping from her face. "You need some manners... and a breath mint."

For once, it was a good thing that Lori carried nothing electronic as anything cog-like seemed to be attacking its owner. She always ruined her electronics with sudden outbursts of electricity, like the one coming on now with her answering anger. She smiled feral and wicked as electricity arced across her teeth inside of her mouth. It wasn't a happy smile.

The body of the thing exploded out at her, but it was stupid. Most of what he launched at her was the same stuff she'd pulled out of whack in the first place. All the pins caught in her magnetic field, perhaps half of the cogs. The rest went through her magnetic field and right for her body. She was surprised, she shouldn't have been. Not all of the materials were ferromagnetic.

Pix could have openly clapped when the little machine girl started coming apart even more. It seemed that the other girl had control of most of the parts, and hopped into the air, when her cell phone suddenly came apart, starting to attack her. Ouch! WTF! Thank goodness she didn’t have a watch. Though the boy seemed to… poor kid.

Now in the air, Pix’s wings flipped out, and buzzed into action through the long slots in the back of her coat. Kicking up the fabric and her hair, in her own little wind. Locus started swarming the shop, from under her collar and under her sleaves, Jumping straight up and grabbing the parts of the little machine girl, that weren’t made of metal. Nibbling them away till they were nothing. Then came the spiders. Spiders of ever shape and size crawled free from under Petunia’s shirt collar, her pant legs, and her sleeves. Dropping onto the floor and crawling to the disrespectful man, just like a classic horror movie.

In a matter of seconds, hundreds of spiders had dropped from their master, and were crawling around the wriggling rude male. Scurrying round and round and round him, dragging their webs, till he looked like a giant spool of thread. Petunia brought a hand up to her lips, where a single wasp was wiggling it’s way out of her skin, to freedom, and she kissed her little friend before giving it a blow. The wasp flew straight for the giant spool of thread, where a single patch of skin could be seen. There was where it stung the man, and the spool of thread instantly collapsed. He wasn’t dead, but he was out cold.

Lots of things began happening at once. The wooden abomination started to fly apart, pieces ricocheting off of the counter and people. The Watchmaker roared. A small piece of metal ripped through one of the ivy's stems, severing it from the rest of the plant. And it was Kai's turn to roar, both in pain and in anger. He had never before realized that he could become so connected to the plants, especially ones that were not trees. He threw himself further into the connection, reaching out to the amputated vine and growing that as well. The growth was explosive. With practice, Kai could ask the vines to grow maybe an inch per second. Now there was no thought, no words communicating his request to the plant. He was the vines. He reached to get the man, but was anchored in one spot. He stretched and for the briefest of moments felt a slight resistance. Then it was easy, his vines exploded forward like fingers, wrapping around the watchmaker's ankles first, then creeping upwards.

The watch on Kai's wrist was beginning to become painfully tight. Yes! He thought Squeeze!! The vines began to grow thicker, less breakable in case the man should struggle in the wrong way. They tightened, deliberately and delightfully.

Something brushed against one of his leaves. Something that was not Watchmaker-skin or clothing. It seemed... out of place, yet not strange. Another one of the things brushed by him, and another. Kai was vaguely aware that his human body could see these things. He watched/felt the spiders crawling past the vines and begin to work their webs. He weaved his vines in and out of them joyfully. Spiders ate aphids. That made them acceptable bugs in the ivy's consideration. Kai felt his human face pulling into a smile, and dove back into the vine.

He felt a certain satisfaction when the now-cocooned man crashed to the floor. Kai kept creeping. It was slightly more difficult now, to wrap around the thing, because it was pressing against the floor. He searched along the unconscious body until he found where the small of the back was raised up slightly. He dove under it, poking and prodding at the web-covered flesh. A leaf started to sprout along his stem. No, no! he chided, impatiently. He reabsorbed it and used it to grow his stems even thicker. Now they could pry under and lift the body to the smallest degree. Enough to slide just a little further underneath him. Finally he reached open air and began climbing again. The web was difficult to hold to. It desentigrated in places where he tried to grab a hold. He was forced to fan out runners in order the keep moving upwards. They plunged into the web, lending more support. Kai was no longer aware of the rest of his surroundings or his remaining customers. He didn't even notice that his (human) arm was no longer in pain. All he knew was growing, crawling, strengthening, tightening, climbing; revenge.

Lori didn't have the cognitive functioning to worry about how the little one had sprouted dragon fly wings. She couldn't even worry about the masses of bugs flying out of the girl's sleeves or that she was now hovering in the air because those gears were coming right at her fa-- no, scratch that there were locusts eating them. Wait. Locusts?

Lori threw herself backwards and put her hands over her ears. Augh! That noise! She hated that buggy, wheedley noise! Even if it did save her face from certain cogy doom. Lori afforded a piercing blue glare to bug girl. Yeah. It was definitely bug girl's faul- EW! Spiders!? She took another step backward. The plants were all rustling menacingly, flopsy plant man actually looked so pissed that Lori took another step back.

She was all for severing limbs, frying brains, and pickling tongues and all that, but she wasn't sure anyone deserved to be swallowed up in spiderwebs and vines before getting stung into oblivion by some icky bug. When met with a bug, Lori usually did one of two things: shriek like a little girl or shriek like a little girl and smash the hell out of it.

At least it was all directed at the snivveling lump of man flesh on the floor. Lori was almost certain that she would think twice before crossing bug girl, flopsy plant man? eh... that could go either way. The Ruins was a creepy movie. Plants demanded their own amount of respect even if they were heavy water carriers and ever so conductive.

"Ew." It looked like the plants were all for dragging the man outside, what the better to swallow him into the earth? Lori shuddered. "So we gonna call dibs or just let the bugs eat him?" She was pretty sure the other two could find more horrible ways for him to die, but she shrugged to herself -- eaten by bugs was one of the lowest ways to go on her list.

So she had walked into a shop that happened to have three other mutants in it. She looked between the girl and buy who were helping her face off against this… insert bad word here… and tried to decide who was doing what. Seeing that the boy was turning green, she assumed that he was the one manipulating the plants. Plus the fact that the other girl seemed to have a problem with her bugs.

Oh how the look on her face was entertaining.

Petunia smiled at her before she continued her manipulation of her little bugs. Every time one of the leaves of the plant broke her web, there were spiders sent to that area to reinforce the area. More and more spiders dripped down to the floor and scurried to help, and soon, there were enough spiders to cover the man, without their find threads encasing him. All working together to blanket him in the fine sticky fabric.

"So we gonna call dibs or just let the bugs eat him?"

Petunia grinned, and she ran her tongue over her upper front teeth. “I know where my vote lies.” She let her wing clatter and clap as she zipped to the other girl’s side. Throwing an arm over the other girl’s shoulders as her wings came to a halt and she dropped to her feet. Meaning to pull the other girls shoulders down to her level as if whispering a secret. The only thing was Pix wasn’t one to whisper. “I say we have some fun. Just letting my bugs eat him sounds too easy of an end.” Her eyes darted back to the boy that was the shop worker. Posibly owner? Pix didn’t know nor did she care. She thought his ability was cool. “After all. We probably just saved a rare plant. Right?” Pix nodded to herself. “Of course Right. If he treats us this way what would he do with a plant? Who knows.” Yup. That was right. not only did pix teach manners to gut suckers, she was a specialist in punishing for the what would probably happen.

Something about the spiders and their webs did not quite seem right. As soon as Kai realized this, he had the sensation of being in two places at once; one in which he was completely surrounded by spiders, and the other of... not. His powers had gotten the best of him. He was suddenly self-conscious. Had he been standing there with some stupid, blank look on his face for very long?

Tug, tug. His human body was inviting him, calling him back. It was an invite that he could not refuse, for the very instant that he became aware of all of these things, he snapped back into his body. He looked through his own eyes in wonderment. The Watchmaker now resembled a furry cocoon. He wasn't moving at all. Curious. Kai was fairly certain that he wasn't dead- he thought of the ramifications of his powers getting away from him. What if he had accidentally squeezed the man to death? The cops would come and search the store... and arrest both him and his brother. Or if he lived, he would sue them off their behinds.

>>“After all. We probably just saved a rare plant. Right? Of course Right. If he treats us this way what would he do with a plant? Who knows?”

Kai looked at the bug girl again. Hey look, she has wings! He thought in passing. “Yes.” he stated simply. He wasn't completely sure of what he was agreeing with, just the sentiment that plants were worth saving. Worth being exposed as a mutant, maaaaybe worth being arrested.

“I know where my vote lies.” Lori though she knew where bug girl's vote lay too and so she wasn't entirely happy when the wing-ed one came buzzing over toward her. But Lori stood her ground enough that she wouldn't be ashamed when she left this place. She didn't even flinch with the girl threw her arm across her shoulders and dragged her down to her own height, which admittedly wasn't that much of a lean for Lori.

“I say we have some fun. Just letting my bugs eat him sounds too easy of an end.” She whispered in Lori's ear.
"Easy for you to say." She muttered under her breath, but she did understand the sentiment. This guy shot pointy cogs at her face, one of her best assets! How was she supposed to get anyone to do anything for her if there was a mark on her pretty little money maker? Nobody likes a scar face. At least not on a girl.

Bug girl appealed to the plant man, but the plant man looked a little green around the gills. Or maybe just green in the ways of giving in to one's anger. He only nodded to bug girl's rationalizations. Honestly, just the fact that he thought he could storm in, get his way, and insult a store full of mutants was enough to earn him a fate worse than death.

"It's your typical karmic punishment." Lori kicked at the spider, vine, and web encrusted log of a man. Well, maybe not typical, but oh so deserving. Lori cringed and looked the other way as she reached down to grab hold of the cocoon. First order of business? Move him out of the doorway. She planned on this getting messy.

She also really, really planned on washing herself thoroughly after this. She was pretending the things crawling on her were... well, not crawling on her. Lori dragged the cocoon toward the back. "Special Delivery. Where you want it? 'Cause mutilation in the front window may not be good for business, though maybe if you let everyone know he was a mutie..." She only considered that course of action momentarily. They were legal now. Kind of. Lori dropped the sac of man near the back of the store. Somebody better start the killing 'cause there was no good reason to drag it out unnecessarily... drag it out for enjoyment, yes, but just 'cause you're a bit squeamish?

Lori's blues fixed on the green man. This looked like it may have been his first kill. How cute.

Well she got the Yes from the boy. That was entertaining. Though she was just that sort of girl. She could talk you into anything, if she really wanted to, and those times she failed to talk someone into something, pix had just decided she must not really wanted to talk them into what she wanted them to do. Because there were other things that were so much more fun when people weren’t cooperating.

The other girl started dragging the man off and Pix instantly went to help. Yeah store windows. Even the crazy bug girl knew that wasn’t the best place t display a dead body. Unless she wanted to play with the cops. Although….. no no cop playing today. She decided she liked this flower shop the way it was. Her bees thought it smelled nice, and the boy was. Well. The boy was cute. OK? Pix thought the boy was sort of cute. Sort of… he didn’t need some stupid over zellous cop coming in and ruining his business. The two of them could do a fine job of that on their own between the bugs and the over growth of plants. Not that, those wouldn’t be hard to clean up.

“Here.” Pix pulled the cacooned man’s shoulder up slightly, as large Hercules beetles started crawling out from under her pant leg. One by one the beetles scuttled under the man, so that slowly the girls didn’t have to pull him, but rather, the beetles carried him.

“Ehh... You... What?! What are you doing?” Cockroaches or beetles or something were carrying the man into the back room. Kai knew that he had gotten caught up for a moment- no one could blame him for acting on his instincts. But he was sane now. And reasonable. He could not, knowingly, let others do harm to someone. Especially not in his own shop.

Random thoughts raced through his head. How would they dispose of the body? What would be the final killing blow? What would happen to his brother? Would he be implicated? How could he live with himself afterwards? And where was everybody else? Why weren't there any other customers coming into the shop?

“No. You--” Kai didn't know how to finish. He just trailed off.

"I do have to admit this is more fun when they're wriggling or... at least fighting back."

Lori let the bugs do the heavy lifting because honestly, the proximity freaked her out. And if she just so happened to crunch a few under her heel on "accident," well bug lady would understand. She had so many more.

Once the mummy was deposited near the back of the store, Lori took a knee next to him. Yep. Out cold. How lame. "Well, I'd like to fry his brains. Any objections? No? Okay then." It was clear that Lori did not have a very high value of living things. Just because they are living doesn't mean they need to continue that course. He was breathing her air and wasting her space.

Lori touched the sticky cocoon and sent enough shock through to fry up any bugs still lingering as well as liquify what little brains this one felt he had. Mutant or not, no one had ever tried to hurt Lori without getting it back tenfold. If his mouth were visible now was about the time he'd start foaming.

She was never sure if that meant they were actually dead or just... brain dead. Either worked in this case, he was never waking up again. "Got any flesh eating vines or buggies?" That would take care of their body problem. Much lower profile than her usual arson. It also meant she wasn't about to keep kneeling by the body if the buggies were coming back to play, especially flesh eaters, she didn't want to get mixed up with the food.

(Just so you guys know what a Hercules Beetle is. They wouldn’t easily be stepped on. Damaged, or left twitching still, yes, but not easily smooshed. Bug info With an army of these, pix might actually be able to move cars or tanks.)

Hmmm… I seemed the hop worker was coming to his senses. All of a sudden taking the innocent rode. Ha! As if there was such a thing. Innocent. Such a funny word. Petunia allowed her bug to take the cacoon to the back of the shop where her large Hercules beetles stashed the body behind a back counter. Petunia put her arm over the boy. “Now don’t worry about a mess. I can have things cleaned in up a snap. How about you concentrate on your plants. You’ve got a marvelous ability. But don’t your friends need re-potting?” The boy seemed new at this. Probably his first kill. Petunia remembered hers. She had to focus on something different and that something different just happened to be her cow slippers. They had pretty bells.

"Well, I'd like to fry his brains. Any objections? No? Okay then."

Petunia gave the other girl a thumbs up. “I like my meals cooked.” Mmmmm Brains.

As Petunia tried to give the boy a distraction, with his plants, the other girl did the how frying and cooking, thing, and my her culinary skills were superb. Bugs that had been left on the man, started to smoke. One of two popped like little balloons, and Pix saw this out of the corner of her eye. Giggling. At it. “Can you do that again. That made a wonderful sound.”

"Got any flesh eating vines or buggies?"

“All bugs do, if I tell them to.”

Petunia gave a motion with her hand and her bees that had swarmed the room, headed straight for the corps, or soon to be corps, The beetles that had scurried away, returned as well as any bug that was in the store. If they couldn’t eat fast enough, Pix could summon an ant army to knew on the rest. Her bugs started cannibalizing their own kind, as well. It was a wonderful demonstration of the circle of life.

>>“Now don’t worry about a mess. I can have things cleaned in up a snap. How about you concentrate on your plants. You’ve got a marvelous ability. But don’t your friends need re-potting?”

Kai heard the words, but more than that he recognized the winged mutant's tone and the look in her eye. Now both of the female mutants had looked at him in a similar way in the past few minutes; as though he was a small child and that fact was endearing in some way. They were being very nice to him. Yet, at the same time, what they were planning to do to this poor man was wrong. Kai did not usually tend to see the world in black and white, but what about in this case? Where these two mutants good? Or evil? What about the clock-mutant? If he was evil, was it really wrong to kill someone who was a bad person?

He looked at the bug lady. She seemed alright. She recognized that his plants were more than just...plants, that they were actually his friends. And apparently, she could grow bugs out of her flesh. Maybe she could even fix the population problem with the bumblebees. (He was very concerned about such things, especially given their impact on plants.)

In his peripheral vision, he saw the other mutant lean over and touch the cocoon. Up until this point, he actually had been fairly distracted. But there was no distraction powerful enough that Kai would not have heard his vine being fried. He had been that vine only moments before. He twitched, sharing the pain of the vine's violent death by electrocution, but the feeling was momentary and fleeting. It was over in a matter of seconds. At least, that part was.

Then hundreds, maybe even thousands of bugs came crawling out of every nook and cranny in the shop to swarm over the... body. Were there really that many spiders in his shop?

He tried to look away, but was only able to turn his gaze to the two (apparently powerful) mutants standing before him. “Who are you?” he asked with a mixture of shock and awe.

When Lori tried to step on the bug, instead of hearing a satisfying crunch, the damn thing nearly carried her away. And when Lori fried a bunch of bugs along with their victim, instead of a reprimand, Bug girl asked if she could do it again. "In a heartbeat." She would zap any that dared try to eat her or carry her away or anything along those lines. Dying by bugs just wasn't as glorious a death as Lori deserved.

“Who are you?”

Plant man's tone made Lori turn her head slowly away from the train wreck of the bug-buffet.

"I believe the term is femme fatal." Lori smiled, though it wasn't a happy smile. It was something just a little more dark and twisty.

“Who are you?”

"I believe the term is femme fatal."

“Now now, be nice to our friend here.” Pix told the other mutant with the apparent electrifying personality. “After all. I think he’ sort of cute and my friends things he smells good.” As if to reply, petunia’s bugs gave and extra buzz that was higher pitched at the dead watch maker.

Petunia smiled at the question. She tried to keep the smile non threatening, but this was Petunia we were talking about and her dimples on her cheeks were often took the wrong way, by those that knew here well. “My name is Petunia Gardener.” She said. “Really it is.” She said quickly because she was in a flower shop and technically bugs were the best gardeners in the world. “My parents had a bit of a sense of humor when it came to their last name, but they didn’t make my brother endure the same embarrassment.”

She sniffed the air around the boy. "My bugs are right by the way. you do smell quite awesome."