Meld swore. Loudly. She wasn't usually the type to lose control of her emotions enough to swear but this was different. This was the third electronic device that she had shorted out since she had gotten her new hand so very recently. She swore at the toaster that now refused to work (which seemed to be no more effective than glaring at it had been) and she swore at the cursed new hand she had acquired. How was she supposed to know that she could now meld with living body parts, something she had never previously been able to do? And, more importantly, how was she supposed to know that said new body part would retain its powers once melded to her?

Meld glared at the traitorous hand she had acquired from the niave idiot mutant who had gotten in her way during the massacre of the human isolationist cult so very recently. The man (fool that he clearly was) had thought that the humans could be saved and convered to be more accepting of mutants. Meld knew otherwise and thus she, Aura and Cafas had gone to the compound and massacred them all. It was a most glorious victory but, unfortunately, over the course of that victory the man with the glowing blue veins had gotten in her way she had lost her hand and, in a moment of desperation, cut off his and attached it to her wrist. Not expecting it to meld there. But, like the first time she had gained a flesh meld, instinct had taken over and something irrational in the subconscious of her mind told her to attach the hand to her severed wrist. And she so she had.

Now it seemed, every other time she touched something electronic something strange would happen. Either it would turn off on its own or, frightening the first time it had happened, turn on on its own. Unfortunately it would, occasionally, spark and stop working all together. Like the toaster that was supposed to be making her toast right at this very moment. Meld cursed again and glared at the offending toaster and then at the offending hand. If looks could kill the toaster would explode in shards of metal and fire.

((OOC: Jumping in, I hope that's okay...))

Kai squinted at the chicken scratch on the crumpled and stained post-it note. Was that a 7 or a 1? Or a 9? Man, his brother’s hand writing SUCKED. They really needed a better system for keeping track of deliveries. And maybe a filing system so that his directions would not get coffee and- was that ketchup?- spilled on them all the time.

Kai sighed. He was too young to think such organized thoughts. But that was what co-owning a business did to you. Well, that and having a brother who was ridiculously disorganized. Chaos seemed to follow Cam wherever he went. His thoughts strayed for a moment to the tax-folder he had accidentally left on the kitchen table that morning, wondering where the sheets of paper would end up by the time he returned home…

He scratched his head and peered at the paper again, then up at the houses in front of him. The one on the left looked innocent enough… And it was number 227 which seemed to fit the paper. He shuffled up the sidewalk to the doorway, and shifted the large potted peace lily so that it rested on his hip and he had a free hand with which to ring the door bell.

Ding ding ding dong.

Kai shifted nervously. It was always awkward when he wasn’t quite sure who would answer the door, and he might have to admit that he might be lost.

(OOC: Sorry for the late reply I didn't realize someone had replied.)

Ding ding ding dong.

Unexpectedly Meld was interrupted from her toaster related misfortunes by the ringing of the doorbell. Normally she would have left it for someone else to answer but in this case it didn't look like she was about to get very far with the now very much dead toaster. She still didn't have any toast, which made matters even worse. Well, perhaps the stranger would at least distract her for a few moments.

A brown haired stranger, a little on the young side, was at the other side of the door when Meld finally opened it. "Can I help you?" She asked. She didn't make any pains to hide her obvious weaponry but nor did she seek to threaten him in any manner with it. They were simply a part of who and what she was, she coudln't help their presence. The boy had done nothing to her and, even if he had, she was fairly certain that no one in the Mansion would appreciate her making him bleed while he stood on the Mansion doorstep.

Meld wondered, absently, if the kid was even aware of the fact that the Mansion was home to numerous mutants or if he had come here specifically. Most likely she would find out soon enough.

A very… um… strange person answered the door. Obviously mutant, most assuredly dangerous. Kai began to have doubts, but then again, mutant-danger-women liked plants too. Something about making a house more homey?

>>”Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m not sure if I have the right address, but I was wondering if anyone in the house ordered a lily plant?” He hoisted the plant to a better position on his hip as he addressed it.

Scary! Electricity! The plant quivered, but Kai ignored it. He had no idea what he had just walked into and knew that he would likely have to be on his guard when it came to dealing with this particular customer.

There was no name on the paper, but real names sounded more impressive, more official. So Kai made one up as his nerves wore down, “I believe a ‘Laurie’ ordered it?”

“Yes, I’m not sure if I have the right address, but I was wondering if anyone in the house ordered a lily plant?”

She heard the delivery kid from down the gravel lane and knew she would have to hoof it to make her cue. Prompt little flower shop. She would expect nothing less from the place that once helped her murder a man. She had no way of knowing who they would send out for deliveries, but it was her own little nod of appreciation to the place. Paying for flowers.

Lori had only been to the Mansion once. She'd had to behave then. There were no strict rules on this visit.

It was just blind luck that Meld had opened the door. Meld was the person Lori most wanted to visit here. But if she had to settle for little Sammy that would have been okay too. Lori pat her hair just to be sure it was nice enough.

“I believe a ‘Laurie’ ordered it?”

And scene.

"I did." She stepped out from the side of the porch. She should have arrived earlier, before the flowers, but it seemed to work out okay enough. "Isn't there a card with them?"

If it had made it along with the plant matter, it would read something along the lines of 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.' Interestingly enough the message worked just fine for either Meld or Sam. It must have been fate that it was the metallic girl who came to the door that day.

"Doesn't matter." Lori waved at the kid with the plat before he popped a vein looking for a card that may or may not be there.

"Just wanted to check up on you, I guess." Because Meld had seemed unable unwilling to understand before. From following the woman's exploits on the news, Lori had noticed that the woman had most definitely not mended her ways and actually seemed to be furthering the Order's agenda perhaps without even meaning to.

>>”I did…Isn’t there a card with them?” A voice came from behind the girl in the door way.

Kai froze. He recognized that voice from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He ducked his head, trying to find the card. Was there a card? He didn’t remember writing one- and Kai wrote most of the cards, seeing as whenever Cam wrote them they looked like the line version of a Rorschach test.

“Er… I’m sorry, I don’t see…”

>>”Doesn’t matter.” She waved at him dismissively.
Kai’s attention was drawn back to the second girl- woman, by the waving hand. She was now a lot closer and he could see her clearly. And she looked awfully familiar. But where have I seen her--? Recognition dawned on him slowly.

And then Kai promptly passed out.

“Yes, I’m not sure if I have the right address, but I was wondering if anyone in the house ordered a lily plant? I believe a ‘Laurie’ ordered it?”

Lily plant? Now that seemed like an odd thing to order, especially for one of the mutants at the Mansion. But then, Meld had always found the philosophy of many of the mutants at the Mansion to be strange almost to the point of incomprehensibility. So few of them even seemed to care in any real way about the mutant cause and even those few who did seemed completely unwilling to do what was necessary in order to achieve the goals of victory, especially when what was necessary was also messy. It was a shame really; so many powers that could be put to such good use and they were all being wasted here in pointless endeavors.

"I'm afraid I don't know any Laurie or anyone who may have ordered a lily plant," Meld told the boy apologetically.

And that's when Lori appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and belying Meld's claim to not know a Lori. It seemed surreal to meet Lori here, of all places, a remnant of her past. "Lori." Meld inclined her head respectfully but remained cold and distant. While she didn't agree with Lori's philosophy entirely at the time in which she took over the Order, that didn't mean that she hated the woman. She didn't, however, have any idea why she was here or what she felt about Meld. After all, Meld had left the Order high and dry and if she hadn't taken any steps against the Order, she had still left them and was here staying with those who many considered to be the Order's enemies. She waited to see how the Order leader would react.

Then the boy bearing the plant abruptly collapsed upon the ground. Meld blinked down at the boy a moment before sighing and leaning down to pick him up. "I guess I should probably take him inside." Dealing with fainting teenagers wasn't really something that was very far within her realm of experience. At least her traitorous new hand wasn't likely to cause him to short out and stop working since, clearly, he was not a toaster.

He just... dropped. It was entirely unexpected. For a heart beat or two Meld and Lori just looked at his body as it lay awkwardly on the front porch. Then Lori sighed at almost the exact moment Meld sighed. It made her smile.

"I'll help."

Low blood sugar? Maybe? Surely he wasn't so squeamish that he was worried about seeing Lori again. Lori who had helped him commit his very first murder... maybe she shouldn't have tried to kill two birds with one stone in this meeting. One bird was looking a bit too dead.

Lori scooped up the overturned plant and put it on top of the boy. It made the scene a bit cartoonish, calla lilies atop of a limp and lifeless looking body. Meld lead since Lori had only been in this silly mansion once and there was no way to remember all of what she'd explored before. Eventually they would get to a couch or an infirmary or something.

"I've seen you in the news, Meld. Seems like you are continuing to do good work." If a bit gratuitously violent. She kept her eyes carefully on the boy's face and Meld's... hands? Did they always look like that? Lori hefted the feet end of the boy and the lilies wobbled on their perch.

She had just wanted to check up on them... not make a mess of things.

Wrapped in a swirl of unconsciousness, Kai was vaguely aware of a weight on his chest… and that he was being moved. And then everything was colors and lines in his head. His brain tried to make sense of what had happened- he hadn’t been expecting Lori to show up suddenly, because he hadn’t thought of her in almost a year. Not since… she and a bug-mutant had killed a man in his shop. And deftly disposed of the body with their powers.

He remembered that Lori had burnt the body to a crisp with some kind of lightning that she could generate… or control… or something.

And Kai hadn’t moved to stop them. The man had been rude, but that didn’t demand death. With all his strange dreams lately of being evil, Kai had to wonder why he was running into her now. Was he supposed to make peace with what he had done a year ago? Were these dreams warnings to keep him from faltering when he met her again?

Through the fog that surrounded and protected his brain, he heard the two ladies conversing.

>>"I've seen you in the news, Meld. Seems like you are continuing to do good work."
Good work. So maybe things weren’t as black as he had initially thought. Maybe Lori had a dangerous temper and power to match, which had gotten carried away the last time they met. She was actually good. The other one was actually good. Kai was actually good.

He groaned and opened his eyes. They were carrying him like… well, like a body, stretched between the two of them. His vision was filled with the lilies on his chest and the ceiling beyond. He tried not to squirm so they wouldn’t drop him on accident.

“Uh… I can… walk.”

When Lori put the plant on top of Kai's body, her hand briefly brushed across Meld's own, something that she normally would not have even been aware of. A jolt of electric energy, however, ran from Lori's hand into Meld's own almost causing her to drop Kai. Abruptly Meld looked up at Lori, wondering if she had felt the arc of electricity also and then down at her stolen mutant hand. It had never done anything like that before; so far all it had really done was destroy toasters and other pieces of technology. Damn inconvenient.

"What did you do to me?" Meld asked, voice wavering between hesitance and suspicion. If Lori had really meant to do something to her, then surely she would have done something more than just cause her hand to go all tingly? After all, she had power and Meld had very little defense against the kind of power she had. Which meant...what? That her hand drained energy now in addition to destroying innocent kitchen appliances? It was the most frustrating thing ever having, for all intents and purposes, a new mutation in which she didn't even have the most basic understanding of. Her flesh melds always took a bit of time to get used to, especially when she had gotten her tail complete with tail eye, but at least she knew what to expect and what she was working towards. This was different.

Meld had almost reached the kitchen when Kai began to stir in her arms, insisting that he could walk himself. Meld ignored him, after all his weight was almost nothing in her arms, eventually setting him down on a kitchen chair. She wanted to be sure that the kid was not about to go fainting again.

"I've seen you in the news, Meld. Seems like you are continuing to do good work."

"I didn't stop my work just because I left," Meld answered. "I still fight for the mutant cause, that's never going to change. I just had to fight that battle in my own way." She hoped Lori had seen the story about the slaughter of the human isolationist cult that was killing mutant babies. That had been her most accomplished success to date and she was pretty sure that Aura felt the same way. If no one else she had killed had deserved to die, then there couldn't be any question that mutant baby killers deserved to. While speaking Meld went and got Kai a glass of cold water. "Here, drink this. It'll make you feel better."

What did she do to her? Good question. "I didn't mean to do anything." They would have to try that again some time, though. Lori inspected Meld's hand as it carried the flower shop boy. It looked more like a man's hand… a man with varicose veins and royal blood.

Lori thought she would remember if Meld had a man hand before this. So there was nothing left but to ask. "Is that new?" Lori indicated the hand that had come into contact with hers as the boy wriggled.

Whup! Almost lost a leg there. "We're almost there, Kai." Or Cameron. She had one of the two and only met one of the two, but really she couldn't tell which was which. She only knew their names from research about the shop. It was a 50/50.

"I didn't stop my work just because I left... I just had to fight that battle in my own way."

Why? Why did they always think they had to rebel? The thing that especially did not make sense in Meld's case was the fact that she shunned the people who were trying to achieve the same goals. It just must have been habit to fight the system.

Lori rumpled the flower shop boy's hair and stepped aside while the water was being handled. It was just a precaution. In fact, She should probably stand behind him just in case he got a bright idea about who might best benefit from that water.

"I'm glad you haven't abandoned your ideals. When I heard you were living at the Mansion, I wondered if Sam had a really good song and dance." Because it would have to be a real tap dance to twist the X Ideals into something more Orderly.

It was also interesting to see all that lethal metal be tender toward the flower boy. Lori waited for him to explain why he might have taken his little tumble.

The two ladies ignored Kai’s protestations and continued to carry him, to his silent indignation, and deposit him on a chair in a kitchen area. They must have been satisfied with the plant, too, for the one with the robotic eye handed him a glass of water for it. Lori ruffled his hair and Kai was reminded for a moment of his mother and how she used to do that when she was getting them breakfast.

Reminiscing, Kai picked up the water glass- and received a rather large electric shock! He yelped and jumped to his feet. His whole arm tingled and shook slightly. There was no way that that was natural or just static electricity.

His eyes whipped back and forth between the two, now shocked looking mutants. Lori he knew could manipulate electricity or lightning or something similar. As for the other one, one of her hands crackled dangerously. He determined that their surprise was genuine.

“What just happened?”

"I didn't mean to do anything."

Meld gave Lori a hard appraising looking before nodding, satisfied. There honestly didn't appear to be any malice in her words nor any hint of a lie, though she had never been the best at detecting falsehood outside of a feint in a battle. "The hand is new," Meld agreed with a sigh and a glare in its direction. Glaring, unfortunately, didn't seem to be doing much good. "Unfortunately the blasted thing doesn't seem to do what its supposed to. See that toaster over there?" She pointed to the still slightly smoking toaster. "It did that. It keeps destroying things." Maybe the electric mutant would be able to offer some much needed advice on how to control it? Or maybe even what it was supposed to do when it was actually working properly?

"I'm glad you haven't abandoned your ideals. When I heard you were living at the Mansion, I wondered if Sam had a really good song and dance."

"Unfortunately the mutants here seem to be even more stubborn than I sometimes am," Meld smirked, well aware of her own stubbornness. Didn't mean she was wrong though. "I haven't had nearly as much luck convincing those here of different ways of thinking than I was hoping too." A complete understatement since the only one she'd had even the slightest luck on was Cafas and after the human cult slaughter she wasn't sure how Cafas was even reacting.

“What just happened?”

Meld turned at the surprised utterance of Kai and realized that the kid had been hit with an electric shock. "Don't look at me," Meld said. "I just got this hand and it seems to have a mind of its own. I don't think its ever shocked anyone before though." She turned her head towards Lori. "Maybe our electric companion knows what's going on because I certainly don't." Life was so much simpler before she got herself a stolen mutant hand. Metal and blades she could at least understand and control.

A new hand? That was actually kind of gross. "Who's hand was it?" And was the electricity the arm owner's power? Had Meld gone off the deepened and started slaughtering their own as well?

Lori's hand went down from flower-shop boy's head and... he moved the glass. Her control wasn't the greatest, but grounds like glass or a power hungry hand? The shock jumped right toward that hand and got interrupted by the Kai arm that moved into the way.

What happened? "An accident."

A sigh eased out of her lips as she walked around Kai toward the former Order member. "Meld, we're going to have to take care of this. Let me fill your hungry hand." Lori held out her own toward the new/old/not Meld's, but now was Meld's hand. "I'll feed it until it is full. You'll have to clench the power down so you don't leak all over things that beg for the power." Like the toaster... and like poor flowershop boy's arm.

She looked at flowershop boy. He seemed naturally more grounded than most... which could be a result of his mutation. Lori shuddered to think of what too much skin contact between the two of them might mean. Not that she was planning on naked time with the little murder accessory now. Or ever. "You might not want to touch either of us. I think your mutation makes you a natural ground."

Hoooow can you have a new hand?! And what do you mean whose was it?! He took in all the metal parts, the broken toaster… and now that it was mentioned, the hand didn’t seem to belong with the rest of her. Metal and flesh did not belong together, no matter what anyone said. And someone else’s flesh was disturbing. If ya didn’t grow it yer self, it doesn’a belong on yer body. Though he was aware that he had once grown a leaf… but surely that didn’t count.

>>"Let me fill your hungry hand. I'll feed it until it is full. You'll have to clench the power down so you don't leak all over things that beg for the power."

They were ignoring him again for a moment, but Kai started to pay attention, for once. Feeding the hand? Power leakage? Those were scary thoughts. Kai considered the peace lily, hoping that in its new home it could escape being fried. And that he could escape being fried for that matter.

>>"You might not want to touch either of us. I think your mutation makes you a natural ground."

Lori’s response made him chuckle a little, now that he was over the bad pun warning shock of it all. “Electricity. Riiight. That makes a lot of sense, I just wish that I wasn’t also vulnerable to the electricity in addition to attracting it.”

He relaxed again in his company, but felt like he couldn’t keep still. He had all this extra energy now and was suddenly wide awake and hyper-alert. The poor lily had shrunk away from all the electricity and Kai tried to sooth it now. He couldn’t feel any extra charge lingering in his body, so he figured that it was safe to touch it. The plant quivered, needing some comfort. Peace lilies weren’t really ones to deal well with stress. Had it been a devil’s back bone or something, it likely would have turned and tried to attack those who attacked Kai. But lilies… well, they were different was all.

He patted the plant and was suddenly distracted by it. The lilies had all closed up, Kai could see- but with more than just his eyes. They were unnaturally suppressed inside the plant. The moment he touched it, they seemed to wrap around him invisibly.

Kai snapped back to the real world again. He looked at his hand. And it seemed to be normal, except for the faint pressure he felt. He lifted up his palm, and slowly, with much thought and consideration, a lily formed there and unfurl. Like a magician!