"Who's hand was it?"

"I'm not sure." Meld shrugged feeling uncomfortable about the situation and she was rarely uncomfortable. She regretted very few of the actions she had taken in life, could justify almost all of them. But this was different because this involved a mutant, a mutant who may or may not still be alive because of her. "I was trying to deal with a cult of human isolationists who were killing mutant babies." She figured Lori probably woudln't care much about her slaughter, but wasn't sure about Kai so decided to keep it a little more diplomatic. "Some mutant with blue glowing veins got in the way, trying to defend the human murderers, the fool. He cut off my hand so I returned the favor. It was self defence. Besides, how was I supposed to know that I had somehow developed the ability to meld with said hand? I've never been able to before." She looked up defiantly, not liking at all the feeling of unsurity she had when speaking of that particular event, so rarely did she ever feel anything resembling guilt.

"Meld, we're going to have to take care of this. 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."

Meld nodded and hesitantly walked up to Lori, placing her blue veined hand into the offered hand. The sensation was quite unlike anything she had ever experienced before, a kind of crackling like static electricity except that there was no pain of discomfort associated with it at all. It felt like power was supposed to feel, if one was to believe the books and movies about such things. Accompanying the crackling was a warm tingling sensation. And then abruptly she came to realize that the hand was full and wasn't going to be able to take any more and she removed her hand from Lori's. How did one describe what a full hand felt like? There really weren't any words for it except that it felt content. Somehow. Experimentally Meld touched the blender and...no spark and no smoke. She grinned over at Lori. "I'm not too sure what you did but you have no idea how thankful I am for it! You don't know how inconvenient it is for half the electronics you touch to just stop working. Or maybe you do, I don't know." She felt a sense of almost euphoric joy.

When Meld turned around her eyes fell on Kai once again and...he had a lily growing out of his hand? She blinked at him; mutations really were beautiful and bizarre things. "Is it ok to have that growing out of you?" She pointed at the flower. Didn't hurt to be certain.

Cutting off someone's hand because they cut off her hand was not self defense. It was revenge.

Revenge, in Lori's experience, always ended poorly for someone. This time Meld seemed to come out ahead by a hand. It still didn't sit right with Lori that Meld had acted out against a mutant. The woman had seemed very dependable before in her values. And now... now who was to say that she would not cut off Lori's hand to continue to feed her other new hand?

Keeping those thoughts close to her chest was safest for now. Meld could enjoy the feeling of a full hand and the knowledge that the one able to help her a state was at the Sanctuary, where Meld belonged. It seemed to work a bit differently than her own power, but used the same form of power at least. Lori was a bit drained but it was a drop in her over all bucket. Just enough charge lost to make her a bit less agreeable.

She leaned against the kitchen counter a pace or two away from Meld and Sprouty McSprouterson.

How would they interact electrically and personally?

Mild disinterest. That was it? That was all the notice he got? He was growing a freaking flower out of the palm of his hand for crying out loud! The only question they asked was:

>>"Is it ok to have that growing out of you?"

Totally not the reaction that he was going for. Granted, it was an unintentional act, so he wasn’t going for anything… but still. Not even a gasp or a surprised batting of the eyes. He felt kind of cheated. I guess if you hang out with mutants all the time, weird powers weren’t all that out of the ordinary.

“Yes. I think. This is really only the second time it’s happened…”

But it felt different from last time. ‘Unnatural’ wasn’t quite the right word, because the whole idea of growing plants out of your body was unnatural. This was harder and felt kind of uncomfortable. Probably because it’s a flower and flowers are more Cameron’s thing… Upon examination of the flower, however, Kai noticed something interesting. Despite the fact that this was the part that would eventually produce seeds on a normal plant, those parts of the lily were misshapen. There was no pollen or anything.

Looking at the pot, he noticed another strange thing. He counted and counted again. There were four flowers when he had brought the plant over. There were four flowers now. The last time he had grown part of a plant, he’d made the tree ‘un’-grow the leaf. Then it had… erm… transferred? to him. That was not a possibility this time. In fact, he felt as though he could sprout more flowers if he wanted to, though it would be a big drain on his energy.

“Um…” he made eye contact with the two ladies again, “The flowers will open up again soon and I am in no danger of… well I’m fine. Is there anything else you need?” He was suddenly interested in conducting a few experiments at home.

Meld wished she was better at reading people. There was something in the plant kid's expression that she knew she should be aware of but she just couldn't place it. Was he concerned? In pain? Curious? There was no way to be sure; if it didn't have to do with survival it wasn't something within Meld's knowledge. When it came to reading into the next move an opponent might make, or whether someone was a potential threat or not, there were few better than she was but when it came to anything else to do with the human condition she was sadly lackking in all but the most basic of skills. Sure in high school she had been a reasonably social and reasonably normal teenager, but that seemed like such a long time ago to her now.

“Um…The flowers will open up again soon and I am in no danger of… well I’m fine. Is there anything else you need?”

"I don't think so," Meld answered, looking to Lori for confirmation. She hadn't needed anything from him to begin with so it stood to reason that she didn't need anything now. "As long as you're ok." She wanted to help, felt that she should be helping in some manner, but didn't know that there was even anything she could do to help. Or, for that matter, whether or not Kai even needed help at this point. Maybe it was time to expand her knowledge base, pick up some new skills but the fear was that if she dedicated less time to the skills she all ready had she might lose that edge that put her above most anyone else and most of her opponents. Life was about choices.

He looked disappointed. It was a look Lori loathed.

"I just wanted to check on you. Both of you. I see you're doing well for yourself as usual, Meld." Creepy hand, new powers. It was all good information. "And you, Cameron..." Lori made a vague hand motion along with a shrug. "You're... budding..." Which was unusual even for a mutant. She had to give him that, she just didn't want to poke it or anything. Just in case.

"I just hadn't seen either of you in quite some time. You especially, planty, and I didn't see any harm in spending a little money at your store. I liked your store." They had killed together at that store. Disposed of a body at that store. It wasn't something very forgettable. "So. If you have to go... prune something. I understand. I just thought I'd support mutant-owned establishments wherever possible."

And then a thought occurred to her and she cleared her throat. "Though, could you bring Meld here some different flowers later? Since you're taking hers with you?" Lori smile shrugged to Meld. What were they to do?

She had called him Cameron. Kai’s face fell. He knew it was silly, that since they were twins people were apt to confuse them all the time. And yet, it always felt like he lived in his brother’s shadow. Especially when this kind of thing happened.

>>"I just hadn't seen either of you in quite some time. You especially, planty, and I didn't see any harm in spending a little money at your store. I liked your store. So. If you have to go... prune something. I understand. I just thought I'd support mutant-owned establishments wherever possible."

Kai nodded. “Always a pleasure,” though his voice quivered and he preferred being call Cameron to being referred to as ‘planty’. But her mention of pruning gave him an idea. “Can I borrow a pair of scissors. I think it would be wise to cut this flower, actually.” Keeping it alive and nourished was a lot of effort, but he hated to deliberately kill it like he had with the leaf. Besides, that method of removing plant-parts that grew from him was slow.

>>"Though, could you bring Meld here some different flowers later? Since you're taking hers with you?

Taking her’s with…? Ohh… a joke about his hand. At least it was an acknowledgement. “Of course.” He turned to Meld. “Is there anything in particular that you like?”

Meld understood why Kai would be at the Mansion with his flowers and she sensed no deceit from him, but sh wasn't so certain about Lori. Sure her intentions seemed good, but one didn't assume leadership in an organization such as The Order without a healthy dose of self interest and a willingness towards being ruthless. She wanted her interactions with the Order to be posative of course, not withstanding her departure from its loving embrace, and to that end she decided she would play nice with Lori. It wasn't that she disliked the woman, she didn't even really know the woman, she just wasn't sure how far she could trust her and that was a problem.

"I'm doing well enough," Meld answered. "The people here pretty much just leave me alone and I prefer it that way. I don't think they always appprove of some of my, shall we say, extra curricular activities." She gave a sardonic smile, certain that Lori would know exactly what she was referring to. Another mark of a leader: being in the know about certain things and Meld's activities weren't exactly difficult to research. They were, after all, all over the news.

“Is there anything in particular that you like?”

Meld turned her attention back to Kai. A curious individual if she had ever seen one and she wasn't just thinking of the fact that he grew plants out of his hands. The plant thing was interesting enough, of course, but living among mutants she was becomming used to seeing unusual things in day to day life. "Um...I don't think I've ever been given a flower before," Meld answered, blushing slightly as she thought of Pluto and the hopes that mayhe he would give her a flower. She didn't mention his name though. "Maybe a sunflower?"