Some weeks ago Meld had saw a news report by Maxine Ralls regarding a particular incident in a cupcake shop that she had been a part of. The incident, as most incidents she was a part of that happened to be newsworthy, had resulted in quite a bit of violence and death, none of the deaths being her own. The thing that had triggered it, as in most incidents of violence she had been a part of in the past, had been anti-mutant bigotry. For once Meld hadn't even been the one to start the violence. Oh, she had gone there hoping for a fight, that much was true, but the human was the one who had pulled the gun and actually invited everything that followed.

The segment that Maxine had aired, of course, had failed to mention any of that and didn't exactly make Meld look very positive. Not that she cared about the opinions of humans much anyway, but everything she did she did for a purpose, that purpose the betterment of the mutant cause, and an article like that certainly did not better that particular cause or any other for that matter. That story made her out to be the bad guy, when the message needed to be that if you messed with mutants they messed back. Mutants were dangerous and they were not going to be willing to accept racism, discrimination and unwarranted violence, they were going to fight back. But they were not going to attack without reason, that also needed to be made clear.

Since viewing the segment, Meld had been meaning to find Maxine and confront her about it, but life had been busy with the trip to Romania among other things and she just hadn't had the chance until now. She wasn't quite sure what she was going to do once she confronted the reporter, all she knew for certain was that article couldn't stand in its original incarnation. Something needed to be done, at the very least her side of the story needed to be heard and it would be, wither the little reporter did so willingly or needed to be forced into it.

Actually finding Maxine proved to be rather simple. It seemed she didn't do much to hide the location of her work place and so Meld simply made herself comfortable behind a nearby hedge and waited for her to emerge. Eventually she would have to, after all. Her tail proved its usefulness, peeking out just above the hedge to keep an eye on the door. Whenever she emerged Meld would be ready.

The night was as black as Maxine's intentions. The red head's heels gave staccato clicks, marking her place in the dark space between street lights. On a normal night, she'd be going to the subway, catching one of the late trains home. Tonight, her footsteps clicked down the stairs of the Wolf News building and past the adjacent station entrance. She was going a few blocks further. She was going to the river.

Over her shoulder, the bag gave a lurch and a kick. Its final struggles got it nowhere. No escape, and no mercy. It had gone too far. Now, with three paperweights sharing its bag, it was going for a swim.

Maxine's legs and arms were covered in small cuts. So were the legs and arms of all the interns too stupid too listen to a mutant when she tells them to get out of the room. She appreciated their concern. She appreciated their effort. It had just been entirely useless, and more than a little distracting when she had more important things to be concentrating on. The third floor printer had attacked her.

More specifically: the stack of paper in its tray had. This was why she tried to avoid that room. This is why she'd vehemently protested moving the coffee machine in there. When an intern is told to fetch coffee, she fetches, even if something has to die.

Judging by her growing migraine and the increasingly violent struggles from the bag, Maxine guessed the paper understood just how serious she was.

She could have just run it under water in the office sink. It wouldn't feel anywhere near as satisfying as this, though. Once she'd bagged it, it had been at her mercy. The red head continued down the street, her soul carving a wicked smile on her lips. Maybe she should have asked another intern to film this for YouTube. A little black and white rendering, a little theme music, and they could make a mutant-styled film noir.

Tonight, little Tommy White Sheaf was going to sleep with the fishes.

Something tentacled gleamed metallically as it crawled over the sidewalk in her wake. It paused for a moment as it came abreast of a certain bush. If it saw the answering glitter from the ruby eye, it didn't warn its mistress: it simply wriggled, then continued on.

Meld waited patiently behind her hedge for nearly an hour. She had no way of knowing when Maxine was going to emerge from her place of work and knew in situations like this it was better to be early than late. It brought back memories, of a long ago mission, waiting on a man that her employers needed kidnapped in order to tech him the lesson that you pay your debts on time and in full. That particular time Meld hadn't been the one that needed to teach that lesson, only the one that had to capture the target, but she had taught similar lessons in the past.

Interrupting her thoughts, Meld caught a glimpse of Maxine walking out of the building in front of her, completely oblivious to Meld's presence, or so it seemed at first glance. Before making her move, Meld spent a long minute watching Maxine as she walked further away from the building and closer to where Meld was hidden. She didn't think to look down to the ground and thus didn't notice the skittering Octoclip. First impressions of her target did not appear dangerous, but that was no reason to get complacent. Complacency meant injury and possibly death, constant weariness and vigilance meant survival and victory.

When Maxine had gotten two steps past Meld she made her move, leaping out from behind the hedge and behind Maxine. Her tail snaked around the woman, glaring at her from in front of her face, blades gleaming. "I don't want to hurt you Maxine Ralls but you and I need to have a talk. Please don't make this difficult for either of us."

"I don't want to hurt you, kid, but I've got a present for you in the candy van. Please get in."

"I'm not going to hurt you, lady. Just relax. It'll be... fun."

"I don't want to hurt you Maxine Ralls but you and I need to have a talk. Please don't make this difficult for either of us."

Self-defense 101, as taught by the Physical Education department of the New York State University: never believe the nice person with the knife. Or the bladed eye-tail. Never scream rape. Never scream mutant attack.

"FIRE!" The red head shrieked at the top of her lungs, soundly smashing the encircling construction of metal, sharp things, and eyes out of her way with the bag. Its canvas side caught on a blade and tore; she didn't notice.

She was too busy clutching it to her chest, and running. At this time of night, the Overworked Intern Hour, the cityscape was a dead place. If anyone heard her, there was no immediate sign.

The octoclip pulled its tentacles over Meld's leg, and lazily tumbled after its mistress. She wasn't nearly as fast as usual, wearing those heels.

(OOC: Gmodding approved by Maxine)

Meld cursed under her breath as Maxine began yelling and running for her life. Couldn't the cursed woman just make it easy on herself and talk to Meld like a civilized individual? Did she really have to go running and making a racket, posssibly attracting all sorts of curious prying eyes. Curios prying eyes were definately not something that Meld wanted to deal with right now, not at all and especially not if one or more of those curious eyes happened to call even more curious police eyes. Things could have been simple but it seemed they were doomed not to be. Damned reporter.

Meld began running after Maxine, not even noticing as the little Octoclip scurried over top of her clawed metal foot. It was obvious that the other woman wasn't used to fleeing for her life, or running at all for that matter and Meld caught up with her with relative ease. Couldn't she have just taken Meld at her word when she said that she didn't mean the reporter any harm? She could be accused of many things and of having committed many crimes, but she could not be accused of being dishonest.

Once close enough Meld leaped at Maxine, tackling her roughly to the ground. She tried to avoid accidentally cutting her with any of her numerous pointy bits and rolled to take the majority of the impact with the ground. She ended on her back, Maxine more or less atop her, wrapped in her arms. "Listen to me, you stupid woman. When I say I'm here to talk I'm here to talk. I don't want to hurt you but you will talk to me and I'll do what I have to in order to ensure that. So, will you make this easy for the both of us?" That was her last warning. Any more difficulty and she would begin to play rough and she was pretty sure that Maxine wouldn't like her version of rough.

They don’t call it “running for your life” because the metal-legged homicidal psychopath behind you wants to have a pleasant midnight chat. The red head was used to running, thank you. She’d been up and running at five every morning since she was fourteen. She just wasn’t used to running after a day of classes and work, in three inch stilettos. A lesser woman would have horror movie tripped by now, thank you. If she’d had time to undo the shoes’ straps, she’d have shown this woman some real running.

If she survived, she was only going to wear slip-ons from now on. If. That was very much in doubt, when a hulk of metal and flesh knocked the air out of her lungs and smashed her against the concrete in a way her rib cage was going to feel in the morning. Her purse and the sack of paper went flying.

Rex crawled to a perch atop the purse and sat, tentacles wiggling as the attack continued.

Suffice it to say that Meld’s words didn’t register in the red head’s mind. Maxine knew all about this woman: how she preached lofty ideals while picking fights with people who were no match for her; how she claimed loyalty to the cause of mutant rights, then hacked off the limbs of mutants so she could wear them. Besides the bladed metal arm, Maxine could feel a more human one wrapped around her. She’d met the man it had belonged to, when he came to the studio for an interview. There was more threat in that flesh than in the woman’s metal monstrosities.

Rex seemed to grow bored of watching. Its tentacles reached into the purse, and began to take things out. Lipstick? The cap was toyed with; when the octoclip failed to open it, it was tossed to the side. Camera? Discarded. Poe? The black pen shook itself free of the octoclip’s grip, and fluttered in uncertain circles above the scene. It wasn’t in a song pen’s nature to attack people, and Maxine wasn’t giving coherent orders.

The red head’s arms were pinned by Meld’s grip, but that didn’t stop her from trying to dig her long nails into the woman’s sides, or kick at anything on the killer’s legs that didn’t stun her heels with a metallic impact.

Rex pulled out a wallet. Tossed. A compact. Opened, and discarded. Pepper spray. Its tentacles writhed, turning this prize over for a moment. Then it crawled towards Meld’s head. Two tentacles worked together: one to hold, and one to press down on the button. It knew that button.

Maxine saw the attack coming, and squeezed her eyes shut. This was exactly like her last date with John Spencer. Minus her bedroom.

(OOC: Sorry it took so long to reply the thread kind of fell through the cracks and I didn't realize I was up.)

Why wouldn't this stupid, stubborn lier of a woman just sit still and converse with Meld like a rational human being? Maybe she was beginning to believe her own slanderous words against Meld's good name and actually thought that Meld was here to try and kill her, rather than merely have a completely logical discussion as she claimed? It was irritaing as she really didn't want to hurt this woman and had she been a more hot headed individual she might have given way to anger by now, hitting her or scratching her with claws that would do far more damage than weak human fingernails. As it was she didn't even notice the reporter's attempts to scratch her sides though when this was all said and done she would probably have to tend to the wounds later.

As Meld struggled to hold down the squirming, infuriating reporter, her tail eye continued to rotate and blink occasionally, giving her flash images of what was going on around her just in case someone unwanted happened to come across the two of them and try to play hero. "Just be still all ready! If I was going to kill you don't you think you'd all ready be dead? One well aimed slice with my claws and your skinny little neck would be gushing blood and you'd be dead within minutes!" Idiocy, sheer idiocy! How did people like this survive for so long?

Another blink of her tail and another flash of a very red world. Still no people approaching, thankfully it was late enough for the streets to be more or less deserted. There was, however, something...A second blink and a second flash and the whatever it was she had seen the first time didn't make any more sense the second time around. The something appeared to be a collection of moving paperclips, all linked together, that appeared to be going through the reporter's purse. Was she a mutant? And did that...whatever it was have something to do with her power? All the more reason to try not to hurt her more than was absolutely necessary; having the knowledge of the near death she had caused on the mutant she had gotten her hand from was bad enough, she didn't think she could bear the thought of another near mutant death.

Meld didn't have any more time to think about her mutant troubles as another blinked saw the paperclip monster approaching. Unfortunately she had no time to think about what, exactly, a perclip creature could do, let alone react fast enough to prevent whatever it was it was trying to do. Her lack of feeling proved its disadvantage again as she didn't even feel the little metallic creature crawling on her face until it sprayed her in the eyes with pepper spray. She yelled and involuntarily brought her hands up to her eyes, letting go of Maxine though she still remained atop the reporter. Her eyes, the one area of her body that pain registered, burned horribly and she wasn't able to see out of them. Until the spray wore off, she would be forced to navigate by her tail eye. Not exactly the ideal situation, but better than nothing.

This bright, opinioned reporting intern was a young lady. Young ladies knew that rational conversations started with polite handshakes, not bladed she-hulks lurking in twisted New York City bushes in the dark of the night. Pretty pictures like ‘skinny little neck’ and ‘gushing blood’ were not helping the violent woman’s cause. If Meld wanted to talk, she could have picked up a phone.

Maxine’s own eyes watered from being this close to the octoclip’s attack, but it was obviously nothing compared to being at the epicenter. The homicidal woman actually let go of her. And proceeded to roll on top of her.

“Get off of me!” The red head struggled to pull herself free. Fat weights less than muscle. Muscle weighs less than titanium limbs. Maxine’s wiggling was doomed from the beginning.

Rex sat atop Meld’s head, cold metal tentacles oozing over her scalp. The black pen kept flitting through the air around them: here it hovered near an elbow, there it flew in front of a tail eye. On the ground a few feet away, sheets of paper were beginning to slide out from the slash in their prison. They gathered themselves into a tidy stack at the side, the sheaf growing with a sound like raising hackles.

Why wouldn't the stubborn reporter just stay still and talk like a rational human being? OK, so maybe threatening her life wasn't the most accommodating way to start a conversation, but shouldn't she realize by now the futility of struggling and just calm down and talk? Meld was getting to the point where it was almost seeming not worth the effort any more and it might just be easier to kill the woman and be done with it. The only problem with that is that she appeared to be a mutant, judging by the animated paperclip monster and Meld did not kill mutants. Bad enough that the mutant whose hand she now possessed had almost died, she wasn't about to add to her list of bad deeds. Her conscience couldn't take the intentional death of a mutant by her hands.

“Get off of me!”

Meld reached up with her metal hand in an attempt to grab the paperclip creature. The reporter appeared to be going nowhere despite the fact that she was no longer held onto by her hands. Her other hand remained at her eyes, trying to clear them of the awful pepper spray that had been aimed at them. However this day turned out, she would never look at paperclips quite the same way again.

Something flew briefly in front of Meld's tail eye that she couldn't quite identify. Was that a...pen? A flying pen? A simple confrontation with a merely human reporter in order to get her side of the story out for the world to see was turning out to be far more complicated than originally expected. That simple human reporter appeared to be neither simple nor human. Why would a mutant write such slanderous words about her own kind? Had she no loyalty? Or perhaps she was one of those who saw no difference between mutant and human despite the hatred humans propagated towards mutants.

Meld growled under her breath, tail swiveling around to try and keep aware of both the reporter underneath her and any tricks she might have up her sleeve. "If I get off of you you're only going to run and I still need you." Apparently she should have brought backup.

It was late, yes. This was why she called ahead.

Understandably, the office said that Maxine had gone home for the night, though apparently Noel had just missed Maxine and her sack of printer paper. Whatever that meant. It was good news that Maxine had just left though because that meant that Noel could still catch up with the girl that was making so many waves.

She jotted the girl's cell number down and then punched it in to her phone. The phone was still ringing when the cab came to a halt. This was Noel's last stop for the day. Lord willing it'd be a quick and quiet one.

Ring, ring. Was that a cell phone she heard in the distance?

Meld attempted to grab Rex. Rex attempted to grab Meld. The paperclip aimed to wrap its tentacled mesh around her wrist and press down on the mace again, thoroughly blinding the back of her hand.

“Need me for what?” Maxine spat, still attempting to wiggle her way out from under the woman. Millimeter by millimeter, she was either making progress or losing skin from her hands as she scrabbled for grip on the concrete. Since it was definitely the latter, it was hopefully both. Hopefully Meld wouldn’t stab her before she was free. Or after.

The panicked edge of that hope fueled Rex’s dubious rescue attempts, and Poe’s looping flight. The black pen still had no idea what to do with itself. Until Maxine’s phone started to ring, right on the ground where Rex had tossed it.

With something akin to relief, the pen dove down, and made itself useful. It hit the “call” button.

“HELP!” Maxine took the liberty of screaming.

Meld realized that the paperclip creature was attempting to wrap itself around her hand only because she was presently trying to grab the paperclip creature. One advantage of having metal hands, however, was the fact that paperclips, whether or not they were somehow animated, couldn't really harm titanium. Thus, for the moment she was satisfied to let it wrap its tentacles around her bladed hand and ignore it. While it might become more of a threat in the future, for the time being she had other things to worry about. Such as the reporter still trying to escape from underneath her.

“Need me for what?”

"Do you think there are no consequences to broadcasting slanderous reports about those of us trying to do something for mutants everywhere? I need you to retract your report, or at least give me a chance to get the truth out there."

“HELP!”

The yelled word finally drove Meld to the breaking point. She didn't want to have to hurt the mutant reporter, but she knew now that the reporter was not about to see reason. She took her flesh and blood hand, the one that had been taken from the mutant at the human isolationist compound, and attempted to grab the woman's head with the intent to smash it into the ground. She didn't want to permanently injure the woman, just hurt her enough that she would shut up and hopefully cooperate. Was that really too much to ask? There was also the hope that no one had actually heard the yelled word. That would make things even more difficult and while Meld wasn't against killing any meddling humans, they were complications she simply didn't need at the moment.

"Help!" She heard it echoing in real life before it came through the phone. A slight delay between reality and cell phone. Noel clicked her cellular device off and tucked it away so that she could run toward the sound.

She wasn't disappointed.

The can opener, as the girl beneath her had named her, was on top. The girl, Maxine, was pinned beneath living, angry metal. Not surprising. Noel dipped at the edge of the tree line and grabbed three smooth stones. This was going to be one of those David and Goliath moments.

Hopefully this would surprise her.

Rock, meet head.

If Noel were a faster runner, she would have put her boot there. Instead, she threw a rock to get the can opener's attention. It was better than seeing the inside of Maxine's head.

"Actually, this seems pretty true to life. You're the Can Opener, right?" Golly Gosh Jeepers. Wasn't it nice to be famous?

Now, all she needed was a good look in the can opener's eyes. Make her forget she ever heard any slander and there would be no reason to strangle the little influential trouble maker.

The little troublemaker would have been flattered to know that the government considered her “influential,” and she would have had some choice words for anyone who thought her segments were slanderous. By definition, slander was untrue. All she’d said was that Meld killed and maimed people. Frequently. Violently.

When the larger mutant slammed her head into the concrete, it proved a point in that regard. Maxine was no longer in a condition to appreciate that fact, however. Her vision blurred. Something warm started to trickle from her nose. The paper gathering at their side suddenly faltered, its actions becoming as unclear as Maxine’s thoughts. She had to get out. She had to get away. But the hand in her hair seemed to feel a lot more real than her own uncoordinated escape efforts.

She wasn’t sure if the footsteps were real, or just part of the pounding in her head until the woman spoke.

>> "Actually, this seems pretty true to life. You're the Can Opener, right?"

Oh good. A fan.

Something hit Meld's head. It was for most, perhaps, unusual to be aware of being struck by something only because she felt her head move lightly back and forth with the impact of the blow. There was no actaul pain involved and no way to know what had hit her or how bad the damage might be. Her vision (such as it was limited to her tail) didn't go blurry or anything so she assumed it wasn't hard enough to give her a concussion. Then again, she had never tested if something like a concussion would actually affect her tail vision. How would one test such a thing anyway?

Meld didn't have the time to contemplate the thought as a voice followed the striking of her head with the unknown flying object. Apparently the little reporter had a would be hero friend. Meld swivelled her tail to get a better view of the newcoming, confident that her grip on Maxine was enough that the woman wasn't about to go anywhere. If she moved to much there was always the chance of accidentally gripping to hard with her titanium arm anyway and cutting the woman. Hopefully she was smart enough not to move to much but somehow she had her doubts.

Red ruby eye met the eyes of the brunette woman. Without turning her head Meld spoke. "This doesn't concern you, human. If you value your physical well being leave now and I'll forget you were here." Meld was happy to let the woman leave, for one thing one more thing of note on her record wouldn't make one bit of difference considering the things all ready there. Plus, it would just make things so much easier if she left. Of course, leaving gave her the opportunity to call the cops which would not be very pleasant but she didn't want to get herself in the habit of resorting to violence to solve every possible problem. The fact that she only killed for her cause and only acted in less lethal violant matters for a purpose was one of the things that allowed her to stand apart from The Order. Violence was not always the answer.