Xaviers!

"Ambition is optimism," Rob says. "No one got to the top by being a cynic."

"No, it's just optimism about your own goals."

"There are other goals I should be optimistic about?"

"Other people's goals, I suppose."

"As far as I'm concerned, they can take care if themselves."

"Sounds pretty selfish to me."

"If your goals need my validation, they're mine, not yours," Rob says. "That's not being selfish, that self-determination."

"What about just helping people?"

"I help people all the time," Rob says. "I'm a very helpful person."

"Right..." she mumbles. Something Rob had said kind of made sense to her though. The only time she'd had even a hint of control over her power had been when she'd been actively trying to use it. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. "Maybe you are." she says,almost sounding a little surprised. Rob did not exactly come across as a fountain of good advice in general.

"Well, I try my best," Rob says. "The fires are usually accidental."

Well, at the very least this wouldn't start a fire. And there's only so big a grasshopper could get. Still, she frowns at Rob for a moment before she takes off her gloves and reaches into the cage. "Don't grow legs, don't grow legs, don't grow legs..." she mumbles under her breath as she touches the grasshopper. The insect begins to bulge strangely as it grows inconsistently, one wing much larger than the other while it's head grows several more compound eyes all over. Most notably though it's legs shrivel up and atrophy until they're just gone.

Rob leans over to look, "Now, see? That's interesting."

"Sure, in a freakshow-kinda way. Not sure if I'd call that a success." she points out, though part of her is kind of amazed that she did manage to effect the outcome in some way.

"It's a step forward," Rob says. "And super cool to watch. Someday I might have to ask you if I can take some measurements while you're mutating things."

"What kind of measurements? I can tell you what's going on. It grew seven additional compound eyes in different stages of development, 3 of them are functional and connected to it's nervous system, two to the brain and one to the first thoracic ganglia. It has two rudimentary leg joints remaining, two additional stomachs, separating in the ventriculus and ending nowhere. Abdominal pressure is too high but the renal tubules adjusted to deal with it. Most of the biomass from it's legs went into the eyes with about a quarter going into the wing."

"That's a lot of good information," Rob says. "I was more curious about energy sources and transfers though. Are you fueling the mutation with your own chemical energy? If so, what's the transfer mechanism? How does it happen so quickly?"

She shrugs. "I think it fuels itself. There's only so much I can do to it and the biomass comes from itself or it's metabolic reserves. That's why it's much worse with... uhm... vertebrates."

"See, that sounds sensible," Rob says. "My abilities make no sense. I can't make heads or tails of where the energy for putting things back together comes from or how the bits know how to fit together."

"Magic?" she shrugs. "How do people shoot fire from their fingers? No one could possibly eat enough for that."

"That's fine, but how does the magic work? Where does it come from?" Rob asks. "I need more information."

"I dunno." she shrugs. "Isn't not making sense the point of magic?"

"Just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean you can't understand it," Rob says. "People don't make sense half the time, but it'd be dumb as hell to go 'well, I guess we can't understand the mystery that is people. Pack it in folks! You can't understand others so don't even try!''."

"So you wanna research magic and people and mutations. Anything else." she chuckles faintly.

"Just the universe in general. Space and time. All that," Rob says. "Well, to be slightly more accurate, I want to rule all those things as some sort of science God-King, but you have to study these things first. Understand them. Bend them to your will."

"Well you don't lack for ambition, that's for sure."

"I think it's important to have high goals," Rob says. "What about you? What do you want to do with your life?"

"I don't know... I've never really thought about that. For a while I thought I could help people by finding a cure for shit like this." she gestures at the mutated grasshopper in it's cage. "But that just made things worse. Really should have seen that coming, because that's pretty much what always happens when I use my powers."

"And you want to give up because...you've suffered setbacks? Because you think it's impossible?" Rob asks. "Please tell me you're not that boring of a person."

"Hey, I'm trying!" she snaps at him a little.

"Good," Rob says. "Keep trying. The only way to succeed in anything is sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness. Stop indulging in self pity. It just makes you insufferable to be around."

"Oh gee, thanks a lot asshole."

"You're welcome," Rob says cheerfully.

Archaea glares at him. It'd be easy to slap him across the face with her bare hand. Probably wouldn't even do that much, just enough to be be satisfying to watch. She fights down the urge to permanently disfigure somebody for being a dick, disgusted with herself that it would even spring to mind.

"Whatever." she mumbles.