The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
Posted by Liz Sundance on Feb 5, 2011 12:27:34 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
A gold chain dangled around Elizabeth’s fist as she casually strolled down the sidewalk. Sunlight glimmered from the tiny gold crucifix attached to the necklace. Every so often, Liz would just hold it up in front of her face and smile. It held a lot of sentimental value. It had originally been her great-grandmother’s necklace, then her grandmother’s, and then her mom’s. And now it was hers. But it was just her luck, that after going a century without even any tarnish, as soon as it got mailed to her at the mansion, the chain shattered during transport.
It was just about the only thing in the world that could make Liz leave the mansion by herself and brave the dangerous jungle of New York City without even a dinosaur-shifter as backup.
But fortunately, it hadn’t taken long for the jewelers to repair the chain and nothing major happened at all. She had accidentally nearly-knocked the manager of the place down when walking out, but that bit of embarrassment was always preferable to, say, a dozen thugs barging in and holding everyone hostage while they cleaned the place out. Elizabeth wouldn’t put it past her luck for that to have happened.
But it hadn’t. So she was happy.
Until she slipped on a small patch of ice.
Suddenly the blonde’s world turned parallel to the ground, coming closer and closer. Then she hit the concrete, with only a hand under her. It felt like she’d skinned her knees on that, and her hand certainly hurt. Her face seemed fin, though. As she pushed herself back up to her feet, she did a better damage control. Dust and some miscellaneous tidbits of dirt and snow dotted her jacket and her jeans. Her right hand was slightly scraped up, but it would be okay in a couple of hours. It wasn’t that bad. And her left hand…was empty.
Liz’ eyes flew wide and she whirled around. Nothing glittered in the snow around her. The girl spun around again, breathing rapidly. Where on earth could the necklace have gone? She couldn’t have lost it! No! It was too valuable, at least to her! As she fruitlessly scoured the immediate area, her concentration was disrupted by a clattering and cackling of a murder of crows alighting on the sidewalk only thirty feet ahead. Their emotions started pushing against her mental boundaries, just enough so Liz could tell what the main feeling was.
Joy.
And there was something the shimmered gold in the largest bird’s mouth.
Her necklace.
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. She glared at the creature, summoning in her mind a horrible brew of poisonous feelings of shame, horror, raw terror, anger, depression, wariness, and as many other negative emotions as she could. But before she could unleash it at the whole murder so she could murder them, a streak of blue and grey darted across her vision. In that instant, a wave of fear nearly as strong as the one she was going to unleash assaulted her barriers. The gaggle of blackbirds erupted from the ground, winging away as fast as they could, cawing and shrieking.
The effect broke Elizabeth’s hold on her emotional cyanide and it vanished from her thoughts. She looked up at the fleeing birds, anger in her eyes. But there was nothing she could do. They were already scared. If she tried messing with them now, they probably drop her necklace and she’d never see it again. But that left one mystery unsolved.
Liz stomped over the snow to the entrance of an alley. The blur had gone in there. And lo and behold, the thing was still there. A peregrine falcon stood on the carcass of a crow, talons tinted red, standing at a stark contrast from the light layer of white snow around them. Inspiration hit Liz like a sledgehammer.
A maniacal smile crossed her lips. “I got you,” she said, an image of that one crow, the one with her necklace, forming in her head. Without another thought, the blonde lunged forward, blasting the predator with a wave of happiness and calmness. Then she landed full-body on the ground, her hands wrapped around its body. Overwhelmed for the moment by Elizabeth’s tampering, the bird remained still in her hands, even as she got up.
“Ha ha ha ha,” Liz laughed out loud as she dragged herself off to the side of the alley, trying to conceal her body as much as possible. Doing so made her concentration slip and the falcon began struggling in her grasp. But it only managed to scratch her hands and wrists with its talons a couple of times before Liz focused.
In the time between seconds, Elizabeth’s world vanishing from detection, leaving her alone in a void of sensory data. And then what felt like a door opened, drawing her back to the world.
Liz imagined herself grinning as she stared into her closed eyes. In fact, a slightly insane-looking smile was already on her real lips. And then she turned her mind to her job. She shuffled herself around and gingerly stepped out of her hands, feeling the cold snow under her bare feet. Then with a jump and a leap, Perebeth spread her wings and took to the sky, swiftly pursuing those treacherous crows with the speed of an arrow.
And all that time, her body lay slumped against the wall of an alley, an insane smile on her comatose-like body.
The snow had been fun at first. The key phrase here is at first. With so much snow all the time what had been a marvel of beauty was now just a major hassle. Snow melted and refroze, melted and refroze until the sidewalk in front of the Iris Clinic and Ghost's home, was unsafe to walk on.
The Full Circle was a place of commerce. She had paid someone to salt and scrape that sidewalk. The clinic was only used for emergencies and as stable as they needed to be in the case of an emergency, so far they hadn't needed much more than what they could shovel themselves.
Today was no different. Ghost's nose was red, some of the only skin exposed to the elements. She had gotten her frost bite already when she had Rescued Cam the cat some Christmas-es ago. Since then she had promised to wear gloves, scarves, hats, coats and worst of all shoes. All winter long! Now add a snow shovel and a parcel of salt and Ghost was ready for the snow to melt.
Shoveling was one of her least favorite things. The metal scraping on concrete grated her nerves much faster than it scraped ice. She made her peace by taking long breaks and people watching.
During one such people watching episodes, she saw a man slip and fall flat on his bottom. He looked around to make sure no one had seen and Ghost waved at him. Hehe. She scooped more snow and at her next break she was a girl almost smash her face on the ground. She caught herself, but then started dancing? And looking around? And she glared at some crows who laughed back.
Ghost leaned on her shovel and put her hand up to her eyes to block the bright sun. Maybe she had hit her head? She was acting very strange.
And then the girl laughed and dove into an alleyway.
Definitely brain damage.
Ghost propped her shovel on the inside of the doorway and then scampered across the street, slipping and sliding as she went. (Shoes have horrible traction, you know. They just couldn't invent a grip as good as toes.)
She looked around for the girl and didn't see her at first. She was pretty well hidden in the shadows. And very, very still.
Posted by Liz Sundance on Mar 11, 2011 21:12:30 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
A cold wind buffered Perebeth’s wings, lifting her higher over the city to altitudes that gave her more to work with. Her keen eyes scoured the winter skies, blazing with a lust for blood, glory, and gold. Her talons flexed open and closed in mid-flight, twitching with anticipation. The rational mind of the human was able to conceive so many possible mannerisms to spell doom for the black bandits that the falcon was nearly salivating. Elizabeth’s own feelings of vengeance and outrage swam through her host, infecting it with a mirror desire for the destruction of that crow.
“Kraa! Kraa!” she screeched. Shiny black eyes pierced through the wispy clouds hovering over the city. Superhuman ears strained for the sounds of wing beats or the ever-hatin’ classic caws of the blackbirds. Alas, Perebeth soon detected her prey in the distance. The hybrid human-animal circled higher in the air, straining to gain as much elevation as possible in the thin, chilly air. The murder had easily flown several blocks. In the back of their collective mind, it amazed her that the frightened little thieves could move so quickly when given the proper motivation.
Mental crosshairs focused on the group as the duck hawk-girl darted through the sky. The breeze was with her, but it was also with the crows in the distance. No matter, nothing on land, sea, or air could outrun her. Screaming her battle cry for the whole world to know, Perebeth whistled forward through the air, quickly minimizing the distance between her and the target, the world’s smallest and most determined smart missile.
From her superior aerial perspective, Liz was able to determine the best point of attack. Her target would be the lead bird, the one leading the entire mob. Based on the little information she and the falcon had on the social habits of the common American crow, she hypothesized that it would be the leader of the gang and thus possess her necklace. She also predicted that it would shortly be removed from that position.
The internal mathematician in the peregrine’s brain alerted Beth that they were in the kill zone. It was now or never. Perebeth took it.
Like an extraterrestrial meteorite, the avian angled down towards the Earth. As it committed itself to the action, the bird’s mind began immediately calculating the best course to take. Wings pulled in to increase speed. Feathers adjusted by millimeters, angling themselves to current course deviations caused by wind. Moment by moment, as the sight of the ugly thief in the front of the murder grew ever closer, the falcon’s mind was putting Pythagoras to shame. If only Liz could do any of that in her math classes.
But that was a distraction and she didn’t need it.
Her moment of triumph was at hand…or rather, talon. Said blood-covered limbs swept forward, claws ready to strike. The air and scenery around her began blurring as she broke 200 miles per hour. Her collision was set. Closer and closer, dozens of yards blinking by in seconds. Closer, closer. A thousand times larger than the black dot it had been only a minute earlier, the crow began to take up most of he vision. And suddenly…
…STRIKE!
Perebeth blew through the murder of crows, the leader writhing underneath her talons. By the time the leaderless flock had realized anything had happened, Liz was dozens of yards away. “Kraa kraa kraa kraaaa!” she cried. She flashed to the roof of a tall building, the piratical bird still stuck on her talons. Victory was hers!
She landed on top of the asphalt roof, slamming the crow heavily into the tiny rocks. It didn’t matter to her. All she cared about was her necklace. She hopped off her prey and pushed it over with her wings. She cocked her head to extract her prize when she stopped.
It wasn’t there. Her necklace wasn’t there. The ancient gold necklace wasn’t there. The stupid bird didn’t have it! And on an extremely close inspection, Liz realized something. It wasn’t the bird who’d stolen the heirloom! She’d been tricked! The bloodied bird sprawled on the roof had been a decoy!
Perebeth’s killer eyes blazed with an inner fire as she turned back to the skies of New York. There was no option. That crow was a goner!
She pulled off her gloves and tried to find a heartbeat. Ghost was not good at all this medical stuff, but she knew how to at least do that. Her hands were like ice cubes even with the gloves. The fact that the girl didn't even flinch when she put her icey fingers on her pulse was not the best sign.
The air elemental leaned in close, putting her ear next to the girl's mouth to try to be sure that she was breathing. If she was breathing... well, if the unconscious girl was breathing Ghost wouldn't know what to do next. Did that mean just her mind was gone? Some kind of seizure maybe? People didn't just drop into comas— or in this case, people didn't just dive into comas while laughing maniacally. Not that she knew of, anyway.
Good news and bad news.
Good? The girl breathed. Her body was still working.
Bad? Ghost was always a little bit incorporeal now-a-days. She just couldn't help that. And with her leaning in so close and the girl's breathing and all that... some of her got breathed in.
A whole new kind of panic set in then. What did she do!? She... It was... Well! There really was only one thing to[/b] do. She needed to go in and get it.
Ghost ghosted the rest of the way into her intangible state and went right on in through the mouth. No one was home, so it's not like she had to ask permission. All that was left to prove Ghost was ever there were the mittens she had taken off.
Posted by Liz Sundance on Mar 24, 2011 15:18:19 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
Once again amongst the clouds and smog of the city, Perebeth spread her wings, her predatorial gaze piercing the atmosphere. She rubbernecked around, tracking her target. How hard could a panicked mob of crows be to find? She’d done it once already. Slowly circling, she scanned the sky. However, it was her other senses that detected her prey. The cawing of the crows rang in her superhuman ears, as loud as a person talking to her from across a room. Yellow-ringed eyes darted in the direction of the racket. Off in the distance, having covered a surprisingly large amount of ground in the moments she’d been distracted, flew the feathery fiends.
I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little mob, too, she silently promised the Crow King.
Grey-blue wings beat the air furiously, propelling Perebeth through the sky. Her magnified vision soon told her more details about the flock. Like before, they were all bunched together, obviously protecting someone. However, it looked smaller than moments before. Granted, she’d knocked one off, but it seemed like it was losing more than one bird. Movement on the edge of her vision attracted her attention. A duo of crows was winging off, descending upon a tree. Whipping her head around, she saw another crow diving toward an alley.
“Kraaw!” she cursed, realizing her prey was starting to slip away, due to her all-too-successful attempts to put the fear of God into them. If she didn’t move fast, while all her possible targets were in one place, then she would never get her necklace back. It would be impossible to track all the crows across all of New York and still hope to retrieve the heirloom in one piece.
Perebeth tipped a wing and sliced up through the air. Her narrow wings caught a thermal as she passed over a highway, pushing her higher into the sky. Like before, she was attempting to use an increased altitude to unleash a dive-bomb attack on the band of scalawags. The feathery torpedo shot high up, reaching the apex of her arc only several hundred feet above the shifting flock of rogues.
At the peak she leveled out, casting her attention towards her intended victim. This time, there would be no mistakes. She was not going to assume anything about the Crow King. Well, she wouldn’t assume anything other than that he was still in the murder and hadn’t already peeled off. She was pretty certain he wouldn’t leave the protection such large numbers of allies could provide anytime soon. Well, that just made her job harder and easier. She wouldn’t have to spend a week looking for him, but she couldn’t quite figure out which one was him either.
And then the evening sun smiled down from the heavens, sending a ray of light at just the perfect angle to reflect off her necklace and single out her target. Gotcha! It was settled, carved in stone and written in blood. The necklace would be hers, and the Crow King’s head as well. The urge to scream a war cry welled up in her but Liz stifled it. Now was not the time to be alerting her quarry to any danger. The last thing she wanted was an instant scattering of all of her targets. Such a thing would cause her to lose track of the King, not to mention increase the chances of her necklace to be dropped.
The world began streaking by again as Perebeth dived into warp drive. Wind scraped by, flattening her feathers and causing an extreme effort to move anything. Faster, faster, faster! It wouldn’t have surprised her if a friction-caused red aura began surrounding her, like what happens when shuttlecraft reenter Earth’s atmosphere. Telescopic eyes were soon unnecessary as the birds got closer. Even a human could’ve counted the individual feathers on each scoundrel. Talons swept forward again in preparation. She could practically feel the hot blood of the black avian coursing over her talons.
Then, a half-second before impact, a crow shifted in position and moved up, above the leader. Liz flared her wings, trying to stop, but it was too late. The sudden obstacle and attempt to stop threw Perebeth off. She rocketed into the interfering crow, gouging its back with razor-sharp talons and crashing with it through the mob. Black feathers filled the air and completely surrounded the two birds before Liz had the chance to extract herself from the heap. Then, before she could utter a single cry of defiance, the crows reacted.
The sky seemed to vanish behind a seething mass of beak and feather as the crows did what they do best: mob other birds. The raucous cawing of the crows nearly deafened Perebeth, being right in her overly-sensitive ears. Fluttering feathers blinded her. Claws pierced her head multiple times as the crows decided to get revenge. “KRAAAWW!” she shrieked, lashing out with her wings and feet. She clipped a bird on the side of its head and slashed another across its eyes. She bit and hissed and slashed and beat but the mob never seemed to stop. All hoped seemed lost for the lone peregrine falcon.
But it was no ordinary falcon. It had something no falcon had ever had before. It had Liz.
Pulling her mind away from the frantic falcon’s, Liz retreated into her consciousness. There, Liz summoned up a cauldron of boiling emotions, recalling the recipe she had prepared earlier. To go along with the poisonous and vile sadness, fear, depression, and terror, Elizabeth added a dash of self-preservation and heavily salted it down with panic. Then she poured her witch’s brew into the gang around her.
The effects were instant. The crows gave a collective shriek and immediately departed, flying away in all directions at once. One blackbird simply fell from the sky, dead from fear-induced heart attack. Liz blasted all the birds with another wave of terror, making sure they wouldn’t return. They didn’t. “Kraa kraa kraa kraakraakraa kraaaaaa!” she screamed in triumph. Defeating a dozen crows in one moment was an epic feat achieved by few.
But her mind wasn’t focused on glory. Liz embedded herself back into the peregrine’s mind, directing its attention for anything shiny. Like the gold necklace hanging from a particular crow’s foot.
A single thought floated to the surface of some very turbulent mind water. Ghost had done this before, sure. But now that she was thinking on it, she had no idea how she managed to get out last time. One minute she had been inhaled into the belly of a giant and running around with him, the next... on the ground beside him with a serious headache.
At this point, there really was only one thing to do. She held onto herself and was careful to keep her incorporeal body from being absorbed into the blood stream. She drifted through, buoyed along by the body's processes until every part of her was stretched through every part of the body.
It was easier that way— to think of it as a body —but hadn't she come over here to help her? As of now Ghost had only helped herself.
Would the girl mind? Did the girl even have a mind left to mind? Ghost had all her own particles under her own control again, even the previously inhaled ones.
So now what?
If this were her own body, Ghost would sit up. Sit up, get her feet under her, stand and walk herself to the clinic so that she could call Sebastian for a good heal.
Easier said than done.
She could lift the body with wind maybe. Ghost tried to summon something, but the thought of splitting her concentration made her uneasy. This was her body and she wasn't about to let it get absorbed. She was loosing enough of it already without help. No, she had to figure out how to get it to move on its own. Unless...
If she imagined herself sort of layered... and if her hand was inside of the girl's hand... then... finger twitch success! So now, when she pictured her torso as the girl's, the particles aligned. Ghost sat up and the torso sat up. Unfortunately there's more to a body than just a torso so the head and limbs earthwormed around all on their own, but that didn't matter, right? Nobody was watching. She just had to get the hang of it.
Posted by Liz Sundance on May 12, 2011 17:16:42 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
Perebeth soon reached the top of her upward climb into the sky. By the time she allowed herself to just stretch her wings out and soar, her chest and wings felt like they were on fire. Flapping began getting harder and harder. She didn’t need to do much, since there were quite a few breezes, but it’d be tough to make another dive so soon. She had nothing else to do but bide her time.
The wind rushing over her feathers drive stinging needles over her face and across her stomach and back. She knew she had fared badly in the midst of that birdpile. She had no doubt she was bleeding from various places. She could recall many, many claws scratching through her feathery coat and slicing skin. It hurt. A lot. Permeated throughout the mind as she was, Liz felt the nerve endings flare and send angry messages to the falcon’s brain.
Little patches of bare skin were sure to dot her back and parts of her wings. Those greedy little pirates used more than their grasping claws when attacking. The cretins had horrible beaks designed for slicing meat from bones. It was nothing for them to yank skin and feathers off of her fragile flesh. As it was nothing for her to do the same to them.
She reviewed the vague memories the peregrine had of the brief brawl. Shadowy images kept flashing across the bird’s mental eye, as the black crows had completely surrounded her. It remembered each slash, gash, and scratch inflicted upon her. It also remembered each devastating blow she’d landed. As tough as the under-sized turkeys were, individually, they couldn’t touch the perfect niche predator she was. Razor talons had slashed open black faces, her piercing beak had snapped a foot clean off. Even her narrow wings had been weapons, knocking birds away and whacking them hard.
It had almost been worth it.
Perebeth angled a wing slightly and rose a dozen feet in the air. Her hunter’s gaze swept across the landscape beneath her, questing for her treasure. She would find the crow at all costs. She had to. That necklace had been through so much, was worth so much. She couldn’t lose it. But there was nothing she could do at the time. She needed to rest a bit longer before trying anything. Who knew crows could fight?
Now… how to stand? Most learn to stand up on their own somewhere around 2 years old and don't put a thought to it after that time. Now that Ghost was sitting in some stranger's limp body in a snowbank across the street from the clinic, only one thing kept her from strolling the poor thing over to safety. Standing.
She was already leaned forward a bit. If Ghost leaned the weight forward more… and maybe put some thought into moving the arms some…
The girl's body dipped it's head into the snow and the arms slithered as if pulled by strings rather than controlled by something internal. This was a serious mental workout. Ghost couldn't be fussed with how things looked. She just needed to get it done.
So the spirit pulled on the arms until they were in place under the torso. She put her thought into the arms rather than the torso and felt the weight shift.
Yes! Now… now she could walk across the street on her hands.
That wasn't right.
The body fell completely flat on its face when her attention wavered. She was imagining something like a facepalm happening inside and that didn't work without he image of her supporting the body's weight on its arms.
Okay. This time it was the legs that got the attention.
The torso sat up, semi-melty snow clinging here and there. The legs moved in front of the body so that it sat stiffly with it's arms all loose and it's legs perfectly lined up. Then one knee bent. Then the other.
Now the tricky part. The weight had to go on the feet and the legs had to support all that while moving the whole body vertically and on top of all that… balance.
Suffice to say it Ghost a good four tries to get the body standing and then leaning against the alley wall. The head and arms were still limply rolling where they pleased, but the body leaned up against the brick side of the building across from Iris Clinic.
She wasn't brave enough to chance traffic just yet.
Posted by Liz Sundance on May 31, 2011 20:53:20 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
Perebeth floated above the Big Apple on blue and grey wings. Occasionally a tiny tuft of soft, downy, bloody feather bits would fall. In the grand scheme of things, her injuries were minor. They hurt, but they wouldn’t slow her down too much more. Primary feathers angled and the Falcon Girl swooped down and to the left, her eye caught by the shrinking form of a panicked crow.
She began circling the wretch, hundreds of feet above it, scrutinizing it with her glare. She wanted to dive after it but the small fire in her chest muscles made her wait a bit more. Peregrine falcons were not built for several subsonic dives in a short amount a time. Nor were they especially made for single-wingedly battling a battalion of blackbirds. Or having a human girl implant her consciousness inside their minds, but that was beside the point.
The angle of her spiral allowed her to see the crow’s claws. Unfortunately, they were empty. The necklace wasn’t there. Thinking a very rude word to herself, Liz broke off her deathwatch and scanned for other likely targets.
Off in the near distance, about five city blocks away, Perebeth spotted a mini-flock of five crows descending quickly near a small group of trees. From her height, distance, and angle, she couldn’t see anything like a necklace on them.
Gently angling in that general direction so she wouldn’t wear herself out any faster, Perebeth kept her raptor sight centered on those pirates. A breeze blew up but she managed to keep her form in line. Another dive wouldn’t work; she was too tired and sore to try one at the moment. Also, she didn’t want to shoot into a tree at 200 mph.
Perebeth landed gracefully on the edge of the roof of some apartment building directly across the street from her prey. As soon as her talons clutched the stone, a tiny wave of weariness crashed into her. Who knew flying could be so tiring? The falcon’s mind wasn’t worried though. It knew it still had another couple of hours left in the air. Liz took comfort in that. How else would she ever return to her body if she was stuck as a flightless bird?
Noise from the tree snapped Liz out of her wandering thoughts. Back in Perebeth mode, she flickered her glare to the squad in their maple fortress. Naked branches and the dead remnants of leaves obscured a clean look at the feet of the birds. It didn’t help that they couldn’t keep still. But that was okay. Liz could wait a little bit. Eventually they had to calm down and show their feet, right?
But just to be on the safe side, she dredged up her gift and began sending waves of peace across the street to soothe the savage beasts.
If Ghost had the confidence, she would have marched over to the crosswalk and pushed the button. Not that she could see the lights changing, see the actual crosswalk light or that she would be able to manage the dexterity and pressure needed to actually depress a button right now. None of those were her primary reason for avoiding the crosswalk.
Her main concern was that standing upright was hard enough. If she moved the balance forward, the body would fall forward, but the same would be true if she leaned in any other direction. Ghost tested the limits of her range of sight and wasn't satisfied. She couldn't see far enough down the street to guarantee that no cars would be coming when she crossed.
Well. There really was no other option. And now was as good a time as any.
The head and arms still dangled, but Ghost pushed the girl's body against the wall until she was standing up as tall as she would go. Whatever was wrong with this girl, it wouldn't get better by laying in a snow drift. Ghost had to get across the street to the clinic.
One.
Two.
She pitched the body forward and tried her best to keep the legs between the body and the ground. Almost immediately someone honked and a car was screeching to a halt. If Ghost were in her own body, she would have shouted at someone for driving too fast. As it was, she was lucky that she didn't land this poor body on someone's hood. The clinic door approached and... well Ghost realized there was one thing she hadn't properly considered.
How did she stop?
SPLAT.
She slid dooooooown the plate window with an embarrassing SCREEEEEEEEE.
Posted by Liz Sundance on Jun 9, 2011 22:46:09 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
Her piercing gaze focused on the birds. Time seemed to slow and Perebeth’s concentration grew. Sounds seemed to die off and the world around her center of attention seemed to blur and blacken. Rivers of peace, contentment, and satisfaction flowed across the busy street and flooded the squad of birds. In seconds that felt like eternity, one by one, the crows settled down. To them, everything was okay. Their terrifying and alien fear was smothered with safety. They were content with where they were and what they were doing. They didn’t think they were in danger.
And that was the truth, for the moment.
Pushing the streams of emotions at the birds, taking way more effort than normal, Liz directed the falcon to glide off the building, flying over the street to get closer to the tree. The falcon seemed okay with that, much of its energy gone after the fight’s bloodlust and adrenaline rush had left.
The predator soared on a gust of wind and landed in the tree, not five feet away from the black pirates. There was no more reaction than a rustle of feathers. Ripples of instinctual fear quickly drowned under the downpour of sedating feelings inflicted upon them. A brief thread of intrigue bled into Liz from the falcon’s mind. It had never been this close to other birds without some sort of flight or fight response. But it had also never had the consciousness of a teenaged mutant inhabiting its mind, either.
Perebeth’s attention traveled down. She examined the feet of each crow, one by one, noting slight traces of red blood across some of their talons. Either they’d eaten recently, or they had been responsible for some of her host’s various wounds. Regardless, it mattered not. She only cared about her necklace.
And none of them had it.
Elizabeth’s concentration shattered as a wave of despair hit her. Why her? Why did it have to her, of all people, to have her necklace snatched away from her like that? And it was priceless, having been in her family for generations. How could she ever get it back now? The crows had scattered over that part of the city. She’d never find them now. And who’s to say that they still had the necklace. For all she knew it could’ve been dropped, shattering across the cold concrete in some forgotten alley.
For a moment, Liz almost stopped there, to huddle down inside her wings.
But no self-respecting falcon did that. Fury swelled up in the falcon and flowed into Liz. Their combined thoughts those of outrage and protection of their own. Perebeth leaped forward and knocked a crow off its branch, pinning it to another with her deadly claws. The other crows, awakened from their zombie-like state, burst out of the tree with a chorus of squawks and caws of terror.
It was just her and the crow.
She opened her razor-sharp, hooked beak and prepared for the deathblow. But realization of what she doing hit her. No, I can’t do this. I can’t kill a creature in cold blood. And that’s what it would be. The crow didn’t have the necklace. It had essentially followed Crow King’s orders in the assault, and that was only because Liz had attacked first. It was just a poor, dumb, crow. The anger dissipated, leaving her with her helplessness,
She just fixed her gaze on the crow, silently wailing at it with her problem. Then she butted her head against it, like a human would do a wall or table in such a position.
And in that single moment of concentration and contact, her world vanished. Her senses simultaneously vanished, isolating her from reality. The mind of the falcon disappeared, no longer connected to her.
It was horrible, but familiar.
And then the world returned, snapping into focus, the sounds of honking and rushing cars on the nearby streets, the smell of hot dogs being sold from a vender a couple dozen yards from the tree. Tree bark grinding into her back. Sharp talons pressed against her chest. And a peregrine falcon staring right into her face. And the mind. It wasn’t a falcon’s. It was the crow’s.
Elizabeth stared out of the crow’s eyes and gazed into the falcon’s. Blink. Blink. What just happened?
It took some time, but Ghost did get the girl's body on her feet again. A kindly man asked her if she was alright and Ghost wobbled the girl's shoulders at him before saying "Fine thank you!" And arm swung wildly in a sort-of wave. Ghost was really starting to get the hang of this!
The man seemed to regret ever asking, though. Relieved of any responsibility he all but ran to get away from her.
Rude.
Ghost straightened the shoulders so that this girl's body had all the poise a... mindless body... could have? Holy smokes, she was getting distracted with her own success here and losing sight of what was really important: the health of the girl she was in.
Okayokayokay. Think. She needed to get inside and there was a doorknob keeping her out.
The girl's arm went up. So far so good. The girl's hand mashed against the ball of the knob. Okay. That was fine... now... how did she get the fingers to do their thing? Like a glove. That was the imagery that had helped her get the feet under her and now it was even more applicable. She had to think of it like a glove. Ghost reached into the hand from the inside. Of course, this meant she let other parts of her focus wane like the parts keeping the shoulders straight and the legs stiff enough to support the body.
The body fell down again, but the arm stayed on the doorknob.
Maybe it was luck in the way that she fell or maybe it really was some good old fashioned gripping. Either way the bell rang over the door and the obstacle slid open to admit a mostly horizontal body.
"Anyone home?" Ghost flung the arm forward and gripped the floor with it. Heh. She was getting this gripping thing okay. The limp body scooched forward, pulled by a gripping hand. Grip, scootch. Grip scootch. "Sebastian?" Was he studying somewhere? Ghost tried to make her voice carry around the room so he would be bound to hear, but outside of seeing the air outside of the body Ghost couldn't seem to do a single thing with it.
Posted by Liz Sundance on Jun 11, 2011 19:28:50 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
The peregrine on her chest let out a single shriek and then bolted from the tree with a flurry of feathers. Soft down floated in the air from where the bird had been one moment before. It settled down on her chest. The one now covered in iridescent black feathers. What on Earth?
Elizacrow righted herself and perched on the branch, looking herself over with her gorgeous golden eyes. Yep, she was a crow alright. She looked almost exactly like the only other crow she’d ever possessed. Black feathers, black beak, black feet. The bird’s mind instinctively knew what it was, too.
So….I’m a crow….
Now what? The falcon was long gone; her only way of tracking down that King Crow and then returning back to where she’d stashed her body had gone with the wind. And the necklace. That beautiful, shiny, shimmering, golden necklace. The spectacular way the sunlight would catch it at an angle and it would glow and shine with an inner fire. The way each link would glisten and lock together, moving and sliding together in so many tantalizing ways. It made her just want to reach out and—
What am I thinking?! I have never thought that way about the necklace. That’s just weird, Liz. She froze that train of thought where it was. Reminiscing wasn’t going to help.
Elizacrow fluttered to the edge of the branch, perching partially inside the tree. That way, she was sheltered but could still see things. Where could that evil rogue crow be?
Suddenly she saw him. Crow King was flying over smelly-delicious-building-with-shiny-golden-bent-trees with Featherbuster and Craven, way below her. And he had the necklace! The beautiful, shiny necklace! With the polished gleam and miraculous luster—
She blinked. Huh? What had happened? Liz scanned the street. There was no way she could see the tops of any buildings. And she definitely couldn’t see any McDonald’s…
Waitaminute. Back up there. Why would I describe McDonald’s like that? And how’d I see those birds? Unless….I didn’t.… Her eyes opened wider and she let out a coarse caw. It was the crow! The crow had seen the Crow King! It was a memory! It knew where the Crow King was! That meant she knew where he was, too! Aaaah! That was amazing! If she’d’ve had hands, she would’ve hugged herself. Aww, you’re such a smart little crow, aren’t you? I could love you to death!
Was it just her imagination, or had she detected a swelling of pride in the bird?
She didn’t care though. She was off! She darted off into the polluted sky like a black arrow. She knew where the necklace was! She could practically taste it! The crow’s excitement mirrored her own as they climbed higher in the sky.
The body maneuvered itself onto one of the gurneys like a puppet might and together, Ghost and the body waited.
"Sebastian?" She tried to summon her husband mentally once it was clear that the verbal route wasn't a viable option.
...
Ghost concluded that she was about as psychic as a cucumber.
How... was she supposed to get out? The air elemental tried to rack her brain but for the life of her she couldn't remember how she got disentangled in Romania. She thought there might have been rainbows involved somehow.
What if she was stuck? What if this was it? What if this she had accidentally stolen some poor helpless Girl's body and she was stuck in there? Her powers could be evolving, wasn't that was Ingram had said? That her own power couldn't handle her own body? What if —a horrible thought occurred to Ghost then— what if she was stuck in this body for the rest of her life and the original owner came back? What if she had to share this body and share her life and her husband...!
Posted by Liz Sundance on Jun 14, 2011 21:14:48 GMT -6
X-Men
Metazoa
Chartreuse
Straight
949
9
Apr 12, 2024 15:17:35 GMT -6
Zek
Elizacrow landed on top of the golden arches with a fluttering of feathers. Amber eyes glared intensely at the asphalt covered, flat roof. She swept her gaze back and forth, up and down, yet the truth remained. There were no crows on the roof. Unless they happened to have developed a mutation that including invisibility or were highly trained in the ninja arts. They were already covered in black, you know.
Then a succulently sweet smell found its way into her olfactory senses. She breathed in deep and immediately oriented herself to her new target. Forget about a necklace, there was food!
Elizacrow flapped her way off the famous McDonald’s sign and glided off the building, following her nose. She began spiraling down in the alley connected to the restaurant. The smell was stronger there. It smelled so good. It was almost comparable to Breaddy, her long-lost buddy-pal-chew-toy. Enraptured by the scent, Elizacrow flew down and landed on the edge of a dumpster, ready for her all-you-can-eat buffet.
Greasy fries covered the floor, many still fresh. A delectable pile of green-tinted patties adorned a corner, with a nice order of buzzing flies on the side. Apple pie crumbs mixed with the fries, making something salty, something sweet. Spoiling cheese dripped down one of the walls of the dumpster, invitingly reaching out to her. A tossed salad of brown lettuce and purplish tomatoes was directly beneath her. And then there was the mother load of all.
In the center, somehow illuminated by a single shaft of sunlight, sat….a….partially eaten….Big Mac!
She shrieked with happiness and leaped forward. It looked so good, so tasty, so delicious, way better than it ever looked on the menus. And the maggots on it only looked a few hours old! She could practically taste the soft, molding bread, the rotting shreds of lettuce, the blackening onions, the whitening patties, the yuckiness of it!
Liz flared her wings as far open as they could go, hurting her wings a bit in her effort to break. She swooped up out of the dumpster and landed on a trash can a dozen feet away. She shook herself. She had come that close, THAT close, to eating a rotten Big Mac. As if the thing wasn’t dangerous enough as it was. If she’d been human, she would’ve been scrubbing her tongue with sandpaper.
Still utterly disgusted by her avian impulses (they certainly weren’t her own!), Liz glanced around the alley. In her haste to go dumpster-diving, she had neglected to properly scan the area for potential predators. So she did. And there weren’t any. But there was a mini-murder on the ground right beside the dumpster, hidden from view of the street. And they corresponded with the memories Liz and her host shared. The Crow King was standing on the alley’s ground, pecking away at half a fruit parfait. Behind him was her necklace. Off to his right, Craven and Featherbuster tore into a nibbled double-cheeseburger. Brute force was out.
Not that she could’ve attacked anyways, not in that body. Featherbuster was at least twice her size and had many healed-over scars, proving that he’d been in many fights before. And won them, too, by the looks of him and the way he attacked his patty. Craven, on the other wing, was about her size, but her host didn’t have many memories of him. All she knew was that on several occasions, Craven had vanished from their flock for long periods of time before returning, blood-splattered, to lead them to fresh carcasses of cats and small dogs.
So, a weakling crow like her wouldn’t stand a chance.
But that was okay, Elizabeth’s power worked pretty well on those crows. She began blasting the treacherous trio with serenity, assaulting them with complacency. Then she darted forward, swept up her precious, and a moment later was beating it in the New York sky.
Success! She had her necklace back! Her precious. She cawed triumphantly, mocking anything that would ever come against her. No force on Earth could stop Elizacrow from getting what she wanted.
Gleaming chains firmly clutched in black talons, Elizabeth accessed the crow’s memories, demanding it to return her back to where the whole thing started.
It was surprisingly close, probably only a mile or so from the McDonald’s. For some reason, caught up in the thrills of fighting and stalking, she’d forgotten all sense of time and direction. Which would’ve been horrible if she’d’ve been human. But she was a crow. They don’t get lost that easily.
Brimming with joy, Elizacrow gently landed in a small snowdrift in her alley, deliberately avoiding the small crow carcass lying there. I am not hungry, I am not hungry, I am not hungry, she chanted to herself. She turned her gaze around to her body, readying herself to depossess herself and return to her real self.
She wasn’t there. And no, she wasn’t a ninja either.
Where the heck is my body?! Elizabeth leaped off the frigid ground and swooped up intot he sky with a cold breeze. It wasn’t like she could’ve got up and walked away, right? At least that had never happened before. And she didn’t sleepwalk. So where’d she go? Oh that’s rich, a bitter voice said, You just lost yourself! How’re you going to explain THAT one? Her situation desperately reminded herself of a shirt she’d seen at Wal-Mart before. She just had to get that shirt. Or one of those tracker thingies they put in dogs.
Liz shifted her errant thoughts back to her problem. If she were a mindless body lying around in an alley, where would she go? She deliberately ignored the zombie joke that just wanted to be said. Her carrion-tracking eyes caught something. A clinic. Yes! That’s exactly where I’d be! She loved her host so much at that point.
Elizacrow soared through a gust of winter air and beelined right for the door of the building. Words were on the building, but Liz only read them from habit. The Iris Clinic. Didn’t ring a bell. And when she laded on the sill of the door, she realized she couldn’t either.
She cocked her head, because that’s just what birds do when confused. She stared at the door. It had a knob. And a doorbell. And she could use neither. But maybe there was somebody inside. Even if someone hadn’t found her body and taken it to the clinic, maybe Liz could at least get some help. Crows were supposed to be able to talk, so she was pretty sure she’d be able to communicate.
She used her beak and tapped it against the clinic’s door. Tappity tap tap tap.
