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.
The Italian teenager stood in the middle of the Danger Room, rubbing at one arm awkwardly. The place was awfully creepy when it was empty like this. The walls glistened an impartial metal shine in the florescent lights, broken up into a thousand panels. He knew from experience in Neena's classes that those panels could open up at a second's notice, and fill the room with whirling charging stabbing laser-shooting holographic chaos. This wasn't his favorite room in the world, actually. He'd checked and double-checked that everything was turned off, and not liable to turn back on. He was going for a different kind of training, today. The room was entirely empty, except for him. All present and accounted for.
So.
So.
Let's do this.
Indeed.
Calley had dissociative identity disorder. Or, if you wanted to go with the classic term: Calley had split personalities. He hadn't thought it had anything to do with his mutation; in fact, he'd always figured it had more to do with a certain series of massive mental and physical traumas whose perpetrator would go unnamed. That was over with, now. But it left him with... himselves. Slate.
But Slate was part of the clutter, and the clutter had always been there. They were the way his mind categorized information: they were the shelves and cubbies that held his different forms. They were a whirlwind of second and third opinions and a storehouse for trivial facts and parsed pieces of information they'd started habitually confusing over the long winter, to give spiteful little headaches to any psychics under He Who Shall Not Be Named's pay. Slate had gained more of a voice then the rest of them, because Slate was the compartment were their healing abilities were stored, and Calley had made the mistake of keeping those powers separate from his usual shifting. But Slate aside, the clutter was there. And Calley was beginning to suspect that the clutter was no mental disorder. Abyss had thought he was crazy when he heard voices as a kid; years later, the big red guy had discovered that each of those voices had its own personality, and body, and mind. That's why Calley was here today: to test a theory. The theory was simple.
Hypothesis: he wasn't crazy. Slate and the clutter were like Abyss and his clones; a mutation, not a mental disorder. The Italian teenager gave himself a shake. Let the testing begin.
He sat down on the floor, and stretched out a hand. A large gray Irish wolfhound appeared, its head under his palm, its large brown eyes suddenly allowing him to see his own face; blue eyes looking into brown, in a feedback loop in his head. The most confusing thing about the sudden sensory doubling was that it wasn't confusing at all. It felt natural. Completely, and simply. This was his mutation.
This is the form you wanted, right?
Yes. It is the one I am most familiar with.
This was his mutation, but it wasn't his mutation at its fullest. Up until now, if he didn't remain in physical contact with his splinters, they died: there was no mind in them to keep them going. But they had the physical structure for it; each of his splinters had a brain in the proper location, last he'd checked. And Calley... well, Calley had minds to spare.
How will we know if it works?
Quiet, please. I am concentrating. ...And I do not know.
Frequently, in their own mind, Calley and Slate had wrestled for dominance; the act of pushing each other aside had always seemed almost physical. This was a logical step, really. A frogger's road hop of logic. For the first time, instead of trying to push Calley aside to make room for himself, Slate was trying to find his own room. The apartment was too crowded: he was seeking his own place. The wolfhound's large brown eyes stared at Calley. Brown into blue. Then, brown blinked, and cocked its head slightly.
And Calley's mind felt a little less cluttered.
This is weird. Are you in? How does it feel?
...Quiet.
Okay. You ready?
Let us begin.
The teenager took his hand off of the dog's scruffy head, and settled it onto his knee with a sudden uncertainty. It was like walking up the stairs, and forgetting what you'd gone there for: suddenly, there was something missing. Something important. Something that he really shouldn't have misplaced.
The wolfhound tilted its head, with an uncertain tail wag. It sniffed the air. Calley blinked at it. Why was there a wolfhound, again?
I believe it worked, a sudden voice said in his mind. It wasn't his own, that was for sure. Calley gave a start.
Ah, that's great. He answered the voice. Which might not have been wise. Voices in your head, and all. They were kind of like candy-bearing strangers on the street: best not to talk to them. The wolfhound took a few cautious steps, its legs uncoordinated; it tripped, falling muzzle-first into the floor. Heh. Doggie face plant. First time he'd seen that. What was with that dog, anyway? He was in the Danger Room--was Neena feeling especially creative with her holograms today? If the thing popped laser-mounted guns out of its shoulders, he was buying that woman dinner. Seriously.
...I am experiencing minor difficulties in motor coordination.
That's unfortunate, Calley replied neutrally, blinking at his surroundings. The Danger Room. Neena. Huh. Who was Neena, again? And why was he sitting on the ground in a place called the Danger Room? Calley stood up, looking around. Door. Door, door, door. Shiny wall, shiny wall, shiny metal wall--where were you hiding your door, shiny metal wall? This place was creepy. Silent. Empty. Except for Scruff McGruff over there, taking a bite out of the floor.
Huh. Something here was... off. Calley stared down at his feet. His hands. He gave a little hop. And that's about when he placed it: holy cow. He was tall. Hey, shiny wall--come a little closer. No? Okay; Calley walked to it, instead. Peered closely at the reflection in its surface. Woah. Woah, woah, woah. He poked his nose, just to confirm: yes, that reflection appeared to be him.
Woah. Holy cow, he was old.
...I do not appear to be able to stand again. My heart rate is also beginning to behave erratically. I believe it may be wise to 'reset' things, as it were. This was good progress for our first attempt.
It sure was, Calley answered off-handedly. He pulled down one eyelid. Stuck out a tongue. Crinkled his nose. Yep; yep, that was definitely him. Twelve year old him was apparently an adult now. So... this was a dream. Awesome. Could he fly? Because that would be sweet.
In the blink of an eye, a raven stood where the teenager had. It cawed a sharp laugh at its reflection, strutting a step to admire itself. Yeah. Yeah, this was sweet.
...Calley, what are you doing?
Flying, Calley answered. The crow took a few running steps--kicked off the little pile of clothing that was tangling its feet--and launched itself into the air. Flying: the best thing to do in a lucid dream. This was a pretty good sized room, but it was still a little cramped to hold the sheer awesomeness of flight: could he make the roof disappear?
...Calley, if you would reabsorb this splinter now, that would be a wise idea. Unless you would prefer if I died. Its heart has stopped.
SLAM.
No. No, he could not make the roof disappear. And it was rather solid. Just so you know. The raven hicced in midflight, correcting itself out of the fall, and set itself up into a cramped circle in the confined space. Cramped, cramped, cramped. The Danger Room sucked for flying.
Calley?
Yeah?
Calley!
What? That last little shout had been way quieter. And then he was alone, without crazy-talking-voice.
Honestly, it made the dream a lot less interesting. This better not be one of those ones that turned into a nightmare, where he just couldn't escape. Flying was fun. Endless circling in a shiny-walled quote-unquote Danger Room? Not so fun. On the bright side: dead dog on the ground! Heh. He was a crow.
He landed by the dog. Strutted around it, somewhat self-importantly. The wolfhound had stopped its twitching efforts to stand with its mouth half-open; the pink tongue lolled out over white teeth. The brown eyes were open and unstaring. Yep. Yep, friends, that was a dead, dead dog. And there was only one thing for a dead dog and a dream-trapped crow to do. Calley pecked at its side.
The moment his beck touched, the crow shuddered to a halt. It was like he'd walked upstairs, and forgotten what he's gone there for. Now he remembered.
Slate.
Calley.
Err...
You forgot me.
Hey, you forgot how to walk. And have a heartbeat. I mean, who really screwed up, there?
You forgot me?[/color]
Look on the bright side: at least I wasn't [/i]actually trying to kill you. It would have been easy. In retrospect.
...Were you eating me?[/color]
...Maybe?
...This was a less successful first attempt than I had thought.
The pink fairy armadillo walked in place, its long-clawed feet sliding against the stainless steel floor of the Danger Room with the clicks of fraying claw ends and the slight scuffs of hard-padded feet. It was an endangered species--they had copied its form through somewhat less than legal channels, when Calley had tagged along with Frank Newton while he went to procure some likewise less than legal materials for Doc Jimmy. Its armored forehead was pressed flat against one wall. It walked diligently forward, its hard tail dragging on the ground, regardless of the fact there was no where to go.
On the floor across the room, sitting cross-legged in a half-lotus position, the Italian teenager with the baby blue eyes watched with a satisfied nod of his head.
They were making progress. And Slate had been wrong: Calley hadn't forgotten Slate at all, the first time they'd tried this. He'd simply had no way of remembering him. It wasn't just their body they were splintering. It was their mind, and their memories.
The small armadillo kept walking, its head against the wall, as if the unmoving ground were a treadmill. It did not know why it was walking. It did not know that it was the splinter of a mutant, or that it was a desert species, or that the wall would never move: none of these things were in its mind, nor did any of them matter. It had no memories before the moment it had begun walking, from across the room. All it knew was a single command: walk. And so it did. And so it would continue to do, they suspected, until it collapsed of exhaustion. Or until they tested a theory.
Come back, Calley called to it. The pinkish gray animal kept up its inanely loyal walking.
You are doing it improperly. You must pitch your thoughts differently.
And you've been looking through the clutter's memories of that thesaurus again. What, do you want to try? Go for it.
Come back, Slate commanded. The palm-sized animal stopped its walking for a moment. Then, as if dismissing a thought that did not make sense, it continued. Stop walking. Turn 180 degrees counter-clockwise. Walk.
The little animal responded precisely as well as a remote control car. Stop, Slate commanded again, somewhat smugly, as it approached their foot. Calley stared down at the armadillo. It did not stare back. Its gaze was straight ahead: its eyes blinked now and then, but there was no glimmer of interest for its surroundings, no curiosity for existence. It had stopped. That was its existence.
...Pitch my thoughts. Riiight. Anyway, are you ready to try this again?
Indeed. Please do not kill me, this time.
...I'll try to keep that in mind. A more literal statement than one might think. The Italian teenager stretched out a hand, loosely clenched. Only his leading finger tapped on top of the small animals head. In that moment, Slate's consciousness slid away from his own, joining with a mind that only knew of walking and walls.
The armadillo raised its head, a glimmer of calculating intelligence in its squinty eyes. Let us begin.
With a nod, the teenager took the small notepad out of his pocket, and readied its page in front of his face. Then, and only then, did he move away his hand.
And blinked. And stared at the notepad that was, for some reason, being held--by himself, no less--in front of his face.
1) Who is Slate? Answer out loud.
The short list was written in his own hand writing. He could feel the pencil he'd used to write it, stabbing into his leg in his pants pocket. He didn't really remember writing it, though. Not per say. "Ah..." He answered the notepad's command; "Slate is... a name for a blackboard? One of those little ones, like you'd see in an old school house. I think." Most blackboards didn't qualify as a 'Who', but he wasn't quite sure what note-Calley was getting at. The next point looked like it had been scrawled onto the page after the rest of the note was written; it was somewhat more hurried in its slanting letters than the rest of the writing.
1 A) Is the armadillo breathing?
[/i]
"What arma--?"
Look down.
[/i]
"--dillo. Huh." The thing next to his foot was about three and a half inches long, with a pinkish shell on top that might in some universe relate it to an armadillo. Honestly, though, it looked more like a mole to him. A white-furred mole, with really long claws, and kind of an impatient way of staring up at him. "Yes," he answered finally.
Yes, I am. Thank you for checking, it impatiently spoke. Keep reading,
1 B) If the armadillo is not breathing, touch the armadillo now. Otherwise, continue.
2) Is the armadillo speaking?
[/i]
"...Yes."
3) Ask the armadillo what the first and last things it remembers are.
[/i]
Calley blinked down at the moleish critter that had some very large claws very close to his bare foot, and asked, "Err... what are the first and last things you remember?"
I... It appeared that these were hard questions for a talking moladillo. Calley gave an encouraging nod, but suspected that the critter didn't appreciate it. ...I remember an apartment. I believe it was my own. I was... a hawk, I believe. I had a broken wing. Then I healed it.[/color] Another encouraging nod. The last thing I remember is... Asking you not to kill me, and stating that we should begin.[/color] It tilted its head. That was not a particularly armamole-like action. I believe I am your split personality. Or you are mine, perhaps.
Calley believed it was a hybrid of a mole, a lab mouse, and a pill bug. They were both entitled to their opinion. And really, he wasn't about to argue with a talking pink-white-claw-adillo.
4) Show the armadillo this note.
Calley blinked. Then he lowered the notepad to the floor. "It's for you."
The armadillo squinted its little eyes. ...What are the first and last things you remember?
Well, this was surreal. Calley answered. Because that's what you do, when you're sitting in a room you don't recognize, taking orders from a note you don't remember writing, holding a conversation with a small animal you never saw in National Geographic. "Err... Probably the first thing is... my sister. I think I was three and she was eight, or something. She had this stepladder out, and she had my bowl of cheerios, and I wanted them back... but she was climbing up onto the kitchen counter. And then... she threw them. At the ceiling fan. And it snowed cheerios. I laughed. Then my dad came in, and he asked what happened, and she convinced him that I had done it, somehow.
"The last thing I remember... err," his shoulders tensed where he sat. "Hunter. And being in a lot of pain. And gray."
...Do you sense any gaps in your memory? The armathingiedohickeymabobbin asked, clearly still reading.
"Err... no?" He paused to think that one over. Fragmented baby years, check; vague memories of elementary school, yep; entirely too-vivid memories of middle school, including such joys as his mother's death, father's remarriage, puberty, and discovery of abilities--all present and accounted for, with many Lor-Calley escapades brightening them up. Flunking out of ninth grade, disowning, and running to New York: ...yeah. Two years as a cat: in scent-of-a-mouse-breathed-over-his-tongue detail. Then following Isabel to the Sanctuary, then deciding to take his human form again--then Hunter, then the Kabal, then... pain. And... maybe an apartment after that. And a hawk? He did remember being a hawk. A hawk with a broken wing.
Nothing about a stainless steel room or a mole-mouse, though.
"Yeah. No gaps," he concluded, more confidently.
...Touch the armadillo, the armadillo read. They looked at each other. Calley grinned nervously. The armadillo had a vaguely got ahead and try it manner of standing atop its clawed legs. Seriously, how could it be so small, but have claws that big?
Slowly, slowly, slowly, he stretched out a finger, and poked the top of its head.
"Oh," Calley remembered. "Hi, Slate."
You always forget me, Slate chided.
Yeah. Well, that was kind of the point, this time. We did it, right? We separated the memories at the point we wanted: when you were born. And hey! You didn't die!
Not this time, Slate said, in a tone that was not entirely pleased.
Calley remembered that they had been doing this for the better part of the morning. Yeah. Some fine-tuning might still be in order. But look, ma--two bodies, and two heartbeats!
Nothing said progress like a remote-controlled pink fairy armadillo with a heart beat. The fact that they were starting to understand how to split up their memories was nice, too.
It was in learning to splinter their mind, and split up their memories, that they found it. It was buried deep in the clutter.
It was nothing of theirs.
They knew immediately what it was; they had known it was there since last winter, when a conversation with Iris in the Mondragon Labs hallways had proven them unable to talk about certain subjects.
The time was several weeks later. Booking the Danger Room was hard to do; the novelty of being able to practice freely in it hadn't worn off yet, though, so book it they did. Splintering could be practiced anywhere, however, so they hadn't waited on their next Danger Room appointment to continue practicing what they'd begun. Slate had met Leila in that time, and gone on his date with her. Calley had spent a night at the Sanctuary, and met Kitra and Abyss in the morning. Well, Pluto, actually. But the meeting had been as monkey tail filled as if Abyss had been there. Those exceptions aside... every morning, they had practiced, at least for a little while, until Calley had gotten too frustrated or Slate too dulled with a redundancy that was no where close to perfection. Sometimes they only splintered once or twice before giving up. Sometimes they spent hours at it, forgetting who and what they were, walking into walls, struggling to breathe; progressing beyond 'walk', to 'explore the room'; moving from dulled eyes that stared straight forwards to a kitten that attacked a lime green squeaky hedgehog with simplistic glee while a teenage boy watched with stoic satisfaction. It was a few weeks later, and they were much better at this splintering business.
It was eight days since Slate had last been accidentally killed. They were beginning to relax, in that regard: Calley seemed to have acquired a basic mastery over creating at least one additional splinter that could survive without being in physical contact with him. On good days, he could do two, though they weren't exactly candidates for Mensa. Body splintering was easy; memory and mind splintering was proving itself to be the tricky part.
It was in that splintering that they found something that did not belong. Amongst the broken up fragments of wood that made up their mind was a single metal screw. It was deeply rooted: there was no way to pull it out. Remove all the wood surrounding it, though... and there was left something self-contained, free-floating, and entirely foreign. It didn't whisper and hum and bicker and remember trivial facts about the state capital of Utah, like the rest of the clutter: it just stayed where it had been put, doing what it had been put there to do.
Calley wasn't a spy, per say. He liked to consider himself more of a free agent who graciously accepted a pay roll from Mondragon Labs for living his life exactly as he would have done otherwise. It wasn't spying; it was information gathering. A hobby that he had been forced to employ by Hunter Antonescu. And he may have possibly potentially told Abyss everything he knew about the man; strengths and weaknesses. The immortal may have taken offense to this, and this may have lead to his seventeen year old self being strapped into a chair that had an on/off switch. Unpleasantries best forgotten had followed. Unpleasantries, and a mesmer that hadn't just left him unwilling to talk about Hunter's business ever again--it had, literally, left him unable. The Kabal's founder was a telepath, to a degree. And Calley had gotten mind screwed.
Literally.
It had taken them three days. As the cold, dim sunlight of a Winter in New York streamed in through the Mansion windows, the small white cat with black spots here and there missed the Danger Room session it had reserved weeks ago. It was sitting on the rumpled covers of its bed, toying with a mouse.
A swat of a paw sent it flying across the bed. It lay against the pillow, unmoving. The cat's small body sunk low to the sheets. Its ears were back; its pupils were fully dilated, and oh so black. Its tail slowly rose into the air, parallel to the bed, and its rump rose with it.
Pounce.
The mouse did not move as the tom rolled onto its back, mouse between its clawed forepaws, and dealt it a series of hard thumps with its hind legs. The rodent's head hung limply, its pink eyes unseeing.
The thing they had found in their mind was no part of them. They had just given that alienation a rather concrete form. Hunter's little gift to seal their mouth was isolated now, in the form of a white feeder mouse that had no will to respond as the cat lazily mauled its head. Mouse forms were a dime a dozen. They wouldn't miss this one at all. Calley would probably leave it in the woods behind the Mansion, or in one of the younger children's shoes. But first... they had several months of unplesantries to return to the unthinking order that Hunter had placed into their unwilling mind.
This probably shouldn't be so satisfying, the little tom purred, rolling onto its side, kicking the mouse off to the far reaches of its front paws. It stretched lazily, running a merry claw down the rodent's side. But it is. It really, really is.
Slate had been unusually quiet during all this. It was not from disapproval: he was certain of that. Slate felt the same feeling of cleansing that he did, now that their mind was their own again. Does every employee of Antonescu have something like this in their mind?
Probably, Calley returned lazily, dragging himself across the covers by his claws to bite the mouse's ear. It would explain that fanboy loyalty that all the guards seem to have.
...That is wrong.
Yeah, 'fanboy' might not be the best term. Maybe 'jihadist', if you want to go politically incorrect about it.
No. That is not what I mean. It is wrong that they have something like this in their minds. How many of them are even aware of it?
Probably not too many. Took us a few months to figure it out, and that was only because we triggered it in a situation where it was blatantly obvious that something was shutting our mouths for us.
Does it not bother you?
Not any more, it doesn't, the little cat purred, rubbing the scent gland under its cheek against its limp captive.
...Does it not bother you that others are imprisoned by something of that man's make inserted in their own minds, as we were? It is a violation of their free will. They cannot even fight against it, if they do not know of its existence.
The tom ran a coarse tongue against the grain of the mouse's fur. It was getting bored; it would be time to end this, soon.
...May I try something?
It was several weeks later. It had taken them three days to separate Hunter's order from their mind, once they found it. It took Slate precisely one hour and seventeen minutes to learn how to edit one basic element of the mesmer: where the command to silence read 'Hunter Antonescu', he changed it to 'Slate'.
The next morning, they went to Mondragon Labs. In their mind, the modified order rode with them.
((ooc: Continued in "Edit", Slate's Kabal takeover.))
