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.
Gauging the passage of time was an imprecise and tedious task even when one was fully rested and in complete command of their mental faculties, endeavoring to do so whilst one was in the center of a cyclone and their thoughts disrupted by ever minor breeze and howling gale was nothing more than an exercise in futility and thus Zephyr made not even the slightest attempt; he had more than enough to concern himself with as it was.
Simply striving to apprehend everything his spatial perception inundated him with occupied the preponderance of his assiduity leaving him with little thought to spare on such a nugatory effort as measuring the passage of one moment to the next. Instead the dazed elemental focused his tenuous mental grasp on the hebetation of his volumetric vision; to elide the flooding tide of awareness where he could in order to grant himself a reprieve with to not only think, but act.
Because clearly something had to be done.
He could feel Ghost's attempts to lock the root of the cyclone in place but her hold was faint and seemed to wear away with each rotation of the wind. The sylphs efforts were admirable certainly, but they were only sufficient in stalling for time. The pale ingénue just didn't have the raw power necessary to bring the entire twister to a standstill, and nor did he in his present state, the thing had simply gained far too much momentum to be wrestled to the ground like an unruly child.
That was not to say the storm was insuperable however, far from it, merely that the current modus was ill suited to the current task. There was more than one way to skin a cat after all, and if the increased coherency of his thoughts and gradually increasing sting across his cheek were any indication, whatever had impelled his debilitated state was finally beginning to fade and the realization caused a silent sigh of relief to escape the mercenary's lips just as a slender hand fell into his own and was hastily snatched away.
Silence reigned across the elementals perceptions for a second time as the fading tide of spatial awareness tore a path back into his mind with all the grace and subtlety of a landslide, and in its wake was a sense of calidity which lanced across the length of his spine and down his limbs, gaining intensity as it sought a way out and found none until, abruptly, it made its own.
Zephyr barely had the presence of mind to curse before his form dissipated and vanished into the towering torrent of wind.
'fml'
Cafas: "Zephyr is the king of bad decisions, but if Sebby being weak to ghost is anything to go by, not so amazing at follow through."
'Two wrongs don't make a right. Two wrongs don't make a right.' Ghost repeated the phrase to herself in her head as a mantra to inspire herself to greater feats of strength. It was already getting to that point. Not even half of the way into tornado, her attempt was at just about maximum capacity. It only seemed to elongate the eye of the storm rather than keep any of its destructive force from happening. She might even be making this worse. Didn't a bigger tornado mean, bigger destruction?
She was leaning now against an invisible force. Her arms held out and up looked for all the world as if they were braced against the tornado. She wanted to push the eye of the storm and make its shape irregular so that it could not easily sustain its rotation, but her power could only do so much. Two wrongs did not make a right.
But three lefts would...
The ivory haired girl dropped her hands and her efforts to turn left. Zephyr was incorporeal and looked as if he were being poured upward, well... maybe pulled was a better word. Pulled like taffy. Pulled like she knew her extremities were being pulled. Even now her fingers were indistinguishable trails of ether.
She turned left and took two long legged strides back toward her friends. Maybe she could catch hold of Zephyr, to help pull him together, but by the time she was there, he was gone.
She turned left when she grabbed Svetlana's shoulders with wide and wild eyes. In a moment of sheer brilliant panic Maya planted a big, fat kiss on Svetlana's lips.
With these three lefts they could make this right.
The effect was instantaneous. The moment Ghost's lips broke contact the sylph was transformed. Poof. Incorporeal. Svetlana, whose shoulders Ghost had been holding onto, was also instantaneously transformed. Their visions automatically changed to mass-based sight. It was all so very clear. Tendrils of air curled away from them appearing in their sight as purest white. Any mass was darkest black and everything else was something in between. They could be a new epicenter of destruction. Or the force that stopped it all.
Those fingers of air reached out to join and feed the tornado. She couldn't do anything to keep them from mingling into the storm. Her power was turned on and it wanted to do something, anything. So she had to figure something out fast. She wanted to stop the tornado.
So that's what she would settled for. Any air that came in contact with her body fell under her influence and she told that air to do one thing and one thing only.
Stop. Just stop.
Her influence spread over the molecules like an ocean's wave that didn't ever pull back. She kept her goal in mind. Stop. She couldn't do much, but she could do this. Holding the air was still doing something and maybe that was the simplest answer of all. She made everything under her influence come to an abrupt and immediate halt.
A vibration started at the center of the storm. The clouds wanted to continue to turn, but there were invisible disruptions in the shape of it. If the tornado were an ice cream maker, Ghost was the creeping ice that caught the churn and kept it from rotating. For her, each moment made it easier. The more of the air that had stopped, the less momentum that the storm had as a whole.
The tornado flickered and died.
The energy of the air was wild and tense as if the world was taking one big breath and holding it in. She couldn't do much. But she could do this. She stopped the tornado.
((OOC: Ghost has initiated level 3 contact with Muse. Ten minute haywire countdown begins now. If I need to edit anything please let me know.))
A few very confusing, disturbing, and downright scary things happened at once. Or, almost at once.
Confusing: Dio vanished. Disturbing: the tornado seemed to get an extra boost. Downright scary: Maya had just kissed her on the lips.
Boy will they have a lot to talk about once this was over. Or, rather, not talk about... Sveta hoped she would live to see that.
And then, the next moment, she was a ghost.
Losing your body when you least expect it is not a pleasant experience. Sveta panicked; she could feel and sense and hear a lot of things, and at the same time she missed many of her usual senses. Many people would have freaked in a situation like that. Sveta freaked too. She just didn't really know what to do about it.
The tornato slowed down... very, evry slowly. She could feel the tension in the air, powers working against each other. It finally stopped; Sveta had no idea what just happened, or what was going to happen next. She just hoped it would be over soon, one way or another.
*italics are spoken in Russian* Thanks to Siren for the sig and avi!
There is little that can compare to the sublimation of one's physical form. The sense of separation as flesh diverged from bone; disconnecting nerves along limbs and spine rendering them unnaturally numb as the mind attempts to comprehend the alteration. Then there was the short but noticeable chill as blood drained from ethereal tissue; the crimson fluid sharing its heat with the surrounding air for the briefest of instants before vaporizing and dispersing chaotically across the sky like leaves swallowed by a volatile gale.
Loss of corporeality was only one half of the transformation however, the second comprised a rather more cerebral element as the mind struggled to adapt to the loss of awareness as each sensory organ was inevitably rendered null as it faded into the aether. Sight vanished completely, leaving nothing but an atramentous void. Touch diminished by degrees, inducing a sense of loss and vulnerability which only increased as the entire body deteriorated. Hearing ceased somewhat more swiftly, but was replaced by a disconcerting if spurious imitation which reverberated in a recondite manner and was not in the least reassuring. Most disconcerting however was the inability to breathe which, aggregated with everything else, caused the sublimation to take on a disturbing if ersatz semblance of death.
And all of this occurred in only a handful of moments.
Given such circumstances panic would be a perfectly natural reaction. It is after all an instinct which has thrived under the evolutionary process for countless generations, forcing one to disregard all else and focus on a single choice of fight or flight when under a great deal of stress. In the world today however fight or flight are rarely viable options and thus whenever either choice is employed the end result generally proves ineffective lending the overall response a rather dissentaneous repute.
Still, mankind is nothing if not adaptive and panic is only an instinct, albeit a deep rooted one. In the right circumstances it can be subverted, channeled, and put to more efficient use than its original design. The fear of losing himself amongst the roaring maelstrom, of being unable to regain his form and sense of self, provided a rather potent incentive to cast out with what elements of his power he could control and attempt to fight the transformation, as he had almost every time in the past.
In this case however there was something different; the shift had altered something in his mind in a manner he had never noticed before. Abruptly, as though he had been launched from the depths of the ocean and onto the shore, the strain which had surrounded his thoughts disappeared. For what felt like the first time in an age Zephyr found himself thinking clearly; considerations, contemplations, musings and speculations flowing without interruption. The chaos of his spatial awareness was still present but it had somehow been subdued, no longer a flood which threatened to drown him but a river which could be traversed at will.
The sense of relief was staggering and was only compounded when something took hold at the center of the raging winds and brought nearly everything to a standstill; the artificial calm allowing Zephyr an added degree of peace which provided a more than adequate counterbalance to the initial panic which had first shot through him. The experience had not become pleasant by any means but in comparison to his prior state it was certainly tolerable, even if all he could perceive of the world was that which interacted with the now motionless air in some bizarre imitation of echolocation which nonetheless managed to depict a rather vivid scene.
The most notable detail was, of course, the floating debris; ranging from dust and pebbles to full grown trees and various mutilated masses of what seemed like metal and were assumedly all that remained of the many cars and vans which had littered the Mondragon grounds. The wreckage was scattered at all heights over what had been the eye of the storm though it became noticeable thicker between two and twelve story’s, yet a glance further afield showed that some of the debris had actually managed to escape the tornadoes grasp and launched a fair distance before crashing and scarring the earth.
On the subject of scarred earth… Mondragon Labs was gone. There was the occasional skeletal remains of a buildings first floor which had adamantly refused to release its foundations, and the subterranean network of halls and corridors seemed to have suffered only a number of cave ins, but for the most part anything above ground had been demolished. Nothing was moving, or at least, not noticeably so.
A small part of Zephyrs thoughts remarked that he should feel something more than his current apathy for causing destruction on such a large scale, even if it had been unintentional. The elemental swiftly dismissed the uncomfortable thought by attributing his lack of reaction to a mixture of shock and the lack of clarity his special senses provided before turning his attention to less disconcerting matters, such as how a raging tempest fueled by his own unfocused strength had been brought to such an abrupt termination.
He did not have to look far and the answer was less than copacetic.
The cyclone had not been ended so much as enfettered. The mercenary could still feel his own tumultuous power straining haphazardly against a far more organized and tenacious force, one which was all too familiar yet also different. A frown crossed the ethereal semblance of the hessians features as he reconnoitered what appeared to the edges of the sylphs influence, finding some small solace in discovering that his own range eclipsed the girls own. In all the time he had known Ghost though the pale haired gamine had never demonstrated strength anywhere near his own and so her sudden ability to confine him was not entirely pleasing.
That wasn’t to say he was unappreciative for her actions, the ingénue had done what was necessary and likely prevented the twister from reaching beyond the labs and causing even greater havoc. Despite that though the British elemental couldn’t help but chafe under his counterparts influence and the temptation to test her hold now that he had regained a measure of control was substantial. After a moments deliberation however Zephyr’s sense of caution prevailed… for the most part.
Breaking the ingénues grasp in the current circumstances would serve little purpose in the long run, for while he would gain some degree of satisfaction, the resulting lack of restriction would require him to focus rather intently on preventing his powers from doing anything else untoward which was likely to be something of a chore until Svetlana’s effects began to wane.
There was also Ghost herself to consider; the sylph was pleasant enough most of the time but, like all women, was capable of causing untold aggravation if the smallest thing should cause her to feel wronged. Considering that he intended to continue requesting her assistance in improving his conscious control over the ethereal shift he’d just been forced through, it would be prudent to avoid antagonizing the girl unduly.
That being said though there were other, less drastic methods of recourse available and after a moments contemplation Zephyr found himself warming to the new idea. Violence and vehemence had their place yes, but the elemental had always preferred more subtle displays of strength; they tended to be rather more effective in the long run. In any case the air had been silent for far too long; the ambience was in danger of becoming melancholy.
The words required more effort than the mercenary had initially anticipated but after a brief handful of seconds the Kabal member managed to induce the proper vibrations in a patch of air contiguous to where he believed the preponderance of Ghosts own essence resided.
“…I will admit this is not quite what I unexpected. That being said Maya could I perhaps persuade you to ease your hold somewhat? Though I do enjoy these intimate sessions I would like to pull myself together slightly, however I’m afraid you have a fairly firm grip on some rather crucial parts of my form.”
The elementals cadence was faintly distorted but still came across as blasé while at the same time managing to convey a mixed sense of aloof condescension and amusement, had his features been visible a slight but noticeable smirk would have graced the corners of his lips and he would have done his best to ensure he was glancing down at the sylph.
It was admittedly, a touch jejune but then again in the present circumstances he only dared do so much. The words themselves were really nothing more than a distraction, designed to tweak his counterpart’s patience and nerve rather than break it and also, possibly, set her at ease to some degree by making what light he could of the situation. Beneath the words however was a message which could be construed as somewhat insidious in nature. Ghost had brought all the air to a standstill, and in an environment devoid of motion silence reigned; by introducing his supercilious comment Zephyr had demonstrated that he was no longer helpless and that his command of the air still equaled, if not outright surpassed, the gamines own augmented strength.
It was an act of both reassurance and dominance combined, whether Maya would comprehend the duality of his request was uncertain but if nothing else the act at least gave the hessian a small measure of satisfaction. Admittedly though he was looking forward to whatever response the girl would give; one of her more entertaining talents was, metaphorically speaking, the ability to consistently place her foot in her mouth.
A curious sense of motion drew the British elementals attention and he briefly diverted his consciousness from what had been the eye of the rogue tempest to a stretch of highway some distance from the remains of the Labs. From what little the mercenary could tell within the limitations of his spatial awareness traffic had ground to almost a halt, the outlines of vehicles gradually inching forwards in either direction. What drew the hessians interest however was a bizarre collection spheres scattered amongst a rather swiftly moving convoy progressing along the outmost edges of the road.
The orbs ranged in size from approximately five to twenty feet in diameter, despite their dimensions though they were somehow capable negotiating openings far smaller, seemingly passing through guardrails and other vehicles without leaving any signs of damage. It was almost as though they were incorporeal, yet it occurred to the elemental that if that indeed were the case he shouldn’t have been able to distinguish them at all.
By themselves the strange globes merely represented an unknown quantity, somewhat disconcerting yes given what they inferred but not currently a cause of concern. It wasn’t until the strange convoy selected a path leading dangerously close to Mondragon that their implications became decidedly worrying.
“I don’t mean to rush you Ghost but I believe we’ll be having some rather unpleasant company shortly unless we get moving rather quickly.”
Cafas: "Zephyr is the king of bad decisions, but if Sebby being weak to ghost is anything to go by, not so amazing at follow through."
> “…I will admit this is not quite what I expected."
Anger flared in Ghost's chest. What had he expected? He touched her! The feeling of her hands tightened on Sventlana's incorporeal form even though technically there was no body to be feeling it. The sylph didn't dare open her mouth to reply. She even had her eyes tightly shut... or what felt like eyes tightly shut. The feeling made zero difference in her sight in this form, but that was just how she felt. Like everything was squeezed tight and held firm. If she changed one thing, it was all going to get away from her. If she gave him an inch, he was sure to get a mile. She had payed for every inch already with that uh... well, with the kiss. She wasn't about to go and make that act meaningless for the sake of banter.
> "...perhaps persuade you to ease your hold somewhat?"
She shook her incorporeal head. No one would be able to tell what that was so she squeezed a single word out through her teeth to accompany the action. "Can't." He was teasing and relaxed. There were lots of subtle tones to his voice. There was only one for Ghost's. Strain. There was a lot that she was controlling that she normally could not. This was a brain-stretching exercise already. No way could she let any part of it go.
> I don’t mean to rush you Ghost but I believe we’ll be having some rather unpleasant company shortly..."
He tried a different tactic and truly, she felt something slam into the near immovable air at the edge of her control. It sounded like a car wreck. Maybe it was. She couldn't exactly tell at this range, but she was guessing that it was police or rescue vehicles that wanted in to the affected area for rescue purposes and she was hindering that with her lockdown.
Did that meant that they had to leave? Should she make Zephyr stay an answer for his foolish selfish act of touching Svetlana? The idea of trying to make Zephyr do anything made her stomach churn. Slate and Sebastian were keen on keeping Svetlana safe. Ghost could not guarantee her safety if she was in jail or mutant prison lock down or if she even let the other mutant out of her sight. She intended to keep Svetty away fro the police, but without Svetlana it would be pretty much impossible to explain Zephyr's crime.
"Svetty," She could feel the edges of her control already crumbling from the lack of continued stoney will. How long she had held it already, she couldn't be sure. It had felt like forever. Ghost was only really sure of one thing. "I won't let them take you. It's my job to protect you and I need to do better than I have today. I'm sorry." The air elemental had long since abandoned what she had meant to do with her day today. This was her number one priority now.
So... she let go. Not of Svetlana. Her best defense of the girl was to keep her incorporeal, but everything else she left to the wind. Mondragon was already gone. Ingram was going to be so cross with her for this.
"You'd better help me keep this from getting out of hand." What would happen? Elastic rebound? Another funnel? Nothing?
>>"Svetty, I won't let them take you. It's my job to protect you and I need to do better than I have today. I'm sorry."
Sveta as still not sure what was happening; being incorporeal was something new, and she was too occupied with pulling her senses together. She heard Maya's voice, and it was all weird. But what she was saying felt a bit comforting; a little bit. Let who? Take her where? Why? How?...
>>"You'd better help me keep this from getting out of hand."
"I don't know if I can" she muttered, not even sure if she was speaking or just thinking. What was happening to Dio? The wind stopped, but... was he around? She did not want to accidentally touch him again... "Vat can we do now?"
Maya had kissed her and stopped the tornado. Did she want to kiss her again? It could be weird...
*italics are spoken in Russian* Thanks to Siren for the sig and avi!
Ghost's response did not come immediately, and for a moment Zephyr wondered if his words had reached the sylph's senses or simply attenuated against the aberrant quiescence before reaching their intended recipient. When the pale gamine eventually managed to choke out her laconic retort it was all but lost amongst the sudden seism which rippled throughout the semi solid air as the curious column of vehicles bearing down upon Mondragon's ruins collided violently with the borders of the ethereal ingénues influence.
The resulting pileup likely would have been quite the site, however the unnaturally indistinct auras which had been scattered across the convoy swiftly converged upon the scene, masking it from the hessians awareness and leaving him with nothing more than an obscure stagnant haze against the otherwise untarnished presence of the barely constrained air. Any measure of complacency arising from the collision was short lived though when the aphotic miasma resolutely began to make its way forward, through Ghost's static field of influence.
That was not a good sign.
"Ghost we need to leave."
His voice had lost its earlier trace of levity, shifting to a more grim and serious cadence as he gathered himself, fully intending to wrest control of the air from his counterparts strained grasp and drag her into the open sky if necessary. Zephyr held no illusions regarding the destruction he'd caused; there would be consequences, severe consequences, but only if he were caught. His mutation generally afforded him an unhindered avenue of escape, however the apparent immunity the approaching intruders possessed caused the hessian no small amount of concern and given the scale of his... incident, he was loath to take any unnecessary risks and if this meant ruffling a few of Ghost's feathers it was a price he was willing to pay.
"Svetty, I won't let them take you. It's my job to protect you and I need to do better than I have today. I'm sorry."
"You'd better help me keep this from getting out of hand."[/color]
The elemental bristled slightly at the sylph's final words, although she likely hadn't meant anything by them they implied a lack of control on his part, and although the surrounding destruction wouldn't let him defend his earlier actions he'd always taken a quiet form of pride in the mastery he held over his element. To say he felt a slight need to reaffirm his proficiency would be something of an understatement.
"I'll take care of it."
And he did.
The moment Ghost ceased to fight his own influence the air exploded into motion, franticly seeking to resume its earlier chaos as the unbound energy tore outwards in every conceivable direction in a single instant of freedom before Zephyr strangled it to an utter standstill.
It was by no means a simple feat, his powers were still far above their usual levels and writhed under his grasp searching for any means of escape. In his ethereal state though he found it far easier to filter the mass of perceptions and focus his attentions on the more immediate concerns such as releasing the ingénues below him and granting them a path through the frozen air.
"Take Svetlana and leave, I'll be right behind you."
Next was the various detritus which had been left to hang above the earth was released and allowed to float to the ground, and if some of the larger sections happened to drift and enter a certain obscure aura resulting in a somewhat telling 'Thud'[/i], well... he was hardly at the top of his game after all and so no one could really blame him for one or two minor mishaps which just so happened to delay some unwanted guests.
He would never be able to recall precisely what happened next; one moment he'd been struggling to direct and restrain a veritable cascade of energy, the next he felt as though he'd been dragged through a river of arctic water and found himself scrambling to deal with the sudden return of all his senses and an almost immeasurable degree of exhaustion which was rapidly causing what little vision he'd just regained to darken.
The last thing he saw was the earth below him, far too distant to be comfortable but all too eager to catch up.
Cafas: "Zephyr is the king of bad decisions, but if Sebby being weak to ghost is anything to go by, not so amazing at follow through."
Ghost was relieved that when she let go of the turbulent air that Zephyr was able to wrest it under his control. That freed Ghost to take Svetlana far, far away from whatever was coming their way. And that's what she did. Ghost took the both of them upward, well out of range of anything that might try to hurt them before trying to orient herself in order to navigate them home.
At the edge of her senses, she saw something fall. A body. The air stirred, loosened from its hold.
Zephyr?
It didn't matter who it was. No one deserved to fall to their death like that.
The white-haired elemental reached out and swirled air around the figure. She wasn't as neat as Zephyr with his almost harness-like stiff controlled air, but her trick did the same thing. The air caught the body and slowed its decent before letting it go somewhere much closer to the ground. A 3 foot drop was far better than the original option.
That was the most that Ghost dared do. "Let's go home." Go home and keep their heads down and out of trouble for a while. Zephyr was a big boy. If he couldn't handle this, he would know how to flee.