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.
Professor Holloway's shadow fort was one of the weirdest things Miles had seen in a while. It was like light simply refused to enter a space determined by him, where a girl was now sitting and hiding from sunlight on a bus chair. Like a weirdly shaped bubble of pitch black... stuff, and yet made of absolutely nothing. It was as if someone had taken a picture of the scene and then painted over Victoria with a large, black marker.
Miles approached Victoria's seat, holding on to the handles as the bus moved, followed by Penelope. He offered the younger girl the seat next to Victoria and remained standing, holding with both hands, his head lowered and a knee leaned over the back of the next seat for better support.
"Hey, Victoria. It's Miles" he said, saying his name because if he couldn't see her within the shadow fort, it was very possible she was completely blind from everything around her and she may not be able to recognize his voice immediately. "The bus is moving and we're halfway there, I guess. You're not missing much where scenery is concerned. Once we get there, you won't need the shadow fort, so don't worry and don't be scared. Also, I brought you a friend..." he said, urging Penelope to talk with a nod from his head. "You've got lots of friends here and we're all looking after you."
Miles wasn't sure of this, since he didn't know which kids Victoria hung out with. There was the vaguely familiar blonde boy who was close to Penelope's age, the reddish brown haired girl who was likely a bit older (also vaguely familiar) and she was sitting next to a girl closer to Miles' age than Victoria's. The rest were farther away or weren't even paying attention.
He motioned with his hand for any of them to talk, just so she'd hear their voices and hopefully felt she had company all around her, instead of being alone, enveloped in total darkness.
After seeing his dog and reacting the way she did, Miles thought his teacher wouldn't want anything to do with the animal, but then she went ahead, conquered her fears and actually touched Astor on the head. She was completely safe, the dogs had been instructed since his first days on the school never to attack anyone in the mansion, but she didn't know that, and for someone who seemed to be very into science and a bit on the brainy side, it was a display of courage he didn't expect.
The dog remained unfazed before and after her petting gesture. She then said his mutation peered into mysteries and questions humanity had had for millenia, that he recovered something he had lost and that it wasn't evil per se. Aceptance was key.
"The problem is, just because I'm forced to accept it, doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't have the same level of control that you do" he said, remebering how she shaped that glass sphere into a cube. "When it happens, I don't act like myself and can't even stop it from happening. The only thing I'm glad about is that I turned dogs. I could have turned people and that would have been really hard for me to accept. It would have been vile and wicked if I did and I would prefer to lose someone I care about than bring him back as an unfeeling slave."
And in her last sentence was the answer to his problem. 'Accept what you cannot change, and change what you cannot accept.' He needed to accept his mutation, since he couldn't change it, and train himself to control it, so he wouldn't do anything unacceptable. It was a decent motto to live by. Miles wondered if she lived by it.
"Have you ever done anything bad with your powers? Have they ever gotten out of control?"
I'm in, if and only if this doesn't happen immediately. I'm currently booked and having trouble keeping up during the week, though most of the time I manage to get up to date during the weekend.
Then again, big threads with many players usually move slow (from a single player's perspective) and allow people to skip their turns if necessary. I think the mansion is the best place for it, though that would mostly restrict you to mansionites unless it was some sort of 'open' event and Sanctuary folks were welcome.
I feel like I shouldn't be dipping my spoon in this since I'm not from the states and don't have a clue regarding politics over there (oh, I'm blessed I guess!?) but from a writing perspective, here's my two cents.
1) Handwave the test. Have Talon mention he's studying for it in one thread or another, and then have him have his citizenship a couple of weeks later or what have you, mentioning he passed it. I really don't see much RP potential in this unless you feel tempted to do a solo of it or you find some other foreign character ALSO taking the test.
2) I see potential in a good mutant being in office. If Order members help put him in office, I also see potential in a fallout, or corruption or betrayal or whatever you guys feel like playing. The only concern mods would give you I think is the permanent effects something like this would have. That's for mods to answer though.
3) Then again, I find it hard to believe that a visible mutant who happens to be foreign would actually win, unless there was some cheating in the system (which kind of reminds me of that Heroes plotline with the guy who could fly and the kid who could control electronics making him win). Humans are still a majority and even though there may be people who like mutants or support them, I'm not so sure their support would be large enough to have a visible mutant win an election.
4) The safest, less permanent route would actually be for Talon to try and lose. You get to play your plotline, you get to run a campaign, deal with people trying to bribe you or whatever but in the end, nothing comes out of it. I don't know if that actually feels like a waste of time or as something fun to do. Also, like Fausto mentions, Marcus' character was into the political aspect, Syn may have something to say in this, but most characters on the site aren't that into politics, being students, cops, vigilantes or having their own business.
"Actually... yeah, I think it does" he said as he heard the word his muse had come up with. He then raised his hand, moved it from left to right and tried to visualize the word, hanging there in mid air.
"Nenesloga... Yeah, it has a nice ring to it. Hah! Pun!" Miles said smiling and trying to keep his voice down, but sometimes it wasn't easy. He then went back to his keyboard to continue adding the newest bits in and making edits as he went.
She loved building magical computers until the day she got a magic ring. It was a magic ring with the spells of moving, amnesia and fire! It was such a special magic ring built by magic aliens croatian extraterrestrial beings who named it Nenesloga, the ring of discord.
All right, now came the hard part: Rainbow had to talk.
Writing dialogue wasn't that hard and in fact, it was even fun sometimes, the only problem was... Rainbow was a girl with a magical stutter. Not just that, she lived in a magical kingdom where things like football, skateboarding, videogames or any other things Miles knew and talked about every day were pretty much non-existant. So, what does a wizard girl like Rainbow talk about? Miles tried to think like a girl and bring his character to life.
A friend of Rainbow magically teleported into the magical library and Rainbow greeted her.
"Hihi! OMG how are youuuu!!!?"
No. There was something wrong with it. Something didn't click or sound right. He felt there was something amiss in that sentence...
Crap! He forgot about the magical stutter!
"H-Hihi! O-O-OM-G H-how are y-youu-uuu!!-!?
There was still something wrong with it! Girls spoke like this but he seriously doubted a wizard girl in a magical kingdom would say stuff like that.
"B-By the go-goddess, greet-tings t-to you f-fellow sister of the m-mystical arts, how f-fare thou t-this morning?"
If he had to write such a huge sentence just to say 'Hi!' this story was going to take forever.
"Yo. S-sup?"
Drrrrumm-Drrrrumm-Drrrrumm...
He felt he was going to wear his muse down if he kept asking her questions every time he hit a roadblock. She'd likely just grab his laptop and finish his homework for him just to get him off her hair, but he figured if he started a conversation, he could imitate her speech somehow and put it on his story without her being the wiser. He'd have to be sneaky about it though, make it all seem like polite talk instead of just nagging her with question after question...
Leaning his head to where she was again, he tried to be very nonchalant about it.
Okey, now things started to get a little hairy all of a sudden.
Without his safety net, the suggestions being tossed around among the girls about what to do with him were definitely not to his liking. The redhead (the one sitting next to Isabel, since redheadedness wasn't exactly a unique feature among the amazons) suggested getting his voice box removed, then just getting HIM removed entirely and finding a better model. She said that should be easier because they couldn't fix brain damage, but hey, if it weren't for his 'brain damage', he wouldn't even be here in the first place. That was a major mistake on his part and good luck finding another moron who'd try taking Maxine prisoner. Celeste wouldn't accept your average bandit as her slave and in a post apocalyptic world, people who were well fed and muscular weren't exactly easy prey or abundant. WYSIWYG, honey.
Then it was Isabel's turn to toy with him. Now why did she have to do that? Why? Why did she. have. To do. That? Raising her leg like that to put her feet on the bar while wearing that skimpy get up? WHY!? They were all 'Eeew! you're scrawny!' and 'Eeew! you're dirty!' but they still kept playing with his hormones. Then spines started to grow off every freaking bar on the cage and Miles hormones receded to let neurons take over again. She corraled him to the center of the cage, where he stood still, having nowhere else to go, then she suggested he needed washing and some toning up. Oh, and 'with age comes experience'. Hah. Experience comes through learning. You could be old and still be a bimbo, but Miles kept his mouth shut knowing full well he was not in a position to argue. That's what he had learned in this awful experience.
Medusa came next, suggesting something that didn't even make sense. How could he do laps around his cage and grow muscles when he was being starved? Then she suggested turning the cage into a bath. For girls who were so disgusted with his appearance, they were really in a hurry to get him out of his clothes. When she suggested pain to condition obedience and to teach him manners, he felt the sharp tip of a bone spine pinching at his back. His eyebrows went high up his forehead and sweat started to show on his brow. His dog barked and growled in useless fashion inside his own cage, unable to help his master.
"Now, come on! I can be polite!" he said, his voice even cracking a little, realizing how dangerously close he was to potential torture and death. "There's no need to puncture the goods or rip off my voice box or do anything of the sort!" he pleaded.
"Celeste might like what she sees! She might see in me what you gals are missing! If I clean up and put on some pounds, I could be her fricking Adonis!" he suggested.
Yup. His sentiments exactly. Was this asking too much from him? Wasn't getting blood sucked straight out of you by a fanged mouth in someone's hand a wee bit too much to ask for having your dog maul your arm?
He raised his eyes from the mouth and looked at Lennox straight into his eyes and there he saw it. Was that a hint of desperation? Disappointment? Miles had trouble talking about his mutation with anyone, how difficult must it have been for Lennox to do the same and then have the two people... no, not just the two people, the two mutants who helped you, who fought with you side by side, to suddenly show terror at your mutation. Miles knew quite well from personal experience that mutation was not something people asked for, it just happened. Lennox was likely as repulsed at having to live with his and he could have just as easily tried to fetch his blood dose by force.
But he didn't. He actually came forth and asked. He was brutally honest in doing so and Miles had reacted poorly to it. If Lennox's physiology depended on this to survive and normal medicine couldn't help him, he could very well be in mortal danger. Miles couldn't help feel nervous about it, but if he had questions and Lennox had been honest, then hey, why not ask them?
"Suppose I do this..." he said, opening the gates of possibility to him agreeing to becoming a donor. "What happens to me? Do you need a pint or do you need to suck me dry? Will I have any repercussions I'll regret later, like... you know, growing a mouth in my hand as well?"
These might have seemed like stupid questions to Lennox, but there were real worries behind them. If he agreed and then something went wrong, like Lennox wanting to stay attached for far too long, then Miles could always count on his dogs and maybe even Clyde to pull them apart, but he'd regret having agreed to it in the first place.
He accepted his phone back from Clyde, still studying the possibilities. "I just want to make certain everyone will get to go back home alive. Myself included."
For once, Miles was not the one asking questions but the one being asked a question. His fingers were all over the keyboard but the moment she finished her stutters, he stopped and let his brain juices try and come up with an answer to her question.
No one ever carried a birth certificate on their person. This was probably regarding the bloke who couldn't see his mother, but even if he's not carrying it, it could be tracked down and found, right? Hmm... that's the real issue here, how do you solve that tiny snag?
"Moving" he suggested, since a person could simply move out of their home and leave the birth certificate behind or mixed up somewhere he can't find it. But no, moving was so boring and obvious, it could always use a little more 'oomph!' to it.
"Oooh! How about fire? Fire always solves everything" he said, then realized that might have made him look like a pyromaniac in her eyes, so he quickly added "In fiction at least."
Moving AND Fire. The birth certificate got burnt down. But wait! Just because his birth certificate no longer exists, it doesn't mean it can't be found on some hospital computer, unless the hospital burnt down as well. It was a whole city wide fire. Or maybe his house was right next to the hospital where he had been born, so it was just a two building fire. What a coincidence, huh? But if neither of those two worked, there was always the staple of fiction writing...
"I got it! Amnesia!" he said, as if he had delivered a stroke of brilliance. "He doesn't remember where he keeps his birth certificate or if anyone has it."
His eyes then went as wide as plates as an even better idea now spewed forward.
"OOh! How about all three? He first moved, then the hospital he lived in burnt down, then he got amnesia. And if you leave the amnesia unexplained, it could always work as a lead-in to an alien abduction background."
Then his hands went to both sides of his head as he got the mother of all ideas.
"He moved! His house got burnt down! He has amnesia! And you know why? Because he's a robot! THAT'S why he doesn't have a birth certificate!"
His fingers moved back to the keyboard, but stopped as the last gem of sudden inspiration was dropped at the girl's feet for her to pick up and do as she wished.
"He's a robot built by aliens to spy on us humans and he burnt down his house, deleted his databanks and he's now looking for his mother to eradicate all evidence of his robot-ness"
Surely the girl could see brilliance when it shone so brightly. Hell, his own ideas had inspired him as well.
She loved building magical computers until the day she got a magic ring. It was a magic ring with the spells of moving, amnesia and fire! It was such a special magic ring built by magic aliens who named it...
He frowned. Then leaned a bit to ask his muse.
"That nugget of help I just gave you comes at a price. What's a cool name for a magic ring?"
She went ahead and defined necromancy which actually made Miles uncomfortable to know that that's exactly what he did. The term was used in a sort of esoteric or fantastic way, but in reality, he couldn't think of a better term that defined him. There was so much mumbo jumbo behind it that he still felt it didn't do him justice or fit him in any way. Were necromancers supposed to be fifteen year old, gum chewing teenagers who knew absolutely nothing of the dark arts?
The boy expected his moonwalking dog to at least provide a chuckle, but the woman was so into facts and reasonable things that she found fault in him actually knowing what moonwalking was. She was definitely out of her element here and Miles found it very difficult to make her feel comfortable. Well, she DID want to know what he could do and he had warned her it was 'borderline creepy', so this wasn't really his fault.
Regarding moonwalking, he was pretty straightforward about it: "Well, duh! There's this thing called the internet? And parents who do it at a wedding reception and stuff just to embarrass you with their moves? And when the guy died, they kept showing who he was and what he did on TV on and on? It's not exactly a secret. I thought you'd find it funny. I bet if I had him try his paws at Gangnam style you'd think he was having a seizure, so I went for something I thought you'd know" he said, trying to defend his approach, then slumping his shoulders a little.
"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not exactly proud of what I did or of my mutation in the least. Raising the dead is not the sort of thing I'm interested in mastering but apparently I must at some point in order to control it. I wish I just had a cool mutation like yours instead of something... macabre like I do."
He was patting the dog on its unflinching head as he pretended to make him seem tame and totally harmless, but when he turned to see Professor Stratford, she had put some distance between them and her words were starting to sound less sure of themselves. She was trying to hide it, but apparently she had fallen in the 'regarded them with fear' category. Miles instincts in this case were usually trying to defuse people's fears, specially if they were people he had to deal with on a day to day basis.
"Oh, yeah... well, no... I'm... not really sure myself. I don't think there's any black magic in it or anything of the sort, I just know it happens and I can't help it" he said, once again trying to excuse himself. He placed a hand behind his back as he kept on trying to explain the little he knew about his own genes. "I guess it's not really physics related but... I'm not a necro anything, really. I'm pretty much average and this mutation thing just popped into my life one day."
Noticing the dog's presence wasn't exactly welcome in the room, he tried to 'silly him up' a little.
"Look, there's even a telepathy thing of sorts in the mix as well, since he can understand everything I tell him with my mind."
Miles placed his fingers in his head as if he were concentrating on a mental order. He really didn't need to do that or say his orders aloud, but he did it for his teacher's sake.
"Moonwalk!"
The dog started moving his legs in a weird, unnatural way, but pretty much accomplishing what Miles intended. He started moving backwards while he looked like he was going forward, until his butt crossed the door first and eventually the entire animal was out of the room.
Opening both arms in a 'taadaa!' fashion, Miles simply exclaimed: "See! Nothing to be afraid of!"
The classes seemed to be heading in an interesting direction, specially since they would be working physics into their own powers somehow, but that seemed more fun than what they had started with. He couldn't help but feel pleased with how things had turned out, but then she asked him what his mutation was about.
This was a topic Miles had issues revealing, specially to strangers since he felt... ah, who was he kidding? He had told lots of people already, including staff at Xaviers, so she'd find out sooner or later anyway and it'd be better if she heard it from himself instead from some watered down, totally exaggerated version.
"Well, I don't know if there's a name for it, I think it would probably be... dead-o-kinesis? No, that wouldn't be right, since I don't really control them. Well, I do, it's just not like you do. Well, it's..." he stuttered and hesitated as he tried to find out the right way to sugar coat raising the dead and not make himself look like some evil necromancer.
"Oh, wait, I've got an idea" he said, as he turned his head towards the open door of the classroom and whistled, while giving a mental command to Astor, so he'd come into the room.
The large boxer dog poked his head in from the hallway and entered as commanded. He was pitch black, bigger than any ordinary boxer dog and his eyes had an unnatural red glow to them. His behavior was also very controlled, like he was very well trained or simply not very dog like. The animals had had different reactions on the people who'd met them. Some regarded them with fear, others tolerated them and just noticed there was something off about them and others simply liked them and couldn't care less about their stoic attitude.
"This is Astor!" he said, trying to put some excitement in his voice as he still struggled to make his mutation seem, well... good. "He is... was my dog from when I was little and he... kind of died right in my lap. Then my mutation kicked in, totally by accident mind you and without me really wanting it to and all of a sudden... I had brought him back."
He tried making it seem like a 'good deed' from his part, even excusing himself by clarifying it had been involuntary, but It was obvious the dog had returned from the dead pretty much changed. She was a bright girl, though. She'd figure that out.
Miles listened to the synopsis of her story. A guy whose mother was missing, then she dies and he can't see her. Huh. So she was like... writing drama?
BOOORING!
Where was the excitement in it? Where were the aliens or the mechas or the bad guys with their big guns? No explosions? And this poor, pathetic guy who couldn't see his mother... what a patsy! Miles, however, nodded in understanding at her story idea and mentioned nothing about it. He thought she needed to spice things up a little and if she couldn't think of anything, hey, she could always do what he did and get herself a muse.
She then went ahead and did her muse-y thing. She was suggesting... magical computers? That was the most ridiculous thing ever! He had never heard anyone writing about magical computers! Magic was always this mystical, non-sensical... hey, wait a minute... that was the whole point, wasn't it? It was an original concept! Not a hacked up formula, but something you didn't see all the time. It was brilliant! SHE was brilliant!
His fingers immediately went to the keyboard, but then she got all shy and stuttery and threatened to shut up.
"No, no, no! Don't shut up!" he said as his fingers now tapped all over the keys. "Keep it coming, then I'll help you with your stuff. You clearly need a robot or two in your story."
The ancient, magical library in the magical kingdom of Ashiangurl was half full, as magic students pored over their magic scrolls, some doing magic research and others reading ancient magic manga to kill time. Then someone magically teleported into the magic room. Her name was Rainbow Lightbringer and she rarely ever spoke because she had a magical stuttering problem. She was a stickler for the rules and that's why she liked the magical library, because no one talked while in it.
She loved building magical computers until the day she got a magic ring.
Man, writing magic stuff was easy-peasy and just lets you throw logic out the window.
Miles had the refrigerator open as he looked for something to drink. She was up for listening to music after they ate and she was giving him her side of the answers for her own questions. She also offered to have her father talk to his family, so maybe they'd understand a little better that mutants weren't so different from the rest. The boy hesitated.
"It's a little more complicated than just not understanding what mutants are about. There's a bit of... fear, in the mix."
He tried to collect his thoughts and remember if he had spoken with her about his mutation in the dream, but some parts of it were simply lost in the dreamscape never to be found again. He remembered tender moments and dangerous ones, but day to day conversations were a blur, so maybe he'd be repeating himself when he tried to explain what he could do, since there was a chance she could remember what he didn't.
"My dad is not all that happy with the mutation thing, but mostly because of my mother. She's religious and she dealt with my dogs since they were pups. She fed them, bathed them, played with them and she remembers them the way they were... back when they were normal. To see them the way they are now feels unnatural to her and what she worries about the most is that it could happen again."
It was the reason why he was at Xavier's. While he had managed to keep his cool throughout his stay, he didn't have much control over his mutation when it actually triggered. Once he turned into dark mode, he was pretty much unpredictable and it was a risk his mother wouldn't take, specially with a daughter under her care. His dad insisted on him getting rid of the dogs as well, no matter how obedient the animals were, because he didn't trust them.
"Let's just say they don't think I can keep my mutation under wraps all the time and they're afraid I might do something we might all regret down the line since I have a few... control issues."
She mentioned a book series he had heard or read about, but never actually picked up and sat down with, but the moment she mentioned time travel, his interest was piqued. Regarding his Twilight joke however, Miles was surprised to see how easily he could tell when a joke had been a hit or a miss by looking at her ears, and in this case, it had been an astounding miss. He decided to compensate by offering her something to drink as well.
"There's Coke, iced tea, orange and grape juice" he said, offering her options while he served ice cubes in two empty glasses. "We can toast to mutual dislike of sparkly vampires and to Team Lupin!" he added, now flashing a smile.
"Speaking of, you mentioned having sisters and they're both mutants. Can I ask what your mutations are about?" he inquired, offering her the option to decline if she found the topic uncomfortable.
There were times in his life where Miles thought his mutation was the creepiest thing around. Everyone saw weird dogs and him bossing them around and thinking that was all there was to it, but the crux of the matter was he raised them from the dead and that was very creepy for him.
Then Lennox showed Miles his mutation.
All of a sudden, raising the dead seemed as creepy as fluffy kittens.
For a second, Miles thought Lennox had been shot in the hand at some point, but no, that was not a wound. No wound in the world ever develops fangs. It was gross and disturbing, but then Lennox spoke and his words were even more disturbing.
His immediate reaction was to give a step back. You didn't hear people telling they killed others and drank their blood to survive everyday, much less that they heard voices. That was serious stuff right there, and yet... this had all been Miles fault. Had his dogs not attacked him, they wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Lennox had pretty much been the one who carried them through. He was the first to tell them the thrallls and spiders were hallucinations. Had he not approached the girl, they would probably still be squirming in the ground, fighting nightmares in a traumatizing mental battle that seemed impossible to win. He owed him.
But did Miles need to pay in blood?
He looked at Lennox straight in the eye. This was not an easy decision to make and he needed reassurances that if he 'repaid his debt' he wouldn't end up a blood dried husk of dead meat or worse, with a little bloodsucking fanged mouth on his hand. Raising the dead was burden enough, he didn't need to be a vampire to make it creepier.
Still hesitating, Miles heard footsteps nearby. He turned his head and noticed the youngest of the trio close to them. Lifting his hand and signaling with his finger to approach him, Miles called his name.
"Oh, Clyyyyde! Come here, have a look at this and tell me what you think..."
A footnote? Miles had come up with the IDEA, the core of the concept, the very spark that birthed and created these... these... things that she'd written on the blackboard and all he was getting was a footnote!? Did a check come along with the footnote?
Oh well, truth be told, she had done all the work, he had just nudged her a little. By accident. While talking about something completely unrelated and even trying to avoid responsibility from inspiring her, so he kinda sorta deserved just a footnote.
In the credits page.
In big bold letters.
Preferably in red.
She then went on to physically demonstrate, with a clear and easy to understand example, what her mutation was about: Hylokinesis. She could manipulate glass like it was play-doh without using her hands. The equations explained the whole process of it, the level of control she had over the different forces that allowed her to bend glass to her will. It seemed so easy when she did it that it was hard to believe all those equations were behind it all. For a moment, Miles wondered if there were any physics involved in his mutation as well, but when he thought about it, chances were it was demonic forces at work or something like that instead of physics. He didn't know and he didn't want to know, lest he never manage to sleep well again if he did.
She said she'd spend the next few days working on this, which was promising from the point of view of a teenager who'd rather goof off in class than throw equations around, but then she mentioned kinetics, the weight of objects and their movement as a teaching topic. That seemed much more manageable for their brains than what she had been teaching before.
"Well, anything is better than fractals or calculations on a cosmic scale" he said, sounding relieved.
"That's a very cool mutation you have there, professor and I'm glad I've helped you with it somehow. I really wish mine was a little more manageable, but its actually... borderline creepy."