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.
She was asking questions about his 'masterpiece' but Miles was hesitant about delivering a synopsis, specially if said synopsis was constantly changing and had no middle or end yet. Also, he didn't want his star to know she was a star, so he kept it vague.
"It's... a fantasy, yes..." he admitted, thinking that wasn't giving too much away. He could keep the rest of the details under wraps and he figured just telling her the genre would do no harm.
Then again, he remembered the 'sexual dishes' fiasco and now it turns out he was writing 'a fantasy'. What kind of fantasy are you implying here, Miles?
"It's about a wizard girl with a magic ring in a library and she needs a hobby" he blurted out in quick succession. "I don't think they had computers back then."
Oh boy, now he had given too much of it away. He hoped she wouldn't tie two and two together, since it was plainly obvious this was about another girl, in another library with another ring. Still, just in case she suspected anything, Miles tried to distract her attention from what he had just said.
Hey, if she had asked about his assignment, why couldn't he ask about hers?
She was no idiot indeed and her idea was even better planned than his enthusiastic, hurried up attempt at getting this done as quickly as possible. She asked him to keep the dog back until she spoke to the cops first, and Miles gave the canine a mental command to freeze on his tracks and let her play her role.
Miles sucked at acting? She was better at it? Oh please. Acting was all about hiding your emotions and Stokely had this distinct 'I'M ON MY PERIOD 24/7!' attitude going on all the time. She'd probably snap at the cops and get all pushy and give them angry looks, though hopefully not get herself arrested. What were the odds she could play a nice, worried young lady looking for her lost dog? This was doomed to fai...
>>"Here, doggy, doggy! Here, boy!"
Well, son of a b...
She transformed, like it was freaking magic. The brisk pacing, the raised eyebrows, the worried eyes and body flow... it was all there. She had turned from moody, punk/goth chick to ditzy klutz needing help in the blink of an eye. Miles was flabbergasted. Now, why couldn't she be like that ALL the time?
>>"Morning mister, I'm sorry to bother you, but my dog is missing! Could you please, pleease help me?"
Oh man! She's even doing the girly voice! Haha! This was priceless! Oh, he had to get this on video, so the next time she got all pushy and foul mouthed all over, he could show it to her and tell her, 'See Stokely? Underneath that gruff exterior, hides a real girl!'
Miles tucked his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The camera wasn't the best quality but it would serve for his purposes, so he switched to video, aimed it at Stokely and ... crap, the quality sucked. He'd have to adjust the settings though he didn't remember if this model had any better settings. He lowered his phone and started fumbling with the buttons, missing what was happening with Stokely and her Oscar nomination performance for a bit. Let's see... menu.... applications... camera... nope, that's the photo camera... back button... dammit, clicked it twice now I'm back on the main menu... applications... video... settings... is it under 'quality' or under 'resolution'?...
At that moment, Miles heard the sound of a foot hitting the ground. He glimpsed for an instant just to check he wasn't missing anything too important, when he suddenly remembered the 'signal'.
Oh crap!
"Tinaker, go! Hurry, RUN!"
The dog immediately followed his master's orders, running at a decent speed and keeping himself to the edge of the sidewalk. He'd pass by the whole lot of them and no one would be able to reach him even if they noticed him coming. The patrol car had its side door open and it was blocking Tinaker's way, but the dog could easily swerve it and keep running ahe...
WHAM!
What the...? He smashed right into it! The sudden impact stopped the dog to a halt! What happened? Wasn't he looking where he was going!?
...
Of course he wasn't looking where he was going! Miles had ordered him to keep his eyes closed and the dog was STILL obeying that order!
The cops and the animal control people all turned to look at the dazed canine. One of them even asked Stokely "Is that your dog?"
Miles commanded Tinaker to keep moving and he started to do so, but at a much slower pace than intended. Stokely would have to get in the way to avoid the dog's capture.
She was typing at her keyboard something fierce. For a second, he felt tempted to take a peek, but that would be rude and would probably open the door for her to take a peek at what HE was writing and he couldn't have that. Oh no. What would she think if she knew he was writing about her? Who is lame enough to just write about some random person in the room? Miles, that's who.
The teenager imitated his muse and started typing as well, trying to follow up with his magic ring idea. In a space station. No, that didn't work.
Drrrumm drrrrum drrrrummm...
The ancient, mystical library in the kingdom of...
Crap. Now he had to think of a fantasy kingdom name. He took a glance at his muse and she delivered without saying a word.
The ancient, mystical library in the kingdom of Ashiangurl was half full, as students pored over their tablets scrolls, some doing homework research and others reading futuristic ancient manga to kill time. Then someone floated teleported into the room. Her name was Rainbow Lightbringer and she rarely ever spoke because she had a stuttering problem. She was a stickler for the rules and that's why she liked the library, because no one talked while in it.
She loved building computers and ... kjasbdgkjbkjUKHLKJBKJLBNÑL!!
Dammit!
He'd stomped his fingers in frustration on his keyboard. How many times had he written this over? And every time he thought up of something that worked, something else stumped him along the way. He was stumped, stumped, stumped!
Do you know what that means?
Muse time!
He looked at his table partner and leaned his head over to where she was. Hey, she smelled nice. He then whispered:
"I'm sorry, but building computers won't do. Do you have any other hobby ideas? Preferably something old timey"
So... This is what Penny felt like, whenever Sheldon was pulling off any of his brainy shenanigans.
The teenager was dumbfounded as his teacher suddenly went wild with the blackboard. What she wrote looked like gibberish to him, like she was some kind of robot and an error just ocurred in her mainframe, forcing her to write nonsense. He then realized that the written nonsense were very complicated mathematical equations with symbols he didn't even know existed. She was correcting herself aloud, totally ignoring Miles was still there, to the point he considered scooting off before she turned around.
>>"That is a Marvelous idea! It makes sense, it's smart enough for me to not go crazy thinking it's too dumbed down. And at the same time, real world application of physics that otherwise explains a mutant power. Why didn't I think of this before… What's your name? You're getting a mention in my next paper, who are you?!?"
Oh my God. No. Did he give her this idea? All he wanted was to mix powers with theory so the class would be less boring and confusing but now... she had somehow explained mutant powers with physics. Did she...
DID SHE EXPECT THEM TO DO THE SAME WITH THEIR OWN POWERS!?
"I'm... Miles Derek Haxton" he said nervously, tapping the tips of his fingers together. She seemed very happy with what she had just done, compared to the slump of frustration she had been just a few seconds ago. Her formulas somehow managed to explain a portion of her powers and that was good, right? What wasn't good was the implication of her discovery somehow being tied to him.
"Professor Stratford... if you tell my classmates I had something to do with this and expect us to explain our powers as well, they're going to string me up by my privates. As much as you say this explains your mutation, if you show it to anyone, they're going to think you're a chalk manipulator."
He was chuckling at Penelope's choice to be the Christmas Abominable Snowman and followed along with it, trying to argue the pros and cons, all of this in joking fashion.
"But the snowman is even bigger than Santa and you're a 'wee bit' smaller. And the snowman is very hairy and you..." he said, then interrupted himself, looked at Penelope's head, blinked stupidly as he pretended to study her hair, then chuckled again and finished with "...never mind."
Victoria was very enthusiastic about her ride, wanting to break records and set the bar high for Penelope. She was quick to settle down over the blanket, holding herself tight as the dogs were ready to pull the sled.
"Now, here comes the part where mutant dogs come in handy. They're very obedient" he said to his impromptu assistant. "Check this out..."
Miles spoke loudly so his instructions could be easily heard: "Trot slowly, then turn to the right when you reach the end of the room."
His dogs obeyed, pulling Victoria along as the blanket slid slowly and dragged her around the room with ease. Holding to the sled wasn't that difficult at that speed and there was no chance she'd lose her balance.
"Now trot faster around the room."
His dogs picked up the pace and the sled started to gain speed. Sharp turns were the only chance Victoria would tip over and fall, but if she was strong enough to push him through a bush, then holding on to the blanket was easy-peasy.
"Now trot faster!" Miles commanded.
Now this was starting to look fun. He could see the blond girl's hair starting to wave as the dogs pulled her around the spaces between the furniture in the room. At that very moment, Miles' cell phone rang. He gave the girls his back for a second as he quickly answered it. It was a friend from Sanctuary he usually played videogames with.
"Hey, Miles! I'm playing Shoot Them dead 3 and I'm in the serial killer's apartment. Didn't you say there was a hidden weapon stash in this level? Where is it? I can't find it!" his friend said. The stash was hidden outside of the apartment, but he needed to reach a ledge in the next building, so Miles tried to explain what his friend had to do.
Miles spoke loudly so his instructions could be easily heard: "Run forward as fast as you can and jump through the window!"
His dog's ears perked and in an instant, their powerful legs started to pull at maximum speed. There was some furniture along the way and a large window that went from floor to ceiling by the end of the hallway, but his dogs didn't care. They were thralls and they never questioned their orders.
What would he like to learn? To put it bluntly, he didn't care too much about what he learnt, what he wanted was to pass the class, preferably with an 'A'. Besides, how could he tell her what he wanted to learn if what they studied was usually things they didn't know about yet?
"Well, certainly not fractals" he said, trying to get his neck off that noose. "Besides, I don't think it's a matter of what we want to learn, it's more of a 'what we need to learn' issue" he said, trying to indirectly let her know sticking to the book was the best course of action. Any other bells and whistles would be too much for them.
Then again, her asking him this, put him in a strange position. It pretty much meant she valued his input which could potentially mean she'd be willing to try a suggestion of his. Sure, she probably believed that he knew what was best for the class, but if you asked the class, they'd probably opt to goof off or do something cool over learning physics. Maybe the two things were not mutually exclusive though. Maybe they could learn physics and do something cool at the same time.
"Okey, how about this?" he asked, palms in the air as he tried to visualize an idea. "All of your students are mutants and most like to use their mutations or see other people's powers in action. How about instead of just writing numbers and formulas, you proved some of these concepts with powers?"
It seemed like a good, fun and interactive idea, but for it to work, you needed a teacher who could actually use their mutation to prove physics concepts and Miles didn't even remember if she had any powers.
"In fact, are you a mutant? I don't think I've ever seen you using your talents if you are one."
He felt soooo tempted to just ask 'can you explain EVERYTHING you said?', but no, that was likely to get him a glare. The professor seemed tired, almost frustrated, and when she looked at him, her face was covered with a stuck sheet of paper. He repressed a smile, not wanting to frustrate her even more, then immediately looked down to his notes when he had her attention.
All right, where to start?
"Uhm... everyone here knows what fractions are and the skateboarding crowd knows what fractures are..." he started, trying to lighten up the mood a little "but no one knew what fractals were until you mentioned them and they're darn complicated!"
He flipped a page, trying to make sense of the notes he had taken. He couldn't. He had just haphazardly jotted them down without much thought and now they looked a lot like indecipherable doodles.
"My last physics professors made us do problems that went like... uhm... 'Johnny is riding his bike from point A to point B on a slope. If the speed is X and the angle of the slope is yadda yadda...'" he said, waving his hands around trying to fill in the gaps. "He also used normal measurements like feet or inches or miles, he never resorted to things like the Hyakutake comet zipping through the Oort cloud or astronimical units, which are darn big..." he added, trying to get the point across.
All right, maybe it wasn't so much of a question, but more a bit like a complaint? Was that what he was doing? Complaining to the poor, jaded woman who had given it her best and it was just too much for their tiny little brains? The woman was smart, no doubt about that, but she needed to know the limitations of her class.
"I'm sorry" he apologized, one hand behind the back of his head. "I don't mean to complain. You are a brilliant person and teacher, but perhaps... a little too brilliant? We're not morons, but... some of the guys were joking that the Oort cloud sounded like a cosmic fart. That's the level of understanding we had of the whole class."
She was going on and on and on, talking physics-y stuff and assuming everything she was saying was crystal clear for everyone. For a moment, he thought he was seriously stupid or that he missed a class, but when he glanced around at some of his classmates, they all had this same befuddled expression in their faces. One of them even seemed to have drooled on his shirt and it was not just 'teacher hotness' drooling, but 'seriously confused' drooling. It wasn't just Miles, this was a classroom wide epidemic.
A couple of the other students had dared to ask a question, but the answer was more nonsense thrown their way. Some even decided to stop listening since paying attention was just too much work and playing with powers was cooler. Well, not Miles. His mutation was not the sort you play with and he tended to keep his dogs in the hallway outside of the classroom or sometimes in the lobby until he was done with his studies for the day.
When the class was over, some were quick to leave the premises, others shuffled their feet, trying to make sense of what they had just listened to and Miles trailed behind, following the crowd like a stupid sheep.
No. It didn't have to be this way. This woman spoke english or something that sounded a lot like it and there had to be a way for her message to get across and embed itself in his skull.
Miles had already left the classroom but he turned around and walked back to the door. He took a peek in and saw the teacher slumped over her desk, like someone had chlorophormed her or something.
Maybe she was tired. Not just physically but she must have known nothing she was saying was getting through to the class, their faces couldn't keep that reality hidden from her. Was this the right time to interrupt and ask her questions?
"Professor Stratford?" he said, a hint of doubt in his voice, hoping she hadn't fallen asleep. "Can I... ask you something about the class?"
Well, at least she found it funny and didn't give him any of those 'get the hell away from me, you weirdo' looks. In the end, it turned out to be a nice icebreaker. They still weren't there in that 'Hi, nice to meet you!' stage, but it was progress.
She was overly self conscious of the looks other people gave her when she laughed and even Kealey, the librarian and his friend, had taken a glance at her table when she did. Then she gave a glance at Miles and the boy realized he was indeed talking and no longer whispering.
The asian girl stuttered a reply, this time with more effort than ever before, but sadly, it gave him absolutely no ideas. He was on his own on this one.
Fine, let's just give Rainbow a ring. The one ring.
She loved building computers and tearing them apart to find out how they worked. Computers were her friends, until the day she found a magic ring.
A magic ring. In a space station. Even the girl was chuckling about it, it seemed.
>> "What...what's the assignment?"
Miles blinked. Should muses know they're being muses? What if she doesn't want to be a muse? Keep it vague, Miles.
"I have to write a story. Fiction... A work of fiction of totally non-existent people doing things that never happened..." he said, clarifying things as best he could. Kealey gave him another glance and Miles wondered if there would be a third without being reprimanded.
"Do you mind?" he whispered, and before she thought he was being rude and meant 'leave me alone to my work', he got up from his chair, picked up his laptop and changed seats and table... sitting right in front of the asian girl. His dog got up, followed him obediently and laid down as soon as Miles was settled.
"That's better" he said, smiling a little as he accomodated himself. He then took a quick look at the girl.
"I don't know" Miles replied truthfully, being totally in the dark regarding what was up with Lennox. The guy pretty much shrugged them off and left, leaving Miles and Clyde with the clean up detail.
Except the cleaning up was going out without much help from them. Clyde rummaged through his backpack, looking like a little cave boy with his clothes all shredded up and failing to find a cell phone. He asked Miles for his and the teen produced one, even though he didn't find it necessary. Maybe the kid hadn't noticed, but they weren't the only ones who had gone through this ordeal nor the only ones with a phone.
"You'll likely get a busy signal" he said, as many of the people who had been running scared or flailing at imaginary demons had now broken out of their own spells and some of them were already on their phones. He wouldn't be surprised if they heard a siren in the distance soon.
Miles turned and saw Lennox near a bench, both hands on his ears and not exactly in the best of health. It was Miles fault they were in such bad shape anyway, for not managing to control his dogs and call them back in time from attacking his would-be allies. The kid had suffered cuts in his hand, but Lennox had suffered much more damage in his arm, from Astor no less.
"Though if there's any of us who needs an ambulance, it's surely that guy" he said, pointing at Lennox with a flick of his head. You stay and try to find out if she's all right, I'll go look if he needs some help, he doesn't seem all that peachy to me."
With that, he left the cell phone to Clyde to manage whatever calls he needed to do and approached the black guy. In a way, Miles resented a little what he had gone through, accident or not, so the girl's health seemed secondary to him and less important than the wellbeing of someone who had helped put her down.
"Are you okay, Lennox? he asked as he approached him. "An ambulance should be coming soon. They should be able to patch up your arm and hand. Surely, what you have to do is not more important than that?"
The mansion wasn't a hole. If it was, then it was the awesomest hole he'd ever been in, but the boy nodded anyway, humoring Aurion who was now crossing the gate.
This is it, no turning back. Stay and live with the consequences or follow and... live with the consequences. There was no way of knowing what they would bump into or if everything was going to be all right and the reptilian didn't seem in the mood to stop and think things through. That was what the mansion staff was doing and he seemed to hate that approach. He wanted to act instead, even if his actions were reckless and instinctive and not carefully planned. At least his number one priority was one that Miles agreed was worth pursuing.
Find Gina.
He had smashed into the mansion looking for her, and now he'd have to look somewhere else. But where? The safest bet was a hospital, but which one? Focus Miles, are you following Aurion to find Gina, or are you doing it to make sure he doesn't do anything violent on the way there? One thing didn't exclude the other though, since the faster Aurion found their friend, the faster he'd be off the streets. Miles thought of calling down hospitals over the phone, it was what any sane person would have done, but that required patience and listening to the boring music when you're put on hold. Aurion wanted answers and he wanted them now.
The giant's stride was much larger than his, which forced Miles to quicken up his pace. Miles gave the dogs a signal and the two canines flanked Aurion's sides and trotted up a little ahead of him. They'd bark at any person who was stupid enough to stop and stare instead of move out of the way, which was the best he could do to clear a path.
"Aurion, I know you don't want to stop and think things through" he said, trying to hammer some sense into the larger mutant. "But if Gina is in a hospital, there are a lot of those in New York. We can't just go on foot and visit every single one of them. We have to narrow down the search somehow."
The closest hospital to the mansion was the Allen Hospital, due west on Broadway avenue, but Miles doubted Gina would be there. The video wasn't clear about where she had been beaten, the background buildings made it seem like she wasn't even in the city and Gina had wings, so she could have flown wherever the hell she pleased. Still, it was a start, maybe once they'd get there and failed to find her, he could convince Aurion to sit down and do this properly or the hospital staff could even lend a hand and call other hospitals. Surely hospitals didn't tend gargoyles all the time and the video was making the rounds, so her location would go public pretty soon.
"There's a big hospital close by, maybe we could start asking questions there?" he said, pointing the way and hoping they made it there without consequence.
The professor's 'no straying' warning was something Miles intended to respect. He may have been joking and being noisy while in the bus, but once they were outside he could be very responsible, specially now that he was without his dogs. Gosh, he felt so naked without them.
He could barely see 'Ms. Jackson's' dark brown mane from where he was sitting, but apparently the professor was not alone in the chaperoning gig. He didn't even see her when he got in the bus (too busy talking) and Miles wondered what her mutation was. Maybe she was a heavy hitter, since Miles knew some of the staff at Xaviers had some crazy powerful abilities. Was she even staff? He didn't know a lot of the adults, but he had seen them around at least and her face was pretty much new to him.
He couldn't even see Victoria, all alone and hidden in her fort, though he recognized some of the other students sitting ahead of him. The rainbow beret was leaning over the window, her owner watching everything pass by and surprisingly quiet. There was also this blond kid he had seen around the school and somehow made him remember fuzzy glimpses from that crazy dream he and a lot of other people had, though most of the details from their meeting there completely escaped him.
Miles got up from his chair, deciding to change seats. He left the teenagers in the back to continue doing their loud talking and moved forward, passing by a brunette and her reddish haired younger friend, then plopping down without much fanfare on the seat right in front of them, where Penelope stared out the window and hummed.
"Hey, Penny" he greeted her, then wondered if anyone called her that. "I was sitting in the back there, thinking how lonely and dark it must be on the shadow fort Victoria is in. She can't have any light, but I figure she can hear sounds? What do you say we visit her seat, just to let her hear a couple of friendly voices, telling her everything is going to be all right?"
Until the day she... typed so effortlessly, the way he couldn't?
Until the day she turned into a tomato?
Until the day she hid behind... oh, crap!
He'd been found out and Miles quickly tried to pretend he wasn't looking at her. When she asked him why he was staring, he jerked his head as if he had been woken from a trance. Like his eyes had been staring without looking because he had been sooo deep in thought.
"Hmm!? Oh... no, I wasn't staring... I was just trying to read the name of that book behind you" he said while pointing at a book on a shelf and grasping at the impromptu excuse as best he could.
Alas, the spine of the mentioned book read "Sexual diseases and how to treat them."
Miles eyes went wide and now it was HE turning into a tomato and shrinking behind his laptop's screen. He quickly tried to fix up his gaffe before it blew out of proportion.
"How odd. I thought it read Sexual dishes and how to eat them."
Did he just...? Jeez, Miles, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?
He tried to regain his composure. She was kinda shy and she probably wasn't taking any of this all that well. Miles thought the best course of action was to come clean, since it was much better to admit to staring than to accept the hidden meanings behind his imagined interest in the book.
"I'm sorry, I... I... was indeed staring. I didn't even know that book was there. I've got this homework I've got to do and I was just... drifting. Yeah."
He'd just finished saying that when he noticed one of the girl's fingers had a swirly ring on it, kind of like a little snake had tied itself up around her finger. He suddenly saw potential in it, but he needed to know more, and since they were already talking, hey, why not ask?
"That's a cool ring you've got there" he said, pointing at her hand with his chin, since his fingers were now placing themselves back on the keyboard. "Is there any meaning or story behind it?"
Miles didn't give a fig about racing, but after what Ty had said, he NEEDED to set some things straight! His plan B was more reckless than plan A? Plan 'A' was stealing from the pants of a woman, delete a video without her noticing and putting it back in her pocket while in her home, that she was offering for them to stay and live in! What could possibly be more reckless than THAT!?
Ty's plan B was probably Miles plan Z. The boy still thought trying to trade her for the video was the safest bet, but how can you trade with someone you don't know much about or what she wants or likes? That's what miles wanted Ty to find out but Ty wanted Miles to talk to her and keep her entertained? With WHAT!? She was like... ten years older than him, what could they possibly talk about that would hold her interest? Homework? Pokemon? Pimples!?
Ty had told him to drop the games, but the games were just excuses to whisper to each other safely. The sound of a treadmill running with stomping feet to go along would cover their voices nicely as he tried to tell Ty they needed to find out something she wanted or liked and offer it in exchange for the video.
The boy climbed over an empty treadmill and flicked up the 'on' switch. The rubber band on the bottom started to move and Miles began walking on it without going anywhere. He didn't know how much Ty excercised or if he had ever gone to a full blown fancy gym before, so he actualy went over the controls to explain to Ty how the machine worked.
"This here is the speed control button" he said as he stretched his arm and barely reached a red dot on the control panel, since the treadmills were designed for people much taller than him. Miles managed to press it a couple of times.
Deet deet!
The treadmill started to move faster and Miles trotted to keep up the pace. "See? We can race without moving and the machine counts how much we've run" he said, winking at him with the eye that was frathest away from Syn, trying to let him know running was not the point of the exercise.
Deet deet!
The treadmill moved even faster and Miles began to run. Soon, he'd be breaking a sweat, since the rubber band was spinning pretty close to Miles top speed. He was purposefully stomping his feet as loud as he could so it wouldn't seem odd if they started doing it only when they whispered. The machine was going so fast that Miles no longer could reach the controls.
"We can then see... huff, puff.... who can run the most in a set amount of time... huff..."
Surely, Ty was a team player that would understand the importance of listening to the scheming machinations of an immature fifteen year old?