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.
Erik was scratching himself so hard he was bleeding. Panu didn't think many things were real here, but probably the things they did to themselves were. He wanted to reach up and grab the Russian's hand, make him stop, but it seemed to be helping the teen focus.
On what, Panu did not know.
When Erik fell to his knees, Panu did too, because always it was a fake hope that he could keep the much bigger teen standing, moving. The Finn tried to make him stand again, he pushed upwards all he could, but it did nothing.
And Erik was talking to himself, words that didn't make any sense, fear and pain and—
>> "Please hold."
The other mutant shoved things into his hands. The phones came alive again, joining the network in his head. The other thing was a leather square; a wallet. Why…?
The Russian was getting louder and louder. Panu did not know how to help him, didn't know if helping him would be good or only distracting. He took one step away, then two, then—
>> "AAARHG!"
Panu did not jump. That old family member of his, the one who got very angry and broke things a lot, he did not like children very much. But little blind ones who jumped when he made loud noises, those he liked maybe too much. Panu had learned to stay very very still and not-at-all-fun-to-scare when mutants started to be scary around him.
There was blood on Erik's skin. Rips like a package tearing from inside, and then he was growing too big for his own body, clothes tearing and muscle cords bare until the skin healed over them again. And screaming, more screaming than could fit in one body, until there was no more inside of him but still Panu could see his mouth open like screams would keep coming forever.
>> "FEAR THIS!"
Panu did.
But as Erik started to break the world down around them, as pieces of another scene opened up, the Finn realized it was the good kind of fear. The kind where if he was afraid, then anyone else would be terrified.
With each wall broken, the hospital fractured around them. Sunlight poured in, and… and blue wallpaper with flower print, and people shouting and trying not to be where Erik's fists were. One of them already had been, and she was on the ground now, and there was blood that came from her mouth as she tried to breath. A man knelt by her side with closed eyes, and where his hands passed her ribs went from looking like a smashed-in cup to being almost normal again.
"Stop!" A man with very yellow hair waved his arms in what might have been surrender, or maybe just that was how he acted when he was trying to dance out of the way of a very strong very angry Russian mutant. Electric arcs crackled between his arms like even the air was nervous. "Jesus, just stop! This was not supposed to get violent, we were just trying to separate you. We're only here for the kid, okay?"
Panu panned his borrowed cameras over the scene. There were only the three of them that he could see: the hurt woman and her healer, and the electric man who was trying to stay between his friends and the Russian while also not getting punched. Probably he had a little super speed, because he was always just an inch out of reach and making this look easier than it should be. They were in a regular normal house, though now it had a much more open floor plan and new windows in many walls. Through them Panu could see the crashed motorcycle out on the street. It had not exploded, but it maybe needed a new paint job now. Panu's elbow was scraped and bleeding from where it had hit the pavement, so at least part of the crash had been real.
And all three of the people had phones, and so did so very many neighbors in his range, including some who were talking very frantically to the police about the house that had suddenly gotten holes in it.
"I think this is real," Panu said, and made sure to keep Erik between himself and the three just like the electric man was keeping himself between Erik and his friends.
"Nobody said anything about the f***ing Craigslist bodyguard having decent powers," the woman on the ground rasped. And then she coughed blood. And then she opened her eyes and squinted up at them, and in her gaze was darkness and terror and clouds of black like nightmares turned to fog, and also very pretty violet irises.
Another Serious Faced agent had gotten him from the room, and marched him down to the parking garage and into another black van. Black was very classic, but maybe they could try other colors for variety. Somewhere between the room and being told to sit-stay on a van seat, he was given a little earbud radio which was already tuned to the channel of his team. This made him Real Member, and also showed that someone had read Agent Brook's report and maybe seen Panu's comment about needing a better way to communicate in the field. He could use all tech in best ways, but other people were limited to stupid things like 'read from screen' and 'type output on tiny keyboard with their thick meat-fingers'.
The radio crackled with people checking their connections, quick words and quick acknowledgements, except for one guy who kept checking again and again like he was a dog chewing peanut butter. Panu did not touch the controls, and there were a lot of people he didn't know so he did not talk, but he quickly sent a quiet chord of Sibelius' Finlandia through and then made it stop again. Yes, his connection was also good.
He watched on parking garages' cameras, and also the phone camera hanging around his neck, as his new team filed in. They were very impressive, like two of him stacked on top of each other to make height and four of him shoved side-by-side to make shoulders that wide. The way they were dressed made SWAT teams looked like delicate ballerinas.
…Should he have a fancy bullet-proof vest, too? Because everyone else had one, and they had put him in vans like he would be going to the same place.
Probably they just didn't care if he was shoot. That was fair; new teammates were like baby mice playing in a pet store. Maybe they were very cute, but at least some would be feed to snakes, that was how the world works and there was no use getting attached to something until you were sure it was staying. Panu would just have to prove that he was the Most Useful Teammate Ever, and then they would protect him better next time.
For now, he sat up straight with his hands in his lap and met the skeptical stares of his fellow van-mates with polite nods.
And then the world went black.
It started from somewhere back in the building, a place where most things had been turned off already so he hadn't noticed. But it moved down the hallways, eating cameras in its wake, coming closer and closer to the parking garage like a nightmare where lights turn off one by one and suddenly you are left in total darkness with only the monster unseen.
The garage cameras cut out. Footsteps over concrete. Then Panu's phone, and all the rest of the world. All the little electric signals that made up his world went numb and dead.
The van sank very slightly as one last weight entered. The seat creaked under it. The Finn sat very very still and looked only straight ahead and tucked his hands between his knees so they would not ball into fists, so they would not shake.
Adapted.
>> "Vehicle one is ready to proceed."
The Adapted sounded like a man, but really it was a black hole in orderly reality, it was spilled ink, it was the black ash after a fire had destroyed everything good, a demon nine-feet wide that ate everything it touched and he didn't know how anyone could ever think it was just a man.
Panu did not nod to it.
>> "Asset previously designated Panu, you are now to respond to Delta 20-27."
That isn't my designation, it's my name, good job reading the file.
No, bad, he couldn't say that.
Delta 20-27 is too long for a call name and whatever meme you are referencing is probably only funny to old men who need vacations and girlfriends.
Bad, no, even worse.
The man talked like he was a boss, he—
He was the idiot from the comm-check!
Agggh, he was stupid with technology even before he shut everything off (not off-off, but off so that Panu couldn't touch it, which was like the same thing).
And now Panu was taking too long to reply, he knew he was, quick just say something that won't be trouble--
"Yes sir. Understand."
Ahhh his voice was tiny and his accent was even stronger than usual and he could feel his face getting warmer and warmer, this was terrible first impression. (Not that he wanted to make a good impression if the boss was an Adapted.) (But if boss was Adapted, he had to.)
The van started to move. Panu couldn't see, but he could feel the engine rumble. The first corner took him by surprise and he accidentally bumped shoulders with the person next to him, so he sat Very Stiff and planted his feet on the floor so that he didn't sway with the car anymore. Much.
This was official first mission. Not everyone at SUPER was an Adapted. He needed to be Better Man and make a good impression, so that other not-genetic-backwash people might also use him.
He turned his head towards where he remembered the Black Stain's voice coming from, and squared his shoulders, and tried to ask important-but-not-time-wasting questions.
"Sir, what is mission, please?" He wanted to ask about the objectives and parameters and acceptable force levels (especially when soon he would have Metabots to play with), but he suddenly wasn't sure if he remembered those words in English, and trying to use the dictionary he'd downloaded into his head made him wince like there were gears grinding into his brain cells. Oww. He rubbed his head, and used idiot words instead. If they wanted him smart, they should not have sat him in the same van as the Walking Lobotomy Field. "Goal? My power is very useful, am I decide where to make useful or do you have orders? Do we hurt anyone?"
He had read the same briefing as they had, but he did not want to admit to that.
Also he did not want to admit, even a little, that the kill order on his fellow tech-mutant made him nervous. The man's power was clearly not as good as Panu's, and maybe they thought they didn't need an inferior spare, but it seemed maybe a little… wasteful. To just say "kill him, we don't need him at all" instead of "kill him if you have to." The man could be useful.
The Adapted's voice did not sound like he cared about mutants being useful. Especially not little ones sitting in front of him.
The Finn was not used to people looking him in the actual eye. Normally they looked at his face, even if they knew that he was really seeing through his cameras. It was strange and a little maybe-take-a-step-back to be looking the Russian right in the eye, but the Finn made his shoulders square and answered. "Knowing is always better. Knowing is be prepared."
>> "To be dissected and harvested, of course."
"…Oh." He… was not sure how to be prepared for that. Also that was a really strange fear. Had Erik watched the wrong horror movie as a little child, and now he was afraid of this? Because it was scary, but it was one of many many scary things that fit under the big category of 'and now you are dead'. Panu was scared of most of these things, but there were ones that were much more likely, like being hit by a car because the stupid driver was texting as they approached the crosswalk (which is why he liked to shut off the screens of phones that were on in cars), or being shot by police (a perfectly natural way for a villain to die, Panu had not seen it because there had been Adapteds in police, but he knew what it sounded like to die this way). Being locked up in laboratory and dissected wasn't even that scary, and what was with harvesting fear? To be harvested he would first be dead--
Unless he was a healer. Like Erik. How fast could the Russian heal?
…Probably, somewhere, there was a less-than-legal doctor who would like very much to find out.
>> "If they are trying this hard we must be on the right course."
Erik's words were sounding strange and weak and slow. His body, too, was moving strangely. Like maybe a doctor had already snuck up and put a needle in him, and now he was slowly going to sink to ground.
This was 250% Not Allowed.
>> "Panu talk to me, don't let me think. Anything."
"What should I…?" No no, Erik had just said anything. So anything. "My family lived very far north in Finland. During summer we could move fast and hit targets in southern cities, but during winter sometimes we got snowed in, and we would watch police search on news from inside of cabin far far away. These were my favorite days. The snow was maybe taller than me, or it felt that way, and very white, and there were so many stars that even with bad camera I could tell they were there. And—"
Erik staggered. He touched his chest, and there was red on his hand, and Panu knew that nothing at all good would come from stopping to make sure the bleeding stopped. They had to keep moving. But Erik was going so, so slow now. The Finn got under one of his arms and tried to push him up or push him forward or just stop him from falling.
"—and at midwinter, the sun did not even really rise. It was dark the whole day, like we never had to wake up or maybe never had to go to sleep. We always had a sauna, and it was so hot inside, like breathing in a dragon's lungs, and—"
Erik's breathing was ragged. The Finn tried to shove him on. Another hallways, more doors, more sounds of drills and meat-under-knife and things that couldn't be real. He was speaking very fast now. He didn't know if it was helping, but Erik had asked for Panu to keep his thoughts away, so Panu tried to make so many words that they would be a flood.
"—and outside it was cold, cold so that it felt like fire on skin, and the best thing was to get really really hot in the sauna and then run out and roll on the snow which also burned, and then run back into the sauna and drip snow everywhere. And maybe throw snowballs at anyone who had stayed inside, so that they had to chase you. Winter was the time we didn't have to hurt anyone or kill anyone, we just found cabin closed for season, and it was ours until we ate all their food and moved somewhere else. In Finland there are more saunas than people, so there was always someplace new we could move."
They had turned a corner, and it was a dead end. An operating room was ahead, and something was inside and waiting for them. Shadows moved against the glass of the windows. Panu's camera swung at his neck, turning the hallway and the thing in the operating room into crazy spinning images that made him sick and scared.
He stopped walking, so that the camera could bump to a stop against his shirt. So that he could ball up all that stupid sick-scared into something hotter, like coals. Then he did not have to think about what would happen if the thing inside the operating room took Erik. He did not have to think about losing someone else, or of being alone, because he would not let it happen.
"I think you are maybe right about being on right course," he said. "One of my family in Finland, he was very strong. And one time when we got him with ice-snowball in the back of the head, he got so angry he started to break everything down. Sauna and house and everything, he broke. I do not know what is real here or what is fake but it is making me angry. I wonder what person doing this would do if we broke everything."
2018 YourSchoolIsAwful.sql (Mirror) -- In which Panu is transfered to the Mansion, on probation for something-something. What Could Go Wrong (Brook) -- In which Panu meets Best Parole Officer, and proves that he is useful for many things, including bank robberies. Fear Itself (Erik) -- In which Panu hires a Responsible Adult to get him out of the school for awhile, and ends up in a far worse prison. Detention Convention! (Skye et al) -- Detention is Badge of Honor Mutually Assured Destruction (Wick) -- Panu helps SUPER in a raid. And he will be VERY HELPFUL, no matter what any stupid Adapteds have to say about it. Like Teacher, Like Student (Shin) -- Panu does not cheat in math, he uses his resources.
Maybe some children would be afraid when a black van showed up at their school, and the black suited people inside said get in and there was nothing in their voice that made it a choice. Not Panu. He could sense the chip guns and scanners hiding under their coats. They were SUPER agents, and even though this looked like a kidnapping, Panu was 100% happy to climb in (especially since he was already seventeen minutes tardy for English, and now he had the perfect excuse to not go at all).
The agents had been very very quiet the whole way to their headquarters, with Serious Faces on and only-talking-as-needed. Panu could sit quiet and Serious Face too.
It was two days before his next scheduled meeting with Acceptable Parole Officer Brook, and he knew that no one had told the Mansion where he was going. This could only mean one thing: he was being recruited for top secret classified mission. They had read Officer Brook's report of his excellent support during the bank robbery, and they had realized that if he could be so helpful in such inferior working conditions with no preparations and a co-worker who sent unprofessional texts during missions, then he would clearly be Most Useful Asset Ever on a real, proper, planned-for mission.
They shoved him in a bare room with only a steel table and plastic chairs, and he heard them lock the door on their way out, but this was just Dramatic Prelude. SUPER was semi-villain group, and Panu could appreciate their desire for making a good (evil) impression. He tried to look Very Intimidated for the room's camera.
(It crossed his mind, maybe just briefly, that no one knew where he was and maybe SUPER hadn't liked what he did at the bank, maybe Most Traitorous Parole Officer Brook had written that he was hard to work with or control, and maybe now they would make him Stop Being A Problem in a permanent way. But he deleted this train of thought because—because—because if they did disappear him then they were wasting a rare resource and that would be stupid, so he was safe here. Probably. As long as he was useful.)
(While he was thinking these things, it was much easier to look Very Intimidated.)
They definitely wanted him for mission, that was the only explanation. So to make sure stupid thoughts stayed away, Panu started looking for what the mission was.
Someone had gotten much smarter since the last time he was here: they had put him in a room in the corner of the building, and most computers in his range were turned off. Less at the edges, which told him that probably they didn't know his exact range. Phones were still walking around, carried by people who had forgotten (or maybe ignored) the order to turn them off. The calendars on these told him that there was a meeting that many were going to soon.
If they were being smart about computers, then probably the meeting notes were on paper and even if the room was in range there would be no laptops for him to read. Very very smart.
Panu's Very Intimidated face looked Maybe Smug for just a moment.
Very very smart, except that no one actually hand-wrote briefing notes, so… hello printer on the edge of his range. Hello circular memory buffer. And a very good day to you, previous print files. Big meetings would need many copies, so he ignored the single print jobs and looked for…
Got it.
---
In a meeting room on the opposite end of the building, briefing files sat printed and waiting on the table for the field agents. If they pulled this off, it would be a slam dunk for the fledgling this-side-of-the-rift SUPER's PR; a clean win, bad guys taken down, and SUPER the heroes, and if there happened to be any unfortunate casualties along the way then that it was clearly in the name of public safety.
One of their agents had tracked a chipped mutant back to a factory on the north side of the city. Surveillance over the next few days, and a few knocked heads that would never be formally written of, typed, or spoken off outside of present company, had gleaned the following information:
- The factory was being used to produce a variant of the M-drug. One that produced long-lasting powers; possibly permanent. The group's goal was to target high-ranking officials, and make them confront the discrimination of having an X-gene head-on.
- They'd been kidnapping runaways and homeless people to serve as their guinea pigs.
And, best of all from the PR perspective:
- They'd screwed up. One of those runaways was the daughter of a local news anchor. A angsty teenage really-did-run-away daughter, but one that had been in the news a lot recently. One the public had sympathy for. A face they could care about.
Drugs, political plots, kidnappings, mad science, and more good press than they could pay for, all for the low price of one successful raid.
The only problem (besides the mutants guarding the place, and the scared pseudo-mutants locked up inside) was--
---
They had a tech-controller. Not to be confused with a true technopath. The man in the briefing photograph was old, at least thirty, maybe even forty, practically in his grave. Probably he had spent the first decades of his life not even knowing what a computer was. There was no way he was any match for Panu, who had been making his mother's phone play better music since before he could talk, and could not ever remember being cut off from his power except when there were stupid waste-of-oxygen Adapteds around.
Panu gave up trying to look Very Intimidated. His leg bounced under the table as he read.
The man had stolen a handful of Metabots, which he was using as extra security. Among them was scout dog model number SK-011.
The X-Man was suddenly making sense, saying things like 'feeling's mutual' to not-liking and 'that's exactly what I would do' to Panu's very good plan. This was Very Suspicious. Panu replayed Gawain's words once, twice, and also translated back to Finnish to make sure he wasn't missing something, but when his silent replays were done still he was left thinking that there was no trap in the words.
Probably that just meant it was a very good trap.
Angua had abandoned him while he was thinking. He tucked his hands in his lap, and pointed phone at Gawain so that he could keep a close eye on the man's face. Something was wrong here, but until Panu knew what it was, he did not see the harm in Being Honest.
>> "What makes you think we can't protect you here, though?"
"You have no reason to. You can't use me, my power isn't good for legal things. If I am not valuable to you, then I am just… random child. Random children are hurt or die all the time, it is stupid to think you can help them all. I am criminal, so probably I am at very bottom of Who-To-Save list, it is only smart place to put me." He started to fidget with the phone in his hands, but fidgeting with the only camera-eye he had in the room was a good way to make himself motion sick. He set it down and tucked his hands under his legs. "Is this part where you try to convince me that everything will be okay? Because that is what other school said, and then they kick me out."
That was another reason that being with villains was better. Villains at least laughed when they broke their word, they had fun with it, they made him feel like dirt but if he could be smarter next time they wouldn't trick him again. When goodies did it, they just looked sad, and yelling liar at them just made them look worse and worse until it felt like he was being hurt too.
Panu could have texted back many things. Like 'budgets are for people who can't move 1' and 0's in the accounting departments computers' or 'hahaha who says we buy them?' But all of those would be childish and maybe also incriminating. So Panu sent his Most Professional Reply:
Please limit non-mission chatter.
(And if maybe he smiled a little smugly afterwards, the only cameras around to see where ones he could tell not to record.)
What else could he do? Well for one thing, he could change the pre-sets on her radio, they were awful. But that only took half a second. The classical music helped him to think. Probably they should have ambulance if something went wrong—okay, dial 911. And the hostages maybe would like to know they would be saved soon, so he sent text to all their phones while he was on hold (but first he switched all their settings to Only Vibrate).
This is rescue. Take cover if you cannot fight. If you can fight, woman in black is on your side.
Probably police would not like for hostages to fight, but that was stupid. They were the ones most involved in this, it was their lives, they should choose.
What else?
Hmm, maybe turn up the AC in the car, it was getting stuffy. Aggh, it was controlled by physical dial. Which one even was it? Panu leaned over, his elbow jarring the gear shift.
"911, what is your emergency?"
"Hello. There is bank robbery at—Ahh!"
The car was moving, the car was possessed, this was 100% not his fault. He scrambled over to the driver's side and pressed down on the brake and the engine VROOMED.
(that was not the brake)
Panu watched through cameras on the building and parking lot and traffic camera at the corner as the car accelerated right as the front doors opened and BAM.
SQUEAL.
He found the brake. It was that one.
The little Finn gulped in air, and hoped-prayed-wished as he ran the ID of the person groaning on the car's windshield against the database in Brook's scanner. The 911 operator was talking very loud in his ear (the call was routed through Brook's phone, even if he was stealing audio.)
"Probably send ambulance," Panu said, and gave the address, and hung up because no he did not want to stay on line.
The man on the windshield rolled off onto pavement. More groans.
I have apprehended one suspect, he texted, bracing himself against the driver's side seat so that all his weight was on the brake. Not the gas. And this is why it was stupid not to teach children how to drive, adults always thought children would get in trouble if they knew things but it was so much more trouble if he did not know.
Panu did not stomp, did not glower, did not sulk. He walked down the school hallways with Head High and his best imitation of Mirror's smug smile.
Detention was the sign he was Not Giving In. Detention was Badge of Honor. Detention was an hour locked in a room watching cat videos in his own head. Detention. Hahahaha.
The teacher was not even here yet. Lazy.
The eleven-year-old brought his heels together and puffed out his chest and snapped salute. "Hello fellow convict. Prisoner Panu reporting. What is your crime? I have been nineteen minutes late for every class this week."
At twenty minutes, the tardy became an absence, and then his parole officer was called. Nineteen minutes was the perfect time for letting teachers know exactly what he thought of being here. It was very important to start on the right foot.
He also chose a chair in back. But not next to the red-headed girl; in the middle, with two chairs between them, so she knew he did not actually want to be friends.
The ground was suddenly sideways and he was floating above it and he did not know why for the one-two-three milliseconds it took for him to realize that Erik was carrying him.
The Finn flailed, it was instinct, he could not help it, he did not want to help it he was being carried why was this happening put-him-down put-him--.
Erik set him down on some kind of hallway. The new lights did not hurt his eyes, that was just one more way his cameras were much better than stupid overrated organics. Probably if one day he could be a cyborg he would be, because if his lungs were machines too than maybe he would be able to make them stop gulping breaths so big they made his chest hurt.
Erik patted his back. This is when Panu realized he could feel again.
>> "I seem to keep grabbing you."
"It is bad habit," the technopath said. He got to his feet and he stood not-close because all this picking up needed to stop. (But maybe he also stood not-far, because all this picking up was maybe helpful. But it was not something that needed to be encouraged.)
They were in a new place. A hospital, maybe. He had never really been in one; villains did not go to hospitals unless something was very very wrong. There was nothing super scary here yet, but it was not hard to guess that probably something would come.
>>"This one is mine. I do not expect anything remotely pleasant for either of us."
"…What is fear?" Panu asked. And suddenly his fear was the answer to that question, because there was something in Erik's voice that sounded like maybe he wished someone would pick him up and run.
>> "So... we are daycare for minivillains now. Awesome."
Panu folded up his legs on the bed—wait no, first he took of his shoes and then he put his feet on the bed--and nodded in now-we-are-on-same-page satisfaction. "Now you are share my joy. Congratulations."
The X-Men was a hundred times less annoying when he was not smiling like the world was something that deserved smiles. He could still go jump off a cliff if he wanted, but Panu no longer felt urge to push him off.
This did not mean he was not still on the lower half of the intelligence bell curve. Panu propped up his phone against his knee so that he could keep an eye on the X-Man, and then he leaned down to scratch Angua's ears (but not very far because she was So Big). Her fur was wiry and coarse, not soft like a puppy, but that was okay because everything in this world that was soft either grew up or died.
"Stop being stupid. This is not child's game. I am eleven, I have best power ever for crime, but it is mental only. I am not fast or strong. Probably most adults can pick me up by one hand. If I am not already with villain group, then other villains try to take me. This is Fact. And if I stay here, I still get taken but people get hurt. I do not know you, I do not like you, whatever children you have here I also hate. None of you should get hurt for me, that would be stupid."
He couldn't see Angua, but he could hear her tail thumping against the side of the bed. She was a very good listener. Not like Gawain, who probably was only listening so he could say something back with a smirk-face.
"Do not worry, you only have to babysit until I finish researching groups in city. Then I will go to best place for protect me, and you will only see me again if I screw up. But I am smarter than when we were at mall, so hopefully you never see me again. … Please do not tell my parole officer I say any of that, you will have to put up with me for longer if you do."
"No. I could when first you picked me up, but not now. If it is okay, could I hold them? Is for experiment."
He heard the rustle of fabric as Erik took them out, but did not feel them until they were in his hands. And then, suddenly, he felt them. It was not sight/sound/touch/taste/smell, it was nothing he could explain, it was rightness and his and suddenly there were new windows in his mind that he could peek out of to look at contacts and texts and camera (if it wasn't stupid dark still). Erik's phones were One Nice And Normal, and One That Cops Won't Ever Find. Panu did not comment on this as he handed them back.
The moment they left his hands, those new windows in his mind slammed shut like the phones had never been there at all. His range was being jammed. So probably there were more tech things around, but whatever was blocking his powers wasn't letting him see them, not until he touched them.
A very little bit of hot-hate-rage made his chest feel warm. Touching his powers was Not Allowed. The hate felt much better than being scared, so Panu tried to hold onto it as he walked.
>> "We will call it Erik's StupidPlan Mk 2. If I have to let go before then I will let you know and you stick to the plan."
Panu agreed with the name of the plan, but not the plan, not that last part. If they were separated, how could they find each other again? They had to stay together, it was Most Important Thing—
>> "Panu I let go!"
No no no no no! But it was too late. He couldn't feel the teen's hands leave his shoulders, but he could hear him fighting.
Panu needed to—
He could—
He could do nothing, he was real-blind and touch-blind and Erik was larger and stronger than him, if the Russian was having trouble fighting than Panu would just be in the way. He had to, he—
The wood-thing was still in front of him. His sense of touch was not back yet, but he was technopath, many times every day he found things he didn't understand, but he was smarter than all of them. If he could not touch or see, then he would just use a different tool, that was what he was good at.
The little Finn leaned forward, forward, until he felt like maybe he would fall but he didn't. He could not feel anything, but he didn't fall, so that must be where the wood thing was. He pressed his arm flat against the thing as high up as he could reach (as flat as he could without knowing where the thing or his arm were), and then he jerked his whole arm [/i]down[/i].
Oww oww oww.
He did not have touch, but he had pain.
That felt—no, that pained like something small and round and hard. Like maybe-hopefully-please a doorknob. It had hit that part of his arm, and that was maybe five inches from his hand, so he hooked his hand and pulled it back and hoped that now the maybe-knob was between his fingers. He made a turning motion that he couldn't feel and pushed (but nothing happened) wait no pulled—
And light poured into the darkness, the three-sided rectangle of a door opening.
HA! He was smartest person ever.
"Erik! Come!"
Oh wait, the Russian couldn't hear. But hopefully he could see.
Angua was whining, why was Angua whining? Panu wanted to go over and sit next to her again, but Gawain was looking at him and finally finally there was no smirk on the X-Man's face. Finally he was not treating Panu like a stupid child. Maybe now they could talk like equals, like Proper Rivals. So he curled his fingers into his palms and did-not-pet-dog.
If his shoulders flinched at 'kicked you back here', then this was just because he'd ever been stupid enough to think they wouldn't kick him out.
"Yes," the mini-supervillain-500-times-smarter-than-mirrorwalker said. "My power is Best Power. I do not need your stupid training, I have already trained against X-Men and against police and you would never have caught me if my dad—"
Had not disappeared. Left him. This was normal thing adults did, he should have had contingency plan in place, it was his own fault.
It was not the police who had caught him first, it was child services. If he found out which stupid concerned neighbors reported him he would maybe see if he could burn their house down.
He made himself take Deep Breath and then he sat up straight and lifted chin. Getting upset was stupid. He was Munin of Ragnarok and Takala of Tuonela, he had pride.
"Only way to stop me is to have prison warden who can perform lobotomy. Does it feel good to help muzzle other mutants, Assistant Warden Mirror?"
Panu put on his If You Pity Me I Will Change All Your Phone Setting to Chinese face, but it was wasted in the darkness. Maybe his words were just a little extra bristly to compensate. "Blind in eyes. The things you have two of, on front of face? Mine do not work. People say that this is 'blind' but I am not blind, I can see better and farther than they can, every camera is my eye, it is much more useful."
He was maybe a little stiff against Erik's side, but that was only because everything was stupid and even if he was blind-blind right now so was Erik so it wasn't like organic eyes were any good. Definitely not better than his camera eyes. He didn't need stupid organic eyes anyway.
>> "No I have no fear such as this. Mine tend to be-"
Erik cut of his words. Panu could feel him moving, the shift of his weight, could hear something that sounded electric but couldn’t be because Panu would know it was there.
"One that just attacked you was not real. Anything electric is mine, but I could not feel it at all."
He couldn't feel anything. Normally on a suburban street there were smart TVs and tablets and programmable thermostats and garage door openers. But the only thing he could sense was his own phone and the headphones around his neck. Which meant that his power was being blocked somehow.
So. Electric things might be real. But probably that was not reassuring to say, and he didn't think any of this was real (but could it still hurt them?), so he did not correct himself.
He listened to Erik's plan. Part of him did not like the idea of going first, part of him said shouldn't adult go first?, but that was the stupid part that the school had been trying to teach him, that adults would protect him (hahahano). Erik's plan was much more practical for the real world. Back or side or front, no direction was any safer here.
Also, while Panu was not blind, he was probably Resident Not Blind Expert. He was used to his eyes not seeing anything. Used to listening and feeling, used to finding the edges of objects and building pictures in his mind. Erik was not, so Panu would have to help him.
"Okay," he agreed, making sure his voice was Loud and Strong and Not-Scared-Mouse. He could do this.
It was weird to have the teen's hands on his shoulders. He was not used to people touching him at all, and Erik was quickly approaching Universal Record for touch. But this was For Mission, so maybe it was okay. Panu started walking.
There was a way to walk when you could not see. It did not have to be fearful or slow, only careful and smart. Feet low to ground and do not move them with so much force that it will hurt if you kick something. Keep most of weight on back leg until you were sure ground was were you thought ground was. Normally there were sounds or smells or technology like stars in his mind that he could use to know that he was going straight, but there were none of those here so he just did his best. He did not hold out his arms out way far in front like sighted-person-pretending-to-be-blind (or a zombie), almost always feet or knees would hit things before arms would, anyway. But he felt the way the air moved over his skin, and he listened.
Whirr, click said something to their right and behind them, then little tap-tap-taps of metal legs, too many legs, started to pace them. One thing with so-many-legs, or many things traveling together? But it was behind them and Erik would protect him (maybe, hopefully, Panu would have to trust him which was something that always made his stomach feel sick).
His foot hit against something hard. He curled his fingers into his palms, remembering the last time he had touched something in here. But Erik's hands were warm on his shoulders, and his hearing had only gone away for a little while, and this place was stupid and fake and it wanted him scared, so that was Number One Reason not to be. He reached out, and ran his fingers along it. It felt like wood without bark--like the ground, he could not tell if it was natural or man-made.
And then he could not feel at all. The wood, the ground, Erik's hands on his shoulders. He reached up to try and touch them but he could not feel his own shoulders, much less if there were hands on them.
Click, whirr, the things in the darkness said, much much closer.
"Erik? Are you still there? There is something in front of us, but if you touch it then... touch goes away."
He could not feel his own heart beating, but probably it was hummingbird fast.
They had seen the same thing, heard the same things, but part had been his and part had been Erik's. Erik also did not over-explain his; just awful people. Panu nodded because people were awful, this was a fact.
Also a fact: Erik could not see him nodding.
…He stopped, and was glad that Erik also could not see his face turn red.
>> "… Your presence is reassuring."
Redder and redder, but it was okay because Erik was just as blind as he was—
--Oh. This was very obvious fear, and one of his.
"I can also see nothing. I think… this is my fear?" He could hear Erik patting around on the floor. He did too, and agreed with the teen's assessment—it was a strange texture, flat but gritty, like hard-packed earth or a very dirt floor. He also reached out his hand (the one that was not being reassuring, it was okay to keep holding hands if it was reassuring), and moved it in a slow arc, trying to feel anything around them or any change in air currents. "I do not understand, though. Blind is not scary. I have been organic-eye blind many years, this is why I use camera. Blind is only scary because of what causes it, like EMP or Adapted or—"
His outstretched fingers brushed something. It felt… it felt wrong, there was no other word for it, it felt like something that was both fur and skin, and it jerked back at the same time he did. He fell back against Erik's side and the teen was much bigger and more solid than he was ('reassuring' was correct word). The smallest of breezes brushed against his face as the thing ran, but he did not hear any noise of it leaving.
He had maybe shouted a little when he touched it, but he had not heard that either. He tried to blast music through his headphones, even the horrible stupid muzak from the mall, but he didn't hear that, too. He opened his mouth and he talked and talked and--
"—tyhmä pimeys et ole pelottavaa—Oh." He stopped insulting the darkness in Finnish as his hearing tuned back in, like an old radio where you have to turn the knob and it is very finicky. "I just touched something. I do not know what it was, but then I stopped being able to hear for awhile." He swallowed, and squeezed Erik's hand just to make sure his grip was secure, no other reason. "If this is not your fear, then we need to be very careful what we touch. I think… probably things here will make other senses go away."
Which was stupid, because how could they get out of here if all their senses were gone? But the world did not care if they could get out. That was Mistake to think, the world did not care about fair or unfair, good or bad, it did not care about anything. And if you were a stupid little mutant boy who deleted his own sight, then the world did not care about that either, did not have 'reset' button to press, did not have 'undo'.
Panu had learned very early that you didn't have to see a thing to change it, and could not always change things back.
His sight had been so easy to lose. One minute there, then gone. It would be just as easy to lose taste and smell, sound and touch, until he could not tell the world was there at all because the only thing he could sense was nothing.
The perfect darkness stretched out around them on all sides. Little breezes stirred its air.
(he didn't want to pull away but he had to, the hand was only after him)
--but Erik held on to him tight. Even when he leaned all his weight back and dug his heels into the ground there was no way to get his fingers out--
(Erik wasn't just going to leave him)
--and the hand was coming down, its blackness dripping and spreading, coving them over, until black was all that could be seen.
There was a sudden stillness all around them. No one was pushing against them. No voices were laughing behind them. There was nothing at all except the feeling of Erik's hand still holding his. Panu realized he was on the ground. He sat up, and scoot-scooted closer until his legs were touching the Russian's.
No pressure pinning him down anymore. No sound. No light.
Phone, turn flashlight on.
Flashlight said it was on, but still no light.
Panu took in very deep breaths and tried to make his heart stop bruising itself on his ribs. "Something is very very wrong." That was stupid, of course it was wrong, why did he even say that. Waste of words. "I do not think this is real. What… what did you see?"
The Finnish boy swallowed. If he was asking, then probably he should also tell.
(no one cares, stop being whiny child, he doesn't want to know)
But it was mission-critical. Because they were trapped in whatever this was, so Get Out was Mission. Panu took another breath and sat straight and talked Without Emotion. Just facts. "I saw shopping mall in Finland, but everything was very big like I was still a child. Probably it was where I was kidnapped. Sorry for taking your hand, I think maybe there was fear effect. It felt like if I let go then I would be taken again."
And it had felt like if he didn't let go, he would only drag Erik into his own problem. But this he did not say, because Adults (even very-barely-legal Adults) usually did not like it when children tried to protect them. It was an insult.
"Also towards end, I started to hear... voices? Things about soul and save and win. I don't know what they meant. Did you hear too?"
Panu was still holding the teen's hand. He could let go now. Maybe. But his fingers did not want to.
All around them was dark, so dark that his camera could see nothing, so dark that organic eyes like Erik's would never adjust.
"…Probably we should hold hands here, too. If that is okay. Getting separated would be not helpful."