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.
Posted by Calcifer on Feb 19, 2017 11:31:04 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
Isaac stumbled and landed on his knees. The exhaustion was starting to eat at him. Burning this hot was an uphill sprint under the best of conditions, and he had already expended a large amount of energy fighting and setting buildings on fire. Not even his anger could mask the weariness for long.
But he couldn’t stop. Not yet. The cold was still there- he knew it. Waiting just outside the range of his furnace, ready to swoop in once he was too weak to fight. It had to be destroyed. It had to.
He got to his feet, then stumbled again. It was no longer a matter of willpower. It was a simple matter of physical capability.
S***! No! NO!
And then the wind changed. Isaac had been using it to guide him to the weather mutant, but now it suddenly moved sideways, with the wind behind him moving in an opposite direction. Swirling. Pulling. Isaac let his eyes open and saw the white-hot air being torn from around him into a whirling vortex of flame, but hotter than any natural fire on earth. Streams of lava and molten debris were sucked into the cyclone, eroding his footing. Isaac crouched, fighting to stay on the ground. He couldn’t lose, not now!
The gust of wind took him. Blindsided, Isaac was swept into the hellfire tornado by a blast of wind that caught him in the face and sent him stumbling backward. His feet lost contact with the ground as sprays of liquid metal and rock battered his weakened skin. The world was a tumbling, colliding mess of brilliant white and orange fire with no footing.
Isaac’s vision swam. He fought to regain control, to find something to grab onto, to maintain his heat, but he had simply burned too hot for too long. The exhaustion won. He gave a last gasp for breath. He felt his fire die.
Posted by Calcifer on Feb 14, 2017 19:45:42 GMT -6
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Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
Water is one of the worst things for warmth. Its high specific heat means that it takes a lot of energy before increasing even a single degree. Metals and ceramics may seem though, but the best they can do is withstand or block heat. Water absorbs it and doesn’t give back.
And torrents of ice-cold water were tearing into Isaac. Even in his semi-submerged state, blasts of freezing sleet and snow stabbed into his back, biting, clawing, melting, and then re-forming into another wave of ice and stabbing and biting and clawing all over again. Isaac tried to focus on getting to the building in front of him, but the ice was coming down in sheets now. He fought to keep the stone around him melted as blast after blast of winter hell rained down on him. Heavier and heavier and-
“ENOUGH!” Isaac roared, tearing himself from the molten earth and spinning to face the weather mutant. The job could suck it. He no longer cared about the deal. There was no more thought of keeping in cover or staying safe. There was only rage and the cold. And the cold needed to die.
Isaac’s face twisted in hatred as he willed himself to higher temperatures. Hotter and hotter, anger driving fatigue from his mind. It wasn’t safe to burn this hot, but he didn’t care anymore. The cold had to end.
Before, he had kept himself to temperatures that could just barely keep the rock melted. That was child’s play now. The heat the radiating from his body passed beyond melting rock, beyond melting the strongest of ceramics, beyond melting anything even theorized by man. Everything burned here. Everything.
The water didn’t stand a chance.
Superheated steam exploded away from Isaac, scalding the wreckage around him. Nearby rubble melted like wax in an oven and pooled beneath him. The very air surrounding him glowed in a blinding white aura, turning the freezing wind into a blowtorch that blazed up and through the wall of the building behind him.
Isaac had to close his eyes against the searing radiance of the heat and it was impossible to breathe, even for him.
But he wasn’t done. Not until the cold was ended for good.
He lurched forward, stumbling awkwardly between standing and kneeling, struggling to keep balance on the shifting lava. He couldn’t see, but he could feel the wind and where it was coming from. Who it was coming from. Step after halting step he continued, rubble giving way in a wide crater before the heat of his wrath.
Posted by Calcifer on Feb 12, 2017 18:21:00 GMT -6
Tempest likes this
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
The bolt of lightning hit the rebar in Isaac’s hand with an ear-splitting roar. It shot through his body with explosive force, crashing into the ground and sending him flying backwards over the rubble. When he finally came tumbling to a stop, he was over halfway back to the unburnt portion of the block again.
For a while, Isaac just lay there, struggling to breathe as his ears rang.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
So this guy could do lightning, too. Great. Cold, wind, lightning, and who knew what else. How was he supposed to fight a guy who could control the f***ing weather??
Isaac groaned and rolled onto his side. He looked up, scanning the side of the building he hadn’t gotten to. Probably wouldn’t get to, now that he had to fight this prick to reach it. He coughed and raised himself up onto his knees.
Then a though occurred to him. Maybe he didn’t have to fight this guy. It wasn’t exactly in his contract. All he had to do was destroy the buildings, and right now he was much closer to them than weather jerk was. Of course, it sucked tucking tail and running from a fight. He glanced back at the figure in the ruins. Yeah, he didn’t even want to think about how much it galled him. But it was worse not to finish a job.
He looked back at the brick wall in front of him. All he had to do was get there. Last time, the weather mutant had blasted him away with sheer wind. So he’d need to stay out of the wind. Cover was lacking, though; the rubble between Isaac and the next building had collapsed pretty flat. Fine. He’d just make his own cover.
Isaac laid back down on his stomach and began to burn. He could feel the beginnings of weariness as he did so, but he pushed past it. Past temperatures that melted steel. Past heat that melted concrete. Hotter and hotter until he was floating on a thin layer of molten rock. Reaching forward, he pulled himself down and forward, the heat from his body melting the rubble in front of him as he clawed his way through it in a crude breaststroke. With each motion he pulled himself into the ground, fighting his body’s natural buoyancy on the dense liquid rock.
Keeping himself just high enough to breathe but low enough to stay out of the wind, he pulled himself closer to the building. Only another 30 yards or so and he would be in the clear.
After all there was one thing buildings were made to do: they kept weather out.
Posted by Calcifer on Feb 12, 2017 13:35:03 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
A tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the main facility. The gate on the side closest to Isaac and Valkyrie was locked and chained shut with a massive padlock.
Was.
After Isaac passed through, the latch to the gate was twisted beyond recognition and the lock was a puddle on the sand. Pitiful. Isaac looked around for a target that would afford some more satisfactory destruction. His gaze fell on a nearby conglomeration of pipes, large and very top-heavy, held some fifty feet above the ground by a square scaffold of steel girders. Perfect.
As Isaac approached the structure, he noticed several signs posted around the facility. He couldn’t read them, but the bright red flame and explosion symbols in bold outlines gave him a decent idea of what they meant. He smiled against the pain in his leg. Perhaps this would make the men here more hesitant to shoot out of fear of explosive damage to property and life. Isaac, on the other hand…
A white-hot hand clawed its way through the beam supporting the first corner of the structure. It lurched with the sudden release of reinforcement, creaked, and came to an uneasy rest on the three remaining support beams. Heh. If the whole complex was this unstable, complete destruction would be a piece of cake.
Isaac moved to the next corner and cooled his hand until it glowed a softer, but still piercing red. He placed against the support and held it there, letting the heat and glow seep into the steel. Once the full thickness of the metal blazed red he gave it a firm push. The girder gave way like cooked pasta, the structure above buckling and groaning under its own weight. Isaac followed through on his action, stepping forward and out of the path of the tower’s collapse. The mass of pipes fell with the ponderous, unstoppable motion of great weight. They built up speed as they fell, streaming toward the earth in an arc that brought them crashing into a line of pipe next to them.
The sound of the collision was fantastic. Rivets burst from their sockets as support beams were wrenched from one another in terrible violence. Gang wires snapped under the strain and whipped screaming through the air. Pressurized mental cylinders ruptured in sprays of oil and other unnamed chemicals. The wreckage finally came to rest with the tower resting at a crooked angle against the remains of neighboring structure, rivers of oil spraying from numerous breaches and streaming onto the sand below.
Isaac strode over to one such black waterfall, looked down at his blazing arm, and plunged it into the oil. Fire raced up the stream, leaping into the broken pipes with gleeful blooms of flame. The chain of explosions shook the wrecked structures, first from the hemorrhaging pipes then spreading to nearby tanks until now undamaged by the collapse. Fire and twisted metal rained from the sky. Somewhere, an alarm started blaring.
Isaac looked around at the scene of industrial carnage, nodded once, and turned to the heart of the complex to wreak more havoc.
"Yeah, run you little b****!" Isaac sprinted through the rubble, charging after the wind mutant. He let his arm swing wide and catch onto the first thing that hit it, melting into the random piece of rubble and flinging a molten glob of it at the man. Isaac snarled; the prick couldn’t dodge forever.
He leapt over a piece of collapsed wall, his arm ready to tear another projectile from it, when he was hit full in the face by a blast of unnaturally cold air.
F***!
Isaac quickly ducked into a small alcove in the rubble. A sheet of smoldering drywall shielded him from the freezing wind as he crouched and burned to shake the feeling of icy claws from his skin. Small bits of splintered wood burst into flame at his feet, but any fire that ventured beyond the shelter of the drywall was instantly snuffed out. He stayed there for a few seconds, letting the rage grow and seethe inside him.
Hatred for the cold.
He sunk his hand into the ground, gathering a glowing lump of steel for his next projectile.
Hatred for the man who brought it.
Isaac emerged from his shelter a furious crimson. There would be no more hiding from the wind, no more bowing to the cold. The cold would bow to him. He let the glowing chunk of metal fly with a roar, then stalked to a nearby slab of reinforced concrete jutting from the rubble. Twisted beams of rebar suck out of it like broken fingers. Isaac wrapped his fist around the longest one, then brought his other hand down in a blazing white that severed the bar from the concrete in a splatter of super-heated metal and rock. The steel bar came loose in his hand, the red glow of his body seeping into the new weapon.
He turned back to his opposition. The man kept running, kept dodging, taking him further from his work. Isaac narrowed his eyes and ran after him, though now taking more care where he placed his heat-softened feet.
You wanna run? Fine! Run, you little *****! Isaac’s gaze shifted to behind the man, to the sheer face of the un-burnt building on the other side of the alley. We’ll see how well you dance when you’re back’s against a wall.
Posted by Calcifer on Jan 31, 2017 20:15:53 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
Isaac was a few yards from the next building when the blizzard yelled at him.
>>”Stop!”
He turned just in time to catch a glimpse of a figure standing in the rubble before getting caught in the face by a spray of sleet. The freezing impact of ice pellets tore into his skin with razor blades of cold before being vaporized by his own heat.
Mother- he didn’t even have time to finish the thought before a sudden blast of wind caught him from the side, tearing him out of his swath of destruction and sending him tumbling across the ruins. Jagged pieces of concrete , wood, and metal jabbed at his bruised and still-warm flesh until his tumble came to a sliding, grinding stop on the asphalt of the nearby street.
“SON OF A-“ a very explicit description of the figure’s parentage spewed out onto the pavement. Isaac spat, raising himself to a crouched position on his hands and knees. So that’s why they needed him for this job. The building wasn’t just some warehouse that could be firebombed by random vandals. It was protected. Isaac looked up at the man who was now obviously the source of the wind and cold. Protected by some freak of nature mutant, so they needed another mutant to fight him. Great.
>>”People live there!”
Yeah, right. Whatever. Even if that wasn’t a bold-faced lie, he wasn’t exactly being paid to care. What he was being paid- or rather blackmailed- to do was destroy the block, and this guy was hindering that effort with infuriating cold. Time to remove him.
Isaac shifted his stance to a runner’s crouch and let his pain and anger turn to heat blazing down his arm. He plunged it into the asphalt, the tar bursting to flame at his touch, and scooped it in a wide swath, gathering a mass in his hand. Then he leapt forward, tearing the molten glob from the ground and flinging it at the demon of wind and cold. Cooled, bare feet shot across the ruined landscape as he charged after the projectile. He was going to see how well a wind mutant could fight after a few blows to the head.
Posted by Calcifer on Jan 29, 2017 11:25:10 GMT -6
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Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
So far, this hub of criminal activity looked like nothing more than an abandoned building. Oh, well. It burned just as easily.
Isaac pushed his way through a corner support, feeling the building tremble and shift as he melted the concrete pillar, then dove through the next wall as the fire-weakened structure collapsed behind him. Getting up, he looked back through the hole to survey his work. Roaring flames at least 15 feet high whipped into the sky, silhouetting the jagged landscape of debris and the skeletal shapes of the few lone walls still standing amongst their fallen brethren. Not bad.
Satisfied with the destruction of the first building, Isaac began to turn back to the rest of the block when he felt something that set his teeth on edge. A draft. Spinning back to face the burning landscape again, he saw the once-hungry flames battered sideways by wind. By COLD wind. And flakes of…. snow? Isaac glared at the sky with burning hate. Snow!
S***! Winter could go **** itself. There was still warmth in this new building he was currently setting on fire, but the wind and snow would mean that fire would need help. He’d have to be the one to collapse the buildings now.
Fine. Isaac turned away from the wall to face the room. It was already engulfed in flame, but seemed to have been kept in better condition than the ones before it. The furniture wasn’t in pieces, the ceiling wasn’t crumbling, and there weren’t as many holes in the walls for the fire to spread through. **** it. He’d just have to make his own.
Flames pawed at Isaac like eager pets as his glow increased from dull red to bright crimson to blinding white. Locating what looked like the most stable interior wall, he charged it with a snarl, paneling withering away from his touch like dead leaves. The wall gave way without a fight and Isaac barreled forward, clawing his way through anything that looked remotely load-bearing. Fire followed behind him, spreading out from his trail of destruction as the building groaned in protest.
Isaac was searing his way through the steel I-beams surrounding the apartment’s central elevators when he felt the shift. The beam he had just finished dropped half an inch with a sudden crunch, then began tilting to the side with a slow, grating growl. Instinct took over and Isaac flung himself to the ground in a huddled position, cooling himself as fast as he could. Colder. Stronger. Now.
He was almost down to 500 C when the ceiling above him collided with his back. The crash came in waves; multiple, distinct, hammering blows as each floor of the building added its weight to the one before it. Over and over until the ruins finally came to a rest.
Ow.
That hurt.
Hopefully nothing was broken. Isaac slowly shifted his limbs in the cramped space beneath the rubble. Owww! Curses echoed in the settling dust. But nothing broken. Just bruised. Everything bruised. Isaac gritted his teeth. He’d have to manage.
The concrete slab pinning him to the ground was unmoving in its weight and pressure, but in the end it was no different than any of the columns Isaac had melted through on the way here. Metal and stone bubbled away as heat radiated from him, turning the surrounding ruins to slag.
He stood, slowly. Still nothing broken. Still everything sore. He surveyed the wreckage. The flames in his wake battered against the freezing wind, but they hadn’t had as much time to spread and looked to be gradually loosing. But another building was down, completely destroyed just like those pricks wanted. Isaac turned to the next wall still standing and began melting a path.
Posted by Calcifer on Jan 28, 2017 18:51:34 GMT -6
Tempest likes this
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
New York.
Isaac looked up the wall of the alley, black against the slightly-less-black of the night sky.
He was back in ****ing New York!
The reality of the terrible situation was still sinking in, despite the very immediate and permeating awareness of the cold that pierced his flesh. Not one year after he’d left this stinking city and it’s spiteful winter and he was back. Again. In winter.
Knives of frigid night air stabbed at his skin as Isaac began removing his overcoat and clothes and stuffing in them into a storage container. He cursed through his teeth. ****ing winter! ****ing cold! ****ING FEDS!
Just when he’d thought he’d made good with a large payday from the oil job, he’d spoken to his contacts at the bank to find out that his money- not just from that job but ALL of HIS money was gone. Well, not technically gone, the sniveling weasel had said, just out of reach. “Frozen assets” or “locked accounts” or something like that. Bull****. He’d been robbed. It was his money, and they’d taken it from him.
Heat rose in Isaac’s face, both from anger and to stave off the cold.
Then some suits from the FBI had contacted him. Said they knew about his involvement with the casino thefts in Nevada; the prison break in New York; the oil well in Saudi Arabia. Said he’d racked up quite the prison time, but they’d opted to freeze his cash flow instead. Heh; probably couldn't think of a way to keep him in prison anyway. But his money was gone. Unless…
Isaac stuffed the last of his clothes in the fireproof container, locked it, and tossed it in a nearby dumpster.
Unless he cooperated. Unless he traveled to New York. Unless he took care of a problem for them.
He turned back to the concrete wall. Apparently, this whole block was the storage site for some big-time organized crime s***. It was critical to underworld dealings in the area, but was completely untouchable to the feds. But he wasn’t a fed, just someone forced to do their dirty work.
Red glow gave way to white heat as Isaac melted the wall out of his way. Destroy the entire block. Completely. Including any safe rooms or underground bunkers. Then he would have access to his money- HIS money again. And first thing I’ll do is move it to someone who can actually keep hold of it.
The room behind the wall was empty and abandoned. Broken furniture and crumbling walls filled the space in haphazard arrangement under a thick layer of dust. But they were all flammable, as well the rest of the building, undoubtedly.
There are two great things about fire, Isaac mused: it’s warm, and it doesn’t need help to spread.
Ripples of heat exploded into the air as Isaac raised his temperature beyond anything that was needed to melt the concrete and rebar of the outer wall. The room instantly became an oven, fabric and wood bursting into flame and plastic melting into puddles. Isaac relaxed back to a red glow, letting the flames swirl around him before writhing their way through holes in the ceiling and walls into other rooms to grow and spread. He soaked in the warmth for a few seconds, then left the fire to its work and burned another hole deeper into the center of the block.
Posted by Calcifer on Jan 28, 2017 13:22:13 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
About f***ing time. Isaac glared up at the winged form of the girl as she flew toward him over the dunes. Not that she’d likely be of any help, but at least she was pretending to be involved.
Isaac’s face burned white hot, evaporating oil in a billow of black smoke that left his vision cleared after it passed. No need to remove the rest of the oil though; if he was supposed to draw attention and be intimidating then being on fire couldn’t hurt. Besides, it was warmer.
Well, at the very least, his vulture partner could draw the enemy’s fire. Isaac started up the nearest wave of sand between him and the girl and suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his leg. He looked down; covered in oil. Obviously. He traced a finger over the suspect area and grimaced at the pain. The skin was definitely broken. And on his finger, that looked like…. yes. Blood mixed with the oil. ****, must have been that gunshot before the explosion. What he got for using his power recklessly. Isaac gritted his teeth and felt the wound again. Just a graze. Could be worse. He’d just have to tough it out.
Trudging up the dune with a slight limp, Isaac cast another glance over at his “partner.” Huh. Guess she could actually use those wings for something. Still hardly an asset, though; he’d had to do all the real work.
Doing his best to hide his injury, he strode up to the girl and stopped next to the body of her victim, still-burning oil dripping onto the sand beneath him.
“Glad to see you finally finished with your tea party and decided to get to work,” Isaac sneered at the girl. “Come on. I'll get their attention, then you can stab them in the back.” He cast a disinterested look at body on the ground beside him before turning to well. He didn’t wait for a response before starting toward it; not like anything she said would matter anyway.
Posted by Calcifer on Jan 19, 2017 18:52:45 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
F***, it was hard to run across sand! But there was no time, now. The men in the trucks were closing fast and Isaac still had another hundred yards before he reached the small station jutting off from the pipeline. Hateful breath hissed though his clenched teeth. Of course security had been heavier than he was told it would be. Of course his partner, the one in charge of taking care of personnel threats, had done nothing. Of course he had to do everything. He let the heat of the anger fill him, spurring him on as the sand started to fuse into glass.
He reached the station just as the first bullets started to dance at his feet. One struck his thigh- God, that hurt his heated skin- then there was more yelling as the first truck skid to a stop beside the mess of pipes and gauges. Isaac grinned as his blazing red hand punched into one of the largest pipes. Too late.
Steel became butter, and waves of highly pressurized and highly flammable crude oil leapt into the air and Isaac’s fiery hand.
The concussive force of the oil and the explosion knocked Isaac ten feet back onto the sand. More yelling, frantic now, but he couldn’t see anything. Thick, black smoke filled his vision. The sand, the station, and every inch of his body was covered in burning oil.
Warmth.
Isaac pushed himself to his feet, nearly slipping on the oil-soaked ground, and took a few steps into the wind to clear his sight. It was a good sight. Some of the men had jumped from the truck before the explosion, and now they were trying to scurry back to the truck. Other trucks were arriving, with men running to help the others or try to control the flames. But then they saw Isaac, a dark figure wreathed in flame striding from the wreckage, and their faces went white.
The confused recovery effort turned into panicked retreat, punctuated by repeated cries of a word that Isaac hoped meant “devil.” Men leaped into trucks that sped out from under them, their occupants firing blindly in his general direction. Isaac let them. Those left behind stumbled and crawled away from the fire. Isaac let them. He’d made his point, but there was still a job to do.
He looked back at the burning station and the tower of smoke clawing its way into the sky.
Posted by Calcifer on Dec 28, 2016 22:32:14 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
A dull ache in both shoulders crept its way into Isaac’s mind long before light did, and the gnawing of cold preceded even that. Gradually, he became aware that his arms were stretched above his head and there was some kind of pressure on his wrists, ankles, and neck. He groaned and twisted, but something held him in place.
Voices. There were voices now, coming from dark, fuzzy blobs in Isaac’s blurred vision. One of the blobs came closer and started to resemble the outline of a man before a blow struck Isaac’s head to the side and changed his view to a slowly focusing picture of the floor.
Isaac pulled again at the restraints, but they didn’t budge and kept him stretched out and upright while more blows hit his head and stomach. The blows didn’t really hurt, but they were annoying, and as his head cleared they made him more and more angry as he realized he was being beaten as some kind of prisoner. Isaac snarled and pulled at the restraints again, sending burning heat down his arms and legs to melt them into slag.
And that’s when the pain came. He didn’t know where it came from, but searing, blinding pain shot through his body, tensing his muscles and forcing a scream from his throat. Isaac couldn’t struggle against it; he couldn’t think to use his power; he couldn’t think at all. All he could do was scream and writhe as the pain tore through his body.
After three seconds of eternity it finally stopped, leaving Isaac hanging limply from his bonds.
A reedy chuckle drifted across the room. “Didn’t like that, did ‘ja?”
Isaac lifted his head. He could see now, and he was in a clean, white room filled with metal cabinets and lock boxes. He was still shirtless, cold, and up against one of the walls, held by metal manacles that pulled his arms straight above his head and others than fastened his ankles to bolts in the floor. Next to him was the man who had been beating him, a large, square bulk of a man in a tent-like suit. In the center of the room was a medium sized rat-faced man and the source of the chuckling.
“It cost me quite a bit to get my hands on that,” the rat man said, casually strolling closer and motioning to Isaac’s neck. Isaac couldn’t see what he was pointing at, but he could feel the weight of some large collar that bit into his skin and prevented him from looking down.
“It was made for the brute mutants,” the man continued, “big ones. So I figure it should be more than enough to keep a little prick like you in line, eh? Go ahead, try to do your little thing.” The man slapped Isaac across the face. Anger flared up Isaac’s neck, bringing a bloom of heat- and then suddenly pain. A second surge of the hellish pain shot through his body as the rat-man laughed. By the time Isaac’s screams had stopped, the man was standing back in the center of the room.
“Yeah, I thought so,” rat-face smirked. “But hey, look on the bright side! You wanted to get your grubby little hands on my money and here it is.” The man spread his arms and spun slowly. “You made it to the vault, bucko! Further than any friends you may have could possibly reach. And all this money,” the man produced a knife from his suit, “Is gonna be the last thing you ever see.”
With a few quick steps, the man closed the distance to Isaac and stabbed the knife at his exposed stomach. Isaac almost laughed. The man’s blow had almost no strength behind it, and was easily turned aside by the toughened surface of Isaac’s cooled flesh. A knife. As if he’d be afraid of a knife.
The man looked down at the weapon in his hand, dumbfounded, then tried again. And again. After several slashes across Isaac’s torso that produced no more effect than a few reddish streaks of skin, the man tried to stab the knife into Isaac’s neck. Still no effect. The man’s nostrils flared.
“What kind of motherfu—gimme your gun!” Rat-man motioned to his thug. The other man pulled a dangerous-looking pistol from his suit and placed it in his boss’s hand. Rat-man whipped it up as soon as it touched his palm and pressed it to Isaac’s shoulder. “Mock me, will ya?” he said, and pulled the trigger.
The echo of the shot filled the sterile space of the room. Isaac winced, and the man pulled the pistol away.
A flattened bullet plinked to the ground from the bruised but unbroken surface of Isaac’s skin.
Rat-man looked up at Isaac in rage and disbelief.
Isaac spat in his face.
Fury boiled from the smaller man’s ears and more bullets and obscenities were hurled at Isaac. Isaac just responded with grunts and smirks. Like a gun could hurt him, either. Sting, maybe, but little more.
Finally, it a fit of desperation, the rat-man pressed the gun against Isaac’s crotch and fired several rounds into the most sensitive spot he could think of. Isaac howled at the bruising pain, then screamed as the collar responded to his instinctual reaction of burning anger.
As the collar relented and Isaac slumped back in his restraints, he saw the shape of the rat-faced man storming out of the vault with his thug in tow, and caught the sound of “Get me something that will kill ‘im!” before the vault door slammed shut and the lights clicked off, leaving him hanging in darkness.
Posted by Calcifer on Dec 25, 2016 14:58:01 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
Running up sand dunes, it turned out, was harder than Isaac had thought, and after about a minute he had slowed to a trudging walk. Best to save his energy for when he actually needed it. He had also started to give more thought as to how exactly he was going to do things. At first the idea had been simple: run up, melt through some pipes, and light some oil on fire. But now he was carrying this bomb because his “partner” couldn’t be bothered to do anything and he couldn’t exactly be holding on to it while burning things.
So he needed to stash it somewhere. Of course, the box it had come in had been conveniently far away from where it was supposed to be used, so he couldn’t exactly use that. He couldn’t risk it getting caught in the general destruction, either. Which meant it needed to be dumped into the pipeline first.
Isaac veered slightly from his course and started skirting the oil well to reach the pipeline on the other side. This took him longer, but the desert wasn’t freezing him to death, so whatever. As he got closer, he began to get an idea of just how large the pipeline was. Not just in terms of stretching across the entire landscape, but in sheer, towering bulk. You could probably drive a semi through it.
He was a few hundred yards off from it when he suddenly heard the faint noise of angry shouting over the desert wind. Turning around, he saw several figures on the near side of the oil well moving toward some large trucks. Great. Perhaps he had cut too close to the well. Whatever. Stealth was never really his thing.
Sprinting again, Isaac made it to the pipeline just as dust started to rise from the vehicles. He looked up at the metal structure. If he wanted to get the bomb inside the pipe, he’d have to do so from the top. He looked back at the trucks which were starting to grow larger. No time. He stashed the bomb next to one of the pipeline’s larger supports and started scrambling over the sand to where the pipeline met the well. He wouldn’t be able to reach the main facility by the time the trucks got to him, but he’d seen what looked like some kind of smaller station that was partway there. He didn’t want to damage the pipeline itself before the bomb was in place, but a peripheral structure was fair game. He just needed to get there before the men did, and then it was time to make some noise.
Posted by Calcifer on Dec 23, 2016 21:01:38 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
2:45. Right on time.
Isaac peered out from under his large, tan duster at the shimmering horizon. He was lying in a shallow ditch on the side of one of the few highways to cross the Nevada desert. Sand and bits of brush were scattered on top of his coat to help hide him, and spread across the road in front of him was a set of tire spikes painted matte black to blend in with the asphalt.
His target approached.
Very few cars used this highway. Most of the people traveling to California flew or drove south through more welcoming terrain. But it was not uncommon for armored trucks to use the route when transporting money to and from Las Vegas. And one of them was headed right for Isaac’s little trap. It wasn’t often he was able to catch one, but it was good money and it wasn’t exactly like the was robbing the poor.
Isaac ducked his head under his duster as the vehicle approached and waited. The dull, mechanized ocean roar of tires on pavement grew steadily louder. Then there was an explosive bang as the tires hit the spikes. A second explosion followed almost immediately as the rear tires burst, but Isaac was already leaping to his feet, throwing the duster to the side. He was shirtless underneath and already glowing a dull red as he sprinted to the side of the swerving truck and clung to the driver-side door.
In cases like this, the guard’s security protocol would follow three steps: 1) lock the doors and remain inside. 2) Ready weapons in case of hostility. 3) Radio for back-up. The car was barely slowing to a drunken stop as Isaac plunged a firey red fist through the handle and wrenched the door open, swiftly nullifying step 1.
Step 2 was always more annoying. The guard in the passenger seat already had his shotgun pointed across the driver’s lap and managed to fire two shots into Isaac’s chest before he got a hand around the barrel of the gun and melted it closed. Isaac had made sure not to get hot enough that the pellets would penetrate his skin, but damn if they didn’t sting.
A few more swift movements saw the engine die as the steering column was wrenched into a mangled mess, the driver knocked unconscious via blows to the head, and the passenger sufficiently intimidated with the use of the driver’s pistol. Isaac climbed out of the cabin and walked around to the rear door. It offered just as much resistance as the driver’s side had. With a small sneer of satisfaction, Isaac climbed in to get a look at his spoils.
Money. Large black crates filled with so much money. Probably enough to last him the next eight months. He walked slowly past all the crates, counting them as he went. He’d made it to eleven when he heard a sharp pop followed by a steady hissing sound. He turned sharply to see what the sound was, but he couldn’t see anything. The bright sunlight glaring in through the door at the back made it hard to see…. hard to see. The air smelled… wrong somehow. And numb. For some reason, he was laying on floor of the truck bed, but he wasn’t sure how he got there. Or… why he was there.
“Gotcha, ya little prick,” said a voice miles away, and the world went black.
Posted by Calcifer on Dec 11, 2016 17:17:52 GMT -6
Haven
Asset of Haven
94
94
Aug 3, 2018 21:53:17 GMT -6
Of course the girl was shrieking. It had been a full 10 seconds since she had last been an annoying ****, so she was long overdue. Isaac looked up from tossing his shirt in the crate to see her babbling nonsense and covering her eyes. Isaac rolled his in response. “Oh, get over it,” he spat and went back to unbuttoning his pants. He couldn’t exactly melt through steel pipes if his clothes were in the way, and years of that kind of necessity had made him very indifferent toward being seen naked. It was just how things were and everyone else just needed to get their act together.
He ignored the girl as he removed the rest of his clothes and was just dumping his boxers into the box when she finally said something coherent.
>>”Go doing own job,” she said and flapped into the air.
“Yeah, go make yourself useful!” Isaac shouted after her, then added a grumbled “…if you can.” The girl hadn’t even flown off in the direction of the oil well. Of course she hadn’t. At least it wasn’t his concern if she killed herself.
Isaac slammed the crate shut and shoved it back into the edge of the dune, scooping some of the sand over the top to cover the spray-painted symbol. He had the bomb, but he wanted to get his clothes back after this was done. Best they stayed hidden.
Grabbing the mine, he climbed to the top of the sand dune bordering the landing area. The air on his bare skin was cold, but not torturously so.
Perks of taking a job in the desert.
The metal pipes of the oil well gleamed in the near distance. Not too far. Large, but not impossible to bring down, especially since they were filled with flammable liquid. And, of course, it looked like he was going to have to do it all himself. At least he was getting paid well. Isaac tucked the bomb in his arm like a football and took off at a light run across the sand.
Isaac’s glare followed Valkyrie as she swept over and past him. Huh. Guess those stupid wings actually worked. Not that they would be much help in the mission, but at least they weren’t completely useless. Hopefully that would extend to the rest of her.
He started to continue after the girl until the roar of engines stopped him. Isaac turned around in time to see the jet transition from a vertical takeoff to forward flight, leaving a spray of sand as it passed over the nearby dunes.
How nice of them. Isaac scowled. No way but forward, then.
He caught up with his emo partner at the supply crate to see that she had done…. nothing. She hadn’t even opened it. In fact, most of it was still buried in the sand. It appeared that the only thing this girl had even thought to do was spray paint a nice big “R” symbol on the lid, which would be helpful to any hostiles who may be interested in locating their stash of mission criticals.
With a glare of daggers at Valkyrie, Isaac grabbed the sides of the crate and pulled it from the sand. Turned out the thing was locked, but that was no big deal and he quickly melted the bolt off. He went ahead and pocketed his gloves in his coat; no need to keep them on now, anyway. With the lock gone, Isaac pulled the lid open to reveal a pale gray cylinder about the size of a football. There was a clear hatch on one side with an arming switch and two handles at either end.
Isaac looked up at the girl. “So am I going to have to carry this thing or are you going…” His eyes narrowed as he looked the small child up and down. Not only was she little, she was brittlely thin. No muscle mass. Weak. “Nevermind. I’ll do it myself.”
Isaac pulled the bomb from it container then looked back at the empty crate. It wasn’t like he was going to be able to keep his coat and clothes on for the mission, and with the plane gone he needed somewhere to put them. He shrugged. Good of place as any. He set the mine on the ground and started pulling off his clothes and stuffing them in the crate.