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 Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
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.
The Faust thing had not gone quite as well as planned.
Mr. Jaager had descended into a new, fearsome state of anger that hung heavy over the house like a storm cloud that should have burst hours ago, but only hung, suffocating the city with its promise.
This morning as he had gone to work, he had looked at Panu, and asked, "Do you need help tying your shoes?"
The eight year old couldn't take this anymore. He was going to prove once and for all that he was the best and most competent minion ever. By dinner tonight he would have all of Lori Faust's cure scientists rounded up, pens in hand, signing contracts to work for Jaager. Or he would have a mound of lab coat corpses for Jaager to vent his aggression on. Either way maybe things would be okay between them again.
He started by hiring an assassin off the internet.
Now he waited for his employee in an old subway station. It was out of the way and hard to find and very anonymous, unless you were in Ragnarok. Then it was a very quick walk from the base. Their technicians were slowly getting the electricity back on in this area. For now, he'd supplemented the meager cameras in the area with a few nanny cams tucked here and there. It was not perfect, but it did not have to be. He was the boss, here.
The Finnish boy was wearing his usual hoodie and headphones. With the little digital camera around his neck, he did not look very threatening. In the backpack he'd set beside him was his mask as Muninn. He had also brought a spare, so that the assassin could wear one, as well. Jörmungandr would like for any murders to be tied to Ragnarok, so that is what Panu would do. He had brought extra robes, as well.
When his assassin came in, they would find a blonde boy sitting on an old graffitied bench, swinging his legs, his hands tucked in his hoodie pouch. He did not look very scary, but maybe today he would be. This was probably the kind of day he would have to take from his mind, and archive to a server where it couldn't slip into his dreams.
But he had to do something to please Jaager, and murder usually made the adults in his life happy.
Posted by Kirsi Crux on Oct 4, 2015 11:38:54 GMT -6
Epsilon Mutant
57
8
Jan 9, 2017 21:24:34 GMT -6
Why did employers always want to meet in some sketchy, highly difficult-to-find location?
That annoyed Kirsi greatly. This employer, being the wonderfully nice person he or she must be, had decided that some arbitrary abandoned subway tunnel was a great place to meet. Which it was not, considering they were all the same. And that was why she'd spent the past fifty minutes wandering through the maze of identical tunnels, trying to find the right one.
She wasn't late, of course. She'd learned her lesson from when she'd showed up to a meet a full hour late, but thankfully for that job, the employer was also late for the exact reason Kirsi had been - he’d gotten lost. But that had taught her to show up to meets at least an hour and a half early, to scout the location and find said location. As she walked, she was locating the thankfully limited number of security cameras and dispatching of them before they caught sight of her - if they were low enough, she could blow them off whatever they were attached to, but if they were too high, she could handle them with a rock aimed precisely at the part of the camera that needed to be intact to function. Though she doubted that many of them were actually functional, it didn’t hurt to be prepared. She could also mark her place, because it was a lot easier to tell if you've already searched a set area if all the cameras look suspiciously damaged.
The agency that she was hired through had contacted her yesterday saying that someone had hired her for a job. Which was great and all, considering the payout, but the details had been horrendously vague - either the agency had held off on details or her employer had. It didn’t matter, really, though - she knew she had to come armed, and that was about it.
And thank God that the tunnel she was now entering seemed to be the right one. She was right on time, too.
But as she walked in, she was very much surprised to see a little white-haired boy sitting on a bench, a backpack settled next to him, in a hoodie and headphones with a camera hanging around his neck. Experience told her to scan the room, and especially to look up, so she immediately noticed the increased number of cameras and the fact that the boy’s vision seemed to be somewhat unfocused, as if he was not watching what was happening in front of him. Unlike most, she would not immediately dismiss the idea of the boy being her employer - she herself was young and living in a very adult world, so the idea of him doing the same was not very foreign to her. But she was sure he could not be if he were not a mutant, and she was going to hazard a guess that the boy could do something related to technology, considering the abnormally frequent cameras.
"I am looking for Muninn,” she said blankly as she neared him, although with a bit of doubt - it was equally as likely that the boy was a middleman. "Are you him?”
The cameras in the tunnels leading up to them were long dead. Getting them back online was a useful project, but a dangerous one: for them to be useful to Panu, they would need to tie to a network back at the base. But if they tied to a network back at the base, then another technopath--or even a competent human hacker--might be able to follow them like bread crumbs to Ragnarok's base. Until they could work out the security issues, they wouldn't incorporate the old tech.
So Panu did not see the cameras being vandalized, one by one, as his employee approached. Nor did he have any warning as to who she was, until she stepped into the room. She was months older than the last picture he had of her, but she'd done nothing significant to alter her looks.
Or her accent.
It was not as good as Finnish, but it was much better than the trash most New Yorkers called language.
"Ms. Korsavlys," the Finnish boy rose from his seat, because that is what a gentleman does, and maybe also what you do when your hero steps into the room. She was being cool and professional, so he could be too, even if his heart was suddenly very loud in his chest. "I am glad you could make it. Yes, I am Muninn. I have only small task for you today, nothing that is test of the talent of Railgun, but maybe it is more interesting tomorrow. Is two-day mission, if goes well."
Korsavlys. He had all her police files and also many news clips and they were all trying to skim through his head as he looked at the girl in front of him who had white hair and blue eyes, and in the cameras he could not even tell any difference in shade between hers and his, and she was just the same height as him, and she was here in America too and she was working for him--
--which was a little alarming, considering what had happened with her last employer.
The blonde boy jammed his hands in his hoodie pocket.
"First is small problem. If you are doing undercover work, now is good time to turn around, go home. I am forgetting I have seen you, if you are, and maybe you are forgetting you have seen me?" ...She was his hero because she had been undercover, she had tried to do so many things, and the adults had been so angry like they did not even understand (he hoped that it was not a normal thing, the part where getting older made you more stupid). But he was not undercover, had never been undercover. Not all of them had powers strong enough to make that choice. Tuonela had talked about kidnapping her, but the adults had agreed that she would be too hard to control. He had listened to their conversation, and they had not cared that he was there.
Posted by Kirsi Crux on Oct 7, 2015 6:43:25 GMT -6
Epsilon Mutant
57
8
Jan 9, 2017 21:24:34 GMT -6
”Ms. Korsavlys,” the boy said, and he knew who she was.
He was giving her details on the mission, but she wasn’t listening because her head was pounding. Who was this boy? How did he know who she was? But as she put the pieces together, her mind started to calm down, even if her face and body language project the same apathetic, unconcerned facade that it always did.
The boy’s accent was Finnish. Her old home had been right next to the border, so she was very closely acquainted with what that sounded like. So it meant that, already, the likelihood of him having heard of her went up. Considering the manhunt after all the mission files, all of which she had rather incriminatingly signed “complete” on, it was not that surprising at all. The boy seemed younger than her, however, and he was hiring her, so she doubted he’d come across who she was through natural means. Maybe he was part of a different crime syndicate?
"I am not undercover,” she said cautiously. "If you know who I am then you will know I have not been for a long time. And I will do the mission - two days or more is not important. But I do not go by Railgun anymore. Or Valdyr. I am Renegade, and my name is Kirsi Crux.” She scanned him, up and down, trying to figure out who precisely he was. ”Are you former Black Rose? No, otherwise I would know your face and not just you know mine… Tuonela, perhaps? They are Finnish, correct? I would very much like to know who you work for.”
Panu tried not to look as pleased as he was that she had guessed Tuonela. Her second guess, even. She had heard of his family.
But of course she had--she was from sane Scandinavia, where there were only one or two villain groups per country. Not this horrible New York, were it seemed like there was one or two or more per city. Sometimes per city block. And Tuonela was just as big in Finland as Black Rose was in Norway.
As big as it had been. Past tense. Past tense, for both their groups. But she had never really cared for hers, had she?
"I was Takala of Tuonela," the blonde boy confirmed. "Now I am Muninn of Ragnarok."
If she had been in a position to watch Scandinavian news around Christmas time of last year, she would know that Tuonela had been taken down by the Finnish police, and Takala--their suspected technopath-- declared a minor under Finnish law. Even as the surviving members of his group had gone to trial, the police had declined to press charges on him. His name and records had not been released to the public.
But he knew her name, both who she had been and who she was now. So probably it was fair.
"Panu Harmaajärvi is real name," he offered his hand, somewhat shyly. Part of that was that he was naturally ungifted when it came to depth perception, and part of that was that Railgun was standing in front of him. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
Probably she did not think as well of Tuonela's Takala as he did of her. He was complicit in many crimes, including the kidnapping other children. He had never been trying to make things better with what he did. He was only doing as Tuonela asked.
"Are you Renegade of something?" He asked. "Or just Renegade?"
Posted by Kirsi Crux on Oct 8, 2015 15:13:44 GMT -6
Epsilon Mutant
57
8
Jan 9, 2017 21:24:34 GMT -6
"I was Takala of Tuonela," the boy said, and Kirsi had suspected that. The Black Rose had been mainly active in Norway and Sweden but had never touched Finland, and that was because of Tuonela. Every Black Rose member knew that Finland was Tuonela territory and that gang wars were terrible ideas, so Kirsi had felt almost obligated to know a bit about their so-called mortal enemies, even if Tuonela didn't feel the same way about them. So she'd heard of Takala, the technopath. She'd never met him or even been in the same country as him (as far as she knew), but she knew of him. Yet Tuonela had fallen around the same time the Black Rose had, if a little bit later, so who was he working for now?
"Now I am Muninn of Ragnarok," he said, and that answered her question. He extended a hand rather hesitantly, and Kirsi took the proffered hand and shook it, but not authoritatively or tentatively. Panu Harmaajärvi is real name. It is a pleasure to meet you." She'd anglicized her name a bit, even if Kirsi was a very Finnish name - Crux didn't sound Scandinavian at all. Or, at least, not as much as Harmaajärvi did, meaning the boy had likely kept his real name when he came to America.
Who was Ragnarok, though? She had only arrived in the States rather recently, and she didn't watch American news. Her English was good, but she preferred to watch news in her native language, though she hadn't in a while because it was rather difficult to watch Norwegian television in America. Of course, as someone from Norway, she knew the significance of the names Muninn and Ragnarok, and she could get a good sense of the organization from just that. What she couldn't get was what Muninn was supposed to mean. Was the boy a messenger, or a scout of some sort, for some sort of higher-up? Takala, as a name, held no significance to her. But Takala, as a person, had not been a very good one. Maybe he had changed. Perhaps she would learn, later.
"Are you Renegade of something?" Panu asked, clearly excited about meeting her. He'd recognized her immediately, so it was likely that Railgun had been important to him, back when he had been Takala. Which might also be why he asked so many questions. "Or just Renegade?"
"That is unimportant," Kirsi said. "I am here for a mission, so we should do that, no?" She wasn't trying to sound mean, and she kind of hoped that was clear, but there were so many hours of daylight in one day. And maybe the boy wanted darkness. But time was still wasting. She'd noticed the mask next to him when he'd been sitting, and now was probably a good time to ask about it. She gestured at it, asking, "That mask. Is it for mission?" Then she frowned, tilting her head as she tried to peer more closely at it. She'd seen it before. Maybe on a newspaper's front page, in a grainy surveillance photo, below headlines with the word "Ragnarok." Or maybe not.
"My apologies, Ms. Renegade. I am not meaning to pry." He hadn't meant to, really, he had just been curious. He had not paid much attention to where she was, not since Tuonela had been broken up. There had been so much else to pay attention to. He had no clue she had changed her name, that she was in Americanow, that she was in New York and he was in New York and she was right in front of him.
Now was the time to be a professional.
"Yes, is my Ragnarok mask. Jörmungandr likes for us to be seen, but being seen with your real face is stupid, so he made me a mask." If they were friends, Panu would have pointed out all the cameras inside of his, and how awesome the views were, even though they made it feel rather heavy on his head. But they were not friends, and being excited to show off a new toy was what a child would do.
"I have brought you one, too." He felt out the zipper on his backpack, and opened it. Inside was a mask that looked identical from the outside, but which lacked his specialized tech on the inside. It was much lighter. "It is maybe a little too big. I did not know I hired you, so I brought one that could fit adult. But there are straps inside, so you can adjust."
He sat down on the bench. Then he remembered his manners, and stood up again. He had promised a new sister of his that he would be a gentleman, and a gentleman let a lady sit first.
"Please have a seat. I will explain mission. Is easy."
The bench was old and graffiti covered, with fossilized remains of gum encrusted on its surface. Really, it was not so different from a normal New York bench.
He rummaged through his backpack again. There was a general click of plastic case on plastic case as his extra cameras and batteries bumped together. After a moment, he found what he was looking for, and offered a small tablet to the girl after flipping it on.
Initially, its screen would be entirely empty. Very very soon, the girl would see files populating it.
"Targets are targets, blueprints are blueprints." He explained the filing system, in exactly as much detail as it needed to be explained. "Goal is to scare all scientists working on mutant cure away from Faust Pharmaceuticals, make them join Jaager Worldwide instead. Lori Faust is bad for my powers, I want her gone from city, so I am breaking her company. Even better if her people go to main competitor."
"Today we visit some lower scientists. Research assistants. We make them offer first, because I think they are probably not believing us, and turning us down. When we kill them, tomorrow the others take us seriously." As annoying as it was, he was beginning to learn that in New York, he was just a child. No one feared him. Even in a mask, it was still obvious he was too short to be anything but a child or a midget, and neither was very scary. So he had made it part of the plan. Like bringing an umbrella when it was raining; if people were not going to take you seriously, plan to make an example.
...It had seemed like a good plan when he thought he'd hired an assassin. A cold-blooded killer. But it was Railgun he had hired. He could delete his memories, but she couldn't. Was killing for money really something she was okay with, now?
"...Hopefully they all just say yes." He didn't want to kill them, either. But if she was okay with killing them, probably that would make him look weak. So he put on a perfectly cold, logical reason: "Is better to get whole team intact."
The boy fussed with adjusting his headphones, and waited to hear the girl's reply. Hopefully she was okay with this plan. Then she had changed, and they could work together.
...Hopefully she hadn't changed. Then at least one of them was still good.
He was apologizing and everything. How nice of him. Americans had no concept of basic decency, unlike the Scandinavians - Kirsi had fought a Tuonela member once who had apologized when he killed the Black Rose member accompanying Kirsi on a mission. She'd picked up that habit from the anonymous man, and now said "beklager, tilgi meg," to every person she killed as a sort of ritual, whether out loud or in her head. "I'm sorry, please forgive me." It was her way of still staying as good as she could, in a way.
This mask, though - his Ragnarok mask? She agreed that being seen with your real face was stupid, which was why she preferred to go at things stealthily. It just wasn't hard for people to realize that an abnormal-looking white-haired child was at the scene of every hit. It didn't even matter if she wore a mask - the rest of her was rather obvious. But maybe what this Ragnarok did was more public. Maybe they were statement killers. She couldn't tell.
She was pleasantly surprised to see that Panu had had the foresight to bring her a matching mask, since that sort of coordination often ended up being more intimidating. As she took it, though, she noticed that it seemed to be a lot leaner and less bulky than Panu's, but she didn't comment.
The boy sat down. Then stood back up again. Then offered her a seat.
She was starting to miss Scandinavia, where everyone was so polite. These Americans were all so... brutish.
She took a seat on the grimy bench, inwardly recoiling a bit because Americans were rather unsanitary too, and waited as Panu ruffled through his backpack. She could hear something clanking around inside, and he pulled out a tablet and handed it to her. It was blank. The screen suddenly started to fill up with files, though, and Kirsi felt a little bit of excitement at seeing a technomancer work. She'd always thought that would be a rather fun power.
The mission sounded cut-and-dry. The only problem was murdering the research assistants. They hadn't done anything to warrant her killing them. And if Panu was as big of a fan of hers and he acted, he should know that. That had been the tiny piece of her humanity that she clung to, and she wasn't willing to relinquish it yet or ever.
As he spoke, Kirsi flipped through the files on the tablet, skimming them and doing her best to retain as much information as she could in the short amount of time they had. Sure, Panu could likely access them with a though, but if they got separated or something, it was good for her to know her way around. It also seemed as if he was unsure about killing the scientists too, but was acting as if he wanted to avoid doing so for logical reasons.
"I agree," Kirsi responded, humoring Panu's 'totally out of pure logic' comment. "Also, there is no need to kill them. Unneeded casualties make clean jobs messy." In more ways than one. She continued to flip through the tablet's files. "So we scare Faust's scientists into leaving? Easy. All I need to know is how to get to their houses."
As they walked to their destination - this tunnel had apparently been picked for its conveniently close location to the neighborhood where quite a few of the scientists lived - Kirsi filled Panu in on her plan. Her power imitated sniper shots perfectly, and she could produce a facsimile of a bomb by overstoring energy into something. It wouldn't be anywhere near as deadly as the real deal, but it would send a message fine. Getting attacked by a sniper or a bomber seemed like perfectly good motivation to leave your job, and the fact that that was their intent could easily be conveyed via Panu's power. If that didn't scare them, their bank accounts and credit cards getting frozen probably would. It was a vague-ish plan, of course - it wasn't in anywhere near the amount of detail she'd like, but she assumed Panu would make some changes as they went, and it would be on a relatively case-by-case basis.
Soon, they arrived at the first apartment building. According to the tablet she'd been reading, this one was on the twenty-sixth floor, in a corner room.
"Should we go into the neighboring building?" Kirsi asked Panu, inspecting said building critically. "Better vantage point there. But if we go into the building itself, I can set a few 'bombs,' if he isn't yet awake."
The boy's shoulders visibly relaxed as she suggested modifications to his plan. Ones that involved less killing, and more only scaring. Also more property damaged, but this was okay. Jaager liked property damage. Some employers got very angry if you tried to change their plan, but Panu was not that kind of boss. He was the good kind, the kind that liked ideas that were better than his own.
He could not tell if she did not want to kill them because it was not necessary, or did not want to kill them because she did not want to kill them. She was very good at being professional, and professional meant not showing what you really thought.
He made sure that she kept the tablet, if she wanted it. It contained the blueprints of all their target's houses, taken from the public records. Also their pictures, and abbreviated versions of their personnel files from Faust. Mostly HR kept stupid records that said much more than they needed to, so he had deleted many things.
No sooner had she asked for a map to the address than one appeared, too. It was very easy to link google directions. He would update the address list as they went, but for now it showed only the first target.
He did not try to hide how impressed he was by her power. "That is very strong. No wonder you take down Black Rose. Probably you are strong enough you do not need a group at all."
His was maybe strong by some definitions, but not by the ones that counted. He could not even beat a cat in a physical fight. He knew this, because he had lost to one less than a month ago. (It had been a fierce and worthy opponent, with a tongue like sandpaper.)
The first researcher lived in one of New York's many many apartment buildings. He was a recent college grad with much debt, so it was not the best apartment building. Panu had picked this one to start because the only security on the building was a locked front door, that most of the time was propped open by someone smoking outside.
"Let's go inside," Panu said. It was his first real decision as a leader and he made it decisively. "Bombs will block retreat if he tries to avoid fire from windows. Keep him in apartment. Is easier to convince if trapped."
It was still very early, and not many people were awake in the building. Panu could tell this because most of their phones said Upcoming Alarm: Dismiss? He was not feeling mean, so he did not dismiss them.
Her 'bombs' were set without incident, and he left a toy helicopter sitting in the stairwell with the door propped a few inches, just in case the man left and he needed to keep eyes on him. It was the 26th floor, so probably no one was really using the stairs. Then they retreated to a vantage point on the neighboring building. It was well within Panu's range. He settled down with his back against a wall, facing away from the scene. He did not need to see for his part. And any way, direction was irrelevant to him. He left a little digital camera sitting on the ledge above him, though, so he could see the effects of anything Kirsi did. He had not bothered to put on his mask or robes. With her power and his, maybe they wouldn't need them. Everything would be best if they could do it from range.
"I am sending wake up call now. I will set your tablet as speaker so you can hear, but yours is listen-only, no talk. You can say anything to me, he will not hear."
Inside the apartment, a phone rang on a beside table. A twenty-something with a 4 o'clock shadow murbled into his pillow, and batted at it effectually until he'd woken up enough to properly pick the thing up.
Incoming Call: RAGNAROK
"Hello? Who is this?"
Through the speaker on Kirsi's tablet, the man sounded young and bewildered and a little irritated. He'd still had a half hour set on his alarm. Probably he was the type to take a five minutes shower and run out the door in yesterday's clothes, carrying a breakfast bar with him on the train.
Panu's mouth did not move. Instead, a synthesized male voice, one of the defaults that came with any computer system, came on the line.
"This is a job offer, Mr. Getterson. Faust Pharmaceuticals will be shattered and broken, but the cure research must continue. There is another in the city who works on it. If you go to work this morning, you will be broken with them. Go to Jaager, and we guarantee that your health benefits will be... competitive."
It was a prerecorded message. He had forgotten about the synthesized maniacal cackle he'd put on the end. Probably that was too much. The boy turned extremely pink, and was very glad that meeting Kirsi's eyes was not even an option. "Umm. Is this a joke?" It was a perfectly reasonable question.
It demanded a perfectly unreasonable answer. Through the window, they could see the young researcher wiping the sleep from his eyes as he sat on the edge of his bed.
Panu gestured to Kirsi. Probably now was the time for her to earn her keep.
Posted by Kirsi Crux on Nov 21, 2015 10:16:06 GMT -6
Epsilon Mutant
57
8
Jan 9, 2017 21:24:34 GMT -6
Kirsi marveled at how much control the boy had over his ability, considering as soon as she asked for it, a map appeared on the tablet she was holding. She only barely acknowledged the compliment, nodding to show she had heard and appreciated it, but she was more focused on trying to iron out the details of her actions.
One they'd arrived, Panu responded to her question rather decisively. Good; he was capable of making leader-like decisions, then. Kirsi nodded, before proceeding towards the front door. The blueprints showed that this was the only security, and while it was locked, it was easy enough for her to put a bullet through it with her power to let them in. The "bombs" were set up without incident - they weren't really bombs, but really just preprepared water balloons filled with dry rice. Didn't sound particularly intimidating, but anything was intimidating when flying just under the speed of sound towards your face. Also, the rice was multicolored, which she found amusing and far more interesting than plain rice.
Setting up on the opposite building's rooftop was just as easy. Kirsi had gotten into the habit of scavenging bullets, either by finding them on the street or nabbing them from the gun ranges outside of town, or from just asking her not-dad, Maddox, to buy some for her. Being more aerodynamic than a coin, and a lot easier to explain and to claim innocence about ("I don't have a gun, so how could I have shot him?"), she was trying to use those more now. So she took a handful of bullets out of the satchel she always carried along with a scope, and lined the bullets up carefully on the wall surrounding the rooftop before placing the scope next to them and focusing on their target's window.
Panu was ready, it seemed, and she nodded to acknowledge his words, and then listened as the call was made.
The maniacal cackle was cute. She couldn't help but smirk.
"Um. Is this a joke?"
Kirsi could see the researcher sitting up on his bed. That was her cue. She was saving the bombs as a last resort, because no need to use them until necessary. So she fired, making sure the sound of the gunshot was wholly audible. The recoil jerked her back a bit, but she'd been ready for it, so it didn't particularly affect her. She saw the man's head whip around to face the window in response to the noise, before there was a hole in the glass of his window and his alarm clock was smashed into pieces. Perfect shot.
"Why don't you let our friend know that we're being serious and he really should make a decision immediately?" Kirsi said calmly, as she reached for another bullet and lined up her next shot.
The shot was very loud, much louder than he had been expecting. He knew what guns sounded like, he was not a stupid sheltered child, but he had not thought that her power would sound so much like one. Panu jumped a little.
The researcher jumped a lot. He jumped back away from the window, and for a moment the camera showed failing legs as he got caught in his blanket, but then he rolled out of sight. Probably now he was on other side of the bed and huddling. This is what it sounded like when he spoke again, with breathy scared voice.
"Is this a joke?"
Probably his brain was a little broken, so it was repeating its last output until it could reboot. This happened to people who were not professionals.
Panu archived the prerecorded message for future use, and went live. His lips did not move: he spoke through the synthesizer installed in his phone.
"As amusing as this is, Mr. Getterson, is no joke. This call is over. You will call Faust Pharmaceuticals. You will quit. If you do not, then still you are not going to work this morning. Goodbye."
He disconnected the call before his bad English screwed everything up. Threats were better when shorter, anyway.
In the apartment, a countdown appeared on the man's phone screen. Panu gave him two minutes. Five was a long time to wait when maybe someone had heard the shot. It be smart to set up a search algorithm that detected 911 calls in his range. Later he should code this. Right now, he was doing too many things to focus on it.
The man's phone had tilt sensors and an accelerometer. These told Panu that his hands were shaking as he dialed.
"Hey. I'm not--not coming in. To work. I quit. Does it matter why? I--"
Panu cut him off there. Congratulations on your new job, the man's phone said.
On the rooftop, the Fin's shoulders slumped and he started breathing again. "Thank you for back up. I think that one is go well."
Posted by Kirsi Crux on Dec 16, 2015 20:29:09 GMT -6
Epsilon Mutant
57
8
Jan 9, 2017 21:24:34 GMT -6
Easy enough. People generally reacted rather similarly when somebody shot at them, and thankfully this man was no different. As soon as she heard Panu thank her, she nodded and started to clean up, packing everything that belonged to her into her bag, and wiping down the surfaces she may have touched. The bombs they could disregard - he'd be rather confused as to why balloons filled with multicolored rice were in his apartment, once he located them, but it wouldn't be anything that would damage their mission. Kirsi had more than enough on her, after all, considering their relatively tiny size, and she was wearing gloves, so they weren't evidence.
"You should get your helicopter," she told Panu, as she put the last of the bullets in her bag. "Evidence." Suddenly, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, and she really hoped it wasn't what she thought it was.
Nope, it was. Police.
"Police are here," she hissed, ducking down beneath the wall and watching through her scope as the officer got out of the car, hand over his gun. She glanced over at Panu - he was the leader, after all. "Plan?"