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.
She had to get back to better. That's why, despite only being a few weeks out of the hospital, Noel was at the gym reserved for Haven residents.
Noel had not been expressly forbidden from leaving the premises, but she had been warned that she needed a guardian. She wasn't fit for public consumption. Or something... Truth be told, she wasn't confident enough to go just yet.
Hadden seemed to think that she needed time to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Which seemed an unfair stipulation now that she was mentally digesting the request. Did anybody really know?
The memorymancer pulled one arm across her body with her opposite hand and stretched in front of the mirror.
Some things she knew were different. No tattoos. No scars. Well, different scars. No piercings. The hair-- It'd somehow hurt her feelings when she'd noticed it was gone. She'd lost some muscle mass in the hospital, especially in her arms. It wasn't a vanity thing. It was a matter of being able to swing a sword... if she wanted to.
Noel checked her arm where the name that Devon Hadden had written had finally worn off.
Nate was a busy man these days, splitting his time between his classes at the Mansion and business on behalf of Haven. He would never claim to miss his time in prison, but the ex-con had to admit, he was never lacking for time to work out or read over four years cut off from society.
Despite his transformation, Nate was not a gym rat, but he did find some peace in exercise when free time was available. It took him to a different place than his art, with one leaving him physically refreshed and the other let him recollect himself mentally and emotionally. It could be argued that in many ways, Nate was more “complete” than he had been in a long time.
Devon and Nate had discussed appealing to modify his probation, moving him over to one of the Haven apartments, but until that was finalized, he was living at the Mansion he taught at. The Mansion had its own workout and training facility, (which made sense given the night jobs of some of the residents,) so it was easy to get time when he needed once he was home for the night. Some nights, however, Nate found himself occupied with tasks that needed to be done at Haven Headquarters, leading to late nights on site. This was one of those nights.
The Creator had reached out to Delaney Santiago to make sure her relocation was keeping her safe, but he still had a pile of emails to reply to or send. He was assisting in arranging an event for police-community relations, communicating with businesses that would be willing to help find jobs for struggling mutants and humans, and reaching out to therapists who specialized in helping teenagers adjusting to gay, transgender, or mutant issues. It was all good work, but it was a lot of good work for a man who was hoping he might have the time to get out at a reasonable hour and see his daughter.
There was no way Nate was getting out before Norah went to bed. With that in mind, he figured he would make the most of his time at the Headquarters and take a break at their gym facility. He kept a change of clothes in his office for situations like that, so he could work out in gym shorts and a t-shirt, rather than the suit he arrived in.
When Nate made it into the gym, he was pleased to see the space was relatively empty. There were situations when Nate was content to be around people, but the gym setting was not one of them. The only other person he saw was a woman standing in front of the mirrored wall, and Nate was fine with taking a machine on the other side of the gym so she could have her space too.
At least, that was the plan, but when Nate passed by the woman, something struck him as… familiar. He was not looking to be rude, though to an onlooker, he might have seemed like a gym bro checking her out. What Nate was actually doing was looking the woman over, convincing himself of who she was. The hair was shorter, and she might have been a little thinner than their last encounter, but he was almost positive…
Noel went through a short stretch routine, careful to stretch her back and shoulders, and hips; anything to make her loosen up after hunching over those stitches.
From there she moved into yoga, stretching and pulling until she made it into warrior pose. Another resident entered and Noel studiously ignored the extra body. That was typical gym etiquette except he didn't seem to subscribe to the same school of thought.
Noel ignored him harder and moved from warrior 1 to warrior 2. She tried to sink low into the stance and— seriously what was he doing?
She inhaled and turned, to say what she had no idea because he said her name first.
He said her name like it was a food he'd forgotten was his favorite. Or a friend he'd never expected to see again, least of all here and now.
And of course she had no clue. Noel'd never seen him before in his life. Her life? Neither of either, actually. She straightened out of stance, bothered that she had only time to complete one side. She felt quite uneven.
"Oh, hey! Fancy seeing you here." She didn't like misleading others, but she hated not knowing worse. There was a chance it'd come back to her if she gave it a shot, so she did. No point in making an apparent friend feel bad because they were so forgotten. It was rarely because they were forgettable.
Haven drew in all kinds, but Nate rarely expected a familiar face to come through their doors. For all intents and purposes, Nate spent two years building a life in New York before he left, so he had a handful of friends and acquaintances. Naturally, leaving for prison without a word or a warning led to a natural drifting, and New York was a big place.
If any old friend was going to cross Nate’s path, he was thrilled for it to be Noel. The swordswoman was always unique. Last they spoke, Noel was living with her swordmaster, living life as an independent vigilante, and engaging Nate in a gelato food fight. If there was someone he considered his “best friend” once upon a time, it would be Noel. When he was planning to turn himself in, Noel was the only person outside of the Mansion he spoke to about it.
Noel was not a “hugger,” so Nate kept a respectable distance, but it was clear by his expression he was thrilled to see her. ”I didn’t realize you were living at Haven! I guess you aren’t living with your swordmaster these days?”
Four years had passed, so he was sure there was a lot he missed in Noel’s life. ”It’s great seeing you again. After I was released on probation, I tried to reach out, but you’re not exactly the easiest woman to track down.”
Haven was the type of place that pulled in the vagabonds and those who had run into troubles on their path, and with how Noel lived her life, it was not out of the realm of possibility that trouble found her.
He was so exuberant that it was easy to fall into conversation. Plus, she did still have some reference to some of the events mentioned. Somehow, she got sucked right into it. He made it easy to just fit, even prompting her to smile back.
"Yeah, it just sort of ended up this way." This way being virtual house arrest, but she wasn't about to admit to that just yet. "I'm hoping to find a place to really fit, you know? Some stability or a safety net would be nice."
And if he was asking about Sebastian then she probably didn't have to worry about not seeing each other recently. That had been... she didn't know exactly, but it was years in the plural. "Sebastian retired to... Ohio? I think it was? I've bounced around in a few jobs since then."
Probation. Ah. So that's at least where he'd been. One clue down.
"Out on good behavior I hope." She was wracking her brain and coming up empty for a name, but the feeling was there. Friends. They were familiar like old friends who could pick back up whenever the threads of their lives happened to cross. Understanding or mature enough to know that not everyone could be there always, but right enough to fit back how it used to be.
It got to the point in the conversation where normally a friend would be able to fire off a return question. She should know something about him and show her interest by asking about it, but... Noel grimaced.
"I'm sorry. I really thought I'd be able to figure it out by now. I—" She was at a loss for words. How did you tell someone that they were forgettable? "We obviously know each other, I'm just not doing a great job on my end of that."
It was interesting catching up with the people from years ago, because while Nate’s absence put him in stasis for several years, other people went through major life changes. Noel went from training and living with a master to wandering on her own, bound to no one. It was easy to picture the vigilante swordswoman as some classic wandering samurai stereotype, but that was the part of her life he evidently missed out on. He was glad he could be around as she tried to find a place for herself again; Haven could use a bit of Noel, he was certain.
In response to his own probation, Noel made a comment, and it was hard to tell if she was teasing him or genuinely asking. Something about the way she was talking and acting felt… off? ”You know me; only the best behavior,” he replied with a smirk, because Noel was the kind of friend he could grin and smirk and banter with.
Noel was not grinning, though; she seemed frustrated. Nate was ready to ask if something was wrong when his friend finally came clean and everything made sense. Things felt off because she didn’t know him. At least, she did not remember, and she was trying to apologize for her forgetfulness.
Luckily, Nate understood immediately what the implied problem was. Over the course of their friendship, Noel gave the ex-con a rundown of her mutation, and while it was nice to be a human lie detector who could borrow memories, she gave him fair warning of her mutation’s occasional drawback: memory loss.
Sighing, Nate clarified to ensure he was not misreading the situation, and to help Noel know that he was not clueless about what might have happened. ”So the problem on your end… are we talking ‘it’s been too long’ or ‘requested files have been deleted?’” It was hard to believe, even after four years, Noel would have let him slip through the cracks of her memory. If he was completely removed from her mind, it was actually more understandable, not to mention less disappointing.
He sighed. She sighed. This is why she didn't do the whole friends thing. For a shining moment, Noel thought she might pull it off but now it was gone. He must've been so disappointed in her.
"I lost a lot of myself," she explained, already coming down from her earlier cheer. "I thought that I could use backups, video or people, to help me keep track so for a while I was not at all cautious with my memory. And I did it on purpose." In hindsight that was... not ideal. She was sure she had her reasons at the time, but at this moment, current Noel was frustrated at past Noel.
"I guess the fault in that is there's not a whole lot of time to just sit a rewatch your life happen and not every person is there for every moment I've needed to recover." She couldn't even remember that redhead's name at this point. Even before her tattoos had been healed away, she'd inked over the tattoo of his name.
And if this man had known her when she'd been living with Sebastian, she'd been unable to keep tattoos at that point in her life. Her bare arms were probably nothing new to him.
"All of that sounded like such a pathetic excuse. I'm sorry. File not found." She offered her hand and another grimace.
There was an attempt made to play the encounter off like he was not forgotten, but eventually Noel gave in and explained what Nate had missed. If it was tough to hear, but mainly because he felt bad for knowing his friend needed to essentially empty of herself of all memories. Whatever compelled her to do that could not have been good, and Nate was not around to help.
Noel felt bad for forgetting their friendship, but Nate took her hand and smiled anyway. ”It’s not pathetic. I’m just… sorry I could not be there to help you pick up the pieces.” He was still unaware to what extent Noel cleared her mind, but he knew what it was like to start fresh. It had to be significantly worse when you had to go into that with no previous experiences to work with.
Now that they were back in the same place, there was something he could do to give Noel a leg up into her new life with at least one established friend. ”If you were still looking for backups to recollect some of the past from, I’m sure I could offer up my memory banks.”
Nate held out his hand as an offering, assuming that would be the easiest way for Noel to get a taste of their past. ”It won’t give you a whole lot, but there are a few good gelato-based memories in there.”
Could anything have gone differently if she'd had a friend to pick up the pieces…? Maybe. But maybe not. Noel had learned long ago that playing 'what if’ never ended well.
“Are you sure?” He looked sure. He even held out his hand. Noel caught his fingers in hers, but hesitated with her dry hands and calluses. This was what she had hoped for, but she needed to get her expectations in line before she got her hopes up about just how much memory she was going to get out of this exchange.
“We're friends.” She searched his face for confirmation, but she'd already said it with certainty enough that it tasted true. It didn't matter exactly how long ago that they'd been friends because even just having one was novel enough. She was a little amazed for it to feel right. Noel didn't have friends.
She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed them against the first knuckle near the pads of his fingers. She paused with just the tip of her tongue touching his skin, not mentally in the room as she pulled in memories of herself and Stephen... Nate. Right. She used to make that mistake.
How bizarre to peek back at herself at a time when she seemed so carefree. Could that really only be 4 years ago?
"You put gelato in my hair." She kissed his fingers goodbye and rubbed her thumb over the spot to dry it before she let go, both amused and accusatory. "Different times." Times with relationships and vapid concerns.
"You decided to do the time and start again with a clean slate. Man, that one really tore you up. Late night texts. The works. I heard less from you when you were breaking up with Quin." Probably because of the drinking. And now she was seeing the almost texts that'd never made it past their drunken draft phase.
It was a little like stepping through a waterfall. Now that she'd done it, she could feel the memories pouring down over her and soaking through her thoughts.
And mentioning Quin brought up a few other things she'd taken in before. Noel tried to scrub past that with grace. Not hers. That was personal. "You work here now, for Hadden." She asked because it was polite, but it wasn't really a question. It was an invitation for him to explain what he'd been up to most recently.
Nate felt anticipatory nervousness waiting for Noel to accept his offer, hoping everything went as he hoped. Things could be more complicated if something had changed with Noel’s power since they last met, but he was probably just finding reasons to worry that his friend was not coming back. She asked if he was sure, and he nodded. ”Yes, I am.”
Before she gave his memories a taste, she said one more time for clarification if they were friends. ”We are.” Nate did not keep many true “friends” in his life, so he knew the people he held that highly, counting them on one hand.
Speaking of hands, his was taken and a kiss was pressed against his finger. He watched as she slowly gathered memories of their time together, and her first words as she pulled away made him chuckle. ”In my defense, I’m pretty sure you threw some at my face first.” It was a good memory, and if there was going to be a starting point, he was glad it was that.
Of course, she also remembered the consideration and time Nate took deciding to turn himself over to the police. It was not a decision he made lightly, knowing he would give up part of his life as a free man. Jail was not just four years to work out; it was four years away from the life he really enjoyed living at the time. He almost talked himself out of the plan more than once, but between Quin, and the Mansion, and Megan’s lost child, he always talked his way back to doing the right thing. Noel was there for all of that.
Evidently, Noel brought herself up to speed on things she might have missed, which some might see as intrusive, but Nate saw as convenient. Catching up was so much easier when he did not have to do all the work and explaining. It was a shame he could not do the same and save them some time. ”Yeah, Devon pulled me into this place early. He’s a good guy, and he has some ideas that clicked with me. It’s an opportunity to do good,” he admitted, even if “good” occasionally pushed the terms of his probation.
”I’m honestly busy these days between Haven and teaching at the Mansion, but you probably saw that.” Noel absorbed quite a bit of information, he had to imagine, so he doubted everything was suddenly fresh in her mind—that just sounded like it would be absurdly taxing on one person’s brain. It might help for him to guide conversation. ”You might also have seen someone new in my life. Does the name Norah ring any bells?” Nate hoped it did, because it was not often he could bring such big news to a friend.
> ”Yeah, Devon pulled me into this place early. He’s a good guy, and he has some ideas that clicked with me. It’s an opportunity to do good,”
Everything Nate was saying had Noel nodding along, but she saw things, literally, from a memory's perspective. She couldn't not agree.
"I didn't have as much of a choice, but I think he's trying to give me the space to come to that conclusion on my own: that he's a good guy, trustworthy, and with the right ambitions." She knew it from day 1, though. The moment she asked him what was real and he gave her the truth despite what he perceived as a personal risk.
She didn't know where she fit in yet --or if she would-- but Nate being here only helped.
Noel's memory absorption was topical. As he touched on topics, it was like being given a dossier of highlights. Mansion art classes seemed incredibly fulfilling. Being an adjunct allowed him a certain air of mystery over the teachers that stayed in house and gave him a level of removal from some of the arguments that arose from being in a somewhat isolated environment. He really got to relate to the kids from the heart. Whether they appreciated that or not was hard to say. She only got Nate's side of it.
> ”You might also have seen someone new in my life. Does the name Norah ring any bells?”
She smiled. Couldn't help it, really. Moments like these made Noel feel absolutely insane.
She fostered a fierce love for this child of hers, that wasn't hers. And she didn't even want children.
"She's beautiful, Nate. I can't believe it, but it actually feels right. A dad." Wow.
Noel was somewhat able to extricate her emotions, however, when she saw who Nate's babymomma was. She quite nearly choked on the inhale.
"Your- Natalie is-" She didn't exactly know where to start, so she went for the worst part first. Like ripping off a bandaid. "I bit her."
Noel made it clear that something brought her to Haven not necessarily of her own volition, but Nate was glad she was getting used to the place. It was obviously her choice whether she chose to stick around, but it would make Nate’s life better to have her nearby more often, especially with the big changes going on in his life. ”Well, feel the place out. I’m sure having you around will liven things up,” he added teasingly.
Leading the conversation to Norah had the effect Nate was hoping for. Suddenly, Noel was smiling the way Nate smiled when he was around his daughter. She was seeing the child through Nate’s eyes, and the feelings and memories that came with that were strong. ”She is. And it does. I’ll be the first to admit, I was not expecting to fall into this so quickly when Nat told me about her, but I don’t think I’ve been this happy in a long time.” Probably ever.
Mentioning Nat might have been a mistake made because Nate did not know better, but he watched his friend suddenly change her expression. He listened, confused and worried, waiting to hear how Noel and Natalie knew each other.
And then he laughed. He probably should not have, but it was hard to control when he pictured the scene. ”That must be damn near the best thing anyone’s ever told me. I wish I could borrow your mutation for a minute so I could see her face when you did that.” Natalie was so serious and structured most of the time, so imagining how she might react to something as childish and unprecedented as being bitten by another adult was the height of humor.
Finally calming himself down, Nate figured it would be worth getting more to the story to make sure he was not laughing at a serious matter. ”So please do tell me, how did you find yourself nibbling at the mother of my child?” He paused, but a second thought occurred to him, warranting clarification. ”Unless it was a kinky thing. If it was kinky, you can keep it to yourself.” He did not need to know about the sex lives of his best friend and co-parent if they involved one another.
Posted by Noel on May 27, 2017 20:22:11 GMT -6
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S.U.P.E.R.
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Dec 21, 2021 8:26:40 GMT -6
Ghost
Noel hoped to not be the one responsible for "livening things up." A bit of calm was just about her speed lately.
Nate's laughter kicked off a squirm where Noel stood a touch embarrassed. That wasn't usually an emotion she let herself indulge in, but she couldn't remember the lawyer's face at that moment. She'd been busy focusing on the arm lock, whether she needed to shatter Natalie's elbow, and how humiliating the whole experience of the hospital had been in general.
"She was trying to ask me questions in a language I could not understand or speak after I had been arrested. So... not really my kink?" Still, they'd gotten something enough communicated between them that Nat had worked some magic in court.
It might be interesting to meet her now that they could actually speak.
"She seemed... efficient." Were they a thing? Noel honestly couldn't tell because Norah was like a big flashing beacon of Nate's focus. "I am confused. Are you two...?" He called her a b*** to her face, but she almost seemed to like that. Talk about kinks... "Yeah. I'm going to stick with confused on this one, but give you an out if you need it. I'd really like to go run. Can we... I don't know, meet for gelato or something?"
It wasn't until she'd said it that the concept clicked. It fell into place so perfectly that she felt goosebumps march up her arms and neck and scalp. Every time she'd met someone for gelato, it probably traced back to the good feelings left behind from the man standing in front of her.
It was not particularly good etiquette for Nate to laugh, but his first thought was not about how awkward or embarrassed Noel was because of the bite. In his head, he was focused on a frustrated, flustered Natalie in one of the rare moments where she was off her game. (He also had to admit, there was something cute about Natalie when she was flustered, but that was a side-thought and altogether unimportant.)
”Sorry Noel, I didn’t realize that was how you two met.” If Noel needed Nat’s services, she must have found herself in a rough patch. Noel was arrested, and unless Natalie decided to conduct an entire conversation in French, she had lost her ability to speak English.
Noel praised Natalie’s efficiency, and Nate was not about to argue. He did his homework on the mother of his child, and she was a great, often ruthless lawyer. He was ready to agree before Noel asked him about the relationship he shared with Nat. Even after absorbing some of Nate’s memories, she still felt the need to ask, making him wonder what kind of mixed signals he was putting out around the lawyer.
Apparently off-put by some thought she must have perused about Nate and Natalie, Noel decided it would be best if they took a break so they could do what they came to the gym for in the first place. She even proposed getting gelato, which clearly unearthed a memory she must have had before reacquiring Nate’s past. He smiled warmly, glad some part of their friendship somehow survived a memory wipe. ”Yeah, I think we’re long overdue for some gelato, Noel. After our workouts, then.”
Nate began to head toward the nearby machines before he turned around, deciding something was worth clarifying. ”For the record, no, Nat and I are not… well, anything other than co-parents.” Just because things with him and Sarah had hit the rocks did not mean he had plans of wooing Natalie. Dating would mean the risk that they might break up, and that would be more challenging for Norah than having two parents who were never together at all.
With his explanation provided, Nate returned to his pre-workout stretching, suddenly looking forward to post-workout gelato.
"It'll taste better if we earn it first." She assured him and herself. She had to do this. It was important to her.
Noel finished her stretches, much more comfortable with her gym partner now. She was only minimally sore now despite the fresh puckering of scars. Every day was getting better. Every gym run made her feel a little bit more in control.
She started out slow on the treadmill and eventually worked through to sprint drills that would hopefully increase her speed. Someday she'd branch out to weights or something. For now, being able to run away seemed like it was of a higher priority. She didn't stop until she was wholly unable to keep her breathing together. She had to hit the emergency stop or risk getting whisked off the back.
Now that was worth some gelato.
Noel had a towel stashed, knowing she'd end up as a mess of sweat and pink cheeks. She'd been focused on her own gym agenda and not really paying attention. Now that she had to take a moment to regroup and cool down, it was time to check in with Nate.