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.
Reaper grinned and shook her head. It was obviously that she was viewing Vicente in a slightly different light. The whole time he thought and then finally spoke, she again revealed nothing about what she was thinking. Instead she sat back and simply crossed her arms over her chest. It was obvious that she was prepared to run into a brick wall so it was of little surprise what she heard back from Vicente. But the killer only shook her head as she finally grinned. So…he was going to play that game.
Vicente, of course, assumed he had some control of this situation. He was testing Reaper, just to see how good she really was. Few if any people knew about his abilities and if she were really the Reaper he learned about and feared, then it would of course stand to reason that she would have been able to glean this information for herself.
If she knew something, he was going make her reveal what it was.
“Work ethic?” she said she a snort. “Is that what you call ripping a man’s head, clean off?” she reached into her folder and pulled out a collection of glossy photographs. She then tossed them unceremoniously on the table in front of him. “No, no. There’s something more going on here.”
A look of confusion flashed across Vicente’s face as he craned his neck to look at the awkwardly angled photos. He knew better than to reach out and actually grab anything she left on the table now. The woman was a viper and always poised to strike. But as he eyed the photos, Vicente cleared his throat and sat back. Crime scene photos. He shook his head in astonishment. Those photos were supposed to be under the most highly classified. On top of that, he left no evidence that connected him to them. Yet every photo she had laid out was from one of his kills.
“How…?” he asked in surprise.
“You’re not the only one with…talents…” she said as she uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. Her voice dropping to a whisper, “…Vicente de la Sangre.”
Vicente really had no idea how to counter anything that Reaper had just said to him. After all, how could he. She clearly knew who he was and had a inkling that there was something different about him. She had managed to gain some information about who he was, just like he had expected, but she did not have all the information. She had ideas…nothing more. Obviously it was not enough to truly understand who it was she would be working with and that was probably exactly the reason as to why she was so testy around him.
Reaper was a woman who did not like not being in the know.
He shook his head as she leaned back against his chair, casting a glance off to the side and seeing that no one wanted to get near them. This rundown bar was practically empty except for a drunk or two that were at the bar and a bartender that kept completely to himself. He had yet to turn or even acknowledge both his and Reaper’s presence. That was how a man stayed alive in this town.
His attention back to Reaper and Vicente finally took a breath as he started to connect pieces.
“So…back at the bar…you already knew who I was, right?” he asked.
She nodded in response.
“The long walk, you kicking me in the gut, the withholding of information on my target, the questions,” he sighed as he ran his hand over his smooth, bald head, “all of it was for you to figure out just what exactly makes me…special?”
Reaper nodded, seemingly impressed with Vicente’s deduction. Reaching over she took up her beer and lifted it to her lips. A cool swig and she set it down with a satisfied sigh. “I knew you weren’t a complete dullard.”
Vicente groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve some of the tension that he felt building up there. His mind was a whirlwind of activity as he sat there, trying to comprehend everything that this woman was tell him. She knew he was special, she knew that he had…powers. But…she did at the same time? As he began to delve into his knowledge, he looked up and saw a satisfied grin flash across her face. For the longest time Vicente thought that he was one of the only ones…and yet here he cross a woman who is also apparently special.
Licking his moist lips, he slowed his heartbeat as he looked up to her.
“So you…y-you’re like…me?” he asked. “You were…gifted?”
Reaper chuckled at that remark with satisfaction. “Well…I don’t know if I’d exactly call it that. But you’re not the only one with some talents. That’s the only reason why I agreed to work this with you. I never met anyone like me before. I wanted to see for myself.”
Vicente smirked and shook his head. A tired chuckle falling from his lip. “Well…welcome to club,” he muttered.
Two hours passed and the bar descended down into its late night crowd. At 2am in the morning, there were little if anyone else left in this rundown hovel of a bar looking out over the bayou. One drunk sleepily lulled in dark, shadowy corner in such a deep sleep that he would never remember the events of tonight. In another there was one woman, decked out in every single piece of jewelry she owned but looked as rundown as the bar itself looked, and on the back patio where the swamp water could be most strongly smelled, sat both the muscular and bald headed Vicente and the eye-patch wearing woman known as Reaper.
At the table, the pair of them were going over a manila folder and the contents that were inside. Next to it was a small pad of paper where Reaper furiously wrote down notes and thoughts while Vicente looked over maps and photos. Around their table top was littered with very empty bottles of alcohol. Despite appearances and the smell, they were not in the least drunk. They pair of them definitely knew how to hold down their liquor.
“So, Castillo holed himself up in this old mansion and refuses to leave?” Vicente asked as he looked at snapshots of an exterior of an old southern mansion.
“Pretty much,” Reaper replied as she jotted down another note before setting her pencil down. “He sends out for all his meals, he had a very small staff but they are all trustworthy, and they are all armed to the teeth.”
Vicente shook his head, not liking the sound of any of this. He switched to a paper that had a list of the various bodyguards and weaponry that they carried. He had to admit that he was a little impressed by the amount of fire power these fools were carrying.
“How did he afford all this?” Vicente muttered with a shake of his head.
Reaper scoffed. “He was an accountant, Vicente. He was probably skimming off the top of Los Lobos’ operation for years. And here in New Orleans, it isn’t exactly hard to hire a train militia. Especially with enough money.”
Vicente nodded. She did have a point.
Sighing he yawned as he set down the list of guards and turned to go through another map of the area, schedule of deliveries, anything. There had to be something so that they could get into that place and take care of the Castillo problem. Normally Vicente hated to work with anyone else, but he had a feeling he was going to need an extra set of hands on this assignment. Castillo was fortified like a king. A extra head thinking on this matter could prove extremely useful.
As they continued to go through information, the bartender came up to their table, carrying two plates of hot food. Normally one would not want to accept food from someone with hands that looked like grudgy looking, but at the moment, Vicente was not picky. Just hungry. A plate of crawfish were set down in front of Reaper while, for Vicente, the man set down a bowl of vegetarian gumbo.
Before Vicente could finally satisfy his growling stomach, though, he looked up to see Reaper looking at him with an odd expression. She grinned.
Vicente looked at the odd look that Reaper was giving him. The smell of the vegetarian gumbo was so tantalizing that he wanted to forego explanation and just eat. But that look on her face apparently demanded an explanation. He smirked slightly as he shook his head, picked up a spoon and took a bite from the spicy meal. The heat only provided for maximum flavor which Vicente smirked a little at the taste. It was certainly good. It was only when he was done with his first bite that he turned his attention back to Reaper and her questioning gaze.
“What? It’s a necessity.” he said with a grin.
Reaper gave him an “okay” look and just shook her head and dug into her own dish. “Sorry, didn’t know you were so sensitive to our animal friends,” she snorted as she cracked open one of the shells of a crawfish.
Vicente rolled his eyes as he took another bite of his food. “Not that,” he said with a sigh. “I just…because of my gift, I have to be careful about eating any kind of animal flesh. It’s just a precaution.”
Reaper paused as she slowly chewed the food already in her mouth. Snagged up a fresh bottle of beer, she took a swig. She seemed to be thoughtful as she took in everything that Vicente had said. Their talk previously about their gifts had simply ground to a halt and neither of them had said anything else about it. Instead they had let the silence swell up between up, neither of them wanting to reveal their full deck of cards to each other. They were slowly getting used to each other’s presence and realizing that they were going to have to work together, but they were the trust issue was going to take more than a friendly chat over a bottle of beer and dinner.
Still though, Reaper smirked.
“So, food affects your powers?” she nodded as she jotted down a note. “Interesting.”
Vicente sighed. He hated revealing too much to this woman. But as he was about to say something to her, there was a loud crash at the far end of the bar. Both Vicente and Reaper casually looked up to see a small group, maybe five or so men wandering into the bar, obviously inebriated and just looking for trouble. They chuckled as they gave the decked out old woman hassle and did the same to the drunk half asleep in the corner. It was only as they reached over the to snatch a few bottles of alcohol from behind the bar that they turned and eyed the bustier wearing woman with an eye-patch and her bald friend.
They nudged each other, smirked, and the descended like vultures…
They both looked at each other as the stomping sounds of these drunk men’s heavy footfalls came closer and closer.
Then they both sighed.
Locking eyes with one another, Reaper shook his head as she closed her eye and gnawed on her bottom lip in irritation. A trio of men chuckled noisily as they stepped into the patio and nodded to the pair of them. The trio moved over behind Reaper, smelling thickly of alcohol as they leered down, eyes dancing between the curves of her bustier while the other two moved behind Vicente as he sat stock still in his chair.
“Heeeey sweetie,” one of the leering men said as he looked down Reaper’s shirt. “Whatcha doing out here this late?”
Another snickered. “Yeah…dontcha know it can be dangerous?”
“Heh, maybe we should walk her home, eh guys?”
Reaper just grinned silently to herself, refusing to take her eye off the table. It was obvious that she was irritated but she was not going to do anything about it just yet. At least that is what Vicente assumed as he sat across from her, trying to hold down his own anger. This was definitely not the time or place for this mess. Especially when they had so much work to do.
He moved to stand when another of men behind him grasped him firmly by his shoulders and sat him back down.
“Hey buddy, come on! We still need to negotiate a price!” he said and ended his sentence with a foul-smelling belch.
“We’re reasonable guys,” the last said as he sat next Vicente and nodded to the woman. “How much for her? We won’t bite, unless she asks us too.”
Vicente just shook his head. He was getting irritated now, mainly because all this mess meant that he was not going to get a chance to enjoy his gumbo. He growled. But before he could stand, he looked up to see Reaper tilted her head up at them. Her stony eye turned dark as she turned to face the man that was sitting next to Vicente. The assassin could practically feel the heat emanating off of her as she stood up.
“You…did not…just call me…a hooker…” she said with a low and menacing growl.
There was a roar wonderment between the men gathered as they watched this feisty sparkplug of a woman stand up from her chair. They whistled and hollered, almost anticipating that she was going to give them a striptease or something. Obviously that must have been it considering the way the woman dressed. Hell she left absolutely nothing to the imagination. And they were totally fine with the eyepatch. They were drunk enough to look past it. But judging by the look on the woman’s face and the tone of her voice, they had obviously tapped a nerve that they were going to regret.
Vicente remained still, not getting up, not making any sudden moves. If there was one thing he learned so far was to not get into Reaper’s way. Doing so will only result in himself getting hurt as well. Wanting to avoid that, Vicente remained where he was and instead bore witness to the events to follow until he could throw himself into the fray.
It was like…magic, watching Reaper. She moved with a speed that he could scarcely comprehend of. Though she was only a few years older than him, the woman moved with precision that was far beyond her years. The first victim was the unlucky man who stood behind her. As he had attempted to get too friendly with her butt, Reaper suddenly reached down and dug her fingernails into a spot that was far too sensitive for any man. He cried and cringed like a child as she pulled and pulled and finally twisted with all her might.
The tearing sound that followed was enough to make any man faint. Vicente only smirked.
The man collapsed and fell to the ground, crying with his hands between his legs. In doing so another man, taking this attack as a personal offense, suddenly grabbed Reaper by the hair and tugged her back. The woman hissed and snarled like a snapping beast as she suddenly twisted around, lashed out with two solid punches. One to the man’s gut to release her hair and another across his jaw, effectively shattering it in the process.
“Hey! What the hell is this?!” one of the men behind Vicente had yelled.
The man next to Vicente and shoved him hard, attempting to dislodge him from his chair. This movement only proceeded to put Vicente in action. The second he felt the man’s hands on him, the assassin moved. He snatched up his dinner knife from the table and slammed the blade hard into the top of the man’s hand, pinning him painfully to the table top. Upon doing so, Vicente slid out of his chair and turned back to face Reaper who was now in the process of breaking another man’s arm.
Before Vicente knew it, all hell was descending loose upon them. Two of the men were down but there were still three standing. The trio looked menacingly between both Vicente and Reaper who were still standing at opposite ends of the table, glaring over at them, looking as if they had hardly been scratched in this altercation. And the truth was, they were hardly scratched. They were barely touched by these men who were in the process of trying to kill them. It was just a testament to how good they were at their jobs.
But as the pair stood there, eyeing their opponents, suddenly another one took a charge at Vicente. They figured that taking down the largest of their pair was the better bet.
Obviously they were morons.
“Rip off his head Jeremiah!!”
The man swung, Vicente stepped back. The man’s fist connecting with nothing more than air and snarled as she suddenly shoved forward with both of his hands and shoved the man back down onto the dirty floor on his drunk butt. The man gasped in pain, his drunken sense of immortality finally beginning to wane.
Vicente smirked as he watched the last two men glare between them.
“What the hell are you guys?! A pair of freaks!?” one of them screamed.
Vicente’s eye twitched. A sadistic grin came across his face as he cracked his neck to the side and glared at these two gentlemen who spoke to them with such audacity. He shook his head as he stepped forward, not turning his gaze to Reaper at all. But he knew she was watching him. She was eyeballing his every move to confirm that he was worth being here. Well…she may as well pay attention to everything that was coming next…
“You want to see a freak?” Vicente asked in a growling voice. “I can show you a freak…”
As he said these last words a sickening crack was heard throughout his body. Before them all…the young and muscular assassin began to change…
Vicente had arrived a day earlier in New Orleans before he was supposed to be there. After having just gone on one of his soul cleansing rituals, the assassin was starving…but also knew that his arrival would be the perfect chance to re-up on some of his talents. The man knew that Louisiana had some particularly dangerous wildlife so the man was eager to add that to his collection. Taking the early day, Vicente hunted the swamps and glens until he found the exact specimens that he wanted. Through struggle and harsh battle, Vicente achieved exactly what he had sought after…
…and filled his belly.
The man that now stood before the astonished drunkards was slowly no longer becoming a man. The skin of his face stretched and slowly scaled to a beautiful shade of green while his forearms had grown thicker and became covered in long, fine black fur. The look on his eyes showed excruciating pain but Vicente did not scream or gasp. The hiss that fell from his lips seemed more like a warning than done out of pain. And the drunks were definitely warned.
Bones snapped, cracked and refitted themselves. His face began to stretch out forming a long, gapping maw. The entire structure of his face was reshaping into something that was far more deadly and far more menacing than any of them had seen in their lifetimes. A mouth formed with was extremely long and flat, yet full of sharp teeth. Thick green scales covered his skin down to his throat while his eyes shifted position and took on a more reptilian hue. All the while his forearms had continued to shift until they were these massive, thick arms that were covered in black fur and sported huge curved nails that looked ready to rend flesh from bone.
A hiss fell from his open mouth. The hiss of a gator.
The drunkards stared on in horror as they watched this patchwork beast step towards them slowly: the body of a man, but the head of an alligator and the massive forearms of a black bear. Vicente snarled as he glared between the duo that was left standing, ignoring the shrieks of one of the men who had been disabled earlier and lingered on the floor.
Vicente opened his mouth wide as he snapped his at them. His voices coming out strangled and barely with any definition.
Two duo of men stared between the beastly demon that Vicente represented at the eye-patch wearing woman. They tried not to panic, they tried to keep strong, but the alcohol in their system was slowly giving away to panic and dread. Fight or flight was kicking in so in a matter of moments either of these characters had to made a decision about what they were going to do to keep themselves alive. Unfortunately there was still enough of the alcohol in their bodies to whisper in their ears that they could take on anything. It made them believe that it was possible to fight and slay this beast in the name of mankind.
And that’s exactly what one of them attempted to do.
“F-F-Freak!!!” the drunken man screamed. “Abomination!!!! In the name of Gawwwd!!”
The suddenly god-fearing man roared as he staggered forward and pulled a switchblade from his pocket. Snapping it open, he shot a look of daggers at Vicente. One step forward followed another and another before he suddenly broke into a run directly after the living Chimera.
If alligator’s could grin, Vicente did.
The first swipe of the knife sliced nothing but air. Despite the fact that Vicente looked heavier with his current shifts, it could not be farther from the truth. The man trained to keep his body strong and that was exactly why. He had to have a strong body in order to support his gift. In doing so, not only was the man not sluggish but he was actually quite faster than anyone would have expected.
Deftly leaping back, the assassin hissed again and suddenly swiped out with his bear claw with all his might. The drunkard barely knew what was coming. He was struck hard and fast across his cheek. Claws tore through flesh as easily has a hot knife through butter. A spray of red flew into the air but quickly pooled to the ground as the now dead man collapsed onto the dirty floor.
Vicente hissed again as he turned to face their last assailant. But he paused when he realized that the man had pulled a gun. Shakily he pointed the barrel at Vicente, trying to find his courage to pull the trigger. But out of the corner of Vicente’s eye, he saw movement and glanced to see that Reaper was gone from the place she was standing prior. And before he knew it, she was behind the gunman.
She snagged the man’s gunhand and twisted hard enough to make the wrist bone snap. The heavy piece of metal fell to the ground and Reaper smirked as the man collapsed back into her arms. She smiled sweetly down at him.
Vicente really had no idea how to describe what happened next. As he stood there, his reptilian eyes watched the scene unfold with utter amazement. He took a big risk revealing his mutation to Reaper in this case but as their night pressed on he was slowly beginning to gain that sense of trust he needed from her. She was indeed beginning to live up to everything he imagined Reaper to be, and more. But what he did not expect was the fact that she too had been gifted by the gods. And in a way that the assassin had never imagined…
Reaper had smirked as she held onto the drunk man with the now broken wrist. She cradled him, almost like a mother would do to a hurt child, trying to shush his crying and his cringing. But Reaper’s motives were far more nefarious that a simply shushing. She had a more diabolical nature in mind.
Vicente watched in awed silence as the woman, this killer that he had been idolizing and excited to meet, slowly reached up with her free hand and grabbed the bottom edge of her eye patch. She then pulled it off.
The man in her arms cringed for a second, closing is eyes tight, screaming that he did not want to look! He didn’t want to see!
Reaper only reached around with her hand and forcefully opened his eyelids. The second he did, he could not look away.
Vicente watched in surprise. Underneath the eye patch that Reaper wore…her eye was replaced by what he could only describe as a ball of ghostly white. It swirled and undulated with energy that seemed like it could go volatile at any second. The assassin was simply at a loss for words. He didn’t know what he was staring at it. This haunting light seemed to completely lock the man’s attention as he cringed but found he was unable to escape looking away. Then…he screamed.
Eyes wide, mouth gapping in horror, the man shook violently but the whole time his eyes never left Reaper’s single, glowing orb of energy. After a few seconds Vicente watched a suddenly something in the man’s eyes and mouth began to glow as well. The drunkard gasped and choked but whatever it was that was glowing within him would not stop coming out. Then Vicente spied what he swore were misty, spindly hands, arms, and a face. The tiny, ghostly representation wailed silently as it felt itself being pulled out of the man’s body before suddenly, and with spark, it was pulled into Reaper’s eye and vacated the drunk entirely.
All that was left was an empty, husk of man. His mouth gapped forever in horror. He still breathed, his heart still beat, but there was absolutely nothing left inside of him. Nothing that could ever or would ever identify him as a human again.
Reaper stood slowly, replaced her eye patch over her rapidly dimming eye and turned her remaining good eye onto Vicente.
The patchwork assassin watched her closely as she stared at him. She then walked over, collected their work and nodded to him.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here and plot elsewhere,” she muttered.
Vicente, in the middle of shifting back to human, nodded as he followed.
A short time after the incident in the bar, Vicente found himself sitting on a couch in Reaper’s home. It was an apartment on Canal Street. The whole tope floor was rented to her which allowed her to monitor the goings on in her building. It gave her unprecedented knowledge of security knowing that she was the only person on the flood. Therefore if she knew the surroundings with such precision that if she felt any threat at all, she knew that it was not her imagination. Below her was a bakery business but they never sought to bother the nice girl with the tragic past. They rented the space below her for their business and they were thankful for it.
It was obvious that Reaper was a woman with some amassed fortune as well as respect in this city. It was the perfect cover for an assassin.
Vicente sat back on the woman’s sofa as he peered left and right before looking at the coffee table and spying the basket full of freshly made danishes. His stomach grumbling from being denied his gumbo earlier, Vicente casually reached out and plucked out a particularly decadent looking one. The jellied fruit on top smelled wonderful, even if he did not have that much of a sweet tooth.
Hungrily he looked at it, ready to take a bite.
“Heh, go right ahead and make yourself at home,” Reaper’s voice cut through the silence.
Vicente looked up to see her standing at the doorway to her bathroom, drying off her hair with a towel. She had a fluffy robe tied around her body, hiding the fleshy form underneath. Vicente for a second stared too long before he averted his gaze back to the danish.
“Sorry,” he muttered, about to put the danish back.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied as she turned her back to him and made way to her bedroom. “Go ahead. I’ll be right out.”
Vicente turned and watched the woman walk away. It was only when she was fully gone that he turned back to the danish at hand and took a rather large bite. As he chewed thoughtfully, savoring the actually sensation of food, he stood up and began to wander around the apartment.
He was surprised by how meticulous she kept it. Everything had its place. It was clean from top to bottom with barely a speck of dust to be seen. He eyed the photos on the walls and looked closely to realize that none of them were of her. They were all just pictures that came with the frames. He arched a brow and wandered away to see that the various decorations, the fine furniture, the bookshelves of books, etc. It all made a miraculous cover. The woman lived here…and yet there was no personality of hers actually in it.
She was good. He had to admit that as he pulled a book from the bookcase, opened it up and saw that it was hollow with a gun nestled inside. He smirked.
When Reaper returned to the living room, she found Vicente sitting in that same spot on the sofa, starting on a second a second danish. The woman smirked slightly but made no comment. She was now dressed in a fresh pair of blue jeans and a tank top. Barefooted she glided across the carpeted hall and stepped into her kitchen, pulled open her fridge. From the chilly insides she pulled out a pair bottled waters and casually made her way back to the living room where Vicente was still waiting and halfway through his pastry.
She shook her head as she tossed him a bottle of water which he deftly caught.
“I take it that they’re good?” she remarked.
Vicente smirked as he downed his latest bite and set the remaining danish on his jean-clad leg. “Pretty good,” he replied as he cracked open the bottle of water and took a sip. Her apartment was at least cooler in temperature than being out in the late night humid heat. “They must like you a lot to leave you a whole basket of them.”
“I never eat them,” Reaper admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. “I can’t stand sweets. Never have.”
Vicente nodded at this comment and said nothing in reply as they sat there, staring at each other. The whole walk back from their bayou bar had been wrapped in nothing but silence. They had managed to leave the scene of the crime with relative ease. All the patrons had fled the second the fighting started so there was really no need to get rid of bodies or hush up witnesses with money. Instead they walked boldly down the main street and said not a word to each other. It was obvious that the pair of them were still trying to process everything that they saw the other do.
They glanced at each other...
...blinked...
...then averted gazes again...
Assassins and awkward silences. Who would have thought that such a thing could exist?
Still glancing at one another, it was finally, Vicente who decided that this needed to stop going on. They still did have a job to do but beyond that…they were two gifted people who just happened to cross each other’s paths! The gods that bestowed upon her a devastating power, one that looked as if it could rend the very soul from a man and she just wanted want sit there in silence? There was just too much going on for Vicente to not comment on it. He shook his head as he leaned forward a little bit from his seat, getting Reaper’s attention.
“So, are we going to talk about what the hell happened back there?” he asked brazenly. “Or are we just going to sit here and pretend nothing happened?”
Reaper raised her right eyebrow as she watched Vicente. Her good eye displayed nothing of what she was thinking. Instead she just sat there, carefully sipping at her bottle of water, letting the coolness slip down her throat and quell the fire in her belly. She shook her head as she replaced the cap on it.
“What do you want to talk about, Sangre? Huh?” she asked slightly irritated. “Sit around, swap stories, call each other freaks?” She shook her head as she cracked her neck to the side. “Let’s just get back to work.”
“Freaks? Reaper, we’re not freaks,” Vicente said sureness. “The gods gifted us. They gave us their favor.”
Reaper rolled her eye and muttered slightly to herself as she sat up and leaned forward as well. The two of them must have looked like battled chess players attempting to stare one another done. Vicente and his fervor for believing that their powers were gifts that were bestowed from on high, while Reaper instead thought that—
“Are you *explicative deleted!*-ing kidding me?” she asked with spite. “You actually do[/b] believe that drivel?” She muttered more to herself as she stood up and began to pace.
“Do?” Vicente stood up as he watched her wander from left to right. “What do you know of my beliefs?”
Reaper turned her sharp eye back onto Vicente, her face contorted into rage. “I know about your damned deal with Los Lobos. I know that you’re father trained you to think you were some reborn Aztec warrior and that the deities from that dead religion are still looking over you.”
Vicente growled as he took a step towards her. “My father was a good man! He taught me to control this! He gave me purpose and opened my eyes to the truth that no one recognizes anymore!”
“Good man?” Reaper said with a scoff. “That why the man drank himself into the poor house in that bar after you left? That why in the end he put a bullet through his damn skull? He was weakling that filled your head with nonsense!”
Vicente stood there, stock still and unmoving. Anger registered on his face which slowly slipped away to confusion and then finally surprise…
Reaper remained still and unmoving. She did not say anything after that last outburst. The look on Vicente’s face was enough to bring a runaway freight train to a stop. How could he not know about his own father’s death? The man had worked so hard for Los Lobos in order to keep his family protected and safe and still it all ended up for nothing. He shook with rage as a low growl emitted from under his breath. He wanted to shout that Reaper was lying, that she must have had the wrong person. But despite the fact that it would have sounded childish, Vicente felt deep down that it was true. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he knew that his father was gone…
He could still remember that last day he saw him. Representatives of Los Lobos had stormed his father’s bar in an attempt to get him to pay some protection money. He watched his father fight like a lion, the twin blades he held in his hands whirling and slicing through the air as if it were completely effortless. But his father was an older man. Despite the expertise at which he moved, despite the amount of blood that he managed to spill, he was still a victim to the ravages of time.
A young Vicente remembered watching his father as he got struck with to blows that were enough to bring him to his knees. That was all the thugs needed to bring a bat down onto his back and force him to lie upon the ground in defeat. But it was then that Vicente himself stepped in. Young, full of fire and strength, he was a whirlwind of blood and gore as he tore through the thugs, leaving only a single man left alive. As he snarled he made with him the deal that would take him away from his family. A life of servitude to let another man life.
It seemed like a small enough trade for the protection of his father and of the lineage that he represented. Or at least that is what Vicente thought at the time.
Apparently now, standing here in Reaper’s living room he was learning a truth about his own father that he never thought he would hear. His father quit? His father took his own life? He would have never thought of it of the man. That was a sign of weakness and his father despised all weakness.
Vicente ground his teeth as he turned his eyes onto Reaper and snarled.
Reaper stood there, look unimpressed by Vicente’s snarl. She cracked her neck to the side, her face showing absolutely no remorse for anything that she had said and that was the truth. She didn’t have remorse for it. It was the truth and if there was one thing that Reaper was known for, it was speaking bluntly.
But the truth in this matter was that Reaper actually had no idea that Vicente did not know about his father. She had assumed that it was just some bull that he was refusing to acknowledge. But she knew how Los Lobos worked; they would have cut off all contact between Vicente and his family in order to keep their prized assassin working and focused. If there was one thing that Los Lobos despised was not being the one and only important thing in their worker’s world. They made sure that Vicente would never know about his father because that would have been the deal breaker.
She shook her head as she stared at him, the rage boiling over because he obviously had absolutely no way of handling it. He was looking for an outlet and unfortunately she was standing right in his line of vision.
Her nostrils flared as she stared the angered man down. “Don’t Vicente. Just…don’t…”
Vicente growled as he glared at the woman, the rage beginning to rise up under his skin, practically turning him red. This large, muscular house of a man was going to explode like a volcano if he didn’t get himself under control. And with Reaper the only person in sight, she would end up being his target. As much as he didn’t want it to be, because of how much he respected her, right now she stepped over the live. She should have never called his father weak.
He took the first step towards her…
And Reaper bared her teeth as she strengthened her stance. “Vicente, don’t do this. I didn’t kill the man. Don’t make me kill you, though.”
He snarled deeper and took another step. The bloodlust was beginning to take over his mind as his skin began to literally bubble up and crack. Bones underneath began to snap and reform. He stepped harder and faster towards her. When he was nearly on top of her, Reaper moved.
From the pocket of her jeans, Reaper produced a taser and struck the prongs deep into his bulging and shifting neck. Electricity crackled through his body and the last thing he saw before he passed out was Reaper’s stalwart face…mixed with apology…