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.
Yeah, the huge dress just wasn’t going to fly on the streets of New York. As much as the city prided itself on being forward and accepting, it was still going to attract stares, especially after all the news that was probably out about the train car in the middle of the street. If they could avoid any unwanted attention, then Charlie would make sure that they did. It was in both of their best interests.
She waited in the kitchen while the woman changed in her room, wasting time by pouring herself another glass of whisky. She sipped it and paced slowly, putting things away as she went. If she hadn’t known that she was going to have company, then… okay, well she probably wouldn’t have done anything differently. Her place was just always going to be a mess. It was an unfortunate reality for anyone who care (anyone that wasn’t her).
Eventually, Gwen stepped out. She realized as she watched the woman fidget with the clothing, that she she probably could have given her a few more tips, or even a little help, but it was too late. Whatever. She seemed to have figured it out. Almost, anyway.
Charlie put her glass down and stepped behind her, hooking her thumbs through the belt loops on the jeans. She hoisted the pants just a little higher so they sat in the right place on Gwen’s hips. Again, it was something that needed to be learned by experience, and that wasn’t something a person could get in a few minutes of being in a time period. Charlie was just going to have to give her a crash course. ”That feel better?” she asked the woman over her shoulder.
With everything sorted, they could head over to the new Syndicate location on their side of the Rip. Charlie grabbed her leather jacket and tossed Gwen a tan pea coat before stepping into the hallway. ”Okay, so it’s not a long walk, but I know it’s going to seem pretty crazy. If anything scares you or gets to be too much, just, um…” Charlie shrugged and ran her hands through her hair, ”grab my hand or arm or whatever. Let me know.”
With that, she walked over to the staircase and led Gwen down. ”Come on, let’s get all of this sorted.”
Charlie trudged forward through the crowds, her target locked in her vision. The girl had to go… down. She was already on the ground, it seemed; knocked out by her leg wound and the punch to her jaw. She was such a little girl that it wasn’t all the surprising that she was down for the count. All around, the visions and nightmares disappeared from sight, leaving the party attendees reeling.
The screams of horror and panic could still be heard in the cold night, but they had slowed slightly. There seemed to be a few people for whom the nightmare had not ended, but the others were coming to their senses. Charlie could still feel it affecting her, but her breathing had normalized and she was regaining her composure. With each second that ticked by, things became easier. No more clowns, no more visions.
The blonde looked around at the rest of the people on the rooftop. She could still see the Amazing Woman, but she couldn’t see Toxin. That must’ve meant that the other woman had lost her along the way. What a shame, really. She was holding that cute talking bird, though… maybe, just maybe…
Thor was also lost to the world. He’d been the one to punch the girl in a rather valiant feat of strength, so it had to have taken a lot out of him. Charlie stepped forward through the mass of people and over his unconscious body to kneel beside the girl. She was definitely out. She put out her hand, watching it shake as she touched the girl’s forehead. She didn’t stir. Excellent.
Even through the fear, Charlie was focused on more important things than the aftermath of the crazy. The power that the girl had displayed was incredible and if the Syndicate could have her working for them. She pulled out the burner phone that she’d grabbed from her stash at the bar and shot a text to one of the programmed numbers.
Got something interesting here. See if you can’t get someone to take a little blonde girl somewhere “safe” from the Skyline Hotel. My hands are tied right now.
With that sent off and dealt with, Charlie stood up, took a deep breath and looked around for the Amazing Woman. It would be a shame if the night ended and they couldn’t at least salvage something...
It had been a bad idea. It had all been a bad idea. Maybe she could just die again and pretend that the whole thing never even happened. She had woken up scared the first time around, but if she tried enough times, then she had to wake up as a clean slate at least once, and then she wouldn’t ever have to worry about it again. It would all be behind her and she wouldn’t have to think of all the fun she missed out on because of the stupid fog.
The fog that she was still breathing in… her first reaction was to hold her breath for a good few minutes. Charlie sucked in air and tried her best not to breathe, but she could only last for a minute or two. Besides, there was too much going on beside her for her to give her full attention to something like that.
A few feet away, there was a guy dressed as Thor taking on the monster. She didn’t really care how he did so, as long as he got it under control. He seemed to manage that, at least, so she was alright with that. He could handle it and she could just hang out until it all blew over. Maybe then she could do what she came for in the first place.
The monster vanished from sight and Charlie assumed that they were in the clear. She took in a deep breath, flashing a glance over at the girl who was holding her leg. It was likely that she was the mutant in question. She just seemed so young… Charlie approached cautiously, keeping her eyes peeled for more clown sightings.
With a few words from the girl, the sky shifted. Silence fell over the rooftop as the sky opened up, releasing more constructs, possibly created by the mutant girl. Charlie screamed as things flew down at the crowd below. She ran forward in terror as she was pursued by a flying mess of a clown face. It laughed maniacally at her as it chased her through the crowd. She kept her hands forward, shoving the mutant girl aside to try to get away. The clown face always seemed to follow her, though; weaving its way through the people that she passed, ignoring the ensuing chaos as it stalked its target.
She had to get that girl. She needed to be taken down. Maybe then things would go back to normal. With her eyes wide, her heart beating, and her mind doing its best not to focus on the clowns, she circled back around to where the girl had been, intent on putting an end to the chaos.
If she was being honest, the safe wasn’t really all that important to her. Sure, Charlie wanted to see if there was money inside, and if not, what else they would have put inside, but it was less interesting to her than the process of actually getting inside of it. She wanted to see whether or not Andre would be able to do it. It was a big task, considering the quality of the safe, and she figured that she had the game in the bag.
She really hadn’t been expecting him to do that thing with his hands, though. She had been expecting to think something along those lines later on, but definitely not concerning the safe. The way he displayed that power made it abundantly clear that he was a mutant. Interesting. Maybe he could be useful. That was a thought for another time, though; she was far too drunk to work.
As much as his powers were cool, they didn’t open the safe. The dare went unresolved, which meant that she won the game. No, no hidden blow torch in her pocket.
With a quick stride forward, Charlie closed the distance between the two of them, running her hands up his bare chest. ”Does that mean that you’re giving up, mister secret mutant?” she questioned, giving him one more chance to reclaim the game, ”because I think that means that I win the game.”
Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the adrenaline, but Charlie felt like making him suffer. Her hands travelled lower, but she looked to the side and put on her best pout. ”It’s such a shame, though… I really, really wanted to see what was inside. That would have really turned me on…”
The voice that she had put on made her a little sick, but she knew that it would probably do different things for Andre. The meek, quiet thing got those super macho guys going like nothing else. Of course, it always helped to taunt them with something that they couldn’t have. It was the perfect combination.
”Believe me, I know,” Charlie grinned in response to her comment about pants and short skirts. As a person who liked to shake things up, Charlie had been hanged a few times for wearing things deemed inappropriate. It had been one of her favourite reasons to die back then. Stick it to the man, or whatever.
Charlie had explained what the Syndicate was and what they did. Sure, she had left out a few details, but one couldn’t show all their cards on the first go at things. She had to get her warmed up to the ideas of it. Mutants deserved a place in the world as much as humans, and since she was going to be on the earth as a mutant for an undetermined amount of time, she figured that it was a good idea to get things moving in her favour. If a few other people were helped out in the process, then that was fine too.
”Glad you’re feeling a little better about things,” she nodded, ”it’s far less scary than it sounds.” When you were on the right side of things, anyway. She would make sure that Gwen was.
She wanted to see. Perfect. With any luck, that would mean that Charlie would be able to put her up somewhere there rather than her apartment and she could go about her life as usual. She seemed useful, but if having her there messed with her schedule, then she wouldn’t be able to stay forever.
She stood from her chair and gestured to the door. ”Perfect. Come with me, then,” Charlie said as she began walking forward. ”Hopefully, we’ll be able to set you up with somewhere to stay and some supplies from there. Oh…” she trailed off and gave Gwen a glance over. ”One second. Stay here, okay?”
She took off into her room and rummaged about for a minute, coming back with a nondescript outfit of a sweater, jeans, and Keds. ”I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be able to keep walking around like that. It’s going to draw some attention that you don’t really want. We look about the same size, so these should fit you. You can change in my room, if you’d like.”
Charlie let out a groan and put her head in her hands. After all of that, now she had to deal with a teenage girl and some teenage girl bull***. She just couldn’t manage to catch a break that day. Maybe if she just killed herself she would wake up and forget about everything. It would definitely get her out of that situation, anyway.
As she was contemplating how long it would take her to find something sharp and jab it into her temple, Allegra started to scream. Charlie closed her eyes tight and tried to block out the sound as she had done the talking, but it wasn’t working. The piercing quality of it meant that there was no avoiding it. Either something had to be done or she had to leave… like, now.
A part of her felt sort of bad, though. Even though the girl had been nothing but bad luck, it was still Charlie’s fault that she had done that music thing in the first place. While it wasn’t her fault that the girl was a bad omen, it was her fault that she was sitting on a bench, covered in blood.
With a grimace on her face against the noise, Charlie extended a hand and placed it awkwardly on the girl’s shoulder, starting her best impression of empathy. ”Look, kid, it’s not your fault that things went to s***. You don’t have to go back there if you don’t want to. I can go get your phone, or I can just buy you a new one and we can pretend this never happened.” Did she have the funds for that? Not really, but she would make something work. She always did.
”Do your yoga or whatever, and then we’ll go. Get you cleaned up and do our best to put this behind us. Life goes on,” she said. To say that Charlie was an understanding person would be the overstatement of the century. Over her time, she had learned things; people came and went and life went on. Nothing was ever the end of the world unless you made it such.
Charlie wasn’t the only one who had thought of going up the stairs, apparently. It was strange; there was no obvious reason to go up there, but she seemed to be one of a few travelling up the staircase. Up ahead, she recognized the Amazing Woman and a little bird creature. A mutant, maybe? Or a part of her halloween costume? She had never actually bothered to see the movie. Judging from the fact that the bird was talking, though, it seemed like an easy thing to assume that the bird was a mutant of some sort.
She had been stopped at the bottom of the staircase for some reason. The smoke was swirling around her feet again, stronger than ever, and the fear was starting to get worse. The cold sweats were in full effect and she seemed to be unable to make her feet go up the stairs. Even her breathing had become shallow and quickened.
Still, she needed to go. If not for the Syndicate, then for herself, to prove that she hadn’t died somehow for no apparent reason. She was sick of dying for nothing. If it was going to happen, then it at least needed to be for a good reason. Like avoiding a hangover.
Her arm snaked under her knee and lifted her own leg onto the first step. Once she had done that one, the rest came easier. It was just a matter of looking back every three seconds to satisfy the feeling of someone stalking her. Behind her, there was a man yelling and running forward. He ran right past her and bolted up the steps, making Charlie scream and press herself against the wall in response. The man tripped and smashed his head against the pavement, covering about half of the stairs. Charlie clutched her chest and stood still for a moment, trying to compose herself enough to keep going. It took her a few minutes to actually work up the nerve.
She stepped around the body and made it to the top of the stairs, looking around. It looked like she was right about the epicenter being up there. People were absolutely losing their minds up there and in the middle of the crowd sat a giant beast formed out of smoke. She had been right about the rooftop, but obviously not right about the punch. That meant it was a mutant pulling all the strings.
It was all too much. Charlie took several steps backward, her hands finding the little pop-up brick wall that was the stairs. She leaned against it, using the structure to prop herself up. With a few long deep breaths, she was beginning to feel better. All she had to do was ignore the monster in the corner. Not difficult, right? It hadn’t yet hit her that the more smoke she inhaled, the worse things got.
Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around at the crowd. She could have sworn that she had seen a clown hiding in there somewhere...
There were great views all around; standing on the window cleaning platform gave them a great vantage point of the entire city, and there was a man slowly undressing beside her. The night was going quite well. It was probably a good thing that she hadn’t plummeted to her death a few minutes ago. It would probably be much harder to get any once he had seen her resurrected. That part tended to turn people off.
It was the dealer’s choice for his next truth or dare, though. Dare, of course, was the obvious choice. She didn’t really care to know that much about him, and there seemed to be an understanding between the two of them that nothing would go beyond the fun they had that night. If all went well, it would be a lot of fun.
Thankfully, she had just the dare in mind. He seemed to be suggesting something a little more… private, but she had ideas for a bit more fun. Charlie took the bottle from him, raised it to her lips for a moment, and then wiped her face as she stepped forward. The window that they had smashed through to get onto the platform in the first place was close and ready for them to step back inside.
She climbed back into the building that they had come from and beaconed for Andre to follow after her. Oh, she had things in mind. A mischievous grin appeared on her lips as she walked a little farther in. ”Alright, mister confident,” she began, ”there’s a safe in that wall. I want to see what’s inside.”
She leaned against the wall that she had just gestured to and set her hand on the cold, metal safe. It was a mid-size thing that could contain any number of things. She hoped it would be money, though. That would be a nice bonus. ”I dare you to break in.”
((OOC: Charlie’s fear gauge has been decreased to 2/5 post-mortem.))
Charlie awoke with an extended gasp. Air filled her lungs as she once again joined the world of the living. The bar basement was cold and damp, probably from some sort of flooding that had happened in the last few days. Roger would need to get on that or she would have to schedule a chat with him.
Fortunately for the bar owner, a chat about the quality of the floor she was waking up on was the least of her concerns. Her memories were fuzzy, as always, but there was something very wrong. She knew that, at least. She could remember little bits about two girls and some smoke, but beyond that… it was dark, but surrounded by a feeling of dread. It was like her brain was specifically trying to hide those memories from her. Whatever it was, it scared her. It scared her beyond belief.
There was something dangerous going on at that hotel party. It was something more than alcohol, too. She could vividly picture people banging their heads against walls, and she knew that no substance that she’d ever tried had done that to people. Her hands trembled and she could feel her breath catch in her throat when she thought about going back there, but she knew that she had to go back. If not to settle her own fears, but to figure out what was causing it and see if it could be replicated. Something like that could be a great thing for the Syndicate to posses.
She took deep, slow breaths as she slipped into the clothes that she had left herself a few days before. The jeans, gray shirt and black jacket definitely weren’t a halloween costume, but at least she wasn’t showing up nude.
The blonde trudged up the stairs and into the bar, forcing each step as she went. Everything inside her screamed for her to turn around and not look back, but she knew that she had to go. She had to see what it was. There were too many people, though. Each time someone looked at her, the dread inside her got a little more intense. She could feel the cold sweats starting back up. What on earth was this that it could follow her through death? The whisky glass that she had stolen and downed on her way out had been a necessary thing. With any luck, it would steady her nerves a little.
She walked out onto the street and hailed a taxi, which quickly took her back to the hotel. The entire time, she had a strange feeling that the driver was going to do something strange, and she had to regulate her breathing, but she made it there in one piece. She was proud of herself for that, even if she was still terrified for some unknown reason.
The taxi stopped and Charlie climbed out, walking forward. The smoke had really taken hold of the place by that point. It was pouring out the front doors and onto the street. Either someone had lost control of the smoke machine or there was something else going on with that smoke. Whatever it was, Charlie walked through it and back into the hotel. The elevator was already packed with people going up, so she joined. The top floor. That’s where she had been before, right? There hadn’t seemed to be anything wrong with that, though… things had gone bad… she couldn’t remember exactly when, but everything had gone down there.
The little box travelled upward and brought them to the top floor of the hotel, and Charlie stepped out onto the floor. The sight before her was unnerving. People were clawing, grabbing at each other, and the whole place generally looked like an insane asylum. She moved through the hallways, jumping at every sound and avoiding hands, looking for a source. She shook as she looked around the room, trying to force herself to try to identify causes. When nothing obvious appeared, she moved to the stairs.
Just one flight to the rooftop. Surely something had to be going on there, right?
Charlie had intended to figure out what was going on and set things right. It was a noble cause and she had pure intentions. According to all logic, things should have gone right for her, but such was not the way of the universe.
She just wasn’t fast enough. Before she could actually do anything, her vision shifted as the smoke took hold of her mind. The room was no longer a place full of people who were losing their minds, it was a room full of people out to get her.
Charlie spun around, her eyes bulging as she watched her worst nightmares come to life. The people around her were distorted and shambled around, their skin pale and sickly. No one looked at her. No one even blinked.
The woman looked at her hands, thinking that it was all some strange party trick that someone was pulling. Ha, ha, very funny. Make everyone look dead. Only, her skin was just fine. She turned to a mirror to see that her eyes didn’t have the same sunken quality as everyone else’s. They looked… dead. She was the only one left alive.
The only one. How could she be the only one left? Had it really come to that? She was the only person, and her mutation had kept her around to see the world without anyone else? Her heart felt as if it was going to beat right out of her chest as she staggered back into the crowds, letting out a scream. She was going to spend the next eternity all alone. All alone forever, thanks to her stupid ****ing power.
A writhing body on the floor tripped her as she took steps backward, and all she could do at that point was crawl in the same direction that she had started in. Her face was contorted, and she was letting off a continuous, ear-piercing scream. There was nothing that could sate her at that point; things were only getting worse.
Eventually, she had travelled back far enough for her wrists to collide with the bottom stair leading to the roof. Charlie turned, an escape route spotted. There was nothing going through her mind at that point, only pure, untainted fear. The fear kept her legs moving as she scrambled to her feet and moved up the stairs. It kept her going right out onto the roof.
She stopped running part-way down the way, so she was only about ten feet from the edge of the building. The fear had not subsided, but she had managed to get a grip enough to stop the screaming for just a second. She had to catch her breath, after all.
Only, she wasn’t alone on the roof. There were no dead people, either. She was legitimately not alone. In the company of… CLOWNS!
Every single person that was on the roof was wearing the same hideous makeup and outfit. Each of them swarmed closer to Charlie, their smiles contorted maliciously as they stared her down. They were getting closer and closer, imposing on her space and pushing her closer to the edge.
Charlie screamed louder than she had in her entire life, her face in a permanent state of shock and horror. The scream rang into the night air as she stepped even farther back. Soon enough, her red heeled shoe connected with the ledge, and she turned. Even in that state, she knew what her choice was. She had to jump off. She knew from years of experience that doing so would solve everything.
So, she let herself fall, screaming all the while. The sound got quieter to anyone on the roof as she travelled downward. Finally, she connected with the pavement, and her body was gone in an instant.
Get to the room. Get to the room, and everything would be fine, right? All that Charlie needed to focus on was getting somewhere private with two pretty girls and spending the night in a good way, not focused on the nagging in her mind or the people doing weird things on the ground. It was just a simple case of a bad drink, and there was nothing really to worry about. She didn’t need to make a big deal about it. It was just a weird situation.
But weird situations didn’t make people slam their heads against walls. Charlie had watched longingly as they lost Toxin to the drink table, only to see that she had gotten side-tracked. There was a little more going on than a bad trip, obviously. Either everyone had taken the worst batch of mind-altering substances in the world, or there was something else going on. There was nothing that she could think of that would make people do that.
Plus, normally, something like that wouldn’t have scared Charlie. She liked to think of herself as generally being pretty difficult to scare, and there was hardly ever a situation that made her panic. Clowns were just about the only thing that gave her pause, and she hadn’t even seen a clown yet.
Still, she was standing in the hallway, surrounded by fog so thick that she couldn’t see her ankles, and she was quivering. Her hands were shaking, and it only seemed to be progressing. If everyone was going through what she was, then maybe the head-bashing wasn’t so absurd after all.
>>“Maybe we should get a hotel person?”
Charlie gave a wide-eyed glance toward the Amazing Woman. A hotel person? What was a hotel person going to do about an entire floor of people losing their minds? From the looks of things, it was going to be difficult to usher people out of the top floor and have everyone make it downstairs safely. The blonde scanned the hallway just in case, though, only to spot a hotel employee joining in with the crazy. She was dressed in a uniform acceptable enough to not be a costume, sitting on the floor and muttering loudly. She definitely didn’t seem to be in her right mind.
With a furrowed brow, Charlie pointed toward her. ”I don’t think the hotel staff can help,” she noted, trying to keep her voice sure. It was getting difficult, though. The cold sweats were starting, and she had an overwhelming fear of dread altering her mindset.
She ran her hands through her hair and turned around, getting another good look at the room. This was no run of the mill event. This was something more than a “Halloween trick”, and it was something more than a simple drink spike. Either something from a horror movie had happened, and some mad scientist had created some crazy substance, or there was a mutant at work. She had full confidence that this wasn’t a move by the Syndicate, because there was no way that she wouldn’t have been informed of such a thing. It had to be another party.
”There’s something weird going on, I think,” Charlie declared, not even looking to see if the Amazing Woman had stuck around to hear her. She needed to figure out what it was before she was banging her head against the wall like everyone else. Pretty women could happen another time.
All three girls were game. That was good news. Charlie needed a distraction from whatever that punch had done to her, and two beautiful women seemed like the best possible way to go about that. With a girl on each arm, they walked forward through the thick, smoky crowds. Where was that room again?
The Amazing Woman needed a drink, though. Charlie pursed her lips, knowing first hand how bad of an idea that was. She kept her mouth clamped, though. Maybe it was just her that was having those weird effects, and if the girl needed a drink to be able to accompany them, then Charlie wasn’t going to stop her. She just needed to get over herself.
”The punch bowls are over-” Charlie had nearly finished pointing to the punch bowls a few feet away when something by her feet caught her attention. There was a man on the ground, muttering and rocking himself back and forth. It was more than a little disturbing. Maybe she wasn’t the only person that had been affected… if the punch was doing that to other people, then she wasn’t going crazy. That was good to know.
>>“Do you think he is ok?”
The blonde paused and shifted her weight onto one of her legs, leaning a little on Toxin in the process. ”I think it’s the punch,” she said slowly, ”I was feeling fine until I had a few cups of it earlier.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she felt entirely stupid for saying them. She was probably just imagining it all. It was just Halloween having a weird effect on her mind. Who would actually spike the punch with something dangerous? People were there to have fun.
”I’m probably wrong and he’s just having a bad trip, though,” she backtracked and laughed a little uncomfortably. Her heartrate was still elevated and she didn’t feel entirely like herself. She needed to relax, and she had the perfect two people to help her do so. She was squandering the opportunity.
Charlie ran her hands along the two girl’s backs and then stepped in front of them, turning around. She extended her hands in front of her, beaconing them to join her. ”Come on, the room is this way. Let’s have some more fun before the night’s over.”
The top of the red solo cup on the ground only just barely peeked out above the thick coating of smoke on the floor. Charlie peeked down at it a few times, trying to decide if she had judged the drink right. Usually, she was a fun drunk, and she’d never experienced a drink that made her like that. There was also a good chance that it wasn’t just alcohol in that punch, though. There was a chance that someone had put something else in it that was making her feel that way, and if so, she really didn’t appreciate it.
Whatever had been in there had put a nagging in the back of her mind. There had been a few scattered shivers, but now it had mostly settled into an uncomfortable feeling. She was having trouble being herself, and she had to push through a sort of fog to get at the fact that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Wasn’t there?
The two women that she had just joined seemed to have very different ideas about what was going on. The woman that Charlie had come for, the one in the skin-tight spider suit, checked her out before her eyes flashed with recognition of a moment before after she swept Charlie down, which made the blonde smirk. It was good, at least, to know that at least part of her had made an impression.
The other woman, though, the one dressed like the Amazing Woman, looked more bubbly than interested in what the other two were. Charlie gave a knowing look to the first, and then cocked her head at the second, as if she figured that she didn’t know what she’d just signed herself up for. Whatever, though. There was a first time for everything, and maybe they could make her night a little better.
She still felt the nagging in the back of her mind. She could push it out if she focused enough, and she was pretty sure that she had gotten the shakes under control, but it was still there. There had been nothing to warrant it, but it was slowly consuming her nonetheless. Just to settle it, she looked behind her briefly, and, after seeing nothing, turned back to where she actually wanted to be. In the middle of two lovely ladies.
”Well,” Charlie began, her voice far more sure than the first time around. She had regained her footing, even if it was on uneven ground. ”I think I saw an empty room back the other way, if you Super Pals want to accompany me.” She winked knowingly at the two of them and nodded back toward the room, figuring she couldn’t be any more forward than that for the second woman. If she didn’t get that cue, then she was a lost cause, which would be a shame, since she did look good in that costume.
”Unless you had other plans, of course. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of those.” Why was she afraid of that being the case? There was nothing to be afraid of? Damn, she wished that her drink was safe so she could wash down all those weird emotions in some alcohol.
The game that they were playing was lots of fun. She got to do things that got her blood pumping, and he clearly got to be turned on. Win-win.
Charlie had done far more dangerous things than hang on the outside of a window-washing platform, but she’d been keeping things fairly tame for the last while, and it was exciting to be back out in the world like that, feeling the wind on her bare skin and getting a good glimpse of the audience who was enjoying it. The older she got, the more reminders she needed that she couldn’t settle down and miss something like that.
She’d lost the cigarette somewhere along the way when she’d climbed over the side, and now was the moment that she missed it. It would have looked so cool to be smoking a cigarette while hanging off the edge like that. Oh well, too late.
The blonde adjusted her grip, trying to ignore the pain of the cold metal on her straining hands. It was fun to be hanging there, but it was also a little difficult. Eventually, her hands were going to give out. Either she would be climbing back up soon, or some people were going to have to get out of the way down below. How much would it f*** up this dude to see her die and then disappear? She laughed at the thought.
Andre sent the bottle flying after finishing off the rest of the liquid, which made Charlie laugh even harder. It hurt to be laughing while hanging like that. Apparently she needed to drink, too, though, and before she could dispute that fact, there he was pushing his arm through a little hole to put a bottle near her face.
Andre apparently didn’t know what it was like to be hanging like that, because when he tipped the bottle, whisky poured onto her face and down her bare skin, only about one fifth of it actually landing in her mouth. It was more of a shower than a drink. The photos and videos would catch Charlie with her eyes closed, trying to avoid the burning sensation of alcohol in her eyes.
Once he was finished, Charlie began to climb back up. As she expected, it was more difficult to get up than it was to get down, but in the very least, he hadn’t gotten whisky on her hands, so it wasn’t like she was slipping down. Her muscles stretched and strained as she climbed from bar to bar, her legs swinging. Twice, there were close calls and she nearly fell, but she held strong. In front of her, the platform swung dangerously against the building, causing cracks to form in the two windows that it was positioned against.
Eventually, Charlie reached the top bar and was able to stretch herself up to put her feet on the bottom. She then repeated the process with her feet and stepped from bar to bar until she had nowhere else to go. With a dramatic finish she dropped back into the platform.
”I think that makes it my turn now, right? Truth or dare, love?” she asked with a malevolent grin.
It seemed that whoever it was that was decorating the party was really good at decorations. What were the kids calling it those days? Extra? Something along those lines, anyway. The black smoke that poured from every doorway, vent, and open passageway was decidedly the definition of “extra”. Charlie craned her neck to see exactly where it was coming from, but she couldn’t see a thing. It seemed to keep appearing from no particular inception point. It had just appeared, and people had simply accepted it as part of the party. There were no screams as it swirled around feet; no surprised faces as it travelled between each and every person, filling the building.
Even Charlie didn’t care all that much.
In her defense, it was rare that she cared about much of anything, and she was halfway done her refilled glass of punch. There was a lot more going on for her than just the strange smoke that distorted her vision of her own two feet.
Still, after all that searching, she hadn’t found anything more interesting in her loop around the top floor. All that had happened was her spilling her drink. Well, that had been sort of interesting, hadn’t it? She’d bumped into a good looking woman in a tight costume. That had been interesting. It was just too bad that she’d lost track of her.
The blonde took a step away from the punch table in the little lobby by the elevators and back into the crowds that filled the long hallways. She kept her eyes focused down to make sure that she didn’t step on anything, but it was too dark to actually see where she was putting each foot down. They really had gone all out on the smoke effects. Their budget had to have been a big one.
She walked down the same hallway that she had just come from and retraced her steps to where she had made contact with the girl in the leather suit. She tried to focus on stepping, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind. Charlie stood up straight and looked behind her. Nothing there except the party. She could have sworn that she’d felt something touch her… it was probably nothing. Nothing to be afraid of. The lump in her throat was to be ignored.
God, what did they put in that punch?
Charlie shook her head, took another sip of her drink, and continued on her way. It only took her a half loop to find the stop that she had spilled her drink at, and the woman wasn’t too far from that same spot. She was with another woman, but that was fine. Nothing that Charlie couldn’t work with.
Ignoring the nagging in the back of her mind, Charlie parked herself next to the other two ladies and rested herself against the wall for support. Heels and ground that was distorted was never a good combination. With a quick nod to the both of them, she let off a half-hearted grin and got right to the point.
”So. I didn’t get your help cleaning off my costume earlier,” she pointed out. Her voice was a little shaky. Why was her voice shaky? That never happened. She really had to stop drinking so much. In a quick decision, she set her drink down on the floor, finished with it. Maybe if she sobered up a bit more it would stop happening.
