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.
”Away from here,” Charlie growled in response. They’d been there long enough and experienced enough bulls*** for a week. They needed to go before things somehow got even worse. The two of them just couldn’t catch a break.
Up ahead, there was a sudden noise from the sky as the power that Allegra had given the Ogre wore off, and he caught himself in a tree. He was screaming loudly, and it only took a few seconds for a group of people to gather below to help him get down. He was going to be alright, save for the arm that had landed a little ways off from him. That was probably going to hurt like a b****, but at least it fit with the look he had going.
Allegra was screaming, but she wasn’t putting up much of a struggle as Charlie pulled her forward. How had she even gotten here, pulling along a teenager? It was such an un-Charlie situation. It was almost absurd, really. There had been nothing fun about that past situation, and even though she had been through worse, there was nothing in the last few years that could compare to that situation and how awful it had been. No, they were not staying any longer.
Charlie pulled the younger girl through the crowds and away from the music festival. There was no need to spend any more time there. They weren’t going to get anything out of it, and they needed somewhere quiet so that Allegra couldn’t do anything else or cause a scene.
A little ways off from the festival grounds, there was a picnic table under a tree. It was still close enough that they could see the crowds of people and even faintly hear the music, but everything was still far away. They were alright in terms of distance.
She set the other girl down on one side of the table and then walked around and took a seat at the other. Charlie ran her hands through her hair with a long, exaggerated sigh, and then let her head fall to rest on the table. She needed to sleep for a week after all of that.
Charlie liked to be dared. She liked to feel things out of the ordinary, and have her life flash before her eyes in new, exciting ways. There was only so much else that you could fill your time with in all those years, after all. Who the hell would want to spend their entire life working? Certainly not her. She wanted to spend it living. Living in all the best ways.
She caught the pack of cigarettes and pulled one out, holding it toward him for a light. She pulled it back afterward and let a slow drag settle into her lungs. It was good, at least, that she came from a time period of heavy smoking so she didn’t have to build up her tolerance for that each time she died. If only she had been an alcoholic, then everything would be so much easier.
The man she was with came closer to her and let his hands wander. She knew what he wanted, and she wasn’t really inclined to say no, but she was also having fun, and that would take away from it. She wanted a bit more time before they got there. Andre’s hands ran along her waist and let off a shock. It was more than just that shock that you sometimes got when touching someone. No, it was something more. Something almost like a mutation. How interesting.
Charlie turned to look at him briefly, as if asking him whether or not that had been on purpose. She almost hoped that it had so she could find out what else he could do. He was already providing her with a good night, but that would be so much better!
>>"How about a chin up. On the outside."
”I like your thinking,” she said with a low growl. For most people, such a thing would be completely out of the question, but not for Charlie. The thought excited her and she wanted nothing more than to do it. She wondered if Andre knew what he was getting into with her.
A long leg swung over the side of the platform after she had set down the bottle she was drinking from. The whole structure swung wildly as she did so, and the few items that the actual window washer had left behind.
The blonde stuck her two feet in a little bar on the outside and bent herself in half so she could hold the railing with her hands. She sucked in a breath, tensed her stomach muscles, and in a rather dramatic way, let her legs drop off the side. She swung down and grabbed the lowest possible place, which was still too high. She was balanced awkwardly, her abdomen tense as she held herself up at a 45 degree bent angle.
Charlie looked up, winked at Andre, and then let her legs fall altogether. They dangled in the cold air as she held herself to that platform entirely with her arms. It was just a good thing that she was wearing snug boots rather than heels that likely would have fallen off and killed someone down below.
She took another breath in and pulled herself up on the platform, resting her chin for a few seconds on the top bar. ”There. Ch-chin up,” she huffed as she repositioned herself. That had been fun. Her heart was racing. There was still more to be done, though.
Maybe today she would find out exactly would be the day that she found out exactly how long that fall would take. The blonde let out an excited scream as she let go of the bar for just a second, letting herself feel the drop. As quickly as she had let go, though she thrust her hands forward and caught the lowest bar, preventing herself from plummeting to her momentary doom. If Andre hadn’t been there and been so damn attractive, she would’ve just let herself fall.
Charlie let out an exaggerated yell of excitement as she stretched her legs out to either side of her, enjoying the complete freedom.
The second glass of whisky was downed by Gwen just as quickly as the first. That was not a great sign, considering the tolerance of most people in that time. Charlie raised an eyebrow and pointedly stood up to put the bottle away. She’d clearly had enough to settle her nerves, and she didn’t really want to have to deal with a drunk woman for the rest of the night. Not when they had important things to talk about.
”It’s probably better than you’re thinking,” Charlie explained to her. In the twenty-first century, she could walk around in whatever she wanted without being publicly shamed. Catcalled and demeaned, sure, but not publicly humiliated. That was good, at least. ”We’ve got almost as many rights as men, and there are groups making sure that things get even better. It’s far, far ahead of the time that you’re from.”
She shuddered to think of ever going back to that time. Sure, there were good things about it, and there were pluses to not being connected 24/7, but she liked that she could wear pants down the street and be her own person without intervention from people who should’ve had absolutely no say in such things.
As she sat back down from putting the bottle away, Charlie listened to Gwen’s concerns about the Syndicate. She wanted equality for everyone. Man, that was one forward thinking woman. If they had met in the time that Gwen was supposed to be from, she could see them having been friends.
Charlie sat back in the chair and considered the question for a second. ”Gwen, you have to think about it like this; there are thousands of organizations in the world. Some of them work toward things that are good for humans, some of them work for charity things, and some of them really don’t do much of anything. There’s only so much that one organization can do.
“The Syndicate, my organization, works to make sure that there’s equality for humans and mutants. If we were to do that for every single person, we would be stretched too thin. So, we let other groups handle things like that, and we do this.” Okay, so maybe she was stretching the truth a bit. It was less equality and a little more dominance, but she was sure that Gwen would see that that was the best route eventually. For now, this would be a good way to sell her.
Charlie had decided that halloween parties were the best way to spend the night. She’d experienced many halloweens, some of them good, and most of them ending up in that same bar that she saw far too often. With her track record for death on increasingly supernatural nights, she often just assumed that she would be dead by the end of her halloween night, or perhaps somewhere along the way so she could hop back into the fun. It was just something that came with the territory.
Despite the likelihood that she would end up naked in the basement of the bar, she had gone all out with her Sandy from Goop costume, and was focused on enjoying herself. Her glass of spiked punch had been filled several times already, and she had just stumbled out of a hotel room after enjoying some interesting company. It was probably going to be a night that she wouldn’t remember well.
The blonde readjusted her costume as she walked through the hallways, no real direction in mind. She ignored the hands that reached out to cop a feel for the tight faux-leather. She did like a little more lead up than that, after all. Before long, she had done a circle of the upper floor once again. There were plenty of interesting things going on, but they all looked pretty similar. There were still people slipping in and out of rooms, drunk people in every corner, and music pouring out of every crevice, but for some reason, she found herself searching for more.
Ten minutes ago, that party would have been more than enough to keep her attention, but now her eyes were wandering, and she didn’t know why. She had raised an arm against the wall, trying to keep herself walking in a straight line when her heels and intoxicated state wanted otherwise. She didn’t really know where she was going, but there had been a young girl that had stuck out to her.
She was wearing a green checkered skirt, which, unless she was going for a certain musical, wasn’t really a costume. She also looked far too young to be at that kind of party. Then again, Charlie knew how deceiving looks could be.
To her left, someone bumped into her, spilling her drink right down her front. ”Watch it,” Charlie slurred, doing her best to wipe the liquid off of the vinyl fabric. When she looked back up, she’d lost track of the girl. Too bad, she looked interesting.
The woman turned around, having every intention of grabbing more punch and finding a new room to have some fun in, when something swirled around her feet. It looked dark. Each time a tendril swept against her bare skin, she shivered and her blood seemed to get a little colder. As she sipped the little bit of liquid left in her red solo cup, Charlie uttered one word. ”Trippy.”
Despite Gwen’s appearance, accent, and attitude, she could handle her drink with moderate control. Charlie nodded with a slightly impressed look as she watched the other woman finish the liquid. Reaching over, she grabbed the bottle and topped up both of their glasses. She wasn’t trying to get the woman drunk, but she certainly seemed like she needed it. There had been a lot going on that day.
”We can vote, we can wear pants, we can own property,” Charlie replied with a nod. She made a point of swinging her legs up and resting them on the table, adorned in rather masculine boots. ”I mean, things are far from perfect, but they’re a hell of a lot better for women than they were. No marriage necessary.”
She couldn’t even begin to think of how much her life would have sucked if she’d had to keep getting married. That would have blown.
Gwendolyn could see through people’s eyes and whisper in their minds. Okay, so it wasn’t the most powerful thing in the world, but it was far from useless. In fact, it was an incredibly valuable skill for a mafia organization to have. If they could use her, then… things would get very good for them, and for Charlie by extension. The blonde raised her eyebrows as she thought through the uses for something like that. There were so many.
”Um, no. It’s a state now. America is all states now, no territories. The only territories left are in Canada,” she explained, trying not to look too unfocused during their conversation. ”And yeah, being a mutant will freak lots of people out. It’s just something that you’re going to have to accept, as much as it would be nice if that wasn’t the case.” Hopefully, if the Syndicate did what they wanted, that wouldn’t be the case anymore.
The woman leaned forward in her chair after a minute, giving Gwen a look as if she was about to tell her an exciting secret. It was because, well, she was. ”It doesn’t have to be that way, though, Gwen. The organization that I’m a part of works toward equality for mutants, and we offer help for all. Even mutants displaced by time.”
Charlie Sinclair had a habit of finding herself in absurd situations. Some might have called it a bad one, but she liked to think of it as a good way to spend her time. Besides, if you had oodles of time on earth, was there really a better way to waste them away than to do the stupidest things that you could imagine?
That night, the stupidest thing that she could imagine involved picking up an attractive stranger at a bar (or had he picked her up? Whatever, it didn’t matter) and getting involved in an extreme game of truth or dare. This guy really knew how to live. Charlie liked that in random strangers.
She hiccuped as she shifted on her foot and rocked the entire window-cleaning platform that they had wound up on. She didn’t remember exactly what she had dared him to do, but it had gotten them through a series of crazy things and onto that platform, so it was well worth it. She could feel the whisky that she’d been drinking for most of the night affecting her, and she loved it. There was no telling what would happen next, and with all the responsibility that she’d recently made the poor move of taking on, she needed a night like that.
The blonde’s shirt lay somewhere behind her, abandoned in the building that they’d used to get onto the platform. She held her arms out in the air as she stood out in front of New York city in just a bra. The wind whipped against her back with a brutal cold, but she ignored it, focusing instead on the adrenaline that was coursing through her veins. This was the life. ”How long do you think it would take me to fall to the pavement from here?” she asked above the wind. She’d never fallen from that specific height. She figured it might be fun to give it a whirl.
>>"But fair's fair. I got us up, you gotta drink."
Charlie turned to face him head on, and with a wink, she took a long swig from the bottle in her hand. Rules were rules after all. They only needed to be broken if they weren’t fun.
>>"So gorgeous, what's it gonna be, truth or dare?"
The rules also dictated that it was now her turn. Her turn to do something absolutely stupid. What a way to spend a night! ”You know it’s gotta be dare, love,” she told him with a sly grin, her English accent intensified and slurred by the alcohol.
It seemed like they just couldn’t catch a break. Allegra was too caught up in her own bulls*** to see what she was doing, and things were only getting worse. The auras around the two of them disappeared as the ogre’s body changed. Instead of the looming appearance he usually sported, he looked like a cartoon version of himself. Everything was distorted, and he was even two-dimensional.
”What the-” Charlie shouted as she tried to move her arm out of the way when the ogre tried to grab it. As he reached out to her, his arm actually ripped open and started the spout blood. It was like something out of a twister horror movie. The arm ripped off entirely and the ogre began to float up to the sky, clearly attempting to scream all the while. Charlie let out a noise herself, reacting instantly by trying to shake the paper arm off of her own. It fell to the ground, still spouting the confetti blood, until it was picked up by the wind and whisked away like the rest of the man.
Was that Allegra’s power? Making people into cartoon versions of themselves? If so, that was a pretty sick thing to do. Charlie had seen some really twisted things, too. Hell, she could remember doing some twisted things and that still made her stomach churn.
All around them, the dancers had fallen to the ground as their background accompaniment ceased. Charlie looked up and made eye-contact with the DJ for just a minute before she let out a scream. Even worse than before, her memories flooded back. There were far too many of them for her to even see well. Too many for one brain, anyway. They rushed past, displaying her best and worst moments on the earth. There were things that she remembered like they had happened yesterday and things that she hadn’t remembered for many lifetimes.
Eventually, one memory stuck. It was one that she had often cited as being her most painful death. She couldn’t remember many of the details, but she could remember that there had been lots of dismemberment, and she had been awake for most of it. It had lasted hours. In that moment, it was playing at ten times the speed that it had happened at on repeat, as if she was reliving it over and over ten times as fast. The pain was just as real as it had been when it had happened.
The blonde sunk to her knees and screamed, curling herself into the fetal position as she waited for it to end. Why couldn’t it just end? To her left, she could see that something was happening to Allegra too, but she didn’t know what. She hoped that it wouldn’t be something horrible. She looked as if she’d led a pretty sheltered life, at least.
After another few minutes, the DJ seemed to think that they’d gotten the idea. Charlie sucked in air as the memory faded out and stopped altogether. She scrambled to her knees and shot a dangerous look at the DJ, who shot one back. She didn’t need to experience that again, so she grabbed Allegra’s arm, trying to shake her up. ”Come on, we’re leaving. Now.”
Maybe Charlie had just been hanging out with the wrong upper class folks when she was in the 1840s. Usually, she spent her time in bars and with the lower class, but every once and awhile, she would crash a party just for kicks, to see what it was like. Everyone she had met there had been stuffy and boring, and she’d always regretted talking to them. There was no one like Gwen, sitting in her kitchen and asking for a glass of whisky. Charlie had to commend her on that one.
With a little twinkle in her eyes, she stood up and opened a cupboard. When you had 260 years to evaluate all your mistakes, you got used to relying on things to get you through. That, and she never really had to worry about the bad effects of any of it, since she often died pretty soon afterward anyway.
She grabbed a large bottle and two tumblers from the cupboard, shut it with the side of her hand, and walked back to the table. She set down the glasses and filled them each three quarters of the way full, passing one to Gwen. ”Cheers,” she said as she raised hers toward the woman. Now would be the moment to see whether or not she could actually hold that strong whisky that had just been poured for her. Charlie drank it with only a slight wince. She hated that she lost her tolerance each time she reset.
Just as she expected, Gwen didn’t know what a mutant was. She was, however, actually a mutant herself. She had just always assumed that she was possessed by the devil rather that given a special gene from birth that would allow her to do crazy things. You learned something new every day. Or, in Gwen’s case, a thousand new things.
”Trippy... er, strange,” Charlie commented as she sat back in her chair and tried to wrap her head around the fact that there was another person in her head. That was actually a cool power. One that would definitely be useful to the Syndicate, and there was no telling what else the woman could do. She wouldn’t have to feel bad at all about bringing her to the base. ”What else can you do with it?”
She took another sip of her whisky and set it back down on the table. ”And no, I wasn’t sent through time,” she answered a question that had been asked a while before. To see if Gwen could see her thoughts, she brought up some of the memories that she had about living in various times. ”My mutation lets me… come back to life, in a way. It’s sort of complicated.”
All the signs were likely pointing to some sort of mutant tampering for the young girl, Charlie figured. There was no way that one person could be alive for that long. She would be right, technically. Charlie hadn’t been alive for that long. Consecutively. If they were going to get really technical, she was only a few weeks old that time around.
She raised her eyebrows at the young girl as she was clearly attempting to piece something together. A vampire? No. The second time around, it seemed to click. Silently, Charlie nodded at her realization, as if to tell her that she was likely right in what she was assuming. The blonde then wiped her eyes and took in a deep breath. She needed to get a hold of herself. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had actually cried like that. Of course, with her memory, that wasn’t saying much, but she still didn’t want to start making a habit of it.
”I know it’s-” Charlie had started to snap out a response when the orange ogre came back, cutting her off.
Waivers were waivers. They’d known what they were getting into when they’d signed up for the experience. That was the stupid thing about places like that; they were upfront about what they did, and yet people still believed that they wouldn’t be the one that it would happen to. Charlie narrowed her eyes, but she had every intention of pushing past him to get her things. There was no one to blame there except her own f***ed up mind.
Allegra, on the other hand, clearly had other ideas. The young girl began to shout things at the man about how he didn’t care that they’d just been through hell. She was too young. She just didn’t understand that in the end, there wouldn’t be anyone to actually give a damn whether you were alright or not. Anyone who believed otherwise was setting themselves up for pain.
”Allegra, it’s his job not to care. We signed the waivers; we knew what we were getting into. Come on…” she trailed off when she the dull glow around both of the people in front of her. That was… well, it was a little worrying. The ogre didn’t seem to know what was going on, so either he had a secondary mutation that he didn’t know about, or Allegra had some explaining to do.
Charlie shook her head and grabbed at Allegra’s arm. Why was she even hanging out with this girl? She could have just left and been done with the whole situation. Something inside her felt bad just leaving her, though. She had to at least stick around for the rest of that encounter. Stick around and try to fix whatever the hell was happening. ”Are you doing that? You need to calm the f*** down. Right. Now.”
Okay, so maybe Charlie had pushed the girl a little too much. After taking a few sips of the tea, she began to chuckle. She didn’t remember spiking the tea, but maybe she had? Just to check, she took a sip of her own. It tasted perfectly normal. Maybe it was just more caffeinated than what she was used to? Or maybe it was just an emotional reaction to everything that was happening. That was far more likely, she figured.
Yeah, so it was clear that empathy wasn’t Charlie’s strongest suit. Maybe she’d been too blunt before. There was no reason for Gwen to apologize to her. The blonde shook her head as she looked at her.
”Don’t, uh, apologize. That’s not what I was trying to get you to do,” she sighed. Man, she really did suck at things like that. She was at least helping the girl, though. She was right to point that out. The rest of the world would be too engrossed in their media to actually do anything other than take a video of the poor woman. She pulled out her own phone from her back pocket and set it down in front of the woman. That was one thing that she would need to know, but how was she supposed to explain it? She was from before the invention of the first telephone!
Charlie pushed the little square forward and entered the passcode. It was just a cheap thing, since she had a nasty habit of losing it in dangerous accidents, but it was still a good example, and it would still be far beyond anything that she had seen before. ”This is a telephone, sort of like the one that all those people were using. It hasn’t been invented in your time yet, but the most basic gist of it is that it lets you talk to people who are far away. It does other things, too, but we’ll save that for later.”
For that moment, what they needed to focus on was the subject of mutants. She couldn’t bring her to the Syndicate if she wasn’t sure that she was one, and she couldn’t know whether she was one unless she knew what they were. God, they had so much ground to cover.
Charlie took a sip of tea and then readjusted her seat before filling in some things. ”A mutant is sort of like an evolved human. We can do things that regular humans can’t, like sending someone through time or living for 260 years, like I have. There wouldn’t have been many in your time, but we’ve gotten more common over the years.” She paused to let that sink in. ”Can you… do anything that other people can’t?”
The broad questions that Charlie had imagined that she would ask included things like ‘how did I actually get here?’, or ‘what’s going to happen next?’. She hadn’t imagined that Gwen would start to spiral and talk about how her whole family was dead and her whole life had gone to sh**. Yeah, she was being observant, but what the hell was Charlie supposed to do with that?
Awkwardly, she stood up and gathered the tea bags from both mugs, holding her hand under them as she carried the two to the garbage. She sighed as she put her now-free hands on the counter and thought about what the woman had just said. In her position, Charlie likely would have done the same thing, but the immortal had years of experience behind her. Years of conditioning and hardening by the cruel thing called life. She’d learned not to get so worked up over things, but usually her view of life wasn’t one that everyone else took.
”That’s not really a question…” Charlie mumbled awkwardly, unsure of what to say to her. Yeah, she was in a sucky situation. She wasn’t going to lie and tell her that she wasn’t. What exactly was she supposed to say, though?
The blonde let out an exasperated noise as she walked back to the table and slid the tea closer to the woman. ”Drink this. It’s probably not what you’re used to, but it’s as close as I had.” She paused before continuing, ”And yeah, I know this sucks. As much as marriage sucks, you wanted to see if it could work and all that. I know. You’re here now, though, and you’re probably talking to the worst person for consolation, but you’re just going to have to deal with it now.
“You don’t have skills or money, but I work for an organization that can help with both of those things. We’ll worry about that later, though. For now, we’re going to think if there’s a way to get you home. Do you know what a mutant is?” That was the big question. Back then, knowledge was scarce and often held in low regard. People that could do extraordinary things were usually just told to keep it quiet or taken somewhere to be rehabilitated (as Charlie had discovered many times). She highly doubted that the woman would know anything.
Charlie let out a deep breath as she led the woman upstairs. The world was going to be overwhelming and strange to her - that much could be anticipated. What she hadn’t really thought through was that she was going to have to be the one to explain everything to her. That was not going to end well. Sure, she’d been through several school systems, and she had a general understanding of how most things worked, but there was knowledge that came with time. Time longer than an hour in the future.
”Don’t worry about that,” Charlie said gently, cringing as the words came from her mouth. There would be so many things that would be out of her range, but Gwen was going to have to grasp them eventually. Why did she have to be so curious?
She sighed as she turned the key in her apartment door and opened it wide, letting the woman in the wide dress slip inside. ”Just come inside; take a seat. We’ll talk things out somewhere quiet.” Hopefully that would be a little nicer than on the street where there were a million things bombarding her senses.
The blonde rounded the corner and gathered things to make tea. She popped the kettle down and set tea bags in two mugs, standing against the countertop while she waited for the water to boil. ”Alright, so, Gwen… I’m sure that you’re completely overwhelmed.
“But I want you to just take a second and breathe. Don’t think about the little things or the differences in technology, because that’s just going to take time to get used to; no way around that. I want you to just ask big questions. Is there something broad that’s bothering you?” she asked. Already she was slipping back into her modern speech patterns without really noticing.
The kettle popped up and Charlie turned toward it. She pulled it off the holder and poured water over the two tea bags before setting it back down. With both filled, she walked over to the table and set a mug down in front of Gwendolyn.
Normally, Charlie stuck to her own business. She’d lived long enough to know that people didn’t really care about each other, and she was okay with that fact. She was alright with living out her days alone and making sure that she was the one that always came out on top. That was really the way, wasn’t it? That was how everyone secretly wanted to live, even if they wouldn’t admit it.
Sure, there were notable exceptions, like her recent involvement with the Syndicate, but a girl had to fill her days with something, right? It was best to choose something that would benefit her in the long run, like making sure that mutants came out on top of the ongoing political struggle. If that involved helping a few sad sack mutants along the way, then so be it.
Every now and again, though, she saw herself in someone. Usually, she would see someone in the situation that Gwendolyn was in and turn away. It was their problem, after all - not hers. However, she remembered the first century or so of her life and how hard that had been, and she sympathized. It was only right that someone who had also been displaced should help the girl, after all. She could understand at least some of what she was going through.
”Let’s just say that I know some of what you’re going through,” Charlie supplied to answer her question. ”I’m a hell of a lot older than I look. Old enough to remember the time you’re from, anyway.” That was enough info on that front. Any more and they would never reach the apartment with all the questions. She could always fill her in more once they were settled a little.
Stairs. She was asking about the stairs. Charlie had gotten lazy in her old age and mostly used elevators, but there were stairs in that building. Just behind a door. It was probably easiest to start her off in those rather than shove her in a moving metal box right away.
”Through here,” Charlie said, walking forward and holding a large door open for the other woman. Once they were both through, she began to lead her to the sixth floor of the building.
