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.
Noel wasn't sure when she'd lost her cloth. Or when she'd managed to get her sword free of its hiding place in the sheath that ran along her spine. The weapon, a late-era gladius, was short by modern day standards, but it was her most trained and most effective weapon. Sebastian's shadow. That's what they called her. The shadow of a god.
Her forward movement had been arrested by sheer numbers and her non-lethal strikes were doing nothing to thin those numbers. Mostly it was just insulting and angering an already volatile crowd. They jeered and cheered at each other as much as at her.
She swung her weapon in a shallow arc with her typical battle cry about a bald man. Her experience was so complete that Noel was able to accurately control the depth of her slice so that she sheered through a man's belt and jeans without damaging the skin underneath.
The cronie lunged at her as she turned her back to him. She was busy slapping with the flat of her wide sword at a hand that came too close to her. The first man tripped over his own falling pants and landed at her feet. She stepped back onto one of the first man's hands as she slapped another attacker on the cheek, leaving a small trickle of blood below his eye.
She was precise and quick, only able to keep the crowd at bay by falling back on what her muscles remembered and ignoring the pull of pain from her ribs and shoulder when she stretched to her longest reach. If she'd stopped to think about it, she'd be dead. So she didn't think. She just acted.
Of course, she wasn't making any progress either.
Still a losing tactic.
"Bald." Noel caught a chain with her off forearm rather than her sword or sword arm. "Tan." She missed some time, her eyes making accidental contact with the man who had once held a chain. Now the chain was on the ground at their feet and then man's jacket had a gaping hole at the elbow, his whole arm hung at an unnatural angle. She must have stabbed into the cloth there and used it as leverage against the bone.
Now. What was she looking for again? "Bald." Right. "Tan. Wiry." She didn't even know his name. How was she supposed to find him?
A flood of neons lit the streetfront. Noel was not the only one who paused to shade her eyes against the brightness and look. Fireworks shot out a moment later and someone took the distraction as an invitation to grapple Noel from behind.
He squeezed her torso, lifting her from the ground with a grunt so she loosened her hand and let her weapon rotate in her grip so that she dropped it point first onto her grappler's foot.
With a howl, she was released. Her head was spinning. She needed that blade. Had to keep them away.
The big guy made another lunge for her despite his foot being skewered and a knife sprouted from his chest.
Had she lost time again? How odd.
The man choked, a thick seep of blood bubbled through his growling lips. Noel grabbed her sword and turned to ready herself for the next one, but instead of a biker she saw a man. No leathers. No patch. Bald. Tan. Wiry.
> "Come!"
She jumped at the command, too surprised that the one she'd been searching for was right there.
Bald man left. Oh. That was her exit too. She took a swing not unlike a golf swing going from low to high in order to slice through a charging man's front, just as she had before. Belt, jeans, and this time boxers slithered down to halt his progress. He had a thin line of red that would be just deep enough to ooze. She would have been disappointed that she'd cut skin if she'd been anywhere nearby. As it was, she scrambled to keep up with Baldy.
Was he her partner? She rarely worked without one. And the sheer numbers here spoke of a job gone wrong. Her head must have been throbbing because of her continued mutation use. It was taking quite a bit of concentration to focus through her shifting vision.
"Ah." Noel put her free hand on her aching ribs, panting after so much continued exertion. She wouldn't complain more than that until they were out of reach of the enemy.
Washes out? Noel stopped, facing the rooftop access door, hand out and ready to grab the handle. "It's the principle of the thing. Not that I'd expect you to to understand." Or deliver. Noel's eyes rolled so hard in her face, she thought she might accidentally trigger her mutation for a moment there.
Brat or not, at least it sounded like the girl hadn't exactly been aiming for her. "Who did you actually want to hit?" Noel turned to face the blonde as she pat at her sticky shoulder and plucked at the loose hairs that were trying to pretend the melty sugar mix was glue.
Usually she tried not to expose her tattoos, but there was no way that shirt was wearable in the state it was in. The information on her skin was personal. Maybe it didn't seem logical to tattoo personal reminders, but she needed them. Things like "Don't date married men" and "avoid intimacy and you won't get hurt" were not always things she would think through without the reminders.
"Because, really. There's no excuse for wasting perfectly good gelato."
Noel had shared many a girl-talk over a cup of gelato.
Something went splat on Noel's shoulder so hard, she was sure it had to come from high up. Shielding her eyes against the sun, Noel looked up and up. And up some more when she didn't immediately spot a balcony or obvious overhang. Rooftop? She looked at her shoulder and felt the cold oozing through the fabric.
Napkins. She needed some.
The memorymancer went into the gelato shop at the base of the building and grabbed a few, dropping a bit of cash from her pocket into the tip jar out of guilt for taking them without buying anything.
"Roof access?" She doubted the perpetrator was still up there, but it was a good sign that the kid behind the counter commented about her being the second one today to inquire.
With a growl, Noel took the stairs two at a time. She stripped her button up shirt off as she ascended, wadding the garment to be splat-side-out. By the time she got to the access door, she was just irritated enough to throw the shirt first and take stock of who it was up there second.
Familiar face. Fish. She had something to do with... "Ty's Christmas friend." Noel just couldn't remember the name, but her irritation multiplied 10-fold. She was the source of a few of the tattoos on her now visible upper arms. Namely the strike through Ty Fischer's name on her trusted friend's list and the addition of a stark, black note: "Everyone will betray you eventually."
"You owe me a new shirt." Noel grumbled the words and then turned back toward the rooftop access door. She didn't expect the girl to comply. The memorymancer just wanted her to know the score.
Baldy was moving. Yeah. Moving was good. She'd been too focused on keeping her attackers away to even think about making forward progress. But, then, she needed to get out of here. Keeping her attackers at bay was a loosing strategy.
How were there even this many people? They couldn't ALL know what she'd done. Maybe they just all loved a good brawl.
Feet shuffling, Noel executed a series of strikes that would have made baldy proud. She made good progress through the crowd, nearly half the distance she needed, spinning and whipping her towel in an absolute flurry. Consumed as she was with her forward progress, she did not properly defend and got hit full on the side with a chain from someone behind.
Noel let out a guttural cry, something akin to what a power lifter might make when giving their one last push.
It was good she hadn't gone with her sword. Chain was good for disarming the sword. She had to stay up. She had to keep moving.
The sound was so unexpected that the fight took the briefest of moments to stop and take a collective breath. Right. Now she was hurting, sweaty, and tired on top of her own foolishness. Baldy was nowhere to be seen, but Noel had heard glass breaking. She hoped to God that she didn't get an innocent guy killed.
No more Ms. Nice Guy.
Noel whipped her braid around her neck like a scarf to keep it from being a good hand hold and whipped the towel out to hit the knot into a guy's eye.
"Where's the bald guy?" They laughed at her. Scoffed and jeered. She responded with a crotch shot. An ear. An eye. She caught a chain with the towel and tried to take it while the two were tangled, but the other guy was stronger. She was lucky to have kept her grip on the towel. "Where's the BALD GUY!?" She started taking memories in conjunction with her strikes. When she was tired and at her limit, it just happened. She tried to direct it and all the while asked about the bald man just to keep the memory fresh in her mind.
She started losing time, but then again so did they.
For a brief moment Brick Wall Man stood with disbelief in his eyes. Noel met his eyes and honestly felt the same way. She was mortified. Worse than mortified, she was left in a semi-crouch right in front of someone much bigger and stronger than herself. Someone who had started the fight angry and now was furious.
She was, in a word, vulnerable.
How could she have let herself be so stupid? The big guy moved and their moment of understanding was over. He was going to end her. Plain and simple.
He might have been slow, but Noel's brain was slower. She moved to take a step backward and tripped on her own braid, falling back on her butt. Yeah. Not making any great first impressions here. The brunette looked around for some resource, something other than the sword that she kept sheathed along her spine. She didn't want to kill anyone. She would rather just keep from dying herself.
If the bald man wasn't so distracting, she wouldn't have had a chance. He drew the majority of the crowds attention, bobbing and swaying through the fight like a real life Jackie Chan. He took command of limbs and knives without it seeming like it was a big deal at all.
Fwip!
Noel's head turned to follow a fast tossed dagger that went right past her cheek and into the oncoming Brick Wall Man's wrist.
Crud. She had to stop gawking and do something.
A guy wearing a most unflattering brown grabbed hold of the cloth at Noel's shoulder and started to haul her up and into a better position for face punching with his up-raised fist. Rather than meet that fist, Noel rabbit punched out to the side on her way up. She'd been aiming for the side of the knee. It totally wasn't her fault that the guy hefted her up faster than she was expecting and she got in a lucky crotch shot.
It was an awkward shuffle to get her feet back under her, but she used the man in front of her as leverage. That left a foot of hers between her crotch-shot victim's feet and since he was doubled over and off balance, it was a simple matter to hook her heel backward to catch one of his feet at the ankle as she shoved his upper body backward.
Timber! But there was no time. Someone caught her braid and yanked her backward. It actually pulled her out of the way of a body that baldy sent flying. But she couldn't see who was reeling her in by the hair and since her only ally seemed to be beating people up with a towel, it was safe to assume she didn't want to go with whoever had her hair.
Noel caught hold of her hair at the base of her skull with one hand to lessen the pull before she pitched herself forward. She used the tether of her braid between them and her body's weight to pull her unseen assailant forward and into her donkey kick. She felt the kick hit home in the fleshy part of a belly, knocking the air out of someone in a loud grunt.
And of course quick movement wasn't exactly her favorite thing right now. It was a good thing that maneuver had put her in a crouch on the ground.
Someone slashed at her and she launched one leg sideways, taking a slice mostly at the shoulder rather than full in the neck, thought it was a close call. The brunette then used her coiled legs to launch herself upward and in close past the knifeman's guard. Her fist led all that moment so that she slugged him full in the face so hard that Noel felt the impact all the way down through the bones of her arm.
She stepped back, rubbing her hand and turned to meet her next attacker when that stupid towel baldy had flew right past its target and instead smacked loosely into Noel's face.
She gasped at the freezing shock of wet, all but inhaling one corner of the cloth when someone punched her in the gut.
It was a shame she didn't know how to fight like him.
As soon as she'd thought it, memories started pouring in. Noel coughed and staggered under the cloth, pulling it free from her face with one hand and pushing the dampened hair from her face with her other.
There was a legend that long ago a seamstress had returned from buying cloth...
Noel could see the fight, but she could also see other fights. Other times when a cloth had been weapon enough. She made a rolling motion with her wrist and the cloth responded, rolling in on itself before the knot end whipped out to knock an oncoming knife slash off its course. Her aim wasn't perfect, after all she'd never actually done this before. But it didn't have to be. It was enough.
Noel did not have to pretend to be drunk. Her adrenaline was fast burning through the fog, but her stomach was making vomitous overtures. She scrabbled out the door, hand over her mouth, and bumped into someone.
The only reason she knew that she ran into a person rather than a brick wall was the 'oof' she heard. Brick walls did not say oof. Of course, people were not usually so... solid.
"Sorry." She murmured through her fingers, but a solid ( and heavy!) hand landed on her shoulder all the same.
"Saw what you did in there."
Oh? Noel looked up. The man was a brick wall. Day old stubble, flying colors and a diamond patch, and eyes that said he was going to squish her like a bug.
Noel heard shuffling behind her as some of his pals formed up between her and any conceivable escape.
So. diamond patches that said 1% denoted the ring leaders, it seemed. Noel's brain was oddly detached from the moment, making analytical observations rather than acknowledging the beatdown she was about to endure. There was no way she was going to cut through this many bigger and stronger people even if she did draw her weapon.
The man smiled and ran the back of his calloused hand along her cheek before backhanding Noel hard enough to whip her head to the side. Her unsteady world went spinning again. The brunette turned her face back and opened her mouth to say... well, it didn't matter what she wanted to say because words were not what came out.
Apparently, she could make a vomit cannon as well.
Noel stood when Dave's friends stood. Her hands were shaking and her brain was just too foggy to think much in advance. This was not her style. This wasn't what she did.
The man next to her handled Dave. Like literally. He had him sitting at the bar and had his hand and arm twisted behind his back. When did that happen?
Bro's buddies surged forward and instinct took hold of her. Noel put herself bodily between the group and the man, Dave. She swallowed hard and raised her chin until she could catch the front man's eyes with her own.
"Move it, chickie, I got-"
'Forget it.' Noel didn't let him finish talking before her pupils began to vibrate back and forth in their sockets. This was a trick that would only work once for this situation, but it was better to remove some of the numbers from this fight without violence. 'Whatever you owe Dave. Whatever you think you saw happen. Forget it. It never happened.' She thought the thoughts as hard as she could. Whether that made her power work or not, she never knew. It was just the best way to direct those dangerous eyes of hers.
Whatever the frontman was about to say, he simply stopped. The next guy's leathers creaked as he grabbed his pal's arm and looked between Noel and his friend. Frontman looked around clearly confused at what was happening.
"Friggin' mutie." He shook his pal by both arms. "What?" The first guy was starting to look a bit freaked out.
A third man brushed past the first two and grabbed Noel by the front of her button up shirt, lifting her to her tippy toes as he practically spat words into her face. "What'd you do to him?" He yanked Noel around, which really wasn't conducive to answering. Not that any answer she could provide would spare her his wrath.
"Take it back, b***!"
Noel had no idea. That was how this worked. She did know, however, that any more manhandling and she would be revisiting that schnitzel.
She hooked her foot backwards intending to get a bit of leverage from a barstool or something, but all she could reach was that magnificent, authentic German wood bar.
Good enough.
Noel arched her back to tip the hilt of her weapon up over her shoulder and out from behind her long braid. She then pushed off the grounded bar with both feet and angled her upper body to the side as much as her enemy's grip would allow. The sudden movement wasn't in a direction he was prepared to handle and Noel closed the distance between them easily, directing the hilt of her still stowed weapon to smash into her captor's nose.
It was not enough force to break anything, unfortunately, but enough to bloody and surprise. She used that surprise to drive the heel of her hand up to his chin. His head slammed backward as she used his jaw to push herself down his body and completely out of his grip.
Instinct. Totally useful when the world was spinning a bit too fast.
From her crouch by the man's knees Noel made a sloppy break for the door. This was just about the best Noel could do to make up for earlier. She owed the bald stranger at least this distraction.
Posted by Noel on Jun 13, 2015 19:43:43 GMT -6
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S.U.P.E.R.
S.U.P.E.R. Agent
yellowgreen
Ranger
1,751
532
Dec 21, 2021 8:26:40 GMT -6
Ghost
"How do you even know if it's a motherland or a fatherland?"
Noel's face smushed against the lacquered, yellowish wood of a most authentic German bar, Vaterland. Or maybe it was a Biergarten. She hadn't been choosey. She didn't even know the difference, actually. She'd walked in on impulse after seeing that they served schnitzel until 1 am (thank you New York, for never sleeping!) and had stayed for the pretty, frothy amber liquids. After all, she never did these kinds of things. It was against her rules.
Now, emboldened by her conquest of a beer sampler, she'd moved on to harder stuff. The stuff that burned all the way down.
"I mean... is it shape...? Or...?" A quick gesture of her hand almost sent her drink flying. Not that there was much liquid left in her tumbler.
The bartender caught her fingers and cup both in his larger hand, an adept move that seemed magic in Noel's foggy state. "Yeah. I'm going to have to cut you off." He drew her hand toward him, well, actually he was trying to pry the glass from Noel's hand. She might not have had her full faculties, but she had a mean grip. Came from years of swordplay.
"I already paid for this one." Pouting was also against the rules, but it was sort of one of those days.
She'd had her concealed carry license revoked. Okay. Worse. She'd had her identity dragged through the legal system then she'd had her identity's licence revoked. Noel's real, true identity was kaput. She couldn't even remember if her name actually was Noel. But that wasn't the real problem. The real issue was that the memorymancer hadn't a clue what to do with herself now.
Her legal identity was a fabrication maintained by her employers.
Without a license, she could hardly perform her typical duty.
That meant she probably wasn't going to be useful enough to keep around. Not that they'd kill her off or anything. They were a somewhat disreputable company, not the mob. But the disreputable stuff was where she really shined. The kinds of places she sometimes went... well, tasers and swords weren't enough of a deterrent.
Not that disreputable people checked for licenses. And the swords were technically illegal. It was just the problem of her cascading morality. Yeah. And she just wanted to hold on —Noel gripped the tumbler tighter— to something —The bartender gave the cup a bit of a tug.— like a real life. —Noel tugged back. Only, she wasn't really gauging her strength properly so when she meant she tug, she actually YANKED the glass backwards.
Her hand lost grip and the cup kept going.
Noel had ample slow-motion time to lift her head from the bar and follow its sparkling crystal progress right into some beefy bro's ball cap.
'Ooooooooh fuuuuuuudge.'
His head snapped forward with the force of the impact ('My God. His neck's as thick as his head!') the cup cracked, spraying a few large splinters as it crashed to the ground. Liquid seeped into the hat and after a brief pause the man raised his head and turned slowly to face his attacker.
Eyes round as saucers, Noel did something else she'd promised herself she wouldn't.
She passed the buck.
The man grunted as he stood, a bit woozy on his feet, but he followed where she pointed to a wiry, tan, bald guy. It was far more believable that a guy thrashed him with his drink than a woman, no matter how stocky. That was just how he rolled.
Posted by Noel on Sept 4, 2014 22:34:37 GMT -6
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S.U.P.E.R. Agent
yellowgreen
Ranger
1,751
532
Dec 21, 2021 8:26:40 GMT -6
Ghost
He hulked the window out of the frame. No. Out of the wall. It took Noel a few blinks to get past that one. "Seems like there shoulda been an easier way..." She spared a glance for the shattered pile of glass. It was mostly in the toilet room... and in the wedding dress.
Cue bridal party hysteria. Nobody sleeps through a gunshot, a wall demolition and, glass breaking.
She shook her head and hefted herself out the window hole in the wall and onto the ledge next to Ranger to survey the scene.
The roofs of the clustered villas and gazebos made for easy jumps that even a bride in her stiff undergarments could make. Well, most of them.
A soft feminine cry had Noel turning toward the roof behind them, the best path toward the parking lot and certain bridal freedom. Except that she'd run out of roof and tried to hop to a fake palm tree that would in theory, have helped her span the jump to the sprawling garage.
There was movement on the garage roof that wasn't quite right. Noel squinted against the setting light of the sun. "Tell me those aren't ninjas." Were they living in a cliche?
> "We need to go back to fighting threats to humanity, threats to mutants..."
"I think that's above my paygrade." She was joking... kind of. It sounded like a whole other level of justice intervention. "Beyond what I get on the news, I don't have access to that kind of information. I mean, does anybody except Interpol or the NSA?" Or, well, probably any part of the secret shadowy government people. Maybe those guys in foil hats?
> ”That may mean the masks go back on, the shadows are drawn back around us"
"Don't you think it's a tad late for you guys? People know all your X powers. I mean, it's on the internet. Anonymity's kinda bunk. You're practically all registered with the state... Ohmigod, are you guys registered with the state? Like weapons for the police arsenal?" Made sense if they were, but dang. Wasn't that one of the things pinky was talking about fighting against?
> "Well, the X-men are a government group now, for all intents and purposes."
"All of this sounds like the best reason not to join a team at all." Noel shrugged. There was some allure to having teammates. Heck. She'd finally caved and gotten a roommate for some of those same reasons. Joining a team just seemed... more permanent?
Noel sighed. Her opinion felt less than helpful. "I think you've got a chip on your shoulder and I'm not sure if it's with your team specifically or the ideal set they left behind in favor of legitimacy, but it's got you all tied up. Up here." Noel tapped her temple. "You're heart's telling you that you could do so much more. You're having like... a mid-mutant crisis. Your current attachments are chaffing." So the real question was, were they chaffing because his organization had lost its purpose or because it was stale and had lost its scope?
"How legitimate a claim that you can save the world is, well, I don't know." Did the world even want to be saved? "Don't get me wrong, you're handy to have around and all, but the politics are going to happen whether they're attached to your group or whatever. People will read into your actions or try to assume your agenda. Or, even better, pin your actions on whoever they want to rob politically. Governments will condone or condemn you based on self interest.
You're a man who sees a problem and you're going to try to fix it. It's just not that straight forward. The world's full of twisty-turny jacknuggets." She put her hands on her head. Ugh. Her headache didn't like this discussion much.
"X's have mental breakdowns?" She snorted and it kinda sounded like a 'huh.' "It's just not the mental picture I have of you guys. Guess you got better PR than that." The grown ups always looked half asshat, half hero on TV. The kids always looked like little brainwashed philanthropists. Hell, the Mansion even a Christmas special battle royale every couple years according to the internet. Noel'd seen a TouYube compilation set to music sorta like how fans made tributes to their favorite anime.
Apparently he had enough to chew on, so Cafas took the out Noel gave him and took his leave for that shower. He gave Noel free reign in his home which was... weirdly trusting. She'd planned on staying on the patio and picking the debris from her hair, but the opportunity to snoop was overwhelming.
Of course, she tried to touch as little as possible. She was only curious about how typical X-people lived. Famous, rich, X-people who were only gay for one guy. Yes. That would be her first mission. Find the boyfriend and judge him as any straight friend of a straight man trapped in a flamboyantly pink-haired body would.
Noel found a picture of Cafas and another man... well, almost-man. He had cat ears. Had to be him. He looked young and surprisingly normal despite the furry bits. Hm. There wasn't anything immediately that she could dislike about Cafas' honeybun. At least not just by looking. He wasn't twirling a mustache and he didn't have an evil gay glint to his eye. He just looked... happy. As normal as a pinky and a cat-boy could look.
The brunette put the photo down and continued her casual snoop until she heard the shower water turn off. Then she busied herself with trying not to feel guilty and backing out to the patio to pour herself the last glass of Diet Coke from her two liter.
>"Have you ever considered joining the X-men? I mean, did you ever think about it, that you can remember? If so, can you remember why?"
She just about spit her soda out. It was so far off what she was expecting. Noel coughed and sputtered, but Cafas seemed content to wait for an answer. "Uh. Gee. It's not like I'm not flattered, but you're pretty much the first X-man who's stopped and given me the time of day. I've met some kids from the Mansion, but..." Noel shrugged. That wasn't an answer, but she was having trouble scraping one together in her head. Probably a result of that continual throbbing ache.
"I dunno. I guess it's just not for me. I have a job already that protects people and/or property. I try to do what good I can when possible through that. I don't need some big... production. You know? I don't want to be on the news or fill out any more paperwork than I already have to." Though the idea of having a group of people looking out for her, that was appealing.
That was probably how people who were in gangs felt.
Noel leaned back against the railing that separated the sky from the patio as Cafas verbally worked through his thoughts. The X-men, it seemed, had roots that were even more idyllic than their current ones. Idyllic and less regulated.
"So you want to go back to the vigilante days? Before they sold spiral-bound notebooks with your faces on them?" She was just trying to get a bead on where he was going with this. "I mean, if you have good people. People that are really and truly good down to their core then that might work. Put the masks back on. Disappear into the shadows. Leave the bad guys tied up with a note." She shrugged. "I'm not sure I'd even trust me with that, though." Wasn't the regulation a good thing? The complete waste of time they'd just sat through was a pain, sure, but they had official reasons to do so. Didn't they?
Posted by Noel on Aug 25, 2014 10:06:44 GMT -6
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yellowgreen
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532
Dec 21, 2021 8:26:40 GMT -6
Ghost
Noel stood behind the door and pulled it toward herself giving Michael unobstructed view of the sauna and herself some cover. She was dragging. Missing moments in time from long blinks. Then BLAM. Nothing like a gun shot to spike your adrenaline.
Noel was around the door, weapon sweeping, in an instant. If she hadn't been trained for it, she wouldn't have been able to rely so wholly on her body's responses.
The bridesmaid's face was white and stretched with pain. The very bottom of the hem of her dress splattered with a fine red mist and below that, there was a less than neat wound in the leg. Judging from the splatter behind her, it was a through and through. She had no weapon. Noel pointed her gun up toward the ceiling and eased the safety back on.
The close proximity of the shot made Noel's ears ring and buzz. It took a couple radio transmissions before Noel could make out what was said.
>>"Was that gunfire?" >>"Bridal suite, do you copy?"
"Reading you..." Noel shook her head as if that would clear the cobwebs. Man, that power was a doozy. She tried her best to sound more awake this time. "Singer in custody. Bride still MIA."
"She's worth a lot of money, you know." The singer's voice wasn't half as lovely as it had been before, now that she was straining to speak through the pain. "We could split my take." There was a bit of a hiss as the former bridesmaid shifted her position to try to gauge her captor's feelings on the matter.
Whatever.
Noel glanced back at the limp figures in the bridal holding room. Some snored away. Only a few seemed to be stirring now that the singing had stopped. "Some of these ladies are waking up." Which meant they were on a timer if they wanted to avoid mass bridal party hysteria.
And of course... Noel went and ripped open the bathroom door. The dress was there, standing empty just as it had before. The window was open.
Somewhere along the way Noel's screams morphed into something that started to make sense. "GET OUT! GET OUT!" She gripped her head and squeezed her eyes shut tight and did the only thing she had left for a defense. As fast as she could draw breath, she was shrieking.
Helpless. She was helpless.
Bugs plucked at her clothes and hair. No pepper spray. The shadows laughed at her. No baton. He was still here. No sword.
Why did the police take so long to respond?
Goosebumps marched along her arms. She was freezing.
Her eyes could not get any more shut so she pressed on them with her hands to make the images of him taking a swipe at her to go away. Those claws. Those teeth. It was horrible.
'Oh God. I did it.' The feeling of fear was instantaneous. Her head throbbed with every breath, every heartbeat, every thought. That must have been a doozy. A core piece of someone's history. She didn't do that normally. Not if she could help it.
The memorymancer's vision came back starting from a small point in the center and expanding outward from there. She had a lot more experience dealing with the aftereffects of her ability. She did not have a lot of experience with the crippling fear that came with Sylar's venom.
Noel started to shake. She'd had so much exposure and now that her ability's effects faded, the fear of the creature in front of her was like a fresh crushing wave of panic.
> "Wha...Where am I?"
Noel recoiled as if he'd said something far harsher. She remembered they'd just been talking about eating people and here she was backed into a corner and spitting blood in the pulpit of a church.
She tried to climb through the wall behind her and when that didn't work the brunette did the most logical thing. She screamed. If she was about to get brutally murdered, someone sure as hell was going to hear about it.
I'm sorta just going by how I feel as far as posting goes so continue to expect me to disappoint you. Sorry!