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.
This feeling... it had to be pride. Noel nudged Aedus as they traded spaces with a grin. For once, she was the teacher and it felt good. Really good.
Assuming the position, she put both hands on the weapon and sighted down the lane.
Blam, blam, blam– cliiiiiiick.
Damn. "Handles like a Hi-Power, my butt." She popped the clip even though she knew that she still had bullets left. The paper man's head was still attached by a sliver of paper. She'd used Aedus' throat shot as the focal point and started cutting over like her shots made a dotted line. He was practically perforated.
She tried to pull the slide and found her jam when the slide didn't even open half way. Muttering ensued. Also a little hopping and tugging and the occasional insult.
"Try to aim even smaller this time." She fished a pen out of her braid and drew eyeballs on the paper man. They were round and made him look surprised, clearly she was no artist but they got the idea across.
"Instead of aiming for the ear, let's say you aim for the inner corner of the eye." She touched the spot that she meant on herself and then pointed to the paper man. He could tell where that was, right? She assumed her drawing wasn't that bad.
A single salute and Noel sent paperman back out on the range. She sent him as far back as he could go before she tucked her pen away again into the braid. There were all kinds of goodies in there. It was better than a purse!
"Take your time." She put her ear protection back on and let Aedus step up to the plate. Relationship stuff was the furthest thing from her mind right now.
"Heck yeah!" She was not immune to the high of hitting your mark. Safety on and then high fives all around. Noel loosened her ear protection. "And don't you forget it." She pushed the button to recall the paper man and it whirred its way back to them.
Noel whistled at his pitiful state. If this were real, he would not have survived such and assault. Of course, if this were real, he would not have stood still without a death wish.
"What were you aiming at when you took off the side of his face?"
She started to take down the old paper and put up a new one.
He hit and the shot looked like someone used a fist to punch through the paper rather than a bullet. Noel opened her mouth for a tip and BLAM. he fired another round. Noel's head swiveled around to see the paper chest looked to be annihilated. Ahh the power of a high caliber weapon at close range. "Aim small." She tried to make her lips really obviously match what she was saying since, through the protective ear muffs, very little sound actually made it through.
She signaled him to wait and then moved the target out to the next mark. 200 feet. This was still pretty easy-peasy.
"Take two more shots." Again, big lip movements. She watched him do his thing before she stepped up to shoot. She exhaled. assumed the position, waited for a moment as she chose her marks and fired 6 consecutive shots with perhaps half a second between each firing.
The ring surrounding the heart shot looked to be a string of pearls with her neat little bullet holes never deviating from the circle that framed Aedus' killing blow.
Not too shabby. She tried not to look too terribly pleased. Male ego and all that.
Perogies. Noel was quiet fascinated with the package of pre-made frozen lumps. They looked kind of Asian inspired? But the name was totally not. It was far easier to mentally dissect the perogie than it was to understand Kyle. He chuckled at things that only confused her and she got the distinct impression that he was sort of maybe making fun of himself or her or both of them?
"So you won't look me in the eyes? You don't think I can't keep it in check? Or are you hiding things?"
Noel just didn't get people. One second he is talking about earning her trust and in the next breath he as good as admitted to not trusting her. This all made her settle back into her usual scowl.
"How is this a meal?" Back in the kitchen with their ingredients, she still wasn' sure. But she tried to be helpful all the same. If he needed water, she filled the pan. Finding a spoon? No problemo. These were questions with definite answers. She liked the simplicity of black and white, right or wrong instruction.
Cue mock sniffle and wiping the imaginary tear from the eye. "I'm so proud."
Noel checked over her own weapon, a 75b. She had never had any trouble with this model before. Not that she could remember anyway and the man behind the counter said it handled like a Hi-Power, but pointed like a M1911. That meant she had some serious potential for accuracy. Noel prided herself on being a shooter. Sure, she might not handle the mulish revolvers, but a bullet in the right place was better than a huge hole in the drywall next to the threat.
Satisfied, Noel slammed her hand on the button that would take their little paper man out to the shortest range: 100 feet. "Load 'er up." Noel would wait her turn. First, she wanted to know what she had to work with.
She slipped her ear protection on, the large muffs bunching her hair like a little girl who put on a headband without thought to what she looked like.
Hand motion of go and she observed the shooter in action.
Once everything was washed and dried, the apron came off. Dishpan hands. She'd never shot a gun with prune-y fingers before.
"Got everything?" She wiped her hands off again and pat down her braid. Aedus had the hand cannon. They could buy ammo there. Her phone was in her pocket. Yep. Ready to go.
"Lots of people think it's fun to squeeze off a couple rounds. I hear it's good stress relief or something." So, yes, he was allowed to enjoy it. Plenty of people did. So long as the bullets hit paper people, it was all good.
"I'm guessing you've seen something like what we're walking into on TV so you shouldn't be too lost." Her preferred method of travel took them through the subway, down a couple stops and back up to street level to a tiny shop. She fronted a few bucks for her rental and ammo and pointed out the caliber Aedus would need. After that, they took some stairs back down to the underground where there were lanes that looked a bit like a bowling alley.
Instead of the archaic score keeping computers, there were little booths with three walls that opened out to the lanes and in each booth were the iconic paper targets with silhouettes labeled with points printed on them. They had ear protection and eye protection that was probably extra important underground, but before she put hers on Noel wanted Aedus to show her that he remembered how to take care of his weapon.
"Take it apart and put it back together again before you load it, please." The booth wasn't sound proof since it was open on one side, but there was only one other shooter and he was just using the rig to pull in his target to check his aim. Also, two was probably the maximum occupancy for these little booths.
Did Sebastian materialize out of thin air? Noel was betting not, but she couldn't remember meeting him for the first time. She just remembered running around with him as if they'd been stealing swords and dueling for years. Maybe they had, but it didn't matter. He was her teacher and she was his shadow.
Noel followed Kyle through the aisles with her hands in her pockets like the food might jump off the shelves and bite her.
"Maybe..." She practically admitted that she may have forgotten meeting Sebastian but the intimate details of her power weren't up for discussion her tone was firm on this point at least for now. "I doubt it works like you think it does."
He had the sequence of events wrong in his head, but he couldn't have known since she didn't talk about Kyle's past until after she'd temporarily neutered his ability to remember his own power. Lip for knowledge, eyes for forgetting. He was going to have to figure that one out on his own, though. There was something... off about Kyle in Noel's eyes. He was a weird mix of naive and stubborn and something else she couldn't put her finger on just yet.
"It's not that I think you'd sell me out or anything, I'd just rather not deal with it." She shrugged it off. Once people knew how it worked they started doing little things, maybe on purpose maybe subconsciously. Avoiding eye contact, wiping off surfaces, dancing around what they really wanted to say... she didn't want that. If she could put that off indefinitely in any relationship, she would.
Hm. Burning calories. The humor wasn't lost on Noel.
"First person shooters don't give you half of the experience of shooting a gun. The power of the kickback, the smell of the powder, the volume of the shot, it's harder than aiming down a sight on a screen. Even harder in the heat of the moment outside of the range, though I hope it never comes to that." Especially the shooting himself part. There were just too many stories of people shooting themselves while cleaning their guns or, worse, shooting themselves when trying to look cool and stuff their weapon in the band of their pants without proper safety checks.
"I appreciate your care. I do." Noel put her callused hand on top of Aedus' to let him know how serious she was. "But it's negligent to own a weapon without at least some safety training. I know I showed you how to clean it," mental note: quiz him on taking it apart and putting it back together once they arrived at the range, "I would just feel better with you having actually shot the thing."
Yep. That about summed it up. She reclaimed her hand and gathered up the dishes to deposit them in the sink. "Just let me know when you're ready." In the meantime, Noel adjusted her apron, pushed her sleeves up and started on the dishes. Aedus' mom would have been proud.
In less than a minute Aedus had showed her up. Or maybe he was just demonstrating technique. She tried not to get miffed at the perfect and round pancakes on the plate he handed to her. Instead she grabbed forks like a dutiful ... friend.
Once they sat down Noel tried even harder not to get miffed at the fast disappearing plate of dilapidated pancakes that Aedus was wolfing down. Did no one feed that boy? "Don't make yourself sick."
> "So what did you want to do today?"
"Shooting lessons. I'll feel safer when you have a well rounded understanding of how not to shoot yourself." Swords and Aedus made her severely uncomfortable. Yes, he could go super lava. Yes, he was a man in shape and able to care for himself. None of that mattered when she could quite clearly imagine him dismembered by the pointy end of someone else's sword. Plus, she'd promised him lessons way back at the dawn of time. It was time for her to keep her promise.
Noel buttered her pancakes. Syrup was just too sweet for her tastes.
How that sounded reasonable was absolutely beyond Noel. But Aedus seemed alright. He wasn't crying or anything... not that she'd expected him to cry. She had just had this tension between her shoulders ever since she'd figured out that Aedus' words could affect her actions. His answer didn't ~exactly~ put those fears to rest, but it was enough to know that her words didn't seem to affect him. He was basically okay with whatever. And Noel only wanted whatever. She didn't want something. Something would mean compromise.
> “ You wanna eat?”
"Yes." Noel tossed the braid over the shoulder and reached for the plate of pancakes. For the first time she seemed to notice how they actually looked. Some of them could be edible. But the well cooked ones were cold by now and the more distracted she had been with her thoughts, the worse the pancakes had fared. The plate was an embarrassment. "On second thought, why did you let me cook?" Practice? She'd wanted to be a better person. Better... what? Girlfriend?
"Should I trash these?" Complete pipe dream. What had she been thinking?
Jirou said something and through the ringing in Noel's head, she was able to make out one word. Sword. Yes. Of course Noel would get to the sword if it wasn't one emergency after another. When there were guns in hand, the sword just didn't seem like a fantastic idea. Also... that really was one REALLY HUGE scorpion.
The asian grabbed her collar and Noel gagged as he kept her out of stinger range. She was going to move! She had just... well... Frank... He was crumbling up like an old piece of paper. She hadn't thought the thing would be able to do that kind of damage. Jirou flung a card at Robert and Noel realized she was missing time and falling behind. She was practically standing still. Get it together!
She skittered back and out of range of a second tail sting, colliding with the chair that was missing a chunk thanks to the revolver as she did so. Noel was so much better than this. Ear be damned, she was better than this.
Brittany laughed. Frank's corpse was entirely disturbing. Noel shot back to her feet and made a split second decision.
They didn't need Brittany any more.
She aimed for the small space between the red-head's eyebrows and squeezed the trigger.
If Brittany died... would that make the scorpion go away? Or would it just get angrier? Noel ditched the gun and drew her sword just in case.
Okay. Okay. Get a grip. She tried to just let the ear go and just continue to function. They were close to the end of this and now was not the time to get distracted. Besides, Noel had her ears pierced a hundred million bajillion times (more like 5). This was just like that. Except it hurt a heck of a lot more.
Jirou made noises (was he talking?) and Noel moved her braid to the side in order to grip the sword hilt hidden there. "What?" She was about to draw when he tossed his gun at her. The heck? She ended up having to catch the weapon (safety off? really?) and deal with it before she could even think to draw her sword.
By the time she leveled the pistol at Brittany, it wasn't the ginger who was aiming the revolver. It was Robert. Noel threw herself to the side and collided with the wood paneled wall of the office. A chunk of the chair that she had been standing in front of vaporized into splinters. Frank could be seen throwing himself out the office door.
"Seriously?" Noel took aim and shot as soon as she had her footing and both hands to make the shot precise. Robert's gun hand went red and he dropped the weapon. Noel turned her gun toward Brittany... Brittany who was smiling like an angel just came down from heaven and gave her a sack full of cash.
She let him pull away but left her eyes closed as she processed everything she'd seen.
He liked her.
Crap.
Aedus liked Noel enough to change his behavior toward women.
Crap on a stick.
That felt like some kind of responsibility. Like she owed him. But Noel knew as soon as she opened her mouth to tell him as much, he would find something to say about that. Something that she would not agree with. And that was the problem. They had fundamental differences in how they understood relationships and feelings to work. Of course, after all this investigation of her own feelings, what Noel believed and what Noel did were different things entirely.
Also... she smelled burning.
"My hair!" It was a completely illogical thought since they weren't pressed up against the stove, but she had that worry when she turned back to the stove.
Oh. Pancake. Noel turned the stove off and moved the pan off the hot burner. Pancakes were serious business.
She pulled her hair around to check it just in case.
"Okay. So here's the deal." Her hair was smooth and cool in its braid and Noel was getting a bit attached to it. She did remember how Aedus once had said it made her pretty, but now she was starting to like it anyway. Just one stupid compliment and she had a hard time letting go of a whole bunch of hair that took a lot of shampoo and took forever to dry... "I think I like you, but I don't want to like you." She confessed her conflicted feelings toward the burned pancake.
He wanted to shoot her. Noel was pretty sure Brittany would take most of that hurt even though a revolver was powerful enough to send the bullet on into Noel even if she had used the waitress as a shield. It would suck, but Jirou was right. They had two of them here for a reason. It only really would take one to get the job done. Two was a guarantee.
The man decided to put the weapon down and Noel sighed. Not a sigh of relief, but one of slight frustration. It would have made things so much simpler if they could just shoot someone already. She would have chosen to fight if it were her.
> "Now, which one of you two ladies is Frank?"
Brittany finally wiggled her way free enough to bite Noel's hand. Hard. Noel yipped, drew back her hand and then reversed her sudden movement to smack the girl with that same hand. Noel's open-handed hit caught Brittany mid-sentence.
"That's Fran-KERSLAP!"
Oh. She was actually being helpful. Noel let the waitress's wrist go and the girl tottered a step forward and put her hand to her face in disbelief of what had just happened. Little angry tears accused Noel from Brittany's eyes, but even that didn't seem to bother the brunette. Nor did her muttering of "Dumb cow" as Brittany made her way over to the man on the couch for comfort. The man turned her face in his hands to see how pink her cheek was with a tenderness that spoke of familiarity.
Well, that made sense why Mister Revolver didn't want to shoot into them, but it didn't answer the question of who he was.
Of course —Noel looked at her hand where little teeth marks circled between her thumb and forefinger— Brittany knew who he was.
Noel put her hand in her mouth and tried to focus on Mr. Revolver. Her eyes went a bit vacant as she watched the memories of deeds past rather than the room.
That was a mistake.
Robert Powell. Policeman. He was undercover, but Brittany knew full well who and what he was. And she liked it. And he liked her. Blech. That was not a string of memories Noel wanted to access. She followed the memories to Frank who seemed to have been badgered over a barrel while the two used him and this distribution point to root out and systematically destroy the competition, raise prices, get Robert a raise, skim off the top and...
PTCHOW! The sound of the revolver in such close quarters jarred Noel out of her memory hopping. But it wasn't only the sound. It was her ear.
Brittany had the gun and Robert had his hand on her arm as if it had been his intervention that made the shot miss Noel's brain and instead take her ear.
Her eyes were shaking before she squeezed them shut and this time it was Noel who teared up. Her hand found her ear and touching the bloody mess did not make it hurt less. "We need them both." And they needed them both alive according to their earlier plans. She squeezed the words out between gritted teeth, but at more of a shout level. Noel couldn't hear a darn thing. Her whole head felt like it was ringing.
"Robert's a policeman and Brittany's tattoo..." Frick! She couldn't just cringe away deaf, dumb and blind. Noel forced her eyes open to look for Jirou. Something dropped from the ceiling onto his gun hand. Something small and buggy and altogether unpleasant. "Brittany does bugs." The ginger was a mutant who specialized in commanding and controlling venomous bugs. Her favorites were scorpions. They made great tools of intimidation.
There was a sour smell that came from behind them. As a frequent recipient of that intimidation, Frank just lost his sh*t.
