The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
She was in. “I can totally do that, luv,” Zek said in a fake British accent.
“Yeah, this’ll work,” Zek said, looking around the alley. It was a pretty spacious one, thankfully. Otherwise his sprawling legs would be in danger of contact with his liberated stomach contents. “We’re going to need to back up some, though.”
Zek pulled himself to his feet and began shooing Juniper toward the entrance of the alley, following right behind her. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this, and no matter what we oughta keep an ear out for trouble,” he said. “You saw what happened to Baldy McIce cream Head?” He pointed down the alley. “That’s going to happen here, too.”
Zek stopped moving several feet away from Juniper, out of arm’s reach. “Alright, time for the wind-up,” he said. Again he angled himself, lining his left side up with the end of the alley. He extended his right arm back towards Juniper and scarlet light blossomed there. He toss the orb a few inches and then casually tossed the ball toward the back of the alley.
It honestly only went about ten feet, but that was enough.
The van burst into existence again, continuing the same moment it had been captured, still going at about 30 to 40 mph. Except about three feet above the ground and without a driver.
The van shot forward and bounced as it struck the ground before wildly charging down the alley, scraping the walls, peeling paint, chipping bricks, and leaving black rubber streaks on the ground before impacting the far wall. Fortunately the alley was wide enough for the van to roll through, but not wide enough for it to completely turn or flip.
Between the fall and the walls, the van hit the back of the alley with far less force than expected, but leaving it messed up, but hopefully not explodeable.
Conveniently, the force of impact triggered a lock, so one of the back doors started creaking open with a long, wailing squeak.
Zek sprawled his legs out in front of him. He knew he’d have to get up soon to prevent his legs from locking up, but he just didn’t feel like it right now. He mopped his face with the bottom of his shirt and only then realized he’d wiped his mouth with it. Ah well. It’d come out in the wash.
Also, Juniper was kinda wanted by some gang or other, and apparently there were other people involved who were telling her this. Sounded like someone involved in consistent less-than-legal activity, if you asked Zek. But nobody was asking Zek.
I’ve definitely gotta go back to that rooftop more often! At this rate, next week would feature an aerial battle between gryphons and dragons with laser and force fields. He was so gonna bring a folding chair with him.
“I am definitely going to hold you to that,” Zek said. “Oh yes.” She was responsible for him losing out on almost three quarters of his ice cream! Actually pretty worth it, in his opinion, but it seemed like Juniper was providing a chance for him to get free ice cream so he was going to milk it as much as he could. He even put on a mildly miffed expression! Complete with a slight pout!
“No problem, though,” he said just a hint more sincerely. “It was a welcome diversion. Honestly, it was better than I’d hoped. Last week, the only action was some lady bawling out her kid for hanging out with ‘people of ill influence’.”
He turned back to his fritzy-looking friend. “Before we get the ice cream though, you wanna take a look at what was in the van?” He flashed her his best conspiratorial smile.
And then they were running! But, like, everything was weird. It could’ve been a side effect of swallowing up the van but he felt so light on his feet, ever since Juniper took his hand. He suspected the two were related, but honestly Zek wasn’t paying much attention to divining the correlation. He was focusing more on running and not throwing up.
And oh there was so much running! He ran quite a bit, but usually not so pell-mell or dealing with power hangover! Or being dragged about by a building-jumper gang target.
Zek was actually having a pretty good time.
Even if his lungs were burning and his stomach was heaving.
Finally, oh finally, they stopped running. Juniper let go and the weight-loss returned. Zek immediately bent over and tossed his cookies. He dry heaved a few times before finally trusted himself to stand upright. Which was a bit of a mistake as things started going topsy-turvy again.
Zek staggered away from his mess and abruptly sat down by Juniper. In response, Zek just groaned. Suddenly, he wished he’d’ve snagged that cart of drinks in the restaurant they’d blurred through. He could really go for a smoothie, tea, water, whatever they had, as long as it was liquid.
After like a minute of just catching his breath and sitting with his eyes shut, he moaned, “You know, if you wanted a workout partner, there were far easier ways to ask for one.” He looked at her through a barely open eyelid and smirked just a bit.
“By the way, who were those friendly folks?” Zek said. “You know, just so I don’t get disappointed if I don’t get a Christmas card from them.” He closed his eyes again and basked in not falling and being a hot, sweaty mess. Oh yes, he was gonna feel the burn in the morning.
“You, too, man,” Zek said with the fake smile you gave people who only halfheartedly engaged in small talk. Like when they ask you how you are and even if you said you were about to kill yourself, they’d still say “good”.
Zek stepped to the side to let the other guy pass and then proceeded into the truck. It really was nice of the guy to leave it opened for him. He didn’t have to remove it himself now and added breaking to his entering.
But yeah, the place was a mess. Which he expected. “Now, if I were a stolen cookbook, where would I be hiding?” he asked himself. He didn’t really expect to hear an answer.
Zek realized quickly that almost nothing in the truck had been unransacked. Because there was very little left in the truck. Because Zek had already passed most of the truck’s contents on the outside. He slapped his forehead. “Ay yi yi,” he groaned.
He stepped back outside yep! Right there on one of the piles was an open book. “Score,” he said under his breath as he approached it and picked it up.
And saw a page ripped out of it. What was left in the book said “Secr--” and “Sau--” as in….Secret Sauce! Zek’s eyes widened. It was the other vandal! The dude he’d just let go!
He whirled around and in the distance could see a big guy in a white shirt walking away as if nothing were happening. Well not today!
Zek started running and as he neared throwing distance, shouted, “HEY YOU! FREEZE!”
Zek was seriously regretting not grabbing napkins as he wiped his mouth off with the back of his arm. Gross, but what could you do? He stared at his ice cream for a moment and then just decided he was done with it. His fingers opened and the delicacy that had been through so much with him fell, fell, fell to the alley ground.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he lied. But he’d been through worse and this would probably pass in...half an hour? So that was basically the same thing as being okay. Although he really felt like just sitting down for a minute. It’d probably take longer than that for the thug-a-palooza to show up, right?
But that suddenly didn’t seem like an option because the cops were on their way. “Right now, I’d rather not deal with the thin blue line either.” And only partially because he was worried there was a chance that hitting things with his orbs would count as abduction or theft. He could probably argue self defense, especially since nothing would get hurt, but yeah. He just didn’t want to put up with that.
But the world was still shifting around him, like a boat on the ocean. He took a step and his head started dipping sideways before he caught himself. He then shook his head and instantly regretted it. “No, as fun as you are when you’re grabbing, I can manage,” he said. “But if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna grab your arm because nothing has stopped spinning since I, you know, saved our lives from Ice Cream Headache over here.”
He spared a glance at the guy. Ouch. Zek promised to wince later at the sight.
“Your turn to lead the way, Junie,” he said. “Besides, those other guys will probably be here before the cops and I don’t have the balls for all of them.”
“Wha-? Whoa, you’re strong!” Zek said in a rush as he was suddenly lifted up like a sack of potato--no, like a small sack of flour and good grief how strong was Juniper?!
Also it was kinda nice to be the one getting swept off the feet.
But then bullets were flying around and Zek was not too manly to admit that he’d definitely let out at least one girlish shriek. And while he was trying to wrap his head around that, Juniper said something quick and he almost missed.
“Don’t let go? What do you FUUUUUDGECIIIIICLLLLLLES!” he yelled all the way down to the ground. Forget that, he was never letting go of this girl ever again!
And honestly Zek couldn’t tell you what happened next. It was all a hazy blur. He just knew he ended up next to Juniper and his heart pounding like a drumline. As soon as she let go, he startled stumbling, whether from shock, impact, or whatever. She seemed happy and joyous. Zek was just making sure that he, too, was alive. And he still had his ice cream.
He pulled himself together and turned to his deathseeking almost-murderer and was opening his mouth when the van reappeared. Mr. Ice Cream Toupee was there and looked ready to run them down, if his sudden acceleration was any indication. Zek suddenly had better things to do than to complain about his spontaneous introduction to BASE jumping.
“Not today, Satan!” he declared. A golden ball appeared in his hand and he stopped shaking. This wasn’t a thrill-seeking building dive. This was throwing a ball. “I don’t have time for this nonsense!” he said and as the van began to close the distance, Zek pivoted, placing his left side facing the van and pulled the orb back before flinging it straight into the oncoming van.
In a bigger flash of light, the van...well, vanished.
And Mr. Mudstain-for-brains was suddenly driving an invisible and intangible vehicle at the same speed and momentum as before. And then reality ensued.
The world suddenly swam before Zek’s eyes and pounding began in his head. He stumbled to the side and....well, let’s just say the ice cream was good the second time around, too.
“Well that’s one way to do it,” Zek agreed. Although he was thinking less about exhausting the nameless and unknown thugs with a rooftop chase and more about getting to a building with an elevator that he knew wasn’t crawling with musclebound beat-em-ups.
Anywho, after a long moment in which Zek was seriously worried he had a weird stain on his elbow, she finally took it. So now it appeared that she was carrying her shoes, ice cream, and now his hopefully stainless elbow. And he thought he had the power to carry a lot of extra things! Good thing he was there to lead her across the bridge!
Of course, it seemed like she was fine with jumping off bridges so his offer might’ve been unnecessary. Pretty metal, actually.
“Nice to meetcha, Juniper,” he said with a smile as he started leading her across the bridge. “Call me Zek. It’s a pleasure to be sharing these rooftops with you. And it’s such a nice day for a stroll, don’t you agree?” He made a big show of looking around, apparently unbothered by the creaking and groanings of the bridge. Although halfway across he realized that he’d never tested the weight of two people on it, so it was very likely Juniper was going to get to fall six stories anyways.
But at last they made it to the other side, and even better, so did all the ice cream!
“At last, we made it! Just one more thing to do,” he said. Zek passed his cone to his offhand, the one with the Juniper grafted to it, and dropped a golden orb behind them. The bridge vanished and he had that strange feeling of something getting filled. He turned an over the top grin to Juniper. “It’s not exactly burning bridges, but it’s the closest I could do on the fly.”
And just a few seconds after that, people started pouring out onto the other roof.
“They interrupted a grocery run? Those tomato sniffers!” Zek said scornfully. What matter of craven villainy were they dealing with here? Also, was he using “craven” right? He was never really sure and kept forgetting to ask someone or to look it up.
Zek took out his frustrations with an angry lick of his ice cream. SOME people. Ugh.
But then he noticed the sudden unshoeing. He didn’t say anything, but he blatantly stared. Was she about to start dancing? Was she expecting a dance battle. “Yeah, no sweat, Footloose,” he said. “I can do that a few more times.” Unless some mutant can cancel out my powers. Zek left that part out. He forced a vague smile though, squelching the slight panic. Forget about the no sweat, actually. He was now extra glad he was wearing deodorant.
Then Zek just kinda stopped and stared at his cohort. “I’m sorry,” he blinked. “Did you just ask me to jump off a tall building with you?” He blinked again. “Well it’s not a bridge, but dang! Mom was almost on the mark!” Props to parental prescience!
“I’d rather avoid that option if possible,” Zek said as he leaned forward to stand up. “I mean, it’s cool that you can do ghost stuff or whatever, but I don’t wanna become a ghost. You get me?” He eyed his cone as he talked. He still had a decent amount of his scoop left. He was debating storing it away or keeping it out, but then got distracted by a bullet.
“I believe l mentioned they had at least one gun?” he said offhandedly.
He decided to keep his ice cream out. “Well, I imagine the rest of your pals are almost here, judging by the noise from the stairs, so why don’t we finish our little ice cream social elsewhere, m’kay?” He started walking towards his wooden hobo bridge. “And it just so happens that I know a nearby roof that is so much more empty than this one is gonna by.”
He stuck out his elbow, the one that wasn’t supporting his ice cream hand. “Shall we go?”
“Don’t mention it,” Zek said dismissively. Ice cream was just another kind of thrill, brain freeze just another kind of excitement. And he just nodded and raised his ice cream momentarily in a “cheers” fashion to acknowledge her compliments, but inside he was exuberant. Ahahaha! She likes my shirt! And the ice cream! And my orb. Zek decided she was Kewl. Also, she could stick her hands through solid objects. That was also points in her favor.
She seemed rather shaky, though. Course, with all that running, potential fleeing, and now a sugar rush, Zek didn’t blame her. With the backdrop of yelling and cursing and faint metallic stomping, Zek stepped back and sat on the edge of the edge a ways down from her. Enough space for him to ward off a flying hug, in case that happened. One could never be too careful.
“Oh, I’ve been coming here off and on over the past month or so,” Zek said in between licks. He was really going through his butterscotch! “Good place to think, nice ambiance, always something going on.” He indicated her with his ice cream. He was going to say more, but the intensity of clanging footsteps increased drastically and suddenly the door burst open again.
They really should just put a revolving door there.
Zek looked the guy over. MAssive? Check. Muscley? Check. Strong? Oh definitely. Troublesome? Bring it. His bouncer instincts were tingling so he only took a quick moment to quip to his fellow ice cream connoisseur, “Nope, all out. Oh wait, here’s something!”
Zek made another orb and yelled to the guy,“Hey! Catch!” He snapped his wrist and flung the orb underhandedly. It flew the dozen or so feet and hit the guy in his chest just as he was starting to barrel forward in a bullrush.
Suddenly, there was no more orb or Bulgy Muscles-Man.
Zek breathed out suddenly. Yikes, he was a big ‘un. He’d taken a little more effort than expected. Zek glanced over at the woman. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he apologized. Again, just another Tuesday. “Where were we? Oh, right. So….do you come up here often, or just when you’re getting chased by the Mafia’s bodybuilding contingent?”
He could hear more rattling of metal stairs, so they probably didn’t have too much time before others showed up. Super Steroid Man was just probably in better shape than the other folks. Or had stair-climbing powers. You never knew.
Despite the mess that was Wild Hunt, Zek had to admit that the other bands were pretty good. Hell’s Angles had an interesting electronica vibe to their stuff, although he thought manifesting fiery geometric shapes was a bit over the top. Raisin Crane’s name confused him and didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything, but they were pretty solid. And Hunters Moon had torn Zek between wanting to dance and wanting to roll around on the floor laughing.
But in the end, it wasn’t his decision. It was Janine’s.
Janine sat in front of the stage on a folding chair. She was a very business-like lady dressed in a dark blue suit and suit combo with a tight bun and thin glasses perched on her Roman nose. She practically ran the club and was one of the most meticulous individuals Zek had ever met. Flanking her in a matching folding chair was David (pronounced DAH-veed), the music director, who was glaring.
When the music had also stopped and Hunters Moon began putting their equipment away, Janine and David bent their heads together and quietly conferred. Zek, however, kept his eyes on the bands. The Wild Hunt guys looked angry and not at all professionally-reserved as Hell’s Angles or Raisin Crane. Zek decided to stick around them, gliding around until about a dozen feet or so behind them. Jim, the other bouncer on call at the moment, settled for leaning against a pillar and staring them, all imposing-like with his brawn and buffness.
“Thank you, Hunters Moon, Hell’s Angles, Raisin Crane. Excellent performances,” Janine finally said, looking up from her tablet and glancing at the mentioned bands. She turned so she could address Wild Hunt. “Now tell me, why did you people even bother showing up?”
“What the $%*@&#?” exploded the lead singer of Wild Hunt as he shot to his feet. “What do you mean, why’d we bother showing up? We’re &$%^%## amazing.”
Janine arched an eyebrow. “That’s...arguable,” she said deadpan. “But a main requirement for the band to play on Mutant Night is for at least one band member to be a mutant.” She paused for a beat. “You do not qualify.”
The guy tried to laugh dismissively. “Wha-a-at?” he said. “I’m a mutant. And how do you know if someone is or not?”
“Because that’s my mutation,” Janine said sternly (it wasn't, really, but the nature of her power was far too detaile dot spend the time explaining it to them). THen she turned back around. “Please leave the premises. You have five minutes. Now, Raisin Crane, would you--”
This time Janine was cut off by a tirade of swearing as all of Wild Hunt leapt to their feet, even knocking their table over and scattering their chairs. “Listen, lady,” the lead singer snarled. No longer looking quite as foolish in his wolf gear. “You’re gonna give us a fair chance or--”
This time he was the one interrupted. “Jim, Zek, please escort Wild Hunt out of the building. They’re irritating me.”
Zek immediately started moving forward, a wide “can’t we all just get along?” smile on his face that didn’t quite seem to match his eyes. Jim eschewed the smile completely and just started marching. Several band members cursed, but the lead started digging in a bag. “Aw no, this ain’t how it’s gonna end! WILD HUNT! WE RIDE!”
Zek caught a glimpse of the guy sticking himself with something and then the guy started convulsing as a sickly green glow erupted around him. “WE RIDE!” the guy shouted again.
And then a dozen giant ghostly green wolfhounds began to appear, teeth bared and growling soundlessly.
“Ha hah ah haha ha,” Zek chortled as he laid on his back. He’d just barely remembered his butterscotch cone in time to save it from gaining asphalt sprinkles.
Because those were disgusting.
Zek pulled himself together and maneuvered around until he could get to his feet without dropping his ice cream. Once standing, he critically examined his cone. Good. No extra toppings. Oh no, some of it was dripping!
A lick later, Zek was kneeling by the ledge and peering over it, checking the results of his dessert bomb. Well, it look like a lot of the people had already gone inside, but Baldy and his new hair tonic were still there. And looked like he was angry and trying to look up and see Zek and--
“Crapthat’sagun!” Zek said and jerked himself and his ice cream well away from the edge. It was just occurring to him that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be a bit more serious this time than a woman yelling at a teenager.
He grinned.
He was debating on whether or not he should peek over the edge again and risk getting shot, or possibly dropping things over edge and seeing what he could hit when he heard a loud metallic clanging and banging coming from behind him. He frowned. Either I’m about to encounter Ironclad Santa and his Flying Metal Reindeer or there’s someone coming up the stairs.
He’d just turned around when the rooftop exit for the stairwell burst open and a woman appeared, all heaving and breathing hard and such. He briefly glanced at the skin of his left wrist. Huh, that was fast. Assuming she was the person who’d entered the building on the run from the van, she’d made it up the stairs really quick. Zek was impressed. He watched her in silence for a few moments to give her a chance to collect herself. It also gave him a chance to eat some more of his ice cream, none of which managed to drip on his shirt. She finally seemed to notice him, though, and spoke first. (Zek was a gentlemen and let the lady go first, or at least that would be his excuse if asked).
“Hi there,” Zek said nonchalantly. Oh you know, just another Tuesday. Even if it wasn’t a Tuesday. “Nice timing with the staircase sprint. I’m impressed. By the way, some angry guys with at least one gun are following you. You know anything about that?” He kept his eye contact the whole time.
He licked his ice cream again. Then smacked himself on the forehead with his right hand. “Oh, sorry. Where are my manners?” He held out his hand and a glowing red orb appearing there for a moment before being replaced with a burst of a light by the cookie dough and strawberry ice cream cone, which he swiftly caught before it could so much as wobble.
Zek stalked forward at a moderate pace, at least until he watched a guy dive through a window into the truck.
“What the--!” he said, abruptly halting. His jaw hung open, and then she started laughing.
Okay, this “mission” was sooo worth it already. He’d already incited a food fight and now it had scaled to a point where people were attacking the trucks themselves?! Outrageous! Amazing!
And it looked like the guy was going at his destruction with a vengeance, too! Zek could see all manner of things flying around inside the truck and several things flying out of the truck. Oh, such glory.
Zek finally started walking forward and when he was within a few feet, the door exploded outward and there the other guy stood.
Zek blinked. Then grinned. “Hi,” he said quickly and casually. “Love your work. Love what you’ve done with the place. I’d ask for your autograph, but I don’t really have a lot of time .Can I just squeeze by you for a sec? I just need to get something. Won’t be long, promise.”
Zek made finger guns to illustrate his points and ended with a scouts’ honor sign.
It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The smog filtered the sunlight just enough to add excitement to otherwise drab, boring lighting and the fumes of the cars, restaurants, masses of people, etcetera were practically a heady cologne. And the sounds of the city were an orchestra of honks, shouts, chattering, laughing, emergency vehicle sirens, screams (probably of fun), and screeching wheels.
Take that back. It really wasn’t a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
But Zek could still enjoy it nonetheless. Especially from his vantage point.
He was sitting on the little ledge around the flat roof of a six story little brick building. His feet were dangling over the side and occasionally kicking empty air. He liked the building and came up to the roof to think every once in a while. It was a decently quiet street and the building itself never seemed to have much activity around it. He was strongly suspicious that it was abandoned or just used by squatters, but he didn’t really care. He always got to the roof from the building beside it, separated by a lovely alley big enough for a truck to go through. He had a lovely hobo bridge made out of several planks of wood that covered the expanse and connected the similarly-tall buildings. The other building had an elevator with great music so he preferred coming up that way.
Zek could also enjoy the day because he had ice cream. Specifically, he had two double scoop waffle cones, with four flavors. Meese tracks and butterscotch and then cookie dough and strawberry. That one was staying in an orb, though, because he was focusing on the meese tracks one first and didn’t want the other to melt.
There was always some kind of drama to see from his seat on the building. IT was one of the two tallest buildings on the street so you had a lot of range to see. Last time he’d been up here, he’d enjoyed watching and listening to a matronly woman berate a young man very loudly and publicly for hanging out with a local gang of youths. It was very embarrassing for the dude. That’s why Zek had ice cream now, in case something similar happened.
And you know what? It looked like something was about to start up, if the screeching of tires and the arrival of a rapidly moving van careening around a street corner and heading straight toward Zek’s building was any indicator. “Poor stop sign,” he said, lamenting the demise of the object of justice and safety.
But it looked like the van was chasing someone and the person went into the building. Huh, didn’t think there was a door there. THe person gave the impression of distress. THe van even almost hit her.
THen it opened up and a whole bunch of burly guys bustled out of it and there was suddenly a lot of yelling, but it was too far below for Zek to really make anything out (and none of them had the lung capacity of the woman from the week before anyways). The angle was bad too - he could only lean forward so much without falling.
Although…
Zek noticed one of the guys appeared to be bald. And he wasn’t moving around as much, kinda like a leader-like person. Zek smiled. “Eh, I have another cone anyways.” And he tipped his cone forward until he was suddenly holding just a butterscotch ice cream cone.
And Baldy now had something protecting him from sunburn.
Zek fell backwards off the short ledge as the laughter overtook him.
Very quickly, the fight escalated. Zek hadn’t considered it, but it seemed the various food trucks had loyal followers. Or at least people who loved food fights. Ones, twos, and squads of people were converging with food and letting it fly.
It was just so darn beautiful, Zek almost had to wipe away a tear.
But he had a mission. His attention went back to Herman, who was futile trying to ward off two truck owners with a defensive tray-shield. He seemed adequately distracted. Zek smiled and cracked his knuckles. He turned and went against the flow of people and made it to the outskirts of the food frenzy, which wasn’t getting smaller at all. He started making a circle around the place, angling himself away from the worst of the fight in order to try and approach the truck from behind. There was always another entrance. He just had to make it through the war zone, first.
But he had some ideas on how to do that. Zek dropped an orb on a picnic table and captured it, causing him to stagger and shake his head to clear it. “Oomph,” he gasped quickly. He knew it would pass soon, but it still took him by surprise every time he caught something that big. And it was worth it because you never knew when you might need a big piece of furniture, especially going into a combat zone.
After a couple of more minutes, he was in sight of the other side of Herman’s food truck. Fortunately, most of the fighting was happening on the other side, but then, it appeared that other food trucks were joining in the fun and people were streaming from all over the park to join in or at least see what was going on. But at least there was a window of opportunity here.
“Now to make a beeline towards the target,” Zek said. Sometimes he liked narrating his adventures. “This is Ace to Command. I have eyes on the target. I repeat, I have eyes on the target. I’m going in!”
And so he did. At a brisk walk because he honestly wasn’t going to run and didn’t want to look like a target. Besides, it was only like sixty, seventy feet away. Besides, what .were the chances that somebody else was going to try to break into the truck? Everyone with a lick of sense or fun would be slinging food.
Course, nobody had ever accused Zek of having a lick of sense. Not that he talked to many folks for long.
“Except myself. I talk to myself a lot,” Zek said to himself.
...Zek decided that after this...mission….he was going to get out more.
It was bold. It was daring. It was audacious. It was...pretty dumb, actually. But maybe fun.
It had been a simple matter to approach a group of six folks (obviously a group of friends) who were sitting down at a nearby picnic table, all eating from garishly advertised Herman Hamburgers wrapping. He’d released the large dog that had tried chasing him just that morning, leaving it suddenly running and barking into the midst of the friends. Fortunately, they’d left their food behind, and mostly untouched.
It was another simple matter to catch their hamburgers within each of his orbs, done by smashing the food into his orb instead of smashing the orb on the food. A far trickier manner was then finding the six nearest food trucks, all within throwing range, and picked out his lines of sight. Then, he started throwing orbs. Scarlet spheres darted across the street at each of six nearby food trucks. THey began winking out in little flashes of light just feet before the food trucks.
And messy, greasy, yucky burgers, all wrapped up in Hemran’s logo, began continuing their journey from being smashed into orbs to traveling a couple of feet into the faces of those serving customers at the trucks. SPLAT! SMOOT! BLAPP! BANG, CRASH, RATTLE, RATTLE, DING (one of them missed and hit some condiments and stuff, but nobody was perfect), BLORP! SMACK!
Silence fell and the crowds of hungry people stilled.
Then: “HEEEERRRRRMAAAAAAAANNNNNN!”
And five angry, awfulburger-covered food truck owners (and a sixth angry food truck owner, who just didn’t happen to have hamburger covering his face and clothes) came charging out of their trucks with whatever food they could grab at the moment.
And the food began to fly in a rain of deliciousness, all aimed at Herman’s truck. And Herman. And his customers. MAny of whom had food of their own. And many of whom had just been granted unexpected food. And fury.
“Time for the main course,” Zek wisecracked. Although nobody was paying attention. Now to wait a moment and see what Herman would do next. After all, the key to properly constructed chaos was to fan what was there, not try to impose your own plan on it.