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.
Rex was immediately confronted with dancing. It was even harder for him to deal with than normal because the roof was spinning a bit from the windblast that had carried him up there. He held up a forearm and turned his face, but the wicked-looking ring of lightning missed.
Elemental energy. Rex focused up and frowned. This type of magic he knew how to deal with.
He began speaking from the Bible and focused on his own magic. "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Invisible energy coalesced into a kite-shaped heater shield on his left forearm and he held the shield in front of him as he started moving sideways, aiming to get between August and the man. The shield of faith was designed to ground out and nullify energy attacks that came his way. It was highly effective against other practitioners of Rex's primary type of magic usage.
"Cease your attack!" Rex barked. "What happened here?" He didn't care who answered, as long as he got answers.
Rex thanked God August wasn't using texting slang. If there had been a floating emoji in response, Rex would've been half-tempted to just walk away. As it was, there was an important period between those words and Rex didn't need any more information.
It had already taken him long enough to get here. One look at the fire escape and Rex grimaced. The situation was already collapsing. The unknown man was crawling over the rooftop in the moments Rex was processing the plea for assistance.
Magic it was, then.
Not the kind of magic he was used too, either, but after too many times when he had to chase someone or something, he'd realized he needed a faster way to catch up with people. The inspiration for the exact method had come from a couple of unusual sources though. The Cataclysm, the man that had nearly wiped out the mutants at the mansion, had flitted all around the battlefield on personal whirlwinds. From what Rex had been told by other members of the Veil, Rex's primary magical aptitude was in the same domain: energy manipulation, albeit not on the level the Cataclysm had possessed.
So Rex had come up with a variation, less strenuous, and inspired by his friend, Hercules. Except instead of relying on muscle power to propel him into the air and survive the corresponding landings, Rex would warp the temperature around him in order to control the air just long enough for his spell to finish. He still had bruises from the experiments.
This was not the time to worry about any spell though. He was needed now, so now he summoned magic.
The power from another realm coursed through Rex and he channeled it into the air around him as he spoke from Scripture, "Thou liftest me up to the wind..."
Then he jumped.
As soon as his feet left the ground, a sudden blast of wind rocketed him up into the air in a pel-mel tunnel of turbulence that lasted just for a couple of seconds, long enough for Rex to clear the top of the roof by about eight feet before he cut off the magic. The wind died immediately, and gravity reasserted itself.
Rex covered his face with his arms and started rolling in mid-air as he slammed into the rooftop halfway across it and began rolling to disperse the shock. Pain lashed through him, but he just gritted his teeth. He'd heal later if he needed it. After skidding several feet, Rex came to a stop and eventually pulled himself to his feet.
He was banged up and in disarray, but he was here.
Rex nodded sharply. Good, there likely wasn't anyone else around then. Neighbors reported the building anyway, not an inside call.
"Understood," he said over the sound of flames. "Let's get you out of here then!" Rex beelined for the window to check for a fire escape and then realized the problem. The fire escape had become a fire access.
Metal was burning. There was nothing natural about this at all. Rex froze for a moment to figure out their options. Even if he managed to put out the fire on the fire escape, he couldn't do anything about the heat. It would take a long time for it to be cool enough for them to safely make it to the ground. The hallway was covered in flames though, but none of those materials should be as conductive.
"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to follow close behind me," Rex said as he strode back toward the door with the hole in it. "And get as low as you can to the floor so you don't breathe in much smoke. I'm going to hold off the flames but I can't keep it up for long."
Then Rex began to pray. It wasn't overly loud, but a person could hear references to saints and the Heavenly Father and pleas for flames to be extinguished as Rex channeled magic into his fire-quenching prayer. He hadn't used it on the way into the room because with so any rampant flames, they usually restarted any section of fire that he put out. He could only target so much space at once. His goal was to focus just on the area in front of them and then move quickly enough to make it to the end of the hall and past most of the flames. Once they got downstairs, he could stop the magic.
However, if this was indeed a mutant's fire, or another mystic's, Rex wasn't sure how effective his prayer would be, if at all.
Rex burst out of an alley and only took the briefest of moments to take in his surroundings before charging across the street and down another alley. Cutting through streets was much quicker than going around. He leaped onto a trashcan and ricocheted off until he could grab the top of the brick wall blocking the alley off and he pulled himself up and over, dropping to the other side with a thud.
He could hear the tail end of a burst of thunder, much like the sounds he'd head over the brief phone call, and then he could hear yelling.
The firefighter ran out of the new alley, a fireball still proceeding him, and then he skidded to a halt as he took in the scene.
The smell of ozone was in the air and Rex felt his short-cropped hair rising a bit due to the staticky air. His customary flannel shirt kept his arm hair under control. Then he noticed something else. He looked up and stared at a rooftop, where a big arrow in the air was pointing down
August was on the roof, facing off against another man and Rex's burgeoning gut feeling for danger was beginning to sound alarms.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Rex shouted at the unknown man, a hand held out as he approached the building, but not too closely that he didn't have August and the other man in sight at all times. His other hand was held a bit away from his waist, in case he needed fast fire. He didn't look away from the man as he yelled up to August. "August, are you okay?"
It was far later to be walking the streets than Rex was used to, but he couldn't help it. He was restless and unable to sleep. At least, he couldn't sleep any more. He'd woken in a cold sweat after a nightmare, flashing back to a horrible atrocity he'd encountered in Malaysia just a few months before. He'd been on a mission from the Veil to locate and extract a young mystic who was in deadly peril.
Rex had arrived too late to save him, but not too late to witness the kid's brutal, agonizing death.
The cooler night air helped Rex think. Walking the familiar streets helped ground him. A flickering ball of fire hovering perpetually a couple of feet in front of his knees, lighting his way during the sections of broken streetlamps, kept him covering in its soft heat. It was also a warning to anybody who sought a victim. A night like this, with his own demons in his mind, but ones his magic could not stop, Rex would always welcome someone trying to attack him.
It was uncharitable, but true.
Then his phone rang. It was August.
"This is Rex," he said automatically upon accepting the call. Then he listened. Then he almost smiled.
"I'm only a few minutes away," he said, recognizing the street name and giving his own location. He knew a few shortcuts, even. He hung up and began running.
Rex grunted, but not just because he'd had to take another step. It was a grunt of acknowledgement. "Egyptology," he said. "Guess that makes sense." It also seemed that Hunter was far better informed on the situation than Rex had been. Then again, the oracle from the Veil had just given Rex an address, said there was some "magical weirdness about to happen" and then sent him on his way.
Which was usually all the information he had before leaping into situations. It usually wasn't much of an issue. His sword could generally sort out any enemy enchantments and his fire and shield spells could handle the rest. Throwing mutants into the mix, though? That was still new to him. He just wasn't as effective against them.
Rex grunted in acknowledgement again and leaned on the railing as Hunter suggested and began the painstaking task of going down.
The slowness of their pace gave him lots of time to take in the room. It looked like a hurricane had been through there. Everything that wasn't bolted down had been thrown around the room and everything was soaking, including the unconscious siblings in wetsuits. They were both breathing at least.
"I'll see what I can find out from my neck of the woods," Rex said at the bottom of the stairs. "What's the point of having a magical library if you can't find some information on magic?"
It looked like they both had their assignments. "Keep in touch," Rex said as he pulled a business card out of a pouch on his belt. The card was only slightly damp and it was plain white. The only thing on the card was Rex's name and phone number in a standard size-12 font in the center. No frills, no thrills, nothing else. Just the important things.
The door was locked. Rex wasn't surprised. None of this seemed like it was going to be easy. As his personal fire whirl blazed around him and battered at the door, Rex held up his right hand and began focusing on the inscribed glove on it. Small etched words on the glove began to glow with golden-white light that was fairly overshadowed by the light of Rex's fire spell, but it didn't matter. The light just meant there was juice in the glove.
When he felt like he had enough power thrust into the glove, Rex tapped his hand against the door by the handle and casually blew a cantaloupe-sized hole in the door, sending some scraps of the door flying outward. He shoved his arm through the hole and reached around to unlock the door, thanking God for the leather to protect him from door fragments, and then withdrew his arm.
With the door unlocked, Rex kicked it open and rushed it, allowing his whirling flames to vanish as he stopped the spell. A quick glance showed him there were no flames in this room, just a woman who didn't look exactly happy with her situation.
"It definitely isn't, ma'am!" Rex bellowed over the noise of the fire as he extended a gloved hand to her. "Might be a mutant! It's okay, I can handle fires, even non-normal ones. Is there anyone else up here? Or in the building?" he asked, temporarily shutting the door behind him to try to keep the fire out as he momentarily regrouped.
Rex started ambling along with Hunter, grunting each time he had to place weight on his not-quite-mangled leg. "Hospital," he said. "Gotta make sure the bone is...nnngh...set right before healing anymore." Another step and flash of pain. "Don't wanna heal wrong."
The rubble was something of a task for Rex to maneuver around, but as they got to the door, Rex stopped to look around. "The witch said she got what she needed," Rex said. "Some kind of ankh or Egyptian cross with a blue jewel in the circle part." He started moving again.
"Said her king was coming back and....nnnggh...gonna remake world," Rex managed to groan out. His vision was getting a little blurry. "Gotta figure out what she took and why. Who lives here?"
Rex did not scream as parts of a spear were used as a splint and his legs was bound in them. He had accepted the wad of fiber like a makeshift gag however. He grunted several times and one hissed in pain, but he locked most of it away behind a rictus-like grimace. A professional side of him could appreciate Hunter's work. The man had done this before, it seemed. He didn't appear to hesitate, even when working with nonstandard materials.
It was a relief working with other professionals.
His head was pounding and his vision was blurry and his balance wasn't great. He was in so much pain, but that, ironically, almost made things easier. For with Rex, suffering just naturally made him petition his Heavenly Father.
He spat out the wad of mystery cloth and grunted, "One...sec," and then he laid his hands on his leg. His right arm didn't want to move well, so Rex dragged it over with his left hand and closed his eyes so the room didn't spin. Shock. Shock was starting to set in. He didn't have much time.
As before, he began to quote from Acts and he he reached out with his mind to that place of power from which he drew forth fire, light, and healing power, and he bound it up in the word of God before pulling it into his body.
A pleasant warmth spread through his entire body, taking away the slight chill he'd not realized he'd had due to his water-logged clothes. More importantly, the pain started to shrink away in many parts of his body.
Unlike with Ebb, Rex held back the power, allowing it to trickle through him slowly but surely. He didn't have the energy to repeat the earlier quick healing. He didn't need to either. They'd failed to stop the sorceress, but the other combatants were neutralized. The mission was over.
Rex stayed like that for a solid minute, flowing into prayers once the verse ended, to keep the spell going. Scrapes and bruises faded away as the power flowed through his whole body and giving his natural recovery process the energy to work overtime. His right arm was functional again though, although it still felt like a wall had fallen on it. Only then did he finally accept Hunter's help in standing.
It was difficult. It was awkward. It caused Rex to grunt and grind his teeth almost constantly. He spoke many oaths in Latin, Spanish, and English, calling on the names of many Saints and prophets. He finally was on his feet, although all of his weight was on his "good" foot. He hadn't healed his leg nearly enough to use, but he estimated he'd saved himself about a week or so of recovery. Enough that he could try to move around.
"You know," Rex said, pain still evident in his voice but no longer causing him to stop after each word, "the last time I was in a three-legged race, I had to stop a man who turned into a thundercloud from destroying a park and all the people in it." He paused for a moment.
Rex continued focusing on his breathing as he allowed Hunter to work. It was strange being on the receiving end of this kind of activity - this was the sort of task he was trained for as an EMT. His lips moved in soundless prayers as he thanked God and all the saints that Hunter knew at least the rudiments of triage and first aid. It meant Rex could conserve more of his strength for the spellcasting.
Healing Ebb had already taken so much out of him and Rex bit back a curse with how amateurly he'd gone about the spell. He'd forced the healing power into the man, like using a firehouse to put out a birthday cake. If he had been more focused, more patient, he could've conserved some of his power by making the healing less instantaneous...
Rex frowned and coughed. No, he couldn't think like that. What's done was done. He'd tired himself out but he'd still chosen to strike the wall with the powered up glove. If he hadn't, the wall might've completely crushed him or done more than bang him up and mangle a leg.
He breathed out and closed his eyes, laying back just as Hunter had said. As Rex waited for the mutant to return, his mind drifted.
Could his magic heal this? Rex wasn't sure. It was entirely different than the methods used by Hercules and William, and the few other mystics Rex knew with proclivities for healing magic had extremely different slants to it. He'd realized that every single mystic seemed to practice a unique-to-them form of magic - Hercules wasn't just an extreme outlier.
Nevertheless, if his leg was beyond the scope of his magic, Rex could find some peace in that, for he believed it was not beyond the scope of his god's power.
"Yea, thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me...." he whispered, waiting for Hunter to return.
The clanging of metal and a woman's voice cut through the building and Rex and his men zeroed in on it. Of course that meant climbing six flights of stairs, but that was part of their training. Leg day was life and death.
Rex was the first one out of the stairwell and immediately saw a blaze down the hallway. The hairs on the back of his neck raised. The fire was indeed a blaze. Flames covered the floor and were licking up the walls and even the ceiling, mostly in front of a few doors. The strange part was that the fire went about a third of the way down the hallway and then just...stopped. As if it decided to not continue advancing down and filling up the hallway.
"Ramirez," Rex said to one of his men. "Let them know we found the fire and there's at least one person up here. Potentially unnatural fire activity." The clanging was louder now. It was clearly coming from the direction of the fire.
"Dawkins, watch my back," Rex said to the other man.
"Fire department!" Rex roared down the hallway as he approached the waves of heat and flame.
"Lieutenant, this isn't procedure!" Dawkins began arguing, but Rex cut him off.
"This will work," Rex said. God willing.
Rex surged toward the flames and just before he struck them, he finished speaking a verse. "...and by night in a pillar of fire!"
His own flames burst into existence around the firefighter in a personal vortex that hungrily devoured the fires that got too close, leaving him undamaged. He laid one heavily gloved hand on the door handle and jiggled it to see if it was unlocked even as his own flames lashed at the door.
Rex stilled himself and focused on his breathing as Hunter started fidgeting with equipment and the rubble. The firefighter was not unaccustomed to these types of scenarios, although he was usually in Hunter's position during them. He knew this was going to hurt.
Rex nodded once as Hunter moved into position and began jacking the wall.
The firefighter started pulling himself back.
"Yaaarrrggh!" he cried through strained as his legs and right knee screamed in pain. He move them a few inches and he was already panting. The witch had prepared well for him. By the grace of God she hadn't decided to finish him off.
Rex kept scooting backward in laboriously slow movements. Tears were beginning to stream from his eyes. His left leg was twisted funny and his jeans were ripped in several places.
Then he was clear but the pain was magnified. "Madre de Dios," Rex breathed and he just fell back against the ground before coughing again and hacking up more blood. "Can you...check...my leg?" he gasped. "Might be...broken. Set...it?"
Rex began uttering a scripture but the woman vanished all too soon. The words died on his lips and instead he tried straining against the rubble. Hunter was suddenly there, helping shift parts of the wall. Rex figured that meant the crocodile men were dealt with.
Rex ground his teeth as he tried sitting up. He was mostly successful. His head and chest had been mostly spared, thanks to the hole he'd blown in the wall, but fragments covered his stomach and legs.
"Don't know," he said in a strained tone as he worked with Hunter to shove a large chunk off his chest. This wall wasn't solid brick, but it had an exterior of bricks. Mainly of them were still bound together by mortar and the insulating layers of the wall. He considered a spell to help but...all he could think of was growing another burning bush and that was liable to burn him before it did anything. He didn't want to risk striking anything else with his glove. Even if he had the power, he didn't know what effect that would have on him being trapped underneath stuff.
"I think..." he huffed tightly, "I can pull my legs out if you...can lift this section," Rex said, tapping on a large chunk that was laying across most of his legs.
"Don't....worry about...hurting me," he added. He spat more blood. "I can...heal."
The world narrowed for Rex as he ran. It wasn't an outrageously large room, but there was ample room for storage and studying. Hunter was easily taking up half of it with his assault of the crocodile men, Rex figured. Rex splashed through a couple of puddles and sodden papers and he chewed up the distance between him and the sorceress.
He was a mere couple yards away when her head snapped up and she stared straight at him. She shouted a word that didn't sound like a word to him and she flicked a wrist at the wall behind Hunter. Blue hieroglyphics suddenly flared on the wall and a ten foot section of wall vanished with a blaze of blue lights, only to reappear in front of Rex.
"Madre de Dios!" Rex shouted as he slashed at the wall with his sword...and nothing happened. The wall wasn't magical. It wasn't supported, either, and it was falling toward him.
"Arrrgh!" Rex roared and lashed out with his gloved hand. As soon as the leather made contact with the painted drywall, the stored magic in the glove activated and converted to kinetic energy which exploded into the wall. Rex's fist smashed a hole the size of a trash can lid through the wall and the wall started shattering into fragments.
It wasn't enough.
The wall still collapsed on Rex, but inside of crushing him completely, it merely bludgeoned him into the waterlogged floor, underneath rubble and dust.
"Gahh!" he yelled as his body lit up in pain. He immediately started choking on dust and trying to see if he could move. Rubble started shifting as he tried sitting up, but then a woman's voice filtered down to his ears. "Enough, it is over," the voice said.
Rex frowned even as he twisted his neck to find the source of the voice. The woman was crouched a few feet away, a glowing gem held in her hands. It was pulsing in time with each word she said. Then Rex realized she was speaking Spanish.
"You have failed," she continued. "Surrender. Submit. Cease. It matters not. I have what I need. My king will return. Your doom is inevitable."
She held up a cross-like item made of some gold-colored metal with elaborate designs etched into it. The top of the cross was rounded and had another jewel inside it, this one bright blue. Rex recognized it as an ankh.
"Witch!" he shot back in Spanish, coughing on the dust in his lungs. "Your plans will be undone! Your machinations brought to ruin! You--" He broke off coughing and tried sitting up, to little avail. His right arm, the one he'd punched the wall with, was in agony. It had been the first struck by the wall and was resistant to movement. The pain was agonizing and Rex tasted blood in his mouth.
"Enjoy the time you have left," she said with a dark smile, "for your world will soon be remade."
Then she spoke a word that was neither Spanish, English, or any language Rex was familiar with and she vanished in a flash of azure light.
Rex's face didn't change one bit. That was his default reaction to most things. In this case, he was watching an adult...woman...pretend she was wearing some kind of Native American headdress or something. He had followed the signals well enough to understand he had to stop and then two people would do...something. Then came the Indian thing.
Rex nodded despite having no idea what Hunter was trying to communicate and instead just followed his lead.
Hunter was far better prepped for this kind of situation. It was a good thing Rex was several seconds behind Hunter or he would've been hit with the flashbang too. Hunter didn't play around. Rex respected that.
Then Rex was in the room as well and he barely had time to take in the scene before his sword went slashing across the back of humanoid crocodile. The monstrosity dissolved into light and goop before the remains all vanished. The firefighter only had a brief moment to acknowledge the fact. It was an entity made of magic. Just like the jackal-headed men from the museum. That made this a lot easier.
There were nearly half a dozen more such creatures in the room. Clearly they'd been responsible for the ransacking that was taking place here. Dexterity was obviously not a concern, just brute force. One of them was already on the floor and letting out a low, guttural groan as the shotgun had crippled it. It seemed as though Hunter had this under control, at least for the moment. The sorceress could always summon more, though. She had to be stopped first.
Rex locked eyes on her about the same time she saw him from across the room. Hunter had distracted the crocodile men, but it looked like the sorceress was trying to recover from the flashbang. Perfect.
