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.
Mrs. Stahlblut regaurded them with suspicion, then finally seemed to decide that showing them Annabelle's locker couldn't hurt, “Follow me.”
Lupe glanced around the school as she followed the older woman. The custodian gave her a friendly smile as she passed, and even had one for Abyss. All along the walls hung colorful art projects: here a display of fish painted with various textures, there giant flowers made form painted papers, and finally spring chicks made from yellow children's hand prints. She scanned them, looking for Annabelle's name in the corner of one. They stopped outside a door decorated with a tree. Apples emblazoned with student's names hung from the branches. There was Annabelle's name, a little green apple that swung from one of the very top branches, as if it was trying to reach for bigger and better things.
“Your classroom?” Lupe intoned.
With a nod, Mrs. Stahlblut added, “And Annabelle's cubby. She went home one day a little early because she wasn't feeling well. Something must have been bothering her, because she forget to bring her backpack with her. She never forgot her homework.”
A forgotten backpack was a good start.
Lupe waved Abyss inward, then followed the teacher through the door into the classroom. Everything was tiny sized, from tables to chairs, to lowered windows and sinks and counters. It would be the perfect atmosphere for someone who was only three and a half feet tall.
The undercover detective went towards the indicated cubby. The backpack that belonged to Annabelle was an old one, far too worn to have been new at the beginning of the school year. Inside, the papers were meticulously organized, with finished papers on one side of her folder and new assignments on the other. There was a sweater all folded up. An empty lunch box.
Jocelyn's nose picked up the rest of the story. Her lunch had been peanut butter sandwiches and a banana, nothing else. She lived with an older man, a smoker, and a younger woman. Their house was musty. They had cats. Amidst all the smells, the strongest one was that of Annabelle herself. Lupe committed it to memory.
“Do you mind if we look around your room a bit?” They could perhaps find a few more clues. Or hear a few more clues, if the older woman was feeling inclined to talk.
She had connections to Faust's CEO, wasn't that Lori Faust, whom also lurked around the Sanctuary? Kaitlyn claimed to be her daughter, huh? That could explain how she'd gotten access to expensive medical textbooks she'd never read and a nice office she didn't really need right in the heart of the central park neighborhood. But why? Why would the daughter of Faust Pharmaceutical's CEO be poking around over here, in the middle of a missing person's case pretending to be someone she wasn't?
Because as skillful as the girl was at lying, her scent didn't lie. She was the exact same little girl that Jocelyn had met at the Sanctuary. Not even a twin picked up scents quite so precisely, down to the same brand of shampoo and toothpaste. The only thing that was different, was that before the girl had smelled completely innocent and now she smelled a bit like a liar. Was she getting nervous, being asked all these questions?
As for the explosion occurring right before she moved into the office, “Why did you move your office into this particular neighborhood? What with all the explosions and things happening right on your doorstep and all?”
Detective Banks flipped open her wallet and held up her badge for the girl's inspection. Jocelyn was a real cop, and she couldn't tell the difference. There was no way the girl would be able to find flaw with them. This was just silly.
“Would you show us the footage?” Her voice intoned her quickly diminishing lack of patience. Video would likely tell them more than this girl was currently.
The elderly teacher stared the pair of mutant intruders up and down, as if she could see into their very souls.
“You're not here to cause trouble,” the teacher informed them. It wasn't a question. It was a statement with certain implications about what would happen if they did cause trouble. Jocelyn didn't want to find out what those consequences would be. Something in the woman's eyes said it would be a terrible idea.
Somewhere behind Abyss, two small hands grabbed at the poking tail, trying to get a better look.
Jocelyn met the teacher's eyes. Everything about this woman demanded respect.
“No, we're not,” the undercover detective confirmed.
Just then the bell rang and the flood of children was released. For the next few minutes there would be no talking for the adults, as tiny little voices exalted in their freedom for the rest of the day. Traffic cleared and finally it was quiet again.
“Ahem,” the steely teacher raised an eyebrow at someone small. Her voice was cautionary, “Cornelius...”
“Huh?” The little boy, who was now swinging from Abyss' tail like it was a monkey bar caught his teacher's glance. “Oh. Bye Mr. Monkey Tail! Bye Mrs. umm...Mrs! Bye Mrs. Stahlblut!” With that, he was gone, out the door to the waiting (and somewhat alarmed looking) embrace of his mother.
“To answer your earlier question, I am Annabelle's teacher. What do you want?”
Jocelyn turned to look for a garbage can in which to drop the now sneezed upon postage stamp with strings. There had to be one somewhere, because people needed to throw away those damnable scented dryer sheets somewhere, unless they hung then inside the air vents for maximum air exposure.
Jerkwads.
She wasn't seeing a garbage can anywhere, and she couldn't start loading her laundry until she disposed of this non-kleenex.
Uh-oh. She could feel another sneeze coming on.
>>“Here.”
Someone thrust something toward her, with confidence. She didn't look too closely, she just grabbed at it then buried her sneeze in it.
'It' being a pair of silky, cartoon covered, still-wet-from-the-washer, teenaged boy undergarments.
Jocelyn stood there, holding two sneeze defiled pairs of unmentionables with her nose red and her eyes watery, staring at a forlorn looking young man whom she just now realized had some kind of rodents for hands, one of whom was holding an actual tissue out ever so helpfully.
She couldn't help it. She started to laugh. Belly aching, tears running down cheeks, laughing. What a first impression, on both their parts.
Once she could catch her breath, she did take his proffered tissue to wipe away her tears and dab at her runny nose.
“I'm sorry. Sorry,” she grinned, “about Snoopy.” Heehee.
Faust Pharmaceuticals. That was a real place, and not one a little girl from the Sanctuary would be likely to know much about unless it was for some real reason. Perhaps they needed to go over there and have a sniff around at some point.
It was perhaps the only real thing the girl had said so far. The line about her neighbors smelled like a lie. One didn't live right across the street from a possible murder and not have some opinion to share about what happened. Gossiping, even about false information, was normal. Asking questions of the cops interviewing you and trying to get more information that regular civilians weren't privy to, was normal. Some sorry line about the tragedy and then changing the subject? The girl was hiding something.
There was also a bunch of nonsense about all the different types of technology that she needed for her research, namely cameras and video taping them. Which, honestly was starting to get annoying. Jocelyn wasn't here to play pretend. Or, rather, she was, but she still didn't have to stand for all the silly kid stuff. She narrowed her eyes at the little recording device. She didn't want video of herself impersonating herself floating around on ViewTube.
“Do you have security camera's installed here?”
Hopefully the girl would freely let them look through her footage, but if necessary Jocelyn could fairly easily whip up a fake warrant to search through the doctor's video footage. Dr. Lewis might talk big, about her lawyers and her pharmaceutical companies, but she was really just a little girl and likely wouldn't recognize the difference anyway. If it came to that, they could bag the whole hand-held camera as evidence, too.
The direct approach was not one she was used to. Her mutation, her profession, all of it was usually veiled in subtlety. Facing things head on might be nice for a change.
She could see how alarmed some of the parents were, and wondered if they thought the pair of mutants were attacking, or just there to pick up their child like everyone else. Oh noes, everyone, your kid might be going to school with a mutie. Actually, there was no 'might' about it; they knew Annabelle was a visible mutant.
That might explain why it was only some of the parents that looked alarmed at Abyss' presence, while others didn't even turn to look a second time.
Apparently they had arrived exactly at dismissal time, because a sea of children was waiting for them inside the door. They looked up and up and up at Abyss and mostly ignored Jocelyn. One of the littlest ones, with his shirt still smeared no doubt from an earlier escapade in the art room, slumped and rolled and slinked along the wall behind his classmates and his teacher, to a place where he could get a better look at the big man.
“You have a tail, mister,” he announced loud enough for everyone to hear.
One of the teachers, a tiny little thing with steely hair and steel rimmed frames stepped forward. She may have been small, but the look she gave the two intruders made it obvious that she was not a teacher to be messed with.
“We need to dismiss the students,” the way Mrs. Grey Hair stated it didn't leave them much in the way of options other than to step out of the way and let the students go past.
Jocelyn stepped up next to the woman and asked nicely, “Could you please tell us who Annabelle's teacher is?”
Poor inexperienced boy. Jocelyn sniffled, set her basket down on the first convenient flat surface and grabbed for one of the facial tissues that was poking out from the box that rode on the very top of the laundry litter.
Gotta open the dryer before taking out the laundry, silly.
Without even stopping to think about whether he would appreciate her help or not, she swung open the door for him. She couldn't see his hands, under all that laundry, so she was opperating under the assumption that the only reason he was impaired at this laundry thing was because his mother had done most of his for him up to this point.
“Dere you go,” she sniffled and turned back to her own machine. She carefully checked for any loose articles in the washer, especially red ones, before she added any of her own things. She had to remove something that had been the strap from something or another and had gotten stuck and possibly severed from the rest of its... nope, that was the entire garment right there. Jocelyn's kleenex had more surface area.
Speaking of which, she could feel a tickle coming on, grabbed for a tissue...
A-a-aCHOO!
… and didn't make it in time. She sneezed instead right on the only thing she had in her hand.
Jocelyn skidded to an almost halt, ie. 25 mph, when they were a few blocks from their destination. That's right, school zone speed limit. She may be reckless, but she wasn't about to risk running over a kid. As she putted along, it only took a few second for Abyss to catch up to her. She had to admit she was impressed that he could get through the traffic so easily on his bulkier bike.
She pulled into the parking lot and slid her bike home into one of the available spots. It was late enough that there were already parents starting to accumulate in their cars, waiting for their children to be dismissed by the final bell of the day.
Dismounting and shaking her ponytail free from her helmet she smiled at the big red mutant that pulled to a stop next to her.
“This is it. This is where Annabelle was last seen,” it had actually been her kindergarten teacher that had reported her missing, about two weeks ago. “Somehow we need to get in so we can sniff around for clues. If I could get her scent from her locker or a jacket she wore or something, that would be best.”
She put her hand on her hip, as if to say, 'Any bright ideas?'
Lupe couldn't tell by smell which of the brothers had caught up to her, due to wind and the air filter built into her helmet that cleared out a lot of the road smog... and a lot of other smells, too. Another sense, her woman's intuition, told her that it was Abyss, the alpha male of this little pack.
She smiled inside her helmet, gave him a little wave, then pulled a couple of not quite legal moves of her own. Illegal while she was dressed like this and not in blues, anyway.
“Catch me if you can,” she whispered, though he'd never hear.
She wove through the traffic, taking risks she normally wouldn't unless she was trying to show off, which she had to admit she was. At one point even jumping up on a deserted sidewalk before darting back out in front of a taxi driver who didn't have to swerve to miss her, but did anyway.
And so the criminal chased the cop through traffic. Talk about role reversal.
Jocelyn recognized the UV light as something that would make certain dried fluids glow, things like blood, semen, and laundry detergent. It was somewhat odd for Kaitlyn Dr. Lewis to be shining on their faces and clothes. Other than blinking, the detective faking a fake detective did not pay much attention to the bright light.
Her partner sat, so she remained standing, wandering idly to the bookshelf where she ran her finger over the spines.
One could learn almost as much from how someone reacted to a person pawing through the things on their bookshelf as one could from the types of objects on the shelf. There were a token number of books about mutant studies. Not many of them had the telltale crack in the spine that indicated they had been open much. There weren't many worn corners that told of numerous times they had been unceremoniously shoved into a book bag.
She pulled a book at random and haphazardly flipped through the pages. No notes in the margins and the pages still smelled more like a publishing house than it did like a dorm room, coffee shop, or office. It certainly didn't smell like Kaitlyn. Her conclusion, if she hadn't already known that Dr. Lewis was not really who she said she was, would be that this book hadn't ever been read.
“What can you tell us about your neighbors from across the street?” She asked this over her shoulder as she slid the book back onto the shelf and ran her finger across the wood and then examined the amount of dust she found there.
An Order member admitting that the MRC might be a good thing, while an MRC member admitted that sometimes justice needed to be handled personally. If this kept up, the next thing she knew lions and lambs would be lying down together. Cats and dogs would start getting along. Cobras and mongooses would become friends, start dating, and eventually marry.
Then again, maybe it was a little early to jump to any of those sorts of conclusions. Nature was nature.
“Yeah, I understand,” Lupe responded with one more wistful look at the little screen. “Just let me change out of my pajamas quick.” She hadn't done much to get ready for the day other than brushing her hair and pulling on yoga pants to make herself decent enough for the cafeteria. “I'll meet you in the garage.”
She slipped out through the door and down to her room. It took only a few moments to pull on her hunting outfit: a red tank top, black shorts, and boots with heels short enough to run in and tops high enough to slip a gun in one and a bowie knife in the other. She pulled her hair back into a loose pony tail so it wouldn't get in the way.
When she got out to the garage she was slightly surprised to find that all the brothers had amassed themselves, six in total.
She shook each of their hands in turn. Or rather each of 4. One she had shaken in the cafeteria, and the other kissed her hand instead of shaking it.
“You're not all going to fit on my motorcycle,” she pointed out her little bike, the cop one she'd reacquired with Calley's help and redecorated with newly painted order symbols over the NYPD ones and all red bulbs in the flashers. Actually even one of them might not have fit. It wasn't that heavy duty. Well... maybe, but there wouldn't have been room for her, too.
“Here's the address of her school. We can pick up her trail there.”
Most of the time Jocelyn approved of the legal system's way of dealing with people, but every once in awhile there wasn't enough solid evidence to arrest or convict someone. Sometimes a detective knew exactly what happened, but a jury could never be convinced that scent was proof enough. Not when there wasn't also witnesses, a lack of alibi, DNA, motives, murder weapons and all other manner of things that they considered proof.
Sometimes a girl had to take matters, very carefully, into her own hands.
In this case, she and Abyss agreed on how to 'make the situation right'.
Was she a bad cop because she legitimately agreed with an Order member about something like taking justice into her own hands?
Probably.
She found that she wasn't too terribly troubled by that thought.
“If there is enough proof to make sure they were properly punished, I'd usually let the cops clean up the mess,” she answered truthfully. “If there isn't, I'll be sure to let you know if there is justice to be served.”
She didn't mind getting her hands a little dirty, metaphorically, but literally the less likely it was that she was linked to murders, even if the victim completely deserved to die, the less likely she was to lose her job. She was careful, but as she could attest, no one was perfect. Not when you didn't know who would be tracking you and what they could do.
Lupe was scraping the bottom of her yogurt bowl now, and there weren't many grapes left on their vine.
“If you're bored, she disappeared not far from here. We could go do a little investigating this afternoon.”
Abyss, the original. She wondered if they were siblings that all claimed that, or if he truly was the original and the rest were copies somehow. His confidence and the ease with which he said it made it seem like the truth, and he certainly didn't give on odor of unease usually associated with lying.
“Nice to meet you, Abyss.”
Jocelyn appreciated the playful smile, but downplayed the compliment, choosing instead to be humble.
“Oh you can't mean me, I'm not intimidating at all. I'm barely 130 pounds and my mutation is about as innocuous as a mutation can be. It's hyperosmia, or in plain English, a ridiculous sense of smell.”
His hand, when she shook it, made hers look like a child's, but his grasp was surprisingly gentle.
She was glad he accepted her invitation to sit and she did take a few of his offered grapes, dipping them first into her yogurt before eating them. They were pretty good for being out of season, but they still smelled a little like the back of the truck that had brought them up from Mexico or wherever they were grown.
She finished chewing her grape as she propped up the little touch screen device with her hand. She pointed with her other hand and the child's obviously mutation enhanced mouth.
“She's a mutant kid that has gone missing. I was just reading up on her story and trying to figure out if there was enough information to start a little personal investigation into her whereabouts.”
She gave a little half smile, though it was a fairly serious topic, “I sometimes use my abilities to help find people like that.”
“Lupe,” Jocelyn answered, with a wolfish smile. “One of the Abyss brothers, right?” She took the opportunity to look him over now that she had her first chance to see him up close and personal.
He was tall, had a nice strong jaw, was incredibly well built, and was, of course, red with a monkey tail. The view was even nicer up close than from afar. Up close she could see the twinkle in his eye. Was that mischief? Kindness? Curiosity? Maybe a mixture of all three.
He smelled alright, too. Not too flowery.
“There are a lot more kids here than I expected,” Jocelyn admitted. They weren't just drifting in and out either like they would at a homeless shelter. They were staying. Kaitlyn and her friend Stephan had been here for ages now, and Elf looked like he was going to be perfectly content to stay as well. Free room and board was nice for all ages, she supposed, though she wondered what they did about school, if anything.
“Wanna sit? I've got plenty of room here.” She slid her little screened device off to one side to make room. The face of a little girl with bright blue lips that smiled around tiny little tusks looked up from the screen.
Jocelyn had a lot more down time at the Sanctuary than she'd ever had working down at the station. She wasn't sure she liked it much.
She was used to the constant bustle of activity, pitching in on everyone's cases, hearing all the news of the city as it happened, and being out and about tracking down leads. Lately she felt like she was in a kennel.
Sure, she had occasional chores to do, like collecting mutant insurance. There had also been rumors that she might be doing some prison guard duties starting soon. The only other thing she did was help out with small jobs, like flipping pancakes at breakfast or mopping the entryway where mutants, monkeys, and tigers tracked in winter mud from outside.
Still, she had a lot of down time.
No wonder the Sanctuary residents got into so much trouble, they didn't have anything else to do. She was about ready to pick a fight with someone just to change up the humdrum daily routine.
She didn't, though. Instead she started to do research. Missing children, murdered women, young men who disappeared in the middle of the night... most of them confirmed mutants, all of them completely unsolved. She would use her own unique abilities to try shedding new light on the cold cases. Normally she wouldn't discriminate between mutant and human, but since she was working undercover, it went better with her cover story to focus mainly on those that involved helping her fellow so-called homo superiors. It's not like there was any shortage of cases.
Today her research happened to be mostly flipping through posters of missing kids on her myPad, which she could only afford because rent and food were free around here. She flipped through photos and scrutinized the stories that accompanied them while she munched on her yogurt and granola breakfast. Never mind that it was well past noon. No one around here kept anything even remotely resembling normal hours, so Jocelyn didn't either. Sometimes she was up early to run. Other days... not. so. much.
As she flipped through pictures of missing children, her attention was somewhat diverted by the large red man with a child sized decoration hanging from his tail. The interaction between them left her with a slight smile on her lips. For such an intimidating place, many of the Sanctuary residents were surprisingly good with kids.
“That was a nice thing you told him,” Jocelyn commented to the Abyss brother as soon as the boy had run off in the general direction of the ice cream machine.
