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.
um... hi. any possible way we can settle the romania stuff (in the threads i am involved with) sometime later? um... someone i loved dearly passed away, long story short, I didn't know till after she was buried. i am a mess/ I am sorry, be back soon
(For the purposes of convenience, the text will not be color coded and such. This shall be a long one.)
Jupiter seemed to cradle her through the day, holding her dying form in his arms and shielding her from the toxicity of the cold. The men tried to separate him, and she could hear touches of the argument from her velvety darkness. He protected her with his life, her red monkey man. The love she felt in her heart for him made her want to fight this pain and suffering she had never asked for. Xavia trusted him more than ever, letting it fill her with silvery light.
She did not know there was another hero, fighting for her. Martin. Surely he knew she was gone by now. Just as well, she thought, she was a rookie to this game, and he knew more than she. She was only in the way. That was evident on the day that Mr. Beledodia had cupped and bruised the back of her neck. How else could she have been captured so quickly? Her stupidity was evident when she let herself use her mutation to get away from his cruel grasp. It was her own stupidity that put her lover in harms way.
Even now, the politician paced his office like a caged lion. He awaited news of the girl with fierce anticipation. His phone rang with a clamor, causing him to jump and snatch the receiver from its cradle. “Beledodia.”
“We have her right where you want her.” The voice on the other line was harsh and breathy. His best man, the one he trusted the most, and the one he trusted the least. Beledodia knew his man would get the prize. “Good. Good. Is she harmed?” Mr. B. paced the room, once more, reaching for a Cuban cigar. The large smoke was placed into his mouth, he struck the flint of his gold plated lighter, and inhaled a delicious tasting cloud.
“Her face, her skin… Something happened when the snow touched it. Why do you care about such a freak?”
“She is that, but there is something about her and…” I must have her. As he exhaled, the plume of smoke rose in curls toward the ceiling. The haze of it blurred any flaws in the paint, casting faint shadow against the stark white.
“The little freak wasn’t alone, though.”
“Of course she wasn’t. She was in the company of that snooty little twerp, the one who sat in my office like some kind of keeper. Hah.” He sat in his expensive, and cushy, leather chair. His finely clad feet are then propped up on the rich mohogony of the desk as he took another puff of his cigar.
“No, it wasn’t a little man. It was a big man. Another freak, bright as a red crayon, he’s a shaggy looking man with a… monkey’s tail. He acted like a lover scorned when we tried to take her away. Jumped out of a window way up high, he did.”
“Did the men take him to the damn camp too?” He pulled his feet from the desk and set them on the floor, grabbing the Cuban from his lips and spewing out a large cloud of furiously puffed gray, a vein sticking out in his old geezer neck.
“He went to protect her.”
“Son of a *****! You need to get her away from him. NOW. She is MINE. I’ll not let him have her. Get her away from him and bring her to me.” Mr. B. slammed his balled fist down on the hard wood, face turning a molten red, Cuban breaking in half with his fury. There was no way he was going to let some rotten freak take the object of his desire away from him when he had yet to sample her wares. The ***** wouldn’t be a problem when he got her alone, this time, she had a collar on. She was as good as his slave. He didn’t care that she was an abomination, all he knew was his lust was raging for the girl, and he had to have her.
To him, she was so beautiful, flawless; ethereal. Her skin was like honey, her eyes like molten caramel when she looked at him after she injured him. He didn’t even know her name, but he didn’t need to. His gipsy looked so helpless, so sad, so easy for him to break. It was Mr. B’s pleasure, no, honor to break her, to teach her a lesson for making him bleed. He would never surrender her to the hulking monster who went with her,
Growling, he disposed of his beloved cigar, and stood up. It was time for him to pay a visit to the camp.
Back in the camp, the people were restless. The air positively crackled with tension. Something was going to happen, they all could feel it. A few curious souls huddled around Jupiter and Xavia, some venturing to ask if they could help. The most likely answer they received was that she needed to be kept warm. Unfortunately, there was no way for them to do that except for grouping around the pair. Some of them thought that if they could help the large, red male out, he would protect them, not just her. But she seemed very important to him.
Xavia awoke a few times, her lips parched. She needed water. Not only was she thirsty, but the water helped make her stronger than normal. The snow was too cold. Her lips parted and she croaked her need out, “Th-thu… Th… Ju… Th… th… thir… Thirsty..”
If he understood and helped her, she perked up just that little bit, which was a very good sign. If he didn’t, then she would lay there in his arms, begging for water as best as she could under the circumstances.
The others started to feel anger. The poor girl looked so terrible, blisters caking her face to hide any sign of the beauty that she might be, pale as death, tortured, in pain. She was sort of an icon as to what they were going through. They started to feel uneasy, restless, as if their time was coming soon. As if to make true to the feelings of tension worse, the guards came to do the bidding of the obsessed politician. It was a few hours after their first attempt, and they were wiser, this time, wielding heavy chains made from titanium, firearms, and tazers. They all had their eyes on the big guy. When they approached the motley group of collared mutants, some of them even gave one of those laughs that would send chills down the spines of the weak of heart.
Most of them scattered, the smaller ones anyways, but the stronger ones looked at each other and stood up straighter, eying the soldiers wearily. They would not so easily leave the pair to the evil looking pure bloods. Bastards. The guards looked at each other, too, and laughed out loud over this pitiful sign of defiance. The captain then held up his arm, halting his company, and sneered at the mutants.
With bated breath, they waited for him to speak, some cracking knuckles, some shuffling their feet restlessly. The guards, however, all mimicked their captain and sneered, most of them patting their palms with their weapons of choice as they did the bidding of their leader. The captain gave a rumbling chuckle, deep in his chest, before he started to circle around the group.
“What is this? Can we not pay the girl a visit without a vigilante ever by her side? And now… Hah… She has a gaggle of pitiful followers kissing her toes.” He spat toward the prostrate Xavia, the saliva landing ever so close to her. “You might as well surrender any thought you may have of defending her. Just as you all are, she is a freak. A nobody. Your blood is tainted and you are a burden to society. Why don’t you all just do us a favor and die? Save us the trouble of looking at you.” His ugly laugh grew louder, and he got into the face of one, unflinching mutant. “You reek of taint. The stench of it fills my nostrils and disgusts me. Do you really wish to suffer for one girl?” His chiseled face went into the cragged one of the mutant he taunted. A fine boned, blunt ended finger jabbed out into the broad chest of that one, sending a harder than necessary blow to the pectoral that would surely bruise even the well honed muscle of that one. When the mutant stood his ground, the only indication of his anger rising being the slight narrowing of his eyes, and the tightening of his meaty fists, the captain gestured toward the group of guards, and they all moved to close into a circle around the group. “Grab the girl,” he said to the men, turning his face only slightly to indicate whom he spoke to, and then looked back at the mutant who’s face he was in. Of course Jupiter wouldn’t have that at all, he was probably going to be the first to defend Xavia. The guards were prepared for that, and closed in.
The other mutants could hear a growl coming from the hulking red one, and took it as time to leap into action. This day would be known as the uprising of that camp, for the actions of a few turned into the actions of many. The front runner of this group was Jupiter, and more men surrounded him than they did the others. Several more guards came rushing in, sirens filled the air as the sound of battle ragged rampantly throughout the camp. Only the weak stayed back, they had no chance. It would take several hours of fighting before the guards got what they wanted, and dragged the prone woman from the field of battered mutants. The captain ordered them to not be killed, to suffer from the injuries, so there were few deaths, if at all. Some leapt back when shocked by the collars, some fought through the agony of the shocking, one fought through it all until he was overcome and even he could not save Xavia. And then she was gone, carried like a sack of potatoes to who knows where?
Beledodia watched from a window in a room on the top floor of the building the freaks would be crammed into for sleep, torture, and what little food was probably thrown at them. He couldn’t be more pleased with the violence that had erupted. Dance, monkey, dance, he thought. It was as if he wound up one of those stupid, cymbal playing monkeys that clapped the tiny little cymbals together repetitively and stomped their faux-fur covered feet, not quite to the beat.
Hundreds of them lay in heaps, most injured, some dead, few taking cover like the cowardly dogs that they were. Glee was the word that came to mind when he looked down at those pitiful excuses for human beings. HAH, poster children for suffering, indeed. Pshaw.
His pig-like eyes lit up at the sight of his prize being carried off the field while the big, angry red fellow got his arse thoroughly pwned by a chunk of the guard populace. Cruel, he thought, yet utterly delicious. The big oaf didn’t deserve a delicate flower like the one he, himself craved. Tainted blood or no, when Beledodia wanted something, he got it, and damn the consequences.
Not long after he watched the girl being carted from the beaten crowd, the door burst open, and the guard brought her in. It was the captain himself who brought his quarry. The handsome fellow caused a stirring of envy, he looked like a modern day Viking, smooth shaven of course, capturing a slave. Mr. B’s jaw ticked a few times when the man took too long to hand her over.
“Well? Put her down, idiot!” And when the captain swung her about like a ragdoll, Beledodia nearly knocked the fool in the noggin, and his voice went high pitched in a hurry. “Gently, now, or I will have you locked up and tortured with the rest of those dogs you just disciplined.”
“Whatever you say, Sir” The Norse looking fellow rolled his eyes in disgust, and gingerly placed the half-dead being on the floor, before giving a mocking bow to the snake like Beledodia, who was now wiggling his fingers together in excitement. Glee!
I am only here in spurts right now, still having troubles as well. But I do my best to still keep up here. Depending on how this day goes, I might have news, I might not. *hugs all*
Xavia stayed in her room, even after Martin had awakened out in the hallway. She had so much going on in her head at the moment that she couldn’t quite think straight… Her form never left the spot in which she had fallen, until she knew she had to try and get back on track.
The day was spent, then, preparing herself for the task ahead of her. She did not leave her room until nightfall, when she had showered and dressed herself, then taken herself to the bar to listen to the local gossip.
Rumor had it that a giant red fellow showed up in that bar, that night, and left her side after a bit of talking. She seemed to have followed after. After spending an absurd amount of time alone with the fellow in her room, a housekeeper saw the girl leave, all bundled up. Then came a ruckus, and agonized screams from outside that seemed silenced all too suddenly.
If one walked into her room, they would see a broken window left in the wake of the red giant, and all of Xavia’s belongings were still in the room. And, of course, the lingering, and this time, beautiful smell of flora.
(Continued from Money Talks and So We Meet Again – If anything needs changing, please PM me, Mods.) (Xavia, Jupiter, and others to come)
She was not aware of the transporting between the hotel and the camp. She was not awake, even as Jupiter held fast to her throughout the trip after he talked to her worried family. All she knew was oblivion again, the peaceful darkness she had surrendered to after they put her against her biggest weakness, her kryptonite, the snow, the cold air… Xavia did not suffer in the darkness, she did not feel the agony of her blistered face and hands…
The collar was placed around her angrily red neck, as if she really needed it by that point when she was down. One was probably placed around Jupiter’s too. Then they were thrown in the camp like two miscreants thrown into prison, like rats in a cage… If she woke up now, she would live one of her biggest fears.
It wasn’t just like a concentration camp, not like when the Jews were persecuted, but it may a well have been the same. Mutants sat huddled together, some with angry faces and some with sad faces. They were like a family, for they were there for each other in the only way they could be. All of them wore the same collar that was placed around her own neck, all of them wanted nothing more than to be free and be treated like the human beings that they were. It was a sad state of affairs that they were brought down thusly by a bunch of people who had no right to treat them this way.
All because they were different, all because they had extraordinary gifts that probably scared the living daylights out of the people who did not have these gifts. Because they had the gifts that they had, they were inferior. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair at all. None of these people had done anything but try to fight for their freedom, and for that, they were no more than animals in the eyes of society.
Xavia awoke briefly, and was in a state of panic for the first moment, in so much pain as she was, and in unfamiliar territory. She was somewhat delirious as it was, that she hardly recognized Jupiter. Oh, god, it hurts, it hurts… She wanted to cry out and say so, but her throat felt so tight… The collar wasn’t choking her, but it certainly wasn’t helping the situation at all. She wished someone could take it off of her, it hurt so bad to have something so roughly pressed against her neck.
She had no choice but to force herself back into the lovely darkness that comforted her so…
The fear in his eyes was slow motion as she hit him in the forehead. Her own eyes widened excruciatingly slow as she watched him fall backwards and start to crawl like a crab toward the door. It was as if someone had pressed a button, then, for things sped up to normal speed just before he left the room.
The plant mutant stood in shock as the door slammed shut. Confusion was a war within her brain while she silently thought of what had just happened. He was afraid of her? She hadn’t meant to scare him… And what of herself? How was she not afraid of him after what had just happened.
Xavia slid to the floor onto her knees, the wind taken out of her angry sails, which was at least a good thing in all of this mess. She was slowly returning to her normal self, her olive skin, her black hair, and her pretty, caramel eyes… But it did not change the fact that someone had seen the full out monster she could be.
It would probably do no good to go after him, either. He would probably turn her away after what had just happened… Was she so ugly that he now hated her?
She was vaguely aware of the change in temperature. Her eyes were fluttering closed as she grew so tired, so fast. If she had leaves, surely, by now, they would have withered and drifted to the ground to lie against the pristine snow like a reminder of the season passed. The plant mutant could hear the distant voice of her lover calling to her, asking her to speak to someone…
Xavia mumbled something, mimicking Jupiter’s words as best as she could, but the damage had already been done when they’d taken her over-clothing. He skin felt as if she had been passed through flames, thanks to the snow licking at her the way that it did. She mumbled something else, but it was hard to tell what it was, inaudible almost, “I love you.” Was that for him, or them? Or was it for all of them?
The woman went limp in Jupiter’s hold, passing out from the pain. Why? Why did they do this to her? All she had wanted to do was to speak to her mother and father because Jupiter had reminded her of what she was missing in her life… Her family, love, joy… And just when she had started to feel these things, which had overrode the negative thoughts and feelings, these men wanted to take it away again.
She wasn’t dead, but she seemed frighteningly close, even closer than she had ever been. Nobody had ever placed her in the cold for this long, long enough to have welted, and then blistered her skin thusly. Agony was an understatement.
The plant mutant went into a crouch and began to stalk toward Martin, “I said, ‘go away.’ Please…” Even her eyes were different, no longer the caramel brown, but completely greened over, including the whites. She leapt at him then to push him out, not knowing a thing about his mutation, and having no ill intent to do him harm. Her palms jabbed toward his chest as she tried desperately to get him away from her.
She then reached up and went to push at his head with a yell, “Nobody can see me this w---“ and froze for a short moment, perhaps 10 seconds or more, hand poised at his forehead as she stood there like a motionless statue. Why couldn’t she move?! What the hell? Was this why he wore gloves?
The phone dangled on its silver chord, the panicked sound of a family who had repeatedly lost a daughter and sister was drowned out by the sounds that filled the street. Xavia didn’t just go unconscious, she convulsed for a good moment or two after being tazed by the cruel hand of the officers. She was already weak from the cold; she could simply die without them putting a bullet to her head. Didn’t they see that?
She wasn’t unconscious for too long, either, and when she had slowly awakened, they had already begun to remove her bulky outer wear so they could handle her more easily. The cold bit into her flesh through her clothing, and she cried out in agony. Romania had more bitter winds than Michigan, that was for sure! And she was a plant.
After she had entered her room, she sat in front of the big window and looked out at the bustling Bucharest with silent contemplation. Rage was an understatement to what she felt, and the reason she shut herself in her room in such a hurry was the fact that when she was this angry, she had less control over her own body. She was so mad that she didn’t completely shut the door, either.
So, when the time came for him to be done with protocol, the door eased open further under his touch, and the smell of flora would probably smack him directly in the face. Not the nice smell of flowers and springtime, but the smell of dead foliage, heady and thick. If he entered the room, she’d turn her head in surprise, and try and cover herself from his gaze. Nobody, save for people looking into a window and the few people at the youngster’s school, had ever seen her as a full out plant. And there she sat, caressed by the sunbeams that filtered in through the window, skin green, vines curled around her form, leaves unfurled all around her to give her a bush-like appearance.
If he did not choose to enter at that moment, she would at least have time to hide herself from his gaze, but he would still be able to see evidence left behind… Leaves on the floor, twigs, the various brackish that covered the floors of a forest, would be everywhere.
“Go away!” She said in horror, whether he entered or not, for the simple fact that she thought she was a monster when she had no control over her own powers. She felt helpless and useless.
((**OOC Note: I tied this post in with the thread: Money Talks. Hopefully if you have read the thread, this post will make more sense lol.))
She ignored the cars and the people behind her, and began to speak in Hungarian to make it easier on her family. “Hello father.” She continued to ignore the sting of the snow, and the blare of headlights behind her as the patrol slowed to a stop near the booth and the men in the car got out. She really didn’t care about them, she wanted her family to know she was alive.
“Where are you, darling? We thought you were dead…” She could hear her mother’s voice catch as she seemed to sound like she started to cry, and Xavia’s head ducked. She kicked a tiny bit at the snow covered pavement.
“I’m okay, mother. I am sorry I couldn’t let you know until now, but things have been really wild… I’ll be home soon, momma and papa---“ she would have continued, but they interrupted with, “Where are you? When will you be home? Are you really okay?”
And then she would have answered if the men from the patrol car hadn’t approached her. “Miss, state your business.” In Romanian, of course.
She put her hand over the mouth piece and turned to look at them, only to find the bright light of their flashlight and blaring in her face. She held her hand up to block the light, and welts immediately appeared on her palm. “Are you alright, Miss?”
“I’m fine… Please, I just want to talk to my family…”
They then grabbed her arm, not believing her. Who welted up when the snow touched their skin? In fact, because she was less guarded, she began to blister from the cold. She cried out as the burning of the cold hurt her horribly. She had just wanted to talk to her family without waking Jupiter. She dropped the receiver and lashed out, “Let me go! I just want to talk to my family…”
She could hear her family cry out her name over the tiny speaker of the receiver. “You fit the description of the girl given to us by someone in high esteem with the government…” By that point, she stopped listening and tried to lash out again, but this time they used brute force, and she had no choice but to defend herself. Unfortunately for her, she was in the cold, and her powers were practically useless in the winter. Thorns stabbed at their hands slower than she would have liked, and the one who had grabbed her arm jabbed a tazer against her neck, and she cried out and went down. There was no way that Jupiter had the time to get down there before that point. Her room was several floors up.
Jupiter was drunk and stupid when he’d stumbled upon her. She, herself, was kind of dumb too for confronting him, when he could have snuffed the life out of her with those big, loving hands of his. But if he had never been drunk and stupid that night, would he ever have found her all alone in the middle of Central Park, with a bug up her butt for the people who kept pushing her away from the places she tried to call home?
Xavia couldn’t fathom missing that in her life, couldn’t fathom not having him loving her the way he seemed to. While he never said he did, somehow she knew that he did, and that fate had laughingly pushed the odd couple together. She felt both wonderful and scared at the same time, but she wasn’t running away.
Now he spoke to her with such conviction in his voice, and her throat closed a little in response as she lay beside him, her small body nestled in the large nook that his big body created. He was proving to her that he wasn’t this big bad wolf that seemed to be his guise in the world, but a caring and wonderful person with a big heart. She wouldn’t tell anyone, he probably wanted people to think he was a bad ass, the big softy… Or was it just that he was a big softy when she was around and nobody else?
She fell asleep to the sound of his voice and sighed as she barely felt his hand smooth at her long hair, a smile on her lips as he kept talking.
The Revolation
Xavia woke in the middle of the night, sitting up slowly and looking around. Her eyes tiredly tried to focus in the moonlit room, and took a moment of blurring and adjusting before she was able to make out actual silhouettes and shadows that filled the hotel room. She could hear his heavy breathing as he slept like a baby, probably exhausted from the several hours they had spent “getting to know one another.” She reached over and grabbed her slip, pulling it over her head to settle onto her small form.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she padded to the window, then reached one hand over to push the drapes aside from the picturesque sized window, looking out into the spectacularly lit city of Bucharest while resting her forehead against the cool pane of glass. Snow had already carpeted the ground some days before, and the city was cold, too cold for her to go outside and play. Too cold for her to touch the snow she so missed eating as a child off of the evergreen box hedges that used to surround her family’s house in Michigan.
She felt homesick, but she knew if she left now, she would regret it. People needed her, and, for once, it was nice to be needed. Especially knowing that someone who slept soundly in her bed behind her needed her, she was not about to give up and go home. She reveled in the fact that, even as she needed the money, it was no longer about that… It was about the human beings being treated like dogs, forced into camps like Hitler had done with the Jews so long ago.
Jupiter had said they did it in New York as well, but she wasn’t there for that. No, she was at home in the warmth of a greenhouse when that had happened, sheltered from this kind of thing.
Xavia pulled away from the window for a moment, before seeing what looked like a pay phone across the street from the hotel. Even though there was a phone in her room, she didn’t want her family to call her there. She went to the bed and bent over Jupiter, brushing a soft kiss across his brow, before writing a quick note.
“Will be back… Across the street at pay phone. Have something I need to do.”
With that, she bundled herself up in a bunch of winter clothes, and grabbed her keycard and her phone card that she had purchased to pay for any outgoing calls she had been making. She left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her and headed toward the stairwell instead of the elevator. She descended to the ground floor, then headed outside and across the street to the phone.
After dialing a bunch of numbers, she shivered as she held the receiver up to her ear. She ignored the red welts that were forming on her face from the falling snow, and waited… It was only two in the morning in Romania, so it stood to reason it was, perhaps, six or seven hours earlier in Michigan. Her heart kind of pounded, and she waited breathlessly for the phone to be answered.
Just as she was about to place the receiver into the cradle, she heard the familiar, but sad voice of her father as he answered the phone hesitantly, probably puzzled by the caller ID. “Hallo…?”
For a moment, she couldn’t say anything, but he repeated himself a couple of times, and she said softly, “Papa?”
“Who….? Sahveeah?!” His voice went up a few decibles, and she could hear scrambling in the background, and the beep of the phone as he put it hurriedly on speaker phone, and the rest of the family started excitingly talking all at once…
