The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
(This is a dream. Xavia is, in all actuallity, in the Infirm of the youngster school, in a comatosed state after having a seizure)
It was a dark place, this place in her mind... Her eyes opened only to stare at blackness, an infinate void of nothing, so thick it could almost be sliced with a butcher knife... She peered about in her silence, throat closing in anxiety, a gasp of air, heart beating a stacatto against her ribcage.
As she sat up, she knew a weakened feeling, waves of dizziness and nausea forming inside of her gown clad form. The folds of her sweet sixteen garb were sticky with the blood of her slain friends, the vitae caked on her face and hands, flecking her dusky skin like freckles on a redhead. Where was she?
The darkness parted like a slow motion scene, a curtain being pulled open by unseen hands into a new scene. Xavia stood then, stumbling to her feet to walk unsteadily toward the blurred vision before her: a city, a big one, with skyscrapers and clogged traffic, the stench of car fumes, trash, and offal assaulting her nose. New York, New York, so nice, they named it twice.
She knew then that she was dreaming, for she had never been to NYC, never seen the Statue of Liberty in person, never ran across the taxi jammed streets or the would be muggers who would try to steal her purse, if she had one. This was some place deep in the recesses of her mind, something that held fast and refused to waver.
Her skirt rustled in the breaze, and she brought her hand up to cover her nose and mouth, only to smell the metalic scent of blood instead of the city. Hell, that was better than garbage, she supposed. Her bare feet slapped against cold pavement as she stepped out of the blackness and into this vision of hers, a bewildered stare upon her fae like features, brow knit, tawny eyes staring out in confusion.
When the report of a car horn blared in her ear, she realized she was on the street, and she quickly ran toward the sidewalk, nearly tripping over people in her haste to get out of the way. Then, she was pushed by pedestrian hands, with the gruff voices of a rude New Yorker, "Get the **** out of my ****ing way!" And so she did, wandering aimlessly around Manhatten untill she could no longer take it, and found a random alley.
With that, she entered said place, and pressed her back against the cold brick of one of the buildings, sliding down to her butt and drawing her knees up, her arms slipping soundlessly around her legs, and she simply started to weep.
The place was horrible, darkness all around. Her face pressed against something cold, she could smell the musty smell of basement. Her eyes were gritty with dirt, her mouth filled with fuzzy mold, water dripping loudly enough to echo against stone walls, Drip-drip-drip..... drop-drop-drop...
...
"Hello?" she rasps, chapped lips parting painfully, as she tries to force her eyes to crack, just a wee... tiny bit. .... Drip-drip-drip... Drop-drop-drop....
She manages to open her eyes a mere millimeter, a grain, for all she could see was red... And now... Blinding light. Her hand shoots up so sheild herself from the sudden brightness. "He-hello?"
"Hello, I've waited here for you, pretty. Is the light too bright?"
Who was that, who was speaking to her? She felt a sudden tightening in her throat, her eyes started to bulge some, started to dialate whether the light dimmed or no.
"There, there you are... Now drink..."
She could see a silhouette, once her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the blind spots faded. She could feel as a cup was pressed to her lips, and the contents of the container start to pour into her mouth. Mud?!
At first she tried to spit the vile liquid out, but a calloused hand plugged her nose against her struggles, "I know, it's horrible, just horrible... You'll get used to it, just drink, my girl." She did start to feel better.
She wrinkled her brow in confusion, before the world faded to darkness... that offensive echo of water droplets, still in the background. Drip-drip-drip-drip-drip.. Oh, my god. Oh god, oh no...
Her head hurt... Really hurt! Pain at the base of her skull, oh god, oh my godithurtsohmygod!
Blinding light -again-... this one beckoning... No pain where this light is, no sorrow, yes, no, she couldn't, she -had- to.... No! She had things to do, something told her she wasn't ready for that kind of light. So pretty....
She pulled away from the light, and was thrust back into herself, with a jolt. The darkness was as blissful as the light.
Xavia was dead to the world, it seemed, laying where she was on the floor amid the withering remains of her mutations. Her face seemed to have smoothed out into a blank, almost peaceful expression, and the only indication that she was yet alive, was the tell-tale lift and fall of her belly, and the deep, even breathing.
Mind you, it took a little while for the twitching and any jerking of her prone form to stop, but it did stop eventually, and now it would be hard to tell if she was going to awaken. It seemed, also, that Calley was the last one standing in this chaos, he sure didn't have it easy at the moment.
After hearing all of the commotion, and the yell from Calley, the Doc-Professor came to investigate. The old man lifted his eyebrows in surprise as he was met with the fetid smell of belladonna, and paused to kneel down and pick up a deteriorating blossom. His eyes then settled on the form of the downed woman, passed her to Calley and Kat, and further passed toward Seizure, before he opened his mouth to speak one simple question... "What on earth happened here?!"
After that was uttered, he would, of course, move to help the quartet out. Calley and Kat were the first to be relieved, Kat recieving a gaze of concern at her wobbling state. He then tended to the plant girl, having seen that Seizure was already sitting himself on a bed. All were asked, barring plant girl, if they were okay. "Someone please tell me what happened here!"
The Last Dance (A dream in the Infirm of the sister school - after Seizure gets her) She could see herself in the arms of her dead boyfriend, nearly ten years ago as she danced the first dance of the night of her sweet sixteen. It was a formal party, and the crisp black of his tuxedo stood out in contrast to her champaign colored ballgown, silver jewelry sparkling in the dim light. The strains of music that the band played was their rendition of "Save the last dance for me," updated into the rock and roll of the current, guitar rift coming from less than skilled fingers. She could see herself smiling up at the football star, his muscles rippling under her fingers with the swaying movements he made, his blue eyes smiling, crinkled at the corners. His wide, firm mouth, was a lopsided grin underneath the full, blonde moustach that so matched his unruly curls. His class ring was on her finger, they were going steady. Ah, young love. He leaned in to say something in her ear, but it wasn't something she remembered him saying. Infact, it was something more puzzling, "You smell funny..." The scene took on that sinister color of red, then, and she could feel her belly clenching with a cold dread. The music took on a more, macabre tone, remniniscent of evil clown music. The first screams started to fill the room as the glass of the windows shattered, and bullets started to fly. "Find the freak, find the freak! There, there she is!" That wasn't how it happened, she remembered that much, but this was just a dream, and dreams were weird, sometimes good, this one bad as she saw the tormentors take her former self away, to a place she wished could be wiped from her memory, much like most of her childhood and everything leading up to the day she met the man who turned her into something she wasn't... Only now, she saw the grinning faces of the present, leering at her, fingers pointing. She saw Calley, gesturing gleefully at her, "We've got her now!" And then there was the young teenager, holding a giant Belladonna Berry, mouth open and dripping with the purplish juices, pupils dialated, crazy sounds spilling from her as she took another bite of the berry.. "This won't hurt a bit.... For me..." She suddenly realized that she saw herself on a table, but not in her current place of rest, but the lab where she had been changed. The man with the labcoat, Seizure, stood over her, teeth bared in a sickening smile as he slowly injected her with a sarynge full of green liquid. She could feel her arm starting to undulate unnaturally underneath her skin, and remembered screaming as roots broke through her skin............................................................................ Everything went black, then fogged with gray, and there she was, in the middle of all of that. Just her, dressed in champaign silk, laying curled up on her side in that carpet of fog and darkness.
She, despite being so filled with panic, turned in her tracks in time to see the girl falling. Oh no! She was covered in belladonna juice! The rational part of her brain fought for control, the plant part of her disipating some... "Oh no..." she said, "I'm so sorr----- AH!" Her attempt at an apology was genuine, but cut short by the pain that suddenly snaked theough her body, especially the back of her head. She went down to her knees and pressed her head down, screaming and clawing at the hotspot of the pain, real tears forming in her eyes this time. What was happening?
Xavia sobbed, immobile for the moment, and lord did hurt! The last thing she had thought about was the girl, hoping she didn't swollow the juice, before she'd gone down. All she could think about now was the burning sensation in the three places the man in the labcoat (Not teenager, my mistake), had focused on. For the third time in the last 24 hours, she found her vision swimming.
Her skin started to fade from that purple to an ashen state, flowers, leaves and berries starting to rot on the floor and wither, while the berry juice fermented and stank. She didn't look like a flower beast anymore, just a blood and juice stained woman, curled up in a position reminiscent of the fetal position. And now she was starting to lose focus on the world.
Xavia's world went blank again, and she found her mind floating in a state of oblivion, free of pain, free of fear, while her body reacted accordingly to the nerve attack (I.e. Seizing, or writhing, salivating profusely, if the attack causes it.) And of course, when she was in a state much like that... She dreamed. (See Dream a Little Dream ) (Post will be in there sometime tomarrow)
"Miss Floral Glade" was stunned as she was deposited back onto the bed by one stranger, then another one slamming the door open firmly. Not cool, not cool at all. Her brows furrowed, she was starting to get worked up way more than should be allowed. Unless they sedated her, it was about to get really.... Uh... Yeah...
"Get........ Out....!" Xavia screamed this at the top of her lungs. "Get out, get out, get out!................. Getttttttt.... Outtttttttttt!" Her hands started to tug at her hair, temples visably pulsing from the ungodly pain in her head that often accompanied her anxieties and such, a possible side effect of the injections she'd recieved as a teenager. The only thing that seemed to be missing from the equasion was some demonic head spinning and vomiting.
She really... really hated crowds.
Her skin took on a purplish tone, and a sickeningly unpleasant scent of... something... Hanging in the air... If anybody recognized the scent, they would probably want to get the heck out of there. Nightshade was not a good thing to be messing with, with it's deadly, dark berries, and beckoning, purple flowers. Dull, green leaves started to sprout from her skin, causing her mouth to open in pain. Her body trembled as she changed, and her demand came out in wheezing breaths, "Get... Out..."
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but they didn't look like any normal tears, they were dark and inky, the overly sweet juice of said berries. Xavia tore at her hair, only to pluck away the closed, nightshade blossoms, which are then discarded on the floor. She fell from the bed for the second time, and stumbled to her feet. She had to get out of there, just had to! She didn't want to cause anybody to get hurt on her behalf, especially not a bunch of teenagers, even if she thought they were there to inject more of that green liquid into her veins.
She'd stumble passed the teenager in the labcoat, who'd put her back in the bed, stumble passed the teenager with the tiger, and peer at the teenager in the doorway, a wordless demand to move, easily read in her gaze. The more frustrated and anxious she got, the more control the plant part of her seemed to have. Unfortunately, it wasn't as if she had learned to use her "curse", everything, so far, was based on emotion, or cold.
Her eyes were nearly black as her pupils dialated as she stared at the young girl, but more out of fear than malice. However, she did not wait for the girl to get the heck out of her way, she shoved her way through the door, smearing berry juice on the girl in the process if she did not move.(Possibly the face and her side). Sheerly unintentional of course, being that Xavia was not in her right mind and she wasn't actually trying to attack anyone. In fact, it looked as if she was trying to get away from hurting people
And now this crazy plant woman was on the loose, black berries falling every-which-way in her wake, along with clusters of leaves and solitary flowers, the latter of which, if she was followed, would be crushed underfoot and stink....
Xavia didn't know where she was going, she couldn't see clearly, but the way in which she stumbled, was off to the left....
---
If Kat ends up getting smeared with the berry juice by accident, and she consumes even the slightest bit, she would definately need help right away if she wasn't immune to toxic substances.
Symptoms: -Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and throat ---Enlarged (dilated) pupils -Gastrointestinal ---Diarrhea ---Stomach pain ---Vomiting -Heart and blood ---Pulse - slow or rapid ---Shock -Lungs ---Slowed breathing -Nervous system ---Delirium ---Hallucinations ---Headache ---Loss of sensation ---Paralysis -Whole body ---Fever ---Lower-than-normal temperature ---Sweating
(Oh yes, just to make sure nobody is confused, I stuck unspoken words in parenthesis to help her accent become easier to read. She pours it on thick when she's stressed.)
"(You)Don't understand..." she said, pitifully, the waterworks finaly starting as she gave a mellowdramatic sigh. "(There) Might be more coming, might..." Frustrated groan, but she was too tired to fight being pushed, or otherwise, back down. Her words were also fading into slight babble, by the end of the tripple dots, hard to understand, and clearly a rushed, foreign language. (Think about Ricky going all to Spanish on Lucy). This goes on for several minutes, her hands gesturing through the air. Had she lost her mind?
Here was this woman, looked to be 25, and she acted alot like a young child. The plant part of her must have taken over her mind, the chemicals must have altered her brain so much, that she seemed crazy, or much like one of those loveable villian-turned-sidekicks like Golem.... Who was this woman?!
Of course, because she was so worked up, it took a few moments for other words he'd uttered to sink in, and the litany of words in another language, seemed to stop as quickly as it started, and she blinked.. "Wait, what? People like...? Us??" ---- She didn't ask if he'd killed the bad guys, it seemed she was still in the dark as far as that went. Indeed, when she had said he'd saved her, it was because she assumed it was him that pulled her out of the wrecked van, not knock it over and kill the bad guys. No! She had to latch on to the statement about being mutant, as if it had slapped her across the forehead repeatedly! --- "What do you mean, 'Mutants?!'"
Now he'd gone and done it, she rolled out of bed with a crash, and started to stumble for the door. "You.............. one of them! You... No, no needles, oh god, can't be here!" She had, of course, good reason to be freaked out, though she misunderstood the situation. She was thinking, of course, that they were going to jab her with the injections that made her into the amazing plant girl. Even though her legs were jelly like on this fine morning, she couldn't get out of there fast enough. Unfortunately for her, the door got in her way... Splat.
The air wooshed out of her in a prolongued huff, and she swayed a little bit... Accident?? The last thing she remembered clearly was talking to the phony P.I. Oh god, yes, the kidnappers! She had the sudden urge to laugh, and a few, startled chuckles erupted passed her sleep swollen lips. Dead? They? The kid had saved her from them!
She turned her head to the side, an odd expression drawing her features taut, as if she was about to burst into tears, lips trembling some. "You save(d) me, kid..." She said, alto notes ringing in her voice. "Th-they h-hit me over (my) head... And... A-and, I think s-someone sent them." Her english was broken more out of distress than anything.
Xavia bit into her lip somewhat hard, swollowing thickly and wrapping arms around herself to try and get a hold her thoughts. She knew where they were trying to take her, know who wanted her, and thank god for the young man who had accidentaly saved her from something horrible.
No, no, the less he knew about this, the better.. She couldn't let him get deeper into this, he looked just about the same age she had when she became something other than a normal, bubbling teen.
"I have to go..." she said, then... "Can't be here..."
Now she was trying to get out of the bed, even if that wasn't the brightest idea in the world, she was still weak as a kitten, and still in shock.
Xavia hadn't realized the move, didn't wake up the entire time of transport, and slept well into the day. She looked so peaceful, and infact, the longer the warmth was around her, the more she seemed to bloom. A becoming flush crossed over her high cheeks, her lips seemed to deepen in color. However, it wasn't like it would be in direct sunlight, which is what she really needed, just like any plant would.
She had an unusual type of beauty, it wasn't the type you would see on the runway, but something about her may seem fascinating. Yes, like a flower, she bloomed in the right conditions, and wilted in the wrong. Assuming they had changed her out of the bloodied clothes, and put her into something befitting an infirm, she'd smell strongly of flora, no matter how much they tried to be rid of such a smell... But who disliked the sweet scent of fresh, hothouse flowers? Honeysuckle, magnolia blossom, primrose, lavander, a concoction of summer scents that drifted more than subtly into the air about her...
Who was this strange and mysterious plant girl that showed up that fateful day, when the van had flipped over and killed two? Why, the van had the answer, of course, if they remembered it. Surely there were answers, but nobody knew that but the dead men. Of course, the police would find all of the evidence soon, how would they explain her existance away when her blood stained parts of the van? The captors hadn't been so stupid as to be transporting the records on her. Those, those were locked away safely in the building, with the man who called himself an artist.
Xavia dreamed, of course, and by her expression, it was a good one, at least untill the moment she started to dream of that very thing mentioned, her "True Father." When those images started, when her mind saw the man who'd made her this.... Plant, this.... Thing that had no control, her face twitched.
She wasn't aware of the vigil of the young man and his feline friend, so what they saw was live and uncut, they'd be able to see her head rolling, her lips start to move with noises that didn't make sence. The smell that surrounded her started to smell like the forest in autumn, rotting leaves and foilage... She was dreaming of him....
Her heart pounded in her chest, and the twitching became thrashing, sporradic movements beneath the blankets. All the whispers! All the images, speeding across her mind's vision! Oh god, make it stop! Her hands smacked over her ears, pulled at her hair, and she started to gasp for breath. "No, no, no, no. No more, please stop, please, no more! I promise I won't leave you, don't do this! No!" It was as if the needles were injected into her veins again, tearing at her flesh, burning into her bloodstream... Changing her into a monster, changing her into something so frightening. She sat up and screamed like she had at the accident, startled awake by the nightmare...
Thumpathumphathumpathumpathumpthumpthump... thumpa... Thumpa... Her heart started to calm, as her eyes focused on the blurred surroundings, the blankets slipping unheeded to the floor as she trembled and sought to catch her breath.
The tawny color of her gaze shifted about, confusion etching onto her face as she failed to recognize the room. Sooner or later, she'd look at Calley, eyes rooted to his face, mouth lax some from her ordeal, a myriad of emotions easily read in her expression. Xavia blinked slowly, wordless for the moment, visably and audibly swollowing.
It would be a long lapse of silence and calm, the clock turning five minutes, at least, before her rhasping words would reach his ears, "Where am I?" It was asked in such a child like fashion, almost, the way the words rolled from her tongue in a sleepy accent, with just a hint of tightness caused by her fears and confusions.
After asking that question, she gazed around again, then rubbed her eyes at the sight of what looked to b e like a tame tiger, and he seemed to be keeping watch over her, protecting her almost... The back of her mind tugged with slight familiarity, but she still seemed confused about the sight of the big cat. Four inches away from her, but she didn't jump away in fear.
"Where am I?" She repeated, more clearly now, whether he had replied or not. She put her hands up to her cheeks and stared off.
Dimly aware of the soft fur against her, she stirred. "Ohh... Ugh..." Fur, nice and warm... Ahh, so good.. Without opening her eyes, she rolled onto her side and snuggled close to the delicious sensation of warmth.
Murrr, yes, heat... Cuddle. Drool.... "Warmmmmmmmmmmth!"being said out loud. Precious...... *Ecstatic sigh, with the crossing of her eyes beneath her closed lids.* "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Also... being said out loud.
Wait, fur??? She blinked her eyes open some, and found herself staring at a large cat... What the? No more needs to be written about her reaction, she did that classic, double take, and had a comical expression speaking volumes about her confusion and such.
With that, the plant girl seemed to give a squeak, and clung to the beast, more because the beast was the lesser of two evils at that point. It was either death from the cold, or death by... Tiger?
So, yes, there she lay, sucking the heat out of the giant feline, unaware of the crowd gathered round that she had thought was in her imagination, ignorant to the fact that the one who had pulled her out of the car wreckage was trying to get in touch with someone, possibly to help her.
She was only focused, by that point, on the heat, and drifted off to a more restful kind of sleep.
The First Jab (The dream from the sidewalk) It was lovely, the warm feeling. She was in a place that made her happy, the sunroom, filled wall to wall with more of her precious plants. She loved it there, loved to feel as the sunlight caressed her face, her arms she thrived on the sunlight.. But something was wrong.... She stood up and watched with dawning horror as cracks began to web the windows, that telltale sound or cracking glass assaulting her ears. One by one, the windows smash, one by one to let the bitter cold in. No! No, no, no! She could feel the welts raise on her skin from the winter wind, and slow motion took over to make it agonizingly long. No, nonono! Please! Oh god, it hurts! Suddenly, she was transitioned into an all white room, floor to ceiling. A blinding light shone down in her eyes, and there were voices. ".... Inject the syrum." Pain. Ungodly pain... What wee they doing to her? "..... No more, you fool, we don't want to kill her." Burning in her veins, the green liquid mixed into her blood and hummed around her body, changing her................... Then, the world seemed to flicker in and out.
Xavia was barely aware of being pulled out of the chaos, she couldn't stop screaming. It was cold, so very cold, and she was clad in only a bloodied teeshirt and jeans, her coat shucked when she had been knocked out cold by the men who'd abducted her. Her teeth chattered with a mixture of shock, and the cold, her skin growing an angry red, like burn welts marking her limbs, while bloodied fabric stuck to her skin.
The sound of someone talking to her barely registered in the haze of her shock, "You're alive..."
Was she really alive, or was she in hell? Or was this just one nightmare that she would wake up from in the morning, in the bustling little city known as Kalamazoo, Michigan? Would she find herself daydreaming in the greenhouse where her beloved plants were?
Her head hurt, her vision swam with the force of that headache. She was frightened like she had never been before.
Now, because she was in such a worked up state, and her head hurt so... She did not recognize her savior as friend just yet. And when she was out in the cold, and practically defenseless, she had absolutely no say over what would happen next.
Because his hands were on her to help her, he'd be able to feel the sudden burst of thorns, protruding from skin that seemed to turn the green color of rose stems, the sweet scent of said blossoms filling the air around her. If he didn't let go quick enough, his hands would definately hurt from the pricks of those thorns. If he had already let go of her by that point, she was out of her mind enough to wrench herself away.
Nothing personal, she's frightened!
Xavia gasped out a few, dry sobs, and began to stumble down the cracked sidewalk, hampered by the cold. She ignored the strangers that tried to stop her, their voices echoing through her brain as people screamed at the freak that now ran stupidly.
Her form returned to normal, the thorns falling to the ground to wither away like the foilage in the van, and her color soon returned to that angry red from the cold. Random, random, random. A sign of someone who didn't have that, mind over matter thing.
She pitched forward, landing belly first on the sidewalk that was still milling with people, and a crowd gathered around her. She was dimly aware of this, but didn't try to get up again, as she had the wind knocked out of her good.
Where was she? She didn't recognize anything around her, didn't recognize any faces. This was not Kalamazoo. This was not the place she remembered as her home.
The bewildered young woman curled up into a ball, bursting into frightened tears. She wanted to go home, wanted to see her dad, wanted to be safe and warm in the plastic cocoon of the greenhouse, where the cold wouldn't touch her.
Where had those bad, bad men, taken her? For that matter, where was that nice coat she'd been wearing to ward her from the cold that seemed more extreme to her than any normal person. Why did her head feel as if she had been knocked out with a two-by-four?
Xavia didn't have much time to ponder this, she was losing all sight of reality again. So tired, so cold....
At last, the world went dark, and with it, came blessed relief...
Now, if anyone chose to follow her, they wouldn't have to go far, she didn't even make it two blocks down the road. Upon discovering her prone form in the center of the knot of people, browning rose petals would blow across their feet. Roses? But it was well passed the blooming time for roses! In fact, it was much too cold to grow a rosebush, unless one lived in the tropics.
Hell, this wasn't Florida, but Buffalo, NY, guarunteed to be of fridged wind unless there was that weird, indian summer, which wasn't the case.
She was just another freak, thrust into unfamiliar territory, and covered in the blood of one of the men who'd abducted her, her crumpled form surrounded by the gawkers of the world who probably pointed and whispered. They did not care that she was just a frightened soul, did not care that she was bloodied, did not care that she was in that van that had been overturned by a Volvo, and that she was the sole survivor out of the trio... They only cared that they were looking at this freak who ran like a madwoman through the streets of Buffalo.
(Just to clarify, the people pointing and calling her a freak are just hallucinations, there are no people milling around her)
Xavia didn't know what happened. One moment, she was knocked out cold, the next, she was suspended in air, and the van was careening onto its side. Without thinking, without so much as a prompt, a cushion of leaves and vines surrounded her, protecting her from the brunt of impact. Of course, she had no control over this interesting defense mechanism, but there it was.
However, the cushion withered away just before the van went still, and she took some of the impact, gaining a few bruises and lacerations. She was the lucky one.
The driver of the vehicle and the passenger, both seemed to have died upon the impact, horn honking continuously, no break, air bag expelled into the face of the fake PI, the other man staring sightlessly, sprawled on top of her.
For a moment, she was silent, her head hurting like no tomarrow, blood caked on her scalp from the blows to her head. Her vision swam, and she could feel the weight of the corpse on top of her, and he only came into focus in a slow manner... When she was able to steady her gaze, she fouond the sightless eyes oof the dead man staring into hers, and she screamed hysterically.
"AHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She frantically shoved at the dead weight... "ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRH. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Her screams could be heard clearly through the broken glass of the vans tinted. Oh god, his blood was in her mouth, and she gagged!
Finaly, she was able to scramble from beneath the dead guy, and able to get out of the van. Sobbing, she crawled painfully toward the back door of the vehicle, which, thankfully, was ajar. Out onto the traffic clogged street, she crawled, untill she sprawled in a shaking mass in the center of the chaos.
She heard sirens in the distance, of course, and her vision was swimming, once more. Xavia clapped her hands over her ears, and again, issued the broken sirens of her screams.
(If one looks around the van, one would be able to see fragments of those vines, still withering)
