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.
She shrugs. “It’s not like it can’t be both. It was a nice impulse.”
It’s weird talking to him while he walks away from her, though she can’t entirely blame him… strangers starting up conversation like this just isn’t a New York phenomenon. Besides, he’s probably as paranoid as she is after the attack on Sanctuary, even if he does seem to be handling it better.
Besides being weird, it’s also funny to watch him keep the conversation going while walking backwards and eating lunch. Wonder if he’d do backflips if I asked? The image makes her giggle, and she adds “You keep that up, you’re gonna trip over something, you know.”
> “May I ask what brings a lovely lady like yourself out onto relatively abandoned streets at this hour?”
She decides she likes him in that moment. Not for the question, or the compliment, but for something harder to quantify in his voice and his expression… a sense of openness to possibilities, that he hasn’t pigeonholed her. Most people would have decided by now what they thought she was: a streetwalker looking for business, or a homeless girl looking for a handout, or a thief or a victim or whatever; this guy just seems to be looking to see what’s there. Which is a whole lot to pin on three seconds of interaction, granted, but Sonya has met a lot of people n the last few months and it’s a quality she’s rarely encountered.
“Sure,” she adds, unsuccessfully stifling the laugh. “Go ahead!”
Sonya has been wandering the streets of Manhattan for what seems like forever, trying to decide what to do next.
She’d felt so clever after her little chat with that police detective, like she’d be able to actually do something useful. It seemed so simple at first: imprint on one of the Camp guards, infiltrate the Camp, meet up with Rupert again, run her Mysterious Mutant Organization con again, nudge him into triggering a breakout, be the hero of the hour!
(She tries not to think about when that became so important to her, because it reminds her how tired she is of hiding out alone, how much she’d loved finding, if not a home, at least a sanctuary… and reminds her of how it felt to watch it blow up around her.)
But when it came down to brass tacks, it wasn’t actually that simple. It had taken her days just to find out where the Camp was, and to identify a couple of guards. And, sure, she could have tranked one of them and taken their identity, but… well, then what?
She’d been counting on coordinating with the Sanctuary leadership to get outside backup… transportation, places to hide, that sort of thing… but she has no idea where they are. The old Sanctuary building is a ruin, and cops are barricading it, and suspicious-looking MiBs are “casually” wandering around it, watching everyone who approaches… federal agents? Some kind of anti-mutant group? Sonya has no way of knowing and is afraid to find out.
Not to mention that, when she’d finally had time to think things through, she’d realized just how much she’d screwed up. The cop whose identity she’d taken would have been found by now, without his uniform or his weapons, tied up in a closet. The police would have investigated. By now, Rupert would know he hadn’t really been talking to Stanley, but to a shapeshifter. She’d thought she was being so clever, but really she’d just revealed her identity to the enemy.
Maybe I should have really shot him… blown his face off, buried the body. It’s not the first time she’s had that thought. But she just can’t imagine herself doing it.
So she’s been wandering the streets of Manhattan for what seems like forever, trying to decide what to do next.
The one bright spot is that she’s no longer broke… having Stanley’s ID and credit cards and face and handwriting was enough to get her a relatively fat wad of cash, enough to keep her in fast food and cheap motel rooms for a while. Which, a little while ago, brought her to a McDonald’s for lunch, and a startlingly familiar face, the same one that had introduced her to Sanctuary in the first place.
The boy hadn’t been there during the attack, which probably explains why he’s still roaming free, and he doesn’t seem to have been injured or anything. And he knew the folks in charge… and maybe he knows where they are now! Or at least how to get a message to them, or something.
She’s reluctant to approach him, though. He wouldn’t recognize her in this body, of course… he’d only met “Sonny.” So she’d have to reveal her power if she claimed to know him, and she hasn’t wanted to do that. But… well, she has to trust someone, doesn’t she?
Maybe. But why should it be this kid?
Suspicion and loneliness struggle and she ultimately splits the difference, following the boy as he stuffs himself with burgers and walks down the street. Wherever he’s been, they don’t seem to have fed him too well, she muses… then revises that impression when he stops and gives one of the bags to a homeless guy. He’s either a saint, or wasn’t really that hungry to begin with. The odds don’t seem to favor “saint.”
When the boy starts walking off again, she makes a decision… follows him for a little while and calls out “That was a nice thing you did for that man.”
> "I never took you for a fucking bleeding-heart mutant lover"
"'Mutant lover'? She's my daughter, you unbelievable son of a bitch. But while we're on the subject, how 'bout you look in a damned mirror some time? Or was that all bullshit before about shooting somebody you loved?" She's actually enjoying this little performance of hers, getting into character in a way she'd never managed during her half-assed high school Drama Club moments.
> "You telling me this crap because I’m a camp supervisor?"
That brings Sonya's whirling thoughts to a screaming halt, and she almost misses much of the rest of his rant. He is? Wow... I didn't know that. That's... interesting.
> "It’s a lot easier to be a fucking goose-stepper than a fucking activist. " > "Now I want you to fucking look me in the eyes and tell me that anything we can do matters." > "It’d be fucking fields of daisies if I could just let them all go. I might even be able to pull that off. Where would they go, though? There isn’t anywhere that’s safe."
It might just be drunken confidence talking, but Sonya doesn't think so. Can he really do that? Man, if he can... that would be something. He's right, though, where do they go? A moment later, the obvious answer occurs to her. Hell, where did the guys who escaped after the Sanctuary raid go? Not everyone got caught, I'd have seen 'em. So there's gotta be somewhere, right? Hell, even if it isn't safe, it beats being in the damned camps.
She stands up slowly, grabs Rupert calmly by the collar to straighten him up, and looks him straight in the eyes. "Rupert, I don't care how drunk you are right now, you're going to have to listen to me." She pitches her voice low and steady, like giving orders to her little sister or talking down a stray dog. "There is someplace safe. So if you're serious about what you just said, if you're not just blowing smoke, you may get your chance to do 'something that matters'." The last few words drip with carefully cultivated sarcasm, echoing his own words of a moment before.
She's not entirely sure where she's going with this, but she's starting to get used to that. All she knows is, if Rupert really is a camp supervisor, she can use that. She just needs to get back in contact with him at the camps. Yeah... how're you gonna do that once this Stanley cover gets blown? Her mind races, but all she can think of is a scene from a horrible anime thing her sister made her watch once. Panicky, she decides to go with it.
"OK, here's the deal." She takes a pen from Stanley's pocket and scribbles hastily on a napkin, a circle with a jagged lightning-bolt drawn through it, pointed up and right like a bar-sinister, and shows it to him. "That's their symbol, the... um... the Mutant Sisterhood. You just, um, go to the camps and wait. Do your job, don't do anything stupid. They'll send someone to contact you. They'll use that symbol, you can recognize them that way, y'get me?" This is ridiculous, she chides herself. It's a stupid comic-book idea, who would actually fall for it in real life? Besides, it should've been 'Brotherhood', right?
But on further thought, she realizes it isn't as stupid as it seems. After all, the group at Sanctuary was basically the same kind of thing, except not actually secret... and look where the lack of secrecy got them! Probably somebody was running a secret society of mutants somewhere. And anyway, she had to sound like she believed it if she was going to sell Rupert on this. So she keeps rolling along, trying for the same tone of drunken self-disclosure that Rupert himself has been using all night.
"And, Rupe, 'till they contact you you don't tell fucking nobody, you got that? You don't even talk to me about it after tonight. Ever. This conversation never happened, we were never here. You bring it up again, I won't even fucking remember it." She almost giggles at that before she lets him go, tucks the napkin in his pocket, and calls the bartender over for a final time. "Sweetheart, my buddy here's gonna need a cab back home..."
That, she thinks to herself, is either the smartest thing I've ever done, or the dumbest. It's like there's two different Ruperts in there: one is a decent guy, and Raina's lover, and might really put himself out to do the right thing... the other is some kind of mutant-hating bigot who was willing to shoot her rather than stick his neck out. Question is, once he sobers up, which one of them is going to be in charge?
If it's the bigot, he'll report Stanley and his daughter, or set up his "Sisterhood contact" to be arrested. That could get messy, but Sonya doesn't see how it could make the situation worse.
But if it's the decent guy, maybe she can use him. Least I can try, she tells herself as she starts heading to the door.
> "No mind tricks—just a pretty face. Ice manipulator. There was no way to know. She looks human, doesn’t she?"
"Uh... I guess so?"
Sonya isn't really sure how to respond to that. From what she's seen, most mutants look just like anybody else... visible mutations like Abyss' and Sara's are the exception. And me, she adds after a moment, remembering the white-skinned humanoid body that, no matter how often she reminds herself about, she can't bring herself to think of as her "real" form.
On the other hand, it's not like Rupert seems to particularly be looking for a response.
So, Raina's an 'ice-manipulator'. Sonya isn't entirely sure what that means... even after Abyss' little tour of Sanctuary, she's still not entirely comfortable with the language all these people use about mutants... "shifters" and "elementals" and "ice manipulators" and so forth. It's like listening to boys talk about car engines... she gets the general idea, but sometimes the jargon gets to her. Still, this one seems clear enough on the face of it.
> "Mansion raid. I fucking shot her. Ever shoot someone you love, Shepard? I don’t recommend it."
Sonya's head spins a little, and she responds without thinking. "So why'd you fucking do it, man? Just following your fucking orders like a good little goose-stepper?"
She realizes as soon as the words are out of her mouth that they're a mistake, too hostile and contemptuous, too honest. Fuck. I just blew it, didn't I? Certainly, even drunk as Rupert was, it seemed unlikely he'd miss that that was the reaction of a "mutant sympathizer," not a "law enforcement officer." She bolts out of her chair then, ready to tear out the door... then a sudden insight stops her. No, no... I can use this! She thinks. Maybe. The truth is she doesn't have time to think it through, so she goes with her gut.
First, she stoops down to start picking up the pieces of glass, to cover her sudden standing up.
Then she looks up at Rupert again, schooling her face into an expression of fear and anxiety that isn't in the least bit fake. "Sorry, man. I didn't mean to..."
Her hesitation is fake, as is her sudden defeated drop back into her chair, her head resting against the table not unlike the way Rupert's was a minute ago. OK... here goes nothing...
"I've never told anybody this... not even my wife. Don't know why I'm telling you, either. Maybe it's the beer. But I guess you deserve to know." She takes a deep breath, and continues. "My little girl... she floats. I mean, like, off-the-ground like a soap-bubble floats." She lets the silence gather for a while, then adds. "And let me tell you something, Mr. Get-In-A-Few-Punches-Back: I'd blow my own fucking head off before I'd do anything to hurt her. Anything. I don't care what the damn law is. And if I knew she was in one of those camps I'd do whatever it took to get her out, you get me? So, no, I ain't never shot nobody I love, Rupert. And I ain't never going to. And if you can look me in the eyes and tell me that shooting that girl was the right thing to do, that I should go do my fucking job like a fucking robot and turn my girl in to those second-string Nazis back at the station, well... well, fuck, man, if you can do that, I ain't got anything more to say to you."
There, she thinks, surprised by how calm she suddenly is as she leans back against the chair, waiting for his reaction. Maybe I just blew this cover to smithereens, but here's where I get to see just which way Rupert here jumps.
> “You heard about this from McKenzie and Black, didn't you? I am going to kill them. Raina. Her name is Raina. ...How many people know?”
Sonya's first instinct is to ignore both questions, since she really doesn't have an answer for either. Then it occurs to her that that second one isn't really a question at all, it's an admission.
"Well, geez, Rupe, it's not like you were exactly discreet, is it? Word around the precinct is you went clubbing with her, for Christ's sake. I hear she got up on stage and you kissed her in front of a cheering crowd... you expect secrets?" Which isn't quite what happened, but it's close enough.
She's not really sure where she's going with this, but it's clear that Raina is a lever on Rupert's psyche... if she's going to get anything out of him, that's the way to do it.
"So that's gotta suck, huh? I mean, dating one of 'em. What's her thing, anyway... I mean, like, her schtick, her power, her mutation? She take over your mind or something?" Sonya takes a long, slow sip of the coffee she'd poured into her beer mug before probing in another direction. "Say, so how'd you find out about her, anyway? I mean, how'd you find out she was a mutie?"
Wow, Sonya thinks to herself, having sat quietly through Rupert's rant. This "get them drunk and question them" thing works pretty well, after all!
Not that she's really learned much of anything worth knowing, other than that Rupert can't count worth a damn when he's drunk (which has helped solve the problem of what to do with the drinks she doesn't want to drink... after round three Rupert started cheerfully downing her drinks with his own). Well, that, and that Stanley really does have a teenage daughter.
If this were a real conversation she'd slap him upside the head and make him face the contradictions in what he's spouting. 'Leave the morals to the rest of the population' but 'it’s our job to put the morals into the laws they give us'... 'don’t beat up on the muties' but 'It’s an issue of survival' and we've got to 'get in a few punches back'... 'People can't help how they're born' but humans and mutants can't coexist, 'it’s just their nature, they... break things'... 'it doesn’t matter what the hell we think' but 'we’ve got brains in our heads and we’d better damn well use them.'
Actually, she's tempted to rub his nose in it anyway, because really he doesn't seem dumb enough not to realize it already... and that's when she makes the first important realization of the night. Sweet Jesus... he really doesn't know what he's saying, does he? She's seen this before, though not as extreme, and it slowly dawns on her that Rupert isn't necessarily the enemy he'd seemed to be at first. Not that he's an ally, either, not by a long shot! What he is, she realizes, is the most internally conflicted man she's ever met in her life.
> “Don’t you even get me started on the freaks I’ve met without knowing it, > Shepard. That’s another thing: they’re all liars. Liars”
For just a moment, Sonya feels a twinge of guilt... after all, she's lying to him right now. Only for a moment, though, until she thinks about what his reaction would have been if she'd told him the truth about herself, or about Raina, or -- .... Oh. ...
All at once, she gets it. She can't be sure, of course, but she'd seen the way those two looked at each other, and she's seeing the way he'd ranting tonight, like it's something personal. And, OK, yeah, maybe bone-girl did kill his friends and stuff, but that doesn't come close to explaining why he's flip-flopping like this, or where the "liars" business comes from. What does explain it is if he found out about Little Miss Redhead.
The poor shmuck. Sonya really does feel bad for the guy, at least a little. But she doesn't let that distract her from doing her job. If there's a lever she can use to move him, she's pretty sure she just found it.
Except how do I use it? Even drunk, this guy isn't stupid... he's not going to be easy to manipulate. She's already lost a point when he noticed her feeding him what she figured he wanted to hear, she doesn't want to make that mistake again.
So, OK... let's go the blunt road, then. It's risky, but it might get her more information than she'd get in hours of less risky conversation. "Man, Rupert," she mumbles into his mug, "that redheaded mutie really got to you, huh? What's she --" Sonya stops in mid-phrase... she'd been about to go with something crude again, along the lines of 'what are muties like in the sack?', when some instinct warns her off of that approach. "What was her name, again?," she asks instead.
She puts the mostly full mug down on his side of the table and waits.
Sonya’s not entirely sure what Rupert is talking about, but he’s said enough to give her a somewhat disturbing picture of her new allies. So is that just bigotry talking? Or did they really do that stuff? She’s reminded of her initial reaction to the Order, before all this fighting started… they did seem like fairly dangerous folks.
Of course, that just proves how stupid a plan all this “registration” stuff is… she’d come in as a neutral, and the police had turned her into an enemy. But she’s not about to say that to Rupert. Mostly, she just tries hard to look like none of this is news to her… presumably Stanley already knows all this stuff, and while she’s been getting a lot of signals from his memories about what is and isn’t familiar, it doesn’t seem to work so well for this kind of abstract stuff.
“Oh, um… that was her?,” she asks, to cover up her ignorance, “I, didn’t recognize her.” There… that should be safe enough. “Anyway… yeah, I know, I know. And, hey, whatever happens to the crazy bone-girl and her cop-killer friends, they earned. But… oh, hell, I dunno. It just doesn’t sit right, pistol-whipping a girl for spitting in the face of some desk-sitter. Hell, I wanna do that myself half the time, I just ain’t got the guts.”
She wants to add something about having a daughter that age, but she’s not sure if that’s Stanley’s memory or her own confabulation, and Rupert might know. Besides, she’s not really out to convince him of anything, just give him a reason to keep talking. Which seems to be working, especially if he keeps bolting drinks down like he’s doing.
> “They’re... beyond us. If we don’t control them, they’re going to > take us all down. It’s just their nature. They can’t coexist with > us: they... break things.”
Sonya nods slowly at that. Maybe he’s right, at that… seriously, how does anyone normal co-exist with someone like Abyss? She’d never thought of herself as a soldier, but having an angry armed man talk about people like her as the enemy brings things into a new perspective for her. Well, fuck… if there’s gonna be a war, then I know what side I’m on.
Still, she keeps coming back to the redhead at the coffee shop, the way she looked at this guy, the way she freaked at the thought that her cover might get blown.
> “Leave the morals to the rest of the population. Us, it’s our job to > keep everyone safe from these freaks. I’ve figured something > out—it doesn’t matter what the hell we think. We’ve got to do > our jobs. Protect and serve.”
Sonya nods emphatically. “Damn right. Neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of fucking night, right?” It occurs to her only after she’s said it that that’s the post office, and she chuckles loudly to make it seem like a joke. “Anyway, you’re right, Rupe. We just enforce the law, is all. Law says we beat up kids, we beat up kids. Figurin’ out the morals, that’s a fucking politician’s job, right?”
She takes a swig of her drink that looks a lot bigger than it is, and looks around for someplace to discretely dump the bulk of it; she has no intention of matching Rupert drink for drink tonight.
“I guess what throws me is there ain’t no way to tell who’s who no more. They look like us, they sound like us… shit, anyone in this room could be a mutant and we’d never know it! Hell, it’s just like fags, but worse!” She’s not sure about that tack; police have a reputation for homophobia but she doesn’t get that vibe from this guy, so she rushes on to the point she’s hoping to get to. “You ever meet any? I mean, not like firefights and stuff, I mean, just like as if they were normal folks, at a coffee shop or restaurant or something?”
(( McNulty's is a completely nondescript middle-of-nowhere neighborhood bar specializing in cheap beer and surprisingly good whiskey. It's small and dimly lit, with about a dozen stools at the bar, and four booths by the wall. The bartender, a surly middle-aged woman with overly bleached hair and pancake makeup, is watching a soap opera on a small TV under the bar; you have to make an effort to get her attention. Three of the stools at one end are patronized by beer-soaked regulars engaged in a loud, pointless, and apparently permanent argument about something. Rupert and Stanley (aka Sonya) are sitting in one of the booths, far from everyone else. ))
(( Picks up from Registration day 1 part 2. Rupe -- you can either have joined Stanley/Sonya when she left that thread, or arranged to meet later, up to you.))
(( Sonya's current appearance: 28-year-old police officer, Stanley Shepherd. 5'10", 210 #, a bit of a pot-belly, pale-skinned redhead. Not currently in uniform.))
Now that they're both actually here and talking, Sonya realizes she has absolutely no idea how to actually get information out of this guy.
It always looks so easy on television, but really, what is she supposed to say? "So, you're dating a mutant, huh? How'd that happen?"... yeah, real smooth. "So, I've been wondering, are there any secret ways to break out of that facility?" "Hey, here's an idea -- let's go rescue all the guys they just arrested!" Anything interesting runs the risk of giving away too much.
She settles for "I'll get this round" to postpone the inevitable, gets up and bangs on the bar to get the barkeep's attention. When she looks up begrudgingly Sonya makes a next-round hand gesture, indicating the two of them, and waits until she gets an acknowledging nod before sitting back down.
The silence grows awkward, and Sonya finally decides to take a chance on something provocative. If she says too much, she figures, she can always blame it on the drinks, and whether he argues with her or agrees with her she'll have learned something. "You know, I don't mind tellin' you, Rupe... this whole thing don't sit right with me. I didn't become a cop so I could beat up teenage girls, I don't care what kind of freaky powers they've got! It just ain't right, y'know?"
The girl who bursts out of the truck is a stranger, but from the way she disables two officers in as many seconds with some kind of built-in knives, Sonya assumes she's a Sanctuary resident she just hasn't had the opportunity to meet.
She draws her weapon reflexively -- or, rather, Stanley's body draws its weapon reflexively -- but she ignores it, making up her mind to let the girl get past her, even if that blows her cover... she can't do much here, but she can at least do that. It only takes a moment for the question to become moot, though, as one of the metal monstrosities guarding the site efficiently grabs her, snapping the blades off her elbows (Omigod, is that bone?!?) and pulling her into line.
It's all over before the adrenalin even has a chance to pulse through Sonya's system, and she finds herself shaking in reaction... which she conceals almost immediately as she re-holsters her weapon, suspecting that the real Stanley Shepard wouldn't react that way. The crowd behind her apparently has much the same reaction, panicking after all the excitement is actually over; as the two injured officers are dragged off for emergency medical care, Sonya mimics the other crowd-control police as they try to disperse the bystanders safely.
Meanwhile, the officers handling the line are beating up the girl at the front of the line -- a girl Sonya suddenly remembers, one of the flirty twins he'd met earlier that afternoon. She struggles with the desire to intervene... that can't be legal, can it?... but before she makes up her mind they've tossed Amp back in the van.
Afterwards, it will be Isabel's face Sonya most remembers, the combination of feral rage and utter contempt and debilitating pain... but what most affects her is actually the assault on Amp. What these cops are doing is just wrong, she decides.
I'll get you out of here, she promises privately. It's an absurd promise; one she has no idea how to begin implementing, but she doesn't laugh... it feels right, somehow. And, hell... I've got these powers, right? I can be anybody, infiltrate anywhere. Mata Hari's got nothing on me, right? So maybe it's time I start using them for something.
A guard she doesn't recognize comes over to her, saying something about being on the lookout for the redhead's sister, and keeping the earplugs in. She nods and promises to spread the word, quietly exulting. So some of us got away, after all! She doesn't even hesitate over the "us" before turning to the other guards on crowd-control duty. "Good news -- they nailed the sound-manipulator twins. We can get rid of those damned earplugs now..."
She smiles privately as they do so, enjoying her first act of purposeful subtrefuge. It's not much -- it probably won't matter at all -- but it feels good. OK... next, I find out everything I can from this mutant-dating cop... then find Syn, or Abyss, or someone from Sanctuary to report to. They've got an organization, they know things. Then... She trails off, not really knowing what to do after that, but two steps ahead is enough for now -- to be honest, it's more than she's had since she first found this body.
She punches Rupert in the shoulder to get his attention as the crowd settles down. "You know what? I'm thinking it's time for that beer now... my shift's over, and watching this ain't my idea of a good time. Come on..."
> “Hey, Shepard. After this I think I’m going to need a drink. Want to come?”
Sonya doesn’t turn around at first, absorbed by watching her new friends being “processed” and not recognizing the name. It takes her a few seconds to realize she’s the one being addressed, and she turns toward the speaker hastily.
“Hey…” She trails off, thrown by his unexpected familiarity. She should have expected she’d run into friends of the real Stanley while hanging around other police officers, but she hadn’t really thought about it… and if she had thought about it, the last thing she’d have expected is to run into someone she knew in her own right.
Well, OK… to say she knows him is stretching it. But still, this was the third time she’d run into this guy… Rupert, his name was; she can’t remember if he had a nickname. He’s the one with the redheaded girlfriend, the singer… and, Sonya realizes with a sinking feeling, the mutant. And it turns out he’s a police officer, and the police are rounding up mutants.
Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe he’s some kind of mutant-stalker, a bloodhound or something. Maybe he was just leading the girl along so he could turn her in.
Maybe that’s what he’s doing now, with Sonya. It surprises her that the prospect isn’t as frightening as it should be… part of her relishes it as a kind of absolution for letting her newly found allies be arrested while she escaped unscathed. That’s dumb. I can do more good for them out here than in there, she reminds herself, further surprised to realize that she intends to do just that. She hadn’t been entirely comfortable with Syn and the others, but after the police just attacked them like that, she knows what side she’s on.
None of which helps resolve the dilemma of Rupert, here, who is probably wondering what’s wrong with him. “Yeah, this is something, ain’t it?” The speech, the voice, the mannerisms all come easily, without thought. “And hell yeah, I could use a drink right the hell now.”
She considers a moment before adding “Not the usual place, though. I, uh… one of ‘em got away from me today, I don’t wanna hear about it no more, y’know? You know anyplace that ain’t gonna be full of off-duty cops?”
Really, she should just be fading away… the truth is she’s taking a chance staying here this long; it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the real Stanley. You should have killed him, she tells herself, but she knows she couldn’t have. Not like that, not in cold blood. But that means her cover will be blown soon.
On the other hand, she figures it’s less likely if they’re not at a cop-frequented joint, and she wants to get the measure of this man. He’d seemed to genuinely like the girl… Raina, her name was… the times Sonya had seen them together. What’s his deal?
(( OOC: Current appearance: 28-year-old police officer, Stanley Shepherd. 5'10", 210 #, a bit of a pot-belly, pale-skinned redhead. Wearing his uniform and carrying his ID and working with some of his memories/mannerisms/skills. Picking up from Sonya in the Sanctuary raid. I hadn’t initially planned on Sonya taking on the police-officer role but now that she has, I figure I’ll run with it for a while. Let me know if I’m messing up any plans and I’ll edit/delete accordingly.))
By the time Sonya had made it back to the alley behind Sanctuary, the pyrokinetic mutant who’d helped her had already been subdued and dragged off. She still feels guilty about it. He could have just taken off… instead he fought to protect a complete stranger, and look what happened!
The other officers had clustered around her, making sure “he” was OK, and then some kind of high-pitched shockwave had come around from the front and the robots who had been searching around the alley – stalkers, she somehow knows they’re called, along with a lot of information about how to work with them on this mission – took off to reinforce the front line.
After that, it was all kind of a blur. Another officer steered her to a police car as her mind filled again with information she had no right to have – Joe Josuttis, aka “Jo-Jo”, my partner, lousy taste in beer and women, plays a mean game of poker – and filled the air with inane and offensive chatter about “those mutie freaks” all the way back to the station.
She’d snapped out of her daze then, when Jo-Jo suggested he get his head checked out… she wasn’t sure a doctor would identify her as a duplicate, but she wasn’t prepared to test it. It hadn’t taken much to talk Jo-Jo out of that little plan, and they’d both been reassigned to crowd-control duty outside the Registration building.
And now she’s here, watching a long line of other mutants – including the one who’d helped her in the alley – were dragged through the most humiliating registration process she has ever seen.
Part of her wants to intervene, get him and the others out of there… which is just about the stupidest thing she can imagine doing, surrounded by police and Stalkers and who-knows-what-else. Instead, she just watches, half-fascinated, half-repulsed, as one mutant after another puts on those creepy bracelets.
At least some of us got free, though. She’d made a few discreet inquiries, learned that not everyone at Sanctuary had been captured. I wonder where they all are, now?
(( the thread is dead, long live the new thread! Griffon, if you want to get the invite to the Labs, just assume Sonya arranged it; post there as you wish ))
(( OOC: Sure, I'm indifferent to the time. I've been kinda handwaving over the "seven weeks with no measurable progress" thing anyway. ))
Sonya's sympathetic grimace at Ian's story doesn't have to be faked at all -- it sounds like the kid's been through a lot. Not as bad as some, granted, but still more than an ordinary-seeming teenager ought to have to deal with just because he has wings. She nods sadly at his comment about a place for mutants to live in peace, as well, and is about to say something to cheer him up when Naveed responds.
To her astonishment, his response is almost sympathetic. He still sounds like a borderline sociopath, admittedly -- no, on second thought, scratch the "borderline" -- but he no longer seems to view the people in this room as enemies. It's astonishing how much of a difference that makes.
> "I need to coordinate what I’m doing with your people on the outside if this thing is going to work."
Sonya nods in response to the pointed glance. "Well, first of all, let's be clear: Naveed is not part of the Resistance; I only met him for the first time an hour ago." And I'm not sure we want him... but that's not my call. The truth is, judging from what she'd seen of the rest of the Order, powerful and sociopathic isn't a showstopper for membership. "But if you're willing to cooperate, I can put you in touch with my boss. Same goes for you, Ian."
"But Rupert's right... this thing is in the planning stages. The biggest obstacle is the Stalkers, of course, and we're working on ways to deal with that." She doesn't really know that, but it seems like the obvious thing to be doing... and in some ways it's a relief not to know very much, since that way she can't give too much away.
"After all, it does no good to break them out if we can't keep them out afterwards. They can only stay in hiding for so long. And yes, I know," she adds to Naveed before he can open his mouth, "you don't intend to go into hiding, you intend to take Raina back home. Except I'm betting that if she'd wanted to go back home she'd have gone already, right? And I'm sure you respect this goddess-like sister of yours too much to drag her off somewhere she doesn't want to be, so you're going to need somewhere safe to stay while you talk her into it with your irresistable charm -- the non-mutant variety, thank you very much -- and impeccable reason." She manages to keep a straight face, though she can't help the unmistakable sarcasm in her voice.
"Which means this is going to take some time. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. Believe me, I hate it as much as you do." She sighs, slumps into the couch slightly, and her eyes fall on the Church of Humanity bulletin on the coffee table. She's never actually seen one before, and after picking it up and looking at a page or two she never wants to see one again. She hurls it angrily against the far wall, too overcome by sudden despair to even be amused at the way Flipsy goes chasing after the fluttering target.
"You know the sickest part of all this?" It's an angry and embarassingly teenaged wail directed to the room at large, though she's mostly looking at Rupert. "You're all so damned scared of mutants because we're supposedly so much more powerful than you are, except we're the ones being abused here. Make up your damned minds! You can be the victims or you can run the prisons but you can't do both at once!"
Sonya breathes a sigh of relief as Rupert subdues the puppy, profoundly aware of her ridiculousness. "Thanks."
> "If something should happen to her it wouldn't take long for the > others to know and I would be the least of your problems."
Really? Sonya wonders if they're all like Raina and Naveed back home, or whether Naveed is just spouting. It would be interesting, if true... and potentially useful. At least, if they're not all nutjobs. Of course, given that Raina apparently ran away from home and Naveed is trying to bring her back, the odds are she's the exception. Pity.
> "You worry about working with Miss..."
"Teresa," she adds, and nods to both Rupert and Naveed, trying to look confident. OK, it's official: I'm representing the Resistance to a room full of crazy people. Every step along the way made sense, but Sonya can't quite figure out how she'd ended up in this position. Well, imagine how I feel!, she tells herself, All I did was shake hands with the wrong woman at the gym!
...
!
No, Sonya is not going to worry about that right now.
> "I can’t say I’ve seen that face before, so let me introduce myself. Rupert Kelley.”
Sonya shakes Rupert's hand. "Teresa. You'll forgive me if I don't bother making up a fake last name. Nice to finally meet you... I've heard a lot about you. Though this isn't exactly how I'd intended to make contact," she adds, shooting another glare at Naveed.
> “This is Ian. He just got to New York today, if I > understand correctly; he was looking for other > mutants who’d escaped the camps.”
She smiles brightly and extends a hand to Ian, idly wondering if she'd be able to fly if she copied his wings, though keeping a firm grip on her power to avoid finding out right this moment. "Nice to meet you, Ian. I think I can help out with that... as well as finding you somewhere to stay that's a little less cramped than Rupert's apartment, if that's what you want. You're not the only obvious mutant in New York, not by a long shot."
She sits in one of the non-overturned pieces of furniture, trying to look relaxed, and adds "So, we've heard from Rupert and Naveed here... why don't you tell us a little about yourself, Ian?"
> “Raina will be freed. It will not be by you, though. It will not > be by any one person. There’s a mutant resistance that I’m working with.”
Sonya quietly cheers through Rupert's entire lecture... not so much what he's saying, but the way he's saying it. On the one hand, it's clear he's not very far from taking a baseball bat to Naveed... and, truthfully, Sonya isn't far from it herself. On the other hand, it seems he really has changed sides on this one, not just for one drunken night. She wonders whether that's because he's really in love with Raina, or just because he feels guilty, or something else... but right now, it doesn't matter.
And on yet a third hand, she feels a certain amount of guilt herself, given that the "mutant resistance" Rupert is talking about is something she made up on the spot. Still, she is hooked up with the Resistance now, albeit remotely... heck, they're even paying her expenses now, how much more real can an organization get?... even if they don't really seem to be doing much of anything.
And now I sound like Naveed, I guess. "I want everything now!" He's not actually that far from jumping up and down and shouting IwantacookieIwantacookieIwantalollipop!, now that she thinks about it, and the image gets a chuckle out of her.
She gives some thought to the situation before opening her mouth. Rupert is clearly already suspicious of her, which isn't surprising... knowing his name and address makes it clear she's not just an innocent bystander... and Syn will probably want to recruit Naveed if she possibly can. In some ways this is a perfect opportunity, even if she wouldn't have taken it on her own.
"He's right, Naveed. Going in on your own might get Raina out, but the stronger a force we can put together, the better the odds will be... and there's less of a chance of Raina getting hurt that way, also. If you're willing to be part of a team, for her sake, then -- ack!" Sadly, her calm, reasonable, entirely sane pitch falls completely apart when Wallace comes gamboling across the room towards her. She backs up hard against the wall behind her, shoving her hands instinctively in her (still-problematic) pockets, and completely forgets everything she was about to say. "Um... nice puppy. Sit?"
(( OOC: Sonya is not so much afraid of dogs as she is phobic about being touched by animals, though the difference is fairly academic. It's all good! ))
