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.
Katrina shifted her weight from one foot to the other while she continued to hold out the apple. She remembered that he didn't like to be alone, now that he said it. It was the reason he didn't think it would be very pleasant to be invisible, and the reason they had held hands the one time she had made them both invisible to go to a funeral. She should have remembered it without the reminder. She wiggled her toes up and down first on one foot, then on the other, in an imitation of a caterpillar's footsteps. Fausto broke the silence before she could think of something else to say.
She shrugged shyly, still not meeting his eyes, when he wondered why things had changed between them. She thought about it for a moment before coming up with an answer that she thought might have been the reason for the changes, but she chose not to say it out loud; he was growing up faster than she was. Fausto was in a band, spent his time trying to change the world, and fell in love; Katrina was still just a kid. They had times when they could be just kids together, but at other times Katrina wasn't ready to be grown up with him. At least, not quite yet.
>>>”I did not want to hurt you but it seemed like everything I've done so far seems to be wrong even when I thought that it was not.”
She had already been feeling guilty, but that drove it home like a hammer on the head of the last nail on the lid of a coffin. He had been trying hard. He had called her and tried to visit her when she hadn't wanted visitors. He had been doing his best and she had gone and said that his best wasn't good enough for her. She brought her hand with the apple back to her chest and drew patterns on its skin with the forefinger of her opposite hand. How was she supposed to apologize for that? She couldn't hug him, because it seemed like he didn't want her hugs any more. Simply saying the words seemed meaningless, but it was the best she could do.
“I'm sorry... You never hurt me when you are with me. Confuse me, but don't hurt me.” It hurt much more when he wasn't there.
>>>¨Do you notice that when someone puts you in an uncomfortable situation you stare your feet?¨
Her toes wriggled in discomfort, but she couldn't look at them now. Without anywhere else to direct her ashen gaze, her grey eyes were drawn to the dark pools of Fausto's eyes. He seemed to be... content, not still sad and hurt. He wore a tentative smile that made his eyes shine with hope even though it was small. She swallowed and tried to return the smile, earning a hair ruffling for her efforts. She nodded when he asked if she wanted to know where he went. Of course she wanted to know. She nodded again, just as enthusiastically for breakfast, then on impulse threw her arms around him for a quick hug.
“You were already forgiven, even without breakfast.” A moment's pause before she went through the door to the kitchen, then, “Will you forgive me, too?” She was just as imperfect as he was.
She didn't look up to see the shock, the hurt, and the betrayal that was written on their faces. Her heart knew it would be there without her eyes confirming what she had done. The truth was a very sharp weapon, which cut wielder and allies even more easily than enemies. She shouldn't have said those things, but some very small part of her felt a little better that they had been said. She unclenched her hands that had been squeezing the feathers out of the corners of Koga's pillow and took several deep breaths.
The painful truths were out in the open now, and they could start healing. The painful memories were likewise revealed, and she might as well be rid of the burden of carrying them alone. These were her friends, no matter how she had cut them down, they hadn't run away. Instead, they had offered apologies and comforting words, even after that. She had hurt them with the truth, but there was still more truths that they deserved to know. Koga's icily voiced question hung in the air, waiting to be answered. The ice seemed to freeze her tears in place.
"I'll never forget," Katrina whispered finally. She let Kaz take her hand without flinching away. Already the shadows in the room seemed to be a little darker to her, just by starting to remember what happened.
"Please hold my hands?" Katrina begged the two teen boys, letting the pillow rest in her lap without gripping it at all now. One of the boys would have to share a hand with Kaz, because she didn't have enough hands for all of them. She wanted their hands because their touch was comforting and she wanted to remember that she wasn't alone, not because it was a prerequisite for the workings of what she was about to do.
In the next blink the twilight of the bedroom was gone and they were all in the park, surrounded by sunshine and bird song. Leaves rustled in the trees, freshly sprouted and displaying the brightest green they would all year. They stepped back to admire a poster that advertised two missing cats. From behind them they heard the sound of a boom box cheerfully and loudly proclaiming its progress across the park. The owner of it approached them, wearing his bright red jacket and smiling with his toxic green eyes. He pointed to the poster and then down the path and they followed him.
Sudden pain at the back of their heads blackened out the vision of the park. In the dark, came the serpant's voice. Green eyes glinted in the darkness. A flashlight beam illuminated a shadowy face as it choked them into blackness again. Then, tied to a table, ropes around their wrists and feet, cold stone pressed against their face and chest and stomach an legs, a cold steel knife blade slowly sliced into their back while the black haired demon with acid green eyes wiped their tears away and whispered with a silken tongue, "Do you know why you are here?"
The whole memory took only a few seconds before the darkness faded away and they were back in the bedroom. She couldn't show them any more than that; the start. Katrina hunched into herself, trying to make herself as small as possible. Her eyes were tightly closed, all the color had fled her cheeks, and she was shaking all over. She didn't realize that she was digging her little fingernails into her friends' hands as she gripped them, unwilling to let them go. Her mind was still in the sewers remembering each event that had happened.
This month I believe Hull deserves to win Mutant of the Month.
The brilliantly talented player behind the character has never won before, though he is one of the members that has been here the longest. He has shown continued dedication to the site; no matter how busy life gets, he never forgets about us. Often he comes to say 'hi' even when he doesn't have time to post.
This player ups the average literacy level of the site with each of his posts. I learn more interesting vocabulary words from his posts than I even paid attention to in high school English classes. His posts are also incredibly well thought out; he puts so much effort and skill into each one that I am honored each time he posts for one of my characters.
His writing has a unique voice that personifies the individual characters he portrays. His style of writing is immediately recognizable, impossible to replicate (though I tried once), and always a pleasure to read.
The character Hull in particular has made an incredibly large impact on the site in a very small number of posts. He has physically and mentally scarred at least three characters in ways that have caused ripples throughout the site, leaving his mark on many more threads than he has actually been in himself. In approximately four different story arcs I think he has managed to make more characters enemies than Katrina has made friends (even after the two years I have been posting with her).
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: These posts contain substances that are incredibly addictive. It is inadvisable to start reading any of these threads when it is already past your bedtime.
(P.S. Sorry Ham Fairy, but I couldn't get all that to rhyme.)
Katrina wished he would just ruffle her hair or give her a hug like he used to do, but she had quite possibly ruined any chance of that happening again. She had said a lot of things that she shouldn't have said and had hurt him pretty badly with her words. She was afraid that things would always be like this now, strange and awkward silences where neither of them knew what to say to the other.
At least he didn't mind Kenzie being her ridiculous self. The silly dog was trying to get his apple when she probably couldn't even eat an apple without someone at least cutting it up for her. It was almost funny to watch Fausto clumsily greet the dog while still holding his video camera and his apple all the while trying to keep the golden retriever from trying to get her teeth into the red-gold fruit. But this wasn't really a laughing situation. Kenzie didn't seem to agree, as she was doing her best to make things as humorous as possible; in one final effort she tried to leap up and snag the apple, but Katrina darted in with her hand and grabbed it out of Fausto's hand and out of Kenzie's reach before the canine could slobber on it.
>>>¨How are you? What are you doing this earlier in the morning?I was expecting to avoid you at this hour ...¨
Oh. Katrina's face fell. She had almost smiled at the antics of the dog and the boy, but all traces of it vanished before ever having a real chance to appear in the first place. She hadn't realized he had been avoiding her on purpose, not that she blamed him.
“I suppose I'm alright,” she held out the apple for him to take it back no that it was no longer in danger. The tone of her voice didn't quite agree with her statement. If she sounded saddened and disappointed, it was probably because she was. She hadn't meant to push Fausto away, and yet she had no idea what to do to make amends.
“I'm sorry to get in your way. I'll just get some breakfast and leave you alone if that's what you want.” It meant she would still be alone, but more than she dreaded being by herself she wanted to avoid causing him any more pain, especially if just seeing her was enough to trigger it. She watched his feet and waited for him to take his apple back. She didn't dare look at his face for fear of the hatred or the hurt she might see there.
How could anyone be a perfect judge, even a god? There were just too many particulars. What if someone missed the mark by one point and someone they loved had to go on to heaven without them? That hardly seemed like a very nice heaven for the person who had to leave their loved one behind. Katrina followed his gaze up to the wooden beams of the ceiling. She scowled at them like they were bars on the gates keeping some people out. Sorting people just didn't seem fair, no matter how she tried to wrap her mind around whatever the criteria might be for getting into heaven.
>>>“I think the only thing we can do is do our best. Do what you think is right, no matter what it is, and do whatever you can for the rest of the world. Leave things better than when you found them. At the end of the day, if you meet Him and He says all that wasn’t good enough—” ... “Well, then maybe Heaven isn’t a place you’d enjoy, anyway.”
“That seems unfair, too. Besides the really basic commandments we don't have any directions for doing what is 'right'. What if we think we are doing the right thing, but it is actually completely wrong? You might think you are making the world a better place, but if your idea of better is different from someone else's it could totally mess up everything.”
She polished the obsidian dagger with a night black cloth. It was already so clean she could see the reflection of her own bright green eyes, turned up at the corners by her own malicious smile. The polishing was just for show.
“Do you know why you are here?” she addressed the question to her audience; a silver haired elf, a boy with hair blacker than even her knife, and an Asian boy whose skin was picking up the colorlessness of the damp brick sewer wall behind him. All three were tied and gagged. They wouldn't be answering, but that was okay, because the question was also just for show too.
She twirled the handle of the knife, inspecting it from every angle. “You see, I have a bit of a problem,” anger hissed through her words even though she tried to keep her voice as steady and calm as possible. “The three of you have failed me. This isn't something I can accept.”
She swung the knife, hard, and it embedded itself up to the hilt in something soft. Dark liquid splashed her, but she didn't care. All she could do was laugh. This was what happened to those who betrayed her. ...
“Nooo,” she moaned, but it was too late. The dagger had already sunk deep into its target. The laughing girl with the green eyes turned to look at her.
“It's too late, honey,” she smiled with teeth that were much too white and eyes that were much too green. “You can't take back what you did now. It's over and you can't change a thing.” Her laughter filled the sewers, echoing off the hard bricks and pounding against her ears like bullets. --
Katrina sat straight up in bed, panting and clutching at the teddy bear she never slept without; a gift from someone when she had been most alone. Her heart thundered in her chest as if she had been running a race. She could feel the dream fading away from her memory, almost gone now but no less horrifying.
She fumbled for her alarm clock, her eyes still seeing unclearly from her sleep. It took several blinks to get the numbers to make any sense to her; it was still pretty early but not worth trying to go back to sleep, especially if she was just going to slip back into the terrors of her own dreamworld again. Instead of crawling back under the covers, she slipped on a soft bathrobe over her nightgown and slippers over her bare feet. Kenzie lifted her head from her sleeping spot on top of a pile of Katrina's clothes. The clean ones and the dirty ones had gotten a little mixed up, but it didn't matter much to the dog; that spot was her second favorite after the end of the bed. Unfortunately for her, Bruce had taken that spot last night. He kept snoring on the bed, Kenzie stretched out, yawned, and followed her little blonde owner out of the room.
After a dream like that Katrina didn't want to be alone. A dog or two was good company, but talking to someone would help distract her from thinking about the dream and the events that had undoubtedly contributed a bit of their reality to the surreal. She would much rather go on pretending that none of that had happened at all. Fausto at least had been making that easy by not being around all week.
Katrina wandered toward the kitchen. That was always the first place anyone went if they were the first person awake. If there was conscious company to be had, it would be in the kitchen. She was about two feet from the swinging kitchen door when someone came out holding a video camera and an apple. It was Fausto. Their paths had to cross at some point, and it seemed like fate would have it be now.
“Oh. Good morning,” Katrina looked at her slippers and shuffled to the side so he could have all the room he needed to walk right past her if he wanted. Kenzie, however, was perfectly content to block his way and even tried to sniff at the apple he was holding. That was food right? She wagged her tail.
Katrina wasn't crying, even though she felt like she should be. Instead she just felt confused, with maybe a little bit of anger seeping in at the edges. It was so frustrating not knowing what to do or how to make the whole situation better. Hiding in the pillow was not necessarily helping, but nothing else was either. She didn't know what she wanted; to be comforted, to be left alone, to be rescued, or what.
Fausto came after her first, settling next to her at the head of the bed. Another weight that must have been Koga settled by her feet. Koga was very quiet, muttering only an unreadable 'okay'. Fausto on the other hand, had a lot to say. His words changed from icy winter daggers to words of warmth and comfort and sleepy summer days. He stroked her hair and apologized and admitted he was jealous and said she was important to him. It should have made her feel better, but it didn't.
Throughout this speech Katrina glowered into the pillow, her unseen face twisted into a scowl. The anger at the edges of her emotions was creeping its way toward the center. Her shoulders tensed and the muscles in her arms tightened. That answered that question; she didn't want to be comforted just yet. And he was wrong; Ryuichi wasn't her boyfriend. Even though he wanted to be, probably. Fausto did too, that was why he was so jealous. Did either of them care to find out if that was what she wanted, too?
He would leave, he said. He would leave if she asked him to go. She didn't want that either. The very last thing she wanted was to be alone. She had enough of being alone, but being together like this wasn't right either.
She didn't hear Kaz through the door and pillow and over the pounding of her own heart. She only realized he was there when she sat up again, face red. If he was here to rescue her, he was a bit too late for that now. Katrina glared at all three of them and the room in general. She clenched the edges of the pillow in her hands as she held it in her lap like a protective shield.
First things first. Something had to be straightened out for the acid mouthed singer. “He's not my boyfriend. I don't know what he is anymore. I don't know what you are either.” Her words sounded angrier than she had expected them to sound, but it felt a little better to say them that way. She twisted her fist fulls of pillow.
Her angry words fell on the silver haired elf that lingered in the doorway like a chaperone that thought he had every right to be there. “What are you doing here, anyway?” She meant that two ways. He had shown up at the mansion like he belonged here even after months of being absent and he had shown up in this room at the most awkward time possible. “Where have you been all this time?” She didn't wait for the answer to either question.
To the lizard boy at the end of the bed, “You don't get it either. None of you do.” The tears that she hadn't cried earlier were starting to shimmer in her eyes as she turned away from him again. She couldn't look at any of them now.
“All I need is a regular friend. Someone who is actually here for me all the time without disappearing. Someone that doesn't make things all confusing. Someone that actually cares enough to ... ” ...to find out what had happened to her.
“You want something but it isn't something I have. And you all want to be something that I don't need right now. My life is messed up enough as it is right now without you all trying to make it even more confusing by coming in and trying to be a boyfriend or a brother or a father or whatever. Where were you all when I was kidnapped and tortured and rescued and healed and having nightmares and...” She stopped abruptly in the middle of her own sentence. Words that had flowed so easily so suddenly trailed off. She hadn't meant to say that. She hadn't meant to ever think of it again. Tears that had been gathering on her lower lids spilled over and she twisted the corners of the pillow around her little hands.
Fausto looked like he was about to storm away, which she didn't want him to do. Miraculously he decided to stay, but it didn't help the situation as much as she had hoped it would. She had wanted to explain things to him, to make him feel better, but his staying only seemed to make things worse.
Koga, ever chivalrous, invited him in. She could tell that his voice was just a little forced. He sounded way too cheerful to actually be cheerful about someone barging into his room. His smile of welcome was just a little too sincere.
Fausto and he didn't even pretend to be cheerful. He acted like a little black thundercloud had settled behind his eyes and was ready to shoot lightning at anything that moved too fast or said the wrong thing. His glare at Koga seemed strong enough to melt faces; even stronger than his corrosive saliva. His words were chilling and sharp, like icicles ready to fall like daggers on their heads. His smile couldn't have been any more malicious if he'd had pointy teeth instead of simply super strong ones.
The worst part was that he refused to look at Katrina at all. He could be as angry as he wanted at the other boy, but he was too disgusted and angry to even look at her. He was hurt and it was all her fault. She hadn't tried to lead either of them on; she hadn't asked for anything more than friendship. Maybe that was the problem, though, they wanted more than she had to spread around.
>>>¨Whatever ... I'm in.¨
With that the jealous teen singer slammed the door closed behind himself. It sounded like the door to a prison cell locking them all in. Katrina couldn't see any way out. There was no escaping the awkward situation of the three of them hanging out, and there was no graceful way to get out of the larger situation either. There was nothing she could do to make either of them feel better without hurting the other one or hurting both at the same time. She couldn't make herself fall in love, and even if she could, she couldn't be in love with both of them at the same time.
She looked back and forth between both of their faces. Ryuichi looks strained under his smile. Fausto just looked pissed. Katrina's own face wasn't sure what to do. Her eyebrows puckered and her lip quivered. She took a shaky breath.
“You're both stupid,” she exclaimed, took two running steps and leaped onto Koga's bed and buried her face in his pillow.
It was growing late, but an infinite amount of time didn't seem to be enough for Katrina to figure out what she was supposed to do or supposed to feel. There were two boys who were competing for her heart, and may not even know they were in a competition. The troublesome thing was Katrina wasn't sure that she was ready to offer her heart up as a prize to anyone. How was she supposed to say "I love you" back, or kiss someone back (which was really the same thing with fewer words), when she didn't even know what love was supposed to feel like. Or rather that kind of love. She already loved both of them as friends.
It was as if her thought of Fausto called to mind the song that always rang when he called her phone. The song came unbidden to her as if trying to confuse her even more. It took a moment for her to realize that her phone was actually ringing, muffled slightly by her back pocket. One of her arms was pinned, the one closest to the phone, and she let go with the other one trying to reach around herself and Koga's arm, but she couldn't quite get the right angle to pull it out of her pocket. She wriggled more, but her one armed captor seemed to have taken her at her word this time that he was not to let go.
"Ryuichi, my phone. You have to let go for a sec. Sorry" Whether he let go or not didn't quite matter, because the ringing suddenly stopped just as Katrina was able to get her fingers around the beaded cell phone charm that hung from her phone and pull it out of her pocket. She opened it one handed as best she could and held it up to her ear. She might have answered it in time. Maybe.
"Hello?" she asked experimentally.
It was the voice she was expecting to answer, but not from where she expected to hear it or saying what she expected it to say. Nor did she expect him to sound so... hurt. How long had he been standing there behind her back without her knowing it?
>>>¨Sorry, wrong room.¨
Katrina whirled toward the open doorway in the same direction that Koga's arm was wrapped around her, which meant that as she turned his arm would now be more across her shoulders than around her torso.
The lights were much brighter than they were before. Katrina blinked trying to clear the fog around her mind. The puzzle pieces started falling back into place. The park, the missing Calley, the coke vendor, the sewer...
>>>“Ah, welcome back, did you enjoy your nap? I would have woken you sooner but I didn’t want to leave you waiting as I got everything ready. Don’t worry though, the fun shall begin shortly.”
... the choking. Katrina's lungs instinctively filled themselves with as much air as they could. The air rasped roughly through her bruised throat, but the extra oxygen helped to clear her head even more. She had to get out of here. She wriggled and pulled, but the ties that bound her showed no signs of even loosening. Her heart was in her throat as she realized she couldn't escape. Turning invisible or any other illusion had no power over the reality of being tied up.
Green eyes and haughty visage appeared in her vision, bent over to be parallel to her own. Katrina furrowed her eyebrows at him. She didn't like him one bit. He tugged on her restraints too, but he was more satisfied than she had been at the outcome of the test.
>>>“Now then my dear, before we begin I’d like to get your name. My own is not important but for…posterity’s sake, it would be, helpful, to have yours… do you understand?”
She saw no reason to share her name with a kidnapper. It was creepy and... his face contorted into one of extreme impatience with her lack of answer. She opened her mouth and started to say a name, just to spite him.
“Gladysss,” the name turned into a his of pain as something small and very hot was pressed into her open palm. Her automatic reaction was to try and jerk her hand away, but the restraints held her fast no matter how hard she wriggled against them. All she could do was try to ball her fingers into a fist, which resulted in her two middle knuckles also getting burnt. She gasped and tears came involuntarily to her eyes as the burning hot pressure continued. Just because she had given him an obviously fake name?
Then, as suddenly as he had begun it, he pulled the heat away from her hand again. Katrina protectively balled her hand into a fist, applying pressure to the stigmata that still burned even though it wasn't still burning. The slight pressure relieve only a little bit of the neural impulses that screamed their way to her brain and made silent tears well up in her eyes.
The malicious torturer brandished a white cloth like a magician who had just performed a particularly impressive trick and wiped the moisture from her eyes for her with the most tender of hands.
>>>“I hadn’t intended to use that quite so soon, but I’m afraid you forced my hand, tsk tsk, not getting off to a very good start are we? Let’s try that again shall we puppet? What is your name?”
Her breaths still came in shuddering gasps and they still burned her throat, but the pain of that now seemed so trivial. The viridian eyes were back with an insidious grin. She shivered, not just from the cold of the concrete and the chilly sewer air.
“Ka... Katrin...a,” she gasped her real name, unable to think of any other fake ones that could sound even faintly realistic.
>>>“A very charming name, I shall do my best to remember it. Now though, it’s time to begin.”
His voice sounded so kind when he wanted it to be. He could be someone's grandson and they would never know what he did when he went out for evenings on the town. At least, she assumed he had done this before; one didn't just have ropes and hot pokers and flashlights stashed in the sewer unless they wanted to be ready to use them.
Her own ragged breathing was settling down again and it wasn't difficult to hear the clattering of various tools. She couldn't see what he was doing, but had a feeling it couldn't be good. She held in a whimper. She didn't want to know what he was doing, yet not knowing what he had prepared for her next was somehow worse.
Ever so gently he pushed her hair out of the way. Katrina flinched at the touch of his hands, though they didn't hurt her this time.
>>>“Oh no, this won’t do, I won’t be able to see what I’m doing, ah well least said soonest mended.”
He gathered up all of her hair and pulled it upwards. The hairs that were connected to the injured part of her scalp protested the treatment, but the didn't have long to worry as they were soon freed from the upward pressure by a sudden slice of a knife. The loss of her hair was more confusing than shocking. Why did he do these things? How could he alternate so easily between burning her hand and wiping her tears? What reason did he have for cutting her hair or all things? Was he crazy?
She shivered again as a cold rag wiped at the back of her neck. Cold trails of water trickled their way across her skin. Her hand and head and throat still hurt, but the cold of the cloth was as gentle as her mother's touch. Why?
The knife blade clicked again and Katrina tensed, unsure of what he would do with it next. She was prepared to feel its sting anywhere, or thought she was. Instead of cutting her, though, he slowly cut away her dress followed by her undergarments. She bit her lip. Was that what he had planned for her? All this was part of some sick fetish of his?
She was even colder now. Goosebumps raised across her skin and she shivered without ever a thin layer of cloth to cover her. Finally he brought the steel blade to shoulder blade and pressed down. She inhaled through her teeth as it started cutting through her skin. At least she knew where to expect the pain from.
>>>“Tell me Katrina, do you know why you’re here?”
“No.” She tried to sound brave, but that one word contained more of her fear than she had meant it to contain.
Ryuichi's toes appeared in front of her toes and he hugged her again. He was right, it was hardly fair to expect him to be able to do two things at once with only one hand, nor was it fair to expect him to do all the hugging. The little illusionist untangled her arms from where they were pinned between her chest and his and snaked them around his middle.
She still wasn't sure how she was supposed to act. This wasn't how it worked out in the movies and she had no idea what it was supposed to be like in real life. So she just hugged him back, eyes closed, face pressed into his shirt.
She felt like she had ruined things by not kissing back like she was supposed to. She had been so surprised she had done exactly the wrong thing. If she could rewind things and do it all over again, what would she have done? It was all up to her now, if she ever wanted a second kiss she had to ask for it herself. Did she want a second kiss? Ryuichi was a good friend and she liked him a lot. He was handsome and kind and gentle and a good friend, but did she like-like him?
He obviously like-liked her. But so did Fausto, he'd said so on Valentine's Day. And Ryuichi had given her a valentine, too. And he had so gallantly stepped aside to let her talk to Fausto. Had the lizard boy liked her even back then? This was all so confusing. She had never had anyone like her before and now there seemed to be two boys who did. And she wasn't sure how to react to either of them. In the movies it was so obvious who the heroine should pick; the right match was so obvious. Katrina knew how to love, but when it came to being in love she had no clue what it was supposed to feel like.
She took out all her confusion on Ryuichi's poor ribs.
Katrina watched the boy Joshua as he pushed himself up from the ground where he had fallen when he hit the forcefield. He was panting and there was fear in his eyes. He looked feral, almost as if he were more animal than boy. He was trapped and running wasn't an option, that left fighting but there was no one he could fight with there inside this invisible cage.
Hymn ducked behind one of the nuns and Katrina subtly slipped over to grasp the older girl's hand in her own. She wasn't sure herself who was supposed to be comforted by her action. Sam requested that the tall blonde boy let him into the force field to talk to the dark haired silverware manipulator. Katrina shook her head, hoping to change his mind. Don't go in there. Don't go. It wasn't safe. He must not have seen her, because he went in anyway.
There was just the slightest of ripples in the air as Sam crossed through the barrier. Josh backed up as far as he could go and encountered the back of the forcefield. He looked for an escape route, but knew there was none. Across the barrier, sweat beaded on the older student's face as he concentrated on keeping two people in now. Josh hissed at him. This was his fault. He was a traitor and now he was letting strangers come after him to take him away.
The strange man crouched like a tiger ready to spring and spoke in a voice like velvet. There was no way the dark haired child was going to go with him. He wanted to stay here in his home. He snarled and threw his silverware points first at the new comer, spoons, forks, and knives, including the big sharp ones. He ran forward, too, in their little ring of existence. He held a knife in each hand, intent on stabbing them into the new guys' arms.
“You can't take me!”
Katrina had never heard a voice sound so desperate before.
That was fairly accurate, actually. Her toes wiggled uncomfortably against the floor. It wasn't that he hadn't been obvious, it was that she had been incredibly dense. She hadn't been expecting him to kiss her because... well, because no one ever had before.
He had kissed her. And now he was apologizing for it.
“You don't have to apologize. I'm okay. I think you...” She tried to keep up with his string of hurried words. Wait, he thought she was amazing?
Well, he had kissed her. Maybe she should have seen that coming, too.
“I...” She was so eloquent today. “I was just surprised. It wasn't bad. I mean...” she wasn't actually sure what she meant. She was still rather flustered. She wrapped her arms around herself.
The look on his face when she said she'd been in need of healing was hard to read from this close. It almost looked angry, but not at her. He looked into her eyes with his own bottomless inky pools and his expression softened. It was more one that promised protection than anything else. All he said was her name, but that one word spoke volumes. He said it so gently that it calmed her even from the memories of the nightmares that had started to creep into the edges of her thoughts. She was safe here in his embrace, she needn't worry about anyone anymore because he would be here. Had anyone ever said her name like that before?
His hand came up to her chin, leaving her back strangely cool where his arm no longer encircled it. He leaned forward and touched his lips gently against hers. She froze, half surprised by what had happened and the other half surprised that his lips were so soft against her own. He was kissing her and she was letting him and by the time the idea of that had caught up to her she had been standing there long enough that it probably counted as kissing back.
Katrina stepped back, and suddenly her own feet became very interesting to look at, “I... umm...”
She hadn't worn socks today, apparently. She never really liked socks. The seam on the toe always bothered her. Her face felt hot, but her toes were nice and cool. Good temperature control, bare feet were.
Depth perception doesn't always work when something is very close to a person's face. It almost seemed to Katrina like Koga's face was getting slightly closer to her. That wasn't possible, there was hardly any space left between them for his face to go. She thought it must have been a trick of her imagination. Once he started telling his story his face returned to its normal place. Katrina wondered if he could make himself look like a magic eye puzzle. His skin was about the right distance away at the moment.
The blonde teen was snapped back from her reveries by Koga's words. She stiffened in his arms, a surprised reaction to hearing the shocking bits of the story, but she didn't pull away. Someone attacked Ghost? And she was saved by... a unicorn? A unicorn that had disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared.
“I think I know someone else that could heal you, too. He healed me after...” She looked down, studying the thread pattern that made up the fabric of his shirt. she didn't know how to finish that sentence without the whole story spilling out just as Koga's had done. She let the sentence hang unfinished rather than having to remember what happened.
She found Koga's eyes again and the lightest possible grey contemplated the darkest of blacks. “I'm pretty sure Slate can heal anything.” Maybe even amputated limbs. Maybe.