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.
Neena's eyes automatically followed the falling gun, before she realized they should have stayed up. The narrow space worked to her disadvantage this time as he ended up behind her. She felt something touch her wrist as she spun to fight, but it wasn't flesh.
A smile curled the corner of her lips at the feeling of her kick connecting. It quickly vanished when he wrenched her arm behind her back. Her teeth clenched on a Swahili oath as she felt her shoulder twist painfully. Metal touched her other other wrist, and 'handcuffs' registered in her mind. The hit to her back sent her to the floor, knocking both the curse and the breath out of her body in a whoosh! Her glasses flew off and went skittering under the back of the commode. She felt the pressure of a foot in her back, and lay there for a moment, before a second, "Mavi!" followed the first.
She hadn't gotten her wind back before she was hauled back to her feet, so her breath came in short, angry gulps. Which was probably a good thing, considering who she saw staring back at her in the mirror.
" You cracked my rib, think we can talk now?"
Neena blinked, blinked again, then blinked some more. Abruptly her hands were loosed, and she grabbed at the sink to catch herself. She spun on her heel to stare at him. She wasn't often caught this off-guard, and in any normal person her reaction would have passed for shock. But as numerous thoughts clicked into place, her confusion rapidly melted into white-hot, and white-eyed, anger.
Words fought for space in her throat, but only two sets managed to make it past the vocal chords.
"Jordan?? Talk??" followed quickly by, "What in the hellpits if the Sahara are you doing here??"
Her hands closed over air where the gun had been, and she had no time to try and find it again. Her opponent, which she felt fairly sure was a 'he', took the hit, but literally slid out of her grasp as she toppled over. Her palms stretched out to catch her fall, muscles tensing to push back up. Her legs snapped back under her as well, and she ended up kneeling on one knee, like a sprinter about to begin a race, where her target had been moments before.
Click!
She stopped moving again. She had to look up this time, to see the gun trained on her once more. Her companion's flexibility and speed indicated gymnastics training. And there was no denying that the vanishing firearm could be attributed to mutant ability.
She'd lost her edge of surprise, and couldn't attempt another rush from her position. However, that didn't mean she planned on staying put.
Slowly, and keeping her hands in sight, she stood and straightened. With him up on the sink like that, she still had to look up. She watched the gun carefully, since there was no face to stare at instead.
"Stop trying to threaten with that thing," she growled quietly. "Either use it or lose it." Her tone indicated that it had better be the former, if he wanted to get out without a fight. And he'd better aim for her head, since the chest was lined enough to still give her a chance to survive. Either way, she was not backing down.
Her companion obviously had no intentions of being caught, either by her personally or indirectly, and checked her slide toward the window. She whirled the instant she was released, and even managed a step forward before she found a silencer being waved in her face. She immediately retracted the step, and took another backwards. Her body jarred to a halt against the sink, and her arm went out, landing on the towel rack, to keep her from falling.
Behind her glasses her eyes had narrowed to slits, and her mind began working overtime.
For a mini-mansion, the bathroom was rather small and a bit cluttered, leaving very little space between the two. She could use that to her advantage. And despite being armed, her fellow hadn't pulled the trigger yet. They assumed she wouldn't move, for fear of being shot.
Shame. She wasn't fond of pain, surely. But sometimes it couldn't be avoided.
A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth, before she she moved. Her fist tightened over the larger towel, and she yanked it forward toward the shower, sending several smaller items through the air. She followed the object forward, twisted as she went to narrow their target options. In the small space, the most they'd be able to get off was one shot, possibly two, difficult even for a sharpshooter.
She made a grab for the gun with her hands, and aimed a shoulder at the intruder's chest, while attempting not to trip on the edge of the shower floor.
Standing stock still in the dark room, Neena could have been a cat with as much curiosity coursed through her system. She watched her upside-down fellow intruder's heat signature, as it slowly moved out of its hiding place, then dropped back to right side up. It paused there for a count of two, before reversing back to its upside-down handstand.
One eyebrow scrunched in a thoughtful frown. Now what was the point of that little maneuver? She quickly scanned the floor once more. The only devices of interest, other than more of the electronic window locks and square of wiring on the ceiling, was the camera at the end of the hall. After another pause, the time it took the camera to swing away, the figure quickly twisted out of its hiding place, and made a dash down the hall....
.... toward the bathroom door she'd entered the house from. She reached for the door handle; she wasn't sure if the intruder planned to leave the same way she'd come in, but she couldn't risk it. She doubted they had the same non-thieving intentions that she did, and couldn't risk them disappearing with something valuable from the house.
The door jiggled, but refused to open. She stepped back and scanned it for an auto-lock, but found no active security. No slivery glint of electromagnetic circuits, either, and the knob worked just fine. She took a closer look at the hinges.
Her frown deepened when she spotted the tiny discs wedged into the door frame. Those hadn't been there before....
Neena narrowed her eyes at the heat signature down the hall. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions, but she was willing to bet that it belong to a mutant. And that meant the time for lazing about was over. She needed to make sure that her new friend either joined her in a cell, or took her place. Either option would be just fine.
She shut the door firmly, then pulled out the glass cutter again. Using the slim end as a lever, and no longer worrying about excess noise or cameras, she tapped until the discs came unwedged enough for her to wriggle the door open. She stepped out into the hall and stood there, facing her fellow shadow, hands on her hips.
"Halloween was last week, m'friend," she remarked in a quiet voice, taking note of the all black outfit and thin red eyeline. "Unless you're practicing for next year's Haunted House, you've got some serious explaining to do."
Idly she noticed that the camera had begun its swing back in her direction. She took several rapid steps forward, in a simultaneous attempt to get out of its line of vision, and to press her companion back. She tensed, anticipating a struggle.
A slight creak from the hallway gave Neena pause. The door halted, half-open. Her eyes began their rapid cycling again. To the random onlooker, she could have been having a fit or seizure with the way her lids seemed to twitch uncontrollably. Or possibly, in a cartoon rendition, spun around like a slot machine. She hit the jackpot, too, as an orange-yellow blob swam into view on her infrared. Although seemingly upside down, the heat signature was distinctly human-shaped. One eyebrow cocked in curiosity.
So.... she wasn't the only body in the house after all. But who was the other one?
Keeping her left eye in heat vision, she blinked the right over to xray. The walls and furniture before her melted into each other in a slightly blurred manner. It took several moments for her to hone in on the appropriate area, but she finally saw another black clad figure on the other end of the hallway.
A sharp pain shot through her head, and she cringed. Her eyes did not appreciate being abused on this scale, and made their discomfort known.
<"Fine. Be that way,"> she grumbled silently. Of all of her special sights, she hated xray the most. Even after twenty years of use, it still caused too much confusion to be practical. Why couldn't she have selective xray vision? Like Superman.
Heh. For that matter, why not the strength and flight, as well?
Ah well. She could lament in her cell later. She needed to find a way to deal with her fellow intruder first. Having spotted the camera in the lit hallway, above the door, she slipped out and under it. Moving opposite to its revolution proved difficult in the lack of shadows, but she managed to slip, unseen, into a room a bit further down the hall. She purposefully closed the door a bit louder than necessary, to announce her departure to her fellow shadow. She took in her surroundings quickly, to find a hiding place should she need it, then turned her attention to the warm-blooded figure hiding behind Father Time.
<"Good think I stocked up on Tylenol before coming,"> Neena thought silently. Indeed, with her various visions cycling constantly as she made her way to the side of the house, taking painkillers in advance had been a tactical move on her part.
She spotted the invisible fence of lasers around the dense shrubbery surrounding the house. Nearly a foot high, it required a planned hop to get to safety.
Safety being a relative term. By the time she spotted a thin coating of reflective metal lining all of the first floor windows, the African woman began to suspect that the house's owner was distinctly paranoid. She knew from experience that any basic tampering with the locking mechanisms would set off an electromagnetic alarm within the system, and announce her presence to whatever company and/or other party wired into the security system. Not your average, everyday alarm wiring.
Rather than fuss with such an elaborate system, Neena decided to take the high road. After double-checking to be sure there were no more pressure plates hidden in the brickwork of the house, she made her way to a corner. She was no cat by any means, but gymnastic and acrobatic training made scaling the wall, to the nearest second floor window, look easy.
She planted her feet on the edge of the nearest window sill, an image of Sara climbing the sides of burning buildings flashing through her head. At least this time there was no smoke to clog her senses. She twisted and leaned down, unconcerned with the precariousness of her position, to take a quick peek inside.
"I don't believe it," she murmured quietly. The window had an electronic lock. Who put's an electronic lock on a second-story window??
If she hadn't been intrigued before, she surely was now. Either this person was a security buff, or there was something quite tempting to thieves inside. Either way, Neena wanted to find out. She'd already resigned herself mentally that she'd be spending the night in a jail cell, but meeting the designer of this gauntlet would definitely be worthwhile.
She examined the lock for a moment from outside, before straightening up. From a pocket popped a diamond tipped glass cutter. Getting the piece to tip out took more effort, and a practiced snap of the wrist, than cutting it out. The cutter disappeared, replaced by a vial of luminecient powder to see finger prints. Again Neena thanked the painkillers in her system in advance for the work they'd be doing later, after she finished twisting her body into a pretzel to key in the lock code.
The contortionistic effort paid off, and the window finally opened and allowed her to slip inside. After yet another scan of the room, which turned out to be a bathroom of all places, she slipped out of the door to begin exploring this delightful den of surprises.
But honestly.... An electronic lock, on a bathroom window? Why??
That struck Neena as a curious answer, but she listened without comment as he clarified.
"I would have to know something about what this other person's personality was like and I'd need to hear exactly what their views were."
She nodded; that made perfect sense. Without him realizing it, he'd already found a group meeting the latter half of his criteria.
"I don't expect to find anyone that agrees on every single facet with me...."
That was a good thing, as only cloning could produce that effect.
".....but if they were willing to admit that humans had reason to be scared of mutants and a right to be protected from those that do crazy things with their abilities it would be very tempting."
"You sound just like Xavier," she remarked with a smile when he finished.
Although her hearing was quite keen, it still remained within basic human levels. That, along with her lack of internal adrenaline, kept her from noticing the effects on Luke's sonar.
"Taking in all you just said, I'm going to attempt to tempt you, no pun intended. Did Calley tell you anything about the Xmen during your little 'excursion'?"
The idea behind thievery is usually very basic. Party One has something that Party Two considers valuable and wants. Party One refuses to part with said item, or Party Two is unwilling to pay the value of said item. Party Two instead uses underhanded means to acquire said item from Party One, usually involving such activities as spying, breaking and entering, property damage, and possibly assault. Thus, Party Two becomes ‘a thief’. Easy, basic, and usually illegal.
Leave it to Neena to make such a simple idea complicated.
Though various avenues, she’d discovered that a locally famous art dealer had recently purchased a Tudor-style house in upper New York, similar to some of the smaller mansions found in Buffalo. The dealer was a very cautious man, and not one given to bragging about his acquisitions or collections. Nor did he flaunt his riches in the usual manner of his colleagues. There was the usual media hype that not all of his dealings were ‘above the table’, but nothing of import could ever be attached to him with enough sticking power to convict. That in itself intrigued the white-eyed woman. And that was why her first night off in a month from teaching found her making her way, at a quite leisurely pace, toward the manor house, not long after two o’clock in the morning.
She was dressed in a variation of her ‘mission outfit’. Unlike her uniform, all of the pockets in the fitted bodysuit were hidden from sight. Everything, from the slim utility belt around her waist, extra thin gloves, soft-soled slippers, and sunglasses, were finished in black matte. Between that and her already-dark skin, she all but blended into the shadows.
She approached the privacy wall and paused under the shadow of the trees, one eye already set on xray, while the other scanned for electronic heat. After several moments she’d spotted the heat of a series of moving cameras spaced across the top of the wall. Basic, and fairly useless. However, another detail immediately caught her attention; numerous splotches of orange and yellow showed up in her infrared, all along the wall, indicating machinery hidden beneath the surface of the structure. Tilting her head, xray revealed a series of flat plates embedded in the brick.
Pressure pads? Well now, that ruled out climbing the wall. Interesting.
From one of her pockets, she pulled out a thin grappling wire, with a small, rubber ball on its end. She watched the cameras, until she found a blind spot. With a twirl and flick of her wrist the little ball guided the wire up and around the base of the camera several times, securing it in place. She shimmied up the trunk of the tree, and secured the other end of the wire to a large bough. In the darkness, the wire practically vanished in the night. She waited once more for the camera’s blind spot, then quickly spanned the distance like a high-wire artist. Stepping onto the top of the camera to avoid the pressure plates, she dropped quietly down on the other side of the wall.
Neena had the advantage over a normal thief in her trek across the expansive lawn, in that her visions allowed her to see the heat emanating from various forms of machinery, as well as living creatures. Interestingly enough, by the time she reached the building itself, she hadn’t seen any of the latter.
As the two people conversed at the door, a third approached from one of the hallways. Neena held a book open in one hand, while the other ran lightly across the pages, feeling out the tiny bumps in the paper that formed the Braille alphabet. Her unseeing white eyes stared straight ahead, yet she managed to avoid the various pieces of furnishing lining the hall.
As she reached the foyer, she paused, and blinked. Her fingers stilled, and she turned her head from Streak to the woman.
"Hello, Shawn," she greeted the silver man with a wide smile, and by name, though she currently couldn't see him. "Who's your friend?"
She turned her smile to the woman, and nodded her head in greeting.
"I've always worked alone before. Not that I didn't want partners but I've never exactly shared my secret with a lot of people and I've never known a lot of others that had powers. Like I said earlier, I knew there were other mutants here in New York but I never spent enough time around any of them to know much about them."
"That's both a good thing, and a shame at the same time. New York seems to have a reputation for being Mutant Central, and the majority of the ones that make their presence known are not the most pleasant of company. It's no wonder humans don't like us very much."
Neena grunted. She shifted her position to lean back in her chair, and cross her legs and arms.
"If you could find someone to team up with, who has the same goals and intentions to help as you do, would you consider it at all?"
"You'd be surprised how far a little courtesy goes. And one time I heard something about shooting high so that maybe we won't fall short... Maybe I'm not so eloquent, but something like that appeals to me."
"Can an air elemental shoot too high?" Neena teased. But she was glad to hear her friend was willing to put herself out there to help others, on a larger scale than she already did.
"Oh, he's forcing me into it, it's horrible!"
The teasing manner in which the young woman replied immediately put Neena at ease.
"I actually figured you'd ask something along those lines and I'm glad you care enough to ask. No offense taken. I've actually been thinking about this off and on for a long time, perhaps even before Garrett came to this place."
Ghost paused as if thinking, and Neena cocked her head to the side curiously.
"It is my decision. It just takes me a long while to make up my mind. I just wanted to make sure that I could still be me and still help the team, you know?"
Neena nodded, her smile widening a bit. "I'm glad you took the time to think about it. Some don't."
"It's a shame he beat me to it otherwise you'd be asking this question to him."
She laughed aloud at that. "Possibly. Though I can just as easily go back and ask him if he's trying to play the hero to impress."
She sighed, placed her hands on her hips, and gave a decisive nod. "Very well then, Miss Maya," she said using Ghost's real name. "Welcome to the team. And as I told Garrett, the Headmistress is returning soon, and likely will want to meet with the team. I don't know if you remember Tricity, but everyone will probably go through introductions all over again anyway, so...." She shrugged. "I'll let you know once I know. 'kay?"
(OOC: Sorry I was a little confused, so I hope this makes sense for everyone.)
Neena nodded at the cellphone idea. She was fairly sure the teachers all had them, but not the Xmen.
"If we don't have enough, I think Chip might be able to duplicate enough of them."
In reply to Trcity's compliment, she remarked, "Probably remain sane," chuckled, and continued to tickle the little boy.
"All X-Men, trainees, and those that are interested in becoming a part of the team, please meet Miss Tipper and Miss Neena in the War Room for a manditory meeting immediately. This is an open call, so get your butts in there or..."
Neena grumbled at the same time as Tricity, though for different reasons. "I told him I hate that 'Miss' nonsense...."
The announcement was a catalyst; within minutes people began arriving, starting with Garrett and Raina. Or Seizure and Rain Water, as they said. Neena waved at them both, and cheerily returned their greetings.
Silver Streak came next, in an unusually dramatic way. Neena felt like she was in a Keystone Cops rerun as she watched the silver man enter with a slide, hit the far wall, go through it, then come back in the same way.
Jeramya's entered next, and for a moment she was confused by his kneeling action. Thinking it was possibly a custom from the centuries he'd lived in before, she was about to address it when Sam entered the room, and also made a dramatic introduction. She shivered at the sight of the ice golem, and moved away, grimacing.
"Sorry," she apologized to him. "Neat trick, but you know how I feel about the cold."
She noticed another youth slip in, a brown-eyed boy she'd never met or seen before. And right behind him came Ghost, and Neena grinned. Finally making her way to Jeramya, she greeted them both at the same time.
"This is Ghost, and Jeramya," she introduced them to Tricity, and pushed them both to move further into the room. "Ghost is one of the new Trainees, and Jeramya is our resident stone shifter."
She felt someone tap her shoulder, and turned to see the DocProf standing behind her in the doorway. She snickered.
"So you're an Xman now, eh Doc?"
"Hardly," was the good-natured, if a bit monotone reply. "But it is my job to make sure this team remains fit for duty." She nodded, and moved aside so he could make his way to Tricity's side. He stood behind the Headmistress, surveying those gathered.
Feeling the presence of someone behind her, and someone rather tall, Neena bent backwards a bit. She found herself looking up at a man she hadn't seen before. His greeting indicated he knew Tricity, as well as the DocProf.
"Is there a reason everyone is staring at me?" the man asked. Neena couldn't help herself; she chuckled.
"Doesn't everyone stare at tall people at first?" She held out her hand, totally unintimidated, as usual. "I'm Neena. Nice to meet you...." She let her words trail off so he could fill in his name.
Then she began turning in a circle, checking to see who was missing of the team. She didn't see Nika or Raven Fire, or Calley, nor some of the older team members either. Come to think of it, other than Tricity, Raina, and Silver Streak, Neena didn't see any of the old team yet.
"I got some rest, but this kid can be a handful. Boy, does he like you."
Neena grinned, then at the little one. "I know I'm funny looking," she told him teasingly. "I can't help it. It's in the DNA."
"So... I've been hearing a couple of troublesome things."
She gave Tricity her attention, though still playing with the baby.
"Though know, I don't blame ANY thing on you. There can really be no blame to pass around for all the crazy things that happen around here."
While that statement might have worried or intimidated anyone else, the African woman merely chuckled. "Personally, I blame Leeyio," she replied, naming the Masaai version of Adam. "Since he's not around to defend himself, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it."
"Xavier popped into my head to give me a brief update, but I want to hear it from you and not a go-between."
"Fair enough," she nodded. She pulled up a chair and sat next to Tricity. "Let's see.... Um.... Let's start with just after you left."
She glanced at the ceiling, gathering events in proper order in her mind.
"Quite a bit of it is mundane and not really earth-shattering. Rebuilding went quickly, with very few hitches, as you can see. We've had an influx of new residents, and a few new students, including a girl with leeches in her body, a boy who can and does eat anything, a kid who's blood is radioactive, a light manipulator, a gargoyle, and a boy with fins and webbed hands and feet. A couple have mutations that could possibly prove dangerous, but so far there hasn't been any incident, so I'm not overly worried. The computer list and files are updated, so you can scan them whenever you need to. Oh! And I hired Raina as the new Music Teacher. She needed help with visa issues, and with her voice, it only seemed a logical solution."
"I did call a meeting of the Xmen just after you left, and let them know you were taking a brief hiatus. All of the Trainees were upgraded to full status, and a new Trainee joined us. You remember Silver Streak? From the Camps? I spent a session with him in the Danger Room, and I think he's going to be a real asset. Let's see.... we reintroduced everyone to each other and talked for a bit. Emerald and I got off on the wrong foot, I think, our views on justice and revenge being fairly different. I haven't seen her for a while, actually, and haven't had a chance to talk with her privately."
Neena frowned slightly, but continued on, playing with Sevion's fingers idly.
"We've made several new recruits. Let's see.... Sam is an ice manipulator, Garrett is a neural manipulator, and Ghost is an air elemental. There have been others expressing interest as well, but I haven't had a chance to get together with them. Speaking of those three....."
She sighed deeply.
"That was one major problem we've had. I can't prove it yet, but someone I think is one of Syn's flunkies invaded the Mansion and attacked Ghost. Garrett took the hit instead, and lost control of his powers. I sent Streak and Nika to KP to investigate, but it looks like another Haywire attack. No one was severely hurt, but the attack took everyone by surprise."
She paused, then added, "We really need to consider some other security options. We added hidden cameras and motion detectors into the estate privacy wall, and Jonathon's been monitoring them. But this guy is some kind of teleporter, so...." she shrugged helplessly.
"The kids themselves are a handful as it is. Teaching them how to control themselves is one thing. Protecting them from malicious intent is something entirely different. Garrett suggested some kind of commlink to help us keep track of each other. But I'm kind of at a loss for what else to add."
She grimaced slightly, and a bit comically, an expression little Sevion seemed to find amusing.
"So, how's that for a 'Welcome Home' speech? I know I'm forgetting something, too," she added.
¨helloooo heello lady . don't mess with me , you have to be kidding ... you don't remember the amazing and almighty Iron Mouth ? the man that can eat all he want without harm ? the legend that surpass the limits of humanity ?
Iron Mouth? Oh, Neena remembered him, all right.
... and this little cute lady is Rosemary and she is ...¨
Rosemary? Rosemary, Rosemary.... She didn't know a Rosemary that young.
"Hello, Neena. It's me, Nash. You remember, don't you? I'm the leech girl. I went to school here for a few years some time ago."
Nash? Well now! How could she forget a gal with such a unique mutation?
Neena smiled and emerged fully into the hallway. "I haven't seen the pair of you in years. It sounds like neither of you have changed much."
She maneuvered the hallway to the foyer, avoiding obstacles easily despite the off-centered stare of her sightless eyes. She didn't need her guiding staff inside of the Mansion, nor the aid of her few working visions.
She paused near the little girl and tilted her head. "Rosemary, eh? What a lovely name. I'm Neena, kiddo. A pleasure to meet you."
Straightening up, she turned in the older pair's direction, and held her arms open for a hug. "And to what do we owe this reunion?"
Neena took Luke's silence as unease at her question.
"That's a subject I don't normally talk about...."
She'd been right.
"....but since Calley already knows I suppose it won't hurt to let his friends know too. There was one incident while I was in Europe that I mentioned to you earlier...."
She cocked her head and held his gaze curiously, whether he could tell or not. To match his serious tone, she respectfully didn't interrupt.
"....The crimes I had seen in the country side of Europe were even more prevelant here so I decided to do something about it. I put together a special suit of clothes to wear in combat and I started doing something about the crime."
He paused, then added, "I'm not powerful enough to face other mutants but I can take down your average perp just fine. It's my part to help stop the problem... even if it's not much."
She couldn't repress a small smile at that confession. "No dollar can be made without pennies, m'friend," she remarked, "nor a beach without grains of sand. Your 'not much' is more than nothing, which automatically makes it something. Even if it is a bit 'Batman'ish." She chuckled, not being able to resist.
"Do you work alone, or with others?"
Her motives behind that question weren't entirely unselfish curiosity. If Luke had such a drive to make the world safer and better, even on a small scale, then possibly he could be talked into an alliance with the Xmen. Or, even better, into becoming part of the team himself. If he had associations with others, that would be even better. The Syn's little group had become bold as of late, and Neena found herself becoming fidgety with their activities. Any alliances the Xmen could acquire would be more than helpful.
