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.
Slate made simple preparations, as things got under way. He tucked his mittens into his coat pockets. Cleared a space on the ground of debris, mostly with the side of his foot. Waited.
Baby blue eyes flicked now and then to the rescuers, somewhat worried. Mostly, they fell on Sara Nobes. WereCat. Her disguise seemed very fragile. All of theirs did. Sara wore a coat; the rest of them wore a human’s skin.
They would all be exposed before this was over, wouldn’t they?
Yes, if they were going to truly help.
Was it worth it?
Yes.
If some of the others died?
Yes.
If all of them died? Sara, Tarin, Sam, Circe—all of them?
...As long as he walked out of this country alive, yes. Of his own survival, he was reasonably confident: even if he was taken to the Camps, other Kabal members—and X-Men, and the Order, and the Underground—were waiting for some indefinable signal to occur. The breakout would come, and soon. It would succeed. New York’s mutants had already proved themselves in that regard, two years ago. In his own team’s ranks, he knew of at least two people who could and would spark that action: Lenna and Sebastian. He had left them no orders for it; no contingency plans for his own capture. Lenna simply had initiative. Sebastian had wisdom. They both had connections to New York’s other Factions. If he was captured, it was only a matter of time. He could wait.
As long as he put the loyalty command into the Senators here; as long as there were enough survivors to become a seed; as long as things were actually changed, then yes: it did not matter how many of the others died.
Yes.
Though it would prove very hard to replace them.
Some were good employees; some were good friends, or could be. He promised himself that if they survived, he would get to know them better. Sam, Silver Streak, Shin; his own people, as well. Perhaps that would make this a harder decision, the next time. He felt like it should be hard.
Sam was smiling quite a lot, Slate noted, perhaps in an attempt to rectify the situation. Circe was making knives, in an attempt... to do otherwise. A very effective attempt. Distinctly more effective than Sam’s, in fact.
>> “Loki. Go take a walk. I need to discuss with Circe and her friends alone. ...Cutie. Would you mind keeping company to Gabriel?”
Loki was running: Sam, hopefully, would be following on his heels. Pacifica was staying behind, still somewhat confident in her own abilities. Now was the time for the real plan to begin.
“Go, Sam!” He seconded. The speed at which Loki was sprinting left no doubt that the X-Leader and Circe had been right: Pacifica had her people, waiting in the wings. Clearly, Loki needed to be stopped. Go Sam, indeed.
<<Remember what I have told you earlier Slate. Timing our actions is the key.>>
He remembered. Circe was immune to Pacifica’s power if the Underground’s Leader tried to stop all attacks. If she focused her power on only Circe, she would be open to all other attacks. They simply had to force one or the other to occur, and act on Pacifica’s weaknesses.
Slate stood, and deliberately moved so that the table was no longer between him and their target. Pacifica had stood as well: it was not hard to predict where this was going. He slipped into one of the offensive stances he had learned at judo practice. The stance was perfect. The Underground’s Leader did not need to know how very unrefined at the actual martial arts he was: she only needed to think that he was a threat. Slate was not entirely certain how to knock the woman out: therefore, he planned only to distract her powers from Circe, and let his very capable employee handle the rest.
The teenager stepped forward, his body crouching low as he aimed to take her off her feet with a basic morote gari move. It wasn’t very good: his form left openings everywhere. The Labs secretaries would have him on the ground within moments, leaving his spinning brain to figure out how they’d done it.
((ooc: Sorry for the delay! I think I’m going to duck out with this post, so you two can keep RPing without waitin’ on me. )
>> "What are you wearing?!"
Zephyr looked down at herself. Lily’s manly cheeks blushed. Slate blinked questioningly, and tilted his head.
>> “I’ve never encountered Ms. Lafayette before today, as for licentious physics, yours is the only name which springs to mind, perhaps if you are done gawking at Ms. Lafayette’s body though we might move on to more profitable endeavors? Possibly retracting our steps from the previous day?”
He gave up his search for the fashion crime Zephyr had committed, and drew his gaze back up to their respective (though reversed) faces.
“That sounds like a reasonable idea. I think I will leave you to it. Miss Lily, when you are done here, please be sure to give your banking details to one of the secretaries. As promised, you are entitled to triple Zephyr’s usual commission.” He smiled. It was partly for her, and partly for one of life’s more simple joys: paying someone else for doing Zephyr’s job. “Thank you for your help today. If you ever wish to join the Kabal, consider your audition already passed.”
With a respectful nod to each of them, the Kabal’s Leader left the room.
Yes, he’d been aware of the Order’s involvement. He could follow a simple Twitter feed, thank you, as well as the evening news: discovering the true identity of the Underground’s ‘Red Liberty’ was something a two-year-old could do. Quite literally.
Frankly, he did not know how to convince the woman. It was a frustrating thing: she was here in front of him. They were speaking. Yet she did not seem to acknowledge the logic in his and Sam’s words, nor the counter-productivity of her own actions. How did you convince someone like that?
Fortunately, he could ponder that question another day, with another person. Pacifica would be ‘convinced’ soon enough.
“My thoughts on mutant supremacy are irrelevant,” Slate stated simply. “My thoughts on your actions are not. The humans struck the first blow, Ms. Pacifica, but it is you who are tearing your country apart.” Again: quite literally. He would, preferably, like something to be left standing at the end of this.
“We offer you an alliance, Ms. Pacifica. A powerful one. Please realize, however, that we have no intentions of letting you interfere with our methods. You can choose to ally with us or not. Your destructive actions, however, will stop.”
Not to make the woman feel threatened, or anything. Really, they would not want that.
His scarf was missing. He neck was cold. His head hurt. The ceiling was concrete.
Slate’s first thoughts upon awakening were lacking in both length and complexity. That was okay: his head hurt. Who had taken his scarf? Where was he?
He turned to puzzling the first question. First and foremost, because he had thought of it first (and his head hurt). Secondly, because his neck was cold. Thirdly, because it was the more important of the two.
Calley had given him that scarf. It was slate gray—it said so on its tag. It was made of wool, and he liked the way its thick folds scratched at his face. It was not the kind of scarf that let you forget you were wearing it. He had been wearing it, he was quite sure, when he had—
Ah. Had he passed out? He seemed to recall police, but he did not recall if he had said anything to them. His head had hurt then, too. Because... he had healed too many people, too fast? (And, perhaps, done something else to them while he was at it.) Yes. That explained why his head hurt.
It did not explain his missing scarf.
Slowly, Slate pushed himself upright, edging himself higher on his elbows. He was on... the floor? It was of an average comfort level, as floors went.
Voices began to register in his ears. They had probably been talking all along. Their voices did not help much, with the issue of his head. And the hurting. There was something cold on his neck, where his slate gray scarf should be. He reached up to touch it, with one hand. It was metal, and bulky. Ah. That would be a shock collar, yes. He had heard of them. The police must have brought him to the Camps, then. The Romanian mutant internment camps.
Oh, and look.
They were throwing Sam.
(The noise he made when he hit the ground, in the cell across the hallway, was not pleasant. It was too loud: it made Slate’s head hurt. More.)
>> "You alright, Ghost?”
Ghost? That was not good. He slowly stood, using the wall as support to totter his way closer to the cell’s bars. He leaned against them, and looked across the hall.
“Ms. Csendes?” He asked quietly. “Why are you here?” If it was the Kabal’s fault, Sebastian would be most displeased with him. After a moment, he lifted a hand, and gave a small wave to his fellow Faction Leader. His hand looked very pale, and very cold.
>> “I most certainly will. I’m guessing you don’t have a bathing suit? I could take you shopping if you like but my funds are… limited, you could say. Also-”
Slate was about to mention her coming paychecks, and his ability to pay for his own swimsuit... when the Finger stood up. He closed his mouth, and sat up a little straighter. He had never met with the Finger before, but its stern, eyeless gaze was unmistakably telling him to listen.
>> “-No speedos, or bird smugglers or whatever they’re called here.”
Bird... smugglers? At a pool? Why would he want to smuggle birds at (or to) a—?
>> “-Board shorts at the very least. Rash top, optional. You might not want one to start out with, they can be a little heavy when they’re wet if you’re not used to them.”
Rash tops did not sound pleasant. Heavy ones, most particularly not. “Board shorts will be sufficient,” he hurried to assure her.
His smile slipped back onto his face. “Thank you, Ms. Verdigris. I quite look forward to returning from my trip, now. I think you will make an excellent employee.” For some reason, his blush decided to return in time for his next words. Really, he did not understand the logic behind it. It wasn’t as if he was embarrassed. “And an excellent friend.”
>> “Well, kids are supposed to learn thing, know things, by what they experience. I mean, I can swim now because when I was little my father threw me into the pool again and again until I could do it.”
Was that... really how people learned to swim? Slate blink, blinked. He would like to learn, he decided. Though that method sounded... somewhat worrisome. Since she knew how to swim already, though, she would simply save him if he drowned, right? Yes. Yes, he would like to learn.
>> “I won’t throw you into a pool, of course, but you know what I mean.”
...Apparently he did not. So there would be no swim lessons, then? It was simply an example. He made his face neutral, to keep the disappointment off of it.
>> “People react to things because of what they learned as a child. I’ll take you out and teach you how to skip rocks across a lake, show you the fun of Cowboys and Indians. Find you a dress-up box. All the things kids should know. ...And how to climb trees, that’s very important. Everyone should have things to remember when life gets a bit crazy.”
What was ‘Cowboys and Indians’? And a... ‘dress-up box’? For some reason, those words made him think of Katrina, and how she sometimes used her illusions to change through several appearances at a whim.
A smile broke out over Slate’s face. “I would like that very much. Though... if you would like...” He felt the blush coming back. It would be a good day, when he learned to control it. For now: it seemed to have a mind quite its own. “You could throw me into a few pools, as well. I would like to learn how to swim.”
>> “I’m nineteen as well, but I remember all of it I’m afraid. Not all good, but mostly.”
She was ‘afraid’? He tilted his head at that wording, curious. Not all good, indeed. Was it bad to remember bad things, though? Apparently so. He supposed he wouldn’t know. He himself did not have any particularly bad—
The image of the man from Colombia came rather suddenly before his eyes. The feeling as the knife slid in cleanly below his ribs, tearing its way upwards—
>> “So you don’t have any childhood at all?”
He blinked back to the present. Ah. Bad memories: yes. He could see why those would be... fearful.
>> “Would you like to make one? I could help you, if you’d like.”
Another head tilt: the other way. “You could help me... make a childhood? How so?”
He was curious. And he would like very much to distract his mind from further memories. The Colombian was not the worst, now that Slate thought about it.
>> “Wow. ...That’s really, wow, I mean, I knew it would be cool but that’s really. Really cool.”
The girl’s excitement spilled over, then—just as abruptly—she bottled it back inside. Slate thought he recognized the emotion: embarrassment. His mouth decided that the appropriate reaction was a small smile.
Heh.
>> “So, how old are you?”
“Ah,” he started, withdrawing his own hand. That was a somewhat complicated question. “I am... technically nineteen. I only remember the past two years of my life, or thereabouts, however.” He replied, with his own embarrassment. (When his face felt this hot, it was indeed embarrassment.) “Before the Registration Act is... somewhat blurry.” Nonexistent, in fact. Calley owned those memories.
The Registration Act had nothing to do with it, really—it was coincidence only that his ‘birth’ had occurred just before the Act went into effect. Still, he had found that mentioning the coincidence tended to halt further questions. People heard those words, and jumped to assumptions.
Assumptions were much less embarrassing than the truth: she had just been hired by a mental disorder. An intelligent mental disorder, thank you... but a mental disorder nonetheless. Slate was Calley’s split personality. The splintering aspect of Calley’s mutation really was unhealthy, if one thought about it too long.
Slate preferred not to think about it at all.
“How about you?” He asked, his cheeks still red. “How old are you?”
“That reminds me—we will finance one apartment, if you wish, as part of our standard contract. If you would like to keep your living arrangements fiscally separate from your employment, we would have no problem with that, of course. The option merely exists.”
“One of the secretaries will go over the details of our contract with you, as well as setting up a bank account—unless you have your own. A discrete one, of course.”
“When we have a mission for you, you will be contacted. Until then—please, continue as you were.”
The teenager smiled, and offered his hand. “Welcome to the Kabal, Ms. Lenna.”
>> “I think I would be more confident using a Blackberry, and by the time you come back I hope to be staying here, yes, I just have to fill in some forms. If not, well, there’s a Japanese food place, called mountain pass. In the back alley behind there is where I spend a lot of my time.”
Slate gave a nod. If she was implying, perhaps, that she was homeless... well, it did not really carry the same stigma in the mutant world as it did in the human one. Many mutants Slate knew had been homeless at one point, himself included. Or his brother Calley, rather—he himself had not yet been born, at the time.
“I will find you,” he replied simply.
>> “So, healing huh? Cool.”
“May I have your hand?” Slate asked, offering his own across the table. “My healing works through physical contact, you see.” Physical contact and permission. If she offered her hand to compliment that ‘cool’, he was fairly certain it would qualify as ‘permission.’ It was a strange way of saying it, however. Was that how people their age were supposed to talk? Slate made a note of it: cool.
If she did offer her hand, the effect would be almost instantaneous: Slate would look thoughtful for a moment, and then any current bruises, scratches, or likewise that she currently had would simply... cease.
A break. That might be good, yes. Slate paused a moment to erase the bruises from his feet. He blinked over at his dancing companion, and future employee.
“If you would permit me,” he asked, “I can heal,” he blushed slightly: these were wounds induced by his own trampling, after all; “your feet.”
The tables seemed a fair destination, indeed.
>> “You’ll have to tell me what I should wear and everything, also where this… Mondragon place is, I’d offer you a number to contact me on with details and everything but, I don’t have one.”
Like many people, there was an unconscious area Slate looked, when he was trying to recall something. In his case, ‘Mondragon Labs dress code’ seemed to be stored somewhere high up, and to the left. For a Kabal employee, there was no set dress code... but Kabal matters were best left until they were not in a swirling crowd of Mansion students and X-Men, with a scattering of Order members. For a Mondragon Labs secretary, he was quite sure what the girl was currently wearing was... not quite appropriate. Particularly the blood stains; those would have to go.
“I believe business attire is the most appropriate. A skirt suit would be fine.” He stated after a moment, trying to recall what Noin Mortman and the other secretaries were generally wearing, outside of judo practice. He blinked again at the girl in front of him, then tactfully added, “You will receive a stipend for buying work clothes. We will have to get you a work phone, as well. Do you have a preference between a blackberry and an iPhone? Those seem to be the most popular options. I have a... slight business trip coming up. When I return, is there anywhere I can contact you? Are you staying here at the Mansion?”
Circe, Tarin, Sam, and Ms. Nobes. They appeared quickly. He was rather grateful for their arrival: it gave him the tools to do more than simply stare.
>> "Nice text, by the way. I'm assuming we didn't have any people in there."
“I hope not,” Slate stated mildly. Of the four others present, he was only confident that one of them would know the name ‘Fausto Martense.’ That person was not a Kabal member. Nor had Iron Mouth’s potential usefulness as a tie to the Mansion been exhausted.
Fausto had been the one to send the warning. Slate could only presume that he was safe.
>> "It looks like Sam is going to put out the flames. He might be able to stabilize parts that are left of the structure too. Somebody other than me needs to take charge and tell people what to do. With current events, and as usual, people are going to take orders better from someone who at least looks normal."
“That would not be me,” Slate said, easing his mittens off of his hands. “I’ll be healing the survivors, soon.” All three of his Kabal members likely remembered what his ‘healing’ also meant. “Most people find it easier to accept direction from adults, in any case. Tarin—do you think you could direct things? Is there any way you can contact the spirits, of the dead, and use them to find where survivors are?” Slate had no way of knowing the burden he’d put on Tarin, by bringing him this close to so many new spirits.
“WereCat—could you help S...” The cat-like woman had already started walking towards the X-Leader. Right, then.
“Circe—you’ve been training as a nurse at the Mansion, have you not? Could you see to it that they bring the Senators closest to death to me first, when they begin pulling them out?” Slate’s gaze went again to the X-Leader’s back. Sam seemed to be busy: two new arrivals from the X’s had joined him. Shin, Slate recognized, from a short basketball game last year. He didn’t recall ever having a formal introduction to ‘Silver Streak’, but the man’s information was in the Kabal’s files from Calley’s days. They all seemed rather intent on the Parliament. Not that Slate had to worry about being overheard.
If you could ensure their unconsciousness when they reach me, he instructed Circe further, that would be most helpful.
He had no desire to deal with willful Senators. He trusted that they would be much more agreeable, the next time they awoke.
Sam did not seem entirely pleased with the change of location. Slate gathered this by the man’s frown, and continued searching gaze around the square. Under other circumstances, he may have held a similar opinion. Given that Sam did not know the true mission, however... He rested his own trust in Circe’s judgments. Perhaps they should have told the X-Leader. Perhaps the man would have agreed on things, given his own suggestion that they ‘deal’ with Pacifica. Slate did not know the man well enough to predict his reaction, though, and quite a few lives would be affected by today’s outcome for good or ill.
Perhaps he would tell Sam afterwards.
Perhaps not.
In any case, it was a thought for another time. Pacifica was here. He let Circe handle the initial banter, simply observing Pacifica and her man. Another thought: in the near future, he should ask someone to teach him how to read a person simply through ‘observation.’ He gathered that neither of them were pleased, but that was as far as he could read. There was more information there, though—the way they dressed, the way Gabriel stood silently at Pacifica’s shoulder while his leader spoke, the way they each carried themselves. He saw these things, but held no confidence at interpreting them.
>> “Well, I’m here. Let’s talk.”
“Please have a seat,” he gestured amiably, rising politely from his own chair to offer his hand. “I am Slate.” As she no doubt already knew. Likewise, she knew his own Faction allegiance, as he knew hers. Trusting in everyone’s respective information networks, he curtailed the introductions.
“The actions you and the Underground are partaking in are escalating this situation. We agree with you that the registration law must be overturned, but not through arbitrary violence.” Targeted violence was another matter, of course. Personally, he’d quite enjoyed her ordered destruction of the National Bank. A sudden gouging in state funding had rather helped his own Faction’s efforts. Those scattered political assassinations had not been terrible, either, though they could benefit significantly from forethought. And a decrease in quantity. A true collapse in government would require a complete rethinking of his plans. It would be inconvenient, to say the least.
“We believe that our three Factions could form a formidable alliance, if we could agree upon a common plan. At present, however, your efforts are hindering ours.”
Slate had an intriguing craving for a cup of tea: not so much to drink, as to hold while he spoke. Curious. His hands did feel strangely edgy, simply resting in his lap.
‘Two left feet,’ Slate had determined, was an expression. Its meaning proved surprisingly painful. Through the foot-shaped bruises he was developing on the top of his own feet, however, he determined that her actual skeletal structure seemed (felt) entirely ordinary. ‘Two left feet’ meant, in plainer terms, that she had weaponized her pedal appendages.
Given that he did not know how to dance, though, Slate was reasonably confident that he—to borrow another expression—‘gave as good as he got.’ (He had always enjoyed the alliteration in that one.)
“I do not think we are doing this right,” the teenager confided into Verdy’s ear. They seemed to be wincing more than the other couples...
With regards to Circe’s deathly comments, his reply way simple: So long as the body is never found, nor the Kabal implicated in the crime, he stated, then I did not hear anything.
He had a no kill policy, yes. A ‘policy.’ There was, of course, some fine print attached.
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