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.
The sudden wind took Slate by surprise. Not because there was no warning: there was certainly enough of that. Perhaps he had not believed, up until that moment, that Zephyr truly had forgotten how to use his abilities. The wind blast went wide: it was all Slate could do to keep his feet.
His grip on the gun slipped. He fumbled to catch—
>> Watch out, she's com—
The woman made a noise low in her throat; not quite a hiss, and not quite a growl. She kicked off towards the chandelier; a midpoint on her way to eviscerating the amnesiac aeromancer.
--Slate dropped the gun.
>> --ing.
The woman landed on the chandelier. The ray gun fired. The blast of energy was blinding: it reflected in the marble floors and the mirrored ceiling, shooting upwards. (Slate took this time to fall on his behind: it seemed a safe course of action to take.)
Half of the chandelier disappeared. The woman was on the other half. Suffice it to say that her momentum was broken: her claws dug in as, her eyes wide and stunned white, the chandelier came crashed to the floor. She was on the wrong side when it landed.
There was a groan, but it was not a particularly healthy one.
Slate tentatively picked back up the gun, and got to his feet.
Slate was unclear as to whether the lightmancer was still alive. Certainly, he was still moving—but that might just be a result of what the woman was—
Slate dragged his gaze upwards, again. The man down the hall chuckled under his breath.
>> So, why don't you give me a quick summary on how I usually use my powers in combat?
...From what I have seen, Slate stated, you seem to favor wind ‘blades’, as it were—a sudden directed release of air, with enough force behind it to cut. Slate thought a moment. What else had the air elemental done, on the footage of the Mansion brawl? Ah, he added. You also fly.
As for Slate’s combat abilities? So far he had faced an explosives user, and had his arm blown off. Been caught by a human, and stabbed. Attempted to help an electricity mancer, and been killed.
...He knew how to do a backward fall in Judo without hurting himself. He was still working on forward falls.
I suppose I could just shoot them both, Slate stated, less than ideally.
It was at that moment that the woman sat back. She batted the man under her with her hand; he didn’t move. Her eyes flicked the light purple of a little girl whose second-favorite toy has broken.
She looked up at them. Her eyes blinked to hopeful blue. “Do you mind?” She asked over her shoulder, to the man.
“Be my guest,” he replied, with a gracious sweep of his hand.
She turned back towards them. Her eyes blinked to black.
The little wind zephyrs, the man’s chosen namesake, were uselessly cute.
Can you fathom the damage that this weapon could do? Slate returned. You saw the power in a single shot, by a single weapon. What if someone were to copy its construction? I must bring this back to the labs for proper des—
A very wet CRISHACK sounded from their feet. Slate did not look down.
...destruction, he finished, rather lamely. This is why I required backup. In case of things going horribly wrong. As things seemed to do, with such gleeful regularity. Can’t you... do something? He asked the amnesiac aeromancer, as the grunt’s purple tail swished. He was between them and the exit, and he did not look intimidated by the thought of taking on the both of them before his partner ‘finished’.
...Is your mutation emotionally triggered? I could aggravate you, perhaps.
There was a chandelier overhead: it reflected onto the marble floors below, except in the areas the blood was beginning to spread.
...Ah. Yes. The Kabal Leader stood impassively as his fellow company head tensed; the defensive stance he instinctively took on spoke well of his training. The man was a member of the X-Man, after all.
>> "I'm afraid I've never met someone named Slate, but you have a striking resemblance to Calley Swartz. And since people don't change body language over night... are you related?"
A striking resemblance, indeed. Slate made no particular move as he replied; Luke’s reaction to him was quite justified, and this would be a most unfortunate location for things to escalate. Particularly for him. Particularly since he did not have any defensive stances to fall back into, instinctive or not, despite the continued efforts of the Labs judo club.
“Calley is my brother, unfortunately. We are twins.” Also unfortunately. “I must apologize for his actions against you at King Pharmaceuticals. He...” Didn’t usually maul people? Wasn’t an immature brat? Slate started the sentence, but was not entirely certain how to finish it. Instead, he tried to redirect the topic.
“How are your injuries? I did my best, but I fear I am still learning the extent of my own abilities. You were... in quite poor shape. Were there any lasting effects?” It was more comfortable to speak of Luke’s healing than his mauling. Particularly since, if one wished to be technical, Caleb Swartz had done them both. ‘Twin brothers’, indeed.
((ooc: Nice post, Tris. <3 your description of the sudden lack of Hunter-commands.))
>> “I…..ummmm……no way……he wouldn't.... Wait, what? And what, what did you do to me?”
Unintentionally impacted her intelligence, apparently. Slate used his spare arm—no pun intended—to rub a bead of sweat away from his eye.
“I put you back in control of your own mind,” the teenager deadpanned. “By all means, thank me later. For now: there is still the matter of your employment. Will you work for me?”
There was still the matter of the gun to her head, as well, but that was hardly up for discussion.
Sebastian stood. Stood on Slate’s lap; sprang off. And began to promptly throttle the feline mutant, with a gentlemanly handkerchief between them.
>> “Why?”
Lee stood in quick order, as well: she was saying something, but he had trouble focusing on the words. There was a swash-tailing fight playing out mere feet away, after all. All he really took note of was her movement: all that really stuck in his mind was that he’d given the order, and she had stood, too.
Tarin remained sitting. This complicated things.
Ms. Nobes was—what was the expression?—glaring daggers at him. She would not soon forget this. She would be a very unfortunate enemy to have; a quite strong ally, but a very unfortunate enemy. If his healing of the other three had corrupted them to his will in some way, then it would have—perhaps—been a simple thing to let her die here. A waste, but a simple waste to make.
Tarin, however, did not stand.
And Lee’s words finally began to register with him:
>> "What the hell do you think you're doing? Tell him to stop, and then we're going to have a bit of a chat."
An acceptable idea. Yes. Very. “Stop trying to kill Sara. Stop trying to kill Sara!”
He was not quite certain when he himself had stood. Under his Colombian tan, the blood had drained from his skin; his palms were pressed flat against the table. His chair had collided with the wall behind him, and was slowly turning. He was glad Sara was not dead. She, perhaps, might not hold the same sentiments for him.
“I’m so sorry, Sebastian,” he began. “I... did not know that I had—I will try to reverse it, if you will let me.” ‘If you will let me’. The courtesy might be somewhat mocking, given the situation. ‘If’, indeed.
As for Ms. Nobes: baby blue eyes simply looked at her. He did not even know where to begin.
>> You think they were really daft enough to leave the entrance unguarded?...
One can hope. One can always hope. Right up until the moment when one’s hopes are dashed in a wash of sharp light, and a blur of movement from a woman whose eyes changed color. Currently, they were a deliriously pleased viridian. It wasn’t often she was allowed to play. Only when someone caused trouble.
Thieves running off without properly paying for their merchandise were causing trouble.
The lightmancer crashed to the floor at Slate and Zephyr’s feet, the woman on his back. Two hands and twelve claws flexed, with catlike playfulness, into his back. The man screamed. Her eyes blinked to a fond yellow as she leaned her head down, and licked the wounds like a mother cat tending to her kittens.
“She only picks one target at a time, you know.” A calm voice said from their right. “One of you might get away. You don’t want to be the one she catches, though.” It was the other guard that had greeted them, when they’d first come in. The one with a purple lion’s tail, and a few extra joints in his limbs. He was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. At their feet, the lightmancer screamed again. “Put that gun and anything else you’ve stolen down, and walk away before she’s done. I won’t say a thing to her if you do.” It was good advice.
The secretary was very polite, very professional, and a woman. Slate took these three characteristics fore granted, to be honest: his primary experience with secretaries was with Lisa and Noin Mortman. Still, he thought he detected a hint of surprise when he replied to her question.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes,” the blue-eyed teenager had replied. “I am Slate Swartz; the CEO of Mondragon Labs. I have a meeting with Mr. Jacobs.” Mr. Luke Jacobs, to be specific. Jacobs & Jacobs, perhaps, had more than one. Behind him, boxes of what appeared to be printer paper were being cleared out of the lobby’s side, under the watchful gaze of another Jacobs & Jacobs employee. A somewhat irate-looking one. Slate paid them little mind.
“Oh,” the secretary said. “I’ll send you right up.”
He was escorted by another employee, deeper across the polished floors; up an elevator, where a tastefully decorated hallway deposited him into the care of another secretary. Also polite, also professional, also a woman. Slate was introduced to her by his escort; hands were shaken, and a conference room door was opened for him.
>> "Hello. I'm Luke Jacobs."
The man was older than him by perhaps a decade; perhaps two or three, if you counted Slate’s age a different way. He had well kept brown hair and a professional air; he was seated towards the center of the table, in front of an assortment of light snacks. All in all, Luke Jacobs looked much better than he had at the brawl.
“Ah,” Slate said, blinking once in surprise. “I had not realized we’d met before. Good morning, Mr. Jacobs. I am Slate Swartz, of Mondragon Labs Medical. You’re looking well. How have you been?”
It did not occur to him that Luke might not likewise remember him. Unconscious men sometimes had such memory problems.
This was an eloquent recounting of recent events. Quite... accurate. Slate cringed slightly in polite acknowledgement.
>> "You go ahead."
“Right,” Slate agreed simply, because he suspected—fairly accurately—that the mercenary did not want the ray gun behind him. For previously demonstrated reasons. Slate hugged the gun more tightly to his chest, and started running again. Though not so fast as to worry about his footing: of that, he was suddenly being very, very careful. Tripping did not seem healthy, somehow.
>> Who designed that thing to go off so easily anyway?...
Doctor Ingram, Slate replied levelly. He is not allowed to design weapons anymore. The Kabal’s Leader left it at that.
The back area was lined with items up for auction next, or those that had just had their turn on the stage. They weren’t the only ones to come this way. A handful of opportunist mutants had snuck back here when the chaos began; Slate spied two of the auction’s guards, unconscious on the floor. A man with a dog tail was wearing the tiara Slate had purchased earlier, and shoving the pockets of his suit full of portable valuables. He froze as the two teenagers burst into the room, then broke into a toothy grin as he saw the ray gun. His tail wagged merrily.
“Nice pick,” he said. “Careful getting out with it—there might still be some guards left.”
“Thanks,” Slate said, and kept running. This seemed an appropriate response to a thief with a dog tail, wearing a tiara.
The back door lead out into the reception hall, now much more barren.
There were times when Slate very much wished for laser beam vision. Super strength and a monkey tail would not go amiss, either. Really, he wished for anything more useful than his own abilities, in situations such as this. And he did seem to be finding himself in these situations, with disturbing regularity.
There had, for example, been the time when Trista Evans had taken offense to his new contract proposition. And blown off his arm. Granted that he was able to heal it back, but somehow, it did not seem quite the same.
There had also been, very recently, the time in which a drug lord’s flunkie had tied both he and Tarin up, and begun to torture them publically. The man had pointed out that Slate’s healing just meant he could take lethal damage repeatedly without actually dying. Slate had not particularly liked the look in the man’s eyes as he had demonstrated this. Lee had saved them both.
And now, before his eyes, there was rather a heated battle. His attempted tackle had done nothing. Since that really was the best he could do...
>> “Slate? Best let go. The grown ups need to play.
Yes. That summed it up, somewhat ruthlessly.
The blue eyed teenager let go of the man’s legs and, with all due uselessness, got out of Lenna and the red headed man’s way. He felt an odd moment of camaraderie with Cortez at that moment: neither of them was going to decide the outcome, here. They were just... sitting quietly until the grown ups were doing playing.
The blue-eyed teenager followed his amnesiac employee towards the front, running in Zephyr’s wake. If nothing else, the regular training he’d been doing with the Labs staff had left him with enough stamina to jump a few chairs.
Electric light flashed behind them; a static charge set the hair on the back of his neck on edge. Blinky was crackling energy as she and the other two women joined the line of baddies jostling to put the superheroes in their place. This, most assuredly, could only turn out well.
Yes.
Slate kept running.
>> You take the gun, I'll cover for you. We need to find anoher exit.
There should be one up here, Slate replied, as he vaulted onto the stage. Stairs were for those with slightly more time, and an inclination to be caught in pointless fights. It has to connect to the hall where the items were displayed; they had to bring things in somehow, without walking through the audience. Unless they had a teleporter hiding behind the stage curtains. Slate sincerely hoped they did not have a teleporter hiding behind the stage curtains.
The auctioneer seemed long gone; he wasn’t paid for brawls. Slate wrapped his arms around the ray gun, lifting it from the display table. It was really quite a bit heavier than it looked—
>> Just don't shoot anyone, please.
The teenager gave a deadpan stare to his acquaintance. I am not going to—
Slate dropped the gun.
It went off, with a fantastic burst of solid light. The beam sped over the heads of the people still in the room, and exploded against the ceiling above the posing superheroes.
Aforementioned ceiling section proceeded to drop down upon their heads. Granted that one of them threw up some kind of energy shield in time, but it was safe to say that the boys on the stage had their attention.
“Whoot!” Blinky cheered, mistaking Slate’s shock for some kind of camaraderie. “I knew I liked you two!”
The XX-Women were less pleased. “You dare—!” one of them, a girl about Zephyr and Slate’s age, but with quite a few more tentacles, began to say.
“You dare attack your teammates,” Creepy ordered, with something close to a yawn.
The squid girl blinked once, then promptly sucked herself on to her fiery leader’s face.
The exit, Slate mildly noted, as this distraction ensued, appears to be right there. He picked up the gun—with a distinctly more solid grip—and nodded his head to an open doorway on the far side of the stage. A promising direction to go.
“Agreed,” Slate stated, simply. “Your Alcoholics Anonymous meetings will begin immediately. In six months, if you are indeed holding to your side of the contract, I will find this man for you, and give you his location.”
He did not expect the man in question to survive the encounter; six months of relative sobriety from the giant shifter, however... might be worth the price of one of his usual murders.
“I will take care of any interest accumulated by that delay, of course.” It was a necessary delay: he had minimal hope that Bacchus would continue to hold his end of their deal after the man was dealt with, after all. The man... simply was not that honorable.
Slate discovered something, as the next few moments passed: he did not respect Senor Cortez.
Two mutant guards when they had first entered: protection against a teenager, and a guest.
Some manner of shock device, to control his own employee. His female employee.
A row of oh-so-intimidating stone lions outside, leading to two guards with large guns; two more guards, who had apparently been listening at the door like schoolboys. And one in the closet; clearly, not a metaphor for anything else in the Senor’s life.
So much blatant paranoia over a little boy; one that Cortez himself had invited in. So much paranoia, and yet the man had made just that mistake—he had invited Slate in, without even knowing how the Kabal Leader’s powers worked. For all he knew, the teenager could re-write his mind from across the room. He had made the most basic of mistakes: complete underestimation of his enemy.
As chaos and guns swirled around them, Slate sincerely wished he could show the man that mistake. It was very annoying, in fact, that he couldn’t. He had been correctly underestimated.
Well. Mental attacks failing, there were still four guards much more concerned with the gun-welding women than with the thin teenager. Therefore, Slate threw himself at the back of the redhead’s knees, in a tackling hug. With great dignity.
It was actually hard for Slate to not see the man’s sudden, graphic urges. They were mildly irksome.
Noin, please have the usual team stand by. Mr. Bacchus is fantasizing over my death. Again. Really, it was like a broken record: a thought on repeat. How Slate expected more from the man, he did not know. His communications with the front desk were unlikely to be overheard, since this time they had a distinct target.
>> “Sober? I am Sober, wish I wasn’t though the fact that I can still hear some tapping sound of pencil on paper in the next room over, I drink because I have poor control over my senses when I am this size… Alcoholism runs in my family, last thing I want is to resort to this stuff… but it helps reduce the sounds…”
“Then don’t resort to it, Mr. Bacchus,” the teenager said. “Train yourself for control.”
As opposed to curling up in a fetal position around a liquid-centered crutch, and blaming your mutation on it.
That thought, now, stood a chance of interception.
>> “You speak of Merit but what your asking of me is making things far more dangerous for me, I killed with out hesitation for the order and now that I will have to refuse it due to an order from you, makes things very suspicious…”
“It is only suspicious if you make it suspicious, Mr. Bacchus. If you create a reason for it, they will believe it. You are not dealing with an organization of criminal masterminds. As I suggested already, one plausible excuse is to bring less media attention to them; another would simply be ‘skill’. From what I have seen, your preferred methods require little by way of skill. Tell them you are challenging yourself to show more control; target your attacks, and learn the difference between lethal force and mere injuries. That would take much more skill.”
>> “I want to find him so I can pay what I owe him, I will not kill him, promise. He also happens to be one of the reasons I drink, I pay him back some of my problems go away...”
The Kabal’s Leader stared across the table at the man. “It sounds like this is very important to you,” he said simply.
“If you agree to limit yourself to three drinks per day—three twelve ounce drinks, of less than eighty proof—then I will agree to pay this man back for you.”
The offer was on the table. It would be curious to see which was more important to Bacchus: clearing this debt, or being a blatant alcoholic.
