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 man showed no particular reaction to the information; that was good. So far, this meeting was going much as the other meetings had gone. And those had ended in Slade, Circe, and Roland all resigning with him.
>> “This is news indeed. Mr ……”
"Slate," the brown haired teenager supplied at that prompt.
>> “The question of whether the contract is renewed or not depends on whether the contract remains unaltered. Also as a side note, may I ask what happened to Mr Antonescue?”
Slate gave a small nod to the man now seated across from him. "Two very good questions. To answer the first: Antonescu has gone aboard. His lack of continued interest in his American assets left them unsecured. Therefore, I have secured them." In a word: coup.
"Your first question has a more complicated answer," he replied, reopening the file in front of him. "You must forgive me for my ignorance; the file my predecessor left on you was particularly incomplete. What were the terms of your former contract, if I may ask?"
To be entirely honest, Slate had not even been able to determine if the man had been formally brought into the Kabal, or merely employed in another capacity. Likewise, while there was a mission noted--an "Operation Skeletons of the Closet"--its goals and result had been omitted. An interesting video had come up as he tried to research the man's role, but it shed no particular light on the matter. All Slate really knew was that the man was a mutant, and mutants tended to be particularly useful.
The man walked in, and stood at the end of the table closest to the door. Slate was at the far end; not at the head chair, but at one to its side. He nodded at the man's hello, and motioned to the chair across from him. He did not mind if the man stood. He had no wish to raise his voice in order to speak with the man, however.
"Please," he said simply, "make yourself comfortable. This conversation will either be very short, or very long."
The teenager closed the file in front of him. "To come to the point: I am the new leader of the Kabal. As such, you have the opportunity to forswear your allegiance to Hunter Antonescu and renew your contract under me. If you do not wish you do so, you may also leave the Kabal. You will be asked not to return to Mondragon Labs grounds and to keep our matters confidential, and, of course, you will no longer be on our payroll, but that is all."
"If you have any questions, you may ask them." The teenager blinked cold blue eyes at the older man. "If you are interested in my offer, I will also have some questions for you."
The papers were signed and slid back, and the pen was returned to his hand in a literal sense that seemed to bypass the laws of physics. Most mutant powers did have that effect, really. Slate clicked the pen shut, and set it back on the table as he slipped the renewed contract into its proper place in the folder.
The man was waiting. Frankly, Slate had been planning to dismiss him: by this point, the employees who had worked with Slate the most--Nigel, Melissa, and the Triforce--would have recognized that they were already dismissed. The man was waiting there, though, as if for orders.
And suddenly, an order did indeed come to mind.
"I want the Mona Lisa, Mr. Turpit," Slate said without preamble, "and I want it delivered to this address." He clicked the pen back open, and pulled a pad of paper out from the drawer in front of him; a left-handed scribble precisely wrote down the Sanctuary's address, with Syn's name as the addressee. "Stop back by the Labs before you deliver it," he said simply, with no allowance in his tone--not even a thought for it, really--for the man to fail. "I will have a note that I will wish delivered at the same time."
Given Antonescu's standing truce between the two Factions, Slate thought it appropriate to meet with the Order's young red-and-black themed leader. He suspected they shared some common interests. And women did like expensive presents, Slate had noticed.
He looked across the table at the man. "Unless you have questions," he stated, "you are dismissed."
Another day, another meeting with another Kabal employee. Slate rubbed at a sore shoulder, lightly massaging a growing bruise. Yes, he could heal it. No, he was choosing not to.
When one's shoulder is nearly dislocated by a twenty year old member of the secretarial staff--a rather petit young woman with a boy's cut of blonde hair best described as "cute", in fact--one should keep the bruise. He suspected it would help him remember to return to the training rooms later today, rather than to paperwork. The secretaries had been gently telling him that they were quite well trained at handling the paperwork, and had done so quite well before his coup. He was beginning to suspect that his invitation to their weekly training meeting, and his subsequent humiliation at said training, had been intended to subtly drive that point home: he should concern himself less with mundane tasks, and more with becoming strong enough to truly be the leader his employees deserved. Noin Mortman would make an excellent chess player, he suspected.
As for the matter of training: he knew he needed to establish a training regimen for his powers. He could ruin a person's mind, but he could do nothing less subtle without their complete consent. It seemed as if some middle ground would be appropriate to find. Yet the fact that he was the only one in Mondragon Labs who could not physically defend himself... it irked him. It irked him like a cute blonde twenty-year-old secretary pinning him to the training mats in one well-practiced move.
...Slate took a deep breath, and redirected his mind away from the memory. He removed his hand from his shoulder, and used it to page one last time through the file in front of him. Hades. If the man had another name, Antonescu had never bothered to put it into print. Likewise, exactly what the man's powers were was unclear to him, as well as his role in the Kabal. Odd.
He would soon be able to receive clarification, however. A call had been sent out through Hades' communicator, telling him to report to the former War Room. It was time for the Kabal employee to meet his new employer. Whether he would still be employed after this meeting was another topic for discussion.
Whenever a knock sounded at the door, he would call for the man to enter. The Board Room was empty except for a long oaken table, a series of black leather chairs, and a brown-haired teenager who was not anything special, physically speaking.
As the scent of roses filled the air, Slate spent his time frowning equally between Katrina and the DocProf. Katrina's eyes seemed to be losing more and more focus; though she had washed out her mouth and cleaned her face of the remaining juices, he strongly suspected that she had ingested some of the dark liquid. Should he induce vomiting...? How does one induce vomiting? Would that be wise? Hence his reason for frowning over at the DocProf, who was clearly the one who should be dealing with this. His own healing was faulty, at best; if the plant woman had broken Katrina's arm, he would be able to help. This? He did not think he could help with this. He needed a professional to handle this. It was Katrina: she deserved someone much better than him to attempt her healing.
Particularly as her eyes were closing, and her voice beyond slurred.
>> “You should have been more careful. You could have both died and then what would I do?”
...There was no appropriate response to that. Therefore, he simply ignored the question, and divided his efforts between frowning at the DocProf harder and claiming the wash cloth from Kat. She had missed a spot of the juice, there. He tried to wipe it off.
>> “From what I can see, she's over used her powers. Her mind has been under a great deal of stress, and her central nervous system has received a bit of a shock. I've repaired any damage to the CNS, and it seems that all she'll need now is rest to recover her energy. She may have some post traumatic stress issues, but we'll have to see what she's like when she wakes up again.”
The man seemed to finally catch the glint in Slate's eyes, and the drifting look on the young girl's face. He came over and began a physical exam. It was about time.
"I believe she was poisoned," Slate said, his gaze drifting back to the woman who smelled of roses. Calley might feel some sort of obligation to her. Slate? Slate did not.
His reputation. Ah. Perhaps he would not rush to bring Ms. Leigh and Mr. Turpit together. Strong egos were not an asset in missions, he suspected. It had not seemed to affect the man's performance thus far, but add in a young woman who also seemed out to prove something to the world, and any potential problems would find themselves compounding most unpleasantly.
Slate gave a simple nod in response to the man's request. It was not unreasonable in the least. Slate slid the man's old contract out from its place in the manila folder, and pushed it across the table with a light flick of his fingers to sliding it into range.
"That is your old contract, Mr. Turpit. The only change is the last page; simply an addendum to the original which changes your employment from being directly under one Hunter Antonescu to being under Melissa Rivers. You will understand if I do not wish to attach my name to official documents." Most Kabal employees did not even demand paperwork, and Slate did not enforce it. He would or would not be obeyed by his employees, regardless of paperwork. He would or would not have Noin continue to wire money into their accounts, depending on their actions. Paperwork held very little meaning. It was, in a literal sense, merely words on paper. For those who paperwork mattered to, he was more than willing to oblige, however
Another flick sent a pen rolling across to the man. "You may sign on the line, if everything seems satisfactory. Your paychecks will continue uninterrupted, and I will be in touch about opportunities for bonuses, as it were."
The man showed no particular reaction to news of the takeover. Again, Slate approved. He had expected as much: Mr. Turpit had been hired in by Melissa Rivers only recently, and had never actually had dealings with Antonescu. It made matters quite a bit easier, though certainly not to be taken fore granted.
To Slate's offer of a time for questions, the man held his silence for a moment. Curious. There were many ways to interpret a pause such as that. He did not bother to list them in his head. He simply watched the man. If his eyes had perhaps been a bit distant when he looked up from the file, that look was gone now. Slate had been born focusing on one thing at a time. To a large degree, he still did that. Roland Turpit was his current focus, and his baby blue eyes waited upon the man's response with the slight chill they had developed recently. It was curious; he would not think that a foray into mass murder would have any effect on his physical features. That somewhat confused the brown haired teenager.
>> "Two questions. First, there is a job that I was asked to perform. The current situation suggests the job be modified or scrapped. As I say, it is only a suggestion. ...Second, when can I get back to work?"
The second question was quite a pleasant one to hear. Melissa Rivers had noted to Slate that the man was a professional. The entire lack of curiosity about his former employer's whereabouts or state of health, so long as it did not affect him, told Slate much the same. Professionalism. He would have to look into partnering Mr. Turpit and Ms. Leigh for a mission, in the future. The young woman was a strong addition to the team, but she could use a role model when it came to 'professionalism'.
The answers to the man's questions came without delay. Slate's voice was level in tone and volume; it was neither loud nor soft, interested or disinterested; it was a vehicle for communication stripped of unnecessary elements. 'Impassive' might be a word for it.
"If you are referring to your mission to find the teenager called Calley, then yes, I am calling that mission off. I've already informed Ms. Rivers of his location, and he knows the details of his own employment." Namely, Calley was in the box at the back of their mind until he stopped complaining about the manner in which Slate had completed his coup. After that, he would return to the Mansion. It was a good place for him. For them, really.
There was nothing quite like running one's world domineering faction out of a dorm room in the X-Mansion, really. It was a satisfying concept.
"As to your second question: given your reliable record with us, I believe we will call on your services again quite soon. First, however, for the sake of blunt clarity: do you agree to my terms?"
lol to the first, Kat, and spiffy to the second. I like the quote. Is there any way I could get the edges on the Nietzche figure a little clarified? I spent the longest time tilting my head at him, trying to see the shape of a man... lol
And Abyss, you make the best sigs. I want to see what you come up with, too.
The man did not take a seat; merely entered, and looked to the seated teenager as if for instructions. No particular thread of confusion or unease struck his face, nor did he ask any questions. He merely entered, and waited.
Slate approved.
"Welcome, Mr. Turpit. Please, take a seat." With one understated turn on his palm, he motioned to the chair across from him. It was a standard leather chair on wheels, much like his own. The specially modified one that had been in that place when Slade had been called in was on its way to a dumpster, and a specially ordered chair that would suit both the car man and the dignity of the room was on special order to replace it.
He paused a moment to finish up his review of the man's file before opening the conversation. For such a short term of employment, Mr. Turpit's accomplishments were quite satisfactory. A brief tailing mission on the first night he joined, a raid upon the Order's Fort Knox gold with the shadow dingo, another mission with Hunter's stoic second in command, and a photo shot at the Mansion brawl of his own initiative that Slate had already put to use in creating some modestly lifelike X-Men holograms for use in the training rooms. Amusingly, Melissa Rivers had also sent the man to track down the wayward "Calley". If the man was still under Kabal pay at the end of this meeting, he would have to remember to cancel that. It was quite safe to say that Slate knew precisely where Calley was.
When he looked back up, it was with a brief nod; and acknowledgement of a man whose actions spoke for themselves. "Forgive my rudeness; let us begin. My name is Slate. I am the new owner of both Mondragon Labs and the Kabal. Given your satisfactory track record with us in the past, I am interested in renewing your contract, under the same terms as present."
"Before I ask you formally to resign with me," Slate continued, "I would like to offer you the opportunity to ask any questions you might have about this new arrangement."
The brown eyed teenager met the older man's gaze evenly across the table, his hands crossed quietly over the man's file.
The corner of one lip twitched in what may have been amusement as the robocar dropped and trained his built-in gun on the grounds. What a... quaint reaction. There was no twitching of any sort in response to the look on Circe's face as he gave his extremely fair lecture. She did not talk back, though, and that was good. It saved him the trouble of moving to higher reprimands. Those would have been unfortunate, as they may have involved testing Slade's loyalty to his employer over his casual feminine acquaintance. It was curious: Slate could probably ruin the woman's mind with a touch, but he highly doubted he could do anything less subtle. He... would have to work on that.
As it was, there were other matters to work on. He stored the issue of his own practice to the back of their mind for a later time. The list back there was growing; it seemed like there was entirely too much to do these days to physically fit it within any consecutive twenty-four hour period.
He nodded his head approvingly at the quick exchange of basic power information, and at Slade's rudimentary but apt plan until they received more detailed orders. Fortunately, the fraternizing seemed to have ended; Slade, at least, was a picture of polished professionalism. Ms. Leigh would need a bit of work. That, though, was precisely what training was for.
>> "I am a molecule manipulator. But I need to know the basic elements of the objects I manipulate. What is this room made from?"
Slate quirked one eyebrow. "A very good question. Computer, recite a list of this room's material composition." The computer did, in a disjoint feminine voice he was fairly certain the Lab programmers had stolen directly off of a Windows voice emulator. How cute of them. Her question prompted one of his own, however. "What do you typically do to determine the composition of objects when you first encounter them? If you encounter something unknown in the course of a mission, will your powers be useless, or will you be able to discover its composition through some process of trial and error?" It was rather an important detail to know.
Now. On to the briefing. "In the Mansion, there exists a large super computer known as Cerebra," Slate began. "Its exact location and physical features are unknown; likewise, the security around it is a closely guarded secret, though you can assume it to be quite high. Our intelligence sources suspect it is in the Mansion's lower levels, somewhere near the War Room. Your mission is to enter the Mansion, locate Cerebra, and tag it with this." Slate held out a hand, palm up; reacting to the signal, the computer obliged him by forming a small magnetic disk. Again, the programmers had had their fun: it was a white and red bull's eye.
"You have precisely twenty-seven minutes to locate and tag Cerebra; you must--and I feel I should emphasize that point--must be off of the Mansion grounds before the thirty minute mark. You are likely to encounter opposition both in mechanical and biological form; some of it may be running around wearing spandex with an embroidered "X"." Thanks to the combined footage of Calley and Roland, those biological roadblocks would be quite realistic, down even to their power set. Tricity, Silver Streak, Raven Fire, Nika, Seraph, Luke, and Raina were all quite neatly programmed in, though their respective personalities were somewhat lacking. Cold Steel had managed to dodge a proper recording thus far; given the man's recent promotion within the team, Slate intended to correct that as soon as possible. Verbal accounts of the man's abilities left the programmers far too much artistic room. He would much prefer realism. Ghost was likewise absent, but given her personality, he found the absence less troublesome.
"To be entirely clear: your mission is not to destroy all opposition; your mission is to succeed despite all opposition. It is a fine distinction, but one I wish you to understand." Really, it was the sort of distinction that separated how the Kabal would function from how the Order already did. The Kabal was not a gang with crowbars, chains, and the smell of cheap beer on their breaths; they were a strike team. "If you cannot tag Cerebra within the twenty-seven minutes, drop the tag inside the Mansion and exit the grounds." He looked at them both in equal measure as he spoke, ignoring the stray temptation to weight his gaze upon Ms. Leigh. He had a plan for her, after this training: he hoped that she would not prove herself too unrefined of a tool for him to immediately put to use.
"If you have no questions, you may begin. I will be watching from just outside of the Mansion gates." The pleasant thing about the Training Rooms: the ability to call up a video screen in mid-air to watch their progress. He would do that, just as soon as they started.
The clock would begin ticking just as soon as he was certain their questions were answered. In a real mission, he would strive to provide them more intelligence than this. When practicing basketball seriously, however, a team in training should use a weighted ball. It built up the muscles, as it were.
Slate listened to her opinions with quiet respect, nodding the slightest fraction now and then to show that he was, indeed, listening. While it seemed like she had managed to escape direct persecution herself--not entirely a surprise, given that her mutation was one of those fortunate ones, like his own, that could be hidden--she had clearly been speaking with those who had been affected by the hatred and disorder in this world.
Yet there was something subtly wrong with her words, from his own experiences. They were only one page in the story. There was the slightest of creases between his eyebrows as he attempted to tell her the rest of this Grimm's tale.
"It is not just humans," he began. "It is undeniably true that many humans are afraid of us, or hate us; they have done terrible things against us. The worst abuses of mutantkind I have seen, however," he continued, in the same level tone, "have come from our own kind. We persecute each other. We divide ourselves into factions, and squabble like territorial dogs over things of little use or consequence. That is what I mean when I say our kind does not choose to act differently than the humans--we engage in the same inane activities of hatred and disorder, even though we are only hurting our own. I know of mutants beaten, caged, tortured, experimented upon, and killed by other mutants, in ways just as terrible--if not more so--than what the humans have done. I fear I do not share the general X-Men view that humans and mutants are the same species; I further fear that I do believe we are superior to humans, in the physical sense. Mentally, however..." He shook his head; a tight gesture, of frustration and disgust. "We are their children, and it shows. We could do so much more. We could be so much more, and yet we choose to be..." He gave a simple shrug; "this. Humans with super powers. That is what we choose to be, when we could be redefining the world itself."
To the lighter thread in their conversation, his shoulders relaxed again. "Hmm. Do I sense a dirty player?" One dark eyebrow arched itself upwards at her, almost playfully.
He turned his head up to the Club House, perched high above the cliff like a lighthouse, or a music box. Indeed, the strings of music had stopped their descent. He blinked in surprise. "Intriguing," he said, simply. "I suppose time is a relative concept, when one is engaged in conversation." And, contrary to his fears at the distracted beginning to the night, the conversation had indeed begun to be engaging.
Slate needs an avatar and a sig, if anyone would be interested in helping a humble megalomaniacal teenager to look classy whilst he directs his troops to victory.
>> "Yeah, you could say that. I would just say kind of scary. This whole other world I didn't know about... All these people who are like me... It's scary, but it's amazing."
Slate nodded, a small sign of agreement, and perhaps of sympathetic understanding. "The mutant world... is, perhaps, like the normal world, except upon some manner of illicit drug." He looked towards the sea while he spoke, a small frown tugging down at one corner of his mouth. "All of the same petty hatreds and games exist, but they are played on an amplified scale. There is such potential for order in the use of our abilities, yet most seem content to merely live in a manner no qualitatively different than humans, except with a spar now and then. It is... disappointing." He tilted his head, his gaze shifting back her way. "What do you make of it? What is your stance on humans and mutants, and how we should use these abilities we have?"
>> "You did not! I should of been the one to win. ..But yes, we do need to find a settlement. How about Coin tossing? Or this Rock-Paper-Scissor Game. That always works. Or, if you play basketball... One-on-one."
It was good that this seemed to amuse her, since he was clearly the one who had won. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "A game of chance seems inappropriate for such a serious issue as this, yet I fear I do not know how to play basketball. Perhaps you could teach me; then we can decide matters, once I have learned."
Indeed, his employees seemed quite acquainted with each other. From what he could tell, their initial meeting had been some time ago, and neither had known of the other's employment. Given Circe's initial orders to remain undercover and her subsequent coma, this was hardly a surprise.
Slate allowed the two a few uninterrupted moments in which to inappropriately socialize in front of him. Then he attempted to move them back onto today's scheduled activity: training. Leigh had mentioned 'tips on how to get here'. He used this as his sedge way.
"As you may have noticed," but he strongly suspected that neither of them had, "the warm up to today's training was actually finding this room. Mr. Ravenscroft; you passed. Ms. Leigh; you did not."
"On a mission," the brown haired teenager continued, impassively, "you can and will be expected to be mindful of deadlines. Two minutes, Ms. Leigh, could mean the difference between success or failure; on a mission, Mr. Ravenscroft could be dead right now because you failed to meet a sensitive deadline. As every member of my staff is a careful monetary investment, and the missions I assign I will be expecting you to complete dutifully, I would be most displeased by this outcome. Suffice it to say that you would not receive the full bonus for the mission even if you did manage to complete it, and his funeral would come out of your paycheck."
That callous lecture aside, it was time to begin. "Computer, activate Xavier Simulation One." Around them, the large room disappeared, replaced by a well-kept lawn at night. Up the lawn stood Xavier's Sister School. He waited to see their reactions to this scenery. What did they think about a training simulation that concerned a school of mutant children? This was a useful bit of information to know, and one that was better to learn in a simulation, rather than out in the field.
