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.
>> "Right, if I do get up too check, you'll take this very comfortable seat."
Thus did she pass Basic Intellect 101. Sarcastic laughter and smiles were not worth extra credit in this course, but they were not a bad effort.
>> "Anyway, buzz off. I'm reading."
Indeed, a new tactic was in order. It was a sofa. A sofa, by nature, has room for more than one inhabitant: traditionally, it has three large cushions. This particular model was no exception. Equally traditionally, if a female and male unencumbered by any physical relationship sat on the same sofa, they would naturally gravitate to its opposite ends.
Therefore, Slate sat in the center cushion. More than that: he sat to the edge of the cushion, as close to the woman as he could possibly be without actually sitting on her. His legs, which he crossed comfortably into a half-lotus position, would no doubt be within a hair's breadth of brushing her.
Slate opened his book and balanced it in the space where his legs crossed. Then he began to eat his humble rice, with an equally humble pair of chopsticks, as he viewed a detailed color photograph of an autopsied lung. Two autopsied lungs, in fact. This was your normal lung, children. And this, children, was your lung after a fatal case of pneumonia.
His presence clearly had a large impact on the woman: he was deserving of a glance up from her book, and an eloquent "Oh".
>> "There's plenty of seats in this room, kid. Plus, I don't see you're name on it."
She made a careful show of looking for his name. How extraordinarily clever. The Italian teenager's face remained impassive, but his rice was growing colder, and his seat had grown no less vacant. This was troublesome.
"It is not there," he said, quite simply. "You are looking in all the wrong spots. My name is under the cushion. Look for yourself." There was no trace of jest in his tone or manner. Really, this was no jesting matter: it was the matter of a woman he did not know, and her behind residing in his desired seat.
If the woman fell for his ploy and left her seat to check for his name, he would partake of a very dignified action: vaulting over the back of the couch and claiming his rightful seat, while attempting to keep both rice and book from tumbling out of his hands.
If she did not fall for it... well then. Well, then. A new strategy would be in order.
He had healed the foot, and that had started something: now, he knew he could heal others. What he did not understand was why he could not heal this. It was worse, far worse, than never having been able to heal others at all. He did not know if he was doing something wrong. He did not know if there was a better way to go about things. He did not know if it was possible.
Old Larry was dead, and Slate could not heal him.
It was not because the man had put back up that barrier between them--no, he had left that down. Slate suspected that the hobo did not see any point in putting it back up. It made it hard for Slate--he had spent several days dodging from the man's pets with a whimper, or a curling of his tail between his legs. Without the barrier there, there did not seem to be a distinction between Old Larry's mind and his own. There was no line in the sand that the ghosts could not cross: at a touch, at a stroke, they moved freely into Slate's own mind. He could never remember afterwards what they had been. He only knew that they were as heavy as Old Larry claimed, and that he did not want to carry them for that man.
Several times, Slate learned from the man's old mind about the cough. About the diagnosis. About the inevitable count down; the red line that had been painted on the old man, and the days left until the cutting team came for him. Several times, he forgot it. It was not his to remember.
He did not begin to suspect for himself that Old Larry was dying until the first time he smelled blood after a cough. That was the same day the pain smell returned. Not from his foot--from his arm. Later, he would learn that this was from the growing tumor pressing on the man's nerve endings. At the time, he could not understand it. Old Larry did not feel like eating that afternoon, even though the wolfhound brought him a hot dog that had been within easy jumping range of his teeth.
It was not hard to find where they buried him. All he had to do was wait at the loading bay of the coroner's office until the body was sent for burial. After the third day, the people who worked there stopped trying to shoo him away, and gave up on calling the dog-catcher, who was of the opinion that they were sending him after a ghost dog. It took ten days before they gave up trying to identify him. Dental records were taken, photographs snapped, and the body moved out of refrigeration and shipped to a nearby funeral home that handled such things for the morgue. It was hard to recognize Larry's scent through the black bag. He did not know for certain he was chasing the right van until much later, when his large gray paws perched on a windowsill at the funeral home, and he saw Old Larry lying on a table.
In the end, it was not the lung cancer that killed Old Larry. The pneumonia was much faster. There was no funeral. No last rites. Only cold storage for another two days, and then an unceremonious trip down the hallway to the in-house crematorium. How convenient.
Slate had tried to heal him. Old Larry had never put the barrier back up; he had, in effect, given Slate blanket permission to do as he would. To try as many times as he wished. To fail as many times as he could physically and mentally tolerate. The foot had been an honest injury: easily fixed. The cancer, and the virus behind the pneumonia... those had been something else. Something outside of the man's own body, yet so intrusively inside. He had not been able to touch them. They had no mind he understood; no mind he could break into or reason with. Yet they had life. And they could not be smoothed out of the way, like a broken bone healed wrong.
The mortician had been warned by the corner's staff, half-jokingly, and half-not, about the gray ghost dog that followed the old man's remains. The corner's staff had been warned as much by the police who had first come to the scene.
Old Larry had not eaten for two days, and the pain scent was no longer entertaining. Slate had simply wanted it to go away. His mind was hazy and raw from too many brushes with Larry's ghosts, but he could not stop trying. The man had kept persistently scratching behind his ears with one tired hand. The other, he used to cover his coughs. "Nice dog. Old Larry knew you were a nice dog." Many people walked by the alleyway. The wolfhound tried to herd them inside; this only resulted in his first run in with the dog catcher, and three hours of Old Larry's death that he had missed. Three hours which could have been spent in far better ways than playing fox and hound with a government employee. Even if he was failing to heal the man--even if he continued to fail--the least he could do was lay at the man's side. The nights were beginning to get cold. Summer was dying. Like a tree with a red ring painted on it. Like Old Larry, in the alleyway.
He had been right. In the end, it was surprisingly easy to see one simple fact: Old Larry was not insane. He was right, about everything. About ghosts being heavy. About trying leading to starts, and about starts being something that couldn't be unstarted.
Old Larry was a man who kept his ghosts alive. He was dead now, and Slate did not know his last name. He had healed him, but he could not heal him all the way. And he could not heal death. Old Larry's breath had stopped first. He had been asleep when it happened. His chest simply stopped moving, as if it, too, was going to sleep. The wolfhound stretched along his side had felt the man's heartbeat continue on for several long moments. It had started out as a frightened bird. It had slowed. Calmed. Stilled. And that was when a more complete barrier than he had ever felt had slammed into place between them. It was not the barrier of Old Larry's mind; the barrier that naturally existed between two sentient beings, that the man had eased away so that Slate could try as he pleased to heal him. It was much more final than that. It was a grayer color than Slate's own thoughts, and he knew without trying that breaking past it was futile. This was not the fence in front of a house. This was the fence around a demolition site, already cleared of debris. There was nothing to see on the inside. Old Larry was gone. Slate had not understood death before then. Or life.
It was his howling that had eventually brought the police. He had not known what else to do. The sound seemed to free him of the weight of the man's ghost, for as long as he could keep it up. So he had thrown back his head, and howled as loudly and as long as he could. And he had kept going, until they had come for Old Larry's body.
He did not see what they did with the man's ashes. One of the mortician's workers had caught sight of his large, lanky shape in the darkness; intelligent blue eyes glittering outside of the windows. By then, the police, the coroner, and the mortician himself had built up the dog's myth. The nameless John Doe had his own ghost dog, that followed him wherever he went. The worker had slammed the shades down on the windows as fast as she could. She had raised them again, checked all the locks with a shaky hand, then slammed them back down. She was the only one working so late. She did not need ghost dogs breaking in. But it was really the other way around, wasn't it? He wasn't Old Larry's ghost. Old Larry was his.
The wolfhound padded away from the mortician's place, its steps as awkward and stumbling as a puppy's, its head and tail held in a level line with its spine. Slate took down the barrier between his and Calley's parts of their mind without preamble.
Finally! What the hell, Slate? What, do you want me dead? Where's your hobo friend? Done gallivanting around in my body? Hey--hey! I'm not done yelling at you! Hey--![/i]
Slate set the barrier back up, in reverse. He settled it around his own thoughts. Thin, smooth, and without holes. Calley's voice cut off. All voices did. Not even ghosts could find him here, if he did not let them.
Old Larry was right. Not everything needed to live. Especially not a healer so weak, he could not even heal death.
Slate tried not to say it. He did. Yet the words came out, anyways: "You are in my spot."
It was 10AM. It was 10AM, and he was carrying a bowl of plain white rice in one hand, and a textbook on human anatomy in the other. His breakfast, and some reading to complement his current thoughts. Recently, Slate had learned something: he could heal not just himself, but others. Once. He had done it exactly once, and it had not turned out as he had expected; if he knew a mutant which could time travel, he would politely ask them to go back and slap his past self upside the head for even trying such a thing. Old Larry had been right: nothing good comes of trying. Nothing good at all. And now Slate's life was a little heavier, and all he had to show for it was an ability he had only successfully used once. He tried to think of that matter instead. He tried to channel his frustrations at Old Larry, a hobo he had met over the summer, briefly. He tried not to say it. He really, really did.
Yet the fact remained: there was a woman in his spot. For the past three weekends, at 10AM, he had come to this sofa and read while he ate breakfast. Many of the Mansion residents preferred sleeping in, or gathering in each other's rooms to watch Saturday morning cartoons; he had not had competition for the couch. Until now.
The woman was older than him by a few years; twenty-something to his eighteen. He had the slightly curly black hair and ethnic face of an Italian with a few other countries mixed in; she appeared rather more typical for a North American girl. Blonde hair and all, though her eyes were brown as they traced the sentences on the book, rather than the blue he had almost expected. There was a scar over her right eye. This was curious. However, it did not change the fact of her current location. And so Slate, holding his rice bowl and his book as he stood in the doorway of the longue, repeated it again: "You are in my spot."
Healing the foot would be exceptionally easy. The Foot had healed incorrectly: this was an atrocity. There was only one cure: break it. Break it, and have it be healed in the proper manner that had been intended. Going about this breaking was the difficult part.
The wolfhound padded with its puppy-like steps after the hobo, its snout trailing towards the Foot, as it usually did. A light up ahead turned green. In a surge of blaring horns and accelerators, the traffic swept by. The wind it caused actually flattened the wolfhound's hair to a more tidy state for a moment; then, with wiry tenacity, it sprang back into its former position.
Pushing the man into traffic simply would not do. The least likely thing to be broken was the Foot.
They walked through a tunnel of thin steel beams and plywood boards. Hammers and orders rang out from somewhere above, where construction was going on. At the end they emerged back under the sun of a summer sky.
A hammer would work, if applied with precision. It was an unlikely encounter to occur, however, seeing as the wolfhound itself lacked opposable digits.
They stopped at a corner just outside of Central Park, where Old Larry sat, with a huff, on the pedestal of a bronze statue. The statue was of a man sitting atop a horse with one leg raised. Though Slate did not know who the man was, he knew how the man had died: from battle wounds. A rearing horse for death in battle; one leg raised for death from wounds; all four legs firmly on the ground for a more peaceful death at a later date. Slate did not approve of the man. Death in battle was presumably quick, and death at a later date tended to be mandatory, but death from a more lingering sort of wound? It was a strictly unnecessary way to die. No doubt if the statue-enshrined man had fought his glorious battle in more modern times, more modern hospitals would have put him atop a horse with all of its legs properly planted. Then again, more modern men had invented more modern weapons. But then, rearing horses did cut a dramatic picture.
More modern weapons were of little use in combating the Foot. The wolfhound wuffed as it lowered itself to the ground below Old Larry's seat, its muzzle laying flat over the man's boot.
Since the nice doggie had started following Old Larry around, he'd been having better luck with his begging. In a mere hour's time, he had enough for two hot dogs from the vendor down the block. With great deliberation, Old Larry began holding each topping down for the wolfhound to sniff.
Ketchup. Wrr....
Mustard. Wuff!
Sauerkraut. ...Whine.
Pickles. Wuff!
"You want to get the health department called on me, man? Keep your dog's nose outta my toppin's."
Thus ended the selection process. Old Larry put ketchup on his own hotdog. Back at the statue, he began to messily chew. The mustard-pickle-hotdog was placed on the ground. After a moment of careful consideration with regards to cleanliness, the wolfhound delicately licked the toppings off, then snapped down the rest in three clean bites.
Now. Back to the issue of the Foot. The wire-haired dog nosed its muzzle back on top of Old Larry's boot, one coarsely furred cheek rubbing against Old Larry's coarsely furred leg where Calley's old pants were too short for the man. The dog's tail was meditatively on the ground as it simply lay there, soaking up sunlight like a bristly-haired sponge. The lazy warmth was not particularly conducive to the thought process, but the dog somehow was not about to complain. It feels good.
"It sure is a nice day, isn't it?" Old Larry said.
One of the dog's ears flopped over. ...I dislike sauerkraut extremely. The smell is offensive to existence itself.
"That vendor sure didn't like your nose in his things. It's not like you were hurting anything, nice dog. I hear that dogs have cleaner mouths than humans. You could have licked his toppings, and they would still be good."
What is one plus one?
"Two," Old Larry stifled a yawn, then continued: "two hotdogs are easy to buy with you here, nice dog. People like to give Old Larry money when he has a nice dog with him."
...I cannot tell if you can understand me.
"I think a lot of people can't understand Old Larry. But when Old Larry is with a nice dog, there's not much to understand. A nice dog is a nice dog."
...You are either truly insane, or a mastermind.
Old Larry leaned back against one of the horse's legs, a lazy smile on his face as he bathed in the sun. That was about the only kind of bathing that Old Larry did. The man covered his mouth as a wet cough overtook him.
Proper hygiene reduces instances of illness, Slate tactfully thought, whether the man could hear him or not. Old Larry wiped his hand on his pants.
If only it was as easily as with Calley: all it would take was a brief mental oust, and two shifts: one to break up the improperly fused bone, and one to reset it correctly. It would be over in less than three seconds. Break. Set. That was all. The wolfhound drew in a deep breath, and wuffed it back out. Your foot irritates me. If it was mine, I could heal it. Because it is yours, I cannot. One paw gave an idle twitch. This irritates me, he repeated, quite intelligently. All it would take was having brief control of the man's mind. His inability to claim such was not for lack of trying.
With his muzzle on the man's foot like this, and his head against the man's leg, it was almost as if they were one being--he could hear the man's heartbeat, feel the slight movements of his body that came with every breath. There was something else, too--something that went beyond mere touch and smell and senses. He could feel it from an abstract distance, when he looked for it. He could get no closer than that, however. It seemed, almost, to be similar to the barrier that he used to keep Calley in, or Calley out, depending on his mood. It seemed less defined than that--more flexible, more breakable, and entirely less solid. Perhaps he could break it, if he tried. Something in the hairs between the pads of his feet stood on end at the thought of trying, though. Barriers generally existed for a reason. He was not about to destroy one simply for the sake of trying, any more than he was going to take a bulldozer to someone's fence to see what their lawn looked like. The bulldozer was quite as likely to destroy the lawn as the fence. Never mind that it was awfully messy, and mildly rude.
Irritation. Irritate. Irritated. Irritability. Listing words with similar stems in his mind helped, somehow. Irritant. Irritating. Irritable. He wasn't quite sure why that was, but it worked. Now, a sentence: Irritating irritants irritate irritable, irritated irritatees irritatingly. 'Iritatees' was not actually a word. Additionally, he had failed to work in 'irritation' and 'irritability'. Somehow, those facts left him feeling...
Why cannot I not heal your foot? What difference exists between healing you and healing myself? Besides that barrier, and the minor fact that the man's mind was not Slate's own, any more than the man's body was another of their forms. In this one case, however, logic failed to pacify the wolfhound. Logic demanded that he give up on the Foot. That was something up with which the dog could not put. What is wrong with trying to heal you? Why should I fail? Why can't I even try?
Old Larry coughed, and ran his sleeve over his mouth. His mouth looked dirtier for it. "The thing about trying is," he said simply, as if into the air, "you can always do it. It's just not a good idea. Trying causes a lot of trouble. Old Larry was a history major before he was a murderer--he knows. Trying starts things. You can't unstart a started thing, nice dog. Did you know that?" He coughed again. "Try all you want; it can only make things worse. Worse is the way Old Larry likes it."
The wolfhound tilted his head, one large clear eye angling upwards to look at the man. And just like that, he felt something: something that wasn't there at all. Something that had used to be. That barrier between their minds was gone.
Slate moved in cautiously. The consciousness was foreign--it was, in a word, distinctly more organized than Calley's mind. This somehow failed to surprise him. Ghosts leapt out at him. Memories of a young child with buck teeth that did not stop her from smiling widely. The aftertaste of a hot dog with ketchup. The way a pillow felt soft but tight and hard as you held it down, so long, so long, and then everything was still and the little girl was yours again and that woman had changed the locks on the house but she hadn't changed the hiding place for the key. So funny, so funny. Larry's ghosts were so funny. The whole world was so funny--the way people made the same face when they were surprised by divorce papers and search warrants and bad jokes at funerals; the way the sun shone sometimes while it rained; the way ghosts were so light and so heavy and so hard to see but so easy to remember. The wolfhound's tail thumped the ground as a million different jokes crashed through its mind, and the weight of the ghosts settled down around the base of its neck like a yoke. Its own consciousness was tossed from memory to memory like a very small twig in very rough rapids. A lawyer's bill, papers to sign, custody granted. There was a reason he was here. A doctor's paper, a cup of coffee, a promise to come back to the free clinic for therapy every month that he never meant to keep--such a nice young doctor, though. A real lady. She didn't know that the shiny new ring around her finger was a coffin for a ghost-in-the-making. These were not his memories. Such a nice dog on the street, though it had the weirdest obsession with-- The Foot.
Slate's consciousness snapped to that focus. The memories were irrelevant. The ghosts were not his own. The thoughts were unnecessary. His mind sought a deeper level, one unclouded with intelligence. One that existed without thought: the basic template for Old Larry's body, as it was supposed to be. It wasn't stored in his mind. It was stored in every cell of his body, except for an odd handful in his lungs that were easily ignored.
Slate had been wrong: it took only one shift to heal the Foot. Then he was retreating back into the safety of their own skull. The wolfhound's body jerked upright into a disquiet rear: death in battle. Then all four pads of its feet hit the warm concrete again. It shook its head out. It could no longer remember what had seen inside of the man's mind that had left it feeling so battered; Old Larry's memories were his own, and not the dog's. Slate remembered the healing, though. When he was able to blink his eyes back into focus, he found himself confronted with the Foot.
No.
The foot, lowercase. Old Larry had pried off his boot, and was freely wiggling his hairy toes in the sunlight. "Well," he cackled, setting the healthy appendage onto the bronze base of the statue to bask. "Old Larry's not sure how this is worse, but he's sure he'll find out."
The wolfhound tilted its head critically to the side as its heart rate leveled out to a more agreeable tempo again. You can hear me, it accused.
The hobo started whistling.
Slowly, the wolfhound settled down a short distance away, and set its head down. It was suddenly tired, and the sun was warm.
((ooc: Felix has a bloodhound ability; he can track individuals and scent the differences between genders, species, and sub-species--including the difference between humans and mutants. River and Julia are humans.))
On the small alter was a scalp. And not just any scalp--the scalp of a Yeti. It was ancient; its skin was leathery gray and dried with age. The coarse hairs may have burned a fiery red once, but they had smoldered back to a dusk-orange. The old Tibetan woman, keeper of the little shrine just across the boarder from China, was speaking in tones of hushed mystery, her arms moving like the wings of a crow. Lynn, with her omnilingual ability, looked thoroughly impressed. The rest of the students could have understood the woman's words by merely touching their Korean American classmate, but there was a lot to be said for listening not for words, but for meaning. None of them were missing the meaning. The old woman ended her rendition with a final flap. Lucas let out a burst of applause that abruptly died when he realized he was the only one doing so. Julia, crouched down lightly with a sketchpad balanced on her knees, was furiously scribbling wisp-thin lines on a white sheet of paper that were rapidly coming together to form her imagination's image of what the scalp's owner had once looked like. Its arms were raised in the air, in one of the old woman's crow-flap gestures. River had taken out a camera, to which the old woman had cawed something that was clearly understood as 'no flash photography'. Thomas had even glanced up from the screen of his black gaming consol. This was a dangerous thing for Thomas to do.
The slumping teenager's eyebrows knit together, then relaxed as he gave an 'ah-ha!' nod. "Ah," he said, and only 'ah'.
River made the mistake of encouraging him. "What's with the 'ah'?" She asked, frowning down at her camera's small screen. The shrine was dark, and that 'no flash photography' rule was seriously cutting down on her image resolution. Maybe with a bit of Photoshop... but if you had to Photoshop your Yeti scalp picture, what good was actually seeing it in the first place?
"I read an article about this in the Natural Sciences Digest while doing a report on cryptozoology back in Sophomore year." Thomas informed them all, in a matter-of-fact manner that cut through every crow show in the country. "A scientist in London took a sample of hair from this 'scalp', and tested its DNA. It's just a piece of goat hide."
Julia's hand stopped sketching. River gave up on her camera with a little sigh. The shrine keeper hadn't caught the teenager's words, but she'd certainly caught his meaning: her glare could summon an entire murder down upon his head, with black wings flapping. Lucas could actually feel his excitement draining out. It flowed through his shoulders, down his arms like soggy macaroni, and out through the soles of his boots. His boots were the warmest he'd been able to buy, but his feet still were feeling the climate change. Tibet was cold.
"Why do you have to kill the magic like that?" He demanded.
Thomas gave a single-shouldered shrug. His eyes were already back on his game.
"Why?" Lucas repeated.
"It's the truth," the slumping teenager replied.
Outside the shrine, Zakiyaa was holding her earmuffs in her hand, and Felix had his scarf pulled down. His nostrils flared the slightest bit as they aimlessly took in scents. Aimlessly, but not without purpose. Outside with the two students were their chaperones, Ms. Dumonde and Mr. Swartz.
"The resistance contact is here. I cannot hear more than that." Zakiyaa shook her head slightly, her hair catching in the chilled breeze. "All the rumors say that the first safe house on the path is here. I am sorry I cannot hear more."
Felix sniffed, sneezed, and snorted. He swept an intense stare around the small town, making a child who'd been peering around the side of a house scuttle for cover with a squeal. The chorus of laughter from out of sight hinted at a larger group, and some sort of dare that had probably just been lost. "It's here, all right. There's mutant scent everywhere--most of it's stale, but there have been a large number moving through." His head jerked up in a sudden breeze as if of its own will and his nostrils flared again, fiercely. "Just set me loose. I can find this safe house."
"A more subtle approach than just bursting in might better, if we want to consider what our first impression will be," Thomas suggested, stepping out from the shrine with Lucas right on his heels. When Thomas stopped, Lucas nearly plowed into him. In the energized teenager's hands was a white game consol that he was holding nearly up to his nose.
A victory whoop burst from his lips, and one hand quickly punched the air before sweeping back down to punch at the little consol's keys. "I just caught a Deus! And you know what I'm going to name it? Magic. And you, Thomas, are never going to kill it. I'm going to evolve it into an Exdomine, and take down that Necreon of yours."
"I look forward to it," Thomas replied mildly, "though Avemachina is the highest evolution for a Deus. Steel/Psychic type. The only Pokémon in the game with the From Above ability. You may wish to evolve it all the way, before you fight with me." He recited the memorized facts and recommendation easily; his attention was clearly still on the conversation he'd walked out on. "If you do not mind," he addressed his teachers with equal mildness, "I might have a plan."
((ooc: Zakiyaa is a rumor sensor; she listens to the wind, and hears the voices that it has passed over. Lynn is omnilingual.))
If you send the boys, they will be killed.
Her name was Zakiyaa. When she was forty-eight centimeters shorter, and had to rely on her brother to lead her through marketplaces because she could see over no heads, she had lived in southern Sudan. She had been body, breath, and mind of Sudan. She had stood in Sudanese winds with her hair untied and her eyes closed, and listened, and knew what moved the lips of her country. Now she was much taller and eight years older, and her lungs had breathed much of that time in New York City. It was large and crowded, but it had jobs and people who read about her country in newspapers that they put down after their coffee was finished. The wind blew quickly through the buildings sometimes. It whispered such nonsense and such hopes that it made her smile. The wind in Sudan had been loud and heavy with knowledge that a ten year old girl, some people in New York would say, had not been meant to carry. But it was a warning wind, a cautious wind, and it had brought her and her whole family safely into the United States of America.
If you send the boys, it had whispered to her from years of quietly moving lips, they will be killed. That is why her family had given her the water jugs, and she had gone.
She stood now on the rooftop of a Chinese hotel, with her hair untied and her eyes closed. The wind gusted and eddied. There was a storm coming in, and it could not decide which direction it wished to throw the clouds. Storms were playful by nature, and the wind was its indulgent parents. It was cold, and she was wrapped warmly in a sweater that had traveled all the way from China to be bought in a New York street fair. She wondered how it felt, to return home. Had it missed its winds? She missed Sudan, sometimes.
The day had been very hot. She remembered that. That was why the water was even more important than usual. They had been traveling for many days. There was a refugee camp towards the border, and there they could get passes to go to America, if they were patient. They could get a doctor for her mother and the baby brother who troubled her stomach, too. They had run out of water, though, and they did not know the land. They did not know where the covered wells were, or the thin streams. The wind was blowing from the East that day--from the scorching sun. Zakiyaa had tilted her head and listened, and told her mother what she had heard. There was a stream nearby--only two kilometers. It stood near a village whose people no longer breathed whispers into the moving air. She told her mother about the stream, and she cried. Her father said, 'We cannot ask you to do this.' Her brother said, 'She is not going! I will go. I will slaughter the pigs, and I will return with the water.' Her mother held her. Zakiyaa had cried. There was something everyone knew; the wind was loud with it, because a thousand tongues had moved softly through its words:
If you send the boys, they will be killed. If you send the girls, they will return with water.
She had cried. Then she had dried her eyes, and taken all of their water jugs until she had looked like their pack mule. They could not send their pack mule with her, because it might get stolen. If it was stolen, they did not know how they would carry her mother. She was not sure she could carry that much water, when they were full. This seemed like a very big worry at the time. She was ten, and she was much smaller in body than she was now.
Here in China, eight years later, she was wrapped warmly in a sweater. Warmer still was her hand, clasped like a mitten by the hand of Lynn, an American girl who was very pretty. Zakiyaa wanted to tell her that she was pretty sometimes, but sometimes she thought she shouldn't; and some nights, she crawled out the window of her house in New York and sat bundled on the rooftop, listening and listening until her eyes grew heavy for just a whisper that Lynn thought she was pretty, too. Lynn was smiling at her, now. "Is it working?" She asked, in that voice that was so soft and small, like something precious and safe. Her right eyetooth was a little crooked. She tried not to smile widely, because she did not like to show it. The eyetooth was another something that was precious and safe--always hidden, except to those who sought after its every flash as something that was secret but true. She also had a large black birthmark on the back of her left leg. She wore her socks rolled up very high to hide it, but they had slipped down that Spring while the Pax students had been doing a field exercise on working in tandem.
"Yes," Zakiyaa said, "I can hear them, and I can understand. Thank you, Lynn." For having a warm hand. For having a crooked eyetooth. For your sock slipping down. They had trained for this: Zakiyaa heard the whispers of rumors that carried on the wind. Lynn understood every language. When they held hands and listened together, Zakiyaa understood even rumors that had first been whispered in Chinese.
If you send the boys for water, they will be killed. If you send the girls, they will return with the water.
The men had been waiting by the river, as she had heard they would be. Every step had taken her towards the sun and into the wind, so she had two kilometers to listen, and accept. She was ten, but she heard much, and was beginning to learn that a ten year old had to accept much. A ten year old could not change the world. Especially not the world of Sudan.
The men laughed when they saw her. 'Here is another one,' one said, killing the fire in his cigarette by smothering it against the hard ground. 'I was hoping for a boy,' another joked, which his friends shunned by slapping him on the back of the head. 'Do you know the price for water?' Another asked. 'How can she? She is young.' The one who had killed his cigarette said.
'I know,' she had said. 'May I have the water?'
'After,' they said.
The stream had run swift and pure. When they were done, they helped her fill the water jugs, and load them again on her back so that she looked and felt like her family's pack mule. They had laughed again at the sight, but it was not a bad laugh. It was a laugh at something that was funny. There was good in everyone. She had struggled to walk back to her family. For two kilometers, she felt blood in a place it would not come again for two years. She would wake up one morning in her room in New York and wonder if the men had visited her in her sleep, for one very confused and sleepy moment.
Zakiyaa knew the sounds of genocide, and the sounds of war. They were much quieter here in China. Holding Lynn's hand on the cold rooftop, she felt as warm as a summer day. She closed her eyes and listened to things she had not heard since she stepped onto the plane with her family, and went to America. It made her feel sick in her heart, and very far from home. Home was not New York. Home was a country where men did terrible things, but they helped a girl fill her water jugs, as well. She was eighteen now. She would like to return there, after she graduated from the Pax Academy. A ten year old was very small. An eighteen year old, though, was maybe large enough to change the world. She had forgotten to say 'Thank you' for their help. She wondered sometimes if 'Thank you' would have started some small change that would have had eight years to fester into something that meant people would not read about her country in newspapers that they set down when their coffee was done.
If you send the boys, they will be killed. If you send the girls, they will return with water. Her name was Zakiyaa; this meant 'Pure'. Pure was something that could not be lost or stolen or killed or raped. Pure was something that flowed in the desert; it was the wind that was under every whisper.
Together with Lynn, she went down to the hotel room to tell what she had heard to her teachers Dumonde and Swartz. What she had heard was this:
"Of what we are looking for, there are two main groups. There is one that is very close to here. They say that a rich man gives them money for weapons; they say they are strong, and that you should stand with them or stay out of their way. The other is far from here. It is to the West, and the South, but it is loud. They say that mutants who need shelter should go there, by the ways that very few whisper. Mutants are still being killed in China, they say--very many. Any who do not hide or are not useful. Plant growers are safe, though they may not be happy. They want the plant growers for their crops. Others are disappearing, like they have always been made to disappear. The borders with Russia are very hard to cross now; very unsafe, and very well guarded. The place to the West and the South, that is safe. That is what they say. I think that is where we should go. I think the ones who are begging to the rich man can care for themselves for now, and stopping them will stop nothing. I think we should help the people who seek help. I think that is where we can cause the change to come." Zakiyaa sat down lightly, nodding to her fellow students and her teachers. "Thank you," she said, because she would never forget to say those words again.
Americans. Truly, was there a better target for hawked goods? The vendors shouted and bustled in their own tongue and in the best English they knew, showing off their wares to those exiting the airport. Slate took in a deep breath as they stepped out under the gray sky. One of his first thoughts in China became this: ...I cannot heal lung damage. He shook his head slightly, and projected his next thought to the student at his side: Let us find the hotel, Thomas. This ...noise... does not suit me.
...Thomas?
Just a moment, Professor.
Slate turned in a slow circle on his heel, and found the teenager bartering in slip-shod Chinese over a case of Double-A batteries. He shook his head slightly. It was hard to hurry the student, when he was obviously applying the language courses which all of the Pax Academy Seniors had taken in preparation for this trip. Harder, since the slumping teen seemed to actually be faring quite well against the seasoned vendor. Slate could not help but feel a bit of pride in his favorite student. Thomas was human through and through, but his ability to step outside of his own emotions to rationally assess a situation was every bit as valuable as being able to toss around fireballs. More so, in Slate's opinion. He had earned his place on this trip, as had all seven members of the Senior Class.
The case of batteries was slipped under a lanky white arm. Four American dollars changed hands. Sorry for the wait, Sir. I got a newspaper, too.
...Was that really necessary?
Well, I figured we'd want to see if Ms. Dumonde's greetings to the Chinese officials on our behalf made the news at all.
Slate had been referring to the batteries, not the newspaper. The teenager frequently misunderstood questions like that. Slate would have suspected that he misunderstood on purpose, but he presumed it had more to do with half of the boy's mind always being focused on the black gaming consol in his left hand. He shook his head slightly, and accepted the newspaper. It had been tossed in free with the batteries, at the mere price of Thomas not trying to barter any lower.
They stopped at a small internet cafe, where Thomas sent one-handed e-mails confirming their safe arrival to Headmaster Csendes while Slate paged through the paper. His own Chinese was not highly developed, but his Japanese was rather up to par; he was able to decipher the meaning behind much of the kanji. There were quite a few mentions of the Chinese President's speech at Tian'anmen Square and its rousing affect on the people, and even more about Russia's demonic actions: news of their unwarranted troop build-up along the Amur River north of Beijing; continued refusals from their tyrannical government to release their genetically gifted Chinese prisoners; an interview with a Chinese mutant who had daringly escaped their blood-stained clutches and returned to his home country to spread the truth about the slave labor and mind washing that occurred across the boarder.
Slate glanced up briefly, and frowned at the computer screen over Thomas' shoulder. He was not sure whether Sebastian would ever actually receive that e-mail--even if they weren't behind Chinese firewalls, this was Sebastian--but he appreciated the time to scan the news.
There was no mention of dragon dying on Tian'anmen Square. There was only a single telling line, about citizens who had become so engaged by their leader's visionary speech that they became ill, and experienced hallucinations.
So. She had done it, then.
He folded the paper and set it aside as Thomas attached detailed instructions on how the Headmaster should work the intercom system at the Community Center (press the button and talk, Sir), and how to reset the fuse box if there was another power surge (it's in the basement. Take a deep breath, and flip the switches, Sir.). He set the paper aside, and used his limited Chinese to listen to the conversations all around them.
龍.
龍.
龍.
Dragon.
It was whispered under breaths and talked about with glances cast suspiciously around, as if to make certain that the cafe's residents still all had the look of foreigners and... people of like concerns.
死.
Death.
There was no doubt: Katrina had succeeded in the first notes of their overture. That the government was censoring news of the event would only cause it to spread faster. The Chinese government did not have the best track record for honesty with its citizens, after all, and they themselves knew it best.
Thomas and I are on our way to meet you at the hotel. Have the students arranged transportation to our next destination, yet? Slate sent the message to Katrina, in that directionless manner of focusing that he used.
Well done. He added. An afterthought, because he suspected she already knew what she had begun. The notes hung in the heavy air of the Chinese afternoon:
The message was jumbled at best, and chaotic at worst. Slate's mouth curved down in distaste as it entered his head. Granted, he had told the woman--as well as all those he trusted--to take advantage of his open receiving of messages anytime she saw fit, but clearly he had failed to mention that she should do so in a neat and orderly fashion. The message itself, however, turned out to be quite the distraction.
"Sir...? Sir, your ticket. Sir, you're holding up the line. Sir." The flight attendant was chewing gum. Slate had noticed this as he watched her view the tickets of those passengers ahead of him in line to board the plane. Now he stood in front of her, the handle of his rolling suitcase in one hand, with his other arm relaxing in mid-air on the path to the ticket stored in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Now she was still chewing the gum, and each of her rapid-fire sentences was punctuated with a smack of her lips. Slate would have found it really quite distasteful if he was of a mind to pay attention. As it was, he was preparing his own reply. "Sir. I'm going to have to ask you to step out of line. Sir. Sir? Sir. Sir, don't you make me call no security."
"Pardon me, ma'am." The teenager behind the immobile man stepped forward, one hand reaching with evasive finesse into his teacher's coat and slinking the ticket out for the flight attendant's viewing pleasure. This was done as the teenager slumped under his black backpack, and as he managed the trick of never looking up--or never appearing to look up--from the sleek black handheld gaming consol that had long ago worked a groove into his left palm. The fingers of that hand worked in eerily noiseless staccato bursts as his other hand reached back around, partially unzipped a pocket on his backpack, and produced his own ticket for the woman's viewing pleasure. "You'll have to excuse Professor Swartz. He does that, sometimes."
The woman looked over both their tickets with a hard glare and many a smack of her lips. She stared up over them at the teen. The teen's thumb raced. Paused. Tap-tapped. "He sick, or something? I ain't gonna have you two on my plane if he's sick. This is a long ride."
The teen shook his head. "No, ma'am. Professor Swartz just has epileptic symptoms, sometimes--he'll be back to normal soon."
"He's got epilepsy?" The woman did a double-take as she handed the tickets back to the teen. That wasn't what he said, but it was what he meant her to hear. She smacked her gum critically at the teen whose ticket read 'Thomas'. "You know you're going to have to turn that thing off before we take off."
"Yes, ma'am." He knew that was the rule.
"What game you playin', anyway?"
Thomas had taken Slate's arm, and was gently pulling him off to the side, and out of the line. "Pokémon Black."
The flight attendant smacked her gum as she flicked her eyes over the next woman's ticket, then shooed her on towards the boarding ramp. "Ain't that the one where you can be either all good or completely evil?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"My kids love that version. It makes my skin crawl when they talk about stealin' and lootin' and back-stabbing their old mentor Professor Oak and all that, though. I feel like we've got enough of that in the world without it bein' in no Po-ké-mon game. So which you gonna be? Good or evil?"
"I haven't decided yet." Thomas said simply. "Probably whichever is more fun."
Slate's head suddenly drew up, and his hand continued on its course into his pocket for a moment before his eyes caught up with the changed scene. His hand dropped back to his side. "Thank you, Thomas."
"Don't mention it, Professor." The teenager, his eyes never leaving the screen of his sleek black console, gave a cordial nod to the flight attendant. She smacked her gum back, and they headed to the boarding ramp.
Slate had tried to make his reply every bit as coherent as WereCat's message had not been:
The man you confronted is named Zelek; he is of the Kabal. More than that, he is Hunter's "son". If you failed to note these among the abilities you witnessed, then know that he has enhanced speed and strength, as well as that man's blood lust. He is allergic to wood; it can be fatal to him, so be careful what damage you deal. Other damage should be easily healed on his part, if he is anything like his father.
Katrina is in China already, and I am following her. I fear we have taken all of the senior students with us; I ask you to please not involve the juniors--this man is highly dangerous, as you have noticed. Iris, Redemption, and the others should still be in New York if you require backup. Tell me who you require, and I can send them a message. It will be approximately a half-hour until my flight truly departs.
Be safe, and keep those around you safe. We trust you.
Thomas never glanced up from his gameplay, not even as he wrestled his black backpack into an overhead bin.
"I killed my wife, nice dog." Old Larry's whispering lips brushed against the fur on the wolfhound's left ear. The wolfhound lifted its long snout up from its contemplation of the man's booted foot, and leveled baby blue eyes on the man's face that seemed quizzical. Old Larry gave a frightfully accepting nod. "I did. I killed her, and I got away with it. It was the worst thing that happened to Old Larry's life, getting away with it."
It had been two days since Slate had first come face to face with the Foot. He'd tried trotting and woofing the man into the free clinics around town, but Old Larry had just smiled with a pat on his head and a "nice dog". Slate didn't know if the clinics could do anything, anyway. The Foot had healed. Wrong. The Foot bothered him: it made his own thread of their mind sent an agitated buzz through the rest of the clutter that had them swarming, waiting, for something. He didn't know what.
"It was sixteen years ago, nice dog." Old Larry continued, wrapping an arm around the large wolfhound's neck that curled around to scratch at its chest. The wolfhound sat down with a whump, its broom bristle tail beginning to swish against the trash-littered alleyway floor.
"It was sixteen years ago, nice dog," Old Larry continued, after a wet cough. "Sixteen years, they haven't caught me. Old Larry can't turn himself in. You can't turn yourself in after sixteen years, nice dog, because no body cares anymore. Her parents were dead when I married her. No brothers, no sisters; my Mary didn't have anyone to care about her before Old Larry fell in love with her hair. She had such hair, Beautiful Mary. Craw!--black as crows, nice dog, and it swished against her ass when she walked in that skirt--" Old Larry thumped his hand against the wolfhound's side. "But nice dog doesn't care about that, does nice dog?"
"Old Larry cut off a piece of her hair when he killed her. He thought he would keep it forever ever, even after they put the rest of her hair in the dirt, my Beautiful Mary's hair. But Old Larry got afraid that someone would find it, so Old Larry burned it. It had such a smell, Beautiful Mary's burning hair."
"Old Larry married Beautiful Mary twenty years ago. Beautiful Mary divorced Old Larry eighteen years ago. Old Larry didn't mind that. Old Larry was never good enough for his Beautiful Mary--he stayed at work late, he chased the secretaries, he forgot their anniversary. No." Old Larry rested his head against the alleyway wall, and ruffled the dog's hair without looking at him. "Old Larry signed her papers. He let her leave. But he couldn't let her take their daughter."
"Their daughter wasn't beautiful, nice dog. But she drew bad pictures in crayons of things no one had ever seen, and she sang off-key songs no one had ever heard. Old Larry couldn't let That Mary take his daughter. She was his daughter. She was his ugly daughter, ugly like he was, but the kind of ugly that touches things and leaves them better."
"So Old Larry went into her house and he held a pillow down on That Mary's face until she stopped moving. Then he left. His daughter found her in the morning. Then the police let his daughter come live with him, and he burned the piece of hair he'd cut, and he never got caught. Sixteen years he never got caught. Fifteen years ago he killed his daughter."
"He had chased a secretary out of the office and into his bedroom. His daughter was outside playing. She played right into the street. Old Larry didn't look out the window when the car honked or the tires squealed. The secretary was squealing, too. That's how Old Larry killed his daughter: he jinxed her."
"And now Old Larry has his ghosts with him, and he won't let them die. He keeps them alive, nice dog, and that's a sad thing, and a bad thing. They don't know they're dead, That Mary and his daughter, because he keeps them alive."
Old Larry closed his eyes, and his hand stilled. The wolfhound waited. Cars passed by, somewhere close, with indifferent noises of gutters draining. Eventually, the dog's nose drifted back down to the man's foot. The Foot. It was so wrong.
Old Larry didn't open his eyes. He let out a breath that carried words. "They're heavy, nice dog. They're heavy, and not everything needs to live."
What if I want to?
The hand brushed lightly against the dog's fur. "Then Old Larry hopes the nice dog's back doesn't break."
The dog's ears flicked forwards and its snout shot up in surprise. Old Larry, though, was either asleep, or suffocating under the weight of his ghosts. The wolfhound's nose slowly lowered back to the Foot.
>> “Bummer. Well that saves me a lot of exploring the insides of electronics as a flea.”
Presuming that this butterfly was someone who he had met before, than Slate could venture a guess as to who it was. The fact that she could appear as a flea did not change this hypothetical guess. Hypothetically, if this was the same individual, then she was not being nearly so annoying this time; therefore, he did not find himself minding her presence. Not even if it happened to be on his own forehead. The light coming through the butterfly's wings was quite an enjoyable shade, even if the shade itself did nothing to stop his continued temperature rise.
>> “Of course it isssszzzzzz….n’t"
A third tickle joined the insistent one on his nose and the fiery one on his leg: the butterfly was doing something with the hair of his right temple. He consciously refrained from movement, allowing her to continue. He was self-control embodied. He was not about to give into sensations so infuriatingly insistent and beyond his conscious control to prevent as itches.
>> “Killing’s messy business, but sometimes you can't avoid it. It’s kill or be killed. Trust me, I know. Today, I’m a butterfly.”
Kill or be killed, was it? He was not sure that applied to the individual he had in mind.
>> “Of course it entirely depends on why you’re killing them. For instance by brother. I could have killed him because he could have killed me, but I got rid of him instead. My reasoning for not killing him? He’s my brother. A girl’s got to have boundaries after all.”
"Ah," Slate said, fluidly rolling to a sitting position. "So it is wrong to kill siblings, then? Thank you," he said sincerely. He had suspected as much, but it was good to hear his suspicions confirmed by another. Another who was more entitled to holding opinions than he was. Slate reached for his water bottle, and took a sip. The warm liquid did nothing to cool him down. He sat a moment longer. Then he turned, and picked his origami paper off of the ground. Neatly tapped its edges into a well-defined stack with his palms. Stood, and--with a brief look at the cranes he was leaving behind--began walking down the path. He dropped his water bottle into a trash can along his way. Very socially conscious.
"I am returning to my apartment," he stated simply. "I require a change of clothing." A shower as well, perhaps. Slate... was not a fan of odors, and his own was beginning to grow quite strong under his long-sleeved dress shirt. He did not give the butterfly an invitation to accompany him. He made no move to discourage any such behavior, however. He simply walked, and asked another question: "Have you ever lost a limb?" Amputation was a subject he found fascinating. He suspected that he could regenerate any lost limb, but Calley was not keen on him trying it.
Slate honestly could not tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Sarcasm was still a bit above him. He suspected she might be, however, since most people did not appreciate the subtle role of grammatical quirks in irking a person.
>> “What does the inside of a blackberry look like anyways?”
"Much the same as the inside of any electronical device," Slate replied, with a sigh that was truly unfortunate. It had been both curious and curiously disappointing.
>> “Oh I get it. Not a fan on insects? Normally people say that about cats.”
"Something like that," Slate replied. It was more simple than explaining. The last thing he wished to do was explain about Calley, just as the last thing Calley wanted to do was explain about Slate. It was just an unpleasantly complex topic, all around. Thus did that topic end.
The ending left Slate's mind free to move to any topic it wished. The first thing that came out was this:
"Is it wrong to kill people?" He asked curiously. Not that he had been contemplating anything of the sort.
>> “Oh. ...He must be a bigger older brother? I have a bigger older brother. At one time, our arguments were quite physical.”
Slate's right leg itched, just the slightest bit. When he noticed it, it flared into a minor inferno which demanded immediate and decisive action. Slate set himself to ignoring it.
>> “You see. It’s thinking like that, that will keep you under his control.”
The butterfly's foot stomped again, causing a small tickle. A small, small tickle. He had yet to address the itch on his leg; somehow, this prompted the aforementioned brief tickle to convert into a fanatical itch. His nose twitched of its own violation, but he did not move to scratch it.
>> “Did he tell you it was alright to come to the park today and make cranes? Because if he is controlling your actions right now, I’d rather talk to him.”
Slate's expression remained its neutrality. He took in a deep breath, and felt the distinctly hot air enter his lungs and leave with approximately the same temperature. He was very, very hot. "He is not controlling my actions right now, in any measurable way. Today... is one of my days."
>> “You’d probably just do what you want to do when he tells you something else. Like if you want a cherry popsicle and he wants to you eat cookie dough ice cream… with chocolate saws, and red peppers because it all comes in one box.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, then were still. The brief movement sent a ripple up his nose. The itch there became thoroughly infuriated. "I... have done some things of that sort, yes. I dissected a Blackberry at Christmas because he told me not to. I do not use contractions in my speech because it annoys him." A small grin started on his face and did not die immediately. "He has not admitted it yet, but I know it annoys him."
>> “Where is he? You-whhooo. Brother of the dude with the cranes. Hey you big bully!”
The butterfly's circular steps touched on the itch; touched off; touched again. Slate's shoulder blades twitched, but he succeeded in keeping his arms crossed under his head. He spread his legs a half and inch further apart--he had not forgotten that itch, either, and he would not give in to it. This was war.
Only after he was done resettling himself did the butterfly's words set in. He closed his eyes again. Opened them. Turned his head slightly to the side, though avoiding the gaze of a creature on your nose was impractical. "I... would rather you do not meet him, if it is all the same. I am not entirely certain that I would be able to come back again today, if you did."
Calley was getting better at breaking out of Slate's mental barriers all on his own; the last thing Slate wanted to do was voluntarily release him. It was such a lovely day, after all. Never mind that he could feel the sweat stain growing on the back of his shirt. It was a lovely day to be himself for awhile.
"Gettin' on the same page" ( In which Calley and Slate understand each other, Hunter and Calley understand each other, but Hunter does not understand Calley/Slate)
Wednesday evenings at the Pax Community Center, 'Resistance to Telepathy' always attracted an interesting crowd. There were the typical community center attendees: a diverse crowd that chatted easily amongst itself. They'd lived through the worst of the Haywire Epidemic with each other's support, right in this very building. Some of them had worked together side-by-side for days before learning each other's names, restraining out-of-control loved ones or easing their passing. Sitting next to each other at the front of the room, their body language hummed with familiarity. A few rows back, in the room's middle seats, sat the newcomers: college students and retirees, mostly, they shifted in their chairs every other clock tick and responded with nervous jolts, smiles, and laughter when the community center's regulars turned around to talk to them.
Skip two empty rows.
The back of the classroom was silently stocked with the zealots. They'd come for the class title, and they'd stay for the lecture, if it was useful and if they damn well pleased. They had arrived punctually, in singles that sat awkwardly in their own island of chairs or in groups that didn't know where to glare. This was the Pax Community Center, well known for its tolerance. Tolerance of religious differences, they supported heartily, for the most part; tolerance of gender and orientation differences, they mostly supported, they supposed; but tolerance of species differences? Some of them only sat for a few minutes before they broke, and stormed out the door. Others sat the whole class through with the shrapnel-laced silence of land mines. Others... came back again, and did not look so angry at the next class period. The glares came with a good reason, though. This was the Pax Community Center and anyone--anyone--could be a freak.
Especially the teacher.
The Irish wolfhound padded easily in through the open door. Someone in the very last row was unconsciously reaching out to pet its gray flanks when it quite simply stopped being a wolfhound, and started being a twenty-eight year old Italian man in a light blue dress shirt and khaki pants. There was a gray scarf slung loosely over his shoulders, in clear defiance of the early September heat.
"Sorry I'm late," Slate stated simply, continuing his easy walk to the front of the room while the zealot who had been reaching to pet him turned an unhealthy shade of red-green. The Santa Claus Special, as the Community Center's Evangelical pastor had dubbed it: one part wordless throat-closing rage, one part honest physical urge to vomit. Slate got that a lot in this classroom. "I was booking a plane ticket," his apology continued, "and I could not stop until it was done. Unfortunately, I was put on hold."
The middle of the room laughed as their teacher reached the whiteboard, thinking this monotone explanation was a joke they didn't get; the front of the room laughed, because this was Slate, and they knew it was true: he could have been on hold for hours without hanging up. The back of the room did not laugh. More than that, they Did. Not. Laugh. They had seen what most in the middle section had missed and what everyone in the middle section was used to: the Italian man's lips had not moved while he 'spoke'. Particularly astute members of that deathly silent area had noticed that the sound was coming from the silver necklace he wore; in truth, his voice was a permanent sticking illusion provided by his girlfriend, Katrina. Much like the illusion that he was wearing clothes.
Others were not so astute.
"You're using telepathy on us!" One woman accused, standing up with a clatter that sent her chair rocking dangerously back. Her face was a true Santa Claus special.
The black-haired Italian man reached the front of the room before turning fully to face her. He had to reach the front of the room before turning to face her; one thing at a time, and everything in its order. Especially things he had not had advance time to prepare for. One eyebrow arched easily on his face as he met her gaze. He observed her closely, marking well the look of a woman who had failed to thoroughly read the course description.
"No, I am not. I will be, though. To clarify in advance: my telepathy is non-invasive. It is not a matter of morals: I truly cannot read minds, unless I am permitted to. Not every telepath has this limitation, as I suspect you well know, and not every mutant is an ethics scholar. On that topic: this is an applied course, not a theory one. You will actively be working on your resistance to telepathy. Participants of this class must be co-registered with the Community Center's Zen Meditation course, which I also teach. To be entirely clear on the subject before we begin: 'Resistance to Telepathy' is not about developing a weapon against mutants; it is about developing your own mental strength. My name is Caleb Swartz. It is my honor to be your teacher."
Slate gave a simple bow, something he had picked up from the Zen Master who had taught him and something which he admired the simple sentiments of. The regulars in the front rows bowed easily back. Some of them were in his Zen class already; some of them had children enrolled at the Pax Academy, where he taught Math and Science to the upper-level students. Some of them had pushed him up against a wall during the heat of the Haywire outbreak nine years ago, and asked what the hell good a healer was if he couldn't heal the sick. The middle rows caught on, and bowed as well. The back rows Did. Not. Bow, though the accusatory woman had sat grudgingly back down.
Slate could shift to a wolfhound form: an annoyingly necessary reminder of his link to a brother who was seven year's dead. He could send and receive telepathic messages; another irksome reminder that if he hadn't existed to separate that power out, Calley's little information empire would have risen to unheard of heights. Slate was--he was, he himself--was a healer. Physical injuries only, but it was his own power to use, and always had been. He was also a dead hand at mental barriers. Suffice it to say that he'd had sufficient practice to claim that skill as his own.
Several of the back row dwellers drifted glaringly out the door as the class began. Some hesitantly moved forwards. This was Slate's class, and even after nine years of being on his own, he still felt a fierce pride in ownership that sat his students on the edge of their chairs. His students. His class. His powers, and his life.
His world, to shape and create into something he and those he cared for could take pride in.
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