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.
Hades checked his loadout, a number of daggers, a pair of silenced pistols then nodded to CS. "Right, seal the entrance behind me. Two clicks for all clear." Hades pulled up the two halves of his balaclava and vanished into the darkness of the tower. The first thing he did was to phase and walk up the walls all the way to the top floor control room. He peered down from the ceiling of the control room and observed the movement of the guards. When then both had their back turned he silently dropped down and efficiently shot both of them in the back of the head.
He then turned to observe the scene. There was much available intelligence here. After setting up a motion detector in the hallway outside Hades set to work. He inserted a thumb drive from the client onto the computer, setting up a hidden data download to the client. He checked the cameras and rosters and sent and encoded text to CS informing him that there was a group of guards heading his way and asking if he needed assistance. He then searched the guards and confirmed his suspicions that the ID cards they used contained RFID chips. Another one of the functions of the phones was an RFID scanner and mimicker. Having accomplished all this, Hades hid the bodies and then went hunting for the rest of the troops in the tower.
"That is acceptable." Said Hades. "I will drop you off around the corner from your school. I will meet you onside the front door 15 minutes afterwards. I would advise you change into something smart if you have it."
And so the next day around noon, Hades dropped off Alex around the corner from the Mansion in a Aston Martin DB9. After dropping Alex off he drove to a convenient place to change.....
He had suspicions of things that might occur.
[OCC sorry for the short post. Life is a little crazy atm]
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
As Hades cooked he mused over the day's turn of events. To someone who did not know Hades they might view his actions as strange, almost bi-polar. While it was true that Hades did not grow up with what most people would call morality or even to some degree humanity, he did live by a code. In the Merc/wet work/elite assassin circle, most members of said informal group at least knew of if not had encountered each other. There was a unspoken code. As long as your hit was not the other person you left each other alone. If you had the same hit, anything was game. If neither of those situations were true and you encountered one in need or ended up fighting alongside each other, it was curtesy to extend the basics to the other. I.e shelter, food, access to medical supplies and sometimes even the chance to re-arm. After all, they were all where they were because of skills and contracts and clients were fickle things, one day you might be enemies, the next contract might have you working as a team together.
In this particular case, Hades had brought Noel back with him for a few reasons. Firstly, he was curious to know if there was a reason behind the bar fight, secondly now he had seen it in action he was curious about her power, if it was what he suspected, she might be useful in a personal quest of his. Then during combat, she had aquitted herself well. She was well trained, and disciplined. Even in her semi-sober state she had the discipline to not kill, he hoped she would have no qualms to kill when the need arose but that was another matter. She seemed to know her limits, evidenced by the simple fact of when she chose to switch weapons and other clues that Hades observed. Then she was professional, bruised rib and not a word of complaint. Finally the fact that she was attractive did not hurt matters. In fact in some ways she was beginning to remind Hades of some of his fellow tradesmen. That is why he extended her the same access to the basics. If she showed by her actions that she did not understand or respect the unwritten rules, well, Hades regard of her would go downhill very fast from there.
Hades turned as Noel emerged trying to shrug her attractive frame into a now sopping wet shirt. The end result was that she actually looked more attractive than before.
Hades by this time had changed into more relaxed clothes, cargo pants, t-shirt and a hoodie. The sleeves were pushed up so he could cook, revealing a yellow wristband that was given to him by a friend. Upon hearing the request he pointed to a monitor and pullout keyboard tray set into one of the walls.
"Help yourself."
Elsewhere. Agent 5 from Cell 2 had retrieved the cellphone of the female last seen in the company of the target. It was currently in a docking station with the hacker of the team trying to gain access to the information stored within. So far they Hades a name, Noel Gage. A quick search through their databases revealed a current address and that her employment was listed as "Security Guard". They also obtained an e-mail address. Suddenly the phone when into emergency erase mode and despite the hacker's best efforts he was not able to retrieve any additional data. The data they had was deemed sufficient and Cell 2 deployed shortly afterwards, heading for the address listed. [OCC: up to you whether Noel sees that they have her address and started to gain access to her phone, also feel free at this point to Gmod Cell 2 into doing something that might make Noel stay, i.e destroying house/ kidnapping roommate etc]
Following the tracker attached to the motorcycle had led Cell 1 to a house in a gated community. Once the tracker ascertained that the targets had not left the premises, he radioed back. Cell 1 geared up to deploy.
Unaware of the forces being deployed against him and his new found companion. Hades once again offered Noel food then settled down to eat.
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
Flama was growing a little bit frantic. His thugs were getting slaughtered in droves and the attacker seemed to stay frustratingly out of range. At the same time he was having to dodge a constant barrage of missiles. Bullets, which he rendered harmless by creating a plasma shield. Knives and other heavy objects, which he turned to slag with flame/plasma blasts. The worst were that there was no rhythm or order to them. Sometimes it would be just bullets, or just knives, other times it was bullets first then knives or the other way around or one after the other. The end result was that Flama was getting a bit un-nerved. He was cut in a few places and bleeding from a few shallow wounds. He was getting a little frustrated and enraged. He was a general and yet he was getting held up and wounded by this... this thing.
On the other side of the equation. Hades had just dispatched the last thug with a efficient slice to the throat. While he had been "neutralizing" Flama's thugs he had been analyzing Flama's tactics. From his observations, Flama could only fire blasts from the palms of his hands, that meant that like any other weapon, he had a range of efficacy. Also Hades was pretty sure that Flama did not have very much CQC (close quarter combat) training. He moved like he was trained by a boxer (which he had).
After dispatching the last thug Hades faded back into the shadows. He looked around and after running through his plan one final time in his head he want to work. At this point Flama was tensing, scanning the darkness randomly hurling fireballs to try to reveal where the killer was hiding. The first inkling he had of something happening was the setting off of a number of smoke bombs. Obscuring smoke formed a wall in front of him. He wreathed his hands in flames ready to strike at whatever may come.
Behind the scenes Hades burst into activity, throwing ropes over overhead pipes, stringing up bodies, setting explosives.
The smoke was just starting to thin when Flama spotted what looked like a grenade bouncing out of the thinning mist. He immediately threw up a plasma shield. (He was tiring and it was taking longer to throw them up and harder to maintain them) just after the explosion a body like mass seemed to swing at him from his 3 o'clock which was met by a withering plasma blast just as another figure swung at him from his 10 o'clock. before he finished reacting to the second swinging object two frag grenades went off. As Flam reeled from all of this Hades was already behind him and held a throwing spike in his hand. Just as Flama realized that the two objects he had flamed were corpses of his troops, Hades stabbed Flama in the right shoulder blade, immobilizing his right shoulder.
Flama roared in pain and started to turn and at the same time reach behind him to try to remove the spike. But Hades, gripping the spike had kicked off and vaulted over Flama to land in front of him.
Now the Wing Chun chain punch is not deadly or effective for its strength. No, it works on the principle of reinforcing shock waves and speed. Punch 1, your rib cage flexes slightly, but that shock wave is reinforced by punch 2 etc. By the 7th punch micro fractures start appearing in the rib cage. By the 9th if the punches are hard enough they can crack or break a rib bone. Follow that up with a palm strike to the same area and you can punch cleanly broken, razor sharp bone into soft squishy internal organs. Another thing is that unless one has been trained CQC once the chain punch has started most people find it hard to react.
Hades landed in front of Flama, stepped on one of his feet and unleashed a viscous string of chain punches followed by a accurate and deadly palm strike. A shattered fragment of rib promptly deflated one of his lung. Hades followed it up with a Mui Tai lunge kick, the effect of which is to make the kickee fall forwards while being pushed backwards. So Flama, disabled in one shoulder, broken rib, deflated lung fell as if someone had grabbed both his ankles from behind and yanked hard.
To those surviving "witnesses" at the head of the alley all they saw was their general roar with pain then fall, bloodied, broken at the feat of this.. demon, gasping for breath, spitting blood and helpless. Hades kicked a nearby sword into his hands, flourished it once, looked into Flama's eyes and drove the sword point down into Flama's neck. He then stepped back into the shadows. Just as the bossman caught sight of one of his champions, dead and unleashed a withering stream of mini-gun fire where Hades one was. The bullets struck a dark shape and set off a grenade. To all intents and purposes, The bossman thought he had killed Hades. but Hades had already phased through the wall and was now calming his breathing on a nearby rooftop with a silenced sniper rifle, ready to support Aura.
He would not dream of killing the Bossman or Flika, unless they killed Aura first. No those two were Aura's by right, but Hades would happily prevent anyone from interrupting the fight.
[OCC, feel free to Gmod some head shots if you want. I will work them into my next post. Aura now has sniper support. Very accurate sniper support ]
Hades could she that Noel relaxed once reassured they were not going to get into physical conflict. She was a curious one. Durable, and not too bad of a fighter. In all that combat he had not seen her kill a single person. All of her strikes had been clean, too clean. That spoke of training, that spoke of very very good training. That she displayed such a high degree of accuracy and proficiency even while slightly intoxicated spoke volumes for the actual skill she could bring to bear when completely in her right mind and sober. A fact that Hades filed away.
>"So are you somebody's stunt double or.."
Hades laughed at this comment. "Think special operations, black ops, that kind of thing, and you wont go too far wrong." Well firstly that was not far from the truth. Secondly Hades wasn't not one to brag. He was one of the most successful Hit-man/Assassin in History, and that was based on the hits that people knew about, which was less than an eighth of his real count, but Hades was not one to brag. He was the best, not the most well known and wished to keep it that way. To be honest he did not think about it very much. He enjoyed the challenge of planning a hit, to test his skill, to hone it, to learn, to evolve to ever increase proficiency. Never did he feel the need to brag or compare himself with others.
>"Maybe just water? Please."
"Sure, although once your stomach settles, I would suggest some sustenance before you rest." It actually sped up the healing process, Hades knew this from medical studies and from personal experience. Also He had a sneaking suspicion that the Davronski's might make a move soon. that is what he would do. Strike while the prey is recovering. As soon after he has reached a place of perceived safety. That way one has a high chance of catching him off guard.
>"Noel."
Hmm, Noel, Hades rolled the name around in his head a few times. Noel was turning out to be a rather intriguing woman. She was beautiful, but that was of marginal importance. Hades was currently more interested in her character, skills and mutation. All good things to know if said person may soon be embroiled in another fire fight. From what he observed in the alleyway, Noel had some kind of memory mutation. Those moves with the cloth were common enough, but at least one of them had only been invented while he was in training, and was never spread outside. So unless she was of his age, she had picked it up from him. Also the way she used the cloth, it was almost as if she had been taught the theory but had never applied it. Oh well.
"Well, nice to meet you Noel. I will leave the water outside the door and a set of spare clothes. I will be in the next room down the hall if you need anything."
He suspected she might, judging by the pounding that her ribs had taken, but then again Hades had learned to never underestimate the stubbornness of people. he set went to the living room, pulled out a smaller medical kit and rapidly and expertly patched up his cuts then proceeded to cook a quick dish of asian fried rice. Soon the comforting aroma filled the kitchen.
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
Hades smiles at the question. His ribs were aching a little bit after the ride. Evidently the lady was not used to riding motorcycles. "No we are not going to fight. You may have started that bar fight and blamed me for it but I might have inadvertently dragged you into something deeper. So.. I guess we are even.We should see to that cut of yours, and I am guessing that your ribs ache rather badly. If they are broken I have the equipment to set them. Come."
With that Hades let the lady into his safe house. He led them into a room that was well equipped to handle all but the most serious of medical emergencies. He gestured to the cabinets. "Let me know if you need any help. I am medically qualified." Well he was, and to be honest had far too much experience in medical matters. And he figured that as they did not know each other very well she might want some privacy especially if she needed to set her ribs.
Pausing at the door he turned and said. "I am going to fix some food, would you like some?" Then almost as an after thought he said "By the way what should I call you? Now that you know my name and I am no longer "Baldy"". He awaited her reply.
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
In the city he could not seem to shake them, it was not that they were fast, he was much faster. It was that they were many and evidently when they wanted to be, they could be well coordinated. They must be in communication. Well there was only one thing for it then. Hades turned onto a long stretch of highway, it was relatively empty. Mentally apologizing to Alpha, he opened the throttle, ALL the way. This was one of the fastest production bikes that money could buy, and when it went, it WENT. Hades concentrated on becoming one with the machine.
It was times like this where time and the world seemed to slow down. He had always suspected that he had undergone genetic modifications, probably giving him faster reflexes, tougher constitution, greater strength. Not to significant levels but enough to give him and edge. It was little wonder that occasionally other merc groups put out a bounty for him. One reason the Russian Davronski's might be in town. If they could get a sample of his blood... Well plenty of people would give good money to study that.
It was as if time slowed down. He wove among the other vehicles on the road with ease. It was almost as if they were going in slow motion. All of his senses were engaged. He pushed the bike to the very edge and the bike responded. He opened up a huge lead over the bikers, leaving them in the dust. Looking at his "fuel tank" he observed that he was starting to run low, but that did not worry him as they were nearing one of his "residences" that he had dotted around the city. He had increased the number in NY since his return not too long ago. Anticipating that as he was going to be here for a while he might conceivably need a larger number of safe houses than usual. Slowing down in the shadow of a large lorry, Hades turned off the highway and made his way at a leisurely pace into a gated community, using a key fob to open and close the gate. Soon he drove the bike into a garage and closed the door.
Dismounting, he plugged the bike in. It would be ready in about 30 minutes thanks to a new fast charge system. He hung up his helmet and waited for his passenger to dismount.
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
Hades reached his black motorcycle. He turned as he heard Alpha's footsteps. He turned and asked her "Can you ride?" Well he was asking if she was too wounded to ride but not in so many words. After receiving the affirmative he spoke again "This will be close. Hold on tight. I am Hades by the way." He handed her his spare that he always kept with him when he rode.
As he passed it to her he thought of the many people who had worn it. He only offered rides to friends or people who had been through the crucible with him. This girl would be a first who he did not really know, but needs must. Many of the people who had worn it were no longer here. The lucky ones dies of old age, the others in missions. Believe it or not there were two generations of the same family who had worn that helmet. He had gone on missions with both Mac and his father, and throughout their association had pulled their backsides out of the fire, sometimes literally. They joked that he was their family's guardian angel. Then there were the others who did not make it. The parade of faces began. Hades shook himself out of his reverie. and put on his own helmet. He could hear shouts at the other end of the alley and stray gunshots. evidently his little light show had done nothing for the tempers of the some the bikers. He also heard the revving noises of Harley's. It could either be more bikers to join the fray or pursuers. If it was the latter that would be better as they all had been drinking heavily for a while. If it was the former, well Harley's were not known for their speed, and Hades had ridden this night on a Lightning LS-218.
He had recently been sent this bike by one of the companies he owned to test it. After Handing Alpha the helmet he also handed her a pouch. "When we turn sharp corners in dark streets or if they are getting too close, toss a handful of these behind us." They were spike balls designed to cause tire blowout.
Once both were seated comfortably and with the throaty roar of Harley's growing louder and the shining of headlamps growing brighter and the sound of pistols echoing. They took off. One thing you can say for electric superbikes. The acceleration was brutal. 0-60 in 1-2 seconds was something that had to be experienced to be believed.
[OCC feel free to Gmod some of the chase scene. Also not mentioned yet but there is a two way comm system built into the helmets that activates when ever one starts talking. Have fun]
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
Hades considered that a valid reason, for now. He also considered. he was a little thin on assets at the moment. Sure Alex was a long term investment, but it would not hurt to have someone with excellent scouting potential and depending on the extent of hiw powers he mihgt also possess some significant offensive and defensive capabilities. It was settled then, he would try to teach Alex the basics and then go from there. Alex would not be the first Human/mutant that Hades had traind, and would not probably be the last.
"Alright, lets take it one step at a time and see how it goes. There will need to be a few rules, if they are acceptable to you, I would ask you to tell me as much as you want to about your mutation so I can craft a training routine. You are not the mutant that I have trained." Hades paused and collected his thoughts.
"As for a place to lay low, how about this house. It is paid for in advance for a number of months. There is a computer in the corner. The home page will let you order food. IT will be delivered at 6pm on Monday in a series of coolers. The empty ones will be picked up on tuesday evening. You will be responsible for the upkeep of this place as well as the security. By that I don't mean run video survelience, although having one of your summoned running patrols would not be a bad idea. What I mean is that if you go into town, make sure you are not followed back here. Otherwise you will loose your safe haven. Hmm what else.."
Hades pondered for a minute. "Also, no touching the mutant hate group, at least for now." what he did not say was that dealing with the mutant hate group would be one of Alex's graduation exams. "How does that sound?"
Hades speaks in #ec4511 Thanks Ghost for the second Sig
(OCC hope you don't mind the time warping) "Agreed" Said Hades, and turned and walked away.
The airfield meet went smoothly. They met, Hades gave CS a encrypted PDA for use during the mission. On it, among other things was the employee list of the compound employees as well as background and financial data, a full profile. Hades explained that while the group kept many secrets they still had to file taxes and used online banking for automatic payroll. As they were flying to Montana Hades ran through the additional hardware for the mission. They each had an assault rifle with a medium range scope with single semi or full auto capabilities. It came with three types of ammo. Subsonic hollow point for silent sniping, armor piercing and incendiary for maximum damage. there were also two types of explosives that would cover their escape, both remotely triggered. Firstly their exfil route would be mined with S-mines that were set to explode at the average nipple height. That way if their pursuers were performing a tactical advance (advancing while aiming down a scope) they would get a face full of deadly shrapnel. The other was thermobaric explosives, also known as fuel air bombs. If they needed those well, then they would really need them. Finally there was the animal bait. A compound that was designed to send out three different chemicals to attract the three main predators of the area, mountain lion, bear and wolf. In low concentrations it would draw them close. In high concentrations it would induce aggression, prompting them to attach whoever carried the scent.
Hades dropped first, to setup their secondary camp with supplies, escape vehicles and food and weapons. He then proceeded to mine both primary and secondary exfil routes and met up with CS. It was CS's task to carry out further scouting as well as secure the primary campsite.
A number of days later they were both in the clearing, awaiting night fall to begin the raid.
"The preparations are complete. Any new developments from your scouting trip?"
Hades glanced out of the broken store window to see Alpha in some kind of battle frenzy, grabbing people and doing something to them, all the while screaming about where was "the bald guy". It took Hades a moment to realize she was referring to him. She was calling him baldy? Really? Baldy? that would be like going up to a female on the street and saying "Hey woman". Well to be fair he had mentally designated her as "Alpha", not that he had ever said it out loud. He had almost finished his preperations. Just as he was pushing the last box into place and aligning things up a biker who had observed his companion's fateful collision with the unfortunate shop window blundered in. Outside was bright compared to the interior of the sho and said biker had not had time for his eyes to adjust, nor was Hades going to give him that chance. The biker promptly received a vigorous Thwack to the head, and when that did not fell him, it was repeated, and repeated and repeated. Till the unconcious form collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. You see up to this point Hades had restricted himself. He had tried to garentee that any blows landed on the bikers would seem reasonable for a bar fight and not the work of a trained killer, but with the possability of the Davronski's, all that went out the window. Speaking of defenistration, another biker was lumbering towards the window. They just did not know when to quit. Hades promptly heaved the object that he had used to deal with the previous biker at the current one. If anyone had been able to see the whole scene clearly, they would have been astonished to see a gold painted lucky cat fly out of the shattered store front to hit the biker square in the genitals. Another accurately struck the top of his head and down he went like a sack of potatoes. Hades mused that lucky cats did come in handy after all. Not that they seemed to be effective in bringing luck to their new owners, unless it was bad luck. He idly wondered if there were such things as unlucky cats.
Having finished his preperations, Hades stepped back and threw the switch. Atr this point time was of the essence. The longer they delayed the mroe bikers would come and the worse their odds would become, of course their chances of survival would plummet if a Davronski team was dispatched so it was time to do away with the subtle and impliment a change in tactics. Hades could be flamboyant and obv ert if needed, he prefered not to as he compared it to being a street magician using cheap parlour tricks but needs must. In the previousely mostly dark alley, the sign above the store light up brightly proclaiming boldy to the world that this store, this store with the smashed in front window was "CHAN'S CHINESE EMPORIOUM". Slightly dazzled by the light, a large group of bikers broke off and headed towards the store, especially once they caught sight of a number of their own lying unconcious on the ground nearby among a number of waving lucky cat statues. This was calculated to lighten the pressure on Alpha and to corral a large group of targets together. Hades made a mental note to get one of his shell companies to reimburse Mr Chan for the damages. The bikers slowed as they neared the darkened interior. A small flame flickered in the darkness, it seemed to follow a looping path towards some boxes. A few of the closest bikers could read the word "Fireworks" on the side. "Ohhh Shi..." the expletive was never completed before all manner of hell broke loose. Hades had positioned and aimed the fireworks well and they shot out of the window and into the crowd of bikers, exploding at eye level, buring, dazzling, disoritetating with bright flashing lights, loud explosions and searing heat.
Through the smoke of the cacophony, Hades, armed with two knives liberated from some bikers, charged towards the tank lunging at Alpha. Stepping off a biker that was falling, Hades launched himself at the the tank, striking him feet first and then plunging his knives into his chest, deflating both of his lungs. As Hades rode the collapsing body down he yanked the knives from the soon-to-be corpse. As he hit the ground he rolled coming up and spinning to trow each of the knives at a thug. One knife to deflate one lung. Having cleared a space around Alpha and with the main bulk of the bikers dealing with the attacking barrage of fireworks, Hades yelled "Come!" at Alpha and without turning to see if she followed started running down an alley
"...Could you help me? I mean, teach me how to fight like you or at least...give me a place to lie low for a little bit."
"Hmmmm..." Hades considered. "Could I help you? Yes I could. Could I teach you how to fight like me? That is a rather vague request. I could teach you how to defend yourself, I could also teach you how to fight. The question is how much do you want to learn, and most importantly, why?"
That was really the crux point. If the youth just wanted to learn how to defend himself, well with his degree of control over his powers, or what Hades had observed, that would not be hard at all. Parhaps a week to teacdh him some knife drills and to formulate a strategy or two. If he wanted to do more than just survive, well that would depend on what type of skills he wanted to learn and why. If Alex just wanted to defend himself, Hades would probably acquiesce to his request, although he would feel a little dissappointed in the youth's short sightedness. As to his final request, well that would depend on the answer to his first two questions. Out loud he said.
"As to your last request, yes I can find you a place to lay low but the conditions will depend on your answer and how long you want it for."
Good the lady was slowly approaching the level of being an effective fighter. The way she carried her concealed blade spoke of experience, training and probably a very good teacher. Hades idly wondered if she might be better than him. If so there might be a chance to learn. Since discovering that the Kabal seemed to be no more Hades had run short of effective sparring partners. From Shogun he learned the finer points of the samurai style, from Hunter, well Hunter was a veritable fount of knowledge but back to the present.
It was time for a sit-rep. He and a slightly inebriated ally (yes he considered the girl, which he designated as Alpha for lack of anything better, an ally for reasons that were currently a mystery to him) were heavily out numbered, in neutral territory with the opposing side gradually growing in strength. Hades himself was also not currently at his peak and his reserves could not run forever. Slowly but surely they would get mobbed. He did have a backup weapon but would not use it unless backed into a corner. The use of the weapon he called the "scorpion's Tail" tended to leave any targets rather badly mutilated if not eviscerated. For now they seemed to be holding their own but he suspected that it would not last for long. As if to add to the situation, Hades fancied he saw movement on one of the nearby rooftops. Damn! he had heard that the Davronski Group was passing through NY but he did not expect to see them. He could not be 100% certain but better safe than sorry. If that was a Davronski then he needed to get him and Alpha out ASAP.
It was at this time that one of the bikers swinging a chain caught Hades with a lucky strike on the left shin. Hades silently cursed. It was not broken but it was another reminder that the sooner they vacated the area the better. Catching the chain in both hands, Hades promptly relieved the wielder of in and laid about him with a vengeance. All the while he was searching, the nearby store names. Trusting that Alpha would be OK for a little while he fought his way towards a darkened store. Hades cleared some room around himself then, with knife in one hand, he launched himself bodily at one of the bikers and rode him through the storefront window to disappear into the darkness of the store. He only hoped that it carried what he needed.
Hades listened to the outburst then quietly but authoritatively said. "Alex, Stop!" The word seem to hang in the air. Then more quietly he said, "Calm down, it is not as bad as you think or imagine."
Hades poured some Chinese green tea from a pot into two cups, slid one towards Alex, took one for himself and took a sip. When he observed that the panic levels in the room had lessened, well as much as could be hoped for now he continued.
"Firstly, the website in question is a private site, restricted to members of the group. It just so happened that the young man in question had a very unimaginative password. So this "hit List" would be restricted to the 100+ active members." He paused for a sip of tea then continued. "Secondly, the world is not a fair place, but I understand your question, you jumped up high on the list because they see you as a weak target, someone who could potentially be easily taken out and made an example of, something to bolster their confidence or just to give them bragging rights. Also your escape angered them."
Hades smiled. "It is not the end of the world Alex, with your current skills, the advice I gave you, surviving should not be that difficult. Keep calm, don;t panic and think strategically."
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