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.
Really. He wasn't just thinking that because it was nice out, but also because today was the day he would finally be implementing the plan he'd worked on for so long.
Granted, there'd been other people involved. Panu had helped, for example, by running those simulations. Ambrose hadn't been sure, but apparently that was within the scope of Panu's powers! He'd be sure to ask the boy to do more of that in the future. Maybe buy him a cat. Cats were nice.
And Cail. Cail had been very agreeable, immediately accepting his newly made-up position as the JW representative, and overall PR man, on the Utopia Planning Committee. Once they'd started to spread the idea around, Cail had been beautifully talented at finally swinging people over to their side, too - at last count, the Committee counted at least one senator and one globally-respected scientist, which was a great start considering they'd created it about a week ago. Even right now, minutes before he'd step onto stage, Ambrose could see Cail quietly talking into his phone. His enhanced hearing let him pick up, even over the crowd swarming in front of the stage, who was apparently a Congressman on the phone. Ambrose truly loved that man - or at least, he would, if he could truly love anyone for anything more than their utility.
Oh, and his new hires, the Capitoline twins. Couldn't forget about them. Ambrose could see them at the stage's base, waving the encroaching press back. A quick sniff told Ambrose that the younger one's power was in use, because that whiff of air immediately made him feel just a bit calmer than he felt before. That power had been so useful at recent, supposedly peaceful rallies. The man could start a riot single-handedly, especially during a windy day. It was incredible.
So yes, maybe it'd been a team effort. Okay, it'd definitely been a team effort. But this? Today? This was all him.
Until Cail took the stage, that was, in which case it was all Cail, but that was irrelevant.
"You're up," a harried-looking techie hissed, hand pressed to his earpiece as he tried to hear what was being said. Ambrose peered out at the crowd in response, still mostly concealed inside the building - his building - behind the stage. Just this morning, the plaza in front of the JW building had been bustling with people trying to get to work. Now, half the block was cordoned off to compensate for the huge crowds that had showed up to see his announcement that would take place on the large stage right in front of JW's main entrance. Their PR team hadn't been specific - just said that Mr. Jaager was going to announce a project that would change human-mutant relations everywhere, especially in the wake of the riots - but that had been enough to warrant such a turnout. Apparently he was more popular than he'd thought. More popular than the pink-haired X, even, who he'd only learned was a Ragnarok member (surprise!) when he'd whined to Madeline about having to attend the rally earlier. He'd complained about not being informed before she informed him that he'd been too busy playing Fruit Ninja to care, and that was on him.
She definitely deliberately stepped on his foot with her pointed heel on her way out. Sometimes, he was sure that the only reason Madeline wore fancy shoes was for their secondary use as passive-aggressive weapons.
"I said you're up," the techie said with more irritation. Ambrose didn't mind. He was too busy basking in the moment to get angry at his little minions. He lingered for just enough time to be especially obnoxious before he finally pushed open the door, strolling out in the warm afternoon air.
The crowd fell mostly quiet as he stepped up onto the stage and took his place behind the podium. It was burning out, the sun pounding down relentlessly on everyone in attendance, and Ambrose felt like he was baking in the expensive black suit he wore. But he'd only have to be out here for a bit - enough to take the glory, before he handed over the floor when it came to the technical aspects.
"Ladies and gentlemen, and all those around and in between," he began, his tone appropriately somber for the topic at hand, even if his opening statement had been slightly unusual. "By now, I'm sure all of you are aware of the tragic bombing of a mutant shelter in Odessa on June 24th." That was the date. That was the date, right? He'd drilled this speech, however short it was, relentlessly, but had only memorized the date for its dramatic effect. He didn't actually care; if he hadn't needed to know it, he probably would've said May sixth or something equally ridiculous.
"In light of such an event, there have been outbreaks of rioting throughout the city," he continued. "In conjunction with the more and more frequent malfunctions in META bots, New York City - or any city, for that matter - is no longer a place where mutants can feel safe."
This was where he'd had to be extremely careful, when he wrote the speech. He couldn't sound too adversarial, or people would latch onto him. And the attention, especially went everything inevitably went downhill, was highly unwanted. So he had to sound like he was doing this for all the right reasons, and as if it wasn't even him doing this. If he sounded as if this was less of his decision and more of a necessary solution, less fingers would be pointed at him in the future.
"And that. Isn't. Right," Ambrose said firmly. Someone started cheering. And before he knew it, the entire crowd had been worked into an excited uproar. He saw Remy smirk at him out of the corner of his eye, and was surprised to feel only the smallest spike in excitement when he breathed in - mob mentality was a powerful thing, and he was watching it play out right here. He could've kept going, rallying up the emotion even further, but he didn't want that. He wasn't supposed to be a figurehead - this should feel like a natural progression, not a forceful shove.
So he waited until it quieted down sufficiently to speak again. "In light of that sentiment," he said, calmly. He could feel excitement - real, genuine excitement, which was surprisingly a strange feeling - burning up in his gut. It was time. "Jaager Worldwide is proud to announce that we have put our full support behind the Utopia Planning Committee. Now, you may ask, 'what does that mean? What's Utopia?'" He took a breath. "Utopia will be exactly what it sounds like - a utopia. It will be a place for mutants, where we don't have to live in fear that we'll be shot down in the street by a malfunctioning META bot for the heinous crime of possessing the X-gene." The crowd was going again, cheering wildly, and Ambrose could feel the emotion crackling beneath his skin. He had to speak louder, to make himself heard, but he was a brilliant orator and he knew it. And he was taking full advantage of every bit of public speaking skill he'd ever possessed.
"Utopia will be a safe place for those who don't feel safe anymore. And until it is safe, however long that takes, Utopia will be there to take the tired. The poor. The huddling masses yearning to breathe free!" He spoke with false conviction, with affected passion, but the crowd ate it up. He didn't even need to try all that hard; at this rate, he could've just read his speech in monotone and it would've had the same effect.
Ambrose briefly recalled writing that part, as Cail peered over his shoulder. "That's a bit dramatic," he'd said.
"It's the irony," Ambrose had said absentmindedly, staring intently at his screen. "You know, that it's how Americans are supposed to be treated, but mutants aren't, so we're giving them a place where they can be treated like that."
"I thought you majored in biochem," Cail had said dryly in response to what was actually a decently sophisticated bit of thought, compared to what Ambrose's mouth regularly churned out.
"I did," Ambrose had responded, shrugging. "I also paid attention in middle school English. Somebody pulled the same trick in one of the books we read. I'm not above 'taking inspiration' from middle school novels. And everyone loves quotes. Never read the whole poem, but who cares? This is the only relevant part."
Brought back to the present by the quieting of the crowd, Ambrose continued speaking. But he said his next words almost softly, to add to their weight. "We are persecuted for the supposed crime of being less than human," he said lowly. "But being human isn't about what you are. It's about who you are. And Utopia will be a place where we can be free to be human however we like."
The crowd virtually erupted. He stood there, just basking, finally watching his month of planning come to fruition. God, so much planning. He hated being cooped up, and the Ragnarök work coupled with the JW work had been almost physically painful. But this? This was worth it.
"I'll now be giving up the stage to JW's representative on the UPC, where he will be taking questions," Ambrose said once the noise had died down again. He glanced off stage. "Commander Cail Rendfur?"
As Cail walked onto the stage, Ambrose shook his hand before relinquishing his position at the podium. If he could, he would've felt exuberant. Incredible. Ecstatic.
As it was, he just felt smug, and something dark and vicious stirred inside him.
"Mr. Rendfur! Where will Utopia -""Mr. Rendfur, who else is -""Mr. Rendfur - when do you estimate -"
Ambrose walked back into his building, letting the door swing shut behind him, muting the sounds outside.
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jul 25, 2016 22:51:41 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
Madeline glared at Mr. Corydon's little minion, who she didn't hate as much for the sole reason that he seemed just as displeased to be in this situation as they were. Good. Her eyes flicked around the room, assessing everyone's status. Panu had turned off the fire alarms, so there was no painfully loud siren, but their mutations still seemed cut off. Cail seemed nonplussed, which was fine for him because his mutation wasn't passive, and also because Cail always looked nonplussed. He'd looked slightly less nonplussed after seeing the tablet screen Panu had showed him. Considering even Panu had noticed and had politely asked the two men inside to cease whatever it was they were doing, Madeline had stopped trying to eviscerate her desk because it was a bit embarrassing at this point. The teleporter looked a bit stressed, and he kept sniffing the air - that, Madeline understood. The sudden muting of everything was more than a little bit stressful, but she wasn't showing it. She was better than that. Panu looked annoyed at best, disaffected at worst. Overall, everyone seemed fine. Glancing at the still slightly disturbing figure in the center of the room, she almost felt a sense of kinship, in that they were all united by a total lack of forethought when it came to choosing employers.
"Excuse me, Miss..."
"Brass," she said automatically, instinctively. The man nodded and kept going.
”It seems like negotiations have broken down into a brawl. How sturdy are the walls and floors?” Well, that was one way to put it. "Negotiations have broken down into a brawl." Better than whatever they looked like they were doing, in which case they needed to listen to Panu and get to a hotel and out of the office with walls and floors that would be able to withstand them, but the inside was another question (she doubted Ambrose was even realizing that this was his place of work, and was better intact). Madeline was going to assume that Mr. Corydon was as strong as Jaager, if not more. And in that case.
"They've been Ambrose-proofed," she said shortly. "Unless they're deliberately trying very hard to get through a small portion of wall or floor, nothing will break. Even the glass is almost a foot thick and bulletproof, but that's the weak point." She glanced back at her computer screen. Sometime when she'd been speaking, Ambrose had lost his shirt.
Her claws were making shrill grating noises on her desk again. She didn't notice.
Ambrose didn't even hear Panu.
All unnecessary functions had been discarded to focus on the fight. One of those functions had been "listening to anyone other than his opponent." So no, he didn't hear. If he had - or rather, when he did days later, combing through the security footage - he'd be proud. Panu was learning to be passive-aggressive; that was a necessary life skill.
But he was too far gone to even bother with that. If he'd know what Kaz was thinking, he would've laughed. Treating the primal part of you, the monster inside, as a separate entity was idiotic. Ambrose embraced the monster. There was no distinction between him and the primal rage he felt humming below every inch of his skin - maybe there had been, a long time ago, but not anymore. Any human part of Ambrose Jaager was long since dead, and likely had been ever since a little monster clawed its way out of its fleshy little shell. (That wasn't true, but Ambrose wouldn't accept that. There was no place for people undecided between being human or monster in this world - and Ambrose had chosen to be a monster.) But he didn't think this, because he didn't even notice that Kaz was reminiscing. He was too busy grinning as his unexpected weight drove Kaz and all his super strength backwards some.
What he did notice was when his claws and hooked wingtips glanced uselessly off of Kaz's neck. That had been unexpected. He scrambled to recover, but he was too slow - before he knew it, Kaz had a hand around his neck.
And almost immediately, for a brief second, Ambrose went slack.
It was a primal reaction. Wolves, for example, bare their necks to each other in shows of submission. The feral part of Ambrose's mind, the part that was in control right now - his lizard brain, as it was appropriately known - had recognized "hand around neck" as immediate grounds for surrender. Thankfully, he stopped that absurdity before it went any further. At the same time as his instincts processed that the brunt of the attack was not targeted at his neck, the logical part of his brain bemoaned him for being an idiot and humiliating himself in a fight. That was a bit too wild. He might have to reel it in a bit so something so downright ridiculous wouldn't happen again.
Distracted, he was only barely able to get into motion fast enough to keep himself from shattering all over the floor he himself had built to withstand someone ten times Ambrose's strength, because he was attached to his building and would like the top floor to stay on. He was strong, yes, but his mutation was never meant to be part of a human form. All the extra dragon meat, squished into this small shape, might provide a bit of cushioning, but nothing near what Kaz must've thought he had to use this much force. Using his momentum to his advantage, he rolled a bit so he took the majority of the blow to his left shoulder, and almost pierced through the layers of wood. The floor splintered, but the metal beneath the wood didn't even dent. Ambrose knew immediately that his left shoulder had been dislocated, and that a particularly large splinter of wood had nearly sliced his bicep in half. Moving quickly, while Kaz expected him to still be recovering from what was meant to be a paralyzingly blow, he rolled upwards and rammed his shoulder against the nearby desk - thankfully drilled into the floor - and set the bone back in place with a sickening crack. When he moved away, black blood was smeared all over the desk's front, and the real core of Ambrose's mutation was visible through the cut on his arm. A jagged strip of flesh about six inches long and two inches wide was gone, revealing a patch of black scales. His dark blood was oozing through where the splinter had cut through the softened scales, but even now they were hardening with the exposure to air, and the bleeding had stopped within seconds. Letting out a shaky breath, having otherwise dislocated and then reset his shoulder without a sound, Ambrose took a moment to almost relish the pain. It cleared his head, which he liked, and had the added benefit of making him even angrier and more willing to fight.
Ambrose had always fought dirty in order to compensate for his relative lack of skill. And he wasn't going to give up on that philosophy now. He was also a total douche, which was similarly not a philosophy he wasn't going to give up on anytime soon.
So he shrugged off his shirt, first - not actually for one of the above two reasons, but because it was getting tangled up and in his way. He wasn't shy at all - the AMA where he'd taken his shirt off on camera for the Internet proved that - and while vanity was a part of it, Ambrose also just didn't understand the taboo on showing skin. No big deal. Humans were the only species to develop clothes, and if he had washboard abs, why not show them off? Admittedly, his skin was rather marred at this point by the patch of dark scales and the dark blood dripping down his arm, but this wasn't a fashion show. This was a fight.
"Hey," Ambrose said, all of a sudden, looking Kaz directly in the eye. And then he flicked his gaze very conspicuously downward, making it very clear what he was looking at. "Mine is bigger," he fake-whispered conspiratorially, a vicious grin on his face. There was his douche philosophy shining through. (Obviously, if he was asked by, say, Panu, he was referring to Kaz's abdomen, even though Ambrose was conspicuously less bulky, even with his mutation making him look like he worked out much more than he actually did. But obviously. Abs.)
This one was going to be a little harder to explain, though, because Ambrose was about to fight dirty.
He was going more for the shock factor here than anything, because Ambrose was lunging again, but this time he was aiming a bit lower than the throat. Well, a lot lower. And he wasn't aiming to just cut, he was aiming to remove (Kaz's abdomen, obviously). Yes, his claws hadn't worked so well last time, but he sure wasn't going to use his teeth because that would send a completely wrong message. Expecting the same result as last time he'd attempted to claw Kaz's flesh, Ambrose was ready this time to roll out of the way to respond to whatever Kaz tried next. He knew from experience that his back spikes were beautiful roll-assistors, in that they'd dig into the ground and keep his trajectory stable. Hopefully, the shock would be enough to delay Kaz a bit so Ambrose could think of something better to do next opening he got.
He seriously hoped Kaz hadn't noticed the neck thing. Ambrose was relatively confident he could stop it from happening again, but his primal side was winning this fight, so he'd rather not risk it.
Outside, Cail leaned over Madeline's shoulder, actually showing emotion for once. "He did not," Cail said, his tone part admiration, part horror.
"He did," Madeline said, and wondered why she hadn't just taken a nice, quiet job as a bank teller or something instead.
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jul 25, 2016 17:48:44 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
Ambrose watched as darkness started to crawl up the walls, and his ability to see outside the room grew weaker and weaker. It was disturbing, yes, but his unconventional rescuer - Sam, had he said? - seemed like he had at least some idea what he was doing. And Ambrose knew what Sam was trying to do - weaken the walls so they could bust out. Ambrose could hear the faint hum of machines chugging along above them, as he craned his neck briefly to look up, and took an experimental sniff at the air.
That was a bad idea. He broke out coughing, as much as a dragon could, repulsed by the smell of sewer and alcohol. But the faint little whiff he caught of the building above them, drifting down through pipes down below, confirmed what he thought. They were right below a power station of some sort, and the smell of ozone was almost intoxicating, even though Ambrose had barely even gotten a sniff.
Of course, Ambrose wasn't going to say a word. If they knocked out half the borough's power in a quest to free Ambrose, that was a win-win. "Any relation to Jabber Jaw?"
What? Ambrose briefly started, almost having forgotten there was someone in the room with him. But then he processed.
He gave the other mutant a blank look, never having heard of whatever Jabberjaw was before, and by Sam's silence, he was guessing that response had been expected.
"How long have you been down here and have you heard anything that would give us an idea as to where we are? Gonna be honest. Got lost an hour or so ago."
...wow. No, that was not what Ambrose wanted to hear. It was like Sam was purposefully trying to antagonize him to further humiliate Ambrose about his situation. Thankfully, this time, it worked in Ambrose's favor. He wasn't going to say "right under the important part of a power plant, where your attempt to bust me out would probably be considered an act of domestic terrorism." Obviously.
"No idea," Ambrose said, the lie perfectly executed. There wasn't a hint of deception on Ambrose's face - which, admittedly, didn't have enough muscles as of now to show much emotion at all, but that was irrelevant. "We might be underwater, though, so be careful. I can hear rather well, but I can't hear anything at all above us, which means we're either below a conveniently abandoned shipyard or the Hudson." Ambrose craned his neck to see up again, right before the encroaching ice closed off his view, and suddenly realized that he'd really miscalculated. The machines were, in fact, farther off than he initially realized, because there was a person strolling among them now, and the figure was way too small to be on ground level. Okay, maybe a floor or two up, then. That was alright - Ambrose had wings. He could bust them on his way out. Not as satisfying as letting the other mutant destroy them for him, but it still worked.
Ambrose cast Sam a sideways glance, suddenly realizing something. "Have we met before?" Ambrose asked curiously, before realizing that either way, Sam wouldn't know because it would've been as Ambrose, not Jabberwocky. "Let me rephrase. Do you do anything that would make you known to the common man?"
And yes, he was aware that he was a pretentious arse as a dragon. He couldn't help it. There was something about being a dragon that made everything else seem so.. plebeian.
"You're kidding me,"Romeo Capitoline, one of Ambrose's two new bodyguards, said. "One month? That's impossible. No way things are gonna go downhill that fast. It's one terrorist attack - no one's gonna start a riot over that."
Ambrose had hired the man yesterday, but they'd been in communication for a few days longer than that. He'd heard of the Capitoline twins' reputation, though, which was why he hadn't been hesitant at all in hiring them. Obviously, there were legal loopholes, but as soon as they'd jumped through those, Ambrose had two new bodyguards and Ragnarok had two more members.
"Not on their own, they're not," Cail said. The three of them were in Ambrose's office, standing around a map of the city rolled out onto a table. Madeline was turning everyone else away, telling them whatever excuse she'd thought of this time. (Ambrose had heard her dryly tell someone that he was busy having a gay orgy. Thankfully, it'd just been Romeo's brother, who Ambrose had heard make a strangled noise before Ambrose stepped out, fully clothed, to put an end to that.)
"How are you gonna help out, then?" Romeo said, with a healthy dose of skepticism that Ambrose appreciated. He was involving only those necessary in what he was calling Utopia planning meetings - in this case, Cail and now Romeo - but he'd left the door open for both Madeline and Panu. Madeline had declined, and Ambrose didn't know where Panu was, but this was good enough. Romeo was only being included because he had experience, passion, and had been vetted as "very trustworthy" by Madeline, which was good enough for Ambrose. The man's mutation was powerful, too, if not obvious, which was why Romeo was stuck in the planning room instead of outside helping execute the plan.
Unlike his brother, that was.
"Not us," Ambrose said, and Cail and Romeo both looked at him, as he'd been silent for the last couple minutes. "There's a reason we're all up here. We're too noticeable." The two other men looked at him expectantly, but Ambrose let the silence hang, hoping one of them would ask "who" for dramatic effect.
"Then who?" Romeo finally said, making it obvious by his tone that he was just indulging Ambrose.
"Well," Ambrose said, grinning and showing sharpened teeth. "Your brother, for one."
Almost immediately, Romeo's eyes grew dark. "Where is he?" he asked - more demanded, really. Ambrose swiped a remote off of his desk and turned on a TV settled into the corner of the room. Immediately, a news channel started playing, showing coverage of a peaceful pro-mutant protest out in the city. Behind him, Romeo frowned, and Cail just looked bored. Cail knew exactly what was going on, but Romeo had yet to be informed.
Suddenly, even as they watched, the protest's tone changed. Their chanting grew angrier, and a smaller human protest - one advocating for removal of mutants entirely - started to throw slurs and rocks. In the corner of the screen, a familiar face was briefly visible before being swallowed by the crowd again.
"Oh," Romeo said, almost breathlessly. "That's brilliant."
The newscaster kept going, her voice gradually getting more panicky as the situation escalated. "I don't know what's going on here, John. It was peaceful just now, but all of a sudden, people started throwing rocks and a few fistfights have broken out. The police are beginning to intervene, but -"
She was suddenly cut off by a shout from the crowd, clearly augmented somehow. "Human SCUM!"
All hell broke loose.
Miles away, almost a hundred stories in the air, Ambrose smiled.
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jul 19, 2016 22:10:44 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
"Him," the man repeated, slowly, and Ambrose resisted the urge to whack his skull into the wall. Yes. Him. Not that hard.
The man congratulated himself on something. Judging by the fact that he was now walking to the door, it was on finding it. Dear lord.
When the man entered, he was still an unnervingly dark spot in the middle of everything else, but his face grew minimally lighter as the man's arm passed in front of his face. Before he did so, though, Ambrose heard loud and clear the man's surprise at Ambrose's form. What, had his rescuer expected somebody described as "giant lizard" to not look like a dragon? A dragon literally was a giant lizard. That was the point - Ambrose took a deep breath. This whole situation was getting to him a lot more than it should've.
"Yo! I heard someone of your stature was being held captive." Ambrose had gotten that impression, yes, but he refrained from saying anything sarcastic when the man sent a burst of darkness at the chains. Ice, he'd guess, and the experimental tug he gave supported that when the frozen metal snapped easily. As he worked on separating the rest of the now-fractured metal from his limbs, the man asked a question. "How'd they get you down here?"
Oh, dammit. He hadn't even thought of that. "I'm generally smaller," he said wryly, not willing to disclose more than that. "But if you had an idea on how to get out, that'd be lovely, because there no way I'd fit through the doorway like this." He paused, midway through tearing off the mangled remains of a cuff with his teeth, to say something else. "I'm Jabberwocky, by the way," he added, voice muffled slightly by the cuff in his teeth. "I see you have yet to introduce yourself."
He only had a few moments of mostly-suppressed panic before gunshots rang out. A brief thrill of fear-fueled adrenaline flowed through him before his human brain smashed his lizard brain's automatic responses to the situation and he processed that the shot came from very far off. In fact, he could pinpoint its location to exactly where he'd seen the blurry figure from before. Judging by the fact that it was followed by two more, and One had just gone down in a cloud of arterial spray, that was Noel. Mostly on time, he supposed - if she'd been any slower, he probably wouldn't be just paralyzed and instead fully dead.
More shots went off. By the time the dust cleared, four more of the soldiers were down. One was bleeding out while the another was dead from a messy head shot; the third's body armor had eventually given in and a bullet had made its way through. The fourth had been hit in the leg, and he'd stumbled towards Ambrose, who'd gritted his teeth through the pain and lunged at the man. In a manner befitting a crocodile more than a human, Ambrose had taken the soldier down by sinking his sharpened teeth into his leg and dragging the man down, before snapping his neck. He scrambled for the downed man's gun, and managed to get a single hand on it before a boot caught him squarely in the jaw. Ow. In retaliation, when he flipped over onto his back, he aimed the pistol at his attacker's face and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He frowned and looked at the gun, scrambling rapidly to try to find a switch or button or something (he really didn't know guns) that would make it work. In the meantime, the soldier tried to shoot him in the leg to make him stop fumbling with the weapon. That didn't work, considering Ambrose couldn't feel it. He wasn't sure what he did, but the gun went off, startling him and his attacker both. He immediately pointed the gun at the general area of the man's face, but it still took him two or three shots before he actually hit him. After that, he rolled as best he could behind a building. All five occupants of the square were dead, but there were seven left - and from the shouting he could hear, they were congregating back to this location.
Ambrose gritted his teeth and scooted over more away from the open area. He was going to leave this to Noel. He didn't know if she had realized that he was kind of paralyzed from the waist down yet, but considering his main form of transportation had been rolling for the past sixty seconds, she'd hopefully figured it out by now.
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jul 18, 2016 14:21:40 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
Outside, Madeline immediately did her absolute best to turn off her power, because she did not need to know the emotions of the two men inside right now. It was gross. Her boss was apparently a total pervert, and Mr. Corydon was doing nothing to discourage it. In fact, she could probably infer that he was doing something to make himself more attractive, and that was immediately confirmed when she pulled up the security feed on her computer. Wonderful. This had gone in an unexpected direction very, very quickly.
What she didn't expect was for her power to actually shut down immediately, because that was not in any way right. Especially since she caught it when the beam of light swept through the room the second time, and then she realized her senses felt muted for the first time - well, ever. She could feel a sense of panic rising, but she tamped it down, because someone had just phased out of the office and into the room, sweeping again at Panu with the light.
And then the creepy newcomer started speaking to Panu. Madeline didn't move, assessing the extent of the suppression, as she listened to the man's words at the same time.
Meanwhile, at first, Ambrose was having fun again. Apparently Kaz had the same inappropriate impulses Ambrose sometimes did, which was the impulse to suddenly do something in a situation that really wasn't how normal people would respond. For a moment, Ambrose appreciated that, but that was immediately washed over with an entirely different emotion when Kaz got up in his face.
No, not that emotion, dammit. This was rage. Cold, blinding rage, as Kaz continued to speak, and he didn't even hear Specter speaking to Panu outside over the slowly growing buzzing in his ears. He recognized the feeling, logically - it was when his already weak control started to slip, and the monster he really was began to make an appearance. But he was already too far gone to listen to that part of his brain that told him giving in to his true side was probably not the best response.
Kaz finished speaking.
Outside, once the man was done speaking, Madeline did what any sensible human in that situation would've done - since that was essentially what she was, at that point.
She pulled the fire alarm. Everywhere throughout the building, the loud siren started screeching, and people sighed and groaned and filed in an orderly manner outside. The people on the top floor were the only ones at risk now, and even Ragnarok's headquarters were being evacuated through the connecting subway tunnels, so the only possible casualties were on that floor.
Inside, Ambrose took off his jacket. "Sorry," he said, seemingly calmly, as the alarm went off. He couldn't tell if Kaz said anything, because the only thing he could hear was a high-pitched whine in the back of his skull.
And all of a sudden, he leapt at Kaz. His wings tore through the back of his carefully pressed Oxford shirt, the clawed tips reaching for the same targets that his claws were - Kaz's throat. In that moment, he'd switched so quickly from human to what was more animal than anything, as evidenced by the inhuman snarl rising in the back of his throat.
Madeline looked at her screen just in time to catch Ambrose leaping midair at a still fully naked Kaz, and she resisted the urge to slam her face onto the desk.
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jul 16, 2016 15:22:31 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
"Hey," Noel said, and Ambrose turned around. She looked conflicted. "Don't do anything too..." Uh oh. "Be careful."
Well, that had been painful to watch. She clearly didn't want to say it, and Ambrose would be fine, but it was a nice sentiment anyway.
"Thanks," he said, not sure of how else he could respond. Thankfully, he wouldn't have to, judging by how she was pretty much running away. "You too," he muttered under his breath anyway, and he was pretty sure she was too far to hear him, which was good. At least if Panu asked, Ambrose could claim he made an effort.
He gave her a few moments to get out of sight, and then he stepped out in clear view of everyone. "What's going on here?" he shouted, loudly, only aware after he'd said it that it was so obviously a grab for attention that only an idiot would fall for it.
Thankfully, the one terrorist he could see was clearly an idiot, because he fell for it.
The man swung his gun around and leveled it at the area immediately to Ambrose's left. "Don't move," he said, and Ambrose had to refrain from sighing. He put his hands up anyway, because if all of them were this incompetent, then they wouldn't have a problem.
Unfortunately, as he discovered in about sixty seconds flat, that one man had been a total outlier.
There were, as Noel had actually pretty accurately predicted, thirteen enemy soldiers. (He was calling them soldiers because he wasn't really sure what else they could be, with that kind of high-end gear.) He knew this because as he walked at gunpoint to a little square where the attackers were congregating, an authoritative-sounding one was running a check-in of some sort. He counted eleven voices saying "here," including the one with him and the four setting up camera equipment in the square, and the apparent leader and the dead one made thirteen. The five in the square entered his field of view just as he heard the leader say, "Six? Come in, Six." So his and Noel's little contribution had just been noticed. Lovely.
"Hey, One!" the one leading him called out. The leader turned around to look at the two of them. "Found him wandering around -" Immediately, to both Ambrose and his guard's surprise, there were five automatic weapons pointed at Ambrose's face. The guard immediately leapt out of the way, halting for a moment as he processed that there was no shooting, before carefully making his way to the leader. Ambrose just stood there with his hands up, since he couldn't really do much else with five people all training their weapons on him.
"You idiot," the leader snarled. Okay. That seemed bad. "Do you know who that is, Twelve? That's Ambrose Jaager."
"The business guy?" Twelve asked, clearly confused. "I thought we were looking for guys like him."
"Well-known figures, yes," One said, eyes still locked on Ambrose's. "Though you should take more than a little bit more caution when they've got terrorist connections."
...well. That was bad. Was that really so well known? He'd have to work on that, once he got out of this alive. Also, weren't these guys terrorists themselves? Seemed a bit hypocritical to accuse him of terrorism first.
One spoke again, but this time, to Ambrose. "I'm assuming you're behind Six's radio silence?" he asked. Ambrose said nothing, partially because he couldn't think of anything sarcastic to say, but mostly because he could see a blurry figure emerging onto a rooftop, a few houses away. That would be Noel - he hoped. Some backup would be great right about how.
The leader stared at Ambrose, clearly sizing him up. Now would've been a nice time to know a bit more about these guys' motivations, because then Ambrose might be able to toy with them a bit until he was in a good enough spot to -
One lowered his weapon, and gestured for the others to do the same. Ambrose's eyebrows furrowed. That had been unexpected. Of course, it made sense once One drew a pistol and fired off a shot. Click, boom - and just like that, Ambrose's left side exploded in agony. The bullet had sunk into his hip and was staying there, and Ambrose's enhanced hearing had really made that whole experience rather nauseating.
Ambrose let out a very ungainly yelp of pain and pretty much fell over, the force of the shot taking him off his feet. It was only then that he discovered that he couldn't feel his legs. At all. The logical part of his brain told him that the bullet must've scraped his spine, and also that he'd be totally okay in a few days, because he knew from personal experience that a spinal cord injury would heal pretty rapidly - as it turned out, nerves and a bit of bone weren't that difficult for his body to create. But the panicky part told him that he wouldn't have those few days to experience lameness (the medical kind, because he never experienced the other kind) but more like a few minutes, because One had ordered the four other men to get "everything" ready and they were dragging him in front of a camera mounted on a tripod.
That would've been an amazing time for his backup to have had his back - you know, before he'd been paralyzed from the waist down. But he sighed through gritted teeth and reminded himself not to be ungrateful, because hey, at least he was still alive. For now.
Outside, sitting at her desk and listening very carefully to the conversation inside the office, Madeline felt something change.
She wasn't a telepath, at all. She couldn't read minds, and so she certainly couldn't tell the exact nature of the sudden shift that she could feel. But she was an empath, and for this, that was good enough, because something told her that there was some form of telepathy being used. It wasn't Ambrose, that was for sure - he'd never shown the slightest sign of telepathy. It couldn't be Panu either, unless the boy had spontaneously manifested a secondary mutation then and there. No, the more logical option was Mr. Corydon. Which meant, most likely, that the white-haired, obnoxious, child-napping stranger was calling in backup.
This didn't bother Madeline. However, it did throw a wrench into things a bit. If the man was capable of telepathy - and without any other information, she'd have to assume it was his power - who knew what else? She knew she herself would be safe, mentally, because of the nature of her mutation. But it meant that she'd have to make her own arrangements to protect Panu - especially since it seemed like Ambrose was far too unbothered with the situation where their most valuable asset was perhaps moments away from getting killed.
She silently started typing away on her phone, as Mr. Corydon spoke to Panu. Ambrose was far too uncaring, sometimes, when he wasn't in the mood. And that was bad because Panu was an asset, and a good one at that. But it was also bad because if something did happen to Panu, that would distract Ambrose horribly from his real goals. While he wasn't really capable of affection, he was more than capable of being possessive, and he was very, very possessive. Sighing, Madeline sent the text, and the response was almost immediate. Good. She knew that man would be a valuable resource at some point, and now, he was being just that.
Inside, Ambrose was well aware of the look Kaz was giving him. If he were more self-conscious, he would've cared, but he wasn't and he didn't. So what if he was using the child as a tool? It wasn't like Panu was special in that way. Everyone Ambrose knew he treated like a tool, with the exception of maybe Madeline and Cail. (Cail was a friend. Madeline was the boss of him, though he always denied it. He was the supervillain here, dammit.) He almost laughed when Kaz tried to, what, appeal to Panu? Sorry, pal. At least Ambrose wasn't trying to kill Panu.
Kaz spoke again. Seriously, though, Rose? Ambrose didn't mind the name - in fact, he kind of liked it - but it was the fact that it was coming out of that man's mouth that made it irritating. Actually, everything that came out of that man's mouth was irritating, and this spiel was no exception. Ambrose was getting tired of this. Clearly, the man was too self-absorbed to understand when to back down. No matter how powerful he was, he couldn't be that strong or Ambrose would've heard of him before. And there was no conceivable way that the man could take on an entire faction's worth of mostly-crazed, mostly-mutant terrorists on his own. Even if he did manage to have an army or something at his back.
Seriously. Ambrose had suicide bombers. There was no honest loyalty that matched that sort of crazy anywhere.
"But since you're so dismissive, I'll do what I have to to protect what's mine."
Noooo. No way. He did not just go there.
There was no way Ambrose could've gotten to Panu in time to stop Kaz if the man had really tried to go for the kill then and there, but he wasn't going to acknowledge that. Either way, everyone was distracted by the sudden appearance of what was equally the single grossest and most melodramatic human(oid) being Ambrose had ever seen in his life. He'd played video games. The newcomer looked like something straight out of an overdramatic Skyrim ripoff, if Skyrim were set in a zombie apocalypse. Something within him felt a deep sense of unease, but Ambrose tamped it down. Aggressively. The feeling of his skin crawling wasn't actually new, so after a while - and after briefly pulling on the memory of returning to his true form - he was able to ignore it completely.
Outside, Madeline's ears twitched - the only outward sign of being affected that she showed - when the mutant teleported in. She was immediately aware of his presence, and she didn't think she could ignore it even if she tried. It was like an air horn to her psychic abilities, as limited as they were.
Ambrose listened as - what, Specter? Melodramatic, okay - spoke. Alright. "We." So Kaz did have an army, perhaps, backing him up.
Well, finally this was getting fun. Ambrose was confident that this wouldn't have any permanent damage to anything, really - if Kaz was smart or had even half a brain cell, he wouldn't start anything. One man, no matter how powerful, didn't stand a chance against an army of - again - crazed mutant terrorists. Of which Ambrose was the leader of. Granted, he didn't consider himself crazed or a terrorist, because those weren't very flattering descriptors, but anyone who knew him would say otherwise.
"Instead of giving me any assurances this sort of thing won't happen again, assurances that don't hinge on the untrustworthy word of a child that is, you continue to threaten me. Unless you want to create an incident, I'd begin cooperating. Well?”
Oh. It was on now.
"Let me tell you something, Kaz," Ambrose said icily, and all of a sudden, his entire demeanor changed. He wasn't friendly anymore, sprawled relaxedly in his chair. Now he was tensed, like a predator ready to spring, because that was exactly what he was. His face was unreadable. "You want to know what I think of you? I think you have no respect. Anyone with any real foothold in our line of business understands that this?" He gestured at Kaz, and then Specter. "This isn't how business is conducted. This isn't how deals are made. If you decided to come in here with proper respect, I might've considered making a deal. But no. You didn't. Instead, you have the nerve to threaten me inside my territory."
Something had snapped, inside Ambrose's mind. And now he didn't feel very amused at all. Every fiber of his being wanted to see Kaz bloody and dead on the floor, preferably with his insides outside of his corpse, but Ambrose's self-control was enough that he didn't lash out. Immediately, at least.
"You really don't seem to understand. You seem to think that you're so powerful, with people backing you up. I bet you're, what, planning to attack my building right now? That's an organized act of terror, Mr. Corydon, and I assure you that your operations will be more affected if you do act than if you don't. I'd like to see you protect what's "yours" when it's all sitting in an FBI lockup, and you've lost everything to the police you hold in such low esteem." And then, because he couldn't help himself, Ambrose grinned, baring his own sharp canines. "And I'll show you what happens when you touch what's mine."
Ambrose wasn't really sure what he had intended to do. Maybe he would've lashed out, seeing as his claws were out too. (He was unconsciously looking very derisively at Kaz's claws. His were so much cooler. And bigger.) But before he could even start with whatever it would've been, something snapped into existence next to Panu. It put a hand on his shoulder, and just like that, Panu and the newcomer were gone.
What.
A text alert popped up on the corner of Ambrose's screen, and his eyes flicked to it.
Mom One of Huginn's friends stopped by
His mind instantly broke the message down for what it was meant to be. Madeline had called in that teleporter - now that he thought about it, there was one that Huginn associated with regularly - for help. Ambrose held up a finger to Kaz, his expression unchanging from its previously murderous look, and briefly turned his attention to his computer. "Sorry," he said, completely deadpan. "My mother. You know how it is." He typed a quick message back.
Coffee First Not now, mom
Madeline nodded to Maddox Idrofobo, who stood conveniently behind Cail with his hand on the boy's shoulder, ready to teleport them both out at a moment's notice. Good. Ambrose had figured it out. Now to just get this white-haired asshole out of their building.
Ambrose sent the message, then turned his attention back to Kaz. He was ignoring Specter for now; the man wasn't enough of a threat for Ambrose to care yet.
And that was when Ambrose realized that Kaz was conspicuously lacking any clothes, at about the same time that Madeline realized that a pile of familiar-looking clothes sat at the feet of a very smug Maddox.
To his credit, Ambrose didn't react at all. He'd been distracted before, first trying to process Panu's disappearance and then responding to Madeline's text, but now he was realizing that the teleporter didn't just take Panu. It probably had something to do with Kaz's snap reaction to grab the man right as he appeared. Well, he couldn't say that he'd seen this sort of strategy before. And this wasn't really situation that he had prior experience with.
...he was just going to ignore everything and continue on as usual. But if anyone ever mentioned that he maybe didn't look straight at Kaz's face for the better part of his speech, he was going to just say it was because anything was nicer than whatever disaster Kaz had on before.
"You do realize you're just digging an even deeper hole for yourself, right?" Ambrose sighed. "If you attack - to reclaim the footage, I'd assume - you'd have to kill everyone in the building to keep every intelligence agency in the country off of you, because there are hundreds of witnesses inside alone. And that would be more than obvious. You'd undoubtedly be caught eventually, and you'd lose everything." Ambrose narrowed his eyes. Time to show this brute how real responsible adults handled this sort of situation. "Now, since we're speaking on even ground like two proper gentlemen instead of you holding my son hostage, I'll propose my own deal. You leave Panu alone, and in exchange, this footage of you holding a minor hostage and preparing to commit an act of domestic terrorism stays locked away. If I so much as smell you near my building or my son again, it goes to every news outlet in the city. I assure you that by now, Panu's likely backed it up in places you'd never be able to find even if you tried. And if you try, I'll know, and you lose everything." Ambrose leaned back, the empty smile plastered back on his face.
Then leaned forward again after an appropriate interval of silence, realizing that the view was better when he was leaning forward.
"Take it or leave it, Kaz. And do remember that you set yourself up. Why couldn't you just leave well enough alone?"
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jul 12, 2016 23:15:30 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
Next level Ragnarok, coming right up. Activity-wise, as in what players are doing in threads, there probably won't be a lot that changes, but I think we can safely assume that Ragnarok attacks - though semi-regular already - are now being attributed to being responses to anti-mutant protests in the wake of Odessa, which puts them more solidly in the public eye. Once Ambrose steps up to suggest Utopia and form a planning committee and all that, we might even be able to throw the X-Men a bone and maybe have there be suspicions towards Ragnarok for their involvement, which might be another ideological difference the old and new Xs could clash on.
Posted by Ambrose Jaager on Jun 28, 2016 20:12:10 GMT -6
Delta Mutant
136
54
Dec 17, 2016 13:23:40 GMT -6
I very much approve. The more disoriented the X-Men are, the better off Ragnarok is. If you need someone to stoke the flames - maybe humiliate the X-Men even further in the public eye - then Ragnarok is here for all of your ruining-everything needs. Also, Ambrose himself carries a lot of weight in the mutant world - he can denounce the X-Men publicly, maybe, to further make them seem like fools.
It was a moving scene, that was for sure - all these people, filling up the streets and the square itself, all in support of those 49 dead. But to Ambrose, it was another box on a checklist. Organize a press conference to state JW's immediate reaction - check. Inspiring tweet and Facebook essay - check. Massive public donation to show his personal support - check. Now he was here to check off "attend the peace rally to show even further support." Then he'd be shuttled back to his building to hold the press conference. He might even fly to Odessa later that week, to show that he was willing to help out in any way possible.
No, maybe not. Ambrose frowned to himself as a pink-haired mutant took the stage - Cafas Johnson of the X-Men. He knew that, of course, but he didn't really care. As the man started to speak, Ambrose weighed the pros and cons. Pros - better public image. Cons - effort.
He'd probably just send out a platoon of JW-employed doctors to help, armed with the best in mutant medical technology. Easier for him that way.
Johnson called for a minute of silence. Ambrose hung his head, looking appropriately somber for the news crews whose cameras panned around the square. He wasn't in the middle of the mass of people - he was further to the back, flanked by bodyguards, but he saw out of the corner of his eye when one lingered on him, the cameraman clearly recognizing who he was. Good. There wouldn't have been any point in coming if nobody had noticed.
He scanned the crowd from his position, having nothing better to do as everyone stood there silently. He recognized a few faces - Elliott was hard to miss, with his green skin. Someone else clearly wasn't feeling the mood, and was staring straight at Johnson, sticking out over the crowd of people with their heads hanging. It took him a moment, but he recognized the boy as the one who he'd done the AMA with all that time ago. Well, it was a small world.
The minute ended, and a little girl took center stage. He didn't know her, but she was clearly a mutant. When she spoke, he applauded with everyone else. No fighting. He couldn't say he disagreed. But there was one thing a child's naïveté rarely understood - before there could be peace, there was always war. He was briefly reminded of the meeting where he'd laid out his own plans for peace. They might take a while, but if these peace rallies stayed so pathetically peaceful, he'd have to throw out his favorite option.
And a utopia sounded rather nice right about now.
Idly, as everyone else's thoughts were filled with ideas of peace and unity, he wondered if he'd have time to grab lunch before the press conference. There was a deli nearby that made the most amazing BLTs, and he could go for one right about now. And maybe a coffee, or he'd fall asleep delivering yet another mindless platitude about standing strong in the face of tragedy, like he saw plastered on the signs all around him right now. God, he hated break room coffee. Someone always tried to pour coffee out while it was being brewed, and then it ended up being unpleasantly weak or disturbingly strong, and that was one thing that really would put a damper on his day...
The smell of alcohol was getting unpleasantly strong as the black figure neared. Well. He was going to be saved by a drunkard.
...this was humiliating.
"Hey! Tinnitus is a serious thing! I just got my ears fixed!"
Ambrose squinted incredulously as the figure slid on the ground - which had grown darker, indicating cold, so he was going to guess ice? - into the two guards outside. Did his possible rescuer just try to one-liner?
Oh, no. He was starting to get the feeling that this might end up being more humiliating for the ice mutant than it would be for him.
He watched, doing his best to follow along as the fight played out in the hall. Unfortunately, he wasn't too successful. He was getting the impression that ice was getting thrown everywhere, and then that the guards were incapacitated. At least, one was - it looked like ice was pinning him down. The other had the black figure on his chest, and Ambrose heard the ice mutants next words loud and clear.
"So, looking for a large lizard!" The words were punctuated very suddenly by a cracking noise as a fist hit jawbone. Ambrose winced at the unexpected noise. He hadn't been kidding with the "loud" part. "Have you seen him or her? Scales, teeth, slitted eyes."
...huh.
It seemed somebody was looking for him. He didn't know who, of course, because he didn't even realize anyone knew he was actually missing. Panu, perhaps? No, he didn't think the boy would be so crass as to hire someone who literally got drunk on a rescue mission. Maybe it was just some random do-gooder who'd picked up chatter and decided, once he'd had some alcohol to help his decision along, to save this "lizard" and boost his own ego.
Also, seriously, lizard?
"Him," Ambrose rumbled, figuring that if he could hear the ice mutant so well, than the man could hear him too, no problem. "I'm in here."
His voice was almost curiously apathetic. He didn't exclaim like some damsel in distress, or desperately announce his presence like a proper victim of kidnapping. No, he sounded more resigned. And he was.
He'd resigned himself to getting rescued by what seemed like the worst rescuer on the planet, because hey, it worked.
