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.
"I dunno." Leo shrugged in true teen fashion and folded his bare arms to ward off the cool air Ms. Taylor had tracked in with her. "I mean, we were on the beach and then he was on the beach. Some good Samaritans thought he was dead, but then he wasn't." He shrugged his bony shoulders again. That was a serious summation of events thus far.
"I recognized his face, Ms. T. He fought those Christmas Trees when I was in 5th grade! Uh, you know?" He tried to play it cool. "The MRC were kinda like my heroes."
As one of the few, the proud, the brown, Leo'd latched onto Cervantes especially. Jorge and the MRC weren't like his heroes, they'd been his idols. When he was a kid he used to pretend his action figures were MRC officers. Now he was attempting to fill out medical history for one. But, you know, in a totally cool kind of way.
> "Is he all right?..."
"He didn't look... I mean, no blood or anything." More shrugging. Shrugging was the answer to all. Shrug life. "He was kinda weird. Like his talking? But, I mean, I bet if we go talk to them, they'd let you in." There'd been more than enough pictures of Gemma Taylor and Jorge Cervantes floating around the internet for Leo (and the internet) to know the two were connected. He was definitely not going to mention that they had a fan/flame section on AudobonX for mutant couples. And he would definitely not mention the LionOfTruth's involvement in some debates related to the matter at hand.
"Uh, c'mon. I'll see what we can do." Leo gathered up the clipboards and motioned with his head for Ms. Taylor to follow.
There were a couple fanfics he probably needed to delete too, come to think of it.
"Excuse me." Leo shoved the clipboards up onto the counter. "Is Jorge Cervantes stable enough for visitors or whatever? I don't think I can answer all this without his help and this is his lady." Leo hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Ms. Taylor.
"You're..." The secretary or nurse or whatever shuffled a couple papers until she found the file she wanted and flipped it open. "You're the son, right?"
Ah. Suddenly he regretted the 'his lady' comment. "Step mom." He simpered.
'Oh.' She mouthed the word and nodded conspiratorially. "Room 302. Fill in these visitor badges real quick and sign here."
Leo wrote LEO CERVANTES on his with more than a little glee and did the same with MRS CERVANTES for Ms. Taylor. There. That should do it. He signed the sheet with an unintelligible squiggle. It wasn't a lie if no one could read it.
He did look a little sheepish in including Ms. Taylor in the lie, however. "They told me only family were allowed in the ambulance." Leo handed over the nametag with a juggle of the clipboards.
"Dude..." Leo glanced at the EMTs who were loading Jorge onto a gurnee. "Uh, dad," he amended, "Ms. Taylor's the councelor at my- uh- our? school?" Maybe he heard that. Maybe he didn't. He was sorta busy getting loaded onto the ambulance.
"Is he experiencing memory loss?" The EMT who was offering Leo a hand up into the back of the vehicle was asking, all earnest face and calculating eyes.
"No. I mean, it's hard to tell. He's all discombobulated and he's like sometimes partly water." Leo took the hand up, chewing his bottom lip as he watched the flurry of activity. There were vitals to be had and IV's to be placed.
"So he's a mutant." "Dangerous?" The second tech asked. To their credit, neither one stopped working for evena second.
Leo shook his head, realized no one was looking at him and answered out loud. "No. He shouldn't be. He's a cop. I mean. He was." Leo pulled out his phone again to double check, but... no. Instead he squeezed in close and put his hand on Jorge's shoulder, well out of the way.
"It's gonna be okay, dad." The hesitation was almost imperceptible at this point. "I sent Ms. Taylor a message. I'll call her when we get there." Until then, Leo simply held on to avoid sliding around when they took crazy tight turns and tried to absorb every word that came out of the tech's mouths. He was gonna have a lot of Googling to do once they stopped.
***
So, claiming to be his son was maybe not as smart an idea as he'd hoped. They didn't want to let him in when they got Jorge into a curtained partition. They also made his clothing donation so much scrap. They also dropped 3 clipboards into his arms, each with nearly 20 pages of medical and mutant history to fill out. Some were front and back.
"Man, my Tia gave me that coat." He whined as he was pushed back some paces and then ushered to a waiting area. He started to look at the papers, but he had no clue if Jorge's father had colon cancer. Heck. He didn't even know the guy's middle initial.
"Screw this."
He pulled out his phone and was in the process of lifting it to his ear when he saw the Amazonian Counselor bust in. He waved, but she didn't see him at first. Not that he blamed her since he was buried under clipboards. He hung up, set the paperwork aside and waved until she noticed.
"Hey, Ms. Taylor? Do you know Mr. Cervantes' medical history?" He had Google-fu and barring that, a friend with scary hacking abilities. Either way, they'd conquer this paperwork.
Away from the water was easier said than done. The guy was on his feet, yeah, but his legs were not exactly always legs. Sometimes they were like water? So then he wasn't always on his feet either.
"Can we carry him?" "I mean, he stood up, yeah? So it can't be a spinal injury or whatever." "There's a good samaritan clause," Leo reminded them, "He just asked to get away from the water."
Leo wasn't the strongest, but he did slip a shoulder under Jorge's arm. His phone buzzed in his hand and the teen unlocked the screen without even looking.
Where'd he get the photo?
"Smile, dude." Leo snapped another photo, this one a selfie with Leo and Jorge together, neither looking terribly great, but there wasn't time to re-take. Jorge was freezing Leo out. His skin was like freaking ice. The photo was sent off without further explanation. He didn't have enough hands to manage the hero and the phone so the hardware went into his pocket.
"Hey, I hope you don't mind, but I messaged Ms. Gemma Taylor. You guys were a thing, right?" He had seen plenty of photos of them together from the forums, anyway. Oh no. What if they were like exes? Like bad blood exes?
Well, with how bad Jorge looked, not even the rigid counselor would be mean to the guy.
With the other good samaritan on Jorge's other side, they managed to get Jorge up toward the road which helped when the ambulance arrived. He had to insist he was Jorge's son, which could have been a harder stretch, but Leo had to know where they were going and he texted Ms. Taylor again once he was sure where they were going.
Hey! Finally, he was back to doing something actually good!
Skipping rocks and hiding out on the beach had been the most exciting outing Leo had managed since the prison break incident. Any other exploits from now on were going to be online only. Or maybe in verified abandoned buildings. Getting shot-at just wasn't his jam.
His phone chirruped in his pocket indicating that he'd gotten a private message on the forums, probably his 5th since he'd gotten off the bus. All ignored. Whatever it was could wait. Leo bent at the waist and grabbed up another rock that looked really promising. Maybe even 5 skips good.
"Is that...? Oh my gawd!"
Leo's head whipped around first to the speaker and then to where she looked over her sunglasses and pointed.
"Rick, is that a dead body?" "Go see." "Dude!"
Leo turned the rock in his hand as he surveyed the mound of flesh. It moved and he and the three people nearby all jumped.
"It's alive!"
Leo joined the small group in running toward the man, and it was totes a man. He was naked as a jay bird. The woman hung back, already pulling out her phone to make a 911 call and the two guys were calling to each other as much as to the poor washed up hobo man. Leo, for his part, was digging in his bag for the extra shirt he had packed. It was Leo-sized which would no doubt be tight, but anything was better than nothing in this cold.
> “Sir, can you tell me your name? Are you okay?”
He was not in any condition to be talking, obvs. Leo handed off the shirt and froze when actual coherent words came out of his mouth.
>”My name is Jorge…Cervantes…”
Jorge Cervantes rang a bell in Leo's mind big time. He grabbed his phone and went straight to the forums.
"What are you doing, man?"
"I know this guy. He's a hero, dude." Leo turned his phone around to show the two men who were shimmying his shirt onto Jorge the water-mancer in a birdwatcher's action shot. He was all water-bending style and guns and stuff. "He's with the police or the X's or something in between. I dunno. But I bet the mutant school uptown will want to know."
This was the Jorge Ms. Taylor had lamented about. It had to be. That was why it'd rung a bell. Sheesh. Mama T was gonna pee herself. And maybe she'd finally lay off him for finding her old, nude-y boyfriend.
Leo brought his phone up and snapped a quick photo. Uh. He then deleted that photo, re-framed so that Mister Hero Cervantes' junk wasn't in the shot and sent it via text to a certain concerned Amazonian Adapted.
"Can you stand?" "We gotta get him off the beach, man. It's too cold." "Don't suppose you have pants in there."
Seriously. Being naked in public was like some kind of rite of passage for a mutant and probably the number 3 reason Leo was actually okay with being just a normal guy. Leo checked for pants and had to shrug.
"Naw. It was lucky I even had the shirt. But here, He can have my jacket. And my scarf. I'm serious. I know people who're looking for this guy. Maybe we can tie it or... something." Unfortunately, a jacket was not pants.
"Ambulance is on the way." The woman reported from behind her sun glasses. She was looking, though. Dark lenses or not, she was so looking. Leo wasn't the only one who saw her purse her lips.
He had mostly forgotten that Calcifer was buck nekkid. From studious avoidance or sheer mental block, either way it had taken a moment to parse.
Oh. Oh! Boxers! Those were in his bag. Leo turned to the side as he scampered and grabbed the boxers out from his bag. Some papers tried to go flying and he had to stop and grab them up again. That gave Calcifer time to run by and grab the boxers as he passed him.
The sounds they heard from above in the prison proper were some that might haunt him for the rest of Leo's life. At least one gun went off in the enclosed space behind them making Leo's ears ring. Did the guard have his gun back? Was he shooting at their retreat or something else?
He hesitated again just inside a heavy door, the last obstacle between themselves and potential utter mutant chaos of the prison courtyard. Leo made sure to shuck Cal's shoes and coat. He wasn't cold afterward, but some amount of his sweat ran cold from nerves anyway.
"Ready?" He wanted to ask to hold Cal's hand, but it was a bit too big a hit to his pride to ask. Besides. Leo had the keys. Was Calcifer dark yet? Were they forgetting something? It felt like they were forgetting something. Leo bounced on the balls of his feet, more than ready to use his nervous energy to their benefit and full out run to the north gate.
Uh. Yeah he was gonna need his clothes. Duh. That would get real awkward real fast. "You say the word and they're yours. Just keeping them warm." And handy. Seriously. He didn't have the room in his bag and there was the issue of bags tending to be black holes for things like gloves. Leo wouldn't risk losing a single piece of Calcifer's clothes.
Leo eyed the guard as he stepped through in Calicfer's wake. It was really weird to see the man whole and wary and yet unwilling to act. Of course, would Leo be willing to act against someone like his heat elemental buddy? Probably not.
Rather than speak, Leo jerked his head to the side to indicate that the guard should move away from the console. The teen moved slowly and respectfully to indicate the man's gun. He thought about it. Leo could see that much through the plastic veneer of his Darth Vader mask. The guard thought about pulling the weapon and using it.
"The holidays are coming up." A low blow, but a poignant reminder. "Hospital bills aren't as fun as Christmas presents." It was a bluff as if Leo had the power to damage this man. One flick of the eyes toward Calcifer wading through the lock system and he raised his hands away from his belt.
Leo divested his gun and taser. Those went onto the table next to the computer. One glance at the CCTV showed that the halls around this area were clear. The guard's radio squawked and the humans at least both jumped at the sound. The guard scrabbled to turn the sound off so that they wouldn't hear. Leo moved his body between the computer screen and the guard.
Okay. He could do this. Leo pulled his notepad out of his bag and flipped to a page of handwritten notes. He hadn't dared print this part out at the Mansion. Jousten had scary good intel and really, very scary levels of access. This was the trump card, the one thing he'd been hoping not to have to use.
Leo typed fast using key commands to tab between functions and windows as needed rather than sully himself with using the mouse. He tripped himself up a few times with his double layer of gloves, but the commands, once in proper syntax and typo-free, worked just as promised.
He sent a red herring alarm to all further units. 10-33 to the top floor of the isolation ward meant all unassigned META and guard units were piling toward the south side of the prison and busying themselves with stairs. Leo knew that 99% of those in isolation were the worst of the worst so they hadn't wanted any of those guys to get out easy. He'd wanted a way to handle that should they have to cut the power and risk an all-out break.
And maybe the guards were smart enough to not follow that call, but maybe it would, at least, give them some clearance.
Calcifer called out his warning and Leo nodded, "Gimmie fifteen seconds." He fully hit his stride when he executed the commands to unlock all the outer doors without a single typo. He knew there was still a physical shank bolt to deal with according to the diagrams, but there was no way around that until they got there. The guards had easy unlock access for the inner doors with a keypad code: 97552. It made a kind of "Y" pattern across the configuration of the keys so that had been easy to remember. Leo triggered all the inner doors in the north, east, and west sections. He hit the enter key and prayed that it had time to propagate.
"5. 4." The blip showed up indicating that the command prompt was ready for its next command. "3. 2." Leo watched the screen and spammed alt+f4 a couple times for good measure. "1."
Darkness fell.
The kid yanked his notepad into his bag and grabbed the guard's access card out of its housing. He threw the plastic into the darkened hallway. He then grabbed the gun and taser off the counter so the guard couldn't take advantage of their retreat.
"Okay!" Leo ran toward the still glowing form of his ally and dropped the gun, notepad, and taser into his bag so that he could start stripping off Cal's gloves. "Can you wear this stuff yet? Hide your light?" He started them running out the way Cal had brought them in. They had a few stairs to hike up too, but then Leo intended for them to simply run out the front gate at the north side of the building. He would wait to relate that information until they were out of easy earshot of the guard with the radio, but... yeah. Hopefully something about this was going to go alright.
Leo’s Darth Vader mask tipped down as he looked at Calcifer’s feet. The man brought up a good point. Leo had to be ready to make the hard call to leave people behind if it came to that.
A loud clang down the hall made the kid jump. He tried to ignore the hyena-like laughter that followed, a clear reminder that he had already made a mistake.
“You're right.” He also wanted it to be clear to Calcifer that he was taking this seriously. “If it comes down to it, we leave. But we at least need to give ourselves a fighting chance at escape."
> "...you probably don’t need to keep wearing my clothes anymore."
"There's not enough room in my bag and you said you'd need them later. It's fine." He was far too stubborn to pass out and he figured all the extra layers only made him harder to
Having made up his mind, Leo went to officially pass off the bolt cutters and pass on the message. Everybody got one buddy pass redeemable for a single friend they could spring.
He described the meeting place as a good run from the North wall where there was an overpass. Leo had arranged for a vehicle to be there and had confirmed it was waiting for them as of 2pm today. They were only going to get out if they kept to the rule of only one buddy and no telling. That meant they were motivated to stick to the rules. The signal, of course, was the moment when the power went out.
While Leo had been taking, Calcifer made short work of the locked door.
“Good luck.” He was hopeful that the mutants would be successful. He even got an echoed "Good Luck" back from the gravity manipulator.
All of their mutants went up. Leo and Cal had to go down. "I have a diagram..." He fished in his bag, all his papers hopelessly crumpled by now.
The man from 1148 went his own way. There was a lot of noise in the way he went and Leo was forced to assume that he'd made a very big mistake. He would have to put a pin in that mistake, though because there were shots fired and the three mutants he had with him couldn't make it through the heavy duty door.
Calcifer was up again. He alternated between glowing bright as a welding torch and something a lot easier to look at. That made it easier to forget that the guy was buck naked.
"-away, kid."
It took Leo a minute to pull his focus away from the brawl and his hammering heart.
"Come again?"
"Move away from the door," the gravity mutant was already steering him out and away from where he'd been huddling. "You said we gotta go this way, right? I'll try it."
Right. He was right. Leo was just having a hard time keeping it together. The violence of the situation was awesomely jaw dropping when he didn't think too hard about the fact that it was happening way, way too close for comfort. The occasional bullet ricochet made him jump. He hated that he wasn't braver. Leo had just assumed that he would be able to do it all and keep his cool.
The door strained against its hinges as the gravity mutant gave it his best shot. Leo was making a quick change to his notes. That's why he didn't see that Calcifer had finished mopping up all of the METAs himself.
He grabbed Leo's arm and pulled him aside. Alarmed, Leo looked at his still hot form and then up to his angry face. He did some quick math that only cemented his new set of plans.
"Get away vehicle has space for six besides you and me. I mean, we could cram more in the trunk, but that's not what you're asking." Leo did not have control of this situation. He was realizing that no one did, really. They were all just in a tenuous truce and Leo wanted them all to go home. Well, he wanted the good guys to go home.
"New plan. 1148 being a jerk got me thinking that we might have a cleaner chance if we have a distraction." These were people's lives he was playing with. He knew that cerebrally, but he'd also DMed too many DnD games to think of the faceless names of this prison as much more than a really, really big distraction.
"Control room is two flights up, but if we go down instead, you and I can cut the power. That means no electronic locks and shock bracelets only have whatever's stored up in their capacitors. They have to recharge by..." He could see Calcifer's eyes glazing over. He gave up on the explanation even though it was really cool and got on with it.
"All the mutants who can get out of their cells will. We give Mr. Varg- uh the armor guy the bolt cutters and let him be responsible for getting his friend. Tell only the good guys about our get away plan, set a rendezvous point outside, and then it's nobody's fault if they don't make it. Everybody gets a chance to get out. The guys we tell," who were by his estimation the only ones that deserved it, "get the best chance."
Calcifer said go. Leo went. Only there was nowhere to go. The gravity mutant was staying with Cal, it seemed. That left armor mutant and winged mutant and human versus locked door.
Wait. One of the "waiting list" mutants he'd seen was on this floor. Leo passed the clippers to the armor mutant and shuffled his papers again until he found what he needed. "114-" Leo jumped at the sounds coming from the hall. Calcifer was on the ground. The kid only thought he'd been sweating before. Now he was dizzy with it. He tried again. "1148. Cut the guy's shock bracelets and then get away."
Leo grabbed his ears over the mask elastic and ducked. This was gonna get loud.
The moment that the armored mutant was done, everyone on the hallway knew it.
crrrrrrrKRAKOW!
The door to his cell ripped out of its moorings and flew back and away, clipping the armored mutant on its way, bouncing once, and sliding until it plonked into Calcifer.
Leo had been a little iffy on letting this guy go, but the evidence just wasn't there. Having an extremely destructive mutation wasn't reason enough to convict a man. He'd probably just had an accident when he discovered his mutation, right?
"GOD, I've wanted to do that forever."
"Right?" The gravity mutant gave the newcomer a high five. Wingman went to help up a dazed armored mutant.
"Can you take care of this door?" Leo asked the man who stepped out of his cell smiling.
"Pfft. No."
Ugh. This was going terribly wrong. A bullet pinged down the hall and Leo, much too late, ducked. The ricochet was wild. It didn't hit anyone, but it wasn't boosting his confidence either.
Turns out, it was two more mutants before the METAs showed.
The gang was just finishing up the third jailbreak. Leo was still clipping the shock bracelets off a winged mutant as soon as he was out of his cell when the heavy clomp-clomp-clomping sounded behind them from a bend in the hallway. They all looked around meeting eyes and with an unspoken understanding started scooting on down toward the stairwell.
Though he hadn't considered it an option before, they were 4 mutants strong when facing off against the 3 META bots. The odds were better than he'd hoped. Not super great, but... better.
"I've seen the Knights, but the big one...?"
"It's called a Golem." Leo replied to the winged mutant's question. His second bracelet clattered noisily to the ground in the silence that came when the METAs all stopped simultaneously and squared off against the group. "Lethal force."
"CEASE AND DESIST, MUTANTS. IF YOU COMPLY, SENTENCING MAY BE MORE LENIENT." In unison the two Knights and the Golem all drew weapons and pointed them at the collection of mutants that had been stopped just outside teh locked stairwell door.
Leo breathed a biiiig breath.
"Anyone want to comply?" He asked.
"*@#$ NO!" The first shot was fired by the gravity mutant. The Golem went from standing upright to slamming upward into the ceiling. The other cell's occupants whooped and hollered.
"We need to keep moving." Leo pleaded. "We're not going to win a toe to toe fight!"
Distantly, Leo noticed something like the bark of a gun muffled by distance and distorted through the sirens. So maybe he was imagining it. Maybe it wasn't a gun. Had he ever heard a real gun outside of CSI show?
390.
He decided that he had heard a gun. Or maybe a car muffler. Either way he needed to go. It was quiet now. Really, scary quiet.
400.
Leo raised his head and looked out over the expanse between his hiding spot and the wall. Of all the things he'd psyched himself up for, he hadn't expected the fear. He wasn't bullet-proof. He wasn't anything. He was just a dumb kid in 2 jackets and a Darth Vader mask. Well. And other precautions.
Distantly he realized that he could leave. If Leo's goal had been to get Calcifer into prison, he'd just done it. He could leave and then it'd be like one less morally ambiguous dude on the streets, right?
Uuuuuuugh. His guts got all twisty when he thought about betraying the guy. Crap. He'd also lost count. Before Leo could argue with himself anymore he made himself break cover. And then when a spotlight affixed itself to his position, he was scared so witless he ran quite possibly faster than he'd ever run before in his life.
Just like paintball, right? Try not to get hit.
Except no paintball game did he ever play while wearing someone else's shoes over his own. He tripped in the hot slag of the wall and bumped his shoulder into molten rock. Hot, hot, hot but surprisingly not dead, dead, dead or on fire, fire, fire. He felt the skin tighten on his face and ear nearest the rock like an instant sunburn, but that was the worst of it. Well, and his mask started to stink pretty bad. Cal's jacket, gloves, and shoes probably were expensive.
Sweating profusely, Leo tripped out into the hall.
"Cell 1226," he coughed when he spied Calcifer. Leo glanced around to get his bearings and then pointed the way. "C'mon, man." The kid loped ahead as if he'd been the one waiting.
One hall over, just around the corner. It was hard to focus with the blaring sounds, but there it was. A caged mutant with armored skin. He wasn't going to win any beauty pageants any time soon. Didn't mean he deserved to be stuck wearing orange. "We're here to get you out, Mr. Varghese."
Leo fished out his papers. Next was, "1573. Down the hall."
"Are you getting Gary?"
"Uhm. Gary Diederick?" Leo referenced his papers. That name was on page two, he figured. He'd prioritized by both proximity and perceived innocence.
"Upstairs," the armored mutant helpfully supplied.
If he hadn't had years of experience in answering to his Dungeons and Dragons character name, Leo was sure he would have fumbled. Instead, he was prepared.
Leo strapped on his Darth Vader mask and his gloves and then accepted the heat elemental's clothes. Leo dutifully shrugged into Calcifer's jacket, gloves, and boots, all of which fit over his own. He did not deign to do anything with the boxers except stuff them into his bag.
"Ready." He confirmed. Though the autumn night had a chill to the air, now Leo was broiling. Again. He tugged at the collar to his hoodie and supposed it was for the best. Safety and all that.
"From this entry point, the first target is one hall away. Cell 1226. One-two-two-six."
He couldn't be sure Calcifer had heard him. He was, after all, naked and off running mad into the night.
Was that... laughter?
Leo felt a trickle run down his spine. What had he unleashed here?
He'd said to stay clear for a while so the teen huddled in their brush trying desperately to hear and see something and yet not be heard or seen. Leo saw light. The floodlights kicked on after that. Sirens. No joke, the stealth thing was totally out. The question was, could Leo close the distance? Surely the people on the walls had guns.
Calcifer had said to wait. So he counted in his head to 500 from the moment he'd thought to.
Okay. So the guy was a bit prickly, but Leo was sure he wasn't the lash out for no good reason kind of guy so he continued to lecture on the off chance that something useful would seep down past his grump.
The train rolled to a stop and Calcifer was transfixed.
"Uhm. This is the stop."
It wasn't until the train had curled past the prison walls and on to the next, even less popular platform. Leo fiddled with his phone, installing and hiring an uber. They were going to need a ride now. And just as suddenly Calcifer was on the move and agreeing. Leo had to stuff his papers into his bag rather hastily and jog to catch up. "Great. Yeah, but whoah there cowboy. Just hold up for a mo."
Leo indicated that they should keep walking, but away from the platform and its many eyes.
"There's time in the window I wanted if we take a cab. Here." Leo held his phone out to the pay screen. Half up front minus the price of a rail pass and the cab estimate. All he had to do was put in the way he wanted to receive it. Paypal. Bank account. There were options.
By the time he'd finished, their taxi had arrived. Leo piled in first and gave directions to pretty much nowhere. They would have to walk after that.
"You know what to do?" He tried not to let his nerves show. His mom was gonna be sooo mad when she found out.
Leo was ready to throw his shoes in for science, no question. He was already on his way to sitting down when somebody screamed. Shoes were not what was needed. What was needed was a hero, or three.
> "Men, we're going in."
And then Jiri did. Successfully. How did he know? Oh. The shoe. Leo tried to aim for the same-ish area. He met a bit of resistance but with a little course correction he, too was in.
"Don't you know? In dungeon crawls left is right and right is wrong." Or maybe that was just a truism for DnD players?
A cackle and another wail marked their urgency. Leo bounced on the balls of his feet. "Left!" But Jiri was already on his way so he scrambled to keep up too. It was always left.
"Don't split the party." He muttered and checked back for Alex. Could he run and do bug things at the same time?
One of the shrubby walls twitched in Leo's peripheral vision. Were the walls moving?
Take it out of his... "Oh." 'cause he could totally do that kind of thing. Since he was the Boss. It was silly that he hadn't even considered skimming off the top of the mercenary account. Probably a good thing he hadn't. The people that had pulled that money together had skills. It would be nothing for them to see where it went if he spent it on himself.
Leo scanned his pass twice and made sure to pick a seat well away from other passengers. It wasn't difficult. This wasn't exactly a popular route and this wasn't exactly a popular time. He took his file folder and went through to the section on guard rotation.
"So, they're on 8 hour shifts and the 7 hour mark for graveyard shift is our aim. It's not like anyone has been observed dozing off at regular convenient intervals, but they do take longer coffee breaks. Are slower to respond. That kind of thing.
The robots...? They don't take potty breaks, but they're not reliably on shift either. There's growing pains. Rumors of malfunctioning code." And even a couple rumors on who dun it. Leo smirked. It wasn't him, but man, did he wish he had even the slightest something to do with that bit of brilliance.
"So until we get eyes on the place, I don't know if they will be there or not. No known adapteds. Just regular guardspeople guarding a mixed bag of mutants and humans. I can't vouch for all the prisoners. I just want a few." The few he'd researched and deemed exoneration-worthy.
Of course, he had dossiers. And guard pathing. And many, many other papers that Calcifer seemed to not care about even though the train was pulling out of the station and now they had nothing else to do but learn.
