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.
Yeah, working in the hospital, she would have to have been used to chaos. Maybe not even organized chaos, depending on the day. Odd hours from a roommate bothering you when you’d already told them you’d be working odd hours and be in and out all day... it didn’t seem the sort of thing one would object about unless one were a hungry, hungry hypocrite. Elliott nodded at that.
The news about big bedrooms was nice. Plenty of space for painting and gear. And pets! He had no problem with snakes. Even mutant snakes. He didn’t bat an eye. When she asked if he’d like to see the room, Elliott smiled and said “Yes. Thank you.”
She showed him the room. The rooms location gave some good privacy, and the doors locked. Big, like she’d said. Closet space, bathroom. Elliott looked around at all the space he could fill. And it came with some furniture, so he could keep it or trash it. It’d save him some trips to Ikea, Sweden. The room even had a little patio, perfect for sneaking out.
Elliott turned to the woman, and grinned at her. “This place is amazing,” he said. “Totally bests my expectations. I think this place will work out just fine.”
“I like the snake, by the way. What’s his name?” Elliott asked.
Hero tip number 397: when out doing heroic things at night, don’t pack your wallet. It’s sloppy. It had ID. If it falls out, your identity falls with it. Better to avoid carrying a wallet or identification altogether. Yes, even if you’re driving. Although sometimes, one winds up with a wallet, all the same.
Despite his best intentions, Elliott stumbled onto the mugging in-progress. Honestly, he’d been trying to cut down on his responses to these. For real! He hadn’t been out patrolling the rooftops, looking for trouble or anything! As far as his new roommate knew, he was simply out clubbing. He’d driven his motorcycle out to a nearby bar, parked it... and then gone for a little walk. And the guy had shouted “Give me your wallet! I want your money, not your life” not one block away from the bar. Sometimes, life is not fair. He’d stepped into an alley, slipped on his motorcycle helmet, then gone to work.
Barefooted, he’d slipped into the shadows. Shoes, he’d stashed in his backpack. With them, he could calmly step in any old alley slime and not get it between his toes. Without them, he could walk on walls. He crouched for a second, then sprung onto the alley wall. Pounced to another wall, and stealthily came up on the mugger from above and behind.
“Nice night for it,” Elliott had said cheerfully.
The mugger spun around wildly. In his confusion and his haste, he nearly lost his grip on the knife. The woman behind him cowered, drunk and clearly a wreck. That was usually how it happened. Criminals prey on the weak. What’s weaker than a drunk woman on her way home from a bar? The muggers eyes darted from one corner of the alley to the other, desperately searching for the source of the voice.
“Not in the corner,” Elliott sang. “Or that one.” The mugger waved his knife at the shadows. He was getting scared. Elliott sighed. “Alright. I’ll just save you the trouble. Up. Here.” He snapped.
The mugger looked up. And he nearly wet himself. Elliott, Alias Cheshire, had a gimmick. It was a silly bit, but it was his bit, just as it had been the bit of the Cheshire before him (and also concurrently, at that time). He wore a motorcycle helmet with a smile. The smile often changed, rotating through patterns and different styles. He’d painted some of them for fun. Tonight’s helmet was one he sort of held dear. It had been a posthumous gift from his roommate, Benji. The Real Cheshire, as far as he considered things. And it. Was. Scary.
Cheshire hung there, upside down on the alley wall about twenty feet up. The helmet was black, with a jagged V of a smile full of sharp-looking white teeth, and a lolling pink tongue. The painted eyes on the helmet were shaped like almonds, and they were red. Foreign eyes. Alien eyes. His black leather jacket would have hung awkwardly, had he not buttoned it up. Black jeans and visible green skin on his hands and feet finished the ensemble, though those were hardly accessories.
“Hi!” Cheshire’s black helmet smiled. He waved one hand. The tongue defied gravity by lolling towards the sky. Before the mugger could do much more than take a step back from shock, he launched himself off the wall and turned the descent into a tumbling flip. He landed a few feet away from the mugger, kicked his left leg out in a snappy side kick, and caught the guy in the chest. The knife didn’t matter. Tumbled right from his grip. Cheshire surged forward to pummel the man into a state of unconsciousness, before he could recover and reclaim his knife. While Elliott was beating the man up, the drunk woman ran from the alley. She didn’t even scream, just ran. Smart of her.
Elliott had said he wouldn’t do it. He’d promised. But what good is a promise from a liar and a thief? He took the mugger’s wallet. What a good way to teach a mugger a lesson. Mug him first. Leave the man with bruises and a story to deter future violent thieves. Maybe some day, the karma from the whole thing would balance things out. He was trying not to focus on karma as much, now. But he’d still promised Lee... eh. Into a pocket, the wallet went. The guy should not have shouted so loud. Getting caught is bad for business.
—
Elliott reclaimed the backpack from the hiding place behind the dumpster, and strapped shoes back into his feet. It hadn’t been a long walk back to the bar. But in the brief time between his walk and his return, a crowd had formed. They must have been gearing up for a party at a nearby night club or something.
The nice thing about a costume like his costume was that, for the most part, you could blend in. If the cops weren’t looking for you, a motorcycle helmet was just a motorcycle helmet and a leather jacket, just a jacket. He could swap out elements of the costume over time, so long as the smile remained. But a motorcycle helmet wasn’t an uncommon sight around bars. He didn’t stand out that much. Into the crowd, Elliott went, stolen wallet heavy in the back pouch of his low-slung black backpack.
It wasn’t easy chasing the man in the green motorcycle helmet on foot. The solution, of course, was the Cheshire cycle. The little black motorcycle roared along on the road while the mystery man leaped from building to building up above. It wasn’t hard following him. He stood out against the dark night sky. He didn’t realize he was being followed, either. That just added to the ease.
The chase went on for several minutes. Bit by bit, the feeling of unease in Benji’s gut grew. Things were starting to look familiar. They took the odd turn, now and then, but the neighborhood just drew closer and closer to his apartment. He’d had his suspicions, when he’d heard the helmeted man’s voice. The geography was doing little to alter those feelings. Finally, the mystery man put the final nail in the coffin. He stopped in front of their apartment complex.
Benji slid into an open motorcycle space, and turned the bike down as fast as he could. Turning, his mind raced trying to track where the helmeted man had gone. A blur of movement caught his eye on the side of the building across the street. It was slightly shorter than their apartment building, made of old red brick that needed repairs in patches. Atop the building, right at eye level with the window in their apartment, there was a brightly lit neon sign advertising... something. The light cast out by the sign made it hard to sleep at nights. It bathed the area. That worked for him, though, since it provided little shadow for mystery man to utilize as he scaled the building’s side.
Benji rushed towards the side of the building, and shouldered his way into the side door. He found the stairwell up. His footsteps hammered the stairs as he pressed his way forward. Up, up, up. Every few seconds, he punctuated his point by springing into the air in a burst of speed that left blue lines waving in his wake. He made good time, that way, Injecting extra speed into his upward ascent.
The door to the rooftop exploded outwards as Benji shoved it open. Right left, down, up. He quickly glanced around. A slow clap echoed around the rooftop. The man in the smiling green helmet stepped out of the shadows behind the back side of the sign.
“Took you long enough. Guess you can’t fly.” The man said. His tone was wry, but he wasn’t mocking him. It felt more like he was taking perverse amusement from the situation.
“You were watching me that entire time,” Benji’s voice was flat. “Weren’t you.”
“And testing you. Trying to shake you. I’ll admit I was curious about you, Mr. ‘Gravelly voice hiding my real voice’. What’s up with that?”
A dark laugh escaped him. Benji shook his head. “Hiding my secret identity, maybe?” He said, voice rough. He’d never dropped it during their entire conversation.
“Pft,” the green helmet snorted. “You sound like the Cookie Monster. Dare you to say C is for cookie.”
“C is for...?”
“Cookie,” the green helmet smiled. “And that’s good enough for me.”
“Point is,” Benji continued, pointedly ignoring the other guys jibes. “People remember voices, and a smart person can put two and two together if they encounter the similarities enough. I’ve heard your voice before.”
“Ah yeah?” Green helmet said. “Who am I, then?”
Benji didn’t feel like just saying. So, he lunged forward on main speed, grasping for the helmet. “I’ll show you!”
She was nothing if not polite. “Tea,” Elliott said, smiling. “Green, if you’ve got it.”
He liked lemon tea, too, and mint, but it was never polite to put a host out when they were making a friendly offer. On the streets, that was a good way to never get helped out by someone nice again.
As always, he had to mentally kick himself to add A “Thank you.” It felt like it came in a beat too late. Nice people always threw him off, even if he’d encountered more of them lately. Kenzie was trying to help him get out of his shell, but it was a work in progress.
Elliott found one of the white leather couches and sat in it. It was by a coffee table, and he pointedly avoided kicking up his feet.
Earlier, Andrea had seemed self-conscious about cleanliness. Elliott had crashed in far worse, and some of the nicer holes he’d slummed in had been ones he’d set up, himself. He couldn’t fault her for being a clean freak. There were far worse things to be a freak about. And he had to take great strides to avoid the opposite behavior. Being a slob is easy. Being a freak is hard. Hell, even having a vase on hand for random bouquets was almost superhuman levels of Proper Home Ownership. Him and Benji probably wouldn’t have had one. They’d most likely have had to wash out an old paint can or coffee tin. Fish out a fish bowl, mysteriously fish-free. And thinking about Benji had made him sad. Hrm. He needed to get less introspective with himself.
Gordon had set out cookies and chocolate to go with her coffee and his hippy tea. He leaned forward and snagged a chocolate, because what solves momentary morose memories better than chocolate and repetition of sounds? The chocolate vanished like magic, into his mouth. Okay, maybe not magic. But it was a nice snack!
He let his tea bag steep while she told her a little bit about herself. Elliott listened thoughtfully, nodding when appropriate. Antennae waggled as his head bobbed up and down. All the while, he filed away details the way a good street smart (read: slightly paranoid) alien might. RN, out of state, AND country.
Irregular schedule made for sudden absences and reappearances. He didn’t read into the whole absences and sharing a nice home for people who might need it, “homeless guilt trip” angle, but having been homeless, had he known the thoughts behind the decision, Elliott probably would have appreciated it.
Elliott used a spoon to daintily extract his tea bag, and squeeze out any extra tea. He put the spent bag on a saucer. He added a little sugar, a half and half, and stirred.
Would her coming and going be a nuisance? “Nah,” Elliott smiled. Chocolate had him feeling better now. And tea. “You might find me more of a nuisance, but I’ll try and keep it under control better than my last roommate.” There it was again! He suppressed a frown. “I paint. He used to take up the living room and his bedroom and all the areas in-between with his canvasses. Fumes stunk to high heaven. I’ll try and keep most of it in my room until I can afford a studio. Keep it out of your hair.”
“I may be up and out at odd hours,” Elliott continued. “For work and stuff.” Not technically a lie. “May start going to school too, for the art. Don’t know yet. Still figuring it out. Kind of new to me. But apparently, people have liked it enough to buy some of the pieces. My girlfriend Kenzie is a pretty good saleswoman, I guess.” He laughed.
“No smoking,” he added. “Though I might be taking up the violin... and that’s probably worse.”
Tires squealed! Rubber burned! The car changed lanes and slid between traffic by the barest of inches. Blue and red lights trailed behind it. Sirens sang the song of their people. Wee ooo wee ooo weee.
On the rooftop, Cheshire was watching the city. He sat, resting his elbows on his knees by the edge of the roof. Lamp light glinted off the bottom of his jet black motorcycle helmet, just enough to illuminate the bottom corner of a jagged monster of a smile.
White, white teeth, sharp as pins. Big red tongue. His roommate had made it for him before he’d died... he’d only found it buried in a closet once he’d started packing up Benji’s old things. There had been a post-it note with October 31 written on it in red pen. His birthday. Red eyes were painted on the upper half of the helmet, dark enough there were hard to see in the low light. They were almond-shaped and angled down the helmet in an Alien-like point. Black pants and a black leather jacket rounded out the outfit, alongside a black utility belt. Black, black, black. For when you want to blend in with darkness and go with everything. Or when you want to make criminals pee a little when you jump at then from out of the shadows.
A small handheld police scanner broadcast low behind him. Elliott had been listening to the car chase play by play for a while. Some mutant had robbed a bank. Big guy. Looked kind of gunmetal gray. Probably a mutant. When he’d left... he’d become his own Getaway car. Something sleek and expensive. Police were chasing. Some bright guy had called the X-men for advice. Cheshire, AKA Elliott, was going to stop him. Why? Good question.
Morality was always ambiguous to him. Murder, bad, yes. But robbery, less so... except when it gets violent. And there were deeper nuances to it, too. He’d talked at great lengths about that stuff when they’d been rooming together, but now— Basically, he was angry enough to want to kick a mutant cars ass. He didn’t want to go any deeper than that. Criminals pissed him off. Constructive uses of anger were good. Maybe he could paint someone a picture some time to explain.
Below in the street, an engine roared. He could hear the sound of sirens trailing in the distance now. He’d listened to the streets on the radio, and guessed at the nearest point on the map the car would pass. He snapped off the police scanner and strapped it to his utility belt. Then, he took a running lead and leaped off the building, towards the street below.
Cheshire landed on the bank of a police cruiser several cars back from the mutant vehicle. All that planning, all that smart guess work, exploded outwards in a torrent of noxious profanity. The helmet smiled it’s sharp smile. Elliott got in position and prepared to jump from squad car to squad car in pursuit. Maybe they’d figure out how to corner the car and he could catch up. Or maybe something big and noisy would distract it long enough for him to Frogger his way into a fight. Hopefully that X-man, whenever they arrived, would provide a much needed speed bump distraction, and they could all move on...that was a terrible thing to think, but there it was.
Her reaction was just as awkward as his. For a moment, Elliott worried his girlfriends “help” had sabotaged the meeting he’d wanted to go well. The trickle of laughter that escaped the green woman eased his worries.
‘Dare I say we have things in common?’ She joked. Yeah. It looked like they did. Elliott smiled a small smile at that, one that didn’t quite show off his zipper like set of teeth. The puppers got revealed, though, when she smiled and invited him in.
The ad had said her name was Andrea Gordon. Did she want him to call her Andrea? Gordon? Miss Gorgon? Sorry. Gordon. He mentally corrected himself. The best way to know was to ask. Which, of course, he didn’t do.
“It’s not easy being green,” he agreed easily, slipping into the condo. “Thanks for meeting me, Gordon. The condo looks—“
Elliott glanced around. It was a nice condo. Good furniture. Nice furnishings. “Super clean,” he finished.
“Plenty of room, too.” He added thoughtfully. Maybe Kenzie had been right about the lonely angle.
“You’ll probably have questions for me.” He said, Mind abruptly turning to business. “Smoker, nonsmoker? Stuff like that.”
Moving out of his old apartment had simultaneously been the easiest decision Elliott had ever made, and the hardest. In the weeks following the death of his last roommate, the city had moved on. Elliott had tried to join it, even though the people of Hell’s Kitchen kept on living because his roommate had stopped. They hadn’t even noticed what he’d done. The most he’d gotten was a newspaper article buried deep in the paper about hoodlums setting off a fireworks display several days early before the Fourth of July. No thank you, no nothing. Benji had sacrificed himself heroically to save an entire building full of people, and nobody had even stopped to notice his act. They’d just blamed the disruption on rowdy teenagers, and moved on. The death had been a hard hit. It had left him feeling a million things, the least of which was bitter.
He hadn’t believed Benji had done the Trademarked Heroic sacrifice at first. Then, he’d bargained over it. “Please, be okay. Please...” he’d thought. But no dice. When he’d gone home, he’d been angry. Thrown things around. That had lead in a lot of interesting directions... one of which had been acceptance. His roommate was dead. He had to move on. Benji wouldn’t have wanted him to just stop. After that realization, he’d been left alone in a house full of memories and his dead roommates old things. It hadn’t been healthy. And despite his better judgement, Elliott still almost had. Stopped.
So many old things. Books. Art. That stupid book by the ancient Chinese general Benji had always quoted. The journal. Don’t judge. An old violin, and tons of sheet music of which he couldn’t make heads or tails. But mostly art. Maybe it had turned into a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the pain and the bitter anger. Whatever it was, it had worked well enough to get him out of the house.
A man’s gotta eat. Beer is liquid bread. It’s good for you. A man’s got other needs, too. He’d picked up a woman at the bar. Moving on was moving forward, even if it just lead to places like the bedroom. Funny enough, they’d taken a detour through the living space in between, first. Weird how that works. Funnier still, she’d spotted Elliott’s art. His canvas with the big blob of paint from the shattered scorched remnants of the real Cheshire’s motorcycle helmet, the black one with the smile, that had fallen from the fire in the sky. The one he’d kicked into the oversized blank canvas that had been left waiting in the middle of the living room for a budding artist who would never come home. The canvas he’d attacked, with helmet, with brush, during the raging aftermath of Benji’s death. The helmet with the lippy grin that had been the only thing left
“Very Jackson Pollick,” she’d said. “And are those... your footprints? Two toes?”
He’d said, yeah, he’d kicked it. With his feet.
She’d said “is there any other way to do it?”
His soon-to-be future girlfriend had stayed the night. One thing had led to another, and his soon-to-be future girlfriend had also become his art agent. She’d urged him to channel all that anger, all that passion, into something. It had been a lot healthier than creeping on his deceased best friends stuff. So, he’d started painting.
As it turned out, he had talent. Unrefined, sure, but talent all the same. His girlfriend showed him where and how he could sell his art, and just like that, his income went from whatever money he’d saved from work before he’d stopped going, to something significant. Better than working at a Korean restaurant and pocketing money from would-be muggers, anyway.
His girlfriend, Kenzie McCabe, decided it for him. Now that he had a better income, he needed a better place. Something that didn’t have a giant billboard outside the living room window that burned bright all night. It made the nice Hell’s Kitchen apartment cheap, sure, but it also made sleeping over Hell. Thus, moving out of his old apartment had suddenly become the easiest decision ever. Also, hard. Because memories of the place you crashed with your very best friend are hard to part with. But she was right. He needed to move. He needed to suck it up. And suck it up, he did.
He went through ad after ad. It was Kenzie that finally found the one. “Lonely antisocial woman seeks human contact,” she read. “P L Z, ohgawd. So alone.” She actually spelled it out, Pee ELL Zee.
Elliott stared at her. “It doesn’t actually say that. Does it?”
“No,” Kenzie laughed. “I’m just being a bit$h. It’s just this woman looking for a roommate to share the payment with on her condo in downtown Brooklyn.”
“And you’d be fine,” he said. “With me rooming with another woman.” Somehow, he didn’t believe it.
“Duh,” Kenzie said. “I trust you. And besides. If something happened, who would help you sell your art?”
She was kidding. He was absolutely certain. Probably. But either way, he wasn’t planning on being a jerk. “So you’re cool with me sending out a reply to the ad...” He said, one more time. To be certain.
“Yes.” She said. “Hell, I’m suggesting it. Don’t be dumb. I’ll even help you put your best foot forward.”
“Because I am so very awkward at times.” Elliott rolled his eyes.
“Exactly!” She said.
That was how, when he finally went to the condo to meet with his prospective new roommate, Elliott came bearing flowers and chocolate in a leather jacket and designer jeans. His t-shirt read Aerosmith. He was both hopeful and horrified. Also, nervous because he wanted to make a good impression. Basically, all the emotions.
When the woman opened the door, Elliott pressed the floral bouquet and the box of chocolates into her hands. “My girlfriend said I should give you these,” he said hurriedly. “To put my best foot forward, I guess. I’m Elliott. Nice to meet you.”
How come it just felt like his girlfriend had purposefully sent him off to make a giant fool of himself in the boldest way possible? At least the box of chocolates was rectangular, and not shaped like a heart. If it had been heart-shaped, it plus the yellow lilies would have given the wrong idea.
Yellow lilies are supposed to symbolize gaiety, which is totally not a romantic notion to send mixed signals with. He blushed brown on green skin, all the same. Only once he’d handed the gifts to her did Elliott realize that, hey, she was green too. His black antennae twitched. Red eyes blinked. Did she have snakes for hair?
Elliott spun, tearing his leg away from the rock monster mid-kick. The sound the Golden thing had made as it connected with Rocky’s head could only have been described as colossal. Maybe titanic. Gigantic? Okay. More than one word would have worked. But what the hell was it?!
He lurched out of the way as the rock mutant tumbled onto his shoulder with another apocalyptic crash. Everything shook. As the dust settled, his eyes fell on a figure in golden armor holding a sword as large as a horse. The sword was black, with red accents and a round end that seemed more for slashing than stabbing. The golden armor was decorated with flowing shoulder guards and a fierce helmet. The helmet... the helmet almost looked like... no, it was, a gold lion, complete with toothy fangs and mane. The armored figure looked like something out of a freaking Japanese cartoon. And to add insult to injury, the guy was actually sitting on a golden armored horse. The horse seemed to glow and sparks in the night. The size of the blade made sense, now. How would one wield a blade large as a horse? Why, by riding one, of course! A horse, of course. Of course, a horse... it couldn’t have been a real horse. But real or not, it rankled him.
Beneath his green smiling helmet, Elliott sneered. “I just got killjacked by a f@cking knight in shining armor on horseback.” His eyes fell to the black X in a red circle that stood out against the golden breastplate of the knight. A wave of bile rose up in his throat. “AND it’s an X-man! I’m out.”
Before the knight could speak, before he could say a single word, Elliott turned and Elliott ran. If his knowledge of flashy idiots in the X-men were even marginally complete, he knew exactly who the idiot in gold was. And he wanted no part of it.
The knight turned to watch him go. His “horse” shifted on its feet, a completely fake and bullshit bit of acting the jerk liked to do just to make his psychic creations seem more realistic. As if people actually would wear shiny golden armor in this day and age. Elliott’s scathing mental rebuke continued on as he leaped over the police line and down the street.
Tetsuya Shinbo, AKA Shard, scratched his head. It didn’t do much good, seeing as it was encased in gold, but that was how much the sudden fleeing of one of the two vigilantes had confused him. Weren’t they all in it together? He looked to the rock man he’d clobbered upside the head. Unconscious. Then he turned towards the one remaining member of the weird-helmet duo. Shin opened his mouth to say something. The other guy bolted, right after his supposed friend. Shin was left with an unconscious rock giant, and a lot of questions he needed to answer.
”Just great...” He muttered. As he turned to trot towards the line of police, a song came to his lips. It was the theme song to the TV show his costume had come from. The theme of GARO escaped him in a low hum.
Behind the smiling helmet, Benji frowned. It was true. He’d been thinking in the most childish of manners. It had been a joke... mainly. People never got that about the Cheshire persona. He could crack jones forever, without cease because the helmet never stopped smiling, even when he’d gone long past frown town into glower city. The persona was supposed to be sassy and lighthearted, even when he wasn’t.
“I’m kidding,” he grumbled. “Way to sap the humor out of a life threatening situation.” The helmet smiled. He didn’t. See? The persona worked. It could quip all day! “Besides,” Benji hedged thoughtfully. “If steel wasn’t super effective, we aren’t dealing with your traditional rock type.” He held his chin. “Rock and steel, maybe? Because all the other types don’t make sense defensively... I don’t see any water or fire or electricity anywhere.”
The guy with the green helmet was silent for a second. His helmet grinned, too. Was he going to crack a joke? No. He just swore sulfurously. “You are speaking another language.” Elliott said. “Please stop.”
Benji held his chin, considering. “Sun Tzu would say that we should evade his strength and work in close coordination. We outnumber him. Harass and confuse.”
“Again. Another language. Who is Sun Tzu?” Elliott sighed.
“Old Chinese guy.” Benji replied. “Wrote a book about warfare.”
“... was this book in fortune cookie form?” Elliott asked.
“...”
“...”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“You’re the one who must be joking.” Elliott replied. “Suggesting we dodge him and tire him out when that’s exactly—“
“Hyaaaargh!!” The rock monster swung a craggy fist down at both of them.
“What we’ve been doing.” Elliott finished, hopping out of way.
“Except with more teamwork—“ Benji blurred backwards, trailing blue lines. The fist smashed into empty pavement.
“Yeah. Okay. I guess!” Elliott was being sarcastic, but he could try it. It might work... a little. Without another word, the two of them fell into a steady rhythm. They dodged attacks, and when one of them flowed backwards, the other one rushed forwards to press the rock giant mutant on its exposed flank. Then, that hero would retreat while the other one did it from another side. It seemed to work, sort of... but even with their team work, they couldn’t shatter the monster.
“Fire hydrant,” Benji growled. Somewhere during the fighting, he’d acquired a shard of broken concrete. He held it above the hydrant’s bolt, poised.
Elliott sprang backwards, and the fist crashed down where he’d been. “Fire!” He drawled. Then, he dove to one side. The piece of pavement clanged into the hydrants bolt in a blue blur. Metal and concrete collided with a huge pop, and a stream of water shot out of the hydrants side, where a hose would normally go. In his dodging and fighting, the man in the green helmet had lined the rock mutant and the hydrant up perfectly. The stream hit the mutant dead in the chest.
The Goliath recoiled, screaming. He put his palms between the stream and his face, staggering backwards. He spat curses. It was time to capitalize on the attack. Elliott ran forward, gaining speed. It might break his leg. It might hurt. But he was going to hit the guy in the leg with one bartering ram of a kick. If they put rock man down, they could rain blows on him until he submitted. It just might work. A split second before he would have hit, and swept the legs out from under him, something big and gold crashed into the side of the rock mutant’s head.
On top of rock man, Elliott was realizing much the same thing. No matter how hard they hit, they couldn’t knock the rock unconscious. They could hurt him, sure. Outpace him, injure his pride. Poke him in the eye. But he wouldn’t give up, and he wasn’t surrendering. Elliott knew. He had tried. He’d told him to give up so many times in the past minute, he’d felt like a broken record. All he’d accomplished was making his throat dry. He could use a drink. Preferably scotch.
He landed on rock mans shoulders again, and crouched. Then, Elliot sprang from the great height down to land next to the man with the lip helmet, just as the dude tossed aside his shield.
“We need a better plan,” he commented. “Nothing we’re doing is having any effect.”
The other guy was silent, almost thoughtful. Elliott didn’t think anything of it. He hadn’t masked his voice, or tried to sound gruff and dangerous at all. He wasn’t wearing shoes or gloves, and his hands and two-toed feet were very green. From a secret identity standpoint, he stood out like a sore thumb.
Finally, lip helmet spoke. He, in comparison to Elliott, sounded suitably gruff and gravelly. “Water main,” he said. “Or grass. Or ice.”
“... you’re just quoting type weaknesses from that kids cartoon. A homeless kid I knew once spent an hour explaining that convoluted Rock Paper Scissors crap to me. Get real, big lips.” Elliott sighed, glancing towards their shared foe.
Clang, clang, clang. Benji took advantage of the rock mans stagger to follow up with several smashing blows to the monsters open side.
The other guy hung onto the wrist for dear life. As stone face retreated from the repeated attacks, he held up his arms around his face, as if to shield it. The other helmeted man didn’t fall off, though, nor did he grip the arm like he was hugging it. It was almost as if he were stuck there with glue. Weird, Benji thought to himself. Then, he continued the assault.
He blurred forward to strike like a car crash at 100 miles an hour. Chips of gravel flew off the rock man’s side like rain. They cluttered against the pavement around him. It had been a solid hit.
“Argh!!” Rock man shouted.
Benji glanced up. Rock man was covering his eyes now. Had the other helmeted guy... stabbed the rock in the eyes? Pointy sticks. Really? Eh. He shrugged, then wheeled around to the other side and burst for a second, to rain another series of shield slams on rock man’s other flank. The metal trash can lid was starting to look like bent up scrap metal. It hadn’t been built to break rocks. On that same train of thought rode another one. Those sticks hasn’t been made to break rocks either. They’d been hammering on rock man for a minute or two, and he’d staggered and acted hurt, but— he just kept going. It seemed like their attacks were more an annoyance than anything else.
Elliott wheeled out of the way as a boulder sized fist crashed down where he’d been moments before. He hadn’t purposefully chosen to do this to help cops. He’d done it to help people. Why? Good question. Fighting rock man now, he wasn’t sure he knew.
As another strike fell, he leaped onto the rock mans arm and ran up it towards the head. Kicking was out of the question. No shattered toes, please. He had another plan, though. He’d been practicing escrima with a friend. As he reached the top and skidded to a stop in front of the mans eyes, Elliott whipped out two metal sticks. Just a quick jab to the eyes, and— something happened that sent him staggering off course. Da hell?! He glanced down and saw—
Some man in a black helmet with a comical lippy smile, wearing his signature leather jacket... had smashed the SAME metal trash can lid he’d thrown earlier into rock mans flank. He must’ve had super strength or something because it had shook him. Rock man was turning now, to survey the whelp. The man was easily half his size. That didn’t stop him from gesturing with his hand in a “come at me” wave. Ugh, seriously? Beneath the helmets anonymity, Elliott made a face. ‘Queue up one pancake,’ he thought. Surprisingly, though, as he steadied himself on rock mans shoulders, waiting for the squelch, helmet head shot backwards in a bluish blur of light and lines.
Not super strength, Elliott reconsidered. Super speed. Almost like him. Except, well. Not. Faster. And a whole hell of a lot flashier. That’d surely get him killed.
Raising himself out of his crouch, Elliott moved to make another stab at the behemoths eyes. The whole world shifted, and the metal sticks struck just to one side of his target — a target that was suddenly staring intently past its stone nose, past the sticks, straight at him.
“Get off!!” A voice like mountains falling growled.
“Maybe later!” Elliott quipped. “And definitely not with you!”
The rock fist sailed upwards— at him. Good lord, the man was dumber than a brick. Elliott momentarily chided himself. Of course the guy was. He was made of Stone. Elliott hopped ten feet into the air just as the attack was about to connect. It hit the guy square in the side of his face, instead. Elliott landed on the rock man’s wrist.
“Stop hitting yourself,” He jibed. Paused. Added “On second thought, don’t.” As rock man groaned and staggered to the right.
The man was over 13 feet tall, with skin like granite and jagged spears of rock jutting from his craggy shoulders. Bullets bounced off his body as he stood in the middle of the street, and he laughed. His square jaw shook, and he held his gut with the belly laughter. The police were stationed by their cars, behind the cordoned off area they’d created by this stone behemoth. Some squad cars were in wreckage. Police crouched behind their cars, guns drawn. It was clear from the looks on their faces that they were aware the mutant man had already killed several of their number. Cheshire sat on his motorbike several meters away, staring at the scene. But that wasn’t the thing that caused him the most shock.
A metal trash can lid collided with stone man’s head. It had sailed all the way from across the street. Benji turned, following the can’s flight path with his eyes. They landed on a man in pretty much the same damn costume as himself, but with a green helmet with a weird, almost alien face on it. The man had thrown a trash can lid? Benji almost thought he caught sight of some sort of rope in the mans hand, but it was gone right away. And— his eyes snapped back to the rock man. Nada. It hadn’t taken him down. It had just pissed him off. Benji almost thought he heard the other man in the motorcycle helmet curse... but it could have been the wind.
There was a sound like stones grinding. Oh. He supposed that was big rock man, growling. Benji had to do some sudden mental man, weighing pros and cons of the situation. It was possible the big rock man was out of his league. He seemed strong, and nigh impregnable. The police were present. Eventually, they’d bring in something that could handle him... it just might take time and cost some cops their lives. He’d be risking himself, and he didn’t know quite how he’d handle a big lump of rock. As far as the pros went— well, at least he’d have help.
Benji parked the Cheshire cycle in a spot on the side of the street. With a sigh, he approached the cordoned off area and slipped into enemy lines. It wasn’t like there was police tape. They hadn’t had the scene in hand well enough to set up that.
Intriguing was a good word to describe the woman’s response. He’d dealt with self centered women, angry women, angry self centered women, and many other unique combinations. Her response was basically “are you man enough to deal with it?” or at least, that was his read of the reply.
Are you man enough to handle it? Can you deal with a minor inconvenience? Is it worth it? Do a cost benefit analysis. Search your heart. Is it worth it? Do you have the balls?
He let that train of thought chug on for a second as Elliott took a thoughtful drink. It was true, Benji got on his nerves at times. But he had an answer.
“Yeah,” Elliott said. “You’re right. It is worth it.” It was worth it to have somewhere to crash that wasn’t watched by nosy know it all mansion teachers who reacted like cops. “What is a place if not somewhere to sleep, between life and the rest of it? I think I can deal with the inconvenience for a stable roommate who pays bills. Could always be worse.”
“Plus. His art is kind of cool. From a standpoint of someone who knows exactly zero about art. And, hey. Ironic enough, in running from paint fumes I went and found me some paint thinner.” In a single motion, he downed the rest of his drink. It hadn’t been THAT full. It was less impressive than it was a joke. A lame one, at that.
