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.
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: Mixed Race; African-American (Mum) / British (Dad)
Appearance
Hair color and style: Black, buzzed to the scalp with a slight fauxhawk, just long enough to show the beginning texture of curls.
Skin Tone: Cold coffee toned
Eye Color: Dark brown with yellow flecks.
Height: 5’8”
Build: Athletic
Visible mutation: No visible indication of her mutation.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: Heavily tattooed, no piercings. Long stretch marks from ribs to hips.
Other features: semi-permanent cigarette.
Everyday clothing style: Grubby cargo pants and tight singlets.
Uniform: Nil
Sleepwear: Nil
Miscellaneous clothing: Combat boots.
Character
Personality: She has been called a villain, a rogue, a cad. She’s choked the air out of those calling her that and watched them fade away. Her phone is full of contacts rather than friends and she can’t recall the last time she went drinking anything but alone. The only glimmer of anything other than hate is towards Peony, her two year old.
Hobbies/ Interests: Making messes. Breathing deep the rankness of an overcrowded city. Spending time in the chlorine-rich sauna soaking up the gas.
Job or part time job and description: She doesn’t have ‘a job’ per se. She’s completed many jobs, contracts, errands and her unique set of skills is in demand often enough to keep them fed and sheltered.
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Adapteds. Her mutation is vital to her continued survival and while watching someone squirm, clutching for air was an amusing enough pastime it was something else entirely to stumble into a nulling field herself.
Special talents: Deep, resounding denial of the consequences her actions have on others.
Morality
Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: B-b-b-bad to the bone. You know that tint of lime green around Disney villains? Chlorine gas.
Mutations
Mutation description:
Gas manipulator: Can breathe gases other than oxygen. Her standard state is breathing in carbon dioxide with output of oxygen. She knows by concentrating she can shift to the human normal of oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, or to carbon dioxide in and carbon monoxide out. She can (and does) breathe out chlorine gas (total 11 litres, the ordinary oxygen consumption per day) within 2days of being in a chlorinated environment (such as the pool).
Strengths: Poisoning people with a gas that melts them from the inside… Breathing easy in a polluted environment. Can hold her breath for longer than average due to mutation. Cannot suffocate in a closed container (unless it is filled with something other than air ie- she can still drown).
Weaknesses and Limitations: When switching from one type of intake/output to another Zinnia must stop breathing entirely to switch. This is difficult to do when in an accelerated breathing state, as she must not breathe for the entire transition period which ranges from 30 sec to 2mins. These apneas are relatively easy to deal with while awake, however when she is sleeping and the shifting is uncontrolled she suffers from sleep apnea, which disturbs her rest. If she had had insurance she might have had a breathing machine, as it is all she has is a headache and a bad temper.
Zinnia can shift to and from different gas absorptions 6 times in a day before she begins to get light-headed, 10 and she will pass out. On average she sleep shifts 3times/night, so most days her shifting is 3times to light-headed, 7 times to blackout. If Zinnia does not have access to the gas that she wishes to breathe out (eg chlorine gas in an unchlorinated environment), she is only able to expel 11litres of that gas before she must switch to another.
Physical Abilities
General Physical Capabilities: She’s not particularly large, but she is vicious and has little regard for injury to herself or her opponent, she definitely isn’t pulling any punches.
Fighting Style: People tend to stop fighting back once they realise they can’t breathe. The trick is keeping them in the zone of influence for long enough to take them out. Her modus opperandi is a swift kick to the back of the knees, pin them on the ground face down and breathe on them. And don’t get shot.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: The bigger the target the longer it takes to starve them of oxygen enough for them to stop squirming, this means she is often pitted against people who could rightly take her out and it is the sheer surprise of choking on nothing that keeps her on top.
History Of Your Character
Zinnia grew up in NYC with both her parents and two younger brothers, good school, reasonably easy life nothing worth noting until she was 14 and one of her younger brothers drowned in the pool of their building. The family never recovered. She spent hours at the pools edge, cursing it for taking her brother, and it wasn’t long before she discovered she could kill just as effectively as the pool had. It was her other brother who fell first to her poisonous exhalations. She never sees her parents, but they still live in that cursed apartment block. After leaving the family home she bounced around with some less than squeaky clean people. She’d tried a bit of everything and everyone before settling for a year with a scumbag. He was worthless, but staying still for so long meant she was contactable, contractable. Mostly it was scare work at the start, ransoms and the like. Amazing how quickly people would pay up when it was their own life trickling away breath by breath. Occassionally she took on a higher paying job, the risks were higher and the cleanup was worse. After scumbag confronted her for being in and out of the flat at all hours of the day and night he ceased to be a problem. He left behind one permanent piece of himself though, which she had meant to take care of, but left too late, too expensive. Not that the hospital bill for getting it removed was cheap. She’d called it Peony, a beautiful name born from an intense reaction to the happy-gas. She was two now. Using the clean up crew for her own freelance basically sealed the deal that she would be a quasi employee of an organisation without a name. She’d get a brief, do the job, get a paycheck. It wasn’t glamorous, but it kept the landlord and the sitter happy.
Roleplay
Where did you learn about this site?: Cafas
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Verdy (inactive) Cara (inactive)
Sample RP:
Zed had not slept well. Not that she ever slept well. The baby was crying, which was what prompted her to finally rise from the lumpy couch. A grubby blanket pooled to the ground as she slid into seated position, cradling her head in her hands.
“Maaaaaa*breath*aaaaaaah!”
A tone pitch from annoyance to actual rage got her naked butt moving and she yanked aside the tarpaulin acting as a gas barrier and kicked the door open with her foot. The room was scattered with half-emptied boxes of diapers, clothes from thrift shops and the pervading smell of sour milk. The child lifted its arms towards her, her face a screwed up ball of snot and anger, her breath coming in hiccup-sobs as she realised she was getting what she wanted.
“Yeah, yeah.” Zed scooped her up and wiped her face with a onesie before shuffling her into it. For herself she retrieved an equally crusty shirt with a faded emoticon of a poop on it. She felt it apt for the day she was having. After a quick hunt in the kitchen she wedged a wafer biscuit in either hand of the sooking toddler and set water to boil to make milk. Depositing her soon-to-be-sticky child on the couch she let herself out onto the fire escape for a smoke, pulling the window almost to behind her. She wasn’t that bad of a parent.
Her smoke was halfway done before a neighbour yelled at her indecency. She shot them the double bird for their trouble, but flicked the filter off the edge and moved back inside to find some pants. Peony drooled up at her with big, watery eyes (basically the only part of her not covered in pink cookie-drool) from the blanket nest as she found a pair of cargo pants that weren’t so dirty as to walk themselves away, and by some miracle clean knickers (they must have escaped from the clean-clothes pile into the dirty-clothes pile). She needed to do laundry at some stage, there was starting to be a stink.
A knock on the door signalled the sitter’s arrival, with a quick check through the chained door to ensure it wasn’t another type of visitor Zed let her in and indicated the baby with her head.
“Waters on. Money’s on the table. She needs changing. Stinks.”
Without a backward glance she left the room, scooping up her bag as she left. She’d be back, once the hours she paid for were up. In the meantime, she had an unfinished smoke, and a scrunched up piece of paper with a job on it.
She had been practicing in the bug. Practicing and saving. And she had got pretty good. Well, she wasn’t terrible. Ok, so she wasn’t the absolute worst. But the time for her test was fast approaching and she couldn’t take the driving test in the bug due to the missing passenger seat. Plus she needed her own car. So she had been scouring the usual ad-type-places. Some reputable dealers, some less reputable. She figured as long as it wasn’t riddled with bulletholes it couldn’t be that bad. And she had found one that ticked all the boxes. It was large enough that Jack could fit easily in, it wasn’t too old, too shabby, too expensive or too many miles.
It was perfect.
After a few emails back and forth to sort out such details as where and when Zinnia shot off a message to her favourite rainbow shrimp.
>>“I’m going to buy a car, wanna come with?”
It was a simple fact of their relationship that having a big ol hunk of muscle in a shell meant that suddenly negotiating prices became so much easier, and people didn’t try to take advantage of the sweet and innocent nurse. The truck was an hour away by bus outside the city in a not-too-bad area, so if her girlfriend declined she could go by herself, just with a bunch of safeguards in place.
There was one minor detail she overlooked in the posting. This was a manual truck. She had only driven automatics, and even those with limited ability. But it was overlooked, so it was unimportant.
Tattoo buddies! Were it not for the potential for mess she might even have suggested a tattoo-five, but with all the chemicals, not to mention combs and hairdryers, that was just asking for trouble. Wrists were pretty painful to get inked, she had also heard bad things about inside elbows and there was a nurse at her work who had tattooed armpits and she swore that was worse for pain than childbirth.
"Yeah, lots of people really hate the needles. I don’t mind them so much, give me that over a dentist drill any day.”
The fact that the drill was often coupled with a needle meant people who hated both were in for a particularly bad day.
”Here we go!” They were off! The colour was on! It was cold against her scalp, still warm from the hair-drying. And squishy, very squishy. She couldn’t see the colours being applied, but she could feel the progression through the bleached section, each new colour-blob sectioned off with some foil to keep it from being a hombre rainbow.
“Eee, I’m so excited to see it!”
Briefly she wondered if she hadn’t seen any natural rainbow hair since it looked just a little too much like a cheap clown wig. Her fear was fleeting. Her hair was going to look awesome. She trusted Shelby to get it looking awesome. Because rainbows are awesome.
“Ok I’ll do you!”
The dye was to be applied similarly to the bleach, but pulled through the length a bit too, to make for an even colour and top up the bits that had washed out a little over time. Little did she know that the bottle of dye was a trap. She shook it and in slow-motion the un-screwed cap flew off and pink dye- a brilliant magenta that was really only a shade away from red splattered in every direction.
Turns out they did need the wall-sheets after all.
People need eyebrows, without them, they just look odd. It was one of her favourite things to do for moral was to visit the chemo patients and help them put on eyebrows, some of the longer-term patients had even got them tattooed on rather than re-applying them each morning. Plus then there was no trickle-risk if it was particularly hot outside or if it rained.
After a quick check she was cleared for rinsing duty and she ducked into the little adjoining bathroom to get it done. She stuck her head in under the showerhead and scrubbed at it until most of the chemical smell had dissipated and she couldn’t feel any more crunchy bits of bleach within. She borrowed a towel that was hanging by the sink to squeeze the most of the water out then returned to Shelby. The fact that her natural hair poofing up under the hairdryer might not be what Shelby was used to never even crossed her mind.
“I’ve got a little one,” she showed the teardrop on her wrist, “and my belly button done, I like them and all, but tattoo’s don’t show up as well on my skin as some others so I probably wouldn’t get a whole piece done.” Or anything with intricate detail, like pictures… There really needed to be an ink that was blacker than black.
Scarification was a far more dramatic option for her, but one she had never been brave enough to seriously consider.
“How about you?”
She ruffled the towel through her hair and shook her head to loosen the wild curls from the towely confines. It would need to be drier to puff up completely around her head, but it was making an effort.
Zinnia was careful not to nod in case she got a streak of bleach unexpectedly. The bleached sections felt kind of… crunchy? But not in a bad way. The odour was quite strong, and she was grateful for the open window.
"Wanna help me bleach the crap out of my roots while we wait?"
“Sure!”
It was like a reverse colour-by-numbers. The sections which were a darker ginger-brown were the bits that needed painting with the goopey mixture. She donned the gloves and went to work, separating the hair into sections one by one as if she was doing cornrows on her brother and dabbing the bleach onto the non-pink sections. She was careful of ears and foreheads and backs-of-the-neck to ensure she didn’t make too much of a mess, and soon she was done. She surveyed her work critically.
“Are we meant to… do your eyebrows?”
She wasn’t sure whether one would match their eyebrows to their head colour. Working with bleach that close to the eyes was a dangerous game, but it was probably safer with two people than with one trying to work with the mirror image flippery.
It wasn’t a dirty mess, more the mess of an artist, with paint and canvasses and things scattered about. Which was fitting really. Zinnia was careful not to step on anything important and plopped her bags onto the bed next to the bag of dyes et al. The more Shelby covered up, the wider her eyes grew. Exactly how messy of a process was this? Surely they wouldn’t get any on the walls… Actually, given the risk that even a small stumble would smear the walls with dye was enough for her to come around to the whole prevention-better-than-cure thought process.
Doing the tiny room tango wasn’t top of her to-do list, so she was happy to take up the alternative. It meant they could open the window as well, to alleviate some of the strong chemical smell.
A quick change later and a nervous brush of her hair later she wiggled into the chair. Shelby checked if she was having reservations as she slapped the gloves on in that particular way. Zinnia knew it well, it was the way to put on gloves if you wanted to scare the person you were putting gloves on to deal with. It was one of her favourites for problematic patients. It was just something about that rubber on skin slap that made the body clench.
"Any reservations before we start?" The chuckle was an added level of mean.
“Nope!”
Yes. Very yes. She was actually sweating a tiny bit. It was such a big change!
The bleach was quickly and skillfully applied to the place where her hair split if she had it half up and half down and soon the dyes were all squidged into their respective bowls.
She was all for safety in numbers. As long as safety didn’t have the duel meaning of superirority. Just because the X-gene made them homo-superior didn’t mean they had to be homo-superior-complex. Peaceful cohabitation was her dream.
Zinnia had managed to gather all the ingredients plus some additional snacks and things (Shelby might not be able to stomach them, but if she was chilling with bleach and dye for 45mins she wanted to have tasty things handy). They reconvened and compared baskets. They had everything they needed.
"Yaaas!"
A quick exchange of goods and green and a short bus ride later and they were back at the mansion. She never even saw the informant who scampered off to alert a certain someone to their return.
She let Shelby lead the way, focussing instead on carrying the bags safely. The last thing she wanted was an explosion of ink all over the mansion carpets. Plus, she didn’t actually know where Shelby’s room was and she was somewhat wary of the seemingly-ever-changing corridors.
“Let’s do this thing!”
She bounced a little with excitement. Just a little. Somewhere not that far away they were being dobbed on. But there was nothing the receiver of the news could do about it. Yet.
Sounded like she had dipped a toe in (so to speak) before taking the full plunge, Zinnia felt less like a dork for wanting to start semi-hidden.
“All the colours!”
She would have the advantage of seeing each of the assortment of colours and how it behaved with her hair. Then if she wanted to commit to one particular colour she would have an idea of how it might look. It was almost like cheating. She followed Shelby’s lead towards the little store, flipping a choice finger to the passing sphincter.
Shelby’s mention of a second skin made her a little abashed. Perhaps she should have just kept her hands in her pockets… That was something she would have to practice at. A rainbow had certain implications, in this case they happened to be true as she was indeed dating a girl, but she was well aware that she might cop a little more flack than usual if she was sporting her pride so visibly. She might actually have a chance at slightly understanding what those with a visible mutation would go through.
“Yeah, I guess people think it’s fine to just comment on anything even slightly out of the ordinary.”
Be it clothes, hair or skin different was noteworthy.
They made their way into the little convenience store and Zinnia made her way to the fridge to retrieve iced coffee and milk. Plain crackers were next on her list, and dehydrated mashed potatoes if they had any. She grabbed a couple pot-noodles as well, they were pretty plain when the seasoning was skipped.
They would need to set up some sort of assembly line for all the colours to get them in quickly one after another. So many bowls. She nodded at Shelby’s assessment of the timeframe.
“I haven’t had a cool hair colour before, I’m a little nervous.”
She chuckled, her hair was generally more contained rather than maintained. Having a bit of special colour in it would probably it got a bit more attention. She was keen for the colour. She was slightly less keen to find out whether it was something her Mom would be cool with, or if she was going to be roasted for it. There were some benefits of being back home, and definitely some negatives.
“How long have you had cool hair?”
It seemed like the sort of thing that once you did once it would be hard to go back to plain hair. She was fairly confident that she wouldn’t meet any resistance from either of her workplaces regarding hair, with all the plethora of visible mutations body mods had fallen to the wayside in terms of raising eyebrows.
The bus rumbled towards their stop and as it approached Zinnia pressed the button signalling that they were getting off. A few people eyed them, but that was about as forthright as anyone was with their disapproval either of the pair or the basket.
Hair up, hair down, hair up, hair down. Zinnia alternated between the two a half-dozen times before her Mom finally demanded that she stop fidgeting and chop cabbage for slaw. So in the end it was up in a half-pony, the rainbow inner on display. She chopped cabbage with enthusiasm, grated carrots, and basically helped with all the prep things that couldn’t be burned. With her track record she mostly didn’t cook when it was an important occasion. And it was an important occasion.
“Wash your faces, you’re grubby.”
She demanded clean(ish) brothers, at least for the start of the evening. With barbeque involved it would never last, but at least they could start non-smeared. The littler imp poked out his tongue but scampered to comply, but the larger stood his ground.
“But why do I have to be clean? She’s not smooching me!” He soon squealed and fled as she whapped him with the tea towel
“There’ll be no smooching, go on you grub.”
All the practicing was paying off, and she felt confident in the activity, but not in front of family. That was crossing a line. Plus, there was only so much teasing she could bear.
The knock on the door was expected, but she still felt a thrill down her spine when it came. She crumpled the tea towel between her hands and went to answer it. Jac was standing there, maskless, which was kind of a big deal. She grinned back at her and smacked a kiss on the ridge between her eyes. So much for no smooching.
“Come on in, Dad’s already got the grill running.”
There was an assortment of meats and veggies already sizzling away and her Mom was busy mixing something in a bowl. She fumbled a bit with the tea towel before offering her hand to Jac to get her in over the threshold both literally and the emotional one. Before she was even down the hallway the boys had emerged to shower Jac with questions and basically embarrass Zinnia in any way possible.
“Jac! Jac! Have you seen MrMan? You are as tall as he is!” the TV show hero was nothing like Jac, except in height. “So Jac, how does it feel to date a shorty like Zin-zin?” That one earned another tea towel slap, he was full of cheek today.
“What is it with you guys and height. Go on!” More tea towel baps all over until they scampered off giggling all the while. She rolled her eyes at Jac.
Zinn made a strongly worded mental note not to bring up cooking again lest Shelby bring up something else. Not that she would have anything else left by the look of things.
Pinkie offered to hold the basket and Zinn didn’t fight her on it. She passed the basket over gently and patted her hand.
“All good, I’ve had worse before.”
A nurse was endlessly getting splattered, dripped, hurked or otherwise being on the receiving end of a number of delightful things. She knew better than to mention blood and guts though. That was just asking for more retching from poor Shelby.
“How long does hair-doing normally take?”
She wasn’t in any rush, meeting Jac after work was somewhat spontaneous, and this spontaneity had been taken over by hair. Mostly she was just trying to turn the conversation around to something that would make Shelby a little less pallid. She made a mental note to buy some milk and crackers if the convenience store had them, or instant mashed potatoes, that was just about the most plain thing she could think of, and if Shelby was having trouble keeping down plain porridge it called for drastic blandness.
Well. She wouldn’t be keeping these cookies after all. Nurse reflexes had kicked in like lightning and she was holding Shelby’s hair back out of her face even before the milky porridge met with the snickerdoodles. Poor thing. It hadn’t even mingled in her stomach long enough to be gross, mostly it was just sad. The passengers who had noticed didn’t stay close enough to find out. That was fine, Shelby probably wanted space. She looked like she was about to cry.
”…I’m so sorry…”
Zinnia patted her shoulder reassuringly and offered the teatowel to wipe her face and mouth. It was only going to cover up the mess and end up in the bin with the rest of it at their stop.
“No harm done. Well, maybe to the cookies, but it’s ok!” She could use the practise. But seeing as her last kitchen joke had gone down like a tonne of bricks she decided to keep that one to herself.
Shelby took deep, steadying breaths like she had showed her (such a quick learner!) and soon all the evidence was stowed under the teatowel. Except for the expression on Shelby’s face that was.
“Sorry if I said something… I can really miss the cues sometimes. Are you ok to hang on ‘til we get to our stop or do you want to get off now?”
Because if she needed air they could catch the next bus, but if she wanted to get a cheapie bottle of water to rinse her mouth then they were better off just staying on the bus. The other passengers didn’t dare to make eye contact and Zinnia was glad. She didn’t really feel like staring anyone down now that she had upset the little oyster shell.
…She could totally go for another coffee, now that she mentioned it. Her need for caffeine was endless. Sometimes her dad joked that if it wasn’t for all the coffee she would be as pale as him.
“Coffee is the best!”
Today was a day filled with ‘the best’ things. Shelby drew her attention to the basket still hooked on her elbow and she eyed it… Hmm, the cookie conundrum. Briefly she considered hiding the basket in the bushes near the fence but decided against it because a. ants and b. students. She would just have to carry it about and attempt not to eat all the contents.
The bus arrived and she shepherded the pink one on and to an empty section of seats. It was not too busy on the bus, which suited her just fine, and probably best to keep the little shell shielded from to many people. Who knows what might set her off?
“The cookies’ll keep. I’d say I’ll make her more but I have such a terrible track record in the kitchen, I pretty much murder anything I try to cook.”
For anyone else it would be such an innocent, self-deprecating joke.
"Ah-oooooh!" the teasing call was something like a cross between a wolf howl and hoot. She shoved the offending brother backwards off the couch where he dissolved into giggles. Apparently there was nothing funnier than the thought of her dating.
“As I was saying: I don’t want to mess it up, so be cool.”
Her parents’ reactions were more mature, although not necessarily more subdued. Her father just shook his head and chuckled, while her mother clasped her hands and immediately started listing the multitude of dishes she would make in celebration. It was like thanksgiving all over again. But now with an agenda- suss out the prawn as girlfriend material. If her eyes could roll any further back in her head she was sure she’d have seen her brain.
##”BBQ dinner is on for tonight with the Family.” ##“I told them we’re a thing.”
The text was sent with an accompanying smiley face which didn’t indicate at all the nerves she was feeling. She’d brought dates home for dinner once or twice, a girl even, but nothing serious since the bad breakup. She pushed the thought from her mind. Jac was nothing like him.
She fussed for a while on what to wear. She didn’t want to clash. She had almost settled on a cream blouse and dark jeans when the thought of spilling barbeque dinner down her front turned her off. There would almost certainly be photos taken, her mother had no shame, and liked to document things like they never existed unless there was a photo. There were no photos of the ex. She wished he never existed.
In the end she decided on a black shirt and the dark jeans. Less risky, plus it went with her hair. Kinda.
Bus it was. Her bus pass was tucked in the front pocket of her bag and with the dishes cleared away they were ready to go. She led the way to the gates and the bus stop. The thought that they were leaving the safety she had been professing just moments ago never crossed her mind. They were going to look awesome! Favourite colour awesome!
“I’ve always liked electric blue, but lately…” She trailed off. Her preference had somewhat shifted to a certain hard, shelllike range of hues. And lavender, lavender eyes was a pretty colour.
They could do tips, or panels or secrets oh my! The possibilities were endless. She confidently led them to the gates, and beyond to the bus stop. Shelby suggested rainbow and Zinnia trained her eyes on her.
“Are you a mind reader?”
A question only half-serious. Shelby wasn’t a mutant (or was she, and the double identity was actually a triple indentity?!), so that was just silly. The hidden panels of multicolour was an enticing prospect though, and she proclaimed such.
“I love the secret rainbow!”
It would mean they would have to buy a box of every colour, but while she was at home instead of renting she had enough unassigned paycheck that that was not an issue.
