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.
Walked off without a word? Adder supposed that was true, although it wasn't as if he hadn't communicated at all at the end.
It also wasn't that Adder didn't care about how the hybrid felt. It was just...
Well, honestly it boiled down to Adder caring a whole lot less than he cared about his own situation. Self-preservation and priorities and all that, right? He might have some energy to spare for someone else later.
A lot later. Possibly never, if his life of experience got to imply anything.
"I'm just looking around," he replied casually, leaning sideways a bit to let his eyes confirm what his nose knew already. Food was always food. Always. "Is part of your power eating things by looking at them? Because it doesn't look very effective."
And if the hybrid wasn't going to eat that, Adder would.
He was going to jump out of his skin at this rate. Shed it like he shed his fur when noise pounded through his skull, only instead of a point of noise it was everything, all around him, this entire situation and the inescapability of it.
He hadn't put himself in this situation. Not the whole of it, not the core of it. He'd put himself into the local situation in order to avoid a worse overall situation, and now he was second-guessing it.
Lying in the dark didn't help. He got that. But he couldn't bring himself to pretend he was like the people on the other side of the door. He didn't act like them and he definitely didn't think like them. Maybe he had more in common with the hybrid than he'd thought. He hadn't really given Tyson much thought at all. Not really. He was too busy with his own situation.
Adder's senses weren't new, but the sheer amount of society surrounding him was, and he didn't want to drown.
That left him with two options. Stay in the closet forever, and go even more hungry than when he had to scrounge for everything that went into his mouth. Or go out again, and try to get a little more used to this place.
Used to it... hah.
A chance was better than a negative guarantee. He'd tell himself that as much as he needed to in order to keep on going. He'd done it before, and survived as a result. It was all he had to do now, right? Just keep reminding himself that there was a chance of survival here. A better chance than he had on the streets. He wasn't here forever. He didn't do forever.
But for now, he had a better chance here than out there, if only because people like Aura would have to wade through a sea of rich teenagers to get to him, and might well be distracted by them all on their own. A better chance was the chance he had to take.
Adder kept telling himself that, lips moving slightly with each mental repetition, as he crept down the hallway. Being out here for a multiple of a time didn't ease the tension. Instead, it seemed to make it worse. He was more aware now that a horde could race towards him at any moment, or any sort of unpredicted phenomenon. There was no control here, and skirting around the edges of control danger was risky enough.
Was this really a better chance?
Adder's expression changed abruptly as a single familiar scent drifted past on the quiet air currents of a ventilated building. One familiar thing, if only briefly. He wasn't looking for protection from Cafas or anything, and he definitely wasn't trying to not be alone. Alone was safer, and far more familiar than the metal-tang exhaust-tainted X-Man.
He just needed something more familiar than his current surroundings, so he followed the scent with all the stealth of a wolf down a mansion hallway. Even if he weren't currently wearing fur and a tail.
Adder gave the girl a quick squinty almost-glare once he was within reach of the bar, hesitated as if to see if she would react to his nearness now that she was free, and then leaned in to take the bar neatly between his jaws.
And then he quickly fake-casually stepped backwards, tossing his head back to keep every crumb in his mouth as he chomped through the bar, teeth shearing through the crumbly-smooth texture like it were room-temperature snow and head moving as needed to avoid dropping anything. It was a very practiced motion, for all that the majority of the time Adder ate in his human-ish form.
Girl - Claire was leaving? It sounded like she wasn't sure of where she was.
Well, he knew that she was from the mansion, and that was where he was headed. He... could... lead her back. Except travelling the populated routes she was undoubtedly used to taking would take him through areas too loud and scented and busy for him to tolerate. He didn't just want to avoid shifting in front of her, he also really wanted to avoid a headache. Seriously, who liked having a pounding headache? It made everything miserable, limited options, confined and bound and punished and starved.
He fidgeted. He was assuming that she couldn't identify him between forms, wasn't he? Yes, he was. What was he basing that on?
Living near people was complicated.
Adder gave his head a little shake and leaned back uncertainly.
If she tried anything, he could fend off her and her papery cat long enough to bolt. He was confident of that, especially with so much food (if not sleep). And when he got back to the mansion, he could... try to get Cafas or the not-cop to deal with her?
Not a solution he liked. Not one bit. He shouldn't have got into this mess at all. He should have just kept going, and left her lying there.
At least he wasn't under any weird impression that someone not seeing his actual shift would be unable to connect his before and after. He wasn't that stupid, although 'stupid' was definitely a good description for what he'd been so far today. There'd been a lot of stupid. Did it come from sleeping in the same place? From going back to something, even if it was just pillows and blankets?
Hesitantly, warily, and with careful attention for how Claire reacted, Adder slipped from four feet to a two-footed crouch, fingertips brushing the ground and eyes never altering as the fur melted away like evaporating fog.
Cafas' patience made staying still a little easier, even if the immense looming presence at his back didn't so much as blink. It was there, and he'd thought he could find shelter there, protection from things beyond his ability to reliably fend off, but he'd never been quite so aware of how little he fit it, how little he belonged.
He'd felt it before, going into wealthy places, but he'd always had the confidence of a thief. He'd known it wasn't his place, and that he'd be leaving again, and that he was, in a sense, attacking it.
He didn't have that here, he hadn't done this before, he didn't know what choices and actions were safe and what would mess things up and put him at risk -
Adder took one look at Cafas and the bike and went a little bit green at the thought of being that close to the cloud of exhaust. "I don't want a cool entrance," he muttered softly, turning his head away slightly and trying to make himself look down the road. He didn't do showy entrances. He did shadowed entrances, quietly in and quietly out, skirting around the edges of the world.
Adder was on the edge of making himself step onto the mansion's property when his ears flattened in alarm.
Momentary alarm, but alarm nonetheless. Almost all of the route he'd taken to get here was illegal for motorcycles to take, and a significant part of it was downright impossible for a normal bike to take, much less something with so much metal and engine.
That the rider was the guy he'd been talking to, Cafas or whatever - Adder didn't bother much with names, not really, but to hear a name wrong was an affront to his ears - wasn't something Adder bothered to question. He could smell around the wreathes and streaks of exhaust and hot metal. He was also fairly close to coughing from the fumes, and figured it would soon turn into a headache as things stood, so he moved a little more upwind.
That move did put him closer to the mansion entrance, but he didn't realize it until he had already started moving and appearances demanded that he not counter himself. He held his ground, but his ears tightened back in discomfort. Being so close, and so much more out of place here than when he prodded around the backside, was its own kind of stressful.
"Nothing's wrong," he muttered, barely managing to turn a verbal snap into a grumble under his breath. Backing off here left him vulnerable... but literal walls were easier to scale.
At least he wasn't pacing. Yet. Even if his fingertips twitched in his pockets, and his bare toes flexed against the concrete and begged to run again.
With his out so close to hand, it wasn't really surprising how quickly Adder melted through the city. His stomach had real food in it and it would have kept him warm even if his pace didn't. He moved without concern for anyone else, neither trying to keep someone with him nor lose anyone tailing him.
He simply ran, sometimes on two feet, sometimes on four, drifting in and out as worked for the situation. It had a fluidity he rarely found; he usually had too much focus, or too little, or he cared too much about his surroundings. Now that he was simply going from one place to another, with the unelaborate goal of getting there quickly, many of the things that got in the way fell away.
The neighbourhood around him gradually changed. Less graffiti, more space. Cleaner windows, fewer worn out for-rent signs. Different smells, different sorts of shops. Adder used it all to navigate, especially the scents, but his only other form of reaction to his location was when he moved smoothly around an obstacle.
He didn't have a plan. Not beyond arriving, at any rate. And that was what caught him up, when he slowed from a slow lope that ate miles like a sigh. His previous explorations of the back edges of this property confirmed that this was the right place. This was where he was going. This was his goal.
So why couldn't he walk any closer?
He bumped his shoulder against the low wall of a neighbouring property, turning away and failing to even try to make the change in direction look intentional. He pressed the side of his hand against the stone and tried to make the roughness distract him from his irrational, indescribable, unexpected apprehensions.
Adder swallowed a snicker at the hybrid's reaction. Predictable, wasn't he? In the same way feral dogs were. He understood much of their perspective and instincts, and definitely shared the drive to survive, and they were almost always threatened by his existence.
This was at least a less lopsided threat, and he could hold a conversation with the hybrid if he wanted.
Maybe when he wasn't twitchy from lack of sleep, and probably on the verge of it showing through the black that naturally lined his eyes. Whatever, that wasn't his concern.
He didn't really have active, here-and-now concerns, actually. He was just exploring. And maybe fighting off a slightly higher stress level than he liked, but that had been a thing since he'd nicked a not-cop's wallet out of her pocket.
Whatever, whatever, whatever. "'Anyway' has nothing to do with it," he replied. He didn't intend to be so short, but the words slipped out in clipped tones regardless. "There's more than you to my decisions." Whatever the irritation in his voice, none of it was really personal with regards to the hybrid; everything was just starting to catch up with Adder, now that he consciously didn't have to watch over his shoulder for Aura.
Instead, he had to watch for the hordes of other people here, people he didn't know, people who didn't know how to give strangers space, rich people.
Living indoors wasn't the weirdest part of this change.
Really, it wasn't. Adder had lived indoors many times over the previous years. Yes, "indoors" had previously counted when he was hanging out in abandoned basements and untenanted rentals. And school buses. School buses counted as indoors, didn't they? They provided shelter, and were more insulated than some buildings.
This whole thing was weird.
And yet he stayed. He stayed in that room, used the pillows and blankets even though it was downright warm, even at night, even in rain - not that he slept in the bed. No, he'd hauled what he'd wanted into the closet - eerily filled with empty hangers - and set himself up there. It was far more reassuring, and easier to sleep.
You know, for all of five minutes at a time.
That wasn't what he was doing now, though. He'd done it earlier. Snoozed, then prowled around the confines of his room again. The last time he'd hesitantly opened the door there had been people outside it.
The door was a little too good at blocking sounds and smells. It was both restful and disconcerting.
At any rate, he wasn't in the room now. It had darkened to night outside and he had eventually risked opening the door again. The hallway was quiet, and empty. He could smell the traces of people, layers and layers he tried not to delve into. He closed the door behind himself, pushing against the frame to leave a casual streak of his own scent.
The carpet squished around his feet, and now that it was quiet he could hear an unplastic squeak against his skin. He was used to plastic squeaks from carpet. The air was filtered, cleaner than his skin.
He wandered without intent other than to know where all the spaces were and where they went, and eventually his nose twitched at the smell of meat.
Food.
And a wolf who wasn't completely a wolf.
Hm. Well, he'd vaguely figured he would run into the hybrid again at some point, seeing as how the hybrid lived here and now he was here.
But food.
He poked his head into the room. Well, someone looked confused.
Whichever it was, whatever the hybrid would take as the reason for this particular departure, Adder wasn't going to get any more information by hanging around here. And, while the hybrid crouched, there was no indication of aggression or threat in the motion.
Adder accepted that, didn't bother thinking any farther into the hybrid's behaviour, and trotted away. Somewhere along the way, his footprints shrank and doubled, and then there was just a streak of whitish fur heading back into the city.
Back to wild streets. Back to the risk of the wrong attention. Back to the world Adder actually knew, and understood.
Adder had been about to move closer to the girl so he could snag some food. Then she mentioned hugging, and he stopped where he was. Wait, he'd actually stood? Er. Fine, that was intentional.
...
Hugs versus food.
He could just bite her if she tried to hug him? It wasn't like she could possibly taste worse than that string stuff. He could smell her, and her power was associated with paper. Maybe she'd taste like paper, but that wasn't a bad taste. Not really. It was just kind of... bleh.
Food won out and he padded forwards. He also kept a very wary eye on her, ready to glare and snap and be a general pain in the butt if she moved to touch him, and did his best to make it very clear that he was only coming over for the food. Food plus a change in flavour. Really. Not much decision on that front.
Adder sat back to watch as the girl picked through her bag, melting into the shadows with enough practice to combat his paleness. Definitely rich, he mused to himself as he eyed the growing pile of money. Not a ton of cash, but he'd stretched out less. He figured there was enough there for a bit of food -
he didn't have to scrounge for food right now.
That -
That unsettled him. It was unfamiliar, and unfamiliar things were always concerning. Sure, he'd known some of what he was getting into with this place, but the depth of its effects on his habits and needs was starting to prove, well, deeper.
He shifted uncomfortably and nearly lost the fur spread across his skin. He had to stay shifted. He didn't want her to have more information on him, to associate him as an individual with this. He didn't want to be associated with anyway.
Breathe. Feel. Be.
The fur around his extremities stopped wavering as Adder forced his mood back to a stable, appropriate place. He could be curious, curious worked. Especially suspicious-curious.
FOOD.
Need to scrounge or not, not being hungry was a very rare state for Adder, and as soon as the smell hit him from the just-opened container his ears shot forward and he had to swallow.
And then the flashlight came on and he ducked his head, lifting a wrist over his eyes at the sudden brightness. Rude.
That was just what he was used to; there was no being sick of it or looking for an escape from that life. That was his life, and had been for the vast majority of it. All he was looking for was a shield from a specific threat, a specific person. He'd given up on wishing he still lived with his parents within a week of losing them. He was, after all, naturally focused on the moment rather than some wishy-washy future or past.
Except when it came to food. He wanted food to be a now thing as well as a future thing. An always thing, really. Come on, it was food.
And now he had a burger in his stomach and wanted more. Tch. As long as the cop guy didn't notice that ear twitch, then there was no harm done.
Maybe he'd wander around the back of this place on his way out. Sometimes he got lucky and a food place had stupid customers who turned away their food; when that happened, he didn't even have to dig much.
Cop guy was Cafas, Cafas was that scent. Eh, he was distracted but not completely so. This was where most people would reply with their own name, but Adder didn't always determine his actions by what most people would do. He wasn't trying to blend in with 'most people' right now, so he had no intention of pretending he was one.
He shrugged, a hint of a nod caught up in the movement, and padded out of the restaurant. The sidewalk outside was cooler on his bare feet, and more so when he circled around behind the building. Dumpsters were very easy to find with a nose like his, but there was nothing fresh in this one.
He sighed and glanced around as he carefully inhaled. If Cafas the metal cop who wasn't a robot even if he smelled of metal weren't nearby, weren't stalking him or doing anything suspicious, then he'd head off towards that mansion place.
On his own terms, using his own routes through the city, and by himself.
Adder's eyes narrowed slightly at the hybrid's grunt. Had the previous lack of interest in his answers been an act? That level of falsehood was very, very concerning. True or false, changing moods or constant intent, individual or representative?
Not knowing bothered him.
People refusing to answer him also bothered him, although it was something he was more used to and better at setting aside for the moment.
For now, Adder settled his teeth and forced his ears to relax, if only a notch. If he had a tail in this form it still would have been stiff, and there was definitely part of his brain sending those signals, but it was far less obvious.
He angled his head a bit, more farewell than curiosity now, and then turned to continue on his way - although his attention didn't leave the hybrid. If there was nothing more to be learned, then he had no reason to stay in conversation, but the hybrid could very well react to him leaving - which would at least be educational in itself. And sometimes moving to leave inspired others to talk more, which could also be useful.
Adder was honestly kind of weirded out by social butterflies, and people who were always excited, and that whole sort of energetic people. Just why.
At least she was still distracted by the bindings, and she hadn't tried to hug him. He might have to play up the whole wolf thing if she did. Get his teeth a little closer to her skin, and at a more aggressive angle.
But as long as she didn't do anything rash, all would be well. Hopefully. The longer he hung out here, the more he itched to be under cover again. Who knew what might come by? Zoo people, cop robots, mutants who glowed pink and stank of murder...
Where the hell did she get off thinking he was a knight? Not that he knew much about knights, but what he did know was all about them being stupid fantasies for entitled rich people. Or figures of speech. Either way, they weren't part of his world and they certainly had nothing in common with him. He'd get her stupid purse and probably leave a few more toothmarks than he absolutely had to, and then he'd leave her richness right where she was.
Harrumph.
When he dropped the purse by her hands, there weren't really a lot of unnecessary toothmarks but there definitely were some, plus he'd casually scraped his tongue on it to try to change the flavour stuck in his mouth. At least it wasn't sound, right?
When the cord snapped, Adder sat back and spent a few moments trying to get the taste off his tongue and teeth. He had not been expecting that. Gross, gross, gross. Not the worst-gross he'd ever had in his mouth, but the worst in a while, so he nodded emphatically at the girl's description. He hadn't actually licked post-it notes before, but he had ended up with adhesives in his mouth for a variety of not-worth-talking-about reasons.
He dragged his tongue across his forearm, picking a relatively clean part even though he was pretty evenly grimy and streetworn, and twisted his face into a grimace to match the girl's. Not in mimicry, but in shared unpleasantness.
Oh, getting her loose. Something about a zoo?
Adder wasn't a fan of zoos. The zoo-people he'd run into had generally been pretty good about accepting that he was a mutant, but he still didn't like any part of it. Hurrying up here was definitely the best plan, and he almost considered shifting back to just cut through the string stuff -
until he remembered that he didn't currently have anything sharp. It was not a spectacularly pleasant realization, and his ears shifted with a moment of exposed irritation before he dropped the whole no-more-tasting-gross-stuff idea. He'd tasted worse. Hell, he'd eaten worse. He'd suck it up and survive like he always did.
Adder brought a paw up and prodded at the stuff on the girl's wrists, using his sturdy but blunt claws very much like a probing fingertip. A bit thicker than what he'd just chewed through, but otherwise the same. Getting a tooth behind it was going to be a bit trickier, though; it seemed to be tighter.
Sigh.
Twisting his head and absently looking at the darkening sky while he worked, Adder carefully hooked an upper canine tooth between the string and the girl's skin, and then went to work shearing through it.
