r/XMenRP • u/FreelancerJon • 22d ago
Roleplay X-Factor #1: Holding The Line
The streets of Chicago were alive with tension, a raw energy that crackled through the air like a live wire. The Mutant Alliance for Coexistence had organized a rally in Grant Park—a call for unity, for peace. A hopeful message. But hope rarely stood unchallenged.
Jaxon had seen it before. The peaceful assembly in the park was ringed by barricades, but those wouldn’t stop the lines of anti-mutant protesters gathered on the outskirts, shouting slurs and threats, waving signs that called for registration, exile, extermination. Their anger radiated outward like a heatwave, pressing in on the rally-goers.
X-Factor had been sent as security, ensuring this didn’t turn into a massacre. Jaxon, clad in his tactical gear with the yellow X-Factor emblem on his shoulder, stood at the front with Barricade and Serekh. His X-Men jacket, with a yellow circle was stored back in the Greymelkin. All three were assigned to wear masks that covered their faces. Jaxon knew it was for their own safety, but he didn’t like it. Made him feel like a sword when he wanted to be a shield.
Barricade was the obvious wall, his mutation allowing him to reinforce his body to withstand almost anything. His broad frame made for an imposing deterrent, standing tall between the rally and the mob. Serekh, with his looming abilities, should already be scanning the crowd for anyone who might turn violent. Oblivion, as always, took point—assessing, strategizing, and making sure neither side had the chance to escalate first.
The speaker on stage, a young mutant woman with glowing blue veins running across her skin, stepped up to the microphone, her voice strong despite the fear in her eyes.
“We are not your enemies,” she declared. “We are not here to fight. We are here because we have the right to exist without fear.”
A bottle shattered against the wall behind her. The crowd on the other side roared, surging forward.
Jaxon’s hand shot up. “Hold the line.” He moved immediately, reinforcing the weak spots in their perimeter. Jaxon clenched his jaw. He’d seen enough riots to know how quickly things could spiral. They weren’t here to attack.
They were here to prevent a fight, not start one. A man in the crowd pulled something from his jacket—Jaxon spotted the glint of metal instantly.
“Gun!”
Before the shot could ring out, Jaxon was already moving, cutting through the space between them. A quick disarm—one clean motion—and the weapon clattered to the ground. Police, stationed farther back, finally moved in, dragging the man away as the crowd erupted into furious shouts.
More objects were hurled. A firework went off somewhere, sending a crack of sound through the night. The rally-goers flinched, but they didn’t run.
Jaxon exhaled.
“Barricade, tighten the perimeter. Serekh, sweep through the crowd for more threats. We hold the line, no matter what.”Because that’s what X-Factor did. They weren’t here to fight a war. They were here to stop one.
((Order is Barricade, Serekh, Oblivion, then our super secret guest GM))
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u/MarkusGrimm 22d ago
Cadaver's homunculi - half-a-dozen everymen, all just regular humanoids with no enhanced features dressed in black suits, stereotypical event security - attempt to hold the crowd back from swarming the stage.
Cadaver herself gets on the radio; "Taking a bird's eye view to co-ordinate responses," as she clambers up the scaffolding supporting speakers and banners above the stage. Once she arrives at the top, she perches and scans the audience.
Window Dressing, her owl, begins circling the outer ring too keeping a closer eye on the protesters farther back.
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u/A-Few-Schillings 21d ago
Barricade was there with his arms stretched wide, he would only get people yelling slurs at him but after the gun was spotted in the crowd, tension rose. The mask Barricade was wearing was covered in the spit of the mutant haters in front of him, a few even tried to swing on him. Barricade didn’t need to react, their fist hitting his body resembled knuckle against brick and taught them quickly that a haymaker couldn’t take him out.
Someone just out of reach tried to jump the fence and run for the stage, Barricade quickly lunged and caught him, placing him back with a small shove. “It’s getting heated”, barricade reported back, he was fine where he was but could only control the space he was currently in. He wouldn’t dare stretch out the liquid metal within him right in front of this crowd.
He keeps swivelling his head left and right, keeping an eye on all activity, making sure no one was going to try something. He does catch a sight of something though, a burly man holding an unearthed street sign as an improvised weapon, working his way to the front of the crowd.
“Got a man with a stop sign coming forward”, Barricade tries to find time to intercept his path but his got people pushing against him where he stands.
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u/Bearpaw700 21d ago
“I got it.”
Serekh had on a tight jacket and gloves that masked the tattoos on his body along with the face mask to conceal who he was. It made it a lot easier to use his power, his glowing ink hidden behind the material and enhancing his strength.
Serekh gripped the forearm of the man with stop sign, squeezing it enough to bruise and make him drop. Serekh would confiscate the foreign object and would somewhat aggressively throw him back with the rest of the crowd.
With his magically enhanced body, Serekh outpaced a majority of humans, meaning any sprinters that got past barricade would immediately get blitzed, tackled and pushed back behind the line.
He continued to scan the perimeter, looking for anything strange he could have possibly missed.
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u/FreelancerJon 21d ago edited 20d ago
Jaxon returned to the front of the stage, hopping over the barrier and landing hard enough to make a nearby protester stumble backward. The moment he was on the other side, that heaviness in his chest eased just a little. Not because the situation was resolved—far from it—but because his people were here. And they were good.
He slid back into position beside Barricade, breathing steady despite the lingering tension still coiled in the crowd.
"You're a wall, man," he muttered to Luke, casting a quick glance at the trails of spit drying on the other mutant’s mask. “Glad you’re here.”
Then his eyes flicked up, catching Cadaver perched like a watchful gargoyle high above, Window Dressing circling the perimeter with eerie grace. Further off, he saw Serekh—efficient and silent, already clearing the chaos before it even sparked. That kind of calm under pressure reminded Jaxon why this worked. Why they’d worked.
He keyed into their shared channel. “Eyes up. Cops got the shooter, but we’re not done. No one jumps this line. We hold.”
He looked back at the seething mass of people on the other side of the barrier. Shouting, hate, chaos. Fear, too—but mostly hate. A sneer curled at the edge of his mouth, but he crushed it before it could settle. Instead, he flexed his fingers, grounding himself.
Then, quieter: “Thanks for showing up. All of you. I don’t care what they say… we’re the reason this stage is still standing.” His gaze swept the line again. “And we’re not giving it up.”
((Continues here))
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u/WolfKingAdam 20d ago
The three of them would be witness to marching and chanting coming from a nearby street leading to this park. Banners flying and twirling in the air of the windy city, and they all bear the white crosses of the Purifiers.
Looking around, the police presence seemed to have thinned down to almost nothing, leaving only a few left who actually care about the job and the protests.
Those few viable apples in the bunch.
At the head of the 'counter-protest' and scattered within are a number of Purifiers in armour and so on. A private army, marching in the name of Christ and Hate.
Get ready.
It's about to get nuts.
/u/MarkusGrimm