Marie-Ange Colbert and Alison Blaire's party planning came into fruition Saturday night, with the help of volunteers to get decorations up and food brought from the restaurants. Tables were set up around the ballroom with long tables with food lined one side of the ballroom. Mistletoe hung in dark (and not-so-dark) places and the holiday lights were hung up over the dance floor to cast a low light.

The doors to the ballroom opened promptly at 8:00 PM. Ali (with the help of Mark Sheppard) handled the music, mixing a playlist of holiday and popular music for the residents and guests of the hotel who mingled on the dance floor. And somehow over the course of the evening, the punch was ceremoniously spiked.

The party would go on until the music stopped and the food ran out, late into the evening.

[THREAD, if you would like or feel free to log]

Everyone might have been on guard for another potential quake - but this was so completely off the scales of what anyone imagined. At around 3pm on Friday afternoon, the ground buckled and rippled out from the epicenter, quickly extending far out beyond Santa Monica's borders, the entire state and the surrounding areas soon feeling the shake.

At Paradise Hotel, they were luckier than most. Thanks to the quick thinking of Jean Grey and Madeline Pryor, they were able to reinforce the hotel, keeping it from completely collapsing around everyone's ears. It wasn't perfect - the top of the building still swayed and buckled, the two top floors crashing down in on each other and partially damaging the third. Most of the windows shattered, with the balconies quickly collapsing in on themselves and the back stairs following suit.

In the upper levels, Julian Keller found himself caught underneath a piece of falling concrete, knocked out as it pinned him down. Mark Sheppard, having stepped out onto one of the balconies not long before the quake, was instead impaled by a broken railing, suspended almost in midair. Forge would later be found buried underneath a slab of concrete that had once been part of the back stairs. They weren't the only residents who needed immediate help, and everyone needed to get out of there in a hurry.

Paradise Hotel was trying to fall down.

[ OPEN ]

Without Remy, Vanessa was left to navigate the basement by herself. With the door they entered being sealed, she'd have to find another way out.

Vanessa led the freed mutants deeper into the basement, looking for another exit before Cal caught up with them. He told them about how he managed to trigger the release of the heavy metal door and that they should hurry before it latched again. He didn't have to tell them twice -- the group began running toward that long staircase that would leave them back up the church. However, before reaching the stairs, the generator waned and the lights blacked out before regaining power.

( But that wasn't the only thing that regained power. )

It may have not been top priority with the new and very real scare of kidnappings of mutants, but now information on the church seemed more imperative. When Tessa recruited Vanessa and Cal to assist Remy in his return to the Church of Enlightenment, this was not what Vanessa thought she had signed up for. Slipping into someone else's skin wasn't a new deal for her, neither was sneaking around a place where she had no business being. But this was supposed to be a simple sneak and search, then get out as soon as they'd found what they were looking for.

( But when she and Remy reached the cells, they weren't quite as empty as they'd been on the first visit. )