InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "GIEF the Irn Bru NAO!"

tensor_mods (tensor_mods) wrote in tensor,
@ 2011-05-19 00:20:00

Entry tags:

ali_blaire, anna-marie_adler, callisto_leandros, domino_winter, jared_corbo, jay_guthrie, josh_foley, jubilation_lee, julian_keller, kevin_ford, kitty_pryde, open to all, petra_kristensen, piotr_rasputin, sam_guthrie

BOOM! at the Smithsonian (Saturday, May 21)
Though most of the week had been rainy, Saturday was shaping up to be a nice, sunny day. The change in weather had brought tourists and locals alike out of hiding, and the mall was buzzing with activity. The students and chaperons of the Xavier Academy were spread throughout the mall and museum buildings, having agreed upon times to meet up and check in before being sent off to see as much as possible in the time they had. By about an hour after lunchtime, a lot of them had breezed through at least one of the museums and were headed on to their scheduled tours or to their next destination.

Few, if any, really noticed the young man crossing the grass in front of the castle, wearing nothing that identified him as a member of any of the numerous school groups on the grounds that day. He was obviously disoriented, sweating profusely and staggering as he made his way out of the castle and across the mall. He stumbled once and nearly fell to his knees before he recovered, which prompted a girl nearby to stop and take notice of him. She asked him if he needed help, laid a hand on his shoulder as he turned wide, pain-filled eyes on her...and then they both disappeared in a blast of heat and light that ripped across the mall like a tiny nuclear explosion.

The people nearest the blast were incinerated almost instantly, though the heat dissipated away quickly as a concussive blast rolled across the lawn, tossing people in front of it like rag dolls thrown by a giant's hand. The west wing of the castle simply buckled at the impact, stone toppling down to crush the dozens of unsuspecting tourists in and around it before they even had time to register the explosion. The east wing buckled and groaned dangerously as well, its collapse simply slower and less complete as the shock wave continued on, buckling walls and foundations, blowing out windows and bringing down sections of roof in the buildings beyond.

But even as the initial explosion finally reached its limit, a domino effect magnified the chaos as hundreds of powered tourists, adults and children alike, reflexively powered up in response to the catastrophe, some of them losing control entirely. There were smaller explosions and tongues of flame here and there among the ruins as dust swirled in the air, and it was only a matter of moments before the first sirens began to wail in the distance. At the scene of the disaster, though, the sound of them was lost almost completely in the sound of panicked voices crying out in fear and pain.

(OOC: Please create sub-threads below for the events and immediate aftermath. Feel free to actually play out the actual explosion and how your character responds or to simply do a narrative of what happened to them and move to the aftermath if you're more comfortable with that. Remember, there's about a ten minute window of opportunity for heroism before local emergency responders and SHIELD will be on site and beginning to take over, though the cadets will definitely be co-opted into the rescue effort. The worst injured will, initially, be taken to area hospitals once rescued, but the Academy students will, once stable, be transported back to the school's med center for continuing treatment there. Parents are, of course, welcome to take their children home for treatment if they desire, but between the school and the SHIELD facility attached to it, they have access to pretty much the best healers in the country. This does, however, still mean a relatively slow recovery for anyone with severe injuries given the general caliber of even exceptionally talented healers does not begin to compare to the very very few omega healers scattered across the globe.)

ETA: GUYS, WE KINDA SUCK AND FORGOT TO TELL YOU THAT THEY GOT BUSED UP TO DC FRIDAY AFTER SCHOOL so they could have all of Saturday at the Smithsonian, and thus why they already got to see cool stuff Saturday before boom rather than spending it all on a bus. Also, for sleeping arrangements, if your roomie went you got matched up with them plus the 2 others you share a suite with (so 4 to a room, and if you have no PC/NPC roomies then NPCs will have taken the spots), other than the chaperons who got spread around in singles for supervisory purposes. Sorry!

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Jesus Circle

be_a_lady
2011-05-19 06:29 pm UTC (link)

Dom had been a little bit hesitant about the field trip when it had first come up. Clint was going, though, and she figured that even if the trip itself ended up being boring, she’d probably be able to convince him to do something to liven it up a little bit. Most of what they’d seen so far had been interesting enough that she hadn’t yet felt the urge to suggest they do something ridiculous and borderline illegal, so overall it was a good day. They were just in front of the tour center, hoping that the trend of not being bored would continue, when suddenly something blew.

Neena threw an arm up to shield her eyes and turned away from the heat but didn’t have time to do much else as the explosion spread, blasting through the building beside them and bringing it down. She didn’t breathe for a good long moment, bracing herself for the kind of pain that generally accompanied a building falling the fuck down on top of you. It never came, and a few seconds after the fall, she opened her eyes to take in the chaos. People were screaming, people were bleeding, things were on fire. The castle had almost completely collapsed, yet somehow it had managed to avoid hitting her. Or Clint. Or anything around them. In fact, there was an area of about ten feet surrounding them that was completely untouched. The wall that had collapsed that should have hit them had piled against itself, forming a semi-stable looking heap that appeared to be shielding them from the rest of the collapse.

She took a second to process before giving up and just admitting that whatever had happened was probably not something she’ d really be able to explain right off the bat. There was really just one thing that she could think of that needed to be said. “What the fuck?”

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Buddha Circle

sparkle_lee
2011-05-23 04:36 pm UTC (link)

Jubilee loved field trips, even when they interrupted her when she was in the movie-making zone. All day long, her camera had been in her hand, filming and photographing, and she'd already had to deploy a second memory card and a third battery. Loathe though she was to admit it, it was nice to get a break from the project that had been consuming her every waking moment.

The moment before the explosion, Jubilee had her camera pointed at the Guthries. When Kitty pulled out her camera, too, Jubilee grinned and widened the shot. Her thoughts were on her friends and on the possibility of a junk food run in the immediate future when everything exploded.

Jubilee unconsciously mirrored Neena, covering her eyes with one arm while she clutched her camera tight in her other hand. As quick as drawing a breath, a shield of sparkles bloomed around her, rainbow colored and shining. She turned, unaware that she was capturing a live panorama of destruction as she did.

When the blast ended, she felt her mind switch back on. Sam, Kitty, Jay... Names rushed through her, each one spiking her adrenaline levels. Looking around proved that she'd gotten extremely, extremely lucky--no doubt thanks to Clint and Neena. Who were alive, and fine, and so was...everyone else standing close to them. And there were people all around, screaming and crying and bleeding, but her only reaction to that was relief. People had survived.

She glanced back and saw Kitty headed for the pile of rubble where Sam had disappeared. Without thinking twice, she shattered her shield and the sparkles whirled around her like butterflies. She sent a handful of tiny dancing fireworks into first one pile of rubble and then another, detonating each one carefully so that the rubble harmlessly burst into gravel. Everything narrowed to a tight focus as she searched for signs of people trapped under the wreckage.

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Jay, Kitty...and anyone else in the area (Jesus circle?) wanting to see/react

after_burners
2011-05-20 10:15 am UTC (link)

Sam was laughing, relaxed and easy and happy, as he wrestled Jay into a headlock, rubbed his knuckles teasingly across the top of his baby brother's head. He was grinning, wide and bright and completely unaware, as Jay struggled free and pushed away, and he turned to the side to say something to Bobby...and never saw a thing before the impact of the blast hit him simultaneously with the heat and light and almost deafening noise of it. Barely even had time to register the pain as it threw him into the path of the collapsing building, already too stunned by the shock wave to activate his powers. Already fading into unconsciousness as the horrifyingly familiar sound of rock thundering down on and around him replaced the roar of the explosion.

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wingbearer
2011-05-22 04:40 am UTC (link)

The interesting thing about campus wide field trips was that Jay had so many siblings, most of them ended up getting to go places together. He'd spent some time heckling Joelle, poking at Paige, and wandering around with Lizzie. So when he saw Sam across the mall he took the distance at a low run - as best as his wings would allow - and jumped him. They ended up scuffling, and as usual, Sam got the upper hand. Jay managed to duck out of the noogie headlock, backpedaling a safe distance and trying to catch his breath.

He felt the heat, even as he saw a classmate's eyes widen in horror. Her arm outstretched as she pointed. It happened all too slowly for Jay, who didn't have time to turn around. A deafening sound set the world to stun, even as all the air was knocked out of him and he tipped forward.

He could feel his feathers rip free, smell the burn of his own flesh, and rode the lift of his body from the ground, arches fanning out and the rest torn clear free. There was a moment, a single moment where Jay thought the light was too bright, the air too clean, and he could feel Lizzie's hand in his. Strong and present, as she always had been.

He knew - as his head snapped back and flew forward, eyes closing - whatever had happened, he wouldn't be knowing. Strangely, his heart was peaceful as his body hit with a sickening crunch. After all, Daddy was waiting. In fact, he could hear him now.

	Re: Julian and Kevin (and Emma?) in the Castle _touchless_ 2011-05-23 07:53 pm UTC (link)
	Kevin's eyes fluttered open again and he made a vague, inquiring noise. He wasn't sure if he'd heard someone or if he was just imagining it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Julian and Kevin (and Emma?) in the Castle prima_frost 2011-05-25 02:42 am UTC (link)
	Emma dug through the hole a little, pulling bits of rubble out of the way. Julian! Kevin! she called again. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Julian and Kevin (and Emma?) in the Castle _touchless_ 2011-05-25 02:50 am UTC (link)
	He was too incoherent to register that the voice was in his head, just that he wasn't imagining it. That it actually was a voice and someone was looking for them...someone had found them. "Here," he called, or tried to. It came out a dry rasp, barely above a whisper as he struggled to draw more air in past the pain squeezing his chest like a vise. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Julian and Kevin (and Emma?) in the Castle prima_frost 2011-05-25 03:05 am UTC (link)
	She heard that. And she could get a sense of Kevin there, somewhere inside. She worked faster, clearing more of a hole. "Kevin!" she called out loud. "I'm coming through. Is Julian with you?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)