Tensor

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!

Piotr'd been working on a painting most of the morning, but he'd hit a spot where nothing he did seemed to look right. Which he knew meant it was definitely time to take a break. So he'd cleaned up, getting most of the paint off, and texted Anna to see what she was up to and if she wanted to hang out.

It wasn't really a surprise when she replied that she was at the stables, though it was a bit more of one when she told him to come by. Eventually he agreed, but by the time he'd gotten to the stables, he was having second thoughts. Horses made him vaguely uncomfortable. He never really knew what to do with them, and the few times he'd ridden when he was younger, it always seemed like they were plotting against him.

But for Anna, he'd put up with them and their suspicious horsey ways.

It was the middle of the night, and she had almost been completely counting on Piotr already being asleep. It turned out that he definitely wasn't asleep, though. And he'd replied. And she had freaked out just the slightest bit before pulling herself together and throwing on some clothes that covered her a little bit better and heading down to the common area. She peeked around into the laundry room to make sure that there wasn't anyone else there. No matter how the conversation went, she really didn't want other people there to hear it happen.

Satisfied that there wasn't anyone else around, she headed into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, unscrewing the cap as she headed back out to lift herself up and perch on the top of the couch, staring at but not really paying attention to the TV that, for some reason, was still playing some shitty music channel.

The half hour nap that Anna had taken after her shower had not been nearly long enough, but the whole needing to get up soon or face having to actually drive somewhere to get food prospect was enough to drag her out of bed again. She had pulled on a clean uniform and, along with her roommate, had trudged over to the food court at the student center. The cafeteria was just too far.

There was a little bit of a crowd in the food court, but they seemed, by and large, to understand that none of the cadets were much in the mood to stand in lines while people took their precious time deciding what they wanted to eat, and the pair had made their way through relatively quickly.

"I'm not doing any homework tonight," she informed Ali as she dropped her tray onto a table and then dropped her ass heavily into her seat. "I am way too fucking tired for that."

Anna turned onto her mother's street, doing a quick search for street parking. Not surprisingly, there was none. It was still relatively early on a Monday, and there were as many cars parked in the area because their owners were at work as there were people who lived nearby. She and Piotr had skipped out on their regular Monday gym time to head into the city so she could pick up something she'd ordered before her mother had a chance to decide she needed to open it.

"I'm pretty sure my mom's out of town." She pulled up to the garage door and glanced over at Piotr. "Not that it would be bad if she wasn't, but just as a general note." Shrugging, she pulled into the garage and into an empty space.

Piotr was still pretty certain this wasn't the best idea ever. He'd drawn nude pictures before, yes, it was part of getting anatomy down, and he'd taken art classes that even had a live model, but that was in a class. With a model he didn't know, and it was easy to think of just the aesthetics, of just drawing.

This was a bedroom. With one of his closest friends, and no one else in the room. It just seemed - different. And yes, Piotr knew that in all liklihood, once he got started on the drawing, he would be able to focus completely and just think of the art - that was one reason why he drew, it allowed him to clear his mind and think of nothing but getting the images out on paper - but right now, and until then, he was kind of nervous.

And he was refusing to think of after.

He'd bundled his art supplies under his arm, and he knocked with his free hand when he got to Anna's room. "It's me, Anna," he called in.

Ali had called in favors from her contacts in the music business. There was something to be said for having taken a few years off to pursue her recording career. She at least knew all the people to buzz up in order to get something awesome thrown together in a relatively small amount of time. And Lawrence had not disappointed her in the least. The venue he had chosen was one of his lesser known, smaller place. It made it even sweeter than she had played there during her short lived "I am Glam Diva" tour so there was a little nostalgia with it all as well.

It was tucked into a corner and made of red brick. During the day it was a noodle bar but once the sun went down and the dinner crowd went home, there was a whole other side of the Pink Door that came out. Upon walking in there was a mahogany bar that ran the length of the right wall and wrapped around in a L-shape. To the left there were brick arches that separated the bar area from the dance room. There was a projection screen on the wall. As the room went back, it shifted into seating. There were a couple of couches and tables back there as well as the audio station that was equipped with a computer, mixer, etc.

If you kept following the hallway back past the seating area and the audio station, you came to the bathrooms and then a stairway that would take you upstairs to another small section. There was another bar upstairs and more seating. The middle of the floor was open with a balcony so you could look down at the dance floor. If you followed the balcony around you would reach an outside balcony for people who might need a little fresh air without wanting to fight through the crowd.

The lights were flipping around the dance floor. Lawrence himself had agreed to DJ for the party, and he was spinning something hot for them. A projection show of random images was playing on the screen. He had also loaned her a bouncer to stand at the door and check IDs so they could easily mark the people not old enough to drink.

A number of the college students and Cadets were already milling about in the bar area, though no one seemed to have the guts yet to get out there and dance.

OOC: Open to 18+ crowd.

Anna Marie didn't generally mind having to wait a few extra seconds at the water fountain, but the girl standing behind her, impatiently tapping her foot, seemed to think that it was the greatest inconvenience known to man. So Anna did the mature thing and took even longer than necessary to refill her water bottle, screwing the top back on and leaning down to help herself to some more water before finally turning and walking back into the weight room.

Piotr hadn't moved from where she'd left him and she headed over to where he was doing reps on the leg press. He was, as usual, making it look far easier than it should have and she held the water bottle out to him and offered, "Want me to sit on it or something? That would add a little more weight..."