Westbrook Academy for Metahumans: Forums

Lorne finished his night of patrolling and trudged into the common room of the dorms. A bunch of students were gathered watching TV, doing home work and the like. He pulled the shoulder straps off his costume and pulled out a t-shirt from his belt pack. Some one looked up at him.

"Does your costume have a fanny pack?"

Lorne spoke flatly, "It's a belt pack."

"Are you sure? 'cause it looks like a fanny pack."

"You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to" Lorne pulled his t-shirt over his head.

"No... I think it's more like you say belt pack... and I say retired sixty year old grandma tourist."

Lorne started to protest when everything went black.

"What the heck happened?!?" some one shouted.

"Ok, who turned out the lights?" some one else added.

Lorne felt his way around the front desk. The power was completely out. No lights, no TV, nothing. Lorne tried to reassure everyone. He'd been here the longest after all. "Don't worry guys, the back up generator will kick on any second now."

He waited a few seconds. "Aaany second now."

"This is NOT my fault. It was like a one point three." Sometimes Trev felt it necessary to launch a pre-emptive strike. "What happened?"

Etienne walked out of his room and into the common area carrying an antique looking whale oil lamp to light the way. His white teeth nearly shimmered in the lamplight against his cappuccino skin, a very faint trace of a skull flickering in the shadows cast by the lamp.

"Feels more and more like home, mon amis."

Cadence held an armload of text books, and was wondering just how in the world she was going to get caught up with the rest of her new classmates at Westbrook. She really wanted to call her boyfriend, but it was looking like that wouldn't be happening until much later in the night. Kyle would understand...she hoped at least. The slight girl came to a stumbling halt in the hall, a little disoriented as she was plunged into pitch black.

What in the world is going on?

She stood still, waiting to see if the lights would come back on. But after a few minutes, she began to wonder if it was going to take longer than she thought. With a bit of a sigh, she held a hand out and ignited it. Bright, hot flames engulfed her hand, and shadows danced on the wall as the small fire shed light on the area around her.

Careful Cadence...school uniform hasn't been treated with Dr. Ellis's flame resistant compounds yet. Would really suck if you put scorch marks in it...or worse.

She cautiously made her way toward the commons. As she rounded the corner, she heard someone - Trev she thought - defend himself against being the cause of the black out.

"Hey, what ha-AGH!"

The startled scream came out before she could stop herself as she caught sight of Etienne. To say she was spooked by his appearance, or what she could make of it in the low light, would have been stating the obvious. She dropped her books, and the flames around her hand flared up in response to her momentary fright. Before they could get out of hand, she focused her thoughts on keeping the fire in check. Once it was back to a reasonable size once again, she looked a little sheepishly at the others in the commons.

"Um.....so....what happened?" she asked yet again, this time much more quiet and obviously embarassed.

"That's what I wanna know."

He started as a pair of mechanically glowing red eyes bouncing down the stairs with his sight drone hovering close behind, bringing the total number of shining red eyes in the blackness to six. Arthur stepped into the ring of firelight in wrinkled gym shorts and t-shirt.

"Better yet, don't tell me. School-wide blackout means a free pass on homework, right?"

Etienne's deep, rumbling laughter filled the commons. He set the lamp down on the desk and started unpacking his book bag, an old, World War II era canvas surplus number, shooing something back inside.

"I don' tink dey goin' to let us off de hook dat easy, mon ami."

He turned a nob on the lamp and it slowly filled the room with its warm glow.

"Dat be a nice trick, mon amie, wit de fire on you hand. But if you want take a break from it, I tink me lamp will do de trick. Any you folk figure out dat matematic set we got? I been gettin' mon letters and numbers mixed up all de time I been tryin'."

He looked around the room, then casually put a hand over the opening to his bag, covering the tiny, beady eyes that were staring intently at the girl with burning hands.

"Pi over two, pi over six, three pi, sine squared x plus cosine x, cosine squared x over tan x," Ar rattled off. "Now put that away before you wreck the mood. There's got to be something better to do with a room full of super teens in the dark."

Seth stumbled down the pitch-black hall towards the light coming from the commons. He had been out on patrol for a while and all he wanted to do was just lay down and relax. There was a fat chance of that happening now. He mumbled to himself,

"Of course. All I wanted, that's all I wanted and I can't even...," the mumbling continued as he entered the commons area. He saw everyone huddling around the light source and stopped his loathing to laugh a little,

"Something going on here that I wasn't told about? A circle, a bunch of teens, and darkness. Deadly combination..." A grin appeared on his face.

This is what I get for sketching in the commons...

Lily groaned as the lights went dark, and groaned louder when others began to shout and whine. She had just made herself comfortable on the far side of one of the sofas, sketchbook settled on her knees, and of course the lights go out. What luck!

Slipping her hand quietly into her bag, Lily pulled out her patrol goggles. The night-vision capability wasn't really intended for the dorms, but then again, the lights in the dorms weren't really intended to go out. Holding them up to her eyes, she looked around over the back of the sofa for familiar faces.

Le'see... Seth, Trev, Bimbo #1, Lorne, dimwit...

"GODDAMN-!"

Lily cursed as she fell off the sofa, stunned from the light viewed through her goggles. Cursing to herself, she stuffed them back in her bag, vision severely blurred. She should have known better to use them, but she likes using her patrol tech, so sue her.

And mom probably will, damn....

Squinting and glancing at where her goggles had caught the light, she could see some flames in the doorway, and given the red hair of the holder, guessed it was Cadence. She also made out the light of a faint old-school lantern, and figured she might as well make her way there if she's going to stay down here. Still rubbing her eyes, Lily picked up her sketchbook and bashfully made her way over towards the desk where Etienne had sat down his lamp.

"If there's some rule of three shit going on here starting with the lights, I think my eyes might have been number two....," she mumbled as she tried to focus her vision.

Sitting down next to the legs of the desk and setting her book up on her lap, she looked up at Etienne and quietly asked, amid the shouting,

"Hey, mind if I sit here to get some light?"

"Wait, so the lights are out, and now your goggles, Lily? Ar, you feeling okay there? None of your systems being turned off, right?"