Opening Day [OPEN]

[astonishing_xmods]

WHO: EVERYONE
WHAT: Mingle/Figure out Room Assignments/Meet old friends again
WHERE: The whole campus.
WHEN: September 1st, 2018
WARNING(S): None. If anything goes into warning territory, please create a new log for it.




For all of the newcomers, welcome to Professor Xavier’s Institute of Higher Learning! For all of our returning students and staff, welcome back! Once Professor Xavier’s welcome speech wraps up, it’s time for everyone to get themselves situated in their dorms and, more importantly, get to know your fellow mutants! Even if you’re not sharing rooms, you’ll still be sharing the same campus with each other, so don’t be afraid to get used to all of those new faces! Or even catch up on old ones! You have options; don’t be afraid to use them.

[[ ooc: This is the general mingling post for all of our characters to get settled into their rooms, get to know each other, reminisce with old friends, all that jazz. The log will be split into multiple locations. ]]

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[icy_heavens]

Toushirou still wasn't sure whether he should have missed being outside or not. It had been five years, but those hadn't passed for him. It didn't feel like such a long time, and yet it had been. His sense of time was all messed up and it was frankly ticking him off.

The heat didn't help. In fact, it helped so little that he decided to flex his power a bit to the point where anyone who got within a fifteen foot radius would feel a sudden, wintry chill. He was just making sure he still knew what he was doing, really. No ice, no frost, just cold. He still had control. This was good.

He didn't bother sitting in one place for long; skewed time perception or not, he just had the urge to move. Nothing hurried or playful about his movement. He was simply . . . refamiliarizing himself with the grounds. That was all. Things changed after five years. New buildings, new paths, new gardens, new people . . . Old people, too.

But not him. No, he was still who he was five years ago. And even if he wouldn't say it, there was something deeply unsettling about all that.

[seduceme]

Christelle had been enjoying a cigarette outside, chatting to any students that came by before eventually moving off to a more private area. There was only so much teen spirit she could take, really.

She felt the chill in the air before she saw Toushirou and shivered, frowning as she glanced around until she caught sight of the white-haired boy. One brow arching, she remembered this was one of the students that had been caught in stasis, mind helpfully providing the information on name, age, mutation, etc.

"I do believe it's suddenly gotten colder," she commented drily, blowing smoke out to the side.

[icy_heavens]

And that gets his own brow to arch. Hm. Teacher, clearly. One he didn't recognize, but what else was new? Besides practically everything, that was.

"Well you're not wrong." And he wasn't bothering to pull his power in at all yet. Perhaps he should be a bit more respectful to the staff, but his mood at the moment was just slightly foul. If she actually told him to, he'd probably do it, though.

[seduceme]

"Is this a regular phenomenon where you're concerned?" she asks drily. "Only if it is, I'll 'ave to remember to pack a scarf daily."

[icy_heavens]

Sigh. Okay, okay. He won't ease off the temperature, but he'll pull the cold aura in a few feet. Surely that's acceptable enough.

"Only when I want it to be."

[seduceme]

Her smile brightens as the cold withdraws from around her. "You must 'ate summer."

[fuckuimametalbender]

The sudden chill piqued Toph's attention. Not that she was complaining, but it was enough to make her wonder if some kid was losing control.

Curious, she tracked down the origin of the chill. "Hey, kid."

[icy_heavens]

Vague recognition hit him when he saw her, and it was enough to make him stop in his tracks. He tilted his head, mind working to place the girl. When you were a kid, your appearance could change a lot in five years. But it came to him finally, and he blinked.

"Toph." Yep, that was it. Just a confirmation that he remembered her. Geez, they'd been about the same age back then.

[fuckuimametalbender]

...wait. No way.

Toph hurries over and (rudely) starts running her hand over Toshirou's face. Once she realizes that yeah, it's him, she steps back. "Holy crap, you're out!"

[icy_heavens]

Yeah, no. He is shoving that hand away as best he can. No touching. Is that so hard? Whether it actually is or not is irrelevant, okay. "Get your hand out of my face."

He huffs when she's done. "Yeah, I am."

[fuckuimametalbender]

Toph doesn't bother apologizing--yeah, it's rude, but can you blame her?

"Holy crap," she says again. "How long?"

[comparative_insanity]

Fai is heralded by a small gasp as the cold air hits him, and then a laugh as he realizes what just happened. He's just going to pull the lab coat a bit tighter around himself, and then slouch against the wall next to Toushirou, smiling blithely down at him. It's really... odd. He's even taller than the boy now, but that's not nearly as weird as suddenly being even older than he is. Things like that don't usually change.

"Hello there, team leader. Glad to see you again."

[icy_heavens]

It's an old, familiar thing, and sort of comforting in its own way. Even if it's not quite the same, just like everything else. Fai is even taller, older. In a lab coat of all things. He's moved along. And here's Toushirou, who should be eighteen, probably in college at least . . . still down here. Still thirteen, in the beginning stages of high school.

But even that much means less than how Fai greets him. Ouch. Part of him wonders if he should correct him. Yeah, he was Fai's team leader. Key word being "was". That's gone now, and all in essentially a blink. But at the same time, it's good to hear.

So he frowns thoughtfully at the greeting, before, finally: "Yeah."

No, he won't correct it. And yeah, it's actually good to see you, Fai. Apparently, it's been a long time without Toushirou even knowing it.

[comparative_insanity]

Fai realizes a moment too late that maybe it'll hurt to hear him use those words again, and almost bites his own tongue. But... well, the thing was, to his mind that's still who Toushirou is. There had never been any time for him to stop, because he and so many others had just simply disappeared from the world. And just because you're actually an adult now doesn't mean you're actually any better at knowing how you're supposed to deal with someone you really used to look up to - at least metaphorically - now being ten years younger than you.

So in his own way, he'd just wanted to show that he still has that respect for him, even now. "It's going to be pretty weird, huh? But at least I'm not technically your responsibility anymore. More like the other way around, actually."

[icy_heavens]

In some instances, it's what he still is in Toushirou's mind, too. And then reality comes bursting in and smacks him in the face. Reality fights dirty. But you know what? He's not doing this right now, when he has no privacy. It's no way for him to act.

But in retrospect, he kinda liked that responsibility, Fai. He hadn't realized until coming out of stasis how much he'd come to identify himself through his responsibilities. Ones he no longer has.

Still, he huffs. "Should I be worried about that?"

See, just the usual grouchiness, here. Nothing beneath it, nope.

[comparative_insanity]

Fai has spent a whole lifetime pretending to be perfectly fine when he is not, simply because he still doesn't know how to deal very well with bad things happening. And he can recognize the signs of it rather well, by now - after all, watching people's reactions kind of comes with his mutation.

He sighs a bit, lacing his hands together behind his head. "Not at all. I'm going to be a great teacher, I'll have you know." He grins a bit wryly, tilting his his head so he can see Toushirou a bit better.

"And you'll just have to find another group of idiots to boss around, won't you? Shouldn't be too hard, for you."

[presto_turn]

Shindou had only meant to make a brief circuit of the Mansion before he set to unpacking his dorm. Almost everything had been rebuilt or renovated, so he'd been told, and that meant he needed to see what had changed. How many of the facilities were where he remembered? What had popped into existence that would be completely unfamiliar? He didn't need to be getting lost on his first day back, just because the world around him was only superficially similar to what he'd known.

He was doubling back towards the front courtyard when the chill in the air hit him, so sudden that he almost instinctively chalked it up to nerves. Then, it took just a split-second to register exactly where he'd walked into cold fields like this...only weeks ago, so far as his personal time-frame was concerned.

Just in time for him to come around the building's corner and end up face-to-face with his former roommate.

"Ah -- "

His throat jammed. What was he supposed to say in this situation? When, apparently, they were all but back from the death, and it still felt like they could've been bumping into each other on the way back from class...?

"Hey."

[icy_heavens]

It was bound to happen at some point. In retrospect, it would be strange that it happened out here, rather than the dorms, given their room assignments. Either way, it certainly didn't make things less awkward. Awkward enough that his control slipped for half a second and frost formed on the wall beside him. Oops. He was . . . just going to pull the chill all the way back in now.

Yeah, this . . . he didn't know what to do either. This should have been a normal, every day kind of occurrence. Just running into your rooomate between classes. Except they weren't roommates now, classes hadn't started yet, and five years had gone by in pretty much an instant and neither of them had lived a day of those five years. What should have been a normal crossing of paths wound up being bizarre.

... Life as usual at the Xavier Institute, right? Right?

He blinked. "... Hi."

[presto_turn]

At least he didn't have to ask.

That was the one thankless virtue of their position, stuck staring at each other in this strangely displaced moment. This time around, he didn't have to go through the "How long?" and "What's changed?" or worry about who'd graduated, dropped out, or fallen in love. There'd already been too much of that, today, and it was still early. Really, perhaps it ought to have been a relief that Toushirou didn't look a second older than he remembered him.

"...How are you doing?"

A quietly-posed, self-consciously neutral question. Neither of them had ever been much for confiding, at least not with each other. So, he'd ask such that Toushirou could take him to be inquiring about the temporally-frozen elephant in the room or just the bustle of the first day back, whichever he wanted.

"Have you moved back into the dorms yet?"

[icy_heavens]

Thinking of it as a relief would be weird. They'd basically been dead for five years; how was that good? On the other hand, neither of them had left the other behind this way. Nothing regarding how to feel about this mess made any sense. Not that Toushirou was ever good at making sense of emotions to begin with.

"Alright, I guess." And a neutral answer, no outright acknowledgment of that temporarily frozen elephant. Considering everything, he really was doing okay. Basically. "Working on it."

[presto_turn]

"That's good."

So, apparently they weren't Talking About It. Not overtly, anyway. That was fine. Shindou hefted his shoulders, giving a sideways nod back around the building to the front driveway. Aross the way, his family's chauffeur was still waiting out in a black sedan, keeping watch over the young master's luggage while he delayed.

"I still need to start bringing my bags in. They only had a few things left in storage for me here, so..." An uncomfortable pause. Was that too close to broaching how their world had all burnt up and then moved on without them? "Did you just get back in today?"

[batteredbatter]

Everything was new to Koshi, but in a more normal way - he'd never been to a boarding school before, much less one like this. His excited running around was only finally put to a halt when that sudden chill went through the air, making him shiver and stop, looking around for the source. Was that... someone's power? It'd be the first time he'd actually seen an actual mutant ability in person, besides some of the stranger appearances here. Looking around, his eyes settle on Toushirou - though not for the reasons one might expect.

"Hey, do you know who did that just now?" he asked curiously, walking over. That's right, he was only asking Toshirou because the other boy was one of the few people shorter than him - a definite rarity for Koshi now that he was moving into high school.

[icy_heavens]

As he doesn't know the reason, he can't exactly get anymore annoyed about the approach than usual. This is probably a good thing; the height is a sore issue, after all, even if he'll never actually admit it.

He just blinks at the question. "I'm doing that."

[batteredbatter]

"Wait, seriously?" he said, blinking in surprise. Then he broke out in a smile. "That's so cool!"

It took him a moment to realize what he'd said - even if he was really good, English was still a second language. He smiles a bit sheepishly.

"Um, well, literally I guess?"

[icy_heavens]

What in the world was there to be so smiley about? This would never cease to confuse him on some level.

"I suppose it is." The pun, unintentional or otherwise, was so overdone, boring, and pathetic that he couldn't even bring himself to be annoyed by it.