Power Failure Incoming (Open)

[Andrei Dragunov]

The pale, spiky-haired boy of fourteen slouched through the front doors of the Main Office, looking positively terrified. The man who had brought him there turned around and left, leaving him standing there, alone and confused. What now? He heard the sound that had become all too familiar with ever since this whole thing had started. The standard bzzt-bzzt-bzzzt! of an electronic appliance starting to fluctuate. This time, it appeared to be the lights, which were flashing on and off rapidly. He glanced up, and noted that he was standing under a bright florescent lamp that cast a harsh white glow over his already-pale skin, making him look positively ghostly. Well. Not for long.

... Fzzzzzt.

The front lamp died completely, leaving Andrei Dragunov standing there in the dark, not entirely sure he had made a very good first impression. He squinted at the front desk, hesitated, then forced himself to take a few steps forward. Almost as soon as he did so, the lamp that had shut itself off started to stir feebly back to life. Before he even reached the front desk, he froze again. Computer. There was a computer there. He knew enough about himself now that he was very clear what kind of risk he posed to computers. He also knew people generally did not like their computers rebooting without any warning, and losing all their accumulated work over a series of hours.

"S'cuse me," said Andrei quietly, with a bit of a Ukrainian twang. "I vos hoping you knew vhere I am to take my belongings."

'Belongings' were basically a meagre collection of clothing and oddments stuffed inside a faded haversack that had been charity to him from the O'Hares.

[Ella Tate]

Ella was checking her phone for any messages her [what seemed to be] ex-girlfriend could have left when the screen started to flicker and then die. Her heels jarred her from moving as she looked around the room. "What the..." she started before activating her power, suppressing whatever power was around her that was causing this temporary blackout.

Well...hoping that was the reason anyway.

A small foreign voice, however, distracted her and the whole room faded to black. Coughing a little, she concentrated on that voice and let her power wash over that one person. Soon enough, lights started flickering and the room came back to life. "Okay. Much better."

She stood up straight, smoothing down her silk shirt and sweeping the curtain of her hair back over her shoulder, she looked to where the voice had come from to find a seemingly perpetually surprised looking boy looking harried.

"Hello." She waved at him. "What did you say you wanted?" She asked to confirm before nodding and gestured for him to follow her. "Have you actually gotten your room sorted out?" Ella asked.

[Andrei Dragunov]

Andrei started and whipped around, scared by the sudden appearance of the lady who approached him. "Ah," he said bleakly as a series of questions were directed his way. "I ah," he glanced at the phone she clutched in her hand. "Oh no, you do not vant to-" Then the light he was under suddenly stopped flickering, and he felt a jarring stillness wrap itself around his body. He blinked, and stared at Ella with an expression of wonderment, experimentally stepping to the left and right of the light he was under. It didn't die out. He smiled, then - a wide, radiant smile that spread across his pale features and lit up his face.

"Vot did you - You stopped it!" Andrei exclaimed happily, then appeared to catch himself and compose his face into rigidly plain look. "Ah, no, I haven't ... I don't think I haff my room ... 'sorted out'? I'm vundering ver am I going from here."

[Ella Tate]

His movements reminded her of a trapped gazelle, not sure where to go so she stepped back to give him space. And then he suddenly did a little happy dance on the spot, moving left and right before a smile broke out on his face and she smiled. What a cute little kid. Definitely new.

When he stopped smiling, she did too and they were suddenly very professional. "Uh...yes. I'm a power suppressor. I'm guessing...electrokinetic?" She asked, pocketing her phone in her skirt. His accent reminded her of that Russian trainer, Yulia, maybe? Yeah.

"Okay, well, what you need to do is get assigned a room first before you can dump your things." She tapped her chin thoughtfully before coming up with an idea. "Tell you what. Why don't you leave your things here first and I'll give you the grand tour of the place and then maybe we can get your room picked out and we can send your things over. How does that sound?"

[Andrei Dragunov]

Andrei shrugged at her question apologetically. "I do not know... Vot is elektokinect?" He cocked his head at her inquisitively, piercing grey eyes flashing towards her. "I just... Venever der is..." He gestured at the lights, and at the computer behind the reception counter. "... Kaput," he finished lamely. He stood there and nodded patiently as she started talking, his eyes fixed keenly on her in a politely attentive manner. He started again when she mentioned leaving his things behind. He took his haversack off his shoulder, then placed it at his feet, looking somewhat apologetic that his 'things' amounted to so little.

"Vell... That's all." Andrei said of his baggage with wry little smile, then nodded again as she launched into an explanation of what she planned to do. "Yez... Okay. Thank you very much, miss."

[Ella Tate]

"Uh..." Ella started as the boy tried to explain what his power was. "Oh...well...okay sure." She nodded impatiently, awkwardly patting the boy on the head before looking down at the bag at his feet.

When addressed as miss, Ella snorted and shook her head. "No honey, it's Ella." She helped him with his bag, bringing it over to the receptionist with a smile, telling her that they would be coming back for it. Ella turned to the boy and gestured for him to follow her. "What's your name?" She asked, her arm spread wide to accommodate him.

[Andrei Dragunov]

Andrei hesitated, then tested her name on the tip of his tongue. "Ezza," he repeated in his accented voice, his brows furrowing slightly as he did so. He started towards his bag with an apology on his lips as she took it, "Ah, I vill do it-" But then she had already brought to the counter before he could get his words out of his mouth. He contented himself with standing there and smiling feebly at her, and when she returned, he fell into step, his hands rigidly awkward at his sides, neither swinging nor stuck in his pockets - just regimented into place, as if he was afraid to do anything with them.

When she asked for his name, the boy gave a funny little spasm, his body shuddering, his cold grey eyes turning electric blue for a very brief moment before returning to their usual shades of grey. "Ah-" he started to say, then waited for the spasm to pass. "Andrei." The way he said it was with a bit of forceful encouragement on his part, as if he didn't really want to introduce himself. "Andrei Dragunov." He didn't seem to understand her arm was there to accommodate him, and merely trailed after her like a duckling.

[Ella Tate]

"Ez...no, sweetie, El. La. Ella." She helped with the pronunciation. She had never had a problem with her name before. Had it been Isabella, it could have been worst. Oh well. Foreigners. What could they do.

Once he was by her side, she frowned at the little spasm, shaking her head and thinking to herself, what luck she had with her, getting a spaz. Poor thing.

"I'll call you Andy. Sorry. I'm very bad at long names. So Andy hi. Welcome to Hammel. I'm Ella. I'm a recruiter here. I basically fetch kids who have abilities like you from their homes and bring them here. So that's me. Now this school has five floors for the dorms mostly. The ground floor has this main office, the corridor is to your right." She pointed and let him take everything in.

"Okay so now we're going to go to the cafeteria. Food's not too bad over here so don't badmouth it." She said before turning to her little tourist. "With me so far, Andy?"

[Andrei Dragunov]

"Ezla," Andrei tried again. "Ez-Lar." He watched her resignedly continue with her tour, and shrugged apologetically as he walked by her side. "Andy," he said experimentally. "Andy." He smiled at her. "Is good. Sound very America." The pale boy of fourteen obediently trailed after her as she started on her explanation, nodding at everything she said and peering down the corridor when she pointed at it, as if expecting something to jump out at him, holding up a sign that said 'GET IT YET?'. He stared for a moment longer, then, after realizing she did not expect him to do anything more than glance at the corridor, quickly reined himself in and kept walking, nodding as he did so. His neck already started to hurt with the amount of nodding he was doing. "Ja - I mean, yez. Food." He made a resolute sort of face. "No complain."

[Ella Tate]

"Ezla's fine. It's cool." Ella waved her hand dismissively and shrugged.

"Yep. Andy's the name of that cartoon character. I'm sure you will find out about him from your roommates later on. You will have about...four by the way." She nodded, though remembering she only always had two or sometimes no roommates because people kept changing rooms.

"No complain. That's good." Ella rubbed the top of his head with a little grin on her face before proceeding with their tour. "Where are you from originally?" Ella asked as they headed towards the cafeteria.

[Andrei Dragunov]

Andrei smiled a little when she inquired as to his origins. "Ukraine," he said, and you could tell by the way he said it that he longed for his old home deeply. "In small town, call Skadvaark. There is power plant, yes? Many people vork there. My father, he too, power plant man." He fell silent for a moment as they walked. As they turned towards the cafeteria, he started up again. "I haff sister. Little girl. Very young. Six. I think seven now. Seven year." He reached into his shirt, and pulled out a rusty old screw with a thin piece of rope tied around it, that made an odd sort of necklace. "She make," he said wistfully, then tucked the necklace back in.

[Ella Tate]

Ella briefly wondered if Ukraine and Russia were the same. Shaking her head slightly, she concentrated on the younger meta's words and nodded when appropriate.

When he whipped out the makeshift necklace, she looked at it briefly and looked away. That seemed like a personal moment that she didn't want to encroach in.

"Um...how come you didn't go to Odarennyi?" Ella asked.

[Andrei Dragunov]

Andrei suddenly looked downcast. He gave a feeble little shrug as they walked. "Government." The way he said it made it sound like 'gubblevent'. He flexed his fingers, as if expecting sparks of electricity to jump out at him. "They did not vant... To put up vit me." His eyes were resolutely fixed upon the floor. "Nor did my family, after my government haff had their say in what a danger I vos to Ukraine and her people. America come. America say she will take me. Ukraine say yes." Andrei shrugged again, as if that settled everything.

[Ella Tate]

Ella had never been comfortable with emotions. It was something she avoided, which was probably why Chloe was still not talking to her. Oh no, that was because Ella was too much of a coward to do anything about reconciliation.

Wow, this was not the time to think about personal shit.

"Your family didn't want to put with you?" Ella turned to face Andrei, stopping in her tracks to fully process the matter. "They let you go with the Americans?" The recruiter frowned before shaking her head. Not her place to say anything. Nope.

"Okay, so canteen is here." She cleared her throat, pointing to the entrance on the left. "Do you want to get anything? Have you eaten?"

[Andrei Dragunov]

Andrei's lips twitched into a smile as the recruiter lady abruptly looked stunned. He shrugged in a 'well it doesn't matter now' sort of way, and nodded pleasantly as she directed him to the canteen. "Food is good," he said a little cheerfully as he peered at the cafeteria. "I vill get something to eat, then do settle school things, yes?" he paused, and then suddenly looked serious as his eyes bore straight into Ella's...

"... No complain." he repeated sternly, echoing her previous words, smirked just a little, and then turned towards the canteen.