Wandering through the hallways and corridors of the school, Xenon eventually hit paydirt and found the emergency exit on the right side of the school building.

Cautiously she first looked to left, then to the right, her body moving on tiptoes and the weight shifting to the torso of her rather skinny body. To her surprise, she breathed quite deeply and her pulse was rather low. Only her eyes showed her excitement, moving back and forth, to the left and right, just to check if she was really alone - and this over and over again.
Despite being a loner, she still was a good student, after all. And she didn't feel the urge to change that.

Actually, if it was up to her and her mind, she would rather stay inside and do as she was told by the news. She didn't like getting into trouble anyway. Or getting dirty. Yes, mostly she wanted to stay inside because of the latter one.

But she couldn't. Getting to the bottom of it was just too tempting. Her heart literally shouted for it.

Okay, one...two...three!
Taking courage, she eventually pushed the door, ignoring the fact that she could be seen, and headed outside.

As her little brother's fake tears distracted the attention of several teachers in the hallway, Zirconium wondered how she would get out of the building once Magnesium sent her the okay. Maybe she could guilt the teachers into letting her take her brother to the vending machines to buy a snack (after all, that was what had he decided to cry to them about) and then make a run for the doors, but it seemed like she and Magnesium weren't the only students interested in leaving early. A few other girls appeared to be sneaking around while the teachers had their backs turned. Zirconium would just have to wait for a better opportunity.

Magnesium knew she couldn't linger in this stairwell much longer. There was bound to be someone administrative checking to make sure students weren't avoiding the evacuation procedures--exactly what she was doing, after all. With one more cursory glance through the window at the group in the hall, she continued to make her way out of the school.

Hopefully they'd all meet up outside of it.

With a surprisingly brisk pace, Xenon sprinted across the campus, her steps rather small and her focus mostly on looking good while running instead of reaching the goal - just in case someone really watched her.

Spotting the bright pink hair belonging to Xenon, Carbon followed her to an emergency exit, and slipped out behind her. As soon as they were outside, she ran to try to catch up. "Hey, Xenon! You're going to the factory too?"

Did she make it out yet? Zirconium pulled out her phone several times within the past few minutes to check for any new messages. A slight frown formed in the corner of her mouth when her anticipated message from Magnesium was nowhere to be seen. I sure hope she didn't get caught by any of the hall monitors... the silver-haired girl worried to herself.

'Pink head?' Flourine pouted after her as Phosphorous ran off, taking a deep breath. Today just wasn't her day. Maybe, though, with Phosphorous running and the little boy still crying, she could follow without being followed.

She reached the door and tucked into the stairwell, avoiding the window as much as she could, and thought she could hear the other stairwell door closing beneath her. Magnesium must not be too far away; she flew down the stairs and opened the door, following Magnesium from a distance until she was safely out of the high school.

"Do either of you have a plan to get out of here and get us to the factory?" Oxygen said as they met up with Xenon.

Outside and now distant enough from the building, she paused for a moment to send a text to Zirconium. Got out. Thx 4 helping! Looks bad out here. The smog that had been a sneaking problem for a little while was much thicker today, and the aftermath of the explosion could be seen in the surrounding area. As much as she knew her silver-haired friend wanted to get home, Magnesium didn't know that she could recommend it. As a sailor soldier, she had a slight advantage in that respect.

When she looked up form her phone, she spotted familiar pink hair. It had to be Flourine. Magnesium waved at her, her eyes looking for the others. So far her suspicion they'd all be concerned about this strange event was proving more true than not.

When it comes to sneaking Phosphorous is not exactly the most silent person. This time though, she was able to control her energy and managed to slip out through the crow with Gallium. Noticing the emergency door she said "Okay. This is it. Are you ready? What am I saying?! Of course you are. Let go!" She took Gallium's hand once again and hurried to exit the school.

Xenon was just about to leave the school grounds, the exit not more than a few meters away, when she suddenly noticed someone following her. Panic arose and while she didn't know that it was only Carbon and Oxygen that followed, Xenon still stopped running and turned around.

As she recognized the two girls as two other Element Senshi, she really felt how it took a load off her mind. Only now she realized that she could have been caught by a teacher as she stopped running - she could have been caught and she could have gotten her punishment. Seeing Carbon and Oxygen was thus, even to her own surprise, quite delighting.

"Oh, it's only you," she eventually said with heavy breathing. "I thought I was just about to get caught now."

Despite not being very fond of joining groups with any of them, Xenon still tried to conquer her weaker self and gave them a, as the case may be, friendly smile. In sets of three they'd maybe reach the factory more easily, after all.
"Yeah, I wanted to check what's going on there," she eventually started talking, her voice rather soft and calm. "City-wide emergency sounds like something serious has happened."

Her attention then went to Oxygen who asked if anyone was having a plan to escape. "Right now, the people inside are rather busy and only focus on the news - no one is watching us at the moment. So I don't know about you, but I'll take my leave as long as it's still possible."

Indifferently, she then turned around, fixed her skirt a last time and continued with approaching the exit.

Potassium walked around the building some more and eventually she saw three people. She sneaked around the corner and tried to get a closer look at who it was. Eventually she realized that it was three of the senshi, Oxygen, Carbon, and Xenon. "Hey girls!" She said cheerily!

Flourine made her way over to Magnesium, looking around to see who else had made it out. "Any idea what's going on?" she asked, looking out into the city as opposed to back in the school. She could see the smoke discoloring the fog and grimaced.

Gallium emerged outside together with Phosphorous, and it was even hotter out there. She let out a long-suffering sigh and glanced toward the city’s recycling plant in the distance. “Guess we have to go there and investigate, huh?”

She thought she heard noises coming from around the building. Carefully she peeked around the corner and noticed several of the other senshi. “Hey look, everyone’s here. Maybe they all have the same plan.”

Bad? But why? Zirconium started writing a response back to Magnesium, but erased her inquiry no sooner than she had written it. Magnesium had made it out safely, now it was her turn. Questions would have to wait until later. After standing up, the girl with the long silver hair casually approached the group of teachers now standing around her little brother.

Hafnium's fake bawling subsided at the arrival of his older sister; he even eagerly shouted out to her, but she did not acknowledge him with a greeting. Instead, she looked at the group of teachers and proposed the following suggestion despite their stern looks:

“If it is okay, I could take my brother to the vending machines to buy him a snack...I think—I think we may be stuck here for awhile and well, I'm almost certain he will continue to cry until he gets something to eat.” Zirconium explained to them in a calm voice. Luckily the teachers welcomed the idea of placating the child with food from the vending machines.

“Thank you very much!” Zirconium smiled as she bowed once to the teachers before taking a hold of Hafnium's hand. “Come on, let's find you something to eat.” She winked hoping he would understand that they were actually going to leave the school. As the two walked toward the stairwell, and of course the nearby vending machines, Zirconium decided to peak out a window to see what was going on. The smog sure seemed thicker than what she remembered earlier this morning, especially with respect to the skyline which was now shrouded in a faint white hue. However, the sidewalk below was still clearly visible. There she noticed a group of girls standing around. Most of them were unfamiliar, but she did recognize two of them as classmates.

Magnesium? And Oxygen too? I wonder where were they are planning to go...

As she looked away from the window, Zirconium smiled weakly. “Hafnium, it looks like we're about to get more adventurous.”

"I think we'd be a lot louder if we were teachers," Carbon said to Xenon, grinning at the thought of actually scaring her. "We were heading over to the Recycling plant too." Potassium came out from around the corner next to join them.

"So I guess we're all going out to check out that explosion. Might as well go together then..."

"What's the quickest way out though?" Oxygen asked.

"Huh?! Really?"As she heard Gallium's words Phosphorous opened her eyes widely noticing the other girls too. It didn't take her much time though to raise her hands and greet everybody with a loud and surprising voice "Yaho!! It's good to see you alive -smirks-"

Potassium agreed with them about going together towards the plant she nodded. "Yeah we should head there." She said, "I'm not sure what the quickest way is though. Maybe just getting over the fence and walk to the plant?"

Magnesium shook her head at Flourine's question.

"I think it's clear we all know there's something suspect about the recycling plant--I can feel an uneasiness about it. That's it."

It would have been so much more exciting if there was more information! Or if something unexpected happened. (An explosion, although unexpected, wasn't enough to sustain suspense for this long.) This wasn't even enough for Magnesium to use for song lyric inspiration. What a drag.

"Did you see any of the others?" she asked. "I thought they were near you in the hall."

Xenon sighed as the number of people around her increased second by second, the initially calm girl now starting to get annoyed. If it would have only been Oxygen and Carbon - fine - she could have swallowed her pride that much. But this - this was just an imposition. She couldn't work with that many people from the underclass - not even if she'd abandon her pride entirely.

She looked at the ground, trying to not lose composure. She needed to keep calm - maybe there was a way to get rid of them.

However, her hopes were blasted only after a few moments of reflecting. Never in a thousand years they'd go back to school.

"Why don't we just go down the main road?," she eventually suggested patronizingly, realizing that there wasn't anything she could do to make them leave. "It'd be the shortest way."
Her face looked more like she was just about to commit suicide and her voice was even and emotionless, in marked contrast to the outburst of annoyance she felt inside.

"Okay!" Potassium said, "That works for me! Let's go then." Potassium jumped up and down excitedly and started to walk towards the main road. Looking back she knew they'd follow, but she wanted to be sure.

"Well the sooner we get there the better, right?" Carbon said, before trailing after Potassium. Unlike Xenon and Potassium's moods, Carbon was relaxed. They needed to investigate the plant, but there was no reason to make it more complicated than it had to be. "I wonder what caused that explosion in the first place...?"

Rolling her eyes at the excitement of the hyperactive girl, Xenon devoted attention rather quickly to the relaxed - and thus more pleasant - Carbon.

"I don't know," she responded to her question with a pinch of indifference in her voice. "Maybe someone wanted to have some fun and let it go up in flames. I mean, you see that kind of stuff every day on TV - I wouldn't be surprised if it happened here too."

Sneaking down the stairs to the main floor was a lot easier than Zirconium had originally expected.

That's strange. Not a single hall monitor in sight. She thought to herself as she peered from around the corner in the stairwell.

“...Hey, sis. I'm still getting a snack, right?” Hafnium asked, tugging on the side of her pleated blue skirt.  

“...Do you think you can wait until we get outside?” As she asked this, she took a few steps closer to the emergency door near the bottom of the staircase, occasionally glancing over her shoulders to confirm that no teachers were watching or approaching.

“Outside? We're leaving? But-!”

Zirconium brought her index finger to her mouth and shushed the boy. “Magnesium made it outside okay. I think we can too. And if you're truly hungry right now, we can get a snack from one of the vending machines we pass in the city. It will be fun, okay?”  

Hafnium did a little excited dance. “Hafnium wants to have fun and be adventurous like Zirconium!” he announced with a huge grin.

“Okay then follow me! But hurry before the alarm goes off!” Zirconium quickly pushed her way out the emergency door with Hafnium immediately trailing behind her wailing for her to wait up. As Zirconium turned to run for the street, she noticed the group of girls that she had seen from the window, and quickly ducked behind a bush. After also jumping into the bush, Hafnium quietly looked up at his sister and awaited her next decision.

She thought she could see others in the distance, herself. Judging by the colours, it might be Xenon, Potassium, and Carbon... but she felt like it was a little bit hard for her to make out exactly who. There might be someone else she was missing. Magnesium wondered if Flourine had spoken to any of them, when she was in the hallway.

She glanced again towards the recycling plant and felt that uneasy feeling from before.

Gallium trailed a bit behind the others as Xenon led a group of them toward the main road. She seemed grouchy, and Gallium didn’t blame her. She wasn’t looking forward to going toward the recycling plant herself. She decided not to participate in speculating; she dealt in logic and science, and once she got there she could figure out on her own what exactly had gone wrong.

"It could be because they wanted something and were trying to use this as a statement," Oxygen offered.

Phosphorous was following everybody else along with Gallium from behind. She herself felt Xenon's grouchy attitude. Unlike Gallium though she didn't hesitate to talk. She went ahead and touched slowly her shoulder "You know... it could be cool if you could wait for us too. We managed to met and I think that's great. And I also think it would be great if you could look a bit more cheerful. I know this situation does not appeal your super expensive shoes but if we want things to work out you could try to make an effort." 

"As for the recycling plant I am guessing it's more than some flames. They didn't seem to tell us everything on TV too. Like they didn't want us to know anything about it at all. All that they said was explosion blah blah don't leave your buildings blah blah."