-3-
Inside the safety and privacy of Emma Frost's own mind, something had been broken in her battle with Aaronson, however brief. She could feel it, and was, even as his group shook themselves out of their stupor, probing gently at it. It felt as though she'd broken down a door she'd been throwing her full strength against for years. There was an ache in her psyche, but also an obvious absence of a crushing pressure that made her want to cry with relief.
In point of fact, Terrence wasn't dead -- he was merely, for want of a better term, short-circuited. If Emma so chose, she could hotwire his mind back into working order. But at present, she was quite content with the expressions of shock and astonishment the other would-be Hellions wore.
"What will you do with us now, Mam'selle?" Marie-Ange asked.
Emma made a show of carefully considering her response. "If there are to be new Hellions, dear Tarot, they should by rights, be mine. And I did win my little duel with the man who would be king, did I not?"
Tarot's face went pale, and she hung her head. She had hoped to be rescued; but it appeared she had only traded one master for a new mistress.
"I wouldn't, Amara," Emma cautioned. Amara Aquilla glared in impotent rage at the older woman, but wisely chose not to activate her Magma aspect.
Amara grimaced, but shrugged as well. ~Ah, well, one leader is as good as another.~ "Welcome back, White Queen."
Emma inclined her head imperially, accepting her due. "Now -- the question is, will the rest of you insist on a foolish display of misguided youthful exuberance and attempt to de-throne me?" She waited, and glanced expectantly from face to face. She already saw their responses in their own minds, but wanted to hear them *say* it.
Switch shook his head. "Not me, Queenie," he said with a wry twist of his mouth. "If you can put me to sleep by just lookin' at me, I'm not even gonna try using my power on you."
Paradigm shook its head slowly. "If the others accept you, I shall accept you."
Emma smiled. "Excellent. Do put Terrence to bed. I've a few more stops to make this day. But rest assured, I'll be in touch." She swept her cloak back onto her shoulders, and strode for the door. "Marie-Ange, Servez-moi."
"Oui, Mam'selle." Tarot fell into step behind the Queen as she moved through the house.
>
Emma locked herself into Terrence's office and leaned against the door. Though her migraine was gone, she still felt off-balance. Her mind was all a-tingle, and she felt lightheaded. Despite the odd malaise, she still felt largely better than she had only an hour earlier; better than she had *days* earlier.
She picked up the phone and settled in behind the desk and dialed a number she had committed to memory. Her brow crinkled in disappointment and annoyance as she got the voicemail, but she left a message. "Dr. Foster, it's Emma Frost. I'm experiencing some ... difficulties of late, and I think a thorough checkup is in order."
While Foster knew Frost was a telepath, she had no knowledge of the woman's past as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Emma had not had a checkup using Foster's more advanced equipment in some time, but feminine intuition suggested it was a good idea; and though Emma Frost trusted almost no one -- she did trust herself. And something told her she wanted to make sure her telepathy had not suffered in the contest of wills against Terrence Aaronson.
That call completed, she contacted her chauffeur/pilot, Bumpkin. "We're flying to Florida in a few hours, then to New York. Refuel the plane, hm...and make sure that the car's waiting for us at JFK?"
"You've got it, Miss Frost."
"Excellent."
"And Miss Frost?"
"Yes?"
"Forgive my sayin'...You sound -- more like yourself again. Good to hear, Miss Frost."
Emma found herself smiling. "Thank you, Bumpkin. That'll be all. Come back for me in an hour -- bring a large limo. I'm bringing -- some new students."
"Very good, Miss Frost."
Emma hung up Terrence's line, and turned to walk back out into the house proper. To their credit, Bedlam's would-be Hellions had not all gathered to listen at the door. She actually had to seek them out telepathically. [~We are departing. You have one hour to pack.~]
She noted carefully their responses to her command; she wanted to know as close to immediately as possible which of these new students she'd just 'inherited' she'd have difficulties with. Switch, the boy she'd silenced earlier, was sycophantic enough to snap to it without protest. Amara balked mentally but did as she was told. Marie-Ange's thoughts were mired in despair and grief. She was tending to the fallen Bedlam, whom Emma had left sufficient motor skills that he toddled obediently alongside her like a windup toy. Feral's thoughts were fairly simple: if Emma had beaten the old alpha, Emma was the new alpha. The one called Paradigm was practically a closed book to her; what thoughts she was able to glean from him (it?) were logical and composed. A simple bit of telepathic sleight-of-mind, and they were primed to be more suggestible to her wishes. Sean had never permitted her such liberties with Generation X; but these kids had planned to be Hellions, and Emma frankly didn't give a damn about Sean or his fragile sensibilities. If she were honest with herself, Emma also didn't trust Sean to hold his Irish temper when he discovered that Feral was among the handful of mutants she had 'liberated'.
Hours later, the group of mutants entered the Florida mansion Emma kept as a safehouse. Feral was complaining already of the heat and how hard it was for her, being furred. Switch, on the other hand, noted how close to the beach they were situated, and immediately began planning to make his way there to seduce co-eds on holiday.
Marie-Ange led the docile Terrence to one of the bedrooms, subservient as ever.
"Amara. You are my lieutenant until I settle matters up north and decide where you will continue your education."
Amara smiled; she was clearly surprised and pleased that Emma was going to trust her. "You have the most training and experience, Amara dear. You are the obvious choice. They're permitted the run of the grounds, but make sure there are no -- public incidents." Frost smiled, working a tiny telepathic loop into Amara's thoughts -- that Emma was not to be contravened under any circumstances, and that the safehouse was not to be compromised.
Amara nodded. "As you will, Miss Frost."
"I expected more resistance than that."
Amara shrugged. "I have had some years to grow up, and to realize that while I may be a princess in Nova Roma -- I have to acclimate if I wish any sort of power in the rest of the world." Her smile was equal parts bitter and self-effacing. "I apparently threw in my lot with a weakling, if X-Force, and then you yourself were able to so easily take us ... him." She gestured sharply, angrily.
"Then consider this another lesson, and be glad you have an old teacher to work with," Emma smiled. "I'll be in contact soon, but for now, consider this place home and be comfortable."
She clasped Amara's shoulder, and then handed her the key to the house. "There are no vehicles on the grounds. Consider that an indication that while I am being generous, you most likely ought not venture too far afield."
"Yes, Miss Frost."
"Excellent. I'll be in touch this evening with an update. The servants should be in by the end of the afternoon, and a grocery delivery has already been arranged."
Amara walked Emma to the limousine. "Very good, Miss Frost."
Thunderstorms delayed Emma's departure from Florida, but on checking her voicemail, she discovered that Dr. Foster had received the message and had made an early evening appointment for Emma.
A voicemail from Jubilee informed Emma that Sean had finally succeeded in getting his injured daughter to permit her father a visit. Sean had left at lunch to catch a flight out west to be with the silenced Siryn for the holidays. She nodded. ~Good. No reason to distress him with this recent development.~ Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander were more than capable of handling the few students who remained on the campus for the holidays. Emma could devote her full concentration to recent developments.
She closed her eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep shortly after Bumpkin had her private jet in the air. Her dreams weren't exactly peaceful -- but even in her sleep, she couldn't identify the disturbances as having originated with Nightmare's touch.
~~~Screams and blood and light and recrimination~~~ ~~~Guilt and sorrow and torn violet fabric~~~ ~~~Blue-white ice, cold like they said she was, and she liked it that way.~~~ ~~~Ice blue eyes, warmer than eyes that blue had any right to be.~~~ ~~~Anger, futile terror, frantic desperation, and then a splash of comfort.~~~ ~~~Finally a sort of peace, with only the guilt tolling emptily in the pit of her soul like some cruel knell.~~~Emma woke with a start, and was pleased to see the New York skyline below her. A smirk curled her lips. ~Perhaps I can spend a moment catching up with my dear sister Adrienne. It *is* the holidays, and I haven't seen her in months.~ She spent the remaining few moments confirming with Bumpkin that the car would be ready at the terminal, and informing the Xavier School of her current plans -- with the singular ommission of the information about her doctor's appointment.
Emma loathed doctor's offices; that was one of her main incentives for working out, eating right, and generally staying abreast of her health. The better she maintained her own health, the less time she would have to spend under a doctor's care. The cold, antiseptic environment reminded her of her unpleasant young years -- the ones spent in a high-rent institution for the rich and insane.
The indignities of the urine tests, blood tests, pregnancy test, HIV test, Legacy test and the humiliation of the paper robe only added insult to injury as she sat on the papered guerney waiting for Foster.
~~~Somethingelseatthebackofhermindalsoringingscaryuncomfortablecoldunhappy~~~
Emma shook her head, and dismissed the frisson as lingering remnants from her nap on the plane.
"Well," Jane Foster's voice arrived half-a-heartbeat before she did. "You're a little anemic and a little malnourished, but a multivitamin and an iron supplement should take care of that. I know you spend as little time in the sun for the sake of your skin, Emma -- but courting this ghastly pallor went out with the Victorian practice of bleeding."
"What of my other complaints? The migraines? The dizziness?" Emma's composure flagged slightly; she was out of her normal armor, and felt naked -- unprotected.
"Stress. It *is* that time of year, Emma. Relatives, shopping, and all that. Shorter days, lack of sunlight. It all contributes. You should be happy. A little rest and a small adjustment of your diet should have you right as rain. Be glad you're not Tony Stark."
Emma quirked a brow thoughtfully, but Foster's mind was closed to her. Whether the woman had been taught her mindshields or they had been mechanically furnished for her, Emma was unable to pierce the veil of her thoughts.
"All right, that's my physical health, Jane -- but what about the MRI and the CAT scan? Anything turn up that I should be aware of?" Emma folded her arms beneath her breasts, waiting for the other woman's response.
"Yes, there were some irregularities; but I'm not enough of a neurologist or expert in mutant physiology to make head or tail of them. I have, however, emailed them to Moira MacTaggart -- and she promises to have results to me by morning."
"This close to Christmas? What did you have to promise her?"
"Nothing. Apparently she's been looking for a project to distract her from Legacy research." Jane smiled. "Get dressed. If you're going to be in NY, leave your number with the front desk, and I'll have my nurse call you soon as we hear from Muir Island." Jane patted Emma on the shoulder. "I'd suggest spending the night at least, and getting a proper head start on that relaxation I suggested."
"I believe I might at that," Emma agreed, stepping behind the privacy screen to dress again. "I imagine the students are as happy to have a moment of peace from me." She chuckled wryly.
"And you from them," Foster winked. "Merry Christmas, Emma."
Emma smiled with amusement. Adrienne had apparently chosen to spend Christmas on the Riviera, but it was nothing for her to use her abilities to get the doorman to let her in. "Flight get cancelled, Miss Frost?"
"Something like that, Carlton."
The penthouse wasn't closed up for the entire winter season; Adrienne had apparently not planned on more than a few days away. Emma took the opportunity to make herself at home while she waited for Foster's report on her health.
Adrienne had been overconfident, and that had proved her undoing. Emma found her journal in the bedroom, and a number of records on her PC. Blue-green eyes narrowed shrewdly as a niggling suspicion was confirmed.
Adrienne had arranged for Emma's financial crisis. For that, Emma would leave her psychommetric sister a series of little psionic -- "gifts" -- to find when she returned home. It would be no great joy for her to summon up the memories of her -- mistreatment she had experienced when her parents had institutionalized her and forgotten about her. But summon them she did; along with the memory of the pain that lanced through her when she was defeated by Phoenix. She imprinted on Adrienne's headboard the pain of being shot. She laced Adrienne's kitchen appliances with psionic images of her watching the hellions die. ~Bitch thought to undo me by showing me that in the Danger Room. Let her see what it was like *first hand*.~
The phone rang, jarring her from her preparations. She settled in on the sofa and ran it through the screen of the television.
"What have you discovered?" Emma asked Foster.
"According to Dr. MacTaggart, someone's been tampering with you on a psionic level. She checked your scans against the last checkup and indicates the brainwave activity is restrained."
Emma nodded, "I see. Thank you. Any idea who?"
"Not yet."
~That's all right, Jane. I already have an idea.~ "Thanks, Jane. Merry Christmas."
"To you too, Emma."
She disconnected the call and dialed a number she knew by heart. It rang three times before someone picked up. "Happy holidays, Xavier Institute -- Henry McCoy speaking."
"Is Xavier there?"
"One moment please."
Emma seethed; Xavier and Jean Grey were the only telepaths who were of sufficient psionic firepower to have done the sort of tampering that Foster and MacTaggart had spoken of. She was already searching her memories and finding blurred smears in places she had previously written off as memory loss from her coma. But now?
"Charles Xavier."
"Professor." Emma purred. "I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. Sweet dreams. I have myself back, and I mean to keep her this time."
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence on the line. "I see."
~Bastard doesn't even deny it...such arrogance!~
"Does this mean then, that you are abandoning your position as headmistress of the school?"
"Nothing of the sort, my dear Xavier. Nothing of the sort. But the students will decide where they go...and you will not be invited to ... persuade them otherwise if they choose another path than your ...Dream."
She hung up the phone and smiled, then set herself in graceful motion like a personification of winter. Xavier was too strong to take on directly, and he'd be expecting her to do something so churlish and predictable. She opened her mind and flung a thought in the general direction of Westchester: ~There's a *reason*, dear Charles, they say 'the female is the deadlier of the species.' You get the luxury of sweating night and day, never knowing when I will come for you. Never knowing how. Consider this your Christmas gift.~
Xavier made no reply, but even at this distance, she could sense him shifting uneasily. Just as she desired.
She swept her fox cloak back onto her shoulders, and lifted her cellphone to her ear. "Bumpkin? Find me Sebastian Shaw. Now."