New York City, ESU Campus, Marvel-616. Monday Afternoon.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma was in the middle of her kickboxing class when she was just struck with the sense of - for lack of a better term - wrong. She couldn't sense anything with her powers to account for it, it was just... like a voice over an intercom where you couldn't make out the words, or a popular song with two notes out-of-tune. Or a ripple in a lake with no source. Nothing she could articulate, just...wrong. Echos of nails on a chalkboard and why couldn't she place this damned -

- Of course, the middle of kickboxing class was generally not a good place for one get hit by nebulous feelings of doom and dread, and the next thing Emma knew, she was on the floor, her sparring partner shrilly apologizing over and over, and her classmates hovering.

"Please stay down, Frost," the the cute coach was saying, even as things swam in circles around her. "You might have a concussion, and you've got a bloody nose. Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?"

"Three, my name is Emma Grace Frost, I am about to turn nineteen years old next month, this is Kickboxing for Beginners, and Ellen there just nailed me on the side of the head," Emma said crossly. "That wasn't the move we were supposed to be practicing."

"But you always seem to know what I'm going to do next!" Ellen wailed, looking distraught. "I didn't think it would hurt to try something new!"

"Ellen, go get Emma some ice," the teacher sighed. "Fine, no concussion. But take it easy the rest of the day, okay? I'd skip any other classes today if I were you, and I'll give you a note in case your other professors raise a fuss."

That was perfectly fine with Emma. She was just going to hole up in her now single-room with an ice pack and a large mug of tea, and try to resist the urge to call Kerrigan or Sookie or Karla like a frightened child. She was Emma Frost, dammit. She wasn't going to go running to other people over a mild spook like this.

....start randomly texting, maybe. But at least it was something to focus on that wasn't homework, and now she could do it without worrying about a roommate catching her.

[OOC: NFB, Open for calls, texts, what-have-you.]

Comments

[furnaceface]

"Most of my friends are in this small town that I'm moping in," Jono pointed out. "Raven, Karla, Squall, Tara... And... I think it might be best for me to avoid places that react poorly to anyone who doesn't fit in at a glance."

He didn't handle the way he looked when he saw himself in the mirror well. In a world where mutants were just barely starting to get attention in the media, where all of that hell was still yet to come...

[icecoldfrost]

This time, Jono was going to get a suspicious pause.

"...You said they rebuilt your face," Emma replied slowly. "So why don't you fit in, exactly?"

[furnaceface]

"I... lost it again."

Which explained nothing, and Jono was well aware of that, yes.

"And then... Well..." A sigh. "Can you receive photos on that phone of yours?"

He didn't really have the words at a moment, and a picture was worth so many of them.

[icecoldfrost]

"I still have my Fandom-purchased Blackberry," Emma answered. "It handles texts, even in this time period, so photos should work?"

[furnaceface]

"Well, then..."

A quick photo with his phone held at arm's length. Looking... less than pleased, and not with the greatest lighting or resolution, but it was good enough to show the new skin tone. Not to mention the lips.

"I'm not exactly going to fit in, luv."

[icecoldfrost]

That was....interesting?

"Please. This is New York," Emma scoffed. "If you're that self-conscious, we'll say you're a goth mime. Or if I decide you look like Errol Flynn for the week, everyone around us will think the same."

TOTALLY ETHICAL USE OF POWERS. FOR FRIENDSHIP JUSTICE.

"Before I came to Fandom, I saw far freakier than you in the bars I frequented."

[furnaceface]

... Jono would not mind looking like Errol Flynn.

"It's more than just being self-conscious," Jono replied, stubbornly. And self-consciously. "This face... it means something, to certain people. Ones I'd just as soon stay far away from. Mad cultists. Those vampires that you don't believe in. Can you thrall a vampire, Emma?"

[icecoldfrost]

"Considering I can hear and communicate with vampires from two worlds that do have them? I wouldn't put it past myself," Emma said, with all the self-confidence of an eighteen-year-old telepath who thinks she knows everything.

...wait. "Are you seriously telling me that you weren't just winding me up about the vampires and other things? They're real? Real-real?" She was either going to kick his ass or have a nervous breakdown.

[furnaceface]

"Do I sound like I'm joking, Emma? Honestly?"

She was perfectly welcome to kick his ass. Sometimes, Jono just needed a good ass-kicking.

"My great-granddad was involved in a clash between th'followers of th'mad god whose face I seem to have inherited, and Dracula his-bloody-self. You're welcome to come and check my temperature or make certain I'm still in my right mind at any time you please, luv."

[icecoldfrost]

"How should I know what you sound like when you're joking?" Emma retorted. "I know your real voice, not your vocal one."

Yes, focus on that, not the impending breakdown.

[furnaceface]

"My real voice," Jono echoed, a little bitterly, "is gone. My powers are gone. I'm not even certain if I'm a mutant right now. But all of that psionic energy that I had before? There's nothing there to speak of."

It was quiet.

Blissfully quiet.

Maddeningly quiet.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma was disturbingly quiet for a moment. Then;

"I am going to rip out their eyeballs," she stated, utterly calmly. "Cut off their hands and tear out their spine. The ears can stay, so that they can hear their own screams."

[furnaceface]

"It isn't worth it." And that... that wasn't just his self-loathing speaking for once. "And it wasn't just me. And nobody's been able to find the one responsible. The mutant responsible, if I understand correctly."

He hadn't exactly been able to ask many questions, in the wake of M-Day.

"And if they do find her, you'll have to get in line."

[icecoldfrost]

"The line will have to get out of my way." Emma wasn't planning on compromising on this. "Where the hell was I, with all this going on?"

She wasn't Jono's teacher, but the idea that another her had let this happen? Emma was, as usual, Not Best Pleased.

[furnaceface]

"I don't know," Jono sighed. "Not with the X-Men, obviously. I haven't heard from that Emma since I left the Academy. I saw Sean once."

And... wouldn't be seeing him again.

"A few of the other students. I don't know where anyone is right now. Or was. There's too much going on right now, and I can't go back."