Diamond Bright

After many enlightening conversations with Shaw, Leland, Lourdes, and Selene, Emma had ideas.

She didn't disagree with the Council's stated goal of monetizing mutation. If a mutant wanted to use their power to make money, more power to them. There was no reason they shouldn't be able to do so, so long as it was their choice, there was no coercion, OSHA standards were met and followed, and they were paid properly. Setting in place the legislation and technologies to do that seemed common sense, and a logical way to generate revenue given that the Hellfire Club was already ahead of the curve in finding ways to combine mutation and technology and patenting it.

She did disagree with Ned Buckman's continued existence, but Shaw wouldn't believe her about the man's ultimate goals. It was infuriating.

But they'd even given Emma a lab. She wasn't Tony Stark, but after years of living with Hank and tinkering with technology from worlds not her own, she was hardly an amateur. Her pet project of the moment was a sliding-scale inhibitor, which could be worn by emerging mutants. Turn a power off completely, let certain bits and pieces through while blocking other, more hazardous methods of manifestation, setting limits as to how much power they could manifest at once during training, emergency shut-down procedures... it could be a better, safer way of letting new mutants train with their powers and not need to worry about endangering lives.

Which was what Emma's greatest idea came down to -- training. It was obvious, really. Whoever controlled the training programs for mutants was eventually going to be the one controlling when and how mutations were used, and therefore controlled the profit; both monetary and political.

But right now, there was only one person training mutants, and that was Xavier with his handpicked class. But how many more mutants were out there, like Emma had been? Lost, alone, and in need of training before their powers consumed them? Not one of them was any less deserving of training than the poster children of Westchester but Xavier sat there, in his safe little compound, with mutant finding technology and he wasn't doing anything to help the hundreds of mutants across the United States who were alone and trying to survive as homo sapien superior.

(Candy had tried to ask Warren about it once, carefully, without outing Emma, and all he'd said is "Well, it's not an academy for the gifted if everyone can come." Candy had dumped him for two weeks for that, and Emma loved her all the more for it.)

She almost missed the tiny article that scrolled along her newsfeed, to be honest. Just a few lines in between articles on mergers and acquisitions, but Emma had very very few things from her life before Fandom tagged to show up, so the little headline of 'Snow Valley Educational Bastion In Peril?,' it caught her eye.

Low enrollment. Withdrawal of donor support. Oh, these were things Emma could fix, and use to her advantage. It only took a few phone calls, a check, and a telepathic conference with her fellow Hellfire Club compatriots to get her idea in motion. She could push-through co-education enrollment, she wasn't worried about that. Emma had the relevant degree, the money, and now, a position on the board of trustees. It was as good a start as she could possibly hope for.

After all, you needed somewhere to train the next generation of mutants, and the Berkshires of Massachusetts seemed as good and safe place as any. Especially when you had a werewolf boyfriend who needed to roam free on occasion. The Massachusetts Academy was perfect.

Now all she needed as a decent lair residence IN the city -- because she sure as hell wasn't going to retire to the country full-time now -- but finding decent real estate in Manhattan was hell. Seriously. Between the X-Men and the Brotherhood and other nonsense, home insurance prices were insane.

Thanks, Xavier. GREAT PR job for mutants, right there. UGH.

[OOC: Open for calls, texts, hysterical laughing from canonical foreknowledge...]

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Candy asked for the fifth time as her fingers danced through Emma's hair, weaving the strands into a complex updo. "I mean, are you sure-sure?"

"I dropped off their radar seven weeks ago, have had Frost International up and running and ready to go public for six months, bought my building out from under them two years ago, fired the super that was spying on me yesterday," Emma replied as she expertly applied her eyeliner, "--and sent in my notice over email this morning. If I'm not ready now, Candy-cane, I might as well roll over and play dead."

( You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. -- J.M. Barrie )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, OOC welcome.]

"Miss Frost! Mr. Shaw needs those projections before lunch, and then he wants you to be on the trading floor the rest of the time today," Johann - another intern but from NYU - blurted out as he skidded into the office all the Shaw Industries interns shared. "He says you're his lucky penny, and he wants to see another fifty grand before close."

( Emma wasn't headblind or stupid )

[OOC: Open for calls or texts!]

Thankfully, cell phone technology had finally started to explode and Emma could carry her phone without worrying about breaking timelines and technology. And between recent Fandom events and Karla's stupid message, she wasn't going to leave it back in her apartment.

And the moment her phone had buzzed with an alert that Portalocity was up and running for her dimension, Emma had telepathically tweaked her classmates (and teacher) for her evening psych class to think she was still there, and took off. She got as far as the bathroom before she yanked the phone out, swearing in an impressive multitude of languages before she got what she'd been hoping to see;

Reservation Confirmed.
Round Trip: Timeline 616, New York, 2002 AD, to Fandom Island, 2012 AD
Thank you for choosing Portalocity for your travel needs!

Of course, the damn booking client was down again moments later when she tried to make another trip reservation. Whatever. She'd worry about that later. For now, Emma was just going to skip the rest of her classes for the week and go surprize her boys for Hanukkah. Yes, she was a little late, and no, Kaidan wasn't Jewish, but she was pretty sure neither of them would care if she showed up with food.  But she had to get back to her apartment and grab her go-bag now if she was going to make her portal.

[OOC: Establishy!  Dun dun dun!]

Since Jack didn't really have anywhere else to stay, they had gotten back to Emma's dorm late last night. Emma had checked to make sure the coast was clear before sneaking him in, since she didn't want to have to deal with signing in a visitor from another universe.

Jack had taken the spare bed, and they'd collapsed into them like two teenagers grateful to be back in the modern era.

That, however, was last night. Now the sun was starting to peek through the windows, and the sounds of people returning from winter break were echoing in the hallway outside their room.

Contrary to Jack's pessimism and all evidence to the contrary, the world hadn't ended. Emma considered this one a win in her book.

They'd grabbed their items from the base camp - including the condoms they'd stolen from Kwik Stop - giggling slightly maniacally the entire time before heading back to Ronan's place. From there, it should have been simple enough to go to their separate rooms and call around to make sure people were okay and everything was normal.

Except that Emma made a split-second decision. She swapped back to her diamond form, hauled Jack up over her shoulder, and marched up the stairs to her (thankfully!) shielded room.

Look, some people celebrate with dancing in the kitchen. They were young, alive, and over-saturated on caffeine and adrenaline. Emma could think of a few ways to celebrate.

[[OOC: For the modded one! Totally going to end up being NWS.]]

Unlike Fandom, the roof of the student dormitories at ESU were closed to students, and they were forbidden from going up there.

Then again, Emma Frost hadn't gotten as far as she had by paying any attention to rules.

It was a gorgeous day, sunny and bright and warm as she laid out her blanket on the roof where no one could see her. She had her cigarettes, her lighter, her phone, and the utter PILE of homework she had for her classes. Taking the accelerated Danger Shop courses had allowed her to test out of many of her general education classes that most freshmen had to take, and with the sheer amount of credits she was taking right now, she might be finished in two years, if she kept her grades up and maintained the grueling pace she'd set for herself. Even with two majors and a minor.

At the rate she was going, she was going to have enough classes to count as an engineering minor, too.

Even the most studious girl needed a break from the library - and all the deliciously info-packed-yet-incredibly-shallow brains that occupied it, which was why she'd sought refuge up here today. She could smoke, study for midterms, and not need to worry about hiding her Blackberry, dammit. She could text if she wanted to!

[OOC: NFB, open for calls/texts/etc]

Well, that was the last of it.

Emma surveyed the neatly labeled & taped piles of boxes before capping off her pen. She'd been dropping stuff off with Hank for months, and yet she still had boxes of items she needed to get to New York. Somehow the two bags worth of items she'd shown up to Fandom with had morphed through the years into all these boxes, and Emma wasn't quite sure how - or when - it had happened.

Hank had promised her long long ago that she'd only be at Fandom for the summer if she didn't like it; and now there were people she'd actually miss.

Not that you could get her to admit it, though. Emma Grace Frost was about to move back to New York and take over the world Empire State campus. It was time to show the world what she was made of.

[OOC: Open door, open post for calls, visitors, etc. Emma's last public post in Fandom!]

While most people were probably already getting ready for prom, Emma was staring at a medium-size envelope, with a return address of Empire State University. She shouldn't be worried, really. She'd handwavily been accepted to Columbia University and UCLA, and she was still waiting to hear back from MIT. But E.S.U. was her first choice, and it had her unreasonably nervous.

After about fifteen minutes of staring at it, she ripped the envelope open and pulled at the pages inside.

Dear Miss Frost,
We are delighted to offer you membership in Empire State University's student body...

It went on like that for two pages, with various and sundry things about scholarships and housing, but Emma could barely process it. She was still stuck on the first part, and the signature at the bottom. She was in. She'd been accepted to her top choice program, tonight was prom, and she had a very handsome date. Today was awesome.

Anyone with empathic or telepathic abilities anywhere on the island probably heard her undignified mental squeal of delight before she remembered her manners and brought her shields up higher. This called for a trip to the spa to get her hair and make-up done.

[OOC: open door, open post!]