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Holding her tablet in one hand, Emma Frost stood in the hallway and watched her students train with a new fire in their respective rooms.
Her brilliant Angela was in the specialized thermal chamber. The redhead's face was flushed and dripping with sweat as she maintained control over multiple rings of microwave radiation. She was voluntarily practicing the advanced control exercise she had been avoiding before.
Tarot sat cross-legged in her meditation room, her entire deck rotating around her in complex patterns. She was training her mind so she could make her psionic constructs stronger and more durable.
Roulette stood in the probability testing chamber, throwing discs at moving targets with her eyes closed. The monitor beside her showed her success rate. Her hit percentage had already improved by three percent compared to yesterday.
Even the sweet, easily distracted Sharon was in her full panther form, practicing her pouncing technique on holographic targets.
Everyone except Manuel.
He had felt a brief burst of motivation after witnessing Dante's victory, spent maybe twenty minutes in the gym, then retreated back to his room to play video games. Then again, he wasn't the most gifted athlete, and his powers required mental growth rather than physical.
Emma had mixed feelings about this entire situation.
On one hand, she loved seeing her students train seriously. Watching them push past their comfort zones and actively seek improvement was everything she had hoped for when she took them in. They were making real progress.
On the other hand, she hated how this sudden burst of motivation was caused by Dante.
He had walked into her facility, defeated her entire team without breaking a sweat, then bested Psylocke in single combat using an absurd technique. She had repeated the footage four times and still couldn't understand anything. His sources of power were Death and Symbiote, but he hadn't used either of them.
Hell, he seemed even stronger than when he was fully covered in symbiote. Which made absolutely no sense, but the evidence was undeniable.
In less than two hours, he had gone from being the arrogant outsider who had humiliated Empath to being revered by her students.
They looked at him like he was some kind of aspirational figure now.
Her students might even resent her for trying to create a divide between him and them.
The result was, not only had she failed to cause him any trouble, she had also lost an important position in her students' hearts.
'I can't bring him here again.'
If he became a regular presence, her influence would be gone. She needed to remain the most important person in her students' hearts for them to stay loyal to her.
That loyalty was the foundation of everything she was building.
Her gaze drifted to the closed door behind her, where Logan and Laura were having their first meeting.
'How long are they going to sit in silence?'
It had been nearly thirty minutes since Dante let Logan into that room. Thirty minutes of complete silence. She had expected Laura to outright try to kill Logan or yell, but they had yet to say a single word like they were strangers on a bus.
It was starting to get on her nerves.
Rather than being a normal person and asking how things were going like a considerate host, she just casually slipped into Logan's mind. A telepath of her caliber didn't need to open doors to read minds.
What she found there made her chuckle.
Logan's thoughts were an absolute mess. Laura looked so much like her mother that Logan's mind kept dragging him back twenty years to a relationship. As brief as their relationship had been, Logan loved Sarah Kinney. He also hated her. Yet he also felt like he had failed her completely when she randomly disappeared, and he didn't look for her.
He had convinced himself she was better off without him.
Logan was so overwhelmed that he hadn't managed to say a single goddamn word.
Emma withdrew from his mind and opened the door without knocking.
Logan glanced over his shoulder, awkward.
Laura, who had been more interested in her adamantium blades than acknowledging her father's presence, also looked up. Her fingers flexed unconsciously, and her claws retraced before coming out again. "Do you have something to say?"
"I believe that question is better asked of your father," Emma said, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe. "Logan, didn't you say you wanted to see your daughter? What happened now?"
"And I saw her," Logan said in a gruff voice. "Laura, you're not going back to SHIELD. That's final."
"Oh," Laura said, indifferent. "Why not?"
Emma didn't need telepathy to see her rebellious behavior was caused by her anger and dissatisfaction towards her father. "Logan, you should perhaps try being gentler with your approach."
"It's unnecessary," Logan said with a snarl. "There's no point working your ass for those bastards. SHIELD kills our kind, kid. They hunt us down and lock us up or put us in the ground."
"I won't go back then," Laura said with a simple nod. "How was she? Sarah… What was she like?"
Logan stared at her in surprise. "You don't know?"
"They wiped her memories," Emma interjected quickly before Logan developed any misunderstandings about the situation. "I couldn't find anything. Work of a telepath."
"Fury," Logan growled through a clenched jaw, the single name dripping with palpable bloodthrust. "I'll kill that one-eyed son of a bitch one day."
Laura stabbed her claws in the table. "Stop talking about him and answer my question. What was my mother like?"
Emma smiled, amused. The young woman had a temper even more fierce and direct than her father. She also wasn't fond of being ignored or dismissed.
"The woman I knew was..." He paused as if collecting words. "She was a good person. Kind. Patient… also smart as hell." His expression twisted, showing more pain and bitterness than Emma had ever seen on his face. "I didn't know why she suddenly disappeared until right goddamn now."
"Why did she leave you?"
Logan pointed directly at her. "She approached me to get pregnant with my child. Sarah was part of a new Weapon X project. The whole thing was planned."
Laura showed a slight frown. "So what if she was?"
"Kid, I didn't know I had a daughter because of her schemes." Logan's voice rose slightly. "My kid was stolen and turned into a weapon. You don't blame her for that? At all?"
"No…"
Logan's face twisted. He wasn't angry at Laura, but at the situation, at Sarah. "Can't you understand what she did to you?"
"I don't want to." Laura's voice trembled as her control slipped under emotions. "I know I love her."
"How the hell?" Logan asked in disbelief. "She raised you in hell, kid. She is the reason you never had a normal childhood."
"She was my everything!" Laura roared, smashing her fists on the table. It cracked. She put a hand on her chest, whispering softly, "She was the only person who ever—I need to know what happened to her. I need to know if she…"
She couldn't finish the sentence.
Emma watched the family drama with a complicated look. Her own family wasn't that great, but at least she had a family growing up. Laura's situation was something she couldn't comprehend even after seeing her memories.
Logan got up and paced around the room, angry and frustrated. In the end, he punched the wall before returning to his chair. Emma could sense his desire to get answers from Sarah, but he also didn't want to face her again.
"I'll get you to that heartless woman, but I'm never forgiving her. She is—"
Laura lunged across the table and tackled Logan to the floor. She pinned him down with her knees on his chest and drove both claws straight into his shoulders with a barbaric scream. Her claws punched through flesh and scraped against Logan's own adamantium-coated skeleton with ear-grating sounds.
Logan didn't fight back or even tried to throw her off. He just lay there and let his daughter stab him, perhaps as a way to make up for all the lost years.
Emma could see this was different from Laura's berserk episode from last night. She wasn't trying to kill Logan—she was punishing a man who had insulted someone precious to her.
She was punishing a father who had let her be weaponized for nineteen years.
This was, in its own deeply dysfunctional way, communication.
Laura trembled, her breathing ragged, as she sat there with her claws buried in Logan's shoulders. Then she pulled them out, blood dripping from the adamantium blades.
She climbed off Logan and returned to her seat. Her hands were shaking.
Logan sat up slowly. The wounds were already starting to close. He didn't look angry. If anything, he looked more relaxed than before.
"Feel better?"
Laura clenched her right fist but didn't reply to him.
"Come to Xavier's Institute, kid," Logan said, sitting on the chair and facing her. "Charles runs a school for mutant kids. A safe place with good people. You'd fit in there."
"I'm not a mutant," Laura would say, crossing her arms. "I'll go with Dante."
Emma froze. That single statement sent a jolt of alarm through her.
Dante had charmed Laura. In just the brief time they'd spent together, he had somehow earned enough of her trust to make her choose him over SHIELD and her own biological father.
And right now, at this very moment, he was alone with Psylocke in her room.
As strong and deadly Psylocke was, she had a dark, traumatic past. It made her susceptible to men who showed her kindness and understanding. Men like Dante.
Just the thought of Dante being with Psylocke made Emma want to physically lash out at someone.
'It can't be allowed.'
She had to intervene before her most valuable bodyguard and trusted ally was stolen away.
Logan's face contorted with frustration and confusion. "Why that guy? You barely know him."
"He asked me." Laura didn't speak anymore—this was her whole explanation to ditch her father and SHIELD.
Emma saw deeper, how he had made promises to give her a family and bring the truth about Sarah to light.
"I'm also asking you, kid. No, I'm begging you to come to the school."
"No." Laura's expression was still calm. "He asked me first."
Logan was left speechless.
Emma couldn't help but chuckle despite her inner turmoil. The father and daughter exchange was absurd and childish, but somehow perfectly suited to these two emotionally stunted individuals.
"This has been absolutely fascinating to witness, but I'm afraid I have other matters requiring my attention."
She gave them both a small, mocking wave and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her. With hurried steps, she made her way to Psylocke's room while keeping an eye on Logan and Laura's minds.
She arrived outside Psylocke's door and stopped dead in her tracks.
"Mhmm, it feels good," Psylocke moaned in a sultry voice—a voice Emma didn't even know existed in Psylocke. The ninja lady let out another lip-biting moan. "That's the spot. You're amazing. I didn't know I could move like this, ahmm."
Her hands shook as she struggled to breathe. Her eyes had gone red. She didn't consider any possibility beyond the absolute worst-case scenario her mind had immediately jumped to.
She jammed the master key into the lock, nearly breaking with how furiously she twisted it. The door became an object to vent her anger as she kicked the door.
"HOW DARE YOU—"
The words stopped in her throat as her brain finally processed what she was actually seeing.
The scene before her was absolutely nothing like what her paranoid imagination had conjured. There was no entangled couple on the bed or a man and woman in any intimate positioning.
Psylocke stood in the middle of the room in just her white sports bra and thong, performing an impossible standing stretch.
Her right leg was extended straight up beside her head, held in place by both hands gripping her ankle. Her spine was bent backward in a graceful arc. Her left leg supported her entire weight.
It was a flexibility demonstration that shouldn't be physically possible for a human body to achieve. Psylocke was completely unbothered in this position.
Dante, who was sitting on the bed, turned his head. Psylocke brought her leg down and turned. Both of them stared at Emma in the doorway.
For the first time in her entire adult life since becoming the White Queen, her face turned beet red with embarrassment. She had never blushed so hard.
Psylocke furrowed her brows. "Is something wrong?"
Dante's lips were visibly twitching as he fought not to laugh. He took his phone and quickly captured the rare expression on Emma's face. "Were you... concerned about something?"
"..."
"Emma dear," Dante teased, grinning. "Were you under the impression that Psylocke and I were engaged in... some rigorous exercises?"
The red on Emma's face somehow deepened to an even darker crimson.
Dante finally lost his battle against laughter. A snort escaped, then a full chuckle that he tried and failed to suppress.
"This is so perfect." He laughed even harder when Emma glared at him, only stopping after a minute. Getting up from the bed, he approached her and booped her red nose. "Keep an eye on my guests, my dear. I'll see you in a few hours."
With that request or perhaps order, he walked past her.
Emma glared at Psylocke, the woman responsible for giving her the most embarrassing moment of her adult life.
"Why were you moaning like a bitch in heat?"
"I was having a good stretch," Psylocke replied, tilting her head in confusion. Her eyes suddenly gleamed. "You won't believe what Dante just did with my body."
"He touched you down there?"
Psylocke seemed like she wanted to slap Emma's face. "He was respectful, even when he stared at my butt."
"..."
"Anyway, touch this." Psylocke approached and excitedly brought Emma's hand to her face. "Do you feel this softness?"
Emma touched her own and felt lacking in comparison. "How?"
"He did it. I feel so much better… like I'm a different person"
Psylocke proceeded to list the benefits Dante provided. Every single one made her yearn for it, and at the same time, she grew more wary of him. He had found just the way to attract Psylocke—enhancing her strength.
Psylocke, in her quest for revenge, was obsessed to become strong.
'He won't get her as long as I'm here.'
She couldn't help but smile at the irony of a boss trying to protect her bodyguard's heart. But it had to be done. It'd be hard to replace someone as capable and loyal as Psylocke. Besides, Psylocke was one of the few people whose beauty and charm didn't ruin her image for the outsiders.
'That's why I must protect Psylocke.'
There was absolutely no other reason behind her actions.
Emma stayed for a few minutes, but her bodyguard only talked about their spar, how great Dante's fighting skills were, and how their final attack enlightened her to try out other martial arts to incorporate them. It somewhat annoyed her to hear him be praised.
'I admit that he is capable.'
He had convinced Laura, earned the admiration of the Hellions, and made her taciturn bodyguard speak more in three minutes than she had in a week—all in a few hours.
'If only his personality was more serious...'
She shook off the thought and remembered Dante still owed her. Maybe she could use the favor to make him perform the magical enhancement on her. She wouldn't mind becoming a tiny more beautiful than she already was. Even Psylocke didn't hate that feeling.
***
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