Beginnings and Ends (Emma Frost)

[Stepford Cuckoos]

For once, the hallowed halls of Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters were quiet. Like the calm before a storm, the quiet brought about the physical peace and serenity of silence but carried with it a sense of dread and foreboding. It was not often that the three telepathic triplets known as the Three-in-One were called down the office of the most important woman of their lives and they were certainly not overly pleased to have been summoned. They were terrified. The White Queen had once been the school’s Guidance Counselor, a woman of some influence within the school’s hierarchy, but she was now the Institute’s newly appointed Headmistress. Albeit Co-Headmistress, as she now reigned supreme at the side of Co-Headmaster Scott Summers. A curious fact, the girls thought quietly, considering their teacher’s great interest in the man who had once died and returned, like his former love, from death. That fact, however, did not mean Emma Frost could be censored, for as a telepath, she could do whatever she deemed necessary. And that was an uneasy thing to admit.

Three hearts beat anxiously as the girls made their way down that cold, wooden hallway that lead to the late Professor Xavier’s study. The girls recalled with little clarity what their first day of school had been like. Nervousness and the smell of newly polished wood. An aging, bald man in a wheel chair smiling at them from behind a stately desk. It was ephemeral, that moment in time that seemed like so long ago. Now, however, that pleasant memory was just that.
The girls heard the reverberating clipping of their heels upon the floors as they adjusted the sleeves of their white coats. It wasn’t so much that the girls were scared of Miss Frost, for the woman had only their best interests at heart. They knew something was to come of this meeting; something always came from the girls’ encounters with the great Emma Frost. They just always came with a price and it was the price the girls’ feared.

What do you suppose it is she wants?[/b][/i] Phoebe asked as she trailed her sisters slowly toward that ever growing door.

Who knows,[/b][/i] was Celeste’s ominous reply. The girls reached out with their minds hesitantly, both making sure their mentor was present and to see if they could pick up any kind of reading. As usual, there was nothing there that they could detect. Either she wasn’t in her office waiting or she was merely too well shielded to be found by the likes of them. It didn’t matter, the White Queen had requested an audience with her pupils and who were they to deny her?

It doesn’t matter, as long as we’re together, right?[/b][/i] Mindee tried her best to allay the fears of her sisters, reminding them of their sisterly strength. There was nothing the Stepford triplets couldn’t accomplish, of this Mindee was certain.

They arrived before the great wooden door and each rapped quickly in unison upon its gleaming surface. Hearts aflutter, Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe waited for any sign of a welcome.

[Emma Frost]

[/b][/color] Emma shouted into the telephone, cutting the conversation by placing the handheld device in its standby position. They were all idiots to her - the scientists, the designers, the secretaries - all of them not focused on the further aspects of their jobs. Especially the secretaries. All they were worried about was a pay check, a way to make ends meat and survive another month of bills. The blonde never had to worry about all of that until now. After the Chimera Virus epidemic, one that seemed to cause more controversy in the media than the Clinton and Lewinsky scandal, Emma Frost became the mansion's new headmistress. The former, along with numerous others, had retreated - in the blonde's perspective - to places where they could hide, or escape the trials that came from that District X situation. It was only right for Scott Summers and Emma to become the newly appointed leaders. It was their birthright, really.

The prime telepath of the mansion sat in her office, papers scattered somewhat eloquently about her Dell computer and office telephone, one which had been slammed against its foundations recently. The stress of her positions, within Frost International and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, seemed to weigh down on the White Queen's emotions - frustrations mainly. Nevertheless, she did her job to the best of her ability, having stepped on the right people in the process just to ensure the success of all her business ventures. The school, in essence, was merely a hobby when compared, but it was a farfetched hobby that Emma always wanted to pursue. Teaching mutant brats to control their dangerous powers, to live in harmony with the human scum, and to become high class individuals of society that would one day vote and pay taxes were but the tip of the iceberg for the telepathic prowess of Frost.

It was a never ending repetition that would have made a normal woman go insane, or maybe a weather manipulator, but Emma Frost was more than just an average, scantily clad woman. Besides her enormous chest size and fine tuned plastic surgeries, Emma was a strategist of the highest order, traits she obtained from her father no doubt. She was a woman founded on building oneself by breaking those around her; while it was a distinct plan that had once broken the blonde telepath, it was something that developed strength, character, and guile. Emma Frost was all about her guile. But she knew there were others like her, youthful individuals that possessed similar traces of that deceitful cunning, that could aid her in future developments. There were several within the mansion in fact, but three distinctly brought out the best in Emma.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

.o(Come in, my dears,) Emma said telepathically to the triplets, not bothering to part with a few papers that lined the front her her desk, of which captured her attention the most at the present time. She heard the door open and felt the minds of her three visitors' minds. Each were scared, curious, and somewhat anxious. An eyebrow rose at the latest. Only if they knew. Emma continued to read some of the paperwork while the girls made their entrance. "Sit." At that, she parted from the sheet and finally acknowledged cold, blue eyes. A pair of three. They looked nothing like her - Emma Frost - and the headmistress did not understand why the mansion rumors consisted of such. Nevertheless, their attitudes and desires were so very connected. It was like they were the daughters of the White Queen. But that was an impossible assumption. Emma was very careful when it came to her sexual pleasures. Practicing safe sex was a must.

"You are wondering why I summoned you here." Emma began. "I can hear it. I can almost see it. And you can too, can't you?"

[/ul]

[Stepford Cuckoos]

.o(Come in, my dears,)[/i] Not entirely unexpected, a nervous shift in three stiff stances was the only hint of surprise to be seen in the normally stoic collective bodies of the Three-in-One. The telepathic transmission had come swiftly and pierced their minds like with the sharpness of a diamond’s point. It was a cold and commanding voice that held little kindness and in its stead the desire for efficiency and results. Kindness was a luxury the voice afforded those most loyal to its mistress, those she could count on and whose explicit trust was given to the voice and its owner. There were very few who trusted Miss Emma Frost and even fewer the woman herself could count upon; the girls wondered where on that spectrum of trust and reciprocity they fell. They were loyal to their White Queen and trusted her to some extent, but what did Emma think of them? Did she already know they would follow her to Magneto’s doorstep and back if she asked? That at the flap of a white gloved, well-manicured hand they would reprogram the mind of the President himself if it were for the greater good? They liked to think so, and yet? There was very little kindness in their mentor’s telepathic voice.

Celeste’s hand reached out for the brass knob and turned it counterclockwise, the latch retreating into the mechanism and allowing entrance into the spacious office. The girls entered with the same brave face painted on their porcelain features, the same mask hiding their fears and doubts as their minds did the same. With chins held high, the three Stepford sisters glided into the posh office elegantly and stood side by side before one of two desks. She sat before them, like the Queen they had envisioned, paying no more attention to the paper in her hand than to her subjects. Her desk spoke for her; the neatly scattered sheets of paper said business. Their teacher was the CEO of Frost International, afterall, but everything in Miss Frost’s life was business. The School’s finances, its student body, The X-Men; despite being private little hobbies for the woman, she handled it all like she did the multibillion dollar company left in her care. The multibillion dollar question looming now in the gestalt of the Three-in-One was: what business did she have in store for the three blonde telepaths?

"Sit,"[/i] she ordered, finally taking her steely blue eyes away from whatever important information lay waiting to be read upon the sheet of paper in her hand. Her cold gaze landed upon the three girls as a whole, taking them together as most everyone did. They were never really Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe…just, the Stepford Cuckoos, the Three-in-One. Somehow, though, the girls knew Miss Frost could tell the difference. She saw three individual girls, but chose to treat them as a single, powerful entity. It was their single most romantic thought they’d ever contrived: that Miss Frost knew they were a whole whose was greater than the sum of its parts, that despite their lack of individuality, they were the best and the brightest Xavier’s had to offer the future. The girls did as they were told and sat down at once, removing their black Prada backpacks and placing them neatly in their laps. Backs as straight as metal rods, the girls folded their hands and set waiting for their teacher’s lips to part once more and reveal their requested presence. "You are wondering why I summoned you here."[/i] Miss Frost began. "I can hear it. I can almost see it. And you can too, can't you?"[/i]

“Yes, Miss Frost,”[/b] the girls replied. They were almost positive this was going to be some kind of trial by fire. The potent telepathic trio knew they were the best there was at Xavier’s, but they were far from being the best period. That position was filled by Miss Frost. Whether or not the students would surpass the teacher was yet to be seen, but they were well on their way and with the woman’s gentle but firm hand leading the way…well, perhaps one day. Until then, there would be tests and trials and challenges. Obstacles that when hurtled, would leave the culled remains of Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe behind and offer forth to the world a Three-in-One that was stronger and more united than before. So with resolve heavy on their collective mind, the girls stared resolutely back at their teacher. “We know there’s to be a test of some kind, but we’re unsure of what it is. We can see your curiosity bubbling to the surface, but we cannot be certain of what it pertains to.”