6345/A Frosty Reception

A Frosty Reception
Date of Scene:	26 May 2021
Location:	Happy Harbor
Synopsis:	Emma pays a visit to Andi's apartment, seeking knowledge about an incident in Mutant Town. It does not go exactly as expected for her, Andi, or Mania.
Cast of Characters:	Emma Frost, Andi Benton

---

Emma Frost has posed:
Foreboding. That's what Andi feels as the door to her apartment opens. Something's wrong. Something's different.

It's not her father. He's going back to the living room from, apparently, having just picked up a brew and settling in to watch television. His wave of greeting is distracted. The Giants are on. Guy's gotta have priority right?

Nothing is out of place in the apartment. Same short 'hall' (of sorts). Same faded paint. Same furniture visible. Everything's the same.

Maybe it's the woman sitting in the armchair barely visible but for her shoulder and golden hair from the door. That's probably what's done it. Well, that and the utter weirdness of her father having walked right past the woman and sitting down without so much as a glance in her direction.

"Hello, Andi!" the woman says, turning her head and craning her neck to look to the door. "Please, do come in! I'm overjoyed to meet you."

Yeah. That's probably the source of that foreboding from her symbiote. The woman. With the ice blue eyes and the lips that look like they would kill by a single kiss. The woman that's dressed like a streetwalker and has the body of a film star (or at least a porn star).

That her father is absolutely not noticing.

That's probably it.

Andi Benton has posed:
Though the Giants baseball team hasn't been in New York for decades now, they still get some TV time out here. The old man couldn't get the Phillies game on tonight, but the Giants were playing a team in the local time zone so that game was getting top billing. Whatever. He was into sports and Andi couldn't care less. He knew by now that trying to talk to her about baseballs or footballs or basketballs or hockeyballs, no, pucks..it wasn't going to be a long conversation.

//Andi, we feel something strange. Be careful.//

The warning came before she even got to the door of the apartment. She'd been out on patrol but decided to come back early for some reason. It was a quiet night, not too late, and her skin went prickly from the moment Mania spoke inside her head as it often did.

<<What are you talking about?>>
//Your sire is not alone.//
<<The hell..?>>

It was all she could do not to just bust into her own apartment as Mania, but her father didn't know the truth about all that. Not yet, anyway. It'd been a solid year, and somehow she'd kept the secret up. She always had an excuse for being out, even if she had to stretch the truth with him. On one hand she felt a little bad about it, but she didn't know how he'd take the news if she just up and told him she had an alien /thing/ she'd bonded with, and they went off fighting crime with people like Spider-Man.

One day. Would this be the day he learned about it? She /so/ wasn't ready for that talk.

But she had to see what was going on. Act cool. Pretend nothing's the matter. Open the door, gripping the handle a little more white-knuckle than expected, step inside.

Dad was over there, seated but..not quite himself? /She/ drew most of Andi's attention, and at first sight she nearly sputtered.

"W-whoa, dad..I didn't know you decided to start dating again, but damn. /Look/ at her! I mean, I didn't know you were into /that/ stuff!" She gestures. Come on. The 'hooker' look? But what /is/ that all about, really? Andi stares at Emma, as if daring her to do..what? What, exactly?

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as her father, looks up, startled. "What are you talking about?" he asks, looking at Andi as if she had suddenly grown a third eyeball in the middle of her forehead. "Look at who?"

Ludicrously he cranes his neck, trying to see past Andi out in the hall as if Andi were talking about someone coming in with her.

"Look, very funny. But yes, I will be dating and no, when it happens, it won't be any of your business, little miss smarty!"

Grumpy he turns back toward his TV and ... stops looking up from it. Something in his demeanour has changed. The TV feels like it's his entire world, now, and nothing else exists. Well aside from the can of beer.

Emma shakes her head and stands up, walking around the chair, showing the entire experience, most of it bare.

"What 'stuff' were you thinking, young Andi?" she asks, keeping a respectful distance, trying not to spook Andi into fleeing. "And please forgive me. I utterly neglected my manners. I am Emma Frost. CEO of Frost Industries. I've been looking forward to meeting you and forgot completely, of course, that you have no idea who I am."

She steps forward, causally, no tension giving away hints of violence or such. Her perfume reaches Andi ahead of her; it smells of jasmine, musk, and burning money. She stops again, out of Andi's fight-or-flight zone with uncanny precision.

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton's eyes shift between Emma and her father, staying on him for a few long moments as he acts..weird. "What the fuck.." she says, mostly under her breath but not as quietly as she thought.

//Why is he acting like she is not there, Andi? And why is she dressed like that?//
<<I don't know. This is screwed up.>>

Skin still prickles, especially as her father becomes even more engrossed in the game. "Why are you ignoring her like she isn't even there? What's wrong with you, dad?" A note of concern is in there. Briefly, eyes cloud over with something..dark, before it passes in a 'blink and you miss it' moment.

As the white-clad woman rises and moves, Andi's attention refocuses on her. So does Mania's. Andi can't avoid staring. "Stuff like.." She pauses, frowning. "Forget it. Nevermind." Then, the name. Who /hasn't/ at least heard of Frost Enterprises? Maybe Andi doesn't know much about it, but the name is hard to miss. "That's /you?/ What..what the hell would you be here for? What's going on?"

The closer proximity to her has Andi taking in a breath and holding it. To Mania, the scents are even stronger, all of them. "Yes, I mind if you smoke. It's not allowed here, and..I don't want you smoking in my home," Andi adds, a little on the blunt side.

Emma Frost has posed:
There's a moment of amusement in Emma's eyes, gone not quite as fast as the cloud in Andi's. "Fair enough," she says, lips poised halfway between a smile and a pursed suppression of same. "It's why I ask in advance. It's a filthy habit, I know, but..."

She shrugs helplessly.

Then carries on in a way that's probably not expected.

"...I just so adore filthy habits."

Emma turns and retreats to the chair she was sitting in, standing beside it for now. "Please do come in, Andi."

For those not following along, maybe up in the bleachers, this is Andi's house, not Emmas. In theory.

"I've been looking for you for a while. Ever since you ..." Emma visibly chooses her next words carefully. "... helped out with a little weed problem we'd had in Bushwick. As you may or may not have heard, I have taken an interest in Bushwick and am intrigued by anybody who helps out there of the goodness of their heart."

Andi Benton has posed:
Andi Benton raises a brow at the choice of words, but she keeps further opinions to herself regarding smoking in here. She said what she had to say, and the woman is abiding by it.

//What does she mean by filthy--//
<<NOT NOW. DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. MORE IMPORTANT THINGS.>>

It's akin to a shout within Andi's own head, Mania's curiosity about things it doesn't know not something she wants to deal with at the moment.

"I'm already in," she says, the door having been shut. "And you're in /our/ home, remember, and my dad is acting like you aren't even here. Do you expect me to just pretend this is normal?" Of course it's anything but.

When the mention of Bushwick, of Mutant Town is brought up, she pales slightly. If such a thing is even possible with her complexion already not far off from the visitor's choice of colors. "I don't keep up on all the news. And I'm not talking about that in here. Not in front of him." She lowers her voice so only Emma is more likely to hear it.

Emma Frost has posed:
"Oh, you needn't worry, Andi," Emma says with an arrogant dismissiveness that would be maddening if the situation weren't so nerve-wracking. "Your father can't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. If it makes you more comfortable, however, discussing this out of his physical presence, that's fine. Your room? Kitchen? Laundry room? Conservatory? Garden?"

It's hard to tell if she's joking or is very out of touch with how small apartments actually work. Her face is deadpan. She'd kill at poker.

"And of course," she adds reassuringly, "I don't expect you to pretend this is normal. I selected this way of talking to you specifically to put you off-balance. I'm a bit of a drama queen, and I happen to believe people who are thrown out of their comfort zones are more honest than those who are in them."

Her ice blues lock on Andi's giving the impression that she's looking straight through to the back of Andi's skull.

"Maybe both of you should lead me to your room if that makes you more comfortable."

Andi Benton has posed:
"If you hurt him in any way.." Andi says, a warning in her voice that is similar to the visitor's last name.

Her eyes narrow further, and she remarks with high sarcasm, "Oh, yes. Let's just go to the ballroom here. This is a cheap apartment, lady. Do you see anything here that fancy?" It might be a defense mechanism, intended to let her feel like she's got more control over this than she appears to.

Andi finds herself pacing, whether led to it by Mania or strictly on her own as Emma openly reveals the strategy behind this. The intensity of the eyes that center on her is just a little unsettling.

//Let us show her this was a mistake, Andi!//
<<No..no. Not until we know my dad will be all right.>>

Aloud, she says, "Not..my room. The roof. I'll talk there. And whatever you did to him, stop it." Surely she's on to Emma's mention of 'both of them.'

Emma Frost has posed:
"Of course. The roof sounds lovely."

Just to add to the surrealism, Emma leans down and picks up ... a picnic basket ... from behind the chair, carefully placed where it couldn't be seen.

"And nothing has been hurt. The technique I used is called 'SEP'. Someone Else's Problem. I've just convinced him that anything that isn't within certain limits--currently the game--is someone else's problem." She tilts her head, eyes looking up a bit. "In simpler terms, I've made him not care. As soon as we're out the door that will stop and he'll be the same loving father he's always been."

As she brushes past Andi on her way out the door, she adds, "It would be an interesting demonstration, truth be told. Of this being a mistake."

And then she's down the hall, heading unerringly to the staircase as if she knows the place, carrying her picnic basket and streaming her gossamer cloak behind her.

"Come now!" she calls over her shoulder.

Andi Benton has posed:
Telepathy: not something Andi is well-versed in at all, but this may soon be changing.

"Fine." It's enough to know he'll be back to normal, and getting Emma away from him is a good start in case anything goes sideways. There is a lack of trust here, thus far. The picnic basket at least gets squinted at, but a little something runs down her spine at the mention of the word 'mistake.' In that moment, she is aware of the variety of scents, particularly the perfume and the leather.

Watching the cloak trail in Frost's wake, Andi swallows something down and glares at her back, taking steps in the same direction.

//We are not comfortable with this, even if what she is wearing smells nice.//
<<Could you focus, please? I think she knows who we are, and I don't like that.>>

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma is silent as her unexpectedly athletic body takes the stairs two at a time to the roof, as if it were a garden stroll on a Sunday, not climbing a tenement block to the roof. Someone is taking good care of her body.

Given her money, it's probably someone else, though, right?

At the roof, with just a light sheen of perspiration to hint at the exertion, Emma looks around for a place to ... wait, is she really going to?

Yes. She pulls out a chequered tablecloth and snaps it open and over one of the various mysterious boxes and other such ephemera that tend to litter rooftops.

"It's as good a place as any," she decides, setting down the basket and starting to remove packets from it. "You're not vegetarian or anything boorish like that are you?" she asks, looking up at Andi with sudden alarm.

Then.

"You undoubtedly have a few tedious questions you're going to insist upon being answered before you answer mine, right? Let's start with those and get them out of the way. I'm Emma Frost, founder of, among other things, the Frost Outreach Foundation who is currently doing work in Bushwick, hence my interest in those who operate in that neighbourhood."

She holds out a small ceramic bowl in one hand and a plate of elegant crisp crackers in the other. "Paté?"

Andi Benton has posed:
And in six-inch stilettos, no less.

Andi, by contrast, is in her purples and blacks with the Chuck Taylors on, well-worn and likely intentionally shabby clothing that promotes a punk/goth attitude. The difference between the two people could not be much greater.

She simply stares as Emma opens up the tablecloth right there and sets up like she's having an actual picnic. "Really? Are you serious with this?" she asks, gesturing incredulously at the display. "You go around dressed like..like someone from a sex club or something, and you're having a picnic right here in the middle of the night."

She's missing something, maybe missing a lot.

"Yeah, you told me who you are already, and I know they call that area Mutant Town." She holds up a hand at the offered food. "Could you tell me why you tracked me down, let yourself into my apartment, and made my dad think you weren't there just to wait for me?"

//Andi, you could ask if she has some--//
<<It's not the time for chocolate! I'm seriously freaked out right now!>>

Poor Mania.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma pauses and looks at Andi with an almost disappointed face.

"Andi, I specifically told you that I'm doing what I'm doing to throw you off balance, and yet here you stand being thrown off balance. I would have expected you to not continue with that if only just to be spiteful."

She shakes her head sadly, setting down the plate and the bowl. "They're there if you want them."

And then she puts down the pralines, with complete insouciance, as if it were happenstance, followed by the finger foods, the sandwiches of various kinds, the crisps and dips, and all the other usual features of a cold picnic.

"And I didn't just let yourself into your apartment. Your father let me in. I try to avoid committing felonies where possible. It's inconvenient to run a business from jail."

She looks down, then, at her outfit and looks across at the girl and her symbiote. "Oh, is it the outfit that is throwing you? I should have thought of that in advance, maybe come in my office outfit. But it was late at night, I was calling on a gentleman and his daughter, I thought something comfortable would be more suited. I do apologize if this has discomfitted you."

It's clear on her face. She's not sorry. In the slightest.

"But please, do relax, enjoy some food, and let's talk. The circumstances may be unusual, certainly, but food is one of the very few cultural universals. People relax when they converse over shared food. Now did you have some questions or may I start with my own?"

Andi Benton has posed:
Emma can tell Andi the strategy all she wants. It's still working. That's the thing about someone skilled at manipulation and someone who is mostly flying by the seat of her pants with the whole 'hero' thing.

"Whatever," Andi mutters dismissively, not helped by the reminder. Hard to be spiteful when you forget to be. For now, the food is left alone. Instead, she tries to get back to her own comfort zone: sarcasm.

"Point is, you tricked him to get to me. And none of that bothers me," she adds, gesturing to the outfit. "I could wear any of that if I really wanted to," she claims, whether that's the case or not. How she'd look in it is another story.

Speaking of stories, this prompts her to say, "I'm gonna guess you figured out I was there, and I helped, and you wanted to see me."

Emma Frost has posed:
"Of course you could," Emma says, her tone perfectly affable and supportive. And false as a three dollar coin. She doesn't even remotely believe that Andi could pull of her outfit. Feigning an absolute carefree front she picks up a sandwich and takes a bite before hastily chewing and swallowing. "I almost forget!" she says, pulling a wine bottle and two glasses out of the basket, expertly opening it with a gas decorker and pouring two glasses of blood red claret. She then picks up her sandwich again and nibbles before continuing.

"At least have a drink to settle your nerves," she says after washing down her sandwich. "So yes, as you so correctly intuited, I investigated the incident with the young mutant in question and traced back to you. Robert is known to me, and his interference in a mutant outbreak is understandable, but you... you intrigued me. I wanted to meet the young woman, so fierce and agile, who helped in the affair. So I did a bit of leg work, and after the workout hit the streets to find you."

She pauses, looking at Andi. "That was a joke. Legwork. As if in a gym."

Continuing, she pulls a folder out of her basket. "Now here's where interesting things transpired. My usual sources don't have much on you." The folder is labelled 'NYPD' and 'Para Intelligence Network' and 'Eyes Only'. "You're a blank. And this intrigued me more. So I spent quite a bit of time tracing your sightings until..." She makes an expansive arm gesture to take in the building. "Well, the rest you know as well as I do."

Andi Benton has posed:
Someone is eyeing those treats, because the scent of chocolate is present. It serves as a distraction for Andi, because now Mania is more interested, but Andi is trying to keep from having Mania make an appearance just yet. However, the more she hears, the more she comes to understand Emma has information about Mania, even if she might not know exactly what Mania is.

She might have even seen the social media account Mania sometimes uses. Imagine that, a Venom-like /thing/ posting the occasional selfie.

"Well, it wouldn't be white..." Andi points out, without going any further into the assertion. At the offering of the wine, she raises a pierced brow in question. For her? Is this the part where she says she isn't legal for that? Isn't old enough yet? But does that really matter? And who's to say she hasn't had something before? Who was going to stop her?

"Maybe," she mutters about the offer, sticking to the reason they're both here. "The..Iceman guy, right? Yeah, ahh..I saw the plant guy walking along and someone grabbed him into an alley, so I interrupted. One thing led to another, I freaked out the other guy, then the plant guy freaked out too. We didn't mean for that to happen."

The joke, notably, gets a dry, "Ha ha," out of her, without any sign it's a genuine laugh.

Eyes shift toward the folder, a frown following. "Look. Not even my dad knows what I do. I'm trying to protect him, and you coming here like this puts him in danger."

Finally, Mania can wait no longer. At Andi's right hand, black, inky, glistening tendrils take form, lash out at a few of the chocolates, and snap them back to her, at which point she scarfs them down amid a muffled, "Damnit." Well, that cat's getting out of the bag.

"So..that's Mania. I really, really need you to keep that a secret," Andi scowls.

<<Nice one.>>
//She already knew anyway. Mmm. This is good chocolate, Andi.//

Emma Frost has posed:
"Well isn't that the most intriguing..."

Andi has accomplished something tonight. She's sent Emma off-balance. Emma blinks at the appearance of the symbiote, apparently knowing of its presence, but not its form nor nature.

She is silent for several moments. Not listening. Not smiling with a smug knowing expression. Her eyes are instead wide and mouth, ever so briefly, half-open.

This doesn't last long. Emma regains her poise and bearing, a neutrally pleasant mask bolted back on her face. With great, grave politesse she inclines her head. "Mania. I'm pleased to meet you."

That seemed genuine.

"I've taken pains to ensure nobody would associate me with your or your father," she adds reassuringly to Andi. "I parked a distance away and..." She literally shudders. "...used the subway for the final stretch. Anybody looking at me as I approached saw nobody out of the ordinary. It was someone else's problem. I ensured the halls and stairs in your building were empty while I proceeded. And your father will not remember me. I'm someone else's problem."

She smiles. It almost reaches her eyes this time. Almost.

"Secrecy is nothing new to me. For reasons you're likely already guessing. Like how I know Iceman's name. And why I'm so interested in a slum district. And how I'm making everything someone else's problem."

She tilts her head and looks again where Mania disappeared. That seems to have rattled her just a bit.

Andi Benton has posed:
The shoe, or rather boot, is now on the other foot. No, actually, those distinct boots are still on Emma's feet, and her legs, and her thighs. Andi's got nothing of the sort.

What she does have is the element of surprise in the claiming of the chocolates. Maybe it was the right time for Mania to make an appearance after all. Frost knows enough to have taken all the steps she shares to come here without raising suspicion, and on some level Andi would have to acknowledge that as thorough and cautious.

"I still don't like you involving my dad in this, but..I guess I understand the rest of it. A little," Andi admits. She still isn't smiling, because this doesn't feel like something to take lightly, but Mania is giving her some extra confidence to hold her ground with this powerful woman. After all, Emma hasn't attacked, only spoken.

Then, it happens.

More of that black substance ripples and flows, appearing as if it comes from within Andi herself. It does. It curls around her limbs, her torso, wraps about her head and hides her face. Seems to erase it, in fact, except for the whites of the enlarged, slanted eyes that replace her own. Other features, by default, fade away there. Fingers end in claws, spiky extensions show at the forearms and shins, and the rest of the punkish appearance is finalized.

"We are not sure if we are pleased to meet you, but more of those chocolates may change our mind," Mania says, the voice carrying a duality to it, Andi's and something distinctly alien. Hands settle at hips, and a large white spider insignia completes it, front and back.

Emma Frost has posed:
The flinch this time is shorter, smoother, more quickly recovered from. "Well, the photo didn't do justice to the effect," Emma says.

Want the tell? She picks up the glass of claret and takes a mouthful without washing anything down. Her hands also reach for a cigarette somehow ... it's not clear where she produced it from ... and then she fiddles with it, remembering that Andi didn't want her smoking.

She can be considerate it turns out. Barely.

"I had assumed this was costuming. How wrong I was." Beat. "And please, take as many of the bon-bons as you like. I really don't feel like spending fifteen consecutive hours in the gym tomorrow."

And Emma is back in form. Apex predator swimming in the ocean. She paces around Andi, looking over the Mania change and nodding to herself.

"You lied to me, Andi," she then said, voice flat. "There is no way you could pull off an outfit like mine."

When her face comes back into view there's impish humour in her eyes. Eyes lit by a genuine, cheeks pushing up into crinkling the edges smile.

"This isn't a criticism. You're just slimmer in form than I am. I think you'd pull off Betsy's look, however."

Now who the Hell is Betsy!?

"I apologize if your father's involvement upset you. I'd naturally assumed he'd be in the know. It was a mistaken assumption and I should have been a little more careful then."

Andi Benton has posed:
The eyes appear to focus on the cigarette, not so affectionately referred to as a 'cancer stick' by some, and the look of those white shapes narrows briefly.

However, the encouragement at feeding on more chocolates is too good to pass up. This time Mania simply walks over and scoops up a handful, bringing them to her face. In the moment, it forms a line that hints at a mouth, and it's revealed to be lined with sharp teeth and a slick, lengthy tongue. Just a quick peek, because the handful is shoved in and consumed in an almost feral way, the mouth sealing back over to disappear afterward. "Tasty," is declared.

The observation from all perspectives leads to a close watch from the vigilante, hands resting back at hips again before a sniff of sound can be heard. "We are sleek," Mania adds, and a shrug follows the mention of Betsy. They don't know a Betsy. "And we are protective of our sire/dad. Yes, you should have been more careful, but we will forgive it this time. Do not involve him in whatever business you want with us."

Someone just put their foot down! Who talks to Emma Frost like that?

"What business /do/ you want with us?"

Emma Frost has posed:
At that question Emma pauses to consider the pair-in-one before her, cigarette in hand tapping out a rhythm against her glove.

"Do you pay attention to news at all?" she wonders aloud. "If so," she continues, asking more directly, "have you heard of my little outreach project in Bushwick?"

The cigarette is returned to its case which goes ... to ... wherever she pulled it out of in the first place. That's still not clear. In its place she takes a cracker and scoops up some pate, chewing on it thoughtfully.

"Essentially, I consider Bushwick 'my' neighourhood, in a sense. I am interested in those who operate in it. Especially those who are unknown quantities. Bobby is not an unknown quantity. He's an irritating one sometimes, but not unknown. I understand his motivations and even sometimes approve of them. You, however, were a mystery. I came to sound you out."

She purses her lips in a wry face.

"And got somewhat more than I'd bargained for. Which makes it more imperative to understand what your intentions are for 'my' neighbourhood."

Andi Benton has posed:
"At times. We have not patrolled that area much, so we have not heard much about it except knowing mutants live there," Mania explains, gesturing with a palm up, the claws still prominent and giving more to that somewhat feral, dangerous image. No wonder it frightened the one with the plant-based powers, not to mention causing the kidnapper to run until he was stopped.

Mania goes on to say, "We have been looking out for people who need help. We needed help once, and Spider-Man rescued us. Now we rescue others, but we cannot guarantee they will always react well." It's their way of saying they might scare the shit out of somebody unintentionally.

Then, Mania leans in slightly closer, as if checking something out, as if checking Emma out.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma doesn't 'check' well. If 'check' is code for 'intimidate' at any rate. In case it was, Emma takes a few actions that might hint as to why 'checks' are a bad idea.

First, she grows. A lot. To nine feet high. With flames wreathing her head and lightning bolts arcing out of her into the surrounding terrain. Yet she's still there eating her cracker and the same height. A trademark warping of perception.

Second, she glows white. It starts subtle and ends just shy of eye-damaging, even if the eyes are closed, covered, or turned away.

Third Mania (and only Mania) hears a voice in her head, chuckling, then saying, ~Your curiosity may get you into trouble. I am neither as harmless nor as kind as I look.~ Andi, for her part, gets a different message. ~Your 'Mania' is an intriguing character but may need some work on impulse control.~

And then it's all gone. What felt like minutes was less time than it took Emma to crunch twice on her cracker as she ate. She smiles at the two-in-one. "Curiosity asuaged?" she asks.

Andi Benton has posed:
If the intent is to throw Mania and Andi off, mission accomplished. The eyes tell the story, shifting from being narrowed in curiosity to growing visibly wider as the angle tilts up, as if looking at someone nearly the height of a regulation basketball rim. The elemental effects, then the brightness, leads to a turning away, an arm going up to shield.

When the demonstration has come and gone, and the mental messages sent, there is more of a dubious appearance to the eyes, to the body language. Arms cross more than a little uncomfortably, and there is no immediate response. Not outwardly, at least.

//ANDI WHAT WAS THAT?//
<<I..don't know. She's..not what she seems. I already don't like what she did with dad.>>
//She threatened us, Andi! Are we going to allow that?!//
<<Right now, you..you need to calm down and listen.>>

Emma Frost has posed:
"That was my gift, little Mania," Emma says, vocally, voice calm, even soothing. "That is what I use to protect myself. And my kind." She smiles grimly. "A small sample of the things that don't cause pain or harm. You understand, now, why I am interested in 'Mutant Town'." She says the final words with a curl of distaste on her face. "If you have no desire to harm my kind we will not have issues. We can even be allies; I'm good at ferreting out secrets that I can feed to those who seek to establish a name for themselves. I prefer to work in that capacity from the shadows, understand."

Her presence looms again as she straightens up, squares off, and even without assistance from her telepathy makes herself known imperiously. "If you had been involved in harming my kind, however, and I'd come to that conclusion in this conversation, our relationship would be very different."

Then like a light switch, Imperious Emma vanishes and Emma the Gracious Hostess returns. "Now do try the pressed duck. It's astonishingly delightful. We must talk about how you'd prefer to be contacted with information as I encounter things that may interest you."

Andi Benton has posed:
Mania's arms remain unchanged, and without a doubt, some of this has both symbiote and host thrown off. They have not often been surprised like that, even intimidated.

When the shoe's on the other foot, or perhaps the boot is, maybe they don't like it so much.

"You made your point. We are not like Venom. We have told you this," Mania claims, and in spite of the invitation to have more food, there is not yet a further approach forward again. "The chocolate was good enough," comes the answer at the moment. "And we have social media. We can receive private messages." Giving out a phone number seems, for the time being, unwise.

Emma Frost has posed:
"I do apologize for the theatrics," Emma says, clearly in the 'sorry not sorry' mode. "I just wanted us to be clear. I didn't know quite what the two of you ... one of you? ... were when we met. You showed me, and for this I would like to thank you. It can't be easy revealing this."

She smiles.

"I returned the favour. We both know where things stand now and can proceed with mutual respect for each other's talents and abilities." The smile widens and actually meets her eyes, though some of it seems to be a private joke. "And given you do not form a threat to my kind, I look forward to proper cooperation. As much as I can do, I am not omnipotent. Not by far. I need allies in my bid to carve out a proper home for my people."

Messiah complex much?

"So I look forward to seeing you again, Andi, Mania, and the ... intriguing amalgam of the two of you. Perhaps someday, when mutual trust is established, you'll let me plumb the depths of your relationship. Because you are fascinating to me."

Andi Benton has posed:
It looks as though the show Emma put on has left Mania rather unwilling to participate much more in this meeting, this discussion. The reluctance is clear, even without the use of telepathy to aid in figuring it out.

"We would not have if we did not think we had to," is said, though that is probably only a half-truth. It was Mania who could not wait any further on the chocolates, but by that point Emma had already got information on what was seen in Bushwick, in Mutant Town. Certainly, there are doubts as to the authenticity of any apologies, and skepticism over the respect of different gifts. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think of this woman as one to take advantage of any opening presented.

"Yeah, yeah. We will help someone in trouble, but the rest is up to you to figure out. And we are.." Here the eyes squint at the choice of words as far as the fascination of the bond. "We help each other be stronger."

Emma Frost has posed:
"I imagine you're a good companion to Andi, Mania, on those lonely cold nights as well," Emma says with a level tone and bland face.

Andi will catch on. Eventually.

She starts packing up the picnic basket. "I shall leave this with you. If you'd like to return the plates and basket at your convenience, just drop them off at the Centinel Hotel in Bushwick saying it's for me. They'll know what to do." She eyes the shrinking spread as she expertly packs it away. "You should try these other things as well, Mania. There are many interesting sensations that humans have. Foodwise, I mean."

Again, deadpan. Andi will catch on.

"I'm somewhat of an æsthete myself and do enjoy a wide variety of sensations." Beat. "Not only food." Beat. "But here, naturally, I'm speaking specifically of food."

Andi Benton has posed:
"Yes, we are never alone. We are there for each other," Mania states confidently, and with no sign of understanding any potential double entendre coming from the woman in white, dressed the way she is. Mania must not be that experienced with nuance. Andi? Maybe she just isn't thinking that way either right now.

This is beginning to show in the way the eyes turn speculative, curious, doubtful, even confused all in short order. They're more expressive than human eyes, and give away things about what's going on inside their shared thoughts. "We..will take the food back inside," Mania acknowledges. "And enjoy the food sensations, since you are speaking of food."

//We do not understand that one.//
<<She's got me a little, uh..look, let's not think about it much right now.>>