6413/Diplomatic Community

Diplomatic Community
Date of Scene:	02 June 2021
Location:	Rundown Apartments
Synopsis:	I'll buy that (building) for a dollar!
Cast of Characters:	Emma Frost, Greer Grant

---

Emma Frost has posed:
There is an undercurrent that is starting because of Emma's drive into Mutant Town. The mutant population is beginning to notice that they live in a shithole ... and don't need to.

Today this is flaring up in the Salamone Heights block. Residents, long since used to Mr. Salamone's neglect and abuse, have taken the opportunity of one of his very rare appearances to bring up long-festering complaints ... and are not taking 'no' for an answer. With the actions of his bodyguards ramping up tensions as they're rapidly taken down and thrashed within an inch of their lives, and his phone casually taken away from him by a long-tongued boy who stares at him smugly as he crunches the phone beneath his heel, it's primed for Bad Things? to happen if there isn't some kind of intervention.

Now.

Perhaps someone with diplomatic skills instead of a hot head and muscles.

Greer Grant has posed:
    Not far back in the crowd, is a taller woman, with red hair that cascades down her back and shoulders in waves, but she's wearing a cap. A hat that matches the trench coat she's wearing. Looking like a Dick Tracy enthusiast at this time of night. She wears a pair of sunglasses too over her large eyes, and to help obscure that her skin doesn't seem quite normal, but it's hard to pinpoint with the riot that's going on.

    The riotting is fierce, and the hidden avenger, keeps her furred hands in her pockets, and the over sized trench coat keeps her legs from being visible. Even as she gets close enough to the actual fighting, where the body guards and the mutant residents clash in order to keep away, or get closer to the landlord.

    Greer lifts her hand to her hat to pull the brim down lower over her face as she gets closer, and she wants to do something, but the bulk of her brain is in agreement with the residents she's surrounded by, but she doesn't want to see anyone get hurt.

    That's why Tigra got close, so she could react and help should the fighting turn fatal. She's certain she could help in that case, and is watching. Waiting.

Emma Frost has posed:
The fighting has reached the fourth storey, with the crowd driving the landlord and his remaining bodyguards further and deeper into the slum he's lord over. The pride that Emma Frost, the driver behind a recent wave of improvements in Bushwick, has fostered in the community has turned into anger. Anger at being ignored, abused, and considered disposable. Residents are shouting about water. Electricity. Even stairs. About "death traps" with some muttering that Salamone is about to find out what a death trap feels like...

Down at the ground floor there's a stir as a figure in white enters. She climbs the stairs with people making room in a wave before her, closing up after her, seemingly without being aware of her arrival until after she's past. At the bottom of the final flight before the landlord's latest 'last stand' (five more floors to go before his last stand is on the roof) she stops, arrogantly posed, head held high, ice blue eyes watching.

Waiting.

Scanning the crowd.

And stopping ... on Greer. The face smiles, then, as Emma Frost--it can be no other, not with those clothes and those eyes--stares at Greer with an amused expression.

And waits.

Greer Grant has posed:
    Sunglasses hide physical features well enough, trench coats and fedoras can as well, but the tiger-woman's mind and her scent, those are hard to obscure, and the way Emma looks at the woman, she knows she's had.

    <<Please don't out me. Please let me help. Please don't let any one die. No one needs to die.>>

    Her thoughts are pure for the most part as she doesn't seem to want any one to hurt, but she also doesn't want anyone to suffer, and like a true tiger, she's lying in wait, not pouncing before the time is just right.

    "We can help them all, but no one has to die." Tigra whispers before she looks up the flight of stairs, and has fallen behind the crowds leading edge while staring through her clamshell glasses into Emma.

Emma Frost has posed:
~Why would I 'out' you?~ The voice in Greer's head sounds surprised. Even perhaps a little miffed. ~You are here to help, and it's clear you're not here to help the abuser. You think I want to see murder done?~

Justice, yes. Murder ... only if justice is served in a way that doesn't cause more harm. Pragmatic ethics.

That of course is completely non-verbal. Emma herself just stands and observes.

And redirects.

When aggressive actions are taken, any that look like they might strike someone change course at the last second. Someone not looking for it may see it as a bunch of people threatening each other. Fighters would wonder what is actually going on, especially given the occasional confused glance the people throwing punches or swinging pipes give.

Salamone finds himself pushed up to the fifth, then sixth floor, with Emma following behind, one step at a time, keeping a single flight of stairs between her and the landlord.

Greer Grant has posed:
    The furred woman climbs the steps, her bare padded feet on the same step as Emma, somehow there's a sort of solace and comfort in standing near the blonde woman. She doesn't feel like she has to hide, but she's also not worried about someone finding out she's here, trying to help, while also trying to keep the violence from turning murderous.

    "What're they gonna do once they get him to the top?" Greer asks, twisting her head and eyes looking to Emma from behind her sunglasses still. Refusing to take them off. Not that the darkened lenses really obscure her vision at all. The cat like sight she has makes sunglasses in a building, almost negligible.

    Responding slowly to the second voice in her head, though outloud because she doesn't much know better, "I don't think you want murder no, but we only just met..." The Avenger notes but doesn't push the issue, not yet.

Emma Frost has posed:
"I don't think they know yet," Emma says conversationally as the push continues past the seventh and up the eighth. Salamone is now looking distinctly panicked as he recognizes where the end of this goes. Ninth. Then the roof. Then ... Ground floor express? "This isn't exactly a planned event, now, is it?"

Well, not by the crowd, at any rate.

The ninth is passed and the howling mob presses the embattled slumlord out onto the roof, flooding out like a wave as the trio get pressed back against the roof sill, an easy push away from death.

And stop.

In a semi-circle around the cowering trio, staying out of fist and weapons reach as if someone used an invisible compass and drew a line.

Emma, looking amuse, glances over at Greer. "I guess the express route down wasn't in the cards," she says smugly, eyes twinkling. "I wonder what the plan is now. Did you wish to intervene?"

Greer Grant has posed:
    "I don't often get what I wish for." Tigra says as she undoes the tightly cinched belt from her waist, allowing the large trench coat to unfurl around her lithe body, and her other hand takes off her hat like she was allowing for some great reveal.

    Tigra, steps out from among the crowd, wearing her teeth lined bikini and a prayer, the tiger stripped woman throws her hands up in the air as she steps between the crowd and the slum lord.

    "Now, is the time for change, you've all been suffering, and your voices have been heard loud and clear!" The woman begins, her voice carrying well with the bass and power of a true jungle cat. There's an authority to her that is rare, primal, intense.

    "This man is now well aware of your plights and fears. And now is the time for him to atone and begin to undo the damages he's done, and the pain he's caused." Tigra, turns towards the man, and steps up, her chest pressing against his but her hand finds space to poke him in the chest, that claw of a finger nail pressing sharply into his sternum. Her voice a husky whisper, "If you don't I will find you and I will make this hell seem like a picnic. Understand?" She snarls and snaps her teeth near his cheek before turning back to the crowds. "You have our word!" She says, with a gesture of her hand reaching out to Emma, her tail moving to the other side, to counter the shift in weight. She's very animated when she wants to. She summoning Emma to her side, and wanting to make a show of helping fix this building and then ... she'll have questions.

Emma Frost has posed:
At the 'summoning', Emma steps forward through the crowd (who makes a very deferernt opening before her as she walks--obviously beloved by the people, right?), eyes dancing with amusement. The crowd quiets right down as she speaks in a normal voice, volume raised just enough to reach the whole crowd, but not shouting.

"I think," she says, practically purring as the cruel smile on her face crawls over it bringing with it the visage of a...well...cat. Playing with a bird. "That Mr. Salamone understands that he cannot properly manage this property now. I'm sure, in fact, that he wishes he could be rid of it. Is that not so, Mr. Salamone?"

The landlord nods his head rapidly, eyes wide and confused.

"So I propose this. Today this community will buy this building from Mr. Salamone. I will spin up a trust to manage the property, staffed entirely by residents. You choose from among yourselves six of your best to be the board, and we will have a charter in place as quickly as is legally possible so that you will be the masters of your own destiny!"

She turns to Salamone, pulling out a single, crisp dollar bill. "And out of the goodness of his kind heart, Mr. Salamone will sell you this building for the token sum of one dollar. Get your cameras out to record this historic moment!"

Emma waits as cameras of varying kinds ranging from decades-old flip phones to modern StarkPhones come out and start recording.

"Mr. Salamone, do you agree to the sale of this building to its residence for one dollar?" Emma hands the dollar to Salamone who steps forward, and in a strangled voice cries out "I do!" while grabbing the dollar.

"Let the kind man go, people. He has done a good thing today."

And Emma smiles with enough venom in her face that it should be dripping to the ground and carving holes in the concrete.

Greer Grant has posed:
    Fading back into the background while the cameras and the deals are being cast and reported upon, the C-list Avenger, remains out of the way unti it seems like things have wrapped up and the tiger woman can step up and speak her mind, "Emma Frost. It's a pleasure and an honor meeting you here, though I should have suspected."

    Tigra stands beside Emma, her trench coat and disguise long since lost in the shuffle of the crowd but she doesn't seem to mind so much.

    The tiger heroine seems most interested in talking with Emma in the aftermath, "That... how much of that was you and your influence?" Asks the orange furred woman with a low whisper not far from the telepath's ear.

Emma Frost has posed:
"Oh, I have been pounding the drums of pride and ownership for weeks, now," Emma says, deliberately not hearing the actual question. "A scene like this was inevitable. Thankfully I have enough ... status? ... in this community now. Credibility, shall we call it? That I could prevent a horrible thing from happening."

A cigarette appears in Emma's hand, then appears lit. Without the boring process of extracting it from a case or lighting it.

"And now we have a mutant-owned residence ... just in time for my trained community leaders to step in and help show them how to manage it. The timing really couldn't have been better."

Emma's gaze takes in the cat woman. "My, aren't you the sight. What brings you to my neck of the woods ... Ms. Grant, is it? The Avengers don't... and please don't take this badly... usually care about the plight of mutantkind."

Greer Grant has posed:
    Tigra smirks and nods as if she was being let in on a secret. "Seems a bit too convenient." The bikini clad woman notes with a toothy grin as she walks Emma over towards the ledge of the building to sit down on the lip, her tail hanging over in the open air and swishing back and forth lazily without much thought.

    She crosses her arms beneath her chest and looks into Emma's eyes with a tilt of her head, her hair shifting slightly, "Yeah, Grant, or Tigra, if you prefer, I ..." She shrugs her shoulders and her chest reacts to the motion, and she smirks, "I have no preference, you might know how finiky we cats can be."

    "And I'll be forward with you, the Avengers, aren't much following what's happening over here. But I am. I have a bit of sympathy and empathy for whats happening to your people, and ... I want to help Emma."

Emma Frost has posed:
"Oh good," Emma says ... and it sounds only half-sarcastic. "I enjoy people who want to help."

She closes her eyes, pauses, and reopens them.

"I'm sorry, that sounded bitchy. Because it was. I've ... run into a lot of people who 'want to help' when in reality they want to profit. My natural reaction is one of cynicism." She snorts and gestures down behind her to the street. "I'm surprised they're not treating me with that same degree of cynicism, to be honest. I'd like to think it's because they just trust me so much, but I think in reality that it's because they're just so used to being shit on that they don't care who's doing it. As long as she's got a nice ass, I figure is what they're thinking."

She shakes her head tiredly. "It's a bit overwhelming and it's a late day. I'm ... not at my best. I do apologize. You deserve less sarcasm than I'm dishing out. You came to help and you didn't leap in on the side of the oppressor. I should be more thankful."

Greer Grant has posed:
    Tigra keeps her arms crossed as she listens to Emma, though she pulls back initially but only in her shoulders as she keeps her altered eyes trained on Emma, but remaining silent, allowing the mutant to talk.

    "Oh, honey..." Tigra finally responds after Emma opens up a bit, "I mean, I wasn't going to say anything, but you /do/ have a nice ass and you should stop pretending that you don't know how nice it is." Greer says with a smirk, showing off a few of her white teeth before she pushes up off the lip of the building to stand before Emma, and uncrosses her arms to take Emma's hands in her own if the blonde would allow her. "C'mon, you're going to be more thankful immediately. I assume you have a nice place to go to for drinks?"

Emma Frost has posed:
"Of course I know how nice it is!" Emma snaps in faux outrage. "You think I dress this way because I'm ashamed of the body!?" Overwrought incredulity there. Then comes the laughter, and it's mostly genuine. Mostly.

"I use this body like a weapon," she says. "I've sculpted it, honed it, perfected it to specifically turn off the brain cells of the male of the species and to make people underestimate me, dismissing me as a bimbo. It's my largest asset in business."

She pauses, then laughs again, this entirely genuine.

"Well, let's be honest, pair of assets"

She looks across at Tigra with dancing eyes. "Of course there's nothing here I'm telling you that's news to you, is there? You're not a bimbo either. Different, but not stupid by any means. And I figure you use that figure as part of your formidable weaponry. Am I close?"

She holds up a finger. "Before you answer that: local bar with lousy booze but contributes to the local economy, or my place with great booze but doesn't contribute (yet) to the economy when we drink it?"

Greer Grant has posed:
    "Oh this?" Tigra asks, hooking a thumb under one of the straps of her bikini and snapping it, causing some movement a couple inches below and with that, she's looking back up into Emma's eyes, "I mean it's helped me out a few times when dealing with some pervo, but all in all, the swimsuit isn't for me."

    Tigra says with a wink, "It's for the sake of modesty in other people."

    Then, she swishes her tail and finds it sliding across the back of Emma's legs, as she seems to be showing a deal of phsyical interest in the blonde and doesn't care that other's might notice.

    "Your personal bar, for sure. I'd like to see the lap of luxury Emma Frost lives in when she's uninhibited." Greer says with a playful wink of her catseye.

Emma Frost has posed:
"Oh, darling, nobody wants to see Emma Frost uninhibited. My inhibitions are what keep people alive." Like slumlords.

Emma winks at Tigra.

"Let's call it 'less-inhibited' and leave it at that, shall we?"

She points to the Centinel towering over the neighbourhood. "I have a suite there. That's the closest. We'll have to walk; I didn't bother with the Bentley to come here. I need to get the feel for the neighbourhood anyway, so I try walking most times."

The tail gets lifted and lightly scratched with expert fingernail usage.

"That's got to be a useful add-on. Where can I get one of these?" she asks, mischief in her voice.

Greer Grant has posed:
    "Seems like a lengthy walk... but ... I could use the exercise" Tigra says, patting her smooth belly, if anything a pair of abs is visible beneath the fur. "And I'm interested in seeing you drunk off your... well off your rocker, or tits, or two sheets to the wind, I wanna see you shit faced." Tigra says with a devious smile.

    Then suddenly the hairs on her tail, up her spine, around to her belly and chest, and over her shoulder and parts of her face puff up and stand on end.

    "Holy shh- How did you do that?" Tigra asks looking down at her own orange and black and white tail in Emma's hand, "Cause I might need you, to do that, several more times. As far as getting one, ... afraid it's in the blood honey."

Emma Frost has posed:
"Yeah," Emma says dryly, and with more than a little jealousy. "I was about to say you were a slovenly disgrace." She mimes covering her own flawless belly, turning away. "I'm going to guess, too, that you don't do an hour's workout every morning to keep that the way it is either."

Yeah. Jealous.

But at the tail scritch she just grins, holding up her gloved hands and waving the fingers mischievously. "I'm magic with my fingers. I just have a knack for knowing what people want and need, even when they don't, and giving it to them. I'm glad it works across ... ah ... whatever divide it is here that we've got." She ponders a moment. "You're not human, but you're not mutant. Meta? Is that the word people use these days?"

She hops off the edge of the building and starts heading for the walk home. "Let me guess a few more along the way. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say there's more than a few places on your shoulders and back that will have you purring..."

Greer Grant has posed:
    Tigra's clawed hand reaches out with little surprise to the telepath's belly and she smiles approvingly, "Appalling, we should both be ashamed of ourselves, but since cats lack shame..." Tigra turns mid step and tries to surprise Emma with a kiss, If she could be so bold.

    "Look, you've already promised me booze, and we are already headed to your own hotel." Tigra begins her counter argument, "You have me in the palm of your hand, now let's get there! I so want to purr and get tipsy."

    "Now don't laugh, but the people like me, we are a race and it's a name I did not come up with, but we're literally called, cat people...I know I know, it's dumb."

Emma Frost has posed:
"Oh my! So I get another shot at the cross-species divide!" Emma says with a throaty laugh. "Those are always so entertaining. I had peripheral involvement only recently with a species that cohabits with human hosts and apparently... controls certain nervous impulses. When taught how to..."

Emma Frost has posed:
"Oh my! So I get another shot at the cross-species divide!" Emma says with a throaty laugh. "Those are always so entertaining. I had peripheral involvement only recently with a species that cohabits with human hosts and apparently... controls certain nervous impulses. When taught how to..."

The walk back is filled with ... silence, actually. Mostly silence. At least from Emma's side. Conversation directed at her will be reponded to, but mostly she seems to be deep inside her thoughts. The hotel lobby. The express elevator. The fingerprint and facial recognition to open the interlock allowing the entrance to her suite. Then the suite.

"Welcome to my home."