9715/Black and White and Dead All Over

Black and White and Dead All Over
Date of Scene:	19 January 2022
Location:	Midtown
Synopsis:	Emma and Selene renew their feud. Power Girl arrives right as innocents are devoured and Exodus realizes that he has a possible enemy as old as he is, if not older.
Cast of Characters:	Emma Frost, Selene Gallio, Karen Starr, Paris Bennet

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Emma Frost has posed:
It's a miserable day over in the dreary winter. Manhattan is under seige. Emma Frost is under a state of constant migraine at dealing with so many things. Remembering what she's passed along, remembering what sorts of scenarios that she's had to deal with and what she's keeping track of.. The joys of being a telepath is that you can ease all of thsoe migraines away. If only for a short period of time.
    Emma Frost is leaving the HEllfire Club, the former White Queen taking a moment to try and fix her hair.. Then deciding that it's not worth the effort, and simply going to make up a telepathic veil around it to make it seem fully proper an dintact. Pragmatics seems the way of the day and the blonde has a sensation that things are probably going to need it later on

Selene Gallio has posed:
    Selene, the olive skinned woman from whereever she chooses, chooses today to wear some very 90's chic Russian fashion. A large fur hat dons her raven haired head, a large matching fur what could be described as a Fur Poncho, but a double sided cape. Heavy. Thick. Warm, and everything she might desire in the frigid air that doesn't play well with the style of clothes she usually wears.

    The only bit of clothing she wears that is colorful beyond the black of the fur is her plaid pants, tight, but also insullated, so she looks a touch swollen but is warm and alluring even in her winter wear.

    Selene steps up towards Emma and there's a motion under her cape as she crosses her arms and pops one hip out in a show of her upset nature. "You're LEAVING the club?!" A gaze is leveled at Emma and the ancient vampire is not happy.

Karen Starr has posed:
    As the two women focus on one another, there is a shape that drifts down from the sky. Not between the two, not taking any sort of side, but on the sidelines- barely something one might catch out of the corner of an eye, and even then, you'd have to be paying attention...

    As the blonde form of Power Girl lands on a nearby sidewalk, and takes the few steps into a cafe. There is an exchange of currency, and for the moment, Power Girl stands idly waiting at the end of the counter, for a cup on which the name Power Girl is somehow going to be misspelled, as is tradition.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is slowly turning over to face Selene Gallio. "Why? You missed me already? I just thought I would leave the particular hive of puss and whatever infected thing is coming out of Shaw's backside this particular day to let it rest. It's a festering sore so maybe something might pop it open. I do like to think for anyone the idea is to have dreams and the knowledge of what it takes to attain them."
    Emma's tone is in a sneer even as she's on edgew ith Selene coming after her. Int he open no less means that this is definitely dangerous. She's not going through an alleyway. Emma's mind immedaitely would snap shut, all of her mental walls going up and reinforcing themselves.
    Whatever it is, if Power Girl is paying attention Emma's suddenly gone to full paranoia status and is inching towards a self defense posture.

Paris Bennet has posed:
Not far from where Karen is standing is another shape, larger and somewhat imposing in bearing. It's a manner somewhat other than physical, as while he is visibly capable of taking care of himself with his square shoulders and upright bearing, there is something more to this man than his golden eyes and triple marking tattoo over his right eye. It's a certain presence that just inclines people to part like the sea around him as they carry on down the sidewalk, possibly without even realizing they are doing it.

Exodus is watching the two women in curiousity, he reduced his presence in this city after his encounter with Selene weeks ago, but he does still show here and there. Likely she knew, being more sensitive than he, but no psychic could totally hide presences such as theirs!

The big mutant man has his arms loosely folded for the moment, but does eventually turn to walk further off of the sidewalk to the side for the sake of not being completely obvious with his curiosity.

    When did he show up anyway, and from where...?

Selene Gallio has posed:
    "Fuck Shaw and his feeble little ego." Selene spits with enunciation as she closes the distance a single step, feeling Emma's defences going up, and just as a rude patron would shove their foot into the doorway to prevent it from being fully closed, so too does Selene, wedge her mind into Emma's defences. "No no no. You don't get to hide from me that easily. Frost." Selene says, her mind practically drooling like a rabid dog about to get a cut of steak for dinner.

    As she's looming over Emma mentally, Selene pauses, and turns her head to Power Girl as she casually lands and her jaw drops. The ruby red lipstick of Selene make her look almost clown like in surprise. "This city should be ruled by us. People like her. But no. It's fools and buffoons. Stay a while in the club, help me cut out the tumor that is Shaw." Not quite aware of Paris just yet as she does keep an eye on Power Girl to use in her verbal demonstration.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Most of the time- and this time is no different- Power Girl does not listen in on any conversations going on around her. Such a thing is a sort of slippery slope, and she's conditioned to grant the rest of the world its privacy. Save for a few things- the sounds of certain, specific heartbeats that she can hear the world over, and perhaps a few other key sounds- Karen keeps her ears and eyes to herself.

    This is why as she receives a cup of coffee labelled "Par Gal" she lets it go. Assuming, specifically, that whoever wrote it on the cup needed to do that for some reason, that their life was definably worse in a way that getting her name wrong would fix. They get a glare, but she keeps the cup and doesn't hit anybody.

    Instead, she takes another step out onto the sidewalk, practically ignoring the reference to her presence from Selene- but it does trip an alarm or two. As far as she's aware, though, the woman is just some radicalist who may or may not be anti-meta. It's not something that she needs to deal with today unless she has to.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is on edge ove ras her shields are up, "Really, Selene, I've seen what happens to those whom you make arrangements with. Leave them as little corpses? You're like a child who gets bored five minutes with their new toy and demands a new one. I'll take my chances somewhere else." The presence of Exodus is.. Likewise not as directly noticed as Emma is focusing all her attention on the ancient vampiress that she's trying to fend off mentally.
    "So go along and play with another toy. That little thing of SHaw's that he treats as a puppet. Tessa, presuming he hasn't had her lobotomized, poor thing." She's going to fully put shields up, reinforcing them..And there comes the other presence of Power Girl. Emma goes to speak very, very quietly over to the other woman, lips forming words..
    'Get out of here'. Presuming that Power Girl is bothering to read her lips or the very faint noise coming from them. It's a full on warning. Not a threat.

Paris Bennet has posed:
The big man in the nice suit ahems to noone, then turns back to the street and starts walking to the conversing duo.

Exodus is oblivious to the traffic as he proceeds at a brisk pace, the drivers slowing just enough that he's somehow able to make his way across without either getting tagged or even interrupting the flow of it as such. He is utterly unblemished as he reaches the other side where he approaches with hands neatly in his pockets, golden eyes...silver.

His french accent rumbles forth in a brusk greeting,"Bonne journee, Selene. Emma."

Selene Gallio has posed:
    "I will play with another toy, as I am so want to do so often." Selene says, snearing slightly as she recoils back from the mental walls finally being slammed into her face by Emma. That bitch thinks she's better than me. Stronger than me. Selene tells herself. She uncrosses her arms, another flash of movement slightly obscured by her full body fur cape and taking a step closer to Emma, but planing her heeled shoe heavily. A rise in her psychic presence and the vampiress is pushing against Emma's mind, a black force of will reaching out like a six fingered hand and squeezing on the hamsterball of Emma's protections.

    The very air around the area grows darker. The shadows grow longer, and the sun grows dimmer before Exodus interrurpts and Selene is suddenly standing straight again, no physical incurrsion into Emma's personal space and the setting sun still lingering and reflecting off surfaces to still shine the area in the as the golden hour is drawing to it's end. "Hello once again... Paris non?" She says, leaving off the 'S' in Paris and smiling so politely.

Emma Frost has posed:
The sensation of Selene going to press over into Emma's mind ist reated as an invasion of her personal space. Or rather a full on attack and Emma responds accordingly as she would rapidly snap her mind shut, the probing being met with a series of rapid-fire mental kickbacks, her attempting to give each pressing mental tether a brutal shock and kickback, hoping to give a sensory overload along them as they withdrew. By telepathic tricks a fiarly standard and rote one. But it was an effective one none the less.
    And Emma ignores Exodus, even as she's boring over into Selene. And then going to counterattack! Mind flashing as she's trying to press back into Selene's consciousness, going to try and blast the ancient witch not with a sensation of raw pain and suffering.. But an attempt over to whiplash her with those small bits of agony and disorientation. Slowly sinking into a morass of quicksand, fire ants going over every inch. Sensations of small needles digging into the body and the mind. Trying to give Selene rising sufferings of agony bubbling up and over her, like ever so faint daggers digging into her consciousness as Emma doesn't try for a direct and overpowering attack. Instead attempting to if at all possible go for lots of small slashes back into the ancient wretch's mind to see if she ca't try and distract her with all of those brutal little sensations hitting her!

Paris Bennet has posed:
The mutant known as Sir Bennet du Paris nee' Genosha rises a few inches where he stands yet some distance from the two of them, his eyes seeming to blaze like twin welding arcs as his voice radiates from every acoustic surface in the immediate vicinity...

<<Get thee back, fiend...I rather suspect you know how I wouldst tend to thee in older times!>>

His countenance blazes like the morning sun in their view, his glamour radiating against Selene's shadow and gloom as for this moment, he stands there in all his armoured glory.

The Knight Champion in steel with white cloak and long raven hair fluttering in an unfelt breeze.

And yet...the population filing by don't react...save for the people on the other side who probably stare in awe or hurry away in fear in stark contradiction...

Selene Gallio has posed:
    Selene's attention is on Exodus for the briefest moment, the golden man is demanding a glance at least, and that's all the time it takes for a knife to be turned around and thrust into the chest. Ants, crawl and bite her from head to toe. Her skin is flayed, and her nerves are pressed directly to hot coals. She's left to freeze in the vacuum of space. Agonies unfold and envelope her again and again, and yet there are sensations she's felt that feel--wrong.

    The ancient woman has had thousands of needles pressed into her before and it didn't feel like this. In fact the body can quickly evactuate itself to prevent the feeling of pain in the worst situations.

    Selene drops to a knee, and gives a twisted look to Exodus as her hands reach up and dislodge her furry hat to clutch at her head in pain before she rolls her head back and up to scream silently and a psychic sphere explodes out from the raven telepath, pushing against herself and her assaulter, but also against everyone in the immediate area. She's pushing at the souls and minds of anyone around her, and then finding herself clear for a brief moment, she begins to rise in the air like Exodus too, and the weaker minds begin to be pulled back into her. To feast. A couple walking past drop face first, suddenly dead, and the woman's now pure white eyes turn to Exodus, "The same way you would now, pup." And she snaps a hand out to mystically reach out with a force and to SHOVE Exodus back across the street and then turn her gaze onto Emma. "Frost..."

Karen Starr has posed:
    Power Girl only stays in her lane when the conversations outside of it are benign. A couple having a spat, an extremist trying to make a convert, that sort of thing. As long as it's a private conversation, she tries to stay out.

    The key word is 'Tries.' Really hard sometimes. Then there's a guy in armor declaring that he'd do a thing that would be done in olden times- Honestly, it's a bit hard to follow when the coffee's good and you're not really paying much attention- and her attention shifts.

    Calmly, she sets the coffee down, and starts to walk towards the others- waves of psychic energy crash over the Kryptonian, but unluckily for the psionics present, they got the stubborn one. The Angry one. If this had been a sneak attack of some kind, sure, but she's already determined that whatever is going on has gone on too long, and that means determination. Psychic screams create no cracks in the fortress, but unfortunately, the un-sound of heartbeats stopping around her, of people drained of their life force, dying just by being /present/ for Selene's cross into rage.

    Power Girl can get angry too. So she does.

    That's bad.

    Faster than thought is a concept that might be alien to those present- after all, their mind is so honed that hitting a speed like that might have seemed impossible, but when things escalate beyond Two People Fighting and into Bystanders Dying, Power Girl's rage does not linger at the level of slap on the wrist.

    She breaks the sound barrier in an instant, a sudden cracking THOOM coming from where she was that will reach the trio in the intersection long after she does. Mercifully- because she doesn't know any of Selene's limits- she slows down before she arrives at the woman in midair, effectively disappearing from her position in the street and reappearing some small distance from whom she accurately guesses is the source of whatever killed that couple.

    She's already drawn back a fist, and it's going to be quite a hail-mary, because if her fist connects, it's a little more than enough force to level a building. She'd normally start smaller, but people are already dead.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is sent flying awaby by the mental -snap- of Selene. Emma has no real way to resist telekinesis. Not without a lot of preparation. And even then it relies upon distracting the attacker more than anything. So as Selene is going to just have Emma not quite dropping she goes to then immediately broadcast a command to every single other preson around the block. Which she should have done in the first place.
    <<RUN.>> That's a psionic command and pressure she tries to hit as many people as she can with even as she goes to try and stagger upright as Selene goes to feed upon the souls of those around her. Then she's going to try and blast at Selene mentally. There's no real finesse to it. Just a brutal series of attempted hammerings, slams, and the mental equivalents of sledgehammers. With all of Emma's considerable power but with little of her finesse and skill. Now her priority is just holding down the witch long enough for the civilians to get away.
    Power Girl moving faster than Emma's brain can register - telepaths can reorient themselves to think at high speeds, but that tends to go purely for astral based telepathic combat. Not in a general melee.

Paris Bennet has posed:
Exodus has drawn his line in the sand with Selene. Something about her had put him on edge from the very first time they met. He could never quite put a finger on it...

    Until now.

The psychic scream washes over his telepathic shields in a torrent at this range, but as crude as his unrefined defenses are they still hold fast. He looms large with fists balled, a snarl as he gazes down at the now revealed entity that he suspected her to be all along. When she turns and addresses him, he starts to smile wolfishly until...

A wave of force SLAMS him across the street, clobbering a small group to the ground before he craters the side of a brick and mortar building! A savage sort of laughter peels forth with intermittent coughs at the dust as he picks himself up...

"That's the spirit, vampire bitch...Le diable va adorer celui-ci...Ha ha ha...

Selene Gallio has posed:
    Telepaths are very easy to trick with speed, and even some telekinetics, but the ones that are already able to move at the speed of thought, are the witches and wizards. Speed of Thought is a regular thing to them as if it were merely another form of miles per hour. Fully able to register things at that speed while in astral form is one thing, but while she's standing here next to Exodus, and above Emma while a couple lays motionless behind her, and having just feasted on their brainwaves and minds, Selene isn't thinking about the idea that she could suddenly have a white and gold blur appear in front of her, and then a blue fist is hurling towards her at near relativistic speeds. Her mind doesn't, but her ancient body and protection spells trigger.

    The massive explosion of force into Selene sends her speeding backwards, away from Emma, and Exodus and Karen at impossible speeds. The mental onslaught is ended by sheer distance and the mystical barrier summoned like a layer of armor around her flashes several times as she pinballs off a shipping truck blocks away and flips end over end through the air before hitting the pavement and a brust of magic ripples across her as it shatters against the road.

    "What the fuck was that?"

Emma Frost has posed:
The sudden attack of Power Girl takes Emma Frost a moment to catch up with and realize what's happened. She's yelling out mentally <<Don't go after her, we need a plan. If you pursue her then she'll just drain you and make you a meatpuppet>> Emma's seen it happen before. Perhaps even tolerated it. Things she loathes herself for now. Now she tries to make contact once again over with Selene. And while she's not able to keep up a direct link..
    Telepaths can send their consciousness far away. Selene is far away. So Emma goes to very, very slowly sit down over and holds her hands up in front of hera s she would cross her legs, going up to a lotus position.
    Then she's going full astral, intent on taking the fight to somewhere where mind makes the eye. And she's tracking Selene and going to try and from those moments move to stalk towards the witch's consciousness.
    And Emma goes to try and stir up a veil of disorientation around Selene. Trying to in those bits of confusion from the Black Queen to throw out veils of shadow. Of darkness. Attempting to wrap the wicked woman in a wretch of prickling thorns. Digging in to her consciousness if possible, trying to jab at her, to fill her with their poisons, thorns constricting about her and hopefully adding to her disorinetation. Emma is trying to wrap Selene in them if at all possible. It's not going to hurt her or do more than perhpas slow her..
    But, in a fight where aparticipant is a Kryptonian, then slowing her is a great asset.
    And to Paris, Emma simply gives a location and where Selene has been brutalized off to.

Karen Starr has posed:
    As far as arrivals go, this was a titanic one. Pushing a Kryptonian back when they're, well, trying- Is basically impossible. She floats in the sky, an imperious presence.

    "That was me." she states, calling down the street, damn well loud enough to be heard by the momentarily prone Selene. "And if you even try to stand up, or do whatever it is you just did, you sure as hell won't like what comes next."

    Her attention shifts, not physically, specifically, but it does shift, to Emma. "Shut up and stay out of my head. I have no idea what's going on but if you don't keep out, you won't like what's in there."

    The warning from Emma, of course, wasn't heeded. Not that it was likely to have been regarded well at all even if Emma had used words instead of psychically sending it, because that's just what the super-folk do. She bursts forward, disappearing again and reappearing in front of Selene on the ground.

    "Stay down."

Paris Bennet has posed:
Rising from the rubble like the Star of another better known epic, Exodus gains altitude from the crater he was consigned to. His presence with fury unbridled is very easy to locate in the astral where he possibly looms like a god, meaning he's very easy to reach!

Seeing the regal kryptonian in action, he crows with laughter and makes his own grand display of super speed as a peel of thunder announces his breach of the sound barrier to charge on the heels of that white and gold clad modern crusader! Whether she wants the assist or not, he's lending it!

THOOOOM!

His steel ensconced frame shines with a light that psions would recognize as the proximity of his personage with pure energy. He is on a level not entirely material, and it is not entirely mortal means that sustain his operation at this caliber! The Forever Knight has a steely fist raised as he closes on the psychic vampire, a bending of light around it bearing imminent proof that this one will be a statement...

Selene Gallio has posed:
    Turning her head, to look up at the powerful voice echoing down the canyon of metal and glass, Selene then lowers her head and coughs up a splatter of blood. "Shit." She mumbles to herself as she hooks an arm and starts to push up against the rough ground. "Super strong and super fast... Super face too." She says with a waggle of her eyebrows, admitting the woman has great looks and features to go with her winning personality.

    Selene is breathing heavily, as the blow, even through her magic messed up her organs and shattered most of her ribs. Maybe more than that even. Reaching a hand out, she stretches her fingers to breach into the shadow of the damaged moving truck and becoming a whisp of nothingness, slipping through the fingers of Exodus with a devilish smile, the vampiress is sucked into the shadows. A cowards way out from a no-win situation. Emma leaving. A powerful blonde woman. Paris suddenly calling her an OLD name. She thinks these things to herself as she twists in the nothingness of shadow and claims a seat with a squeak bursting from her windpipe. Pain. Life. She lived yet again. She will live forever more. "I've got work to do." Selene tells herself in her hidden castle of lies and shadow.

Emma Frost has posed:
And Selene is gone. "DAMMIT." Emma would pull her astral form back into herself after a quick telepathic scan confirms the lack of presence of Selene. For all Emma knows she could be in another dimension ora nother world. Emma resists the urge to punch her hand over onto the ground and would get up, slowly and painfully. And then going to take a few moments to reorient herself and focus. Taking a few breaths and then looking at the scene of the chaos. And starting the work of telepathically sweeping around to look for any survivors or people that would be trapped.
    She had failed again with the witch.