August 14, 1992

"So we're just supposed to wait here with our heads up our asses?"

Emma looked up at Lance from the codes she was breaking. There wasn't anything interesting in them, and she was feeling bored. She couldn't believe that she'd been put on surveillance while Magneto took Mystique, Sabretooth, and Toad of all people to Staten Island.

She could understand Mystique and Sabretooth, but Toad? Emma knew that Magneto had a soft spot, or as close to a soft spot as he could have, for the annoying, disgusting mutant. He'd been friends with Lorna. Even so, Emma would have been much more valuable on that mission. Anyone could have seen that.

Instead of taking her though, he had taken Toad, and the whole thing had collapsed in on itself. Now Sabretooth was missing, Magneto was in jail, Mystique was incognito, and Toad was bedridden. If she had come to asses the damage later he'd have been dead. As it was he was still in the intensive care ward.

They really should have put down Storm when she was younger. Now she was older, and that meant that she was so much more difficult to kill.

"Well?" Lance snapped.

She looked blankly at him. Due to the nature of her diamond-skin Emma had stopped aging long ago. However, she could see the years on the faces of all the members of the X-men and the Brotherhood. They were older now, especially Magneto.

Lance wasn't the brash teenager that she had written off years ago. Now he was an asset to the team, a man who could level an entire block if he was ordered to do so. She could value a skill set like that.

Age hadn't given Lance any wisdom though.

"I believe I've already been over this. We are awaiting further instructions, or for an opportunity to present itself," Emma said, "Thus far, neither of these things have happened."

"Awaiting further instructions?" Lance snapped, "From who? Our leader's in jail and-"

"From whom," Emma said.

"What?" Lance asked.

"From 'whom,' not 'who.' That sort of thing is rather irritating," Emma said.

She enjoyed the snarl that came from his lips. Emma leaned back and crossed her arms.

"You still think you're so tough," she said, "You'd best curb that attitude before it gets you killed."

Lance's lip curled over his teeth just as Boom-Boom came in. She looked at the two of them and Emma smiled at her, folding her hands on top of the desk.

"Do you have something for me?" she asked.

"I got a call from Mystique," Boom-Boom said.

Emma waved her forward and waved her hand dismissively at Lance.

"You're dismissed," Emma said.

Lance growled and stalked out. Emma watched him go. She was prepared for the door to slam when it did, but Boom-Boom wasn't. She winced as the doorframe shook and rattled. Boom-Boom looked uncertainly at Emma. Emma shrugged.

"He's always been a hothead," she said, "You know that much better than I do."

She held her hand out.

"Phone," she said.

Boom-Boom handed her the phone before leaving the room. Emma smiled as she closed the door quietly. She liked Boom-Boom. Despite her refusal to change her silly name, she was smarter than she looked and good in a fight. She also knew how to show respect, unlike Lance.

"Emma Frost," Emma said.

"Emma, I think I have a lock on where they're keeping Magneto," Mystique said, "I also have the necessary documentation to get him out."

Emma leaned forward. Finally, things were going to get interesting again.

"What do you need?" Emma asked.

"Nothing right now. He's getting out even as we speak," Mystique said, "But be ready. We need to rendezvous when we get a chance and press forward."

One of Emma's hands absently pulled her hair and her lips pursed. Press forward. When had they not been pressing forward? Emma had never felt old, despite her longevity, but that didn't mean that she couldn't feel irritated from time to time.

They had been pressing forward resolutely for nearly thirty years. Emma had seen the Brotherhood as the next evolution of Shaw's group, one where the ego of their leader and his old sentimentalities wouldn't get in the way of the mission. It would take time, she knew, for Magneto to reach Shaw's level of strength. It hadn't mattered. Emma knew that she could be patient.

It was one of the reasons that she had protested Lorna's admittance into the group when she was a child. Such sentimentality couldn't be good for Magneto. His strange friendship with the Professor was already damning enough. She had come around when she saw that, instead of preserving her as his perfect little princess, he was molding his daughter into a warrior. Emma could get behind that.

She had been surprised when Lorna had left, of course she had been, but she had also worried that Magneto was going to lose his mind. Instead he turned bitter and even angrier than before. The announcement of Lorna's first child had only served to help that. It was one thing to know that your daughter was married and in the arms of one of your enemies: it was worse to know that she'd had a child with them.

Angel had been too soft, too sentimental. Emma was glad to see her go, although from Magneto's face when he told them she supposed he'd had a thing or two to say about that. Good. Letting her go had been a move in the right direction, a move counteracted by letting Toad come to Staten.

Emma wasn't sure just how much longer she was willing to wait for Magneto to reach where he needed to be though. She had already waited long enough, and it irritated her beyond measure that she was expected to continue to 'press forward.' She was getting tired of the lack of results, of just how long it had taken for Magneto to be willing to attack the Professor.

Maybe it was time for her to leave. The real Hellfire Club, the one that Shaw had been so insistent on patterning his group after, was still in existence. Emma might be able to go back and assume a position with them. They weren't going to do much for the mutant world, but at least they knew that. Beyond that, it would certainly be more interesting than what she was doing now.

She didn't say anything aloud though. It wasn't her style. Instead she said sweetly:

"Tell me what I need to do."


It was, in the end, too easy. Erik knew that things had changed in recent years. He'd been surprised that they had a plastic prison prepared for him. Someone had been anticipating his capture, or at least hoping for it, for a while.

All in all he'd spent little time in his jail. Charles had visited him once or twice. He apparently saw it as some sort of duty on his part. Erik certainly wouldn't have done the same for him. Then again, if Charles was in jail then the world probably had bigger problems on its hands.

He'd wondered, for a while, if Charles had known that Mystique had sabotaged Cerebro on his orders. It hadn't taken him long to realize that, despite his friend's congenial attitude, he knew. The knowledge had come when Erik had issued his challenge, told him that the prison wouldn't be able to hold him for long.

Charles had leaned in, his eyes narrowed.

"And I'll be waiting, old friend."

Without another word he had left Erik's cell. Erik had never seen Charles so sharp in his words, not since Erik had brought the Brotherhood to the school and David had been playing in the front. Perhaps his children were there now or something of the sort. He'd heard that Charles had another son now, although he'd never seen the boy.

It was easy to see Charles as someone who wanted to protect everyone, and that was true. He could create a storm to protect the people he cared about. However, few people knew that when it came to his family he was a hurricane. Erik had been that way once.

Of course, it might have just been a response to Erik's sudden breach of trust. Erik knew that damaging Cerebro would go against everything that they had never said, but it had been necessary. He had felt that, despite everything, it was worth the risk. This was the best chance he'd had in years to make the world see things his way, to finally understand.

Instead he had failed. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Part of him hadn't wanted to live after he had failed, and a very small part of him had hoped that Cyclops's beam, or the fall, would finish things.

Instead he'd woken up in a room bereft of metal with Cyclops standing on the other side of a reinforced door. He'd snarled at him then, angrier beyond measure because he'd known that he'd failed, and it had been his fault.

"Didn't have the strength to kill me did you?" Erik had asked.

Cyclops had stared back at him evenly.

"Don't think it was about killing you or not killing you," he said, "It was about having to tell Lorna that I'd killed her father, and one day having to tell my niece and nephew that I'd killed their grandfather."

Erik had narrowed his eyes, but there had been no further conversation. It always came back to the Summers, didn't it? It always came back to what they had taken from him, what they were taking from him even now. It was best not to think about it. Not anymore.

As he stepped out of his cell, the bodies of the guards littered around them, he wondered what they had expected to gain from keeping him there. He'd been told that Colonel Stryker would be in to see him soon, but that had never happened. Relief would have been too strong of an emotion to feel concerning the Colonel's sudden lack of interest, but it certainly made life more pleasant.

Erik had expected some more resistance on his way out, but the path to freedom was lightly guarded. It made him laugh. People could be so arrogant, trusting in their inventions instead of any real security. Then again, it wouldn't have really mattered. He would have killed them all anyway.

He grabbed a coat and hat to cover up his white prison uniform. It was an uncomfortable thing, but he'd have to deal with comfort later. Erik exited the building minutes before reinforcements arrived, many of them toting plastic guns. He made a quiet note of that before he slipped into the street.

It took him only minutes to run into Mystique. She was leaning against a car, waiting for him. He recognized her disguise: it was a blonde woman that she was fond of using. He supposed it was the last link she had to her past as Raven Xavier, even though she'd made some drastic alterations to it in recent years.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

"Of course my dear," he said.

He got into the passenger's side as Mystique got into the driver's.

"Did you tell Emma a rendezvous point?" he asked.

"Of course," Mystique said.

She adjusted the review mirror before she put the keys in the ignition.

"I've heard Boston's lovely this time of year," she said.