Chapter 23: Interlude 7

Interlude 7

(Samira's Keikaku, just as planned)

 

January 25th, 1997
Oscorp
05:23 AM

Samira sat at her desk and turned her chair toward the metallic transparent window that Jean had put in place for her, the view of the park was beautiful. The precog smiled, the little redhead took the protection of her friends and best assets very seriously; Samira had already gone through what Jean called the Phoenix rebirth and got a round of upgrades to her body, making her practically another super soldier level human and now her benefactor was looking for someone to instruct Samira in the magical arts. The precog felt happy and eager to have more protection, she couldn't just rely on Angelica, her ward's presence. Defensive installations were already prepared for her home and the apartment complex for the girls as well.

Samira was thankful to Jean, since meeting her she had been saved from slavery and degradation, taken care of and improved the living conditions of her friends who had been in the same situation as her. Samira had helped the powered teenager in obtaining riches beyond all her wildest dreams that she now shared with her and all Samira had to do was smile, help her with her precognitive powers and ride along Jean's coattails. Still she had to adapt to some of her methods… The girl was dangerous, cunning and amoral in certain situations.

Samira closed her eyes, leaned in her seat and breathed in and out as she remembered one of her visions about Jean Grey. 

You were either with her or against her, and Samira had seen in dreams what happened to Jean’s enemies; the redhead sat on a throne of gold and with multiple worlds under her control hovering around her. Her enemies, supposed immortal beings, gods or powerful metahumans were either dead or kneeling at her feet with their will to fight crushed, their pride shattered as she took everything from them. A large number of women surrounded her sides, some of their faces were either shrouded in darkness or completely visible and familiar as Samira had met them or seen their files. Samira had recognized Cindy Moon, Jean’s primary lover, she was sitting practically at Jean’s side on her throne; Anna-Marie, her newest paramour floated at their side, two blondes with different heights and wearing risqué outfits of black and white color shared the same space at Jean’s feet. Samira couldn't see the face of the one on the left in a skintight black costume, but the one in white? She could.

Samira had even met her when she rented an apartment to her. What was strange was that now she was a brunette and less voluptuous than in her vision, but it was the same smug face. A quick search with the new prototype extranet and the classified black folder Jean had offered her access to and Samira discovered that Emma Frost was her girl, a runaway heiress whose father was a morally bankrupt murderous monster. The girl was a telepathic metahuman almost on par with her benefactor.

*Interesting.* Now that she had found her, Samira decided to pull Emma into Jean’s camp. But first, she had to be certain of Emma's character; it wouldn't be good if Jean was paired with a ne'er-do-well… though she doubted that Jean couldn't take the girl to task if she didn't know her place.

Suddenly, Samira had a bad feeling. The usual sensation that happened when something bad was about to happen; she held onto her head as her brown eyes flashed with a silver inner glow.

A vision was taking shape. Samira recognized Emma being manhandled into a long and black limousine by a muscular black man in a black suit. She was forcefully made to sit on the leather backseat.

“Hello, Emma.”

Emma sat frozen as she heard the familiar voice. The brunette turned to a blonde woman with green eyes; Emma cursed loudly. The woman laughed throatily and slapped the younger brunette's thigh. She was dressed in an expensive looking long white dress with fine golden jewelry set with sapphires. To Samira that bitch looked gaudy and evil.

"Oh, really dear sister, you left us without a word and this is how you welcome me?" The voice belonged to a woman of Samira's age.

More information for Samira, so the older woman was Emma's elder sister. The car lurched, a sign that it had started moving, the precog looked at every little detail inside the car and more precisely at the digital clock on the TV screen inside the limousine. It said that it was  9 AM and since Emma was wearing a black and white tracksuit, she had to have been jogging.

"Adrienne, let me go.” Emma growled.

The blonde smiled sweetly. "Don't worry, Emma. I intend to."

Emma looked at each of the doors and noticed that they were locked, nothing good would come out of this meeting with her sadistic sister. "I don't trust you."

As Emma was looking away, Adrienne smoothly took a pistol from her purse and emptied the clip into her younger sister. "And you shouldn't."

Samira looked on with surprise as Adrienne killed her sister in cold blood. The blonde laughed maniacally, her face and white dress was splattered by red blood. "Like I said, I let her go. Franz! Will you be a dear and throw the body in an alley?" She asked her chauffeur who lowered the internal back window.

With a deep voice the chauffeur answered. "Yes, ma'am."

"Wow, that bitch is cold!" Samira said as she exited the vision and leaned into her seat, shocked by what she witnessed.

The vision seemed urgent, and Samira had three to four hours to save Emma Frost from her dire fate. She had Angelica at her beck and call but, she wanted to get back at that woman, killing your kin was deplorable to someone like Samira. Adrienne Frost needed a lesson. She let her chair swivel to face her desk and took the smartphone on the desktop. The flat rectangle made of unstable molecules came alive.

A hologram of a spherical construct made of soft light appeared. It looked like an egg to Samira, there were messages scrolling down on the holographic screen and then they settled on a red background with pink flowers that show icons such as a phone, a folder and a camera. Letting her fingers glide over the flat screen, Samira poked the phone icon. A list of contacts appeared and Samira chose the contact called 'Boss Lady' and clicked on it.

After three rings a window opened showing a familiar redhead who sported some kind goggles with a lab coat covering a Nike t-shirt. "Sam?"

The redhead looked exhausted and her eyes focused with difficulty on Samira. 

Samira shook her head, her long black hair swishing around it. "Jean, you aren't sleeping." The precog realized. Jean had been upgrading her bases and organising all the money she had stolen from Hydra and Sinister by consolidating it with the help of the law firm that she had bought, her schedule was considerably full, she needed assistants.

Jean’s eyes narrowed. "Did you call me to mother me, Sam?"

Samira grinned, one shouldn't show fear to Jean Grey or she'll latch onto it. "Someone clearly has to, why aren't you using your Phoenix powers to sustain yourself?"

It boggled the mind that so much power was concentrated into such a young woman, Samira would be jealous if she didn't get a glimpse of the crushing responsibilities that Jean Grey was shouldering. It didn’t stop Jean from being human though.

The girl dared rolling her eyes at her, then said flippantly, "I'm not using them when I tinker and I want total control of my own powers. The Phoenix force is a crutch."

Samira flipped her hair back. "That attitude would be commendable if you didn't have bags under your eyes and looked like a zombie."

Jean took on an annoyed expression and gave Samira a look. "Why did you call again?"

Looking into Jean’s eyes, the precog said, "I need a favor…" Samira began to say in a more subdued tone, then she went on to explain how one of her girls was going to get killed by a member of her own family for having left home. Jean worked at the same time Samira related her vision to her, she nodded when Samira finished her tale.

Jean, who understood that the girl who was in danger was important to Samira’s plans, acted on the information. "I will send you the Punisher."

Samira got a flash of a man wearing one of Jean’s power armors in black with a white skull on his breastplate and helmet. She quickly shook her head to make the vision disappear, then looked at the redhead. "Who?"

Jean gave her a tired smile and took off her goggles, her green eyes finally visible to show the mischief in them. "My new troubleshooter, he has just finished training with the Achilles armor MK 2. He is a bit green with the new weapons but he is skilled at this kind of operation."

Jean portaled the Punisher into Samira’s office before hanging up and heading to bed. The man was imposing and a straight shooter. Angelica, aka Firestar was ordered to shadow Emma Frost if she exited the apartment complex in Middle Village and to use the special armor that Jean had made her.

Later at 8:40 AM and through the tactical part of the extranet, Samira was observing the surroundings of the apartment complex through cloaked cameras placed around the streets and alleys. The Punisher had given Samira the task of using the EMP pulse rifle on the limousine when it appeared, the precog was laid out on the roof of the building where Emma was going to be kidnapped at street level.

8:50 AM, Emma Frost exited the apartment complex. She wore the exact same tracksuit as she did in Samira's vision. Emma began to jog, she didn't notice Firestar shadowing her from the sky, her semi-power armor dampening the halo effect of her flight powers when aloft. The Punisher followed them while cloaked in his suit. 

At exactly 9:00 AM, Adrienne's limousine was sighted and the black bodyguard attempted to kidnap Emma. He must have been some kind of metahuman impervious to telepathy for Emma not to be able to detect him. It didn't matter, Firestar used her power as a concussive blast making him fly into the alley. While this happened, Samira fired the EMP rifle at the hood of the vehicle and disabled the limousine that crashed into a lamppost. She watched as the chauffeur lost consciousness after the airbag deployed.

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Emma Frost stood paralyzed by the apparition of a man in black armor with white skull emblazoned on his breastplate and helmet. The punisher walked past her into the alley and drew his energy pistol from his thigh holster. Emma watched as the armored man shot twice, the body of the black man disappeared, leaving fine particulates on the ground.

As for Angelica she had landed on the ground and dragged Adrienne by her hair from the limousine and into the alley. Emma couldn't read the minds of two people in armor and it scared her, until she realized that it was her sister who was being pulled into the alley. The man in black armor then walked back to her, making sure she looked as if she was alright before turning to Adrienne who was struggling.

Angelica let go of her, but not before jabbing her with a syringe and harvesting her blood; it was one of the objectives of the current mission to appease a certain redhead who needed more genetic material for her experiments. As Angelica put the vial of blood back into her belt pouch, Adrienne moved back and was now cornered against a wall and a dumpster in the alley.

"Let me go! Do you have any idea of who I am!? When my father hears of this, he will-" Adrienne screeched.

Angelica slapped her to interrupt her, Adrienne gave her a baleful glare that, had she had optical beam powers, would have killed Firestar. The young redhead had faced more dangerous foes than an airbrushed bimbo. The Punisher walked over to Adrienne, his metal boots clanging on the concrete ground. His voice was distorted as he said, "Of course I know who you are, Miss Frost, my employer is unhappy with you."

Adrienne’s demeanor changed, the spoilt princess act disappeared and was replaced by a frosty look. "What? Who sent you?" There was a quiver in her voice that made Emma, who was witnessing this passively, have a smile tugging at her lips.

With a sinister laugh, the Punisher batted away at her inquiries. "It's not important right now, all I am allowed to tell you is that Miss Emma Grace Frost is under the protection of the Ascendency."

Adrienne snorted. "Never heard of you."

With a disappointed shake of his head, the Punisher told the stupid woman, "Of course not, if you had we would have disappeared you earlier."

For twenty seconds nothing was said, Adrienne’s gaze that was on the Punisher slid onto her little sister. "I will get little Emma sooner or later, she is in my way."

Emma froze at that and finally understood why her sister was here; she wanted to kill her. Winston must still want her back as his heir. That was funny, she didn’t want to go back to Frost Manor; the man had Adrienne who was just like him, she didn’t understand why he would be stubborn and want to hand her the family reins. It seemed that patricide was on the cards for Emma later...

The Punisher wasn’t amused by the threat. "I doubt it, Firestar if you please?"

Angelica flinched and asked, "Are you sure this is the way?"

The dark armored man turned to her, the glowing eye slits in his helmet focused on Angelica. He pointed a gauntleted finger at Adrienne. "People like her only understand power, she was about to kill her own sister who had given up her family to make her own way."

"I see…" Angelica turned to Adrienne, her expression visibly hardening.

Holding her hand before her, a visible yellow aura coalescing around it. Intense heat gathered, she did her best to control it to not make it able to melt metal, all she needed was enough to sear flesh. Adrienne panicked and screamed, “Stay back!” But she was pinned in place by the Punisher.

Angelica then proceeded to burn half of Adrienne’s face; the blonde screamed in pain until she was hoarse as the little redhead burned her; after she was done she let go of the woman’s face and stood back. The Punisher held onto the blonde’s hair and watched as her eyes were streaming with tears and her nose was full of snot. “This is a warning Miss Frost. The next time we won’t be so magnanimous. You’ll leave your younger sister alone, or we will finish what we started.”

When he let go of her, Adrienne fell face first onto the ground, trembling. The Punisher walked toward Emma who trembled somewhat, but she put on a brave front. “Miss Frost, you are free to go… but I would suggest that you go back home and have some medicine for your nerves.”

“T-thank you.” Emma stuttered.

“You’re welcome, my employer didn’t want anything bad happening to you.” Then the man disappeared as if he was a ghost, startling Emma who fled, running back to her apartment complex.

She didn’t notice how Angelica and the Punisher shadowed her from the sky and the street. Samira sighed heavily as she sat and began to dismantle the rifle in her hand and placed each piece in its slot in the suitcase. She pushed a button on her teleportation harness and was quickly transported to her penthouse at the top of the Oscorp skyscraper.

It was a cozy home that she had redecorated with an indian theme after getting rid of anything that had belonged to the Osborn; her skin bristled as she remembered that man touching her, thanks to Jean using telepathy to simulate them having sex, Samira didn’t have to sleep with the man. She walked directly to the bar, put the suitcase in her hand on the wooden counter and started to fix herself a drink, as she made herself a strawberry daiquiri she looked at the artifacts she had stolen. The red walls were decorated with enough memorabilia from her trip to India to put a museum to shame.

Before she could even take a sip of her drink, a vision hit her like a punch. Samira held onto the counter as she watched the spiritual scenes.

“Welcome Miss Frost.” Samira greeted the young woman with dyed blonde hair. Emma was wearing a full black and trendy pantsuit molded to her body, she didn’t have much top and bottom but she was still attractive with the confident way she held herself.

The blonde haired and blue eyed Emma smiled back at Samira and walked up to her desk to shake her hand. “Thanks for receiving me, Miss Al Ghul.”

Samira nodded and with a gesture of her hand said, "Please sit.”

Emma sat primly on the chair facing the desk. “So, I see that you applied for the position to become my personal assistant."

The blonde’s expression became serious. "Yes, Miss… and I am aware that such a position asks for a lot of very much needed experience but-"

Before she finished, Samira grinned and folded her hands in front of her face as she said with excitement, “I have good news for you, Miss Frost. You are hired.”

Emma beamed at Samira and was about to thank her when the precog raised a hand to interrupt her. “However I must be frank with you. This PA post isn't for working with me, but for one of my friends, she's the young CEO of the nascent Starrware Enterprise.”

Samira saw that Emma instantly understood who she was talking about; the company that had just started up and made a big splash with their release of the Medi-gel. Even in her vision, Samira helped herself by giving any of her previous selves a way to gather information; how smug could this bitch be? She laughed internally.

There was a distrustful gleam in Emma’s eyes as she learned this. "Oh? Why did you go at it in such a roundabout way?"

Samira knowing what to say, made her smile vanish and became serious. "It's due to your father who made sure to blacklist you everywhere, Miss Frost."

It was as if Samira had slapped Emma, the blonde flinched and closed her eyes and seemed to be counting to ten. When she opened her eyes, Emma emitted a mirthless laugh. "I can see him doing that, he was also the cause of me being refused by Harvard… he really is annoying." Emma revealed.

Samira looked deeply into the young woman’s eyes. "Fortunately for you, I don't appreciate how Winston operates and decided to give him the middle finger. Starrware is also about to be his direct competitor, and you working for Jean Grey is going to be a black eye on his rep. I can't wait to see him try to intimidate her into letting you go."

Emma looked at Samira as if she was crazy, then nodded, she seemed to understand that she was becoming a pawn in a tug of war. The blonde sighed and asked with tired eyes, "Is she dangerous? From what I heard, Jean Grey is a philanthropist, but I am not sure that’s all she is..."

Samira nodded and, with a wide eyed expression, said in warning. "Of course, she wouldn't be a billionaire at her age if she wasn't."

Emma laughed, the poor girl seemed to be stuck between a rock and hard place. "Thank you for giving me a chance, Miss Al Ghul."

"Deary, call me Thalia. You earned it, us tough girls need to stay tight."

The vision faded, leaving Samira to smile like a loon, she had things to plan, and a powerful redhead to keep unaware until the time was right.

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