White Queen's reputation among the X-Men was poor. She had almost no contact with them.
Quick coordination: Cyclops and Daisy would approach Emma together—partly because someone had mentioned knowing White Queen personally, and partly because Daisy had the official credentials for a formal invitation while Cyclops as Xavier's current Vice Principal could make the institutional case. Storm stayed to protect the school and students. Wolverine borrowed a S.H.I.E.L.D. motorcycle and set off to trace Mystique and Magneto by scent from Grand Central.
They reached Frost International in Manhattan within the hour. White Queen's public identity was chairwoman of a global luxury goods empire, and her habits were territorial—she walked her own building every day, like a landlord surveying an estate.
"FBI." Daisy flashed her badge at the front desk without breaking stride and walked right through.
Emma had sensed them the moment they entered range. The entire building was under continuous psychic surveillance—not noticing would have been the strange outcome. She received them with perfect composure.
"Oh? The famous Cyclops." She regarded him with genuine curiosity. Handsome, well-built, a quality about him that was hard to name precisely. He fit her general preferences—but only that. She hadn't reached the point of losing her head over a man.
"Is Miss Johnson here to make friends? It's quite eventful outside today." She gestured in the direction of Grand Central, where smoke was still faintly visible on the skyline.
Daisy let her eyes drift to Cyclops—a slight shake of her head: you're the lead.
Cyclops explained their request. Unfortunately, he also couldn't stop himself from editorializing—on Emma's lifestyle, her moral priorities, her failure to live up to what a mutant with her gifts could achieve. He managed to work an extended critique of her personal conduct into what was nominally a request for a favor.
Being called a harlot—indirectly but unmistakably—by a handsome man she'd been favorably disposed toward: even Emma Frost had limits. Her brow rose sharply and stayed up.
Daisy was appalled at his technique. You want someone's help and your opening is a comprehensive moral audit of their character?
"Emma—" she started.
Emma cut across her. "I'll help. But he needs to apologize."
She still liked Cyclops, in spite of everything. Ordinary men who'd spoken to her this way would have spent the next week unable to function. She was being lenient.
Daisy exhaled. She didn't need to look at Cyclops to know. He'd face the entire Avengers and every government on earth before he backed down from something he believed in. He would not apologize. Half a step he would not give.
White Queen watched the silence with gathering fury. "Then please show yourselves out."
Cyclops stepped forward. One finger rested on the switch of his ruby quartz visor. "The world needs your power."
"Get out—!" White Queen erupted.
A pale shockwave detonated from her, rolling through the building in every direction. Invisible, intangible—but it slammed into every mind in the building like a battering ram.
The sheer scale of it was visible to the naked eye—the air itself seemed to buckle. It caught Daisy broadside and staggered her back two steps before she snapped her defenses up and held.
The storm hit fast and receded. Emma was venting, not trying to do permanent damage.
Daisy looked down at Cyclops, now unconscious on the floor. She covered her face.
She'd assumed he had mental defenses. He lived at Xavier's School, trained under the world's most powerful psychic. She had never imagined that in this one specific respect he was exactly like any ordinary person—zero psychic armor, zero resistance.
You can't hold your own against a psychic attack, and you were just in there throwing your weight around? You don't even know the basic principle of knowing your enemy? You've completely set me up here.
She looked around. Every single employee in the building was out cold.
Working at Frost International must have its unique compensations. Your boss knocked everyone into a deep sleep at irregular intervals; you still clocked out on time with wages never docked. Difficult clients were never a real problem—the boss handled them personally, definitively. The boss had connections everywhere, operated by unorthodox methods, and never let a situation get out of hand. The dress code was spectacular and provided material for interesting daydreams every single day. Honestly, the benefits package beat Stark Industries.
She filed the thought away. "Emma, I'm sorry. But we genuinely need your help today."
Emma wasn't surprised the wide-area blast hadn't taken Daisy down. An attack dispersed across an entire building—anyone with even basic training could shrug it off.
She looked Daisy over from head to toe. "We're not close, Miss Johnson. Use my surname. Your psychic ability is respectable by civilian standards. Physique—" a brief appraising glance—"acceptable. They've been suggesting you for the Red Queen title. What exactly makes you qualify?"
Daisy sighed. "I'd rather not fight you. Tangling with me tends to be fatal."
She put deliberate weight on the last word. Emma took it as a challenge rather than a warning—a misreading.
"Show me."
A massive psychic force drove down on Daisy from above.
Emma's psychic depth was enormous—Daisy didn't have any special psychic powers to speak of, but thinking that simple mind control would make her submit was a pipe dream. Raw psychic volume couldn't breach the qualitative gap in her fundamental nature.
One step forward. Emma increased the pressure. Another step. The distance between them shrank visibly.
She only needed Emma to drop the grip for one second. One second—and given Emma's Diamond Form capability, maybe five seconds total to end the fight.
Emma had committed, and she was stuck on a tiger's back with no clean way down.
Her intelligence on Daisy, gathered through Xavier's School sources, had suggested Storm-level capability at best—students had witnessed them spar in the Danger Room. Emma had been confident she could manage that. She was not managing this.
As the second most powerful psychic in the world after Charles Xavier, there were almost no minds Emma couldn't control. But Daisy was in the exception category.
"There's been a misunderstanding, Daisy. I can apologize." The sustained assault was going nowhere. She'd already decided to disengage, dropping her tone deliberately.
"Funny. You just said we weren't close. I've thought about it—and we really aren't." Her voice came out flat and cold.
Daisy's brow lifted. Her psychic energy surged. From her pocket dimension, the Godslayer came out—and she threw it at Emma Frost like a throwing knife.