[video]

[myownbestfriend]

[Emma doesn't advertise the fact, but she's pretty good with electronics. Which means she knows to dial back the resolution and select a highly redundant compression algorithm when she decides to make a video post over the currently-unreliable network.

So there's Emma, grainy and with some fuzzing around the edges, as unimpressed as ever, hair pulled up into a messy knot that somehow seems like she meant it to look like that.]

There are ground troops looking for the catacombs.

[How does she know that? Telepathy. Clever deduction. ]

Unfortunately, the surface is...inhospitable. If you don't need to breathe, or can otherwise shrug off a gas attack, I want to take a group up and see what we can do about thinning that herd, and perhaps getting a few answers.

[If you don't already know that Emma can turn into diamond, she looks ludicrously unqualified for what she's proposing, but her bearing shows no uncertainty at all.]

...Stark, that means you.

Comments

[video]

[myownbestfriend]

[Hi Wanda SHE HATES YOU SO MUCH--ahem. If Emma can pretend to love Sebastian Shaw for years despite him trying to have her killed and then having her memories of the event blocked, she can act like she'd wouldn't throttle Wanda as soon as look at her.

She doesn't bother to fake looking happy, though.]

How long can you last doing it?

[video]

[peaceinchaos]

[ That is more courtesy than Wanda expected to be honest. She pauses briefly, to consider. ]

Depending on how far out I have to reach, two- maybe three hours.

[video]

[myownbestfriend]

[A big chunk of it is trying to avoid alienating Magneto or Lorna. The balance of forces is different here, and Emma wants the other mutants on her side more than she wants to tell Wanda what she thinks of her.]

Fine. It looks like we might have a few people who'll need the safety net along.

[You get to babysit Robin and maybe Mystique.]

[video]

[peaceinchaos]

All right, I can take care of them.

[ Fair enough. And hey, this is going pretty decent aside from being the most strained conversation ever. ]

[video]

[myownbestfriend]

There's a girl coming along who sounds like she has elemental powers. You can coordinate with her.

[Someone who knows Emma well would be able to tell how much she's holding back, but to anyone else, she's just coming off as cold.]