- Emma Grace Frost born January 8th, 1986 to Winton and Hazel Frost
- Second daughter of (eventually) three, third born of (eventually) four kids
- Raised in intensely competitive, psych- and emotionally unhealthy home
- Only exception to negativity was closeness with brother, Christian (#2 of 4)
- Bright and beautiful, still couldn't compete with elder sister Adrienne
- Attended Massachusetts Academy in Snow Valley, elite private school
- Began having minor episodes, headaches, flashes of insight, 'hearing voices'
- When these grew worse in her early teens, went to Christian for help
- Christian turned to father, encouraged Emma to trust Winton knew best
- Emma sedated, carted off to Restful Haven sanitarium in New Orleans secretly
- Forced to come into her powers surrounded by the gibberingly insane
- Found way to shield her mind, shut out the voices, find strength of self
- Eventually managed to gather intel and means to execute escape
- Escape nearly foiled by malicious, abusive guard, delivers psychic blast
- Makes her way to New York City, survives on streets for months, planning
- Stalks Winton Frost, gathers information to enable blackmail
- Confronts Winton, demands he rescind orders for her commitment, freedom
- Seizes information on offshore accounts from Winton, takes to support self
- Returns to Snow Valley and Massachusetts Academy to complete education
- Works hard to grow her understanding and control of her fitful telepathy
- Graduates with honors, incredibly popular
- Learns of Christian's homosexuality and suicide, mother's alcoholism
- Decides that she has to look out for herself, because no one else will
- Attends Harvard,Business Administration, minors in Linguistics, Economics
- 'Discovered', she begins modeling as a means to develop connections
- Funds minor cosmetic surgery to enhance and perfect her appearance
- Finds her way into attending various functions at Hellfire Club as guest
- Ingratiates herself with various important patrons at the Club
- Graduates with MBA, starts work at Ned Buckman's company
- Telepathy grows exponentially more reliable and powerful as the Curse lifts
- Learned of Buckman's black projects, including intent to enslave meutahumans
- Orchestrates masterful takeover of Buchman's company, HFC Inner Circle
- As she prepares to ally with Shaw to overthrow Buckman, approached by Xavier
- Xavier promises preventing future young metas suffering for powers as Emma
- Emma agrees to join Xavier's faculty at his school
- Emma takes courses to complete a Masters in Education, teaching certified
- Emma achieves position as Assistant Headmistress of the school
A Genius Benefiting From Geniuses
Emma is extraordinarily bright, and would easily qualify as a genius on any standard test. Much of this is her own innate intelligence, but almost as much is comprised of the skills and knowledge she has gleaned from some of the finest and brightest minds on the planet today, all because she can.
Calculating & Strategic Thinking
Emma is calculating, always making it a point to be aware of her strengths and weaknesses, all of her own plans and goals and those of anyone in connection with her or opposition to her. Like a master chess player extraordinaire - which Emma is, and was even before she managed to learn quite a bit from the minds of a few masters - Emma is always thinking not just one, or two, but potentially dozens of steps ahead, with contingencies for almost any eventuality, all to do everything she can to make sure every situation comes out in her favor and to her benefit, even if it does so in ways others cannot see.
Perfectionist
Emma is a perfectionist, demanding the best and more of herself and of everyone around her. Those who fail her will know of her displeasure, and those who cannot learn from their mistakes will not work with or for her for long. She has little mercy for fools.
Power, Money, Power, Riches, Power, Comfort, Power
Emma is used to not just the finer things in life, but the finest, and she has every intention of making sure that she never has to live or deal with anything less, under any circumstances. It is true that she wants not just money, but power; with that power comes the resources, connections and finances to assure the lifestyle to which she intends to remain accustomed.
Revenge & The Big Chill
There is a cold, dangerous part of Emma that - having been betrayed by those she held closest to her heart - may very well never trust fully again. She gives everyone the cold shoulder, chilly and restrained, even downright bitchy. She is manipulative, and has the potential be very vindictive. In many ways, she has become the ultimate expression of exactly what Winston Frost was trying to create, but to his detriment and that of any who cross Emma, including Winton himself. Only the influence of Xavier has mollified this, and many see little evidence of that in their interactions with the White Queen.
Rights, Power, Privilege
Emma had convinced herself that she was 'gifted', and that those like her - those granted such gifts - should use them to assume their rightful places in the world, to rule and command and shape the destiny of humanity. Never again should another child be cast out because she is merely different in some strange and misunderstood way, but should instead be cherished, adored, taught and groomed to take her proper place at the pinnacle of the food chain. And Emma is willing to spend a great deal of time and effort to see to it that the world is reshaped to make that not just a possibility, but a reality. Charles' influence has shown Emma that she can make those changes in perhaps a more positive manner, without oppressing others to get there. She's adapting.
The Softer Side?
Though many would contend that Emma has no softer side, they would be wrong. True enough, she rarely if ever allows that side of her to shine through to anyone - aside from her students, particularly those she would consider her best and brightest - but it is there. It is that side which cares for her students and wants to nurture them, as she never was. Who wants to end forever the threat of neglect or intolerance for every metahuman child. She will ruthlessly protect 'her kids,' even from those who are supposedly her allies. Emma's lifelong pursuit of ruthless power has always been merely a defense mechanism to protect herself from more emotional harm. Given the right chance, the inner idealist has begun to take root. But she'll never willingly, knowingly allow another to see her soft and vulnerable core. No one can be trusted with that.
Motivations
Emma's motivations are basic, for all the complexities of their expression. Emma is motivated by fear: fear of betrayal; fear of being alone; fear of being vulnerable; fear of being defenseless; the fear that what happened to her could become normal or accepted rather than reviled.
Goals
Interestingly enough, for a woman who seems to many to be so much larger than life, Emma's goals are very small. By and large, they aren't a design to change the world, but instead merely to change or to assure her own place within it. Though quite complex especially in their interactions, Emma's goals are generally simple enough to understand: She demands the ability to protect herself from ever being betrayed again as she has been in her life, and refuses to ever be helpless or a victim again. She craves the riches and power that assure her she will never face that powerlessness again, and the trappings of success that enable her to project the confidence and control that will assure everyone else knows she is not to be trifled with. And despite these incredibly selfish motivations, there is a part of Emma that desires to build a better world, where young people with gifts like her own are understood, accepted and embraced, not cast aside, abused and abandoned as she was. She wants to be the best.
Telepathy
Emma is a telepath. Indeed, she is naturally gifted enough that her telepathy was actually present, if sporadically and uncertainly, even before the fall of the Spectre's Curse. And she has been working, independently and with help to perfect her skill and control with her telepathic abilities since her early teen years, over a decade of work.
She may not be the most powerful telepath in the world - arguably, that title belongs to Charles Xavier, or at least he's the most powerful she has ever encountered - but she is most definitely one of the most deftly skilled. Her telepathic touch is feather-light and exceptionally agile and precise.
With her mind unshielded, Emma would be assaulted by the constant bombardment of thoughts around her. Shielded, she can remain aware of those thoughts, or not, as she chooses. She generally has a casual range of around a hundred and fifty yards. If she chooses to reach out and actively connect with another mind, she can generally do so at a range measured in tens of miles, though this can be forcibly reduced by greater concentrations of minds that need to be sifted through. If trying to pick out a specific mind in something like Manhattan, her range is likely to be only three or four miles at most.
For untaxing mental effects - generally communication, sharing of perceptions and the like - Emma can make contact and work with several minds at once. Her current limit is ten. For more taxing and detail-oriented efforts like memory reading or manipulation, she can generally only maintain contact with two or perhaps three at once, fewer if the effort becomes very taxing, like editing long-term memories which generally can only be done one-on-one.
In general, Emma's telepathy is not very tiring for her. This was not always the case, but is now. The exception is that more taxing efforts, requiring greater and greater concentration, can still tire her mind, just like any incredibly detailed task can mentally tire someone else over time without proper breaks. And since her powers demand concentration to be effective, that's a problem.
Telepathic Shielding
Just as Emma is a very precise and detail-oriented telepath, so too her ability to shield and protect her own mind is prodigious, a bit beyond what her mere level of power alone would provide. Emma has worked long and hard to make it so, starting with the struggle to shut out the jibbering thoughts of madness that surrounded her in the insane asylum. Emma's telepathic shielding is not simply an impenetrable wall, however - though it is quite good at that - but is also very subtle and deft, able to deflect and misdirect thoughts away from her consciousness that she does not wish to deal with with a minimum of effort - often none at all. This also tends to make Emma's mind rather difficult to assault for other telepaths. Indeed, Emma can even hold her own against the likes of Xavier, though the latter's sheer strength paired with his psychological knowledge has won out more than a few times, when they have challenged one another. Nevertheless, he is not always successful, which is a testament to her ability.
Telepathic Combat
Emma is capable of using her telepathy in forceful manners, as well. She can lash out with her mind, sending a wave of telepathic force at another mind, which can stun. An unshielded mind will generally be dazed or staggered, or indeed fall unconscious from such an assault, most especially if unprepared to resist. If she unleashes her full strength on a target, she can even potentially do permanent or semi-permanent damage to their brain from the overload.
Such telepathic strikes are generally something Emma targets individually, dealing with one target at a time. She can 'spread' the effect, sometimes catching a few minds close together, but this will also dilute the effect, making it somewhat easier to resist or withstand. She generally cannot spread this effect very far, only a few feet, up to perhaps ten feet wide at most. In general, this effect is best delivered at relatively short range - line of sight at most. The farther away she is from the target, the weaker the wave of energy will be, and the more easily resisted.
The other form of telepathic combat is combat on the Astral Plane, carried out between two telepathically aware minds. In this environment, Emma's detail, skill and precision can often enable her to dispatch an opponent with seeming ease. She is strong, but there are stronger. Nevertheless, she is very, very skilled and a determined warrior of the mind, not to be underestimated.
Beauty
Put simply, Emma is beautiful. She's not just 'pretty,' or 'sexy', though she is both of those things. She is in fact utterly beautiful, and she has made a point of perfecting that beauty, showcasing it, enhancing it, and using it to her advantage at every turn. She quite literally has supermodel-quality good looks, with a queen's poise and the cool, aloof but undeniable sensuality of a high-priced call girl or a world-class exotic dancer, all rolled into one seamless whole. And to put it simply, that's advantageous in so, so many ways. Emma knows them all, uses them all, and does so intentionally all the time.
Telepathic Downloads
Emma has an excellent education, and she has learned a great deal. But that doesn't quite encompass all that she knows. With all of her telepathic talent and experience, Emma has very specifically learned how to slowly write and rewrite knowledge into her mind, copying it from the experiences and knowledge of another. The most common thing she has accomplished with this is to enhance her language abilities. Knowledge gained this way is not quite as good as learning it on one's own, but repeated practice can make it a permanent part of one's own knowledge. Generally, however, knowledge like this will stay fresh for a few hours, a few days at most, and then will begin to fade away. Within a week, all that would remain are a few fragments. But the ability to do so can be invaluable.
Personal Fortune
Emma's personal fortune started with several million dollars 'appropriated' from her father, Winton Frost. But she has invested wisely and worked hard - in her own way - to grow this fortune to an incredible degree. If Emma were to liquidate her assets, she could likely come up with quite a few billion - with a B - dollars. As it is, she has liquid assets in the tens of millions, with several hundred million in various real estate around the world, more hundreds of millions in stocks and other financial instruments, and still more in jewelry, fine art, fine clothing and other accoutrements of the truly rich. Emma has found new ways to measure her success and 'keep score', but she'll never lose the love of money and what it makes possible.
Frost International, Inc.
Emma managed to arrange the takeover of Edward Buckman's company, and she has remade that company into her own, even renaming it. For a time, everyone expected that Emma would assume control as CEO or Chairwoman of the Board of Directors, perhaps even both. But instead, she has merely remained the majority stockholder and a mighty influence on the vision and direction of the company. She rarely has much to do with the day to day operation of the company at this point, since she has dedicated so much of her time to teaching. But she still keeps up on the goings-on of the Fortune 500 diversified company.
Xavier Academy
Emma is not just a member of the Staff of the Xavier Academy, she is the Assistant Headmistress, which often makes her the Acting Headmistress, since Xavier can often be quite busy. He has entrusted the day to day operation of the school, the management of the staff and students in Emma's care. And she is also one of the teachers of the school, helping to shape the young minds of the future. She has unfettered access to the resources of the school, including such things as the Danger Room, custom uniforms, vehicles, advanced technology and more. Of course, she also has incredible responsibilities she has to live up to as a result.
Fame and Reputation
Emma Grace Frost is the scion of one of America's blue blood 'royal' families, with a lineage that can be traced straight back to Plymouth Rock. She is the most visible and best known face of that family and lineage. She has been a model and a celebrity. And she has proven to be a business phenom, and continues to maintain her position as a member of the Hellfire Club. Emma has a huge reputation in the upper crust of the world, and it opens a lot of doors. She has also built a reputation as an educator, after her recruitment by Charles Xavier to help lead his school. Though it is possible for Emma to go somewhere and not be recognized, she is always noticed, and it isn't hard to find out who she is if one just tries.
Hellfire Club
Emma is not just a member of the Hellfire Club, but actually continues to hold a position in what was once called the Lords Cardinal, and is now known as the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. She helped establish the coup that put the current Inner Council in power, and took over Edward Buckman's - the former White King's - company as a result. She is the current White Queen, though this is far from public knowledge. Still, it presents her with unique access to the powerful, the movers and shakers of society and business and power in the world, and she has been known to use that influence and those connections to her advantage.
Education
A part of Emma always admired teachers. Despite the circumstances of her family and their disdain for anything so plebian, Emma saw teachers as those holding the keys to future knowledge, the skills that would serve no matter where one wanted to go or what one wanted to be. When she grew up, she continued to believe in the power of education. Once she had freed herself from the institution and managed to secure funding and liberty, she returned to her school and finished her education. And then she pushed on, attending one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. She has an excellent, well-rounded and in-depth education, and she has continued to add to that constantly, pushing the boundaries of her mind.
When given the opportunity to become a teacher herself, Emma jumped at the chance in her own way. She has added to her impressive education and the knowledge gleaned from others by achieving a Masters in education. Now, she specializes in being an educator in the highest sense of the word, sharing knowledge and wisdom and shaping the minds of the future, granting to them the kind of absolute top-notch education from which she herself benefits.
Athletics
In her younger years, Emma was not much of an athlete. She found not much joy in those activities, and no praise at all, which lowered their attractiveness in her home life. But during her time in the institution, that changed. She stopped making decisions on what to do based on what would earn her the praise and approval of her parents, and started doing what she needed to do for herself. And that included getting stronger, physically as well as mentally and emotionally. Since her escape, she has continued to push herself athletically, and has added learning how to defend herself, how to fight. For most of her young adult life, her powers have been fitful and uncertain at best, and she had to be able to take care of herself without depending upon them. She is an all around athlete, regularly swimming, running, doing gymnastics, climbing and the like. She is also a skilled equestrienne. She doesn't do much weight lifting, as she has no desire to alter her body's shape, only to stay fit and capable. She is not exactly a master martial artist, but she is an equivalent to a brown belt, and she has learned how to fight well and fight dirty; it's not just pretty uniforms and colorful belts for her, but a drive for safety, strength and survival.
The Finer Things
Emma has a lifetime's education in the finer things in life; the finest wines, the finest food, the finest clothes, the finest restaurants, cars, planes, vacation spots, music, opera, entertainments and more. She knows what's best, what isn't. She knows the difference between Vivaldi and Brahms, and why a '42 Rothschild is one of the most expensive bottles of wine in creation. It's all a passion with her, a way to keep score and assure she is never back where she was in the institution, or scraping by on the streets as she was afterwards. Emma's natural environs are such things as posh high society gatherings and parties, fashion soirees and royal balls and banquets.
People Skills
Emma's skills with people are, frankly, amazing. Even when her telepathy doesn't work or cannot be trusted, what she has learned about people enables her to read them, as a crowd or a gathering, or as individuals, and comprehend what matters to them, what frightens and concerns them, and how best to use that information to her advantage. She knows how to run the balance of the razor's edge between seduction and the icy cold shutout, and even how to maintain that edge seemingly forever (or at least certainly for a lot longer than most would expect). She knows how to motivate others, or how to attack their confidence and motivations, and is quite proficient with both in equal measure as it suits her purposes. Add her telepathy to the mix, and Emma plays people the way a truly world-class violist plays a Stradivarius.
Business
Emma has a Masters Degree in Business Administration and Finance from Harvard's school of Business and Finance, magna cum laude. She has studied some of the best and fastest-rising business people of the last ten years, and has learned extensively from all of them. She is an excellent businesswoman, understanding fiances, economics, management strategies, personnel and resources, investments, accounting, business and employment law, real estate and more. She has managed to take over and lead what was once Edward Buckman's company, transforming it into the very successful Frost International, Inc., and remains connected with the company as the majority stockholder, guiding the Board of Directors and the CEO. Since she has been working with Xavier and the school, she has not assumed the role as Chairwoman of the Board, or CEO, but keeps her 'hand on the tiller' of the company, guiding its vision and its very profitable future, keeping her business skills sharp.
Languages
Emma has been multilingual from her earliest years. Her first language was French, because that's what properly bred uppercrust women should know, so that's what she was taught. She quickly picked up Spanish as well, because many of the staff she encountered in her daily life spoke it. And this grew over time, especially when she started school at the Massachusetts Academy, and then continued on to Harvard. Emma is fluent in English (obviously), as well as French, Spanish and German. She is also reasonably conversant in Japanese and Russian, and she knows key phrases in Mandarin and Korean. She has studied linguistics, and her multilingual background makes her more easily able to work on translating and understanding new languages. Of course, it helps that she can practically download the knowledge from a native speaker's mind to help out.
Telepathy
Emma's greatest, most hard-won skill is her skill with her telepathy. She has studied her abilities from their earliest manifestations, and has made it a life's work to better understand how they work, and how to use them better, with greater skill and to greater effectiveness. She knows the limitations of what mind control of various forms can do, and how to creatively or effectively work around those limitations given time. She taught herself how to shield and defend her mind, and has studied the efforts of others to do the same. She is a skilled, well-practiced, precise telepath. She has made a point of studying other telepaths when she has encountered them, learning their abilities in comparison to her own, adding their tricks and experience to their own. This has included the chance to learn from Xavier himself.
Teamwork? What's that?
Emma is relatively awful at 'teamwork'. She can overcome this in the short term, with significant effort. But in the long term, it's just not her strong suit at all. She doesn't really trust people not to let her down. As smooth as she can be, she's too much of a perfectionist not to snark at those who make mistakes. She doesn't take orders well. And it doesn't help that many of those she works with have reasons not to trust her. So in situations where teamwork is important, it is quite likely that Emma's presence will make things more difficult, rather than better. A telepath should improve communication, right? Hah!
Reputation and Living Up to It
Emma has a reputation. She's a bitch. She's a snob. She's a perfectionist. She's an ice queen. She's a liar, and sometimes a manipulator. And in spite of all she has done to help her students, that reputation still hangs from her shoulders. She can't avoid it. Because it's true. She is still all of those things. All she can do is keep on keeping on. Some would say maybe she could apologize. But Emma doesn't believe in it. And who the Hell would believe it if she did?
Morality? Don't make me laugh
Many - even most - of those who choose to be associated with something like Xavier's school have very highly developed senses of morality, of right and wrong. Emma doesn't. Emma is just fine with doing whatever it takes to accomplish what she feels needs to be accomplished. She's really not someone to worry that 'killing is wrong'. On the other hand, she'd agree that killing if there is any other option - even a bit more difficult option - is reckless, wasteful, and stupid. It will only make the end situation more difficult because of the resentment and fury created. But her feeling on this is pragmatic and practical, not moral. And that bothers a great many of her allies.
Genetic Immunity
Thankfully for Emma, her sometimes seemingly 'absolute cosmic power' did not come with a djinni's 'itty bitty living space' clause. However, it did come with one significant limitation, though it hasn't come up: Emma's sisters, Cordelia and Adrienne, are completely immune to Emma's telepathy. Their minds are blank slates to her. She won't sense they are present until they show themselves, and she can't pick up their thoughts at all, let alone manipulate or influence them. Given what Emma feels about her family, this is really not a happy thing for her, though she does not entirely, consciously, realize this to be true and will not until she encounters one of her sisters again. Emma will find it rather small consolation when she realizes that their abilities are similarly blocked to her.
Flesh and blood
Emma is quite powerful, this much is true. And she is very skilled at taking care of herself. But in the end, Emma is only flesh and blood. Past the telepathy, she is nothing more than any other human female of about her height, weight and level of physical exercise and training. Knife her, she bleeds. Shoot her, she is likely to die or at least need a long convalescence in the hospital. Pop her on the back of the head hard enough, and she is most likely going to black out and fall unconscious and vulnerable. The trick with Emma is finding a way to get that close. For someone aware of her talents, however, it would not be all that hard. Someone moving faster than conscious thought (an instinctively fast martial artist) would be one possibility; a machine would be another; and a sniper acting from outside her usual scanning radius would be another.
Need for Control
Emma's issues of trust have led to an evolution of her psyche that requires - nay, demands - that Emma herself be in control at all times. Emma does not relinquish command or control to anyone easily. She may appear to do so, but usually this is only when she has a multitude of other plans in place that she feels assure her of the security to reassume control in any situation should things start to go beyond her liking. At her root level, Emma is afraid, constantly. Afraid of betrayal; afraid of her own weakness; afraid that at some point she will find out that she isn't strong enough to save herself, and that her inability to trust anyone will mean that she has no one who cares enough to save her when she cannot save herself. She already knows her family does not care. Who else could ever be bothered? Who would profit from extending themselves for her? It is for this reason that Emma tries to greatly reward those who prove useful and loyal to her, and the reason she so strongly seeks to punish those who fail her or prove themselves untrustworthy. On some level she is hoping to winnow out someone who will be so well rewarded during his or her time with Emma that they will naturally seek to help Emma should she end up helpless to aid herself. At the same time, Emma would never admit that to herself, for such would just be another sign of weakness to be stamped out.
Severe trust issues
Having been betrayed at the most basic level by those whom she had, quite naturally, given her complete trust - namely her family - Emma finds it nigh impossible to really trust anyone, ever again. Trusting her family got her snatched away in the middle of the night and locked away in a Hell the like of which only other telepath who has been through the experience could ever understand. Alone, desperate and facing the reality of madness within and without, Emma's psyche adapted and learned. She could not afford to trust even those that Nature itself decreed she should trust. And so … now, Emma cannot trust. It is remotely possible that someday someone might breach those barriers by repeated attempts at openness and repeatedly proving themselves trustworthy and faithful to Emma. But it is highly unlikely, because her inability to trust leads to a natural tendency to look at every word and deed and weigh it against her own desires, designs and needs. In Emma's mind, it is Emma against the world because that is the only way it can be. Which does not mean that she enjoys it or wants it this way. But life experience has taught her that any other way is a weakness that leads to downfall if not utter destruction. She won't make the same mistake twice.
Telepathic Overwhelming
A basic principle of telepaths is that the telepathic mind is, by default, open and listening to all of the surface thoughts of the minds around him or her. The more minds there are, the more chatter and noise. The more excited those minds, the 'louder' and more insistent those voices. It is for this reason that the first and most important task in training a telepath is to learn how to shut out those voices, to shield the telepath's mind. Yet even shielding one's mind, there is a constant level of 'pressure' exerted on those shields, a level of effort being expended to keep out all that noise. So Emma has to keep her shields up, subject constantly to that pressure. She needs breaks, when she can let down her shields in peace, to recover and recuperate. And if she is forced to drop her shields completely in an area too full of other thoughts and minds, she will be bombarded with their thoughts, which can cause pain, distraction, or even unconsciousness.
Enemies
Emma didn't get to where she is in her life without making enemies. Hell, she has made her own father one of her greatest and most determined enemies. And there are quite a few others. And since Emma does not exactly lead a quiet life, her enemies know where she is and much of what she's up to. They will eventually make their moves to get some of their own back. Pity those who get in their way.
