A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the bsp;to vote on the dire of the story!

  A peek into the mind of Selene Gallio~

  -x-X-x-

  Selene Gallio had been around for a long, long time. When you got to be her age, you could say beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’d lived through and fotten more things than most people would ever know. At aroueen thousand years old, she’d seen and experienced many things over the course of her long life.

  Taken against that inparable tapestry of experiences, Sebastian Shaw’s death shouldn’t have been all that surprising, truth be told. The man ping upstart, at the end of the day. He was nothing more than a game piece who thought he yer, and Selene had entered thousands of men like him throughout her existence.

  … A, even if his demise should not have surprised her, she still found herself taken off guard. Privately, she was a little delighted by that fact. It made for su amusing tale too… the Pawn taking the King. Still, she keeps the amusement out of her rea, even as she stares at Emma Frost from across the louhey’re both sat in.

  “How did this happen?”

  Frost isn’t one for squirming, even in her presehe White Queen sits primly, with her head held high as she speaks in a clipped, straione.

  “Charles Xavier.”

  Most might deem a simple two word answer ie… a, it answers her question suctly and fully. That doesn’t mean Selene isn’t going to push for more details however. Narrowing her eyes, she gestures to Frost.

  “Go on.”

  Letting out a simple huff of irritation, the White Queen shakes her head.

  “He snu some of his X-Men right under my he boy had been befriended by Cessily Kincaid, a female mutant made of pure mercury. When Thaddeus refused to back down and Shaw pushed the issue towards lethality, Kincaid acted with equally lethal force.”

  Hirious. Shahyxiating on mercury almost brings a smile to Selene’s face. Almost. God, she wishes she could have had a rec of the whole experience. But as, Hellfire Gas went unfilmed for obvious reasons. A shame that she’d chosen not to attend this one… but to be fair, she hadn’t expected it to be worth her time. Obviously, she’d been wrong.

  “And what of this Bck Widow that attracted Shaw’s i in the first pce?”

  After all, if the boy hadn’t taken su entig, juicy target as his date to the Ga, the likelihood that Shaw would have even given him the time of day would have been negligent at best. It has Selene w how things might have gone if she had taken the boy as her date to the Ga instead… but you didn’t get to be as old as her by dwelling for long on ‘what could have beens’.

  If Frost is caught off guard by Selene’s query, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she simply grimaces some more in remembrance.

  “Apparently, the boy knew who she was all along. His pride wouldn’t allow Shaw to take her though, regardless.”

  Ah yes. A man’s pride. Selene had lost t of just how many times she’d used such a thing to her advantage over the millennia. Shaw had been a more prideful man than most… but then to be fair, his mutation gave him an over-infted sense of superiority and self-fidence. He’d bitten off more than he could chew, but then how was he supposed to know the boy would bring a trump card to his first ever Hellfire Ga?

  The boy had effectively dohe equivalent ing a submae gun to a college fraternity hazing. He’d walked into one of the Hellfire Club’s parties as nothing more than the lowest man oem pole, and then said no to the King himself. By all rights, the boy should be dead and Selene should be a whole lot ahan she currently was.

  … Only the fact that he still lived left her mildly amused rather than thhly enraged. Frankly, if Shaw HAD killed the boy st night, Selene might have killed the Bck King herself this m. Chad Cummings was too damn valuable to her to be lost so easily.

  Still, despite being pleased at how things had ultimately gone, Selene shows not an ounce of this as she gives Emma Frost a hard stare.

  “You were meant to be on the look out for things such as this. It’s why I put you in charge of the boy. You let Xavier slip his people into the boy’s life without notig a thing. You let a Bck Widow get close enough to the boy that he was willing to die for her.”

  Truly, Frost’s failure to keep this situation under trol was staggering. Teically speaking however, Selene did not have any authority over Emma Frost. They were the Bd White Queens of the Hellfire Club respectively. Peers, if you will. However, despite her status as White Queen, Emma Frost had long been her and Shaw’s creature. This had only been further ted when the previous White King, Donald Pierce, had been caught out with his pns of ‘sing’ the Hellfire Club of its ‘mutant freaks’.

  All in all, Selene and Shaw had shared Frost as an implied subordinate in every single way save for the bedroom. But Shaw was a brute where Selene sidered herself a finely sharpened scalpel. Turning Frost against Shaw, leveraging her hatred for the man towards obedie had been child’s py.

  And so Selene had sent Frost to look into a boy who might just be capable of dealing with Shaw permaly for them. Except… not quite this quick, because Selene’s pns for Chad Cummings did not end with Shaw’s death. In fact, they barely started with Shaw’s death.

  “… I’m taking precautions to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

  It’s not an apology. Nor is she begging for mercy. Selene’s eyes fsh a bit even as she gestures for Frost to eborate once more. The White Queen does so, her back straight and her shoulders squared.

  “I have… repurposed Shaw’s pet telepath. Tessa is my creature now, and I have assigned her to watch over young Thaddeus and make sure he doesn’t get up to any more trouble that we do not know about.”

  Selene scoffs and it’s not even faked. She gave Frost that task and now the other woman was delegating after making an utter mess of things? Shameful. A… she ’t exactly gainsay her. Again, they are teically the same rank after all. Although their ranks in the Hellfire Club are ultimately meaningless in this case. The Hellfire Club itself is just a means to an end for Selehe test in a very, very long stream of them in fact.

  What it truly es down to… is power. Those who have it and those who crave it. The reason Frost has long been her and Shaw’s implied subordinate is precisely because of the gulf of power betweehe only issue is… that gulf of power has shrunk with what has noened. Intolerably so.

  Admittedly, Emma Frost has always been a powerful telepath. One of the most powerful that Selene has ever met, in fact. However, the immortal woman’s sheer breadth of experience has always allowed her to trump the blonde White Queen all the same. No longer. Even though she’s been trying to do so sihis meeting began, even though she’s pulled out every tri a book over sevehousand years old… she hasn’t mao find purchase with even Frost’s most surface level thoughts.

  That’s not by act or happenstaher. Frost is actively defending herself from Selene in a dispy of defiahat holy makes her want to draiher woman dry and take her power for herself right here and right now. Good lord is it tempting…

  As, while most who cimed to know her might say that Selene was he type to hold back or resist temptation, that was only because they didn’t know just how often she had to resist the urge to do something potentially… reckless. When she did do things that were deemed ‘reckless’ or ‘absurd’ or ‘evil’, it was because she knew for a fact that she could achieve her goals.

  In this case, Frost would make for a lovely snack as she was now. But that might spoil the meal they were currently preparing with Chad Cummings. And that… that was a meal Selene was very, VERY much looking forward to.

  As such, Selene doesn’t bother calling Emma out on her defiaill, the aowledgment lies unspoken in the air between them as Selene instead moves the versation to aopic.

  “And what of the trouble he’s already gotten up to? What of Xavier’s pawns and this Bck Widow?”

  Frost, clearly taking Selene’s silen the matter of her power as a win, has the gall t at that.

  “Thaddeus is fug them all. Whether they seduced him or he seduced them… they are sources of power for him at this point. Say the word and I have them removed… though that might bring down Xavier upon our heads. You know how he is about his wards.”

  Selene scoffs at that. She wasn’t afraid of Charles Xavier. He was a greater threat than Shaw, but then of course he was. Shaw was nothing but a particurly big stick to beat down others with. Xavier’s abilities being more cerebral made him far more… unwieldy as both a tool and an adversary.

  Still, she doubted he’d ht ordered Shaw’s assassination. She didn’t think he had it in him. That one of his had killed the Bck King anyways… well, that was hirious to say the least.

  Ultimately, it all came back to power. Chad Cummings would only grow more powerful as time went on. The exquisite meal he represented would only grow richer and richer the more he coputed with other women. The maations of Xavier or even the Bck Widow’s handlers… mattered little so long as the boy lived and tio grow stronger.

  “Very well. Let them tio fuck the boy. Ence it even, if you think it will increase his potency faster. That, in the end, is all that matters.”

  The White Queen reizes the dismissal for what it is and rises to take her leave. Selene, of course, stops her with a raised hand… it’s a fgrant power py, but while they might be peers and Frost might be strohan she once was, Selene was still her superior in every way that mattered. It would do the other womao remember that fact.

  “Do keep a better eye on things, Frost. Last night never should have happened.”

  Frost pauses and Selene expects deferend obeisance. What she gets instead is a frown of all things as the blohrows her own words ba her face.

  “You were the one who told me to keep the boy at arm’s length all those months ago. But that was to keep Shaw from realizing what we were doing, so I suppose now I be a lot more… hand’s on with my new Knight. Not to worry… Tessa is merely a tingen. I shall take Thaddeus in hand myself from here on out.”

  Selene narrows her eyes, once agaied to drain Frost dry right then and there. Instead, she flicks out a hand dismissively.

  “Do so.”

  With that, the White Quees and leaves the Bck Queen aloo brood. But… Selene does not brood for long. She’s never been one for brooding. No, Selene Gallio… is a woman of a.

  Pulling out a phohe a immortal ces a call and puts the device to her ear. After just a moment, the call is picked up and a rich, deep voice be heard oher end.

  “Yes?”

  Selene’s lips purse. He has to know it’s her calling, ahe ck of respect is as galling as ever. More so after her meeting with Frost. Did Frost think Selene would just let this go? Or perhaps she thought that the Bck Queen would focus all of her attention on Xavier, solely because Shaw’s assassin came from that man’s ‘school’.

  No. If there was ohing this entire experieaught her, it was that she had been foolish in relying on the White Queen to look after the boy for her. She needed someone else on the inside. She needed her own a the hole.

  “Essex. I require a special sort of tool for a special sort of job. And I fast."

  There’s a pause as the man (if one could even call him that) oher end of the liakes that in for a moment. Then…

  “It will be expensive.”

  Scoffing, Selene rolls her eyes.

  “Price is no object.”

  The pause is a lot shorter this time around.

  “The’s discuss details.”

  -x-X-x-

  Thaddeus lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding when he finally gets the message from Emma that she’s left Selene’s and is on her way back. Admittedly, he wasn’t sure what he would have done if she hadn’t checked in within a reasoime frame. Maybe mounted a rescue operation?

  But then, knowing what Selene was capable of, it was likely that Emma wouldn’t even be alive by the time they mao get to her. Unfortunately, going with her hadn’t been in the cards. After all, he wasn’t supposed to know that the Bck Queen even wanted him. In the end, the only option was for Emma to go alone and if need be, rely uporengthened powers to survive the enter.

  From the sound of things, that hadn’t been required, thankfully. If Emma had survived her enter with Selehen that meant they’d at least partially mao fool the Bck Queen into buying their story of how st night went down. Given that nobody was going to be telling Selene any other story, that would hopefully keep things at a simmer for the time being.

  … However, it didn’t fully solve anything. Just because Shaw was dead didn’t mean they were at peace. If anything, Thaddeus’ life had just gotten a lot more stressful than before.

  It holy made him want to focus on something… mundane for o was Saturday right now, but Monday was ing up soon enough and he would be expected to go back to css. Some might think after how Friday night had gohat the idea of attending mundane college csses would be ridiculous. But Thaddeus wasn’t the ohat lost his life st night. In the end… the show must go on.

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