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!

  Thaddeus tries to talk down the Bck King.

  -x-X-x-

  There really aren’t any good options here, are there? The temptation to attack Shaw right here and right now is present, but Thaddeus knows he ’t give into it. And not because of Shaw himself.

  Funnily enough, Thaddeus thinks he could probably take Shaw, if it came down to it. Unlike Pierce, he knows what Shaw’s mutation is. He knows how powerful the Bck King of the Hellfire Club really is… and he knows he trump him with Rogue’s draining ability. All he has to do is grab onto the bastard and never let go and Shaw is toast.

  But what then? What happens after Thaddeus defeats the Bck King in battle? Well for one, Shaw would never accept defeat gracefully, so he’d have to kill him. For two, it would alert Seleo the true nature of Thaddeus’ abilities. Shaw was a threat, and a massive o that, but he wasn’t the true enemy. It was the Bck Queen who po fatten Thaddeus up like a pig for the sughter.

  Right now, Selene believed Thaddeus to be nothing more than a big, dumb brute with too much strength and not much else. She had no clue he was far more than she had pnned for and that was thanks to Emma’s maations. But if Thaddeus killed Shaw right here and now, then they would be alerting the Bck Queen, an a sorceress tens of thousands of years old, to the truth.

  Shaw himself isn’t the true problem. But he’s heless made himself an obstacle in this moment and as Thaddeus siders how best to navigate this situation, he wonders briefly if he’s really going to have to bite the bullet, swallow his pride, and hand Natasha over without a fight.

  Natasha, of course, tio py her role to the hilt, even going so far as to press herself into his side and shiver fearfully. That’s when it hits Thaddeus like a lightning bolt, an idea for how to extract himself and Natasha from this situation without being so disrespectful that Shaw is forced (or rather allowed) to respond violently.

  He’ll have to be careful in threading this needle, but maybe, just maybe, they get out of this with everything still intact after all.

  "Apologies sir, but I don’t think that will be possible.”

  Shaw’s brow climbs and Thaddeus see the violent brute lurking behind the thinnileman’s vehat the Bck King is currently putting up. His patience has its limits, but Thaddeus khat already. They’d already beeed tonight after all, by one very foolish Donald Pierce.

  “Oh?”

  Ining his head apologetically and as respectfully as possible, Thaddeus gestures to the destru ah all around them.

  “Natalie… she’s just a College RA. All of this… it’s way more than she bargained for. I’ll accept full responsibility for inviting her, but I think it’s best that I get her back to the Uy and tucked into bed before the shock fully sets in.”

  Natasha, for her part, whimpers as she gs to Thaddeus all the harder, doing her absolute best to sell the bit. The show isn’t for Shaw, of course. Well, it’s partially for Shaw, partially for the audiehey surely have by this point. After all, Shaw was a monster… but he was a monster who took perverse delight iending not to be a monster.

  As far as Shaw knows, Thaddeus isn’t aware of who ‘Natalie’ really is. So his excuse of needing to get her out of this pce after she witnessed people die and was herself shot at should be ironcd. Of course, Shaw himself does know who Natasha is… but the rest of the attendees do her.

  So unless Shaw is willing to expose Natasha’s status as a Bck Widow in front of everyohen he has no choice but to let Thaddeus and Natasha go for nht? Oh sure, they’ll still be on Shaw’s radar after this. There’s no way the Bck King isn’t going to be gunning for them, mostly to make Natasha into his personal pet assassin with Thaddeus just being colteral damage on the side.

  But surely, for the night at least, Shaw ’t do anything too overt to stop them from leaving…

  “Oh, that won’t be a problem seeing as she won’t remember the gorier events of tonight. In fact, I’m going to have to insist on you keeping her here for the time being until Tessa make her way over.”

  Thaddeus’ eyes widen as he realizes how outmaneuvered they truly are. Fortunately, Shaw doesn’t see this because he’s already looking away, his gaze sweeping across the ballroom for the woman he’s just name dropped. Thaddeus was of course aware of who Tessa was. Shaw’s assistant aary, his right hand woman.

  Tessa was the reason that Thaddeus and Emma couldn’t just enter Shaw’s mind and make him think whatever they wanted him to think, both about the White Pawn and his date for the evening. Tessa was Shaw’s defense against other telepaths, being a psychic herself. She was insurance against any such heavy handed mental attacks, seeing as Shaw’s own mutation didn’t protect him from psionics.

  … And currently, she was walking around to the party’s shellshocked guests, specifically those who were clearly not an actual part of the Hellfire Club, and she was very obviously altering their minds and fixing their memories.

  Admittedly, Thaddeus had gotten a bit tunnel visiohere for a moment. Shaw was a massive threat. Even if he likely couldn’t kill Thaddeus, there was no telling how much damage Shaw could do to the others. Cessily, Natasha, and Emma were all at risk right now. So yes, Thaddeus hadn’t paid much attention to anything but the predatht in front of his face.

  As a sequence, he hadn’t really realized it… but of course. This was a Hellfire Ga. The authorities weren’t going to show up. No one in w enfort had been called. There was already a up crew dealing with all of the bodies, bullet gs, and bullet holes, much to Thaddeus’ shock.

  And with Tessa ing house in her own way, by the time the night was over, the only people who would remember what had really happened here would be the surviving meraries… and those who were official members of the Hellfire Club.

  Thaddeus supposed he should have been pleased that Shaw clearly ted him among those members, even as just a White Pawn. But he was equally displeased to realize that now it wasn’t just that Natasha was in danger of being taken from him, it was that she was in danger of having her mind tampered with.

  “… You know what, Tessa is going to be busy over there for a while from the looks of things. Emma! Be a dear and e over here, please.”

  Straightening up, Thaddeus looks to the blonde White Queen as she sashays her way over. There’s a hint of apology in her eyes, but far more ihoughts.

  For all that he’s a brute, Shaw is very good at this game Thaddeus. He prides himself on being multiple steps ahead. Don’t fret though, he’s already signaled me not to actually wipe Natasha’s memories. He just wants an excuse to remove her from your presence so he reveal his knowledge to her without letting you know.

  So even now, Shaw didn’t realize that Thaddeus kly who Natasha really was and what she could do. The Bck King thought he was taking a gem off of Thaddeus that the younger man didn’t even know he had or something.

  It was a cold fort, admittedly. As Emma arrives at Shaw’s side, looking at them with an icy, superior expression on her face, Shaw is all smiles, a toothy grin stretg from ear to ear as he cps his hands together, creating a miniature shockwave from the motion. A mistake or a reminder of just how much power he currently had stored up? Did it matter?

  “Right then. Hold the girl steady a Emma make all of this nasty business go away. Then, we get on with the party. Not to worry darling, you’ll enjoy the upgrade to my arm, I guara.”

  That st part is directed at Natasha, obviously. Said right in front of Thaddeus’ face, it’s a massive insult… but then, Shaw clearly doesn’t think Thaddeus or will do anything about it. And really, what he do? He’d known that politely deing wasn’t likely to go well, but he hadn’t known just how poorly it could go.

  He was right back where he started. By all rights, he should just give Natasha up. He should just let Shaw have her. She was a big girl; she could handle herself. And there was a lot of value to having someone on the ioo, really. Natasha had some resistao telepathy as well, so she should be able to hide her true loyalties from Tessa.

  A… ahaddeus ’t bring himself to do it. Logic dictates that he should. Every rational fiber of his being is saying he o let Natasha go. But he’s not some robot, at the end of the day. He’s still a person with all of the emotions and feelings that e with that.

  “No.”

  The single ws through the air and all three of the people he’s standing with rea their own ways. Natasha tenses up against his side, getting ready for what es . Emma winces but ines her head ever so slightly while reaffirmially that she ‘has his baatter what’.

  And Shaw? Shaw freezes for a fra of a sed, his wolfish grin being forced as he slowly tilts his head to the side.

  “Excuse me?”

  Thaddeus carefully and deliberately pushes Natasha behind him and slightly away, giving her room to get out of dodge again if… no, rather, when the goiough.

  “I said ‘no’. I’m not going to let you just wipe her memories. And I’m not giving her over for you to have your way with either.”

  Maybe, just maybe, everything that Emma knows about Sebastian Shaw is wrong, or through the lens of a woman dealing with a misogynistic bastard. Maybe Shaw will respect defiance from the little guy, just this once. Maybe he’ll have a soft spot for his fellow mutant that clearly did for an irritant like Pierce.

  … Yeah, Thaddeus had always known it was a long shot. Faster than even HIS eyes track, Shaw steps into his personal spad buries his fist in Thaddeus’ gut. Cessily’s presence absorbs the impact, along with the fact that Shaw is holding back so Thaddeus isn’t thrht into Natasha behind him, but the blow still breaks multiple ribs, causing them to pierce Thaddeus’ lungs and sending him to his knees.

  He starts healing immediately, of course, but not before coughing up a thick glob of blood onto the ground at Shaw’s feet.

  Grabbing him by his hair, Shaw pulls his head bad sneers down at him.

  “Defiance? After you just saw what I do to disloyal traitors. What is mine is mine. And what is yours… is also mine.”

  Shaw sneers down at him.

  “sider your membership to the Hellfire Club revoked. Frost. Wipe this idiot’s mind so I throw him out.”

  Hah… so even now, Shaw was going to let him live, albeit as an amnesia the sound of things. Another out that Thaddeus could easily take, given the Bck King was relying on Thaddeus’ ally to do the mind wiping. A, it would still leave Natasha in Shaw’s hands… and cut Thaddeus off from the Hellfire Club at the same time.

  Reag up, Thaddeus grabs Shaw’s wrist and activates Rogue’s power. He starts to drain the Bck King right then and there… and the ma even notice. The sheer amount of energy he has stored up seems to be almost infinite as Thaddeus fully heals and then tinues colleg power from the Bck King.

  This sts until Shaw, sneering, winds up and kicks Thaddeus right in the face, sending him skidding backwards across the floor. The kick was enough to knock out several teeth and shatter Thaddeus’ jaw, but of course that starts to heal immediately as well.

  Cessily is just beh the surface, bubbling with anticipation, but Thaddeus has her hold off for the moment. They need surprise on their side if this is going to work. Sure, Shaw has already seen his armored form, but that doesn’t mean he ualy what it means.

  “Frost!”

  At Shaw’s barked and, Emma, who has beeating, slowly shakes her head. Seeing Thaddeus’ desire to fight, she doesn’t bother trying to pretend she’s wiping his mind.

  “I… ’t. Something is blog me from his mind.”

  Shaw’s eyes widen and his nostrils fre in e. He looms over Thaddeus for a moment, watg him heal before calling out another name.

  “Tessa!”

  The Bck King’s secretary hurries over as fast as high heels allow. She doesn’t even need orders to immediately look down at Thaddeus and begin trying to invade his mind. Unlike Emma, Tessa is actually trying… but just like Emma previously, the new psychis up against the Pore Defense.

  “I… ot breach his defenses. It is as thought his mind has been calcified in some way.”

  Shaw’s jaw ches for a long moment as he looks betweewo female telepaths before his gaze finally nds on Emma.

  “We will be having words about your recruitmehods ter, Frost. Exactly who did you let into our midst? Never mind…”

  Turning his gaze back to Thaddeus, Shaw stomps forward, a glint in his eye that promises extreme violence even beyond what he’s already shown so far.

  “I see you have some sort of healing factor as well. I suppose we’ll be testing its limits then.”

  The Bck King positively glows with energy as he raises his fists and begins leaning down, clearly intending to beat Thaddeus to death. It won’t work, of course… but Thaddeus doesn’t io let Shaw find that out the hard way. Instead… it’s time. He shifts into the liquid diamond form that he’d gotten from fug Mercury and Emma for the first time outside of testing… and surges upwards, swimming around Shaw’s fists.

  Cessily swims with him, her body and his all but merging together into one being with two separate minds. They’re like puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together despite stantly ging, despite their liquid nature.

  Shaw shouts in anger as they sm into him, c him from head to toe and taking him to the ground. Immediately, Thaddeus goes back to draining the man, even as Shaw punches and kicks out, struggling mightily.

  It’s not that he doesn’t mao break free in pces. He blows parts of Thaddeus and Cessily back from his body over and ain. But he simply ’t push all of what they currently are off of him. He might be one of the stro men on the p right now after how much kiiergy he absorbed from Pierce. It just doesn’t matter in the face of what Thaddeus and Cessily are doing.

  There’s nothing Tessa do to stop them either, and even if she tries, Thaddeus expects Emma to block her. In this moment, Thaddeus has already won. He feel Shaw getting weaker, even if that weaker is still insanely strong. Still, at this point the Bck King is a dead man walking.

  Except… should Thaddeus go for the kill? All the previous reasons for not letting Shaw live still ring true, but Thaddeus knows it would be crossing a line all the same. The fallout will be biblio matter what he does, but which sario does he want to live with?

  -x-X-x-

  A/N: Peace... Peace was never an option.

  -x-X-x-

  [ ] Let Shaw live, he 't bring himself to finish the job - 1%[ ] Drop Shaw into a deep a, incapacitating him for the forseeable future - 16%[X] Kill Shaw, no half-measures - 83%

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