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!

  To topple a king.

  -x-X-x-

  Deep down, Thaddeus knew already what he had to do. He just wasn’t sure if he had the strength to-

  Thaddeus.

  Time almost seems to freeze as Emma’s voice echoes through his mind telepathy. Almost seems to, because iy what actually happens is that their thoughts speed up. Time is moving normally outside of their shared mental e, but for each fra of a sed, they have ay together.

  I’ve locked down the ballroom and the surrounding area. After our weekend spent improving my powers, even Tessa doesn’t stand a ce against me. Nobody is going to interfere. Nobody is capable of moving a muscle right now.

  Thaddeus would have bli that if he could have. Wasn’t Emma only a telepath? She didn’t have telekiic abilities st he checked.

  I’m not holding them in pce physically. I’m holding them in pce mentally. At our level of psychic power, blog the e from the mind to the body so they ’t send signals to move their appendages is child’s py. Making sure they all keep breathing is a little more taxing though, so let’s this up quickly.

  … Fair enough. Still, Thaddeus ’t help but spare a moment to send a feeling of apology in Emma’s dire. This had all goo shit, and admittedly it was at least partially his choice. If he hadn’t brought Natasha as his date, if he hadn’t been uo set aside his pride a Shaw take her… none of this would have happened.

  What’s done is done. All we do now is move forward.

  Still, that went both ways didn’t it? There was no putting the genie ba the bottle now. Fet Shaw… Selene was almost certain to learn more about him than they’d wanted her to know at this point. The Bck Queen was their true enemy, and Thaddeus had just blown their entire subterfuge wide open regarding her.

  Not necessarily.

  What? What did Emma mean by that?

  There’s still potential to salvage this situation, Thaddeus. Selene isn’t here right now, we are. And we are in trol. The narrative is ours to shape. However, before all of that… we have to decide what to do with Shaw.

  Right. Shaw was still under him and Cessily. Still trying to fight back, though at a snail’s pace right now due to the sped up perception of time. If not fue’s mutation, Shaw probably could have used the energy he’d collected from Pierce’s blows to fully bst Thaddeus and Cessily off of him. The Bck King could have gotten the upper hand. However, between Thaddeus draining some energy off of Shaw earlier and now every sed he remains in tact at this point… it’s a fone clusion that Shaw will lose. The end of the road.

  The question remaihough, what to actually do with the Bck King. Beating him was ohing. Killing him was another. But if they didn’t kill him…

  I could alter his memories as I io do with the surviving guests of the Ga, Thaddeus. I could ge his mind so that he thinks he simply decided not to be so aggressive in his poag of Natasha, make him thieo tact her outside of the party at a ter date pletely of his own volition.

  Oh. Thaddeus hadn’t thought of that idea. That was clever, and obviously if she could do that to Shaw and the party goers, she could do it to Tessa as well. It would up this situation nicely. Except… something in Thaddeus rebelled at the thought. It just felt…

  Your instincts are correct, Thaddeus. There is always a risk of Shaw unc what we’ve doo him. Of him realizing that his as are not his own and his memories have been tampered with. There’s a greater ce because of Tessa… a telepath is far more likely to uampering doo her mind and we ot remove her from the board entirely without leaving Shaw incredibly suspicious.

  Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Once more, Thaddeus’ thoughts begin to bend towards the clear solution… the final solutiicide.

  … There is a quote from an exge between two learned men of the eenth tury that feels applicable here, Thaddeus. rike at a king unless you are sure you shall kill him. Or, to put it more suctly… no half-measures.

  Right. No half-measures. Shaw died. Right now. Funnily enough, ohe decision has properly crystallized in Thaddeus’ mind, he stops feeling ay about it. He stops sed guessing himself. Sebastian Shaw was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet. All that was left… was to finalize the details of his execution.

  We expin this away to Selene, given the right text. You o kill Shaw properly though… fill his throat and asphyxiate him. Choke him out even as you drain him. Have him die from ck of air.

  It takes Thaddeus only a sed to make the logic leap. They were going to pin the kill on Cessily. In a way, she WAS Shaw’s direct ter, though Thaddeus had his doubts oher she could have dohe Bck King in without his help. Still, Shaw worked on kiiergy, taking blows and using that power to deliver back even stronger hits. Cessily though, did not have to fight with brute force. She could at any time she wanted shove herself down someohroat or into their orifices and spread through their body, killing them that way.

  That said, pinning this on Cessily was… dangerous.

  Do not fret, Thaddeus. If we spin it properly, we will have turned Selene’s ire towards Charles Xavier, not Cessily herself. I will tell her that Xavier mao i one of his students into your life without my knowledge, relying on Cessily’s immunity to telepathy to sell the lie. I will expin that I had no idea Cessily was lurking under your suit… until everything kicked off.

  … Yeah, that might work. Rather, it had to work. Though no matter what, Thaddeus suspected Selene would be far more focused on him than she had been previously after this. Still, pointing the Bck Queen at Xavier would take some of the heat off, hopefully for long enough troup and e up with a proper pn for dealing with her.

  For now, it was like Emma had already said. The only way through… was forward.

  Thaddeus pulls back from Emma’s mind as she does the same. Time appears to rapidly speed back up even as his mental perception slows back down. As soon as he’s ba the present, Thaddeus surges forward into Shaw’s wide open mouth. The Bck King was ever so kind enough to give him su opening because he was too busy r and screaming his head off in ao do anything else.

  Good too, because otherwise Thaddeus would have had to go up the man’s nostrils… and that would have been disgusting.

  Thaddeus senses Cessily’s shock as he forces part of his liquid diamond body down Shaw’s throat and into his lungs. But the shock doesn’t st long before the living being made of pure mercury joins him. Cessily might be made up of a non-toxi of mercury, but in this case… that doesn’t matter.

  Shaw’s struggles beore panicked by the sed, the man thrashing even more violently than he did before as they pin him to the ground. However, Thaddeus has drained so much off of Shaw that it’s not even funny. In fact… yes, much to Thaddeus’ surprise, he FEEL Shaw’s weakeruggling feeding energy to him in a way pletely different frue’s mutation.

  He hadn’t known that ossible. He retty sure Rogue didn’t kher. It seemed though… that if Rogue drained a mutant or possibly aahuman long enough, she would take their mutation or powers for herself. Just like Thaddeus was doing now.

  Shaw’s mutation was Thaddeus’ now, and that sealed the Bck King’s fate all the more thhly. No amount of struggling, even if Shaw still had the power he had at the start of this, would help… Thaddeus was feeding on Shaw’s st remaining remnants of energy two different ways at this point.

  Finally, it’s over. The Bck King twitches in his death throes and then falls still. His lungs do not draw breath, his heart does not beat blood. Thaddeus knows this because he’s inside of those lungs. He’s surrounding that heart. Slowly, he begins the process of pulling himself back. Cessily does the same, even as she whispers to him in his ent ear.

  “Did we really just do what I think we did?”

  They had, yes. Thaddeus signals Cessily that they’ll talk ter. He feel her settle down at that. Frankly, he wonders if he ever should have brought her along in the first pow that things had turned out like this. But… he was gd for her presence all the same.

  Slowly taking back his standard form, Thaddeus towers over the women around him for a moment before forcibly shrinking himself back down to a more manageable six feet and a few inches. His tailored white suit is of course pletely shredded by his transformation into liquid diamond, but Cessily takes its pce, even transf into a replica of the inal set of garments and c him from head to toe.

  It’s a sign of just how ihe situation is that she doesn’t so much as fondle his balls right now, even as Thaddeus grimaces down at Shaw’s corpse. Movement from the side has him tilting his head as a cautious Natasha steps up though.

  “… What’s the pn?”

  The Bck Widow sounds shaken. Thaddeus has no idea whether that’s because she actually IS shaken, or if she’s just affeg a certain tone of voice right now. She’s not pretending to be Natalie Rushman anymore he notes, but that doesn’t mean she’s still not putting on an act.

  Still, it’s obvious why she’s dropped the fa?ade when Thaddeus looks around the ballroom. Everyone except for them and Emma is unmoving. Not frozen in pce, he notices, but literally just sitting or standing still, some of them swaying side to side with their minds trapped in their own bodies.

  When Emma doesn’t speak up, Thaddeus realizes she wants him to say it. Whether that’s because she wants him to have all the credit, or because she’s too strained with what she’s currently doing… it doesn’t matter.

  “The pn… the pn is simple. Shaw went too far and I didn’t back down. Something had to give. It would have been me; I would have just been a smear on the ground… if Cessily hadn’t jumped down Shaw’s throat and asphyxiated him to save me.”

  There’s a brief pause at that as Thaddeus waits not just for Natasha’s answer, but also Cessily’s. This was the first that the mercury-based mutant was hearing of this after all. If she objected toly, they would have to figure something else out. But after a moment passes, Cessily’s voice purrs in his ear.

  "Giving me all the credit? This is because of the Bck Queen, isn’t it? I don’t mind. I would have done anything to save you from Shaw anyways if I had to."

  Thaddeus lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. Frankly, part of him felt like he didn’t deserve Cessily’s ‘ride or die’ attitude. But oher hand… he had done a lot for her. He appreciated a girl who was happy to return the favor, even if it wasn’t expected.

  Natasha, meanwhile, finally nods.

  “I spin that, yeah. SHIELD is going to throw a fit, but this will help sell my cover better. They ’t deny that I’ve mao worm my way into your heart if you’ve killed the head of the Hellfire Club for me.”

  That was true. Well, mostly true. There was one minor detail about what Natasha just said that was incorrect. Emma is the one who corrects her though. Her voice sounds strained, but she’s able to keep her tone clear and sistent all the same.

  “Sebastian Shaw was not the head of the Hellfire Club. He was one of its two kings, and he nominally held trol, but he was not the head of the shere is ahe Lord Imperial.”

  Pursing her lips together into a thin line when Emma proves not to be much more forthing then that, Natasha simply nods.

  “I’ll be sure to include that in my report.”

  “Do so.”

  Emma’s clipped tone makes it clear she’s splitting her focus right now. As does the slow movement taking over the room as people e out of their frozen states and stare in differing degrees of horror at Shaw’s body. Thaddeus only assume that Emma has done her due diligence already in altering their memories of what occurred. Fortunately, their duplicity was close enough to the real deal to be easily accepted, Thaddeus figured. That was why Emma had had him kill Shaw the way he did in the first pce.

  Suddenly stepping forward, Emma lifts her hands wide.

  “It would seem tonight is a night for ge. A night for… shake-ups. Some of you might be tempted to flee at what you have seen tonight. But this is the Hellfire Club and we are, all of us, made of steruff. This is the Hellfire Club… and here, you keep what you kill.”

  Turning, Emma regards Thaddeus and for a split sed he fears she might actually io name him the Bck King right then and there. From the slight quirk of the side of her mouth, she’s amused by his sed of panic.

  “Strength begets strength. Power and vi is to be rewarded. Thaddeus Cummings… I hee my White Knight. Do you accept this position and all the responsibilities that e with it?”

  Nobody says a word. Nobody would dare after what just happehaddeus lets a moment pass before nodding his head stoically and speaking in a gruff tone.

  “I do.”

  Emma smiles wickedly as she turns back to the crowd.

  “So be it. Before all of ynize my Knight’s assion. May he tio serve the Hellfire Club loyally and with as much vi as he showed tonight.”

  There’s a pause and then Emma turns bad gestures almost dismissively at Shaw.

  “Have your pet up this mess, my pet.”

  Thaddeus’ eyes widen slightly… but before he even sider whether he wants to ask Cessily to do that, she’s already moving. Everyone sees for a moment as the ‘killer’ of the Bck King flows halfway off of his body, covers Shaw’s corpse, and a moment ter pulls back to reveal nothi behind. Not even bones.

  “Tasty.”

  He tries not to shudder too hard, even as Emma, now the highest ranking member of the Hellfire Club in the ballroom, finally calls for ao the festivities. The party is finished just like that, and their group departs through one of the side doors into a more private setting. Finally, Thaddeus asks the most burning question on his mind as they settle into the smaller room.

  “… Why is she still with us exactly, Emma?”

  Tessa hasn’t said a word in all this time, and Thaddeus figures that’s because Emma has been trolling her carefully. However, when everyone else in the party had e out of their minor bit of memory modification, Tessa seemingly had as well. A, she’d remained quiet and withdrawn, not doing a sihing or taking a siion against them. Thaddeus khat meant Emma hadn’t really let her go like she had all of the others.

  The White Queen hums as she looks over at Tessa curiously.

  “That’s the iing thing. Before I could modify her memories, she asked me not to, telepathically. Told me she had something to say. She was frantiough, positively shouting in the depths of her mind… so I deemed it worth us hearing her out. Well, Tessa? Your loyalty to Shaw was uionable, so I’m curious what yoing to tell us now that could possibly stop me from doing what o be done.”

  There’s a pause as the slightest ge es over Shaw’s secretary and right-hand woman. Tessa had seemed free before, but now Thaddeus tell she’s ACTUALLY free of Emma’s influence, able to move and speak of her own volition. The raven-haired telepath swallows thickly for a moment, her eyes flig between all of them before she finally speaks.

  “My true loyalty was o Sebastian Shaw. I was a long-term undercover po spy on the Bck King and the Hellfire Club… by Charles Xavier.”

  Oh. Well now.

  -x-X-x- The Vote: [X] Alright, hear her out, out of sideration for Cessily if nothing else - 93%[ ] Nope, she still knows too much, especially about their pns to turn Selene's attention towards Xavier. Alter her memories - 7%

  -x-X-x- If you'd like to read more of my work not seen on this website, check out Hentai-Foundry. and QuestionableQuesting. where I have over a thousand stories!

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