The XXX-Gene Ch. 61 (Marvel)

A/N: A peek into the mind of Selene Gallio~

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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 forgotten more things than most people would ever know. At around seventeen thousand years old, she’d seen and experienced many things over the course of her long life.

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

… And yet, 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 such an amusing tale too… the Pawn taking the King. Still, she keeps the amusement out of her reaction, even as she stares at Emma Frost from across the lounge they’re both sat in.

“How did this happen?”

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

“Charles Xavier.”

Most might deem a simple two word answer inadequate… and yet, it answers her question succinctly 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 snuck in some of his X-Men right under my nose. The 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.”

Hilarious. Shaw asphyxiating on mercury almost brings a smile to Selene’s face. Almost. God, she wishes she could have had a recording of the whole experience. But alas, Hellfire Galas 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 Black Widow that attracted Shaw’s interest in the first place?”

After all, if the boy hadn’t taken such an enticing, juicy target as his date to the Gala, the likelihood that Shaw would have even given him the time of day would have been negligent at best. It has Selene wondering how things might have gone if she had taken the boy as her date to the Gala 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 count 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-inflated sense of superiority and self-confidence. 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 Gala?

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

… Only the fact that he still lived left her mildly amused rather than thoroughly enraged. Frankly, if Shaw HAD killed the boy last night, Selene might have killed the Black King herself this morning. 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 noticing a thing. You let a Black Widow get close enough to the boy that he was willing to die for her.”

Truly, Frost’s failure to keep this situation under control was staggering. Technically speaking however, Selene did not have any authority over Emma Frost. They were the Black and 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 cemented when the previous White King, Donald Pierce, had been caught out with his plans of ‘cleansing’ 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 considered herself a finely sharpened scalpel. Turning Frost against Shaw, leveraging her hatred for the man towards obedience… it had been child’s play.

And so Selene had sent Frost to look into a boy who might just be capable of dealing with Shaw permanently for them. Except… not quite this quick, because Selene’s plans 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 flash a bit even as she gestures for Frost to elaborate 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. And yet… she can’t exactly gainsay her. Again, they are technically 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 Selene. The latest in a very, very long stream of them in fact.

What it truly comes 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 between them. The only issue is… that gulf of power has shrunk with what has now happened. 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 since this meeting began, even though she’s pulled out every trick in a book over seventeen thousand years old… she hasn’t managed to find purchase with even Frost’s most surface level thoughts.

That’s not by accident or happenstance either. Frost is actively defending herself from Selene in a display of defiance that honestly makes her want to drain the other woman dry and take her power for herself right here and right now. Good lord is it tempting…

Alas, while most who claimed to know her might say that Selene was never the 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 defiance. Still, the acknowledgment lies unspoken in the air between them as Selene instead moves the conversation to another topic.

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

Frost, clearly taking Selene’s silence on the matter of her power as a win, has the gall to shrug at that.

“Thaddeus is fucking 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 can 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 particularly 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 outright ordered Shaw’s assassination. She didn’t think he had it in him. That one of his had killed the Black King anyways… well, that was hilarious 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 copulated with other women. The machinations of Xavier or even the Black Widow’s handlers… mattered little so long as the boy lived and continued to grow stronger.

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

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

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

Frost pauses and Selene expects deference and obeisance. What she gets instead is a frown of all things as the blonde… throws her own words back in 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 can be a lot more… hand’s on with my new Knight. Not to worry… Tessa is merely a contingency plan. I shall take Thaddeus in hand myself from here on out.”

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

“Do so.”

With that, the White Queen departs and leaves the Black Queen alone to brood. But… Selene does not brood for long. She’s never been one for brooding. No, Selene Gallio… is a woman of action.

Pulling out a phone, the ancient immortal woman places a call and puts the device to her ear. After just a moment, the call is picked up and a rich, deep voice can be heard on the other end.

“Yes?”

Selene’s lips purse. He has to know it’s her calling, and yet… the lack 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 Black Queen would focus all of her attention on Xavier, solely because Shaw’s assassin came from that man’s ‘school’.

No. If there was one thing this entire experience taught 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 ace in the hole.

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

There’s a pause as the man (if one could even call him that) on the other end of the line takes 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.

“Then let’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 reasonable time 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 managed to get to her. Unfortunately, going with her hadn’t been in the cards. After all, he wasn’t supposed to know that the Black Queen even wanted him. In the end, the only option was for Emma to go alone and if need be, rely upon her strengthened powers to survive the encounter.

From the sound of things, that hadn’t been required, thankfully. If Emma had survived her encounter with Selene, then that meant they’d at least partially managed to fool the Black Queen into buying their story of how last 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 honestly made him want to focus on something… mundane for once. It was Saturday right now, but Monday was coming up soon enough and he would be expected to go back to class. Some might think after how Friday night had gone that the idea of attending mundane college classes would be ridiculous. But Thaddeus wasn’t the one that lost his life last night. In the end… the show must go on.

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A/N: If you vote for Option 2 and have ideas for what you want that to look like, throw them in the comments below! I might just use one or two of them if it wins!