[2009 – August]
Frowning deeply even though I had already guessed that it was her, I knew that Emma's assessment was absolutely correct.
Selene was one of the first mutants, to be exact she was an immortal variant of a mutant known as External, of which existed nine to my knowledge with En Sabah Nur being one of them, who was also otherwise known as Apocalypse.
She was a 17.000 years old sorceress and her magical might was great enough that she had been considered as Sorcerer Supreme alongside Steven Strange.
These few facts alone would make anyone even half-sane develop a healthy amount of respect for her, as her knowledge and experience alone were probably incomprehensible.
"I thought you lead the Hellfire Club by yourself, while there are no Kings and no Queen beside you?", I asked Emma, trying to recall everything else I knew about Selene and to figure out why she would want to meet with me.
"Things aren't that simple.", Emma said while shaking her head in response, "Let's just say that Selene helped me become the White Queen so that she wouldn't have to destroy the organization that she created from going down a path that she didn't approve of by herself."
My senses being what they were, I could pick up the minute changes in Emma's expression and see what she didn't want me to see, the shadows flashing past her crystal gaze as well as the suppressed twitches of her facial muscles told me that this conversation reminded her of things she would much rather forget.
The fact alone that she mentioned Selene helping her was a hint that was rather hard to miss, as I knew about Emma's past with the Club. I knew that her path to ascension as the White Queen was anything but without sacrifices and losses, the things that she had had to endure to reach her current position shaping her into the Ice Queen that she undoubtedly was.
Still, Emma had been nothing but good to me and I knew that she genuinely cared for me, so I couldn't help but wish for her to trust me with her past, hoping that she might open up to me about her experiences.
I simply wanted her to know that I was there for her as her brother, Emma having already become the second-most important person in my life after Jean.
Still, I was also aware that trust had to go both ways and I hadn't told her about my Self-Creation, something I definitely planned to do, though now wasn't the time for such.
“Since I became the White Queen, Selene and I became something akin to rivals, though we aren't hostile to each other.”, Emma continued, “She isn't really interested in leading the Club, as she is more of a silent partner. She enjoys watching her schemes bear fruit more than actually scheming.”
“I normally don't hear from her very often, but she contacted me yesterday, wishing for me to arrange a meeting with you. Though I will only do so if you want to meet her. This is your decision to make, Elijah.”, she promised with a caring look, offering to go against the incredibly powerful sorceress' wishes for me.
"No, I will meet her. If the impressions I have of her from my visions are anything to go by, then Selene wouldn't ask for a meeting without a reason.", I replied, a thoughtful look in my eyes, "And I am confident enough in myself that I can stop her from harming me, or you, if that is her goal."
A surprised look in her eyes, Emma's lips quirked upward in a gentle smile as she responded while rising from her chair: "Good, then I will get Clarice to take us to the base of the Club in Boston. It's where she is waiting to meet you."
“No need.”, I stated while standing up myself, “If you can project the destination in my mind, I can teleport us there myself. I figured out how to do so with my shields a few weeks back.”
"Are you sure? It is quite the distance.", she asked in surprise, as I nodded in response and manipulated my mental shields to let her project her thoughts into my mind without actually giving her access to my thoughts.
Feeling the information enter my mind, I activated Farsight as I turned to face Boston, my gaze settling on the mansion that functioned as the Hellfire Club's base in the city. I could feel that my eyes had changed, the green fading into a pale white while I used this ability
Stepping closer to Emma, I raised my palm and invoked a small blackish barrier, manipulating it to rapidly increase in size and envelop us both before gathering my focus for a moment and taking control of the space inside the barrier.
Forcing my will on space itself, I let it oscillate and shift us into a sub-dimensional state unable to interact physically with the outside world, and the next instant, Emma and I appeared in the entrance hall of the Hellfire base in Bosten.
The whole process had taken little more than a few seconds, which wasn't as fast as I wanted it to be, but still rivaling the use of the Sling Ring and Blink's portal creation, which was mainly owed to my mind working extremely quick while executing this rather difficult and highly-complex task.
Straightening her blazer with a frosty look on her face, Emma slipped into her role as the White Queen effortlessly while waving off a servant.
"Come, Elijah. Let's not delay this more than necessary.", she said calmly as she led the way.
Following behind silently, I stayed vigilant while moving forward with confidence, my senses primed for anything unusual while my Extrasensory Perception was working overtime to feed my mind information about my surroundings, scanning for possible threats or traps.
I did not know what Selene had in store for us or why she even wanted to see me, but I wasn't going to blindly walk into a trap knowing what she was capable of.
Still, should things go sideways I had a rather simple battle plan which consisted of instantly covering both Emma and myself in a shield, before deploying an ethereal shield that blocked any kind of magic as that was clearly Selene's greatest weapon.
From there it would be considerably easier to deal with her, even though she was still a fearsome opponent without her magic.
If I remembered correctly, Selene was capable of draining the life force from living beings and using it to enhance herself with it, while also being able to use it as a fuel for highly destructive flames. It was also this ability that granted her immortality.
And while my shields would most certainly keep her from draining my own life force or Emma's, Selene's remaining battle power would depend on the amount of life force she still held within her. The advantage of this though was that the age-old sorceress would become weaker the longer she fought and drew on her reserves.
As Emma led me through the rather opulent and certainly massive mansion, we saw no one but a few servants busying themselves with keeping everything clean and proper, which wasn't that much of a surprise as most of the Club members had their own businesses to take care of and places that they had to be at.
One thing I was sure of though was that this mansion probably had an underground base where the stuff that couldn't be shown to outsiders was kept, like weapons, drugs, and maybe even labs and research projects.
I wasn't too sure about what the Hellfire Club was doing besides manipulating the economy and the political arena to their advantage, but they surely had a few secret labs that tested new technologies, probably also a few prison cells where they held captive the loved ones of those they attempted to coerce.
Either way, I didn't really care about what they did. The Hellfire Club might seem like an evil organization but they were no different than the governments and other ultra-wealthy and influential international concerns.
Manipulation, coercion, and corruption were something rather common amongst the upper class of society, where those that sought power and wealth gathered while trying to undermine each other.
I was the least interested in that kind of power, and I certainly wasn't going to try and fight corruption. I might be willing to save those unlucky souls I came across as I had done a few weeks ago, but I wasn't suddenly going to go dress up like a hero and fight crime everywhere. I wasn't a hero and I had no intention of becoming one.
Still, the Hellfire club differed from those people simply because they were a group who mastered this discipline, their wealth and influence incredibly huge and widespread as they had been at this game for centuries. Always in the shadows, manipulating and scheming to achieve their goals.
Emma seemed to enjoy this kind of game though and I knew she was good at it too. She was most likely one of the greatest manipulators alive, her mind a weapon in itself even without her telepathy.
Finally arriving before a set of large double doors in the right wing of the mansion, my senses told me of the refined concentration of pure power behind them, my Extrasensory Perception warning me of the danger.
The doors opened by themselves for Emma and me, and I didn't hesitate to step inside calmly with Emma by my side despite the danger, my power giving me confidence.
A large lounge with soft leather couches and bookshelves to the sides greeted my sight though I ignored those and everything else, as my gaze shifted to the black-haired woman standing in the middle of the room, a flowing black silken dress accentuating her perfect curves.
The dress was of a simple style with two thin straps over her shoulders and a large cut to her right side that almost went up to her hip. Clearly wearing nothing beneath as her areolas were visible through the thin material, the black silk clinging to her large breast and flat stomach as it if had been painted onto her.
Curly black hair styled to one side over her shoulder while stark blue eyes shined softly, her smile impossibly innocent and fatally attractive, her flawless pale skin looking pure and untainted under the soft lighting of the room.
Selene was seduction personified as she stood there and greeted us with a soft smile, her beauty simply supernatural.
"Emma, how nice of you to visit me.", Selene smiled gently, her tone of voice a charm in itself, "And I see that you have managed to convince your half-brother to meet me."
“Selene.”, Emma greeted with a light nod, her icy tone standing in stark contrast to Selene's.
Turning towards me while gesturing to the sorceress, Emma introduced us: “Elijah, this is Selene Gallio the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Selene, this is my half-brother Elijah Frost.”
"Nice to meet you, Elij-", Selene greeted while I raised my palm and clenched my hand into a fist, sudden cracking sounds that came from all over the room abruptly cutting her off, a minute widening of her eyes being all the outward proof of her shock.
…
Looking into the hard eyes of Elijah Frost, Selene could hardly suppress her shock as she felt herself suddenly being cut off from her magic, unable to cast even the most mundane spell, multiple of her enchanted items destroyed due to the young man's power while she didn't even understand what he had just done.
Selene couldn't even remember a time where she had been this wrong in her assessment of someone, as Elijah Frost was by no means a normal teen who had just been lucky enough to awaken as an Omega-level mutant.
“Indeed it is nice to meet you, Selene. Though next time you try and charm my mind, I will not just dispel your magic, even if you are an External.”, Elijah greeted calmly while lowering his hand, causing her magic powers to return to her once again.
This time even the ancient sorceress couldn't stop the shocked expression that appeared on her face while hearing the word 'External' leave Elijah's lips, seeing a malevolent shadow appearing in his bright green eyes that promised nothing but utter destruction.
"Who are you?", Selene questioned in all seriousness, an almost imperceptible taste of long-forgotten fear at the back of her throat, her seductive demeanor gone as she stared at the boy with all emotions wiped from her face and ready to call upon the overwhelming life force hidden inside her.
[2009 – August]
Frowning deeply even though I had already guessed that it was her, I knew that Emma's assessment was absolutely correct.
Selene was one of the first mutants, to be exact she was an immortal variant of a mutant known as External, of which existed nine to my knowledge with En Sabah Nur being one of them, who was also otherwise known as Apocalypse.
She was a 17.000 years old sorceress and her magical might was great enough that she had been considered as Sorcerer Supreme alongside Steven Strange.
These few facts alone would make anyone even half-sane develop a healthy amount of respect for her, as her knowledge and experience alone were probably incomprehensible.
"I thought you lead the Hellfire Club by yourself, while there are no Kings and no Queen beside you?", I asked Emma, trying to recall everything else I knew about Selene and to figure out why she would want to meet with me.
"Things aren't that simple.", Emma said while shaking her head in response, "Let's just say that Selene helped me become the White Queen so that she wouldn't have to destroy the organization that she created from going down a path that she didn't approve of by herself."
My senses being what they were, I could pick up the minute changes in Emma's expression and see what she didn't want me to see, the shadows flashing past her crystal gaze as well as the suppressed twitches of her facial muscles told me that this conversation reminded her of things she would much rather forget.
The fact alone that she mentioned Selene helping her was a hint that was rather hard to miss, as I knew about Emma's past with the Club. I knew that her path to ascension as the White Queen was anything but without sacrifices and losses, the things that she had had to endure to reach her current position shaping her into the Ice Queen that she undoubtedly was.
Still, Emma had been nothing but good to me and I knew that she genuinely cared for me, so I couldn't help but wish for her to trust me with her past, hoping that she might open up to me about her experiences.
I simply wanted her to know that I was there for her as her brother, Emma having already become the second-most important person in my life after Jean.
Still, I was also aware that trust had to go both ways and I hadn't told her about my Self-Creation, something I definitely planned to do, though now wasn't the time for such.
“Since I became the White Queen, Selene and I became something akin to rivals, though we aren't hostile to each other.”, Emma continued, “She isn't really interested in leading the Club, as she is more of a silent partner. She enjoys watching her schemes bear fruit more than actually scheming.”
“I normally don't hear from her very often, but she contacted me yesterday, wishing for me to arrange a meeting with you. Though I will only do so if you want to meet her. This is your decision to make, Elijah.”, she promised with a caring look, offering to go against the incredibly powerful sorceress' wishes for me.
"No, I will meet her. If the impressions I have of her from my visions are anything to go by, then Selene wouldn't ask for a meeting without a reason.", I replied, a thoughtful look in my eyes, "And I am confident enough in myself that I can stop her from harming me, or you, if that is her goal."
A surprised look in her eyes, Emma's lips quirked upward in a gentle smile as she responded while rising from her chair: "Good, then I will get Clarice to take us to the base of the Club in Boston. It's where she is waiting to meet you."
“No need.”, I stated while standing up myself, “If you can project the destination in my mind, I can teleport us there myself. I figured out how to do so with my shields a few weeks back.”
"Are you sure? It is quite the distance.", she asked in surprise, as I nodded in response and manipulated my mental shields to let her project her thoughts into my mind without actually giving her access to my thoughts.
Feeling the information enter my mind, I activated Farsight as I turned to face Boston, my gaze settling on the mansion that functioned as the Hellfire Club's base in the city. I could feel that my eyes had changed, the green fading into a pale white while I used this ability
Stepping closer to Emma, I raised my palm and invoked a small blackish barrier, manipulating it to rapidly increase in size and envelop us both before gathering my focus for a moment and taking control of the space inside the barrier.
Forcing my will on space itself, I let it oscillate and shift us into a sub-dimensional state unable to interact physically with the outside world, and the next instant, Emma and I appeared in the entrance hall of the Hellfire base in Bosten.
The whole process had taken little more than a few seconds, which wasn't as fast as I wanted it to be, but still rivaling the use of the Sling Ring and Blink's portal creation, which was mainly owed to my mind working extremely quick while executing this rather difficult and highly-complex task.
Straightening her blazer with a frosty look on her face, Emma slipped into her role as the White Queen effortlessly while waving off a servant.
"Come, Elijah. Let's not delay this more than necessary.", she said calmly as she led the way.
Following behind silently, I stayed vigilant while moving forward with confidence, my senses primed for anything unusual while my Extrasensory Perception was working overtime to feed my mind information about my surroundings, scanning for possible threats or traps.
I did not know what Selene had in store for us or why she even wanted to see me, but I wasn't going to blindly walk into a trap knowing what she was capable of.
Still, should things go sideways I had a rather simple battle plan which consisted of instantly covering both Emma and myself in a shield, before deploying an ethereal shield that blocked any kind of magic as that was clearly Selene's greatest weapon.
From there it would be considerably easier to deal with her, even though she was still a fearsome opponent without her magic.
If I remembered correctly, Selene was capable of draining the life force from living beings and using it to enhance herself with it, while also being able to use it as a fuel for highly destructive flames. It was also this ability that granted her immortality.
And while my shields would most certainly keep her from draining my own life force or Emma's, Selene's remaining battle power would depend on the amount of life force she still held within her. The advantage of this though was that the age-old sorceress would become weaker the longer she fought and drew on her reserves.
As Emma led me through the rather opulent and certainly massive mansion, we saw no one but a few servants busying themselves with keeping everything clean and proper, which wasn't that much of a surprise as most of the Club members had their own businesses to take care of and places that they had to be at.
One thing I was sure of though was that this mansion probably had an underground base where the stuff that couldn't be shown to outsiders was kept, like weapons, drugs, and maybe even labs and research projects.
I wasn't too sure about what the Hellfire Club was doing besides manipulating the economy and the political arena to their advantage, but they surely had a few secret labs that tested new technologies, probably also a few prison cells where they held captive the loved ones of those they attempted to coerce.
Either way, I didn't really care about what they did. The Hellfire Club might seem like an evil organization but they were no different than the governments and other ultra-wealthy and influential international concerns.
Manipulation, coercion, and corruption were something rather common amongst the upper class of society, where those that sought power and wealth gathered while trying to undermine each other.
I was the least interested in that kind of power, and I certainly wasn't going to try and fight corruption. I might be willing to save those unlucky souls I came across as I had done a few weeks ago, but I wasn't suddenly going to go dress up like a hero and fight crime everywhere. I wasn't a hero and I had no intention of becoming one.
Still, the Hellfire club differed from those people simply because they were a group who mastered this discipline, their wealth and influence incredibly huge and widespread as they had been at this game for centuries. Always in the shadows, manipulating and scheming to achieve their goals.
Emma seemed to enjoy this kind of game though and I knew she was good at it too. She was most likely one of the greatest manipulators alive, her mind a weapon in itself even without her telepathy.
Finally arriving before a set of large double doors in the right wing of the mansion, my senses told me of the refined concentration of pure power behind them, my Extrasensory Perception warning me of the danger.
The doors opened by themselves for Emma and me, and I didn't hesitate to step inside calmly with Emma by my side despite the danger, my power giving me confidence.
A large lounge with soft leather couches and bookshelves to the sides greeted my sight though I ignored those and everything else, as my gaze shifted to the black-haired woman standing in the middle of the room, a flowing black silken dress accentuating her perfect curves.
The dress was of a simple style with two thin straps over her shoulders and a large cut to her right side that almost went up to her hip. Clearly wearing nothing beneath as her areolas were visible through the thin material, the black silk clinging to her large breast and flat stomach as it if had been painted onto her.
Curly black hair styled to one side over her shoulder while stark blue eyes shined softly, her smile impossibly innocent and fatally attractive, her flawless pale skin looking pure and untainted under the soft lighting of the room.
Selene was seduction personified as she stood there and greeted us with a soft smile, her beauty simply supernatural.
"Emma, how nice of you to visit me.", Selene smiled gently, her tone of voice a charm in itself, "And I see that you have managed to convince your half-brother to meet me."
“Selene.”, Emma greeted with a light nod, her icy tone standing in stark contrast to Selene's.
Turning towards me while gesturing to the sorceress, Emma introduced us: “Elijah, this is Selene Gallio the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Selene, this is my half-brother Elijah Frost.”
"Nice to meet you, Elij-", Selene greeted while I raised my palm and clenched my hand into a fist, sudden cracking sounds that came from all over the room abruptly cutting her off, a minute widening of her eyes being all the outward proof of her shock.
…
Looking into the hard eyes of Elijah Frost, Selene could hardly suppress her shock as she felt herself suddenly being cut off from her magic, unable to cast even the most mundane spell, multiple of her enchanted items destroyed due to the young man's power while she didn't even understand what he had just done.
Selene couldn't even remember a time where she had been this wrong in her assessment of someone, as Elijah Frost was by no means a normal teen who had just been lucky enough to awaken as an Omega-level mutant.
“Indeed it is nice to meet you, Selene. Though next time you try and charm my mind, I will not just dispel your magic, even if you are an External.”, Elijah greeted calmly while lowering his hand, causing her magic powers to return to her once again.
This time even the ancient sorceress couldn't stop the shocked expression that appeared on her face while hearing the word 'External' leave Elijah's lips, seeing a malevolent shadow appearing in his bright green eyes that promised nothing but utter destruction.
"Who are you?", Selene questioned in all seriousness, an almost imperceptible taste of long-forgotten fear at the back of her throat, her seductive demeanor gone as she stared at the boy with all emotions wiped from her face and ready to call upon the overwhelming life force hidden inside her.
