[The Hellfire Club]
Emma Frost had felt that something was wrong the moment Shaw had called for another mandatory meeting so soon after the last one without any prior notification. It was a running theme with practically everyone in the Club so she didn't think too much of it – except enough to assuage her usual levels of paranoia – and acknowledged the summons.
Whatever suspicion she held towards Shaw, especially when she saw the self-propagating smile on his face, doubled unto itself when she saw how the Black Queen glided in. She had spent enough years of her life trying to get a read on Shaw and Selene to immediately know that something was wrong.
The Black Queen's usual style of sensual raiment seemed to have taken a darker shade of black, which was made even prominent by the smiling light in her eyes. The lipstick she wore today was the blackest Emma had ever seen on her or anyone else, and she would know having spent her entire life watching these people.
She knew the other woman's tastes in jewelry so the necklace of gemstones and two miniature skulls adorning her neck did not seem too out of place. However the image the both of them painted instantly let her know that a web of schemes was currently at play and they were both looking for who they could string up in it.
She would curse them but that would be hypocritical of her. Everyone here was cut from the same cloth but with different partitions, so she couldn't judge them. If anything, it eased her somewhat upon realizing that they were all being conscripted into a scheme by the oldest members of the Club.
"I see that Donald couldn't make it. How unfortunate." Shaw started when they all arrived, with the exception of Donald Pierce. They all knew why he was absent but no one made a mention of it. That was the game they played. "I'll send him the minutes."
"This better be good Shaw. I cancelled a major board meeting to be here." Edward Buckman, the White King, said lazily which earned him Shaw's smile.
"It is." Shaw snapped his fingers and the curtains rolled down the windows as the wall behind him lit up. "I believe I have located the whereabouts and identity of our variable."
The images showed multiple instances of one or two members of the X-Men and even the exposed identities of some members of the reclusive mutant group known as the Morlocks frequenting a little shop at the edge of Queens.
"So what is this?" Buckman asked irritably. Emma supposed she knew why he was pissy. He was one of the major supporters behind most of Pierce's eccentric projects. The fact that Pierce had gone cold after the Avengers glanced his way was enough to make every complicit party nervous. That particular heroic group cared little to none about statuses. She firmly believed that if the President – the new one – ran afoul of them, they'd run him foul, consequences be damned.
"You're showing us a shop and nothing else. Am we missing something?" She asked with cold eyes that betrayed the frigid delight she felt when she spotted how that stupid smile of his dropped a few degrees.
If he wanted to use his discovery to gloat over them then she would make sure he did so while explaining every little detail of it. She would make sure he fed them the crumbs, the clues and the cake — then she'd happily let him gloat.
"You're missing everything, my dear. Everything." The image behind him changed to a video. "This was taken yesterday."
The video started with a young girl, probably one of his mutant minions, entering the shop and instantly making the man who was recording start to panic as he lost the connection to his teammate inside the shop. The video paused there making them all turn to Shaw.
"Not only did he lose every connection, he also found that no amount of surveillance technology could penetrate the walls of that building. X-ray, auditory and thermal sensors – none of them could even go through the windows. I doubt a simple pawnshop down in the dirt of Queens would have the need or means of acquiring such measures."
Emma adjusted her posture, taking note of Selene's smile as she toyed with the skulls on her necklace, and waited for Shaw to drop the bait, which he did.
"She never came out of the shop. No amount of trying to reach her succeeded. We stopped being able to read her vitals the moment the connection gave out so we don't know if she's even alive."
'We'. She almost rolled her eyes. Suddenly it was 'we'. He was turning his personal matters into the Club's interest. Though she had to give him the credit because he made a compelling case. Regardless of what any one of them thought, the bait Shaw just dropped was too enticing to ignore.
The Hellfire Club was one that was founded on the ambition of elites who sought to control the currents of the world from the shadows. Something or someone that could influence both the X-Men, Magneto, and the Morlocks – and even SHIELD indirectly – was exactly the type of thing they coveted religiously, her included.
She saw the way Buckman shifted in his seat to a more upright position with narrowed eyes. Even as her mind raced along the connotations of Shaw's latest exposé, she couldn't help but wonder what was under the rug Shaw was nudging them to dance on. Shaw and Selene both.
Selene caught her eyes and sent a laden smile her way.
It was baseless, but she held the suspicion that whatever this was, Selene was directly involved in it, and she wanted absolutely no part in it if her suspicion was true.
"So what did you do?" Buckman asked. "You called us here to what? Tell us how your recent stunt failed? Should we form a line and start taking turns, or should we draw lots? I fail to see any reason why this warranted a mandatory meeting."
"Caution. That was my reason." Shaw said with a serious look on his face that enhanced his charisma and ensured that his words were heard and listened to. "Over the past week, I've done my due diligence to understand what I was dealing with and the results have been nothing but surprising. Even without any direct conclusion, the coincidences are far from random."
The image behind him changed. A picture of a mutant and documented words that described a cure.
It changed. This time it was a picture of Charles Xavier standing and Scott Summers without his attributed goggles.
It changed once again, this time an image of a middle-aged Magneto.
"Mutant cures. Advanced biological means to heal a spinal injury that the best of modern medicine couldn't…. And a way to reverse natural aging."
The next change showed a video of the Avengers' Black Widow, Hawkeye and a red haired woman firing guns and a bow of obviously advanced technology. Stark's handiwork most definitely.
But then it shifted to an image and a document signed by Alexander Pierce, something that caught Buckman's attention, that showed an alien space ship. And just below the image of the ginormous space ship was a blurry image of the Black Widow, an Asian woman that was tagged as 'Mystique??', and the X-Men's Storm leaving the shop.
"Advanced weaponry, possible alien tech, and a space ship. And the only thing that connects all these to a time frame is that shop." Shaw pointed at the shop but his fingers were specifically on the shop's sign board that read 'Junk 'N Stuff'. "Now ask me if I was being cautious enough… or too paranoid."
Every single image, words uttered, and line of text was burned permanently into Emma Frost's mind. Shaw knew what he was doing, introducing blood to shark infested waters knowing fully well that they would be unable to resist the temptation.
Control. That was his angle, or at least part of it.
As much as she hated to admit it, Shaw was leagues above everyone else in here when it came to establishing control, whether directly or indirectly. His methods involved a masterful stroke that Emma couldn't help but hate, envy and respect all at once. For all her hatred of the man, she could admit – in the sanctuary of her mind – that the man was every bit as competent and terrifying for someone in his position otherwise she wouldn't have spent years scheming against him.
Yet still something bothered her about the setup for the whole thing. The information, she could say, was real and so was the caution and importance Shaw had stressed. Incomplete truths, yes, but they weren't lies. That meant one thing – that their ignorance was the boot.
She sighed mentally. This is what happens when you deal with schemers all your life. You'll find that the only free commodities are ignorance and paranoia.
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....
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In the capital city of Doomstadt, Latveria, in the training grounds of the castle of its monarch, Victor von Doom, an intense training session was currently being carried out.
"Again." Doom's gravelly voice ordered dispassionately as he looked down at the heavily breathing and sweat drenched Illyana.
"I—" Illyana tried speaking only to be cut off by a voice that sounded as cold as the armor he wore.
"No excuses. No explanations. Again."
Her legs felt like cotton as she stood up only to almost wobble over when his voice came again, rather harshly too. "Regain your breath."
She wanted to snark at him that biology didn't come with a manual setting but held her words as she knew better. Knowing better was one of the requirements to be around Doom.
She regained her breathing, even though her lungs felt like bursting, and summoned her sword. As she did, she wrapped a spell around her other wrist – though the spell's matrix fluctuated weakly around her wrist – and tried setting one up in her head with no chant or gesture as she fought off six Doombots.
She had to be able to keep her focus on all three, maintain them throughout the course of battle or reconstruct them immediately she fired them, and put up an outstanding performance against these streamlined and special bots that could somehow use magic. She was already a good enough fighter and sorcerer no thanks to her time in Limbo, so she had thought she would be trained to increase her overall strength but that was not the case.
Doom's training was centered around competency. Mastery at every level of personal combat. If she was a weak sorcerer, then he expected her to be the strongest weak sorcerer. If she could only cast one spell then he expected her to be able to pre-cast it with nothing but an afterthought. It was brutal.
She was not surprised at the result when she fell to the ground again after her shield spell fluctuated for a second before casting, letting the bots easily break the hastily erected shield, sucking her across the face and using her arm as a fulcrum to slam her into the ground.
Turns out being good and being good to Doom's standards are two completely alien things.
"Agai–"
"Let her rest for a while, won't you?" Oh how Illyana wanted to prostrate at the feet of the angel that just offered her salvation.
"Her adversaries will not afford her that respite." Doom's head shifted slightly to acknowledge his mother's presence but his focus still remained on Illyana as she crouched to her knees.
Hot white fury burned in Illyana upon hearing that but still no strength came to her limbs. She knew all too well how right he was, she couldn't forget, but still she couldn't move.
"I know that." His mother replied with patient understanding and a soft smile on her face as she knelt before Illyana and lifted her chin. "But you can afford her that for a short while, can't you?"
She laughed as she saw the expression on Illyana's face as she used her sleeves to clean her face. She doubted the child knew what kind of expression she was currently wearing.
"Very well." Doom said with a tone of finality that made a breath of relief sooth Illyana's burning lungs. "Ten minutes."
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...….
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Despite having been banished away from the golden city, Loki couldn't help but smirk to himself as to how easily he could hear of words that were spoken in the Allfather's halls.
The newest bit of news however astounded and intrigued him.
Thor had gotten another magic hammer. He knew his brother well enough to know that he would never saddle another hammer to his waist except Mjolnir. His brother both respected and loved that weapon so much so that such an act would be perceived as an insult to his trusty partner. For him to do that meant that the weapon was no ordinary hammer, either in worth or strength.
The second part of the news was what had truly shocked him.
His father had allowed for Thor to visit Eitri the Dwarf to reforge Mjolnir, The Mjolnir – Divine Symbol of the God of Thunder – a weapon much older than Thor himself, and this new hammer into one. Something which Thor had agreed to without as much as a single word of complaint.
It took no intellect to know that whatever this new hammer was, its worth and strength was comparable and compatible with Mjolnir in both Thor and Odin's eyes.
The obvious question now was where had his brother stumbled on this weapon?
Loki smiled to himself because ironically, that was the easiest question to answer.
After all, Thor loved nothing more than regaling anyone who would listen to tales of his adventures. All he had to do was wait and Thor would tell him himself, as that was what brothers did.
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