The fall of Sebastian Shaw did not change much of the societal face of the Hellfire Club; it was still where the people who mattered gathered, just with one less cranky meglomaniac. But the effect on the Inner Circle and the plans Shaw had for them quickly disintegrated. His loss of power left a vacuum that nature only allowed for a moment.

Selene had waited for years, if not decades, for the opportunity. She had a lifespan long enough that while her whims could seem mercurial, the patience for her machinations to unfold seemed boundless. Once Shaw was arrested for his unfortunate assault on an international businessman, the poisoned whispers she had been planting since he slaughtered her followers took hold. Shaw's name was worth nothing, and someone of prominence needed to take control. Selene did it with smooth efficiency.

All of Shaw's promises were quickly discarded.

She was named Lady Paramount with her promises of righting what Shaw had taken so wrong. She embodied the hedonistic past of the Inner Circle but her alliances showed how she could rehabilitate the Inner Circle from the path it had been set on. Her dark yet silken touch seemed a balm after the iron grip.

All other chapters of the Hellfire Club around the world were still subordinate to the power of the New York chapter. However, Selene reversed much of what Shaw ordered. All other chapters would reform their ranking to her wishes. Once the more classically game rankings were applied, they formally acknowledged the New York chapter was in charge. Then it was in the other Clubs' hands to impress her and reap rewards from doing so. Selene's proper feudalistic system was more palatable than what had been put in place previously.

For the young, rich blood of New York, invitations were sent out for some functions held at the Club. After a couple, Selene had more secret invitations to those of Hellfire lineage, like Worthingtons, Wyngardes, Braddocks, and Frosts, as well as to those newer to society that showed promise Selene was looking for.

Selene kept tabs on the recipients of those special invitations and what they had done in the time after her ascension. When she had all of the international business settled, invitations to the young blood of New York City went out. They would be allowed, one by one, into one of the inner sanctum parlors where the Lady Paramount and Black Queen of New York City sat casually on the lone chair in the room.

One of her slender fingers idly tapped the rim of the wine glass with a very deep red liquid in it. The gatekeeper to the Inner Circle was ready.

Texas Marion was correct in her belief that Tommy had a way to deal with the events of the demon invasion of New York. Were he a normal man with a nine-to-five job like, say, Dawn or most of America, he might have just had a couple of beers and slept off the experiences of that day and chalked it all up to being a mass hallucination that he would never have the misfortune of participating in again. After all, the entire story was so crazy that no one would believe it that wasn't there. Even then, Tommy could have pretended it never happened and carried that belief to his grave. After the fight with the monsters, he'd thought of catching up with Joe and Roxanne and just staying in one place for a while.

 

Read more... )

 

Manhattan
Central Park
April
1:26 pm

The portal from Limbo opened easily and without triggering the wards that warned those mystically sensitive of what was happening in the city.  S'ym's erstwhile ally had seen to that.  Not that S'ym trusted him further than he could throw him, but he had been truthful enough in what he could provide. 

Other demons, made temporarily invisible, followed him out of the portal.

"You all know S'ym's plan," he said.  "Raise hell out there.  Make the humans panic.  The more chaos we sow, the weaker our ally makes the barrier between dimensions.  And when that happens, he says this world will belong to S'ym!  And what's good for S'ym is good for all of you!"

The demons began to cheer.

S'ym puffed on his cigar.  "But it's gonna take all of you doin' what we do best.  Killin' folks, corruptin' this world, just like we done before.  Only there ain't no X-Men here to stop us this time!  No little Darkchylde to ruin things!  This time... this world... will... be... OURS!"

The demons flew off, ready to raise hell. 

New York was boring. It was dull. It was entirely uninteresting. All of her usual shenanigans that had worked favorably to entertain her in surface times in the past were socially unacceptable now that she was older. This shift in appropriateness left her with not a lot to do short of drink lots of mochas and improve her trident technique (by scaring the crap out of unsuspecting Avengers.) Kassia was starting to reach the end of her entertainment with Starbucks when a very interesting tidbit of information crossed her path: one of the Avengers asked her if she was related to some guy named Remi de Namor. While her initial response was no some further research said otherwise. She was, in fact, related to some dude from another dimension named Remi. Genetically they had the same father. Which made him her brother.

Which means she had been cheated out of all this time tormenting an older brother in only the best Atlantean ways. This was unfair and it had to be corrected. Correcting the situation meant some stalking (she liked to think of it as espionage of a royal variety) and in short order she discovered that Remi ate nearly all the time at a little restaurant not too far away. He especially at there for lunch on Wednesdays. After verifying this pattern for a month Kassia decided to pounce the next Wednesday.

She even brought the trident, just for fun.
Her six months of "water time" were up. Now, as she did every year this time, Kassi had to return to the Surface to do her rotation with her mother. The only trouble this time was that the rotation came while Kassi was legitimately busy in Atlantis participating in the annual event known as War Games. As Kassi was technically "of age" in Atlantean society and being groomed for military leadership she was expected to participate during the entire event. That she was half Surface Dweller didn't matter to the public. Still, some fashion of compromise was made--and Kassi wondered just what sort of fit her mother had thrown to make it so--and Kassi returned to the Surface and the Avengers as planned.

...albeit in what was essentially a metal bikini, carrying a trident, and with blood smudged on her face.

"Humans! I'm home."
Sweating Bullets Body Art is open for business, still in the same now-out-of-place building that was once a satellite location of Von Roehm et cie. 'Bye Bye, Beautiful' is playing on the stereo. Viveca's checking a bandage and shooing the customer out with last-minute warnings.
.

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