Selene was a very patient person. Whether by choice or by nature mattered not; it was simply the result of outliving millennia, over and over again.
When it came to patience, as an incentive for ambition, she was virtually a saint. She was as virtuous as a snake.
Unlike what the members of the Hellfire Club thought, she held practically no care for its ambitions or the reasons for its tedious social gatherings. She has been in a thousand circles of ambitions men in a thousand lifetimes
Whatever she acquired from sublimating Shaw's fortune was hardly a cup full of what she already owned. So no Emma, she wasn't interested in the economic charts.
Selene had thought to raid Isaac's little shop with the bulk of her wealth to grant herself the greatest collections of magic money could buy… but then her virtue kicked in.
Why rush to squander hers when she could easily let others do the same and drain them of it?
The idea was simply glorious.
With that single thought, the Hellfire Club went from a tardy union to a fattening buffet.
And as if the universe was applauding her saintly virtues, she caught a whiff of a simply delectable magic.
Like everything in fate's grand designs, it all started as a string of coincidences that started tying themselves into noticeable knots.
It first began with a group of demon worshippers fancifully known as 'The Hand' doing the only thing they knew how to do after centuries of intrepid repetitions—digging, dredging, enthralling, scheming and the such.
She would never lower herself to converse with their ilk, and she didn't. What actually caught her interest was who The Hand were fighting against; Magneto's Brotherhood of mutants. A specific someone inside said Brotherhood.
She was no mutant, that was for sure.
Whatever those red streaks of magic the young woman was waving around was, it was simply magical delight.
What if she had that?
The thought stayed and vehemently refused to be abated. She found it hard to care about anything else after witnessing the magnificence of that red glow.
Neither the fact that The Hand got into an altercation with The Brotherhood because of their acquisition of an unwilling mutant, nor the fact that the same might happen to her should she strike at one of Magneto's mutants smoldered her greed.
All that simply did was add Magneto to the delectable cuisine her feast of the witch would supply.
So what did she do?
Well, she started by teaching the little witch a few things about dreamwalking.
At first she encountered some repulsion but that soon faded away as she worked around it. One of the most insidious applications of dreamwalking was how easy it was to plant subliminal suggestions into the minds of the victims. Sometimes they won't even remember what they dreamt about but the subconscious nudging will still be there, silently guiding their actions and thoughts in the waking world.
What better way to draw out her witch from Magneto's coven?
And it worked. In fact, it worked a little too well that she couldn't help but smile when she saw it.
Her little witch was currently sitting in a café, enjoying herself to a little refreshment, and Selene let her. It was the least she could do as repayment for the gift she was about to render.
Thirty minutes went by, minutes she used to ascertain that the witch was truly alone, before she stood up from where she sat and walked up to her as the illusion she cast over the café faded away.
"Nice instincts," she laughed as Wanda jumped away startled in a bid for distance, "Or so I would've said if you hadn't taken this long to notice."
"Who are you?"
She gasped in mock hurt and held a hand over her heart. "You don't remember me?"
"Whoever you are, I'm sorry I can't entertain you. I'm busy." Wanda stated offhandedly.
"Oh? And I thought you came all this out to see me?" She said, looking anguished.
It seemed the little witch's head had some sparking cells in it as she frowned and caused the magic around her to glow more intensely.
"Who are you?" Wanda asked again, this time more harshly.
"Who knows? Selene shrugged. "If you won't say, then I won't. Seems only fair that way."
Magic wrapped around Selene's fingers as she batted aside the formless hex from Wanda, only to frown as she did so.
'It ate my magic?! No. It disrupted it.'
"Surprised?"
"Intrigued."
A deluge of green smoke blossomed out from Selene and engulfed the café while her body broke into it.
She watched as Wanda blindly struck out, easily avoiding the path of her magic as her formless body circled around her and rematerialized with her hand wrapped around Wanda's neck from behind as she latched onto her magic.
However, before she could get a good gouge on it, something bit into her from behind and flung her outside the café, dissipating the engulfing smoke in the process.
She snarled as she levitated in the air and glared at Wanda who appeared from a screen of red. An illusion of all things.
"Surprised?"
"Insolent child." A warped expression took her face.
She appeared behind the uppity witch and smacked her across the face, smiling to herself as felt Shaw's ability flare up at the impact.
Shadowwalking was a very good magic spell to have as she simply walked out of the witch's shadow who then found her limbs arrested by snakes woven from her selfsame shadow.
"Ahh!" Wanda wailed as the snakes bit into her viciously.
To make sure nothing stopped her this time, she drew a symbol into the air and pressed it into Wanda's chest and ejected her astral form.
She spared no attention to the horrified witchling, seeing how right she was about her lack of expertise, and started the drain.
—!!
"We can't have that now, can we?"
Her eyes widened in incomprehension as a man hung his hand over her shoulders without her ever sensing his arrival.
'Teleportation? No. Illusion?'
"Teleportation? Illusion?" The man snickered. "Don't feel special. Everyone thinks so at first."
She could barely react to the punch that would have caved in her face had it not been for the very nature of Shaw's talents.
"Hmm, there was something wrong with that? It felt so weird." The stranger cocked a brow as he saw Selene stand up with no scratch on her. "Okay that, I have unpleasant experiences with. Let me guess, something that makes you invulnerable to physical attacks, or at least resists them to some level. Or is it that you absorb it instead?"
'He is trouble.'
"He's trouble." Selene's frown grew more pronounced. "I already told you not to feel special."
"What's her deal, Enigma?!" Wanda came up to him angrily after climbing back into her body.
"How would I know? You didn't ask?"
"Enigma. I will remember that name." Selene muttered. 'To drink out the dregs of your soul.'
A portal formed from the shadow under her feet but before she could drop through it, a hand grabbed her neck and had her feet kicking through the portal.
'Again?!' That fact that she could hardly react to his movements was worrying to say the least.
"Let's try this…" Her eyes widened as she felt something being drawn out of her.
"ENOUGH!"
Tendrils of black energy tore out from Selene and angrily lashed at everything around her, freeing her from the man's grip.
"Oh no you don't!" Wanda lashed out in defiance and bombarded the place with leeching crimson hexes.
"Oh don't bother, she is long gone." Loki said after a few seconds of bombardment.
"What was that all about, Enigma?!" Wanda shouted as she got up in his face with her eyes glowing a sharp red. "You said you were going to step in if she tried anything!"
Loki raised his hands in surrender except he didn't bother hiding the amusement on his face. "You can't blame me for wanting to see what she would try. And it's not my fault you failed to notice the illusion until the very end. Clearly, she wasn't your regular bumpkin witch."
The glow in her eyes receded but the stare intensified. She didn't like his answer but she knew him a bit to know that she wasn't getting anything close to an apology out of him.
He was the one who let her go along with the dreamwalking after she once again failed to notice it the first few times.
"And what does she even want with me?" She was totally right in being pissed, not like Loki cared all that much. "Do I have an archnemesis now?"
Loki snorted. "You are not that impressive to have a nemesis, Wanda. Trust me, as you are right now, you're not worth the effort."
"Right, because you're such an expert in lifelong hate." And right there was another shortcoming of hers – a wane knowledge of sarcasm.
Seeing him not responding to her poor rebuttal, she scowled and crossed her arms. "She's just after my magic, and that's it?"
"Did you think she was some loving aunt from your past, come to reunite over lost time?"
"Yeah? And that's the same thing you're after, isn't it?"
"Why yes. I do recall saying something of that manner the very first day we met. Or is it that my actions from then on have failed to show it so?"
She regarded him in silence but Loki did not need any nifty mind reading to know her current train of thoughts.
Just how much starved of attention and affection had Magneto left her? The only answer to that was 'very'.
And now, anytime she was faced with emotional situations she couldn't traverse, she fell back to brashness and dramatic exits.
"Whatever." She basically rolled her eyes and flew away.
Loki looked around – at the destroyed café and roads – and sighed despondently. He snapped his fingers and the veil hiding the area from the rest of the town shattered.
"Maybe Thor had the right of it. Humans are delightful." And that was in no way him admitting his likelihood with Thor. Unlike Thor, he had no intention or inclinations to be a simpering floormat for a human woman.
He'd rather pledge fealty to Amora than let himself fall to such abysmal depths.
He stepped through the portal and returned to The Brotherhood's hideout.
He had an ambitious sorceress to prepare for. Can't let Wanda go thinking that someone cared more for her magic than him.
.
....
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Tony gasped as he woke up from his procedure and quickly looked at the timer sitting beside his bed.
"6 hours." That was cutting it close.
He had streamlined the Genovials as best as he could(for now) and then proposed his own procedure for integrating the main component for his reworked Kerenzikov into his spine. It was a temporary implant for now, so the procedure wasn't exactly a deep dive.
The central piece for it all was the Science Microwave— a device that could reconfigure matter at the fundamental level.
"Time to get to work." He pushed himself off the bed and snapped his fingers. "JARVIS, homework."
[I see the process went as—]
"Homework, JARVIS."
[Right away, sir.]
He wore the inner torso skeleton of his armor and fired up the Kerenzikov.
Now all he needed was to get his hands on some raw Vibranium to study its naked bits and then have his little home toaster cook up a few pieces of the miracle rock.
A shame he hadn't studied Cap's shield enough to know its molecular and atomic makeup. It would have made a good replacement to play with.
"Nope." He slapped himself. "Work now. You can think of playing later."
[Sir, Ms. Potts sent a reminder—]
"Yes, dinner is still on at 9."
[That is 4 hours and 37 minutes from now. I've set a timer.]
"Good man, JARVIS." He smiled as he wore his newly made, all fancy technical gloves. "4 hours. Long enough to write off some issues."
His holodeck sprang up an interactive scan of a brain – his brain – and with no time to waste, Tony started mapping out the nature and allotment of the Genovial strain.
It has been a long time since Tony was this motivated. And damn does motivation feel good.
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