Make sure to check my Patre.on out if you want to support me and want to read advanced chapters: Patre.on.com/VQuintessence
[20 Chapters in Advance on Patre.on]
...........
Chapter 24: Peak
...........
She was so stunning, she almost made him reconsider his preference for redheads. Almost.
[He's checking her out! The pervert!]
[Can you blame him? It's EMMA FROST.]
[Priorities, people! He's bleeding out, and he's still aura farming!]
[What is aura farming?]
[It's when you farm yeast in a field.]
[I'm confused??? How is he farming yeast now?]
[Lol] [Lmao] [Good one!]
Emma opened her perfectly sculpted lips to speak, to deliver some cutting remark or seductive proposition.
BANG.
Adam didn't let her. He lifted his pistol, his movement a pained but precise flick, and fired.
Once, twice, three times; a staccato rhythm of pure stress relief.
The bullets never reached her.
They stopped dead in the air a foot from her face, held by the invisible telekinetic force of the woman beside her.
But the attack was a signal.
A single glance, a micro-expression of understanding, passed between Adam and Cyclops.
It was all the tactical alignment they needed.
Scott Summers didn't hesitate. "Now!" He yelled, and a torrent of devastating ruby energy erupted from his visor, aimed directly at Emma's diamond form.
The air crackled.
Emma braced, her body transforming fully into living diamond, the ultimate defense.
She stood ahead, for she knew that the two beside her would not be able to take it.
The optic blast washed over her, a wave of incalculable force that scoured the ground at her feet but left her unmoved and unmarred.
The telekinetic behind her, using all her force to make sure Emma isn't sent flying by the force.
Just as the conflict was about to escalate into an all-out war, Cyclops's posture abruptly changed.
His shoulders relaxed, his head tilted.
"Stand down," He said, his voice now carrying the calm, authoritative tone of none other than Charles Xavier.
The Professor had taken remote control. "Rescue the remaining mutants and return to the Blackbird. Immediately."
As quickly as it came, the presence vanished, and Cyclops shook his head, back in control.
Adam let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding and lowered his smoking gun. "Things did get a little out of control."
He admitted, his dark humor resurfaced through the pain. "But well, that was some goddamn good stress release."
Emma, far from being offended, was smiling. It was a knowing, cold smile. "It seems I've suffered a loss today,"
But both of them, without saying a word, understood the unspoken truth. With her diamond form, Adam's current arsenal was useless against her.
But she also can not use her telepathic abilities in her diamond form.
However, if she had to release it, she could at any moment use her telepathy to threaten innocents across the city, forcing the X-Men to stand down.
It was a stalemate built on mutually assured disruption.
Yet, her victory wasn't flawless. One of her two subordinates, the hulking man, was now slumped on the ground, paralyzed.
A nearly invisible mechanical spider retracted its needle-thin leg and scuttled back into the shadows.
And Emma wasn't upset. She was… thrilled.
The Diamond transformation alters Frost's personality, causing her to become rather cold-hearted and to lose her empathy for others.
But even that wasn't able to completely obscure her emotions right now, or maybe, she was faking such emotions.
She let out a light, girlish giggle that was utterly at odds with the diamond-hard villainess she portrayed.
Her eyes, gleaming with genuine fascination, sized up the bloody, battered, yet defiant man before her.
"It's my loss," She repeated, taking a step closer. "And you know… I feel rather smitten. I'm impressed. It isn't every day one witnesses Magneto being so thoroughly outplayed."
Her gaze was intense, hungry. "Oh, how I want you. You would shine so brightly by my side. You are a treasure."
She was laying it on thick, a blend of genuine admiration and masterful manipulation. "Join me in the Hellfire Club. The benefits… Shouldn't be a mystery to you."
Adam, ignoring the stressed warnings from the X-Men, walked fearlessly toward her.
He didn't believe a word of her romantic overtures.
He knew Emma Frost; her morality was a shifting grey, her loyalty to herself above all.
Her temptations were a siren's song, and he was deaf to it.
He stopped not before her, but beside her paralyzed subordinate, and she watched in curiosity without doing a thing.
He looked down at the man, then back at Emma.
"How much will you pay for his freedom?" Adam asked, his tone that of a businessman closing a deal.
"And let's add a significant surcharge for mental damages. I've had a very tiring evening."
He continued, and showed a face of pain so obvious it made Emma's mouth twitch.
"Add more for all my injuries, you know, healthcare in the US is expensive, and I have no insurance, so a couple more millions, fair, no?"
[HE'S RANSOMING HER HENCHMAN!]
[This is the most Adam Cypher thing that has ever happened!]
[He shot at her just to get a hostage to sell back! The hustle is real!]
Emma's smile shifted. It became something darker, more twisted, more appreciative.
She bit her full lower lip, a gesture of barely restrained… something.
What the fuck is wrong with her? Adam wondered internally. Does she actually…? No, he refused to believe it.
This was just another layer of her game. She was just fucking with him.
[Emma Frost is down BAD.]
[She's into it! She's into his unhinged negotiation tactics!]
[This is the weirdest, hottest villain meet-cute ever.]
"Name your price," Emma said, her voice dripping with a strange mixture of amusement and desire.
A brief, tense negotiation ensued, conducted with the casual ruthlessness of a corporate takeover.
Storm, who had remained by Adam's side, was utterly speechless. "End this farce, Frost." She had to say.
Emma utterly ignored her, her focus entirely on Adam. They exchanged encrypted contact information; a profoundly intimate act in their world.
Storm's scowl deepened.
With the transaction complete, Emma gave Adam a final, lingering look. "Until we meet again, my treasure," She whispered, before blowing him a kiss.
Her telekinetic subordinate lifted the paralyzed man, and the Hellfire Club contingent withdrew, melting back into the ruined cityscape.
As soon as they were gone, the dam broke. Jean and Storm descended on him, their voices a chorus of concern and frustration.
"Why were you so reckless?"
"You could have been killed!"
"Why didn't you call for backup from the start?"
Adam ignored them. He stood there frozen, looking at his bloody hand with an odd expression.
He then raised his arms. Closed his eyes, and tilted his head back to the sky, a bright, triumphant smile breaking across his battered face.
It was the most genuine, unguarded expression any of them had ever seen on him.
He was basking. Basking in the chaos, the victory, the sheer, exhilarating thrill of the game.
"Haha… haha… HAHAHAHA!"
A raspy, intermittent laugh burst from him, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy.
In that moment, surrounded by destruction and drenched in his own blood, he had never felt more alive.
He had never realized just how fun life could be.
He had never experienced this facet of life before... It was exquisite.
[He's lost it. He's finally snapped, and it's glorious.]
[This is his villain origin story, and it's a comedy.]
[The laugh! It's so unhinged! I love him!]
[Actual Peak!]
...............................
[ 1000 Power Stones For An Extra Chapter!!! ]
...............................