It was altogether intolerable, Emma thought, struggling through the garden in back of the Hellfire Club, searching the darkness in vain for the wrought-iron fence that would let her out into the woods and from there to safety.
The Hellfire Club had, for a brief moment, grown more powerful than ever... and now it was destroyed. Broken by the bitch goddess that was supposed to be their crowning victory. Jean Grey. The Phoenix. Every contingency planned for, every preparation made... had all been a waste of time.
"You made a mistake, Frost." Jean's voice reverberated all around her, seeming to come from the very air. "You slew the man I loved before my eyes. Instead of severing my last connection with the X-Men, that acted like a bucket of ice water in my face."
Emma's toes dug into the ground. A clump of trees rose up in front of her, almost maliciously trying to snag her in the night. She tore around them, searching desperately for the gate that would at least offer some hope of escape.
"Instead of enslaving me forever, you shocked me awake. You set me free. Too late," Jean continued.
"No!" Emma spat under her breath. "That was accounted for!"
The moon flickered through the clouds, revealing a small stream ahead. Emma leapt over it. The stream... that was just before the gate, wasn't it? She didn't know, she hated coming out here in this prosaic garden, such a waste of time compared to the pleasures offered within Hellfire...
"Do you have any idea what you've done--what forces you've set in motion!?" Jean demanded.
Something made Emma turn. The stream behind her--it was running backwards.
Before it, Jean Grey advanced, her black corset and cape now seeming like a cruel jest on Emma's own sexualized attire. Like how the people of the Colonial era had believed that seeing a doppelganger of themselves would spell their doom.
Emma girded herself. This was no time to halter her ambition. If she'd misplayed the game, she would end it on her terms, not begging for mercy as so many others of the Lord Cardinals had. In her last moments, brought low by the X-Men, she could at least be superior to
them.
"And do you know what you've done?" Emma questioned right back. "The life you're spurning? Jean, think--we didn't enslave you. We sought to free you from Xavier's prosaic morality. You could know a life of unlimited pleasure, of the most libertine debauchery. You've only sampled a small morsel of a vast education. The Club was not without flaws, I admit, but you separated the wheat from the chaff. Now, together, we can rebuild Hellfire with true excellence. You'll have power far beyond the magic tricks you can do now--and know passions that make what you shared with that dead X-Man seem like--"
"You dare!?" Jean interrupted her. "You actually think your tawdry performances compare at all to what Scott and I shared? You, who already know elegance and luxury the likes of which the common man cannot even dream of?"
Emma shrugged. "Ambition is the grandest aphrodisiac. There's always something better. And the Hellfire Club settles for nothing less than the best, in every aspect of our lives."