I'd been teleported before. Several times, in fact. It was nice for once to have it done of my own free will, even if I was putting myself into the teeth of a battle.
When we appeared in the courtyard of an ugly, warped castle, it already looked trashed. The rest of the team we'd been separated from had clearly been giving the bad guy hell.
Everyone was messed up though. Sooraya had lost the portion of her niqab that covered her head and face. Cessily was all metal and dangerous spiky bits in an effort to help defend Eddie, who had cuts and bruises all over. The Cuckoos were down with helmets that looked like jars covering their heads. Hisako was armored up and fighting off monsters, while Josh was running around trying to heal whoever needed it. At the moment, that unfortunate individual was David.
For their benefit, our sudden arrival took the attention of a guy with red skin, horns, solid white eyes, and majestic robes. He also had Julian by the throat.
Santo stepped forward, punching his rocky fists together, "Alright, which one of you chumps is Belasco?"
The red guy caught sight of Illyana standing with us and lost it, "YOU! How dare you come here!" His rage and indignation unfortunately couldn't serve as a shield, as everyone with the capability to blast him with something (me, Ben, Nori, and Sofia) hit him before he could get too used to our presence.
"That one," I said, flexing out my shooting hand as we stepped out of the remains of Megan's portal, "Pretty sure it's that one."
Ben was quick to agree, "He looked like it. Plus, he had Hellion by the throat, so even if he wasn't..." He gestured as if it didn't matter... which it really didn't.
Santo hurriedly stomped over Belasco's way, eventually snatching him up similar to how he'd grabbed Illyana before, "Cool! That means I can pound him, right?"
"Just hit him already, Rockslide!" Hisako shouted from where she kneeled down by Sooraya and Josh, protecting them while the latter healed the former.
"Enough," Belasco said, grinning darkly, despite being in Santo's grasp, "Sym, kill them all."
A large purple demon with a single horn and a leather vest snapped his fingers, "Finally," From the entrances of Belasco's castle, and the skies around us, demons poured into the courtyard.
The ensuing fight was no less orderly than the last brawl with a demon horde. Everyone was tired, but at least we were finally all together. That did something for morale, even if it did nothing for our waning stamina.
Somewhere in the middle of the fight, David called out to Laura in the middle of her gutting a fat demon that had tried to grab onto her, "Laura, I need your help!" He said, trying and failing to fiddle with whatever was on the Cuckoos' heads.
Laura looked his way and pulled her claws out sideways, spilling the creature's insides all over the place, and trotted over through the fray to see to what he needed.
I wound up working my way over to Hisako, who was heaving heavy breaths with every move she made, "Hi!" I greeted chirpily. I could only imagine how long she'd been managing her armor, "So, how's your stay in Limbo been going?"
"You know. Trying really hard not to die," Hisako said, "That guy hasn't been making it easy."
"Anything you can tell me about him?" I asked, in the hopes of her having gleaned something after having to deal with Belasco for however long we had been in Limbo.
"He's magical. And strong. Really strong," Hisako said. Thank goodness all of this mortal danger hadn't dulled her snark, "Magic is bullshit," New Paladins motto, right there, "Got a plan?"
"Yeah. Hit him really hard."
"We tried that. Didn't work."
"-With every last one of us, all together."
"Great plan. You should get Cyclops' job when we get back."
"Why is that everyone's go-to smart remark?"
Meanwhile, despite Illyana's eagerness to get revenge against Belasco, the part she'd told us before about his being stronger than her seemed to make this quite difficult for her. As in, he mashed her all over the battlefield with sickly green magic energy similar to hers.
"You are not fit to be in my presence!" Belasco hurled Illyana back with a destructive explosion of magic. As she tried to pick herself up, he reached out and grabbed her by the face, "I showed you mercy. I let you live. And this is how your repay me?" He channeled his magic directly into her, presumably causing her horrendous pain, if my own personal experience of being hit with it from afar told me anything, "Now, I correct my mistake. Die."
He was interrupted by an entire castle wall falling on top of his head. Conspicuous was the green energy surrounding it and guiding it when it came down. The humming sound from the energy signified that it had been Julian's telekinesis.
Clutching his throat as he stalked forward, the battered telekinetic sneered at the destruction he'd left, "Stop grabbing people, and just kill 'em if you're gonna kill 'em, asswipe."
Belasco exploded from the rubble, grinning maniacally, "I admit, that's good advice, boy. Especially seeing as how I have no more use for any of you," Despite the threat, nothing happened. Nothing other than Belasco clutching his head and struggling against something unseen, "AAARGH! Hnnngh! No! Get out of my mind!"
Cuckoos. It was the only explanation, given we didn't have any other telepaths around. Laura must have gotten them out of their head prisons.
"We didn't like your helmets," The trio of girls all said as one, "What do you want, devil man?"
Phoebe spoke independently of her two sisters, "You kidnap the innocent. We can see them. Beatrice, Shanna, Illyana. But Illyana was special. You claimed her as a sacrifice, but you came to feel for her. You wanted her to be yours, body and soul."
Celeste pointed at Belasco accusingly, "You lost her, just like the others. But with her, the loss cut deeper. So you tried to recreate her – her body, her mind. But it wasn't enough. You wanted more."
Mindee shook her head pitifully, "You're not looking for her for revenge, or power. You did all of this because you love her."
Belasco's eyes snapped open, glowing as he growled and battled back against the girls' telepathy. David noticed the Cuckoos visibly struggling despite working together, "Girls? What's wrong?"
"He's too strong!" Celeste shouted in warning.
The ground cracked and cratered around Belasco. He angrily roared to the sky. His release of power was so great, we couldn't approach him. Our attacks couldn't reach him from afar, "If you lying worms will not tell me where my Magik is, then I will bring Earth to Limbo and burn it away until I find her!"
Magic is bullshit.
Over the walls of the castle courtyard, I caught a glimpse of the crazy sight of skyscrapers appearing. It looked like the New York City skyline. Our world was starting to get pulled into Limbo.
An injured Illyana placed a hand on Megan, beseeching her to act, "Now is the time, Pixie."
Megan looked at the weapon of her soul that rested in her hand, "I can't. I can't do this, please, I'm scared," She looked at the demonic woman with deep, questioning eyes, "Why me?"
Illyana gestured to the rest of us, "Because of all of the children I felt come into Limbo, your soul was the most pure," She looked around at all of Belasco's magic coursing through the realm, "In this place, you have the most power. More than any other X-Man. If you can't do this, each and every one of your friends will die."
Megan didn't want to actually hurt anyone. Even when she fought, nothing she did actually caused others harm. But she'd seen enough people she knew get hurt. As much as I'd prefer she didn't have to get her hands dirty, she figured she would rather have blood on her than see the blood of another friend.
I couldn't get to Belasco, and he had access to David, entirely unmolested, "It will bring me much joy to kill the children of the X-Men."
Megan used her dagger to cut through Belasco's magic like it wasn't even there. He hadn't known what she had. If he did, he would have never taken his eyes off of her and would have focused his power and that of his demons on her from the very start.
Because he didn't, and he hadn't, it came as a vicious surprise to him when Megan sank her Souldagger right between his shoulder blades.
Just like that, his magical field fell. New York faded from view, and Belasco released David, allowing our resident genius to scamper away as the demon lord fell to his knees.
Belasco's own magic seemed to be lashing out at himself as a result of Megan's attack. Illyana's hooves clicked off of the stone, prompting him to look up at her approach, "Hrrrk... you... I gave you life, my child. Come back to me."
Illyana nodded, "You did. You gave me a life with no soul. A life of hellish torture. I've found the power to thank you for that," She held up the amulet that had the two Bloodstones made from Megan's soul, "Look, father. I've made a Bloodstone, just like you taught me."
Without another word, Illyana blasted him and vaporized him from existence. Good riddance. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The fighting stopped. The demons paused. They didn't care about us any longer. They turned their attention to Illyana, and not in an aggressive manner. More as though they were waiting on something.
Illyana just stared down at the burn mark in the ground that had once been Belasco. There wasn't any joy, or relief, or sorrow, or anything.
With everything having calmed down, everyone came together. I took a headcount and didn't find anyone missing. They were all able to walk on their own, although with more than a few limps. Thank goodness for that.
Megan looked down at her hands after what she'd done. I reached out and put a hand on her back, not as a lover, but as her team leader, telling her she'd done a good job. She smiled up at me, but it didn't last long. I couldn't blame her. I wasn't in the mood to smile either.
"Can we go home now?" Noriko asked, nose bloody and covered in scratches on her arms.
"Not yet," Illyana said, "Not until I finish what I started."
I didn't like the way she said that. Nor did I like the way she turned from Belasco's cinder to stare intently at Megan, who also noticed it, and something else as well.
"Um... Illyana?" Megan asked as all of the amassed demons took a knee and lowered their heads, "Why are all of the demons bowing to you?"
Illyana stood as tall as possible, basking in the moment, "Because Limbo is mine now," Slowly, her demons stood to surround us, "And you, little Pixie, your soul is mine too. One Bloodstone is power, but five? Five will make me a god."
All of us drew closer together. Seeing no real way out, the others were prepared to fight all of Limbo and go down swinging if need be. I wasn't, "Is that your final answer?" I asked calmly.
Illyana thought my air of calm was just a bluff, and laughed at me, "And just what do you mean? Is that a threat? I have a never-ending army. You're just a bunch of exhausted children."
I didn't say anything. I just lifted my hand and took a laser shot at one of her demons, putting it down clean with a headshot. Illyana just kept laughing in return.
"We're still giving out warning shots?" She asked, wiping a tear of humor from her eye, "That's cute," She waved an arm, prompting the rest of the demons to move on us.
"Wasn't a warning shot," I said. With a wave of her hand, "Julian, shields up!"
Julian grit his teeth, but did as I asked, engulfing all of us in his telekinetic shield as Illyana's demonic horde bore down on us. He strained to keep everything together as every shape and size of the creatures tried to break through, "Marcher, what the hell?" He complained, "I can't hold these guys back for much longer!"
While Illyana laughed at our misfortune, I simply stared her down from behind our cover, "Wait for it."
Laura quickly picked up on how calm I was, and knew something was up, "Wait for what-?"
*BOOM!*
Everyone covered their eyes the moment a blinding flash and deafening boom erupted all around us. It was glorious. Everyone on my team knew what it was. Julian knew what it was. What they didn't know was how.
The smoke had yet to clear when Julian let everything go. Everyone started coughing and waving it out of their faces, "When the fuck did you even make that?" Eddie asked.
I had never been more proud of anything I had ever done, "Ha-ha! I threw that shit before we even got here!"
I'd recently learned a new trick with the Lux Bomb. I could guide it by using a tracer beam. If I marked something after I threw it, it would follow the tip of the beam, moving even faster than it would otherwise. Normally, I didn't need to mark targets. When I threw a Lux Bomb, I could usually hit what I was aiming at. Either that, or the explosion would be so big that it didn't matter.
In this case, before Megan teleported us, I threw the damn thing straight up into the air, with the intent of eradicating whatever we had awaiting us at Belasco's castle when we got there. I'd hoped we'd be inside or something, so when it went off it would bring the place down around the heads of our enemies.
Well... we wound up fighting outside. And since I couldn't just use it without risking hitting one of my friends, I sat on it. While the horde I'd planned on eradicating with light energy had been Belasco's, now that it was Illyana's, it really made no difference once she turned on us.
I hadn't really expected her to just let us go anyway. Anything she had done to help us up to that point had been a matter of circumstance and coercion.
Sofia kicked up enough wind to blow all of the smoke away, giving me a good chance to appraise my work. The courtyard lay in ruins. There were no demons alive to fight. Hundreds, if not thousands of them; however many had been moving in to overwhelm us at once, all of them had been utterly destroyed There wasn't any sign of Illyana, though.
"Goddamn, Marcher! Did you have to nuke the place?"
"Yes. Yes, I did," I deadpanned, "And I didn't nuke anything."
Aside from the fact that there wasn't any radiation hanging in the air, the Lux Bomb wasn't powerful enough to be compared to a nuclear weapon.
Eddie needed to be helped by Cessily in order to walk around, "Did Sol kill her?"
"I don't know," Cessily said, "We survived. She might have too."
She definitely had, though it must have taken quite a lot out of her to avoid death. When I found her, she was on her hands and knees on the only patch of the area that hadn't been touched by the Lux Bomb. Her head was down and her breathing was heavy. Her arms shook as she tried to hold herself up.
"Are we done?" I asked, hands ready to fire. But it was a bluff. After making the Lux Bomb, I'd been on red, and the fight with Belasco and his demons had drained almost everything I had left. I could feel it. Just trying to draw upon the reserves I still had made me feel nauseous, "I'm tired as fuck. We really don't have to keep doing this, Illyana."
"Do not call me by that name!" Illyana snapped, getting back up to her feet, "My name is-."
"-Snowflake?"
Illyana froze and her mouth fell open at the sound of her brother's voice. The sight of Mister Rasputin and several other X-Men also left us surprised. We didn't know how long we'd been in Limbo, but we hadn't expected anyone to know or even look for us.
Mister Rasputin stared at Illyana in complete disbelief. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Were it not for the fact that he was in his armored form, I would have sworn he'd have started crying, "Snowflake, can that be you?"
Illyana seemed very uncomfortable having Mister Rasputin see her like that, "Piotr..."
Colossus moved forward, past us, just out of arm's reach of his sister, "...Have you returned to me?"
"Be careful," I warned quietly. I didn't want to ruin my teacher's moment, but Illyana had been violent, self-serving, and downright devilish since the moment we met. We didn't need her using him to get what she wanted.
But she didn't do anything. She remained motionless, even when Mister Rasputin reached out to touch her chin. He studied every demonic aspect of his sister's face, "Please, tell me the truth. Illyana, is this you?"
Upon hearing her real name used again, Illyana jerked herself out of Mister Rasputin's grasp, "No! Do not look at me!" She channeled her magic and lashed out, "All of you, just go away!"
Disks formed at all of our feet and started rising, causing our bodies to vanish as it covered us, "More goddamn teleporting!" Santo complained as we all disappeared.
"Hey! Hey!" Megan shouted as we left Limbo, "What about my soul? What about my-?"
"Don't do this!" Mister Rasputin cried out desperately before all of him vanished, "Let me help you-!"