Illyana Rasputina | 19 | Mutant I go by many names but the most common two are magik or darkchylde. I have the gift of teleportation through time, space and dimensions. I am also the sorceress supreme of limbo, a dimension of hell in which i reign as...
Theyâd been back for a week and Illyana hadnât left Barneyâs room since the day they arrived.
Changing back had proved to be more difficult than she thought it would be, even with the Soulsword and her amulet returned to her. Sheâd been trapped for so long in her full Darkchylde form that sheâd forgotten what it felt like to have fingers, to have toes and to be able to cry. The first day that sheâd switched back, she had wept for hours on end, curled into Barneyâs side and clinging to his shirt. She knew it probably made him feel guilty but the tears were not sadness, they were relief. She was human again, she could be Illyana again and she was home. She was safe here with the people that loved her.
Apparently more people loved her than she believed. More people had come to save her than she thought would and that warmed her heart in ways she couldnât describe. The one that had surprised her the most, though, had been Erik.
She hadnât expected him to be there, she hadnât expected to ever see him again after what had happened the last time theyâd come face to face. She had brought her wrath down upon him in the worst kind of ways and then she had left him to lick his wounds without a final farewell. She had left him; she had left him behind in the dust even after all the safety he had provided her with over the years.
She could still barely walk, her legs wobbly beneath her and her body still covered in marks that she was yet to heal but the part of her that was the most broken was her mind. It was the emotional torment that she had been put through that hurt her more than any physical torment and as much as she loved Barney and even though he knew everything about her, she wanted to see Erik. Sheâd made a detour to Kittyâs office first, practically begging her best friend to give her the key to the holding cells so that she could mend bridges with the man sheâd once admired. It had been a bit of an argument â there was no shouting since neither woman had energy to shout â but eventually Kitty had caved and said just this once.
Hobbling her way down the stairs, clinging to the banister the entire way and then through the halls, hand skimming across the wall until she received the elevator. The walk from the elevator to the holding cells wasnât that far once she reached the right level but she was taking baby steps and using the wall as a way to steady herself but eventually she reached the door and unlocked it, stepping inside of the holding area opposed to standing on the other side of the glass. She was out of the safe zone and in with the man that many considered a monster. She could literally hear the screams of warning in her head from the few friends she had saying âTHIS IS A BAD IDEAâ but she didnât care, she wanted to see him.
No, she needed to see him.
âErik?â She said meekly, leaning her back against the now closed door in order to keep herself upright.
The days, weeks, months had gone passed and sheâd lost all concept of time completely.
Her body had given up weeks ago. After having her soul ripped from her, she had never truly felt agony/pain but thisâŚThis entire situation caused her to feel as if her veins were on fire but her mind refused to allow her to explode. She couldnât fight back, she couldnât defend herself. They werenât fearful of her anymore because she lacked the weapon that kept them all in line - the Soulsword.
Sheâd fought for so long and sheâd been succeeding but as the last of her guardian demons were slain, she was brought to her knees and she could no longer resist the urge to simply give up. Sheâd been fighting in this realm since she was six years oldâŚTwelve years on and she was finally tired of it. Not necessarily tired of living but tired of the ordeals she kept finding herself in, tired of demons trying to break her.
She was already broken, she had been since sheâd first set foot in here but for every demon she killed that had tried to conquer her, more appeared in sevenfold with even worse intentions. It became tedious after a while but Illyana Rasputin had always been a survivor, she had always been victorious up until now. If she failed? She concocted plans where she would go back in time to rewrite history and make sure everything turned out right but this time, she had no energy, she had nothing to muster together in order to do just that. Yet, even if she could do so, she did not think she would because she stuck by her choice to free Barney, she had chosen this fate and it was the first time sheâd walked into Limbo willingly opposed to being forced into it because of some evil plan made up by the Elder Gods.
She had felt the surge of magic, indicated someone had entered Limbo but she didnât know who it was, unable to recognise the signature. It felt familiar but it wasnât the same one she recalled and so she doubted it was Stephen, she assumed it was just wishful thinking on her part and that it felt familiar because she wanted it to feel familiar. She could hear the demons roaring outside but they were always screeching, always scratching at the door. It was nothing new and she didnât think it was because her friends had brought themselves down here to save her. Illyana knew there was a small force of people that would do anything for her but going to Hell was a lot to ask of a friend and she would never ask them to come save her. She wanted them all to live; she wanted them to be able to accept that one day she would be gone and that she would be stuck in here forever.
Sheâd been chained to a bed for only the Gods knew how long and at first, sheâd hissed and spat and growled and tried to wriggle free but exhaustion took hold and so now she simply lay there with Nâastirh kneeling over her. His knees speared the bed either side of her completely red, scaled body. Most had seen her in her half-form, where she half human, half demon but she could count the people who had seen her like this on one hand; Kitty, Barney and Erik. That was it. The only people she trusted enough to see her completely consumed by the darkness that lurked inside her where her soul once resided.
Nâastirhâs muzzled was nuzzled against her throat and her head rolled sideways to avoid looking at him. Regretfully, she saw staring at the door when it burst open and had she had the ability to cry while in this form, she would have. She assumed it was another one of his tricks, a magical façade of her friends to try break her further.
Anyone but themâŚ
She murmured in Enochian. She could see them all; Barney, Kitty, John, Stephen, EmmaâŚEven Erik. Sure, Raven and Sabretooth were there too which confused her slightly but the principle was the same. These were all people that she didnât want seeing her like this, these were all people she admired â some of the time. These were all people she loved.
She squirmed and there was a certain sadness in her pure white eyes, if sadness could be reflected in such a demonic gaze. Nâastirh lifted his head, confused by her words and let out a howl. That howl was enough to tell Illyana this wasnât one of his plans, that this wasnât him trying to break her. Instantly, she turned her head in the opposite direction because now she realised it was actually her friends coming to rescue her and she couldnât bring herself to look them in the eye. Not while she was in this position, nor while she looked the way she did. Sheâd told them all multiple times that she was a monster but now they could see just how true that statement was.
The response of demons towards Illyana in Limbo is varied. There are some that protect her, that act as guardians, there are some that fear her and some that hate her. There are even some that desire her. Among those is Nâastirh who has tried to conquer both her and her realm and almost succeeded on multiple occasions - in both a overthrowing her rule manner and a physical manner.
She has bested him and avoided his clutches but each time he tries again, he gets closer to beating her because theyâve spent years repeating the same routine and theyâve learned each others tricks. Illyana fears that one day she will be too tired to fight back against him and sheâll be forced to submit to him.
Illyanaâs instincts from her childhood in Limbo still resurface on the rare occasion when sheâs taken unawares
Storytellers: Chris Claremont & Jackson Guice
Source: New Mutants #44
On her body, in her hair, on what was left of her clothingâŚ
Everything was saturated with it, the ground especially and as she trod through it, it squelched beneath her hooves. She could barely walk, though, she was having to force herself to move, having to force herself to keep breathing. It hadnât been easy being stuck in Limbo. Without her Soulsword, the demons had little to fear of her because all she had was her magic but they had magic too. Limitless, she may have been but so were they and her Soulsword allowed her to break enchantments without the extra work and spent effort so working against Sâym and Nâastirh was harder than ever.
There was a lull in the war for now, all of them having fled to different corners of the realm in order to lick their wounds. Although, Illyana wasnât the kind to heal herself even when she needed it. She liked her pain. She liked it because she rarely felt it. After the tortures of having her soul ripped from her body, the physical feeling of pain was something she no longer experienced because nothing hurt compared to that. So all she could do was soldier on, make her way to a place she could collapse and focus on breathing for a little while.
Sheâd lost count of the days sheâd been stuck here because Limboâs time always fluctuated. It may have only been one Earth month so far but in Limbo, this was years. When she was six, sheâd spent seven years here but when she got home it had been two measly minutes. One month was years to her, though she did not age thanks to a little magic and thanks to the fact she was Earthbound as much as she was Hellbound. Sheâd always been Hellbound, sheâd come to believe it was written in her fate to always be stuck in Limbo or at the very least, stuck with Limbo. It had never been of her own design, of her own choice but this time it had been. She had no-one to blame for her misery and pain but herself.
She collapsed to her knees before she even reached the stairs that led up to her bedroom. She was utterly spent. There was no more energy left within her and she let herself fall sideways onto the floor, one arm wrapped around herself with hand pressed against a gushing wound. She should have been dead from blood loss, if she hadnât been who she was, sheâd have been dead but she was made of fire and fire had a habit of roaring brighter and more violently when someone tried to extinguish it. She would not burn out. Her pure will to live had always been her saving grace.Â
She didnât want to die again.
She wanted to live but staying alive was becoming increasingly difficult. She wanted to sleep but she feared that if she slept, someone would come and claw her throat open or her body would simply give up. At least if she was awake, she could murmur keep going to herself. She could murmur all her reasons to live, all her reasons to find a way home but each time she recited that list, the list got shorter.
JohnâŚ
BarneyâŚÂ
KittyâŚ
DaniâŚ
StephenâŚ
KebiraâŚ
My Bamf childâŚ
Thatâs how it had started but each time she went to recite it, she realised half that list would hate her now. Hate her for what sheâd done, hate her for why sheâd done it, hate her for caring about someone no more virtuous than herself. But the damned had to stick together. Damnation was all that was left for them and Illyana refused to allow anyone to be damned when they could live. Tears ran down her cheeks and hit the floor as she recalled Barneyâs last words to her before sheâd freed him. The lack of humanity, the inability to remember what being human was likeâŚOh how she felt that now as she lay trapped in her Darkchylde form. Her Soulsword was what made her human, it was the light that kept the darkness at bayâŚWithout it, she was nothing but the monster she refused to be. Forever stuck in a form she despised, a form sheâd never asked for but was given anyway. But it was part of her and there was no avoiding it and so she settled for self-loathing.
Her eyes closed and she began to mutter her list again.
BarneyâŚ
StephenâŚ
That was the entire list now. John would hate her for leaving, hate her for loving Barney, hate her for abandoning him. Dani would hate her for loving Barney too and rightly so after all Barney had done to her. Kitty would hate her for sacrificing herself for someone who didnât deserve to be saved, just like sheâd gotten mad at Piotr for sacrificing himself to the Cyttorak. Kebira would hate her for torturing the man she loved and by extension, their adopted Bamf would hate her because he was truly more Kebiraâs than he was hers. All she could think of was Barney and Stephen. Stephen had never once judged her, never once shown a tendency for malice and she missed how safe her magic felt when she was around him. Her magic was unstable, dark and malicious but around him it had felt calmer and lighter as if it was trying to mimic the aura his magic gave off.
And BarneyâŚWell, Barney went without saying. She was here because she loved him enough to return him to his loved ones. Loved him enough to trap herself among her worst fears and in the place she hated most so that he could live. Her love for him may not have been romantic in origin but it ran soul deep - that was, if she had a soul.
BarneyâŚ
She murmured again and saying it again gave her an energy rush. Enough energy to let out a scream which let out a wave of magic that had the same effects as a sonic boom. Limbo rippled and all those within it became restless once again.Â
BarneyâŚ
Again. She began whispering it over and over like a chat, as if saying it enough times while focusing on him would magically make her a telepath. In a way, it could. Not on an Emma Frost or Professor Xavier level but Illyanaâs magic granted her mental possession and if she could just utilise that for even a second to whisper in Barneyâs mind, she was damn well going to try.
BarneyâŚ
One last time but it didnât sound like a plea or cry for help. It sounded bittersweet, as if it were her last goodbye because now, she could no longer fight the fatigue and blood loss. Sheâd lost. For the first time in her life, Illyanaâs will to survive slipped off the radar and she allowed herself to drift into unconsciousness.
