"Ororo! Kitty! Help me! I can't move!"
Kitty got up and surveyed the scene unfolding in the yard. Illyana was in Belasco's trap, the red light casting harsh shadows on her face in the darkening light.
The clouds in the skies above Storm boiled and flashed. The wind kicked up erratically, the leaves in the trees behind the house showing their undersides in fear. Then the rain started.
"You shouldn't have left Limbo, Belasco," Storm growled.
The drizzle turned into a steady squall, then a torrent as the sky darkened beneath the bank of ever-blackening clouds above the mansion.
"There, you were in your element. Here, all of the elements answer to me."
Some of the students had crept out of the Danger Room by now, watching the former teacher descend towards her old enemy. The windows shuddered in their frames as the wind hammered against the house. Every few seconds the sky was lanced with bolts of lightning and roars of thunder.
This is all very impressive, Ororo," Belasco rolled his eyes. "But demons aren't afraid of getting wet."
"Don't be afraid of the rain," Ororo said. Her intensely blue eyes clouded over solid white. And then the wind finally tightened around her into a funnel, confining herself and Belasco inside a tornado.
"Be afraid of me!"
All across the city of New York, phones blared severe weather alerts to confused citizens under cloudless skies. Meteorologists stared wildly at the strangest readouts the satellites had ever returned.
Rachel watched the battle through her energy vision. The shroud that blocked Ororo from Rachel's sight was gone, and she could see the brilliant hue of her aura even through the ravaging storm. But it wasn't confined to the silhouette of her body, as it was for everyone else. The entire area was inside of a haze the same color as Storm's aura. The redheaded girl couldn't believe it. Ororo wasn't controlling this storm, this storm was her. An extension of her fury.
Belasco whipped himself into a fervor and began meeting her strikes with his own magic. The air was charged with electricity, thunderbolts exploding within the funnel cloud every second, with blasts of forbidden arcana bursting purple and green all around...
The throne room was quiet now. Jubilee had long since run out of insults to hurl from her hanging prison.
"Sym's really squishin' the mortals!" A call came from one of the parapets outside. An intrigued murmur floated through the guards.
A few of the demons started for the exit. The remaining ones jeered nervously.
"Master wants us to guard the mutants!"
"Master will be mad! Master make Sym squish you!"
"Mutants in cages," one of the departing demons waved his hand dismissively.
"Not going anywhere."
Leaves, twigs, and dime sized hailstones battered the mutants as they stood soaking wet, unsure of how best to intervene in the fight.
Lorna and Kitty tried to drive a steel beam from the tennis courts into the circle Illyana was suspended in. But the disc hissed angrily and radiated a force that sheared the end of the post off.
"Beast! Pete! Is there anything we can do to disrupt the spell? Yana's getting weaker by the minute!"
"Magic is not my forte, my dear," Hank shook his soaking wet head.
"Storm could use the dark magiks," Piotr said. "But she is busy."
"And not connected to Limbo anymore. I'm not sure if she could provide a counterspell if she wanted to."
"If Belasco goes down, there's nowhere for her soul to go, right?" Polaris landed next to Kitty.
"Let's hope Storm can finish the job."
"There must be something we can do," Amara shouted over the roar of the wind.
"Why don't we let the scary weather goddess keep doing her thing?" Sam shouted back.
"Belasco said it himself, we can't win if we're divided. We need to find the rest of the X-Men."
"The rest of the X-Men are in Limbo!" Roberto said, exasperated.
"You're right," Sam said. "And I'm looking right at a door to it."
"Oh, that's a terrible idea," Bobby frowned.
"Let's do it."
Only a few demons remained in the throne room now.
Alison's hair hung over her eyes, a grim expression on her face. She dropped a small bright pellet over the edge of her cage and down into the room below. When it hit the ground it exploded with a massive flash. The demons recoiled in fear and pain.
As the flash subsided, Jubilee started raining down sparklers of every color. Alison tossed crescents of razor sharp light at the cage bars, giving the students an opening to escape.
"Make for the exit!" Dazzler shouted. "If we can regroup with the X-Men we stand a fighting chance!"
"Less fight, muties," a deep voice rumbled from the doorway. A pair of burly demons with clubs entered the throne room.
"More die."
"Ugh. We don't have time for interruptions," Alison said angrily. "But if that's what it takes..."
"Anna," N'Ezhno whispered. "Take my hand."
"What?" Anna said, caught off guard.
"Take off your glove and copy my powers. Then follow my lead."
Anna squinted.
"But Nez, I don't know what your power does. Is it safe?"
"Is yours?"
"Ouch. Noted," Anna removed one of her gloves.
"Not too long. I need to be conscious, too."
Anna placed her hand in Nez's much larger one, and the transfer began. Her eyes and white streak glowed bright yellow, and she grew several inches in height. Her body strained against her sweatshirt.
"Oh God. It hurts! Hard to… concentrate."
"Walk forward," N'Ezhno boomed next to her. His tattoos were all glowing and he was at least a foot taller as well.
"And if anything has horns or a tail, put in the ground."
The rain subsided long enough for the X-Men to regain visibility of Ororo and Belasco. The mistress of the elements was doubled over, searching for a new reserve of strength.
"Tired, Ororo?" Belasco huffed, his own demeanor much weaker than at the start of the bout. He brandished a sword cloaked in an oily red aura.
"It must be tiring. How long has it been since nature answered your call like this? A decade? More? How much longer can you keep this-"
He was cut off as a fireball caught him in the side, setting his robes alight.
Amara's body flared scarlet and white, her sweat jacket scorched around the edges, as molten jets of magma streamed out of her arms and towards the Lord of Limbo.
"What the hell?" Emma watched the three students run at the demon.
"Are you off your nuts?" Wolfsbane screamed.
"Now Sam, now!" Roberto called. As he did so, his body ignited in black light and he took to the air. As he passed Amara he scooped her up in both arms. Sam rocketed forward - straight at Belasco. The demon lord dodged easily, but evidently Sam had planned for that. Without a further obstacle, the two Class A boys surged through the rift into Limbo.
Storm and Belasco momentarily paused their brawl to take in the sight. Emma and Rahne sprinted forward, aghast.
"Damnit, get back here you little animals!" The former White Queen screamed as she and Rahne pursued them into the portal.
They emerged into the twisted landscape of Limbo, the cavern's impossibly high roof shrouded in a sickly colored fog, rotten vegetation sprouting through the blasted out rocks of the terrain.
"My God," Rahne said in horror.
"This is where Illyana grew up? It must have been…"
"A nightmare," Emma could hardly find other words for it.
"Let's push on. They can't have gotten far."
Belasco was drenched and battered, and he could barely hear himself think over the tirade of wind rushing through the vortex his old adversary had once again trapped him in. But he would be defiant to the last.
"Even at your best, we're barely evenly matched!" He cackled, and then wheezed as the wind rushed from his lungs.
"You can't handle my best," Ororo's voice carried even over the wind.
"You'd buckle under the pressure!"
The twister tightened further into a whirling sphere of air and water around Storm and Belasco. The clouds began to lose their grip on the sky, giving the X-Men a moment of respite, before the maelstrom kicked up once more, funnelling into the bubble.
The air began to thin around Ororo as the weather goddess channeled her energies into dropping the air pressure inside.
The scream of the hurricane force wind rose in pitch until, with a ruinous pop, the dome ruptured. The force of the vacuum tossed Belasco through the air. The rain was blown in all directions, and then tapered back into a slow shower as the smell of ozone wafted across the property.
Belasco raised an arm meekly and tried to right himself.
"Still you persist?" Storm boomed. "I hadn't realized that demons could handle so much punishment!"
"There's a lot about demons you don't know," he coughed. "We're good at quite a lot of things."
He staggered to his feet and adjusted his cloak.
"Take stalling, for instance."
With a sound like metal on ice, the magic gathering around Illyana condensed into a single tiny point of red light. The dot sailed across the flooded yard and into Belasco's hand. When he opened it again, he held a gold pendant with four red gems set around its edge. One more space was open.
Its work done, the pentagram dissipated, and with an intense shriek Illyana fell to the ground.
"Yana!"
Shadowcat rushed to her friend's side, but in a flash of light, she found herself on the other side of the yard.
"I'm sorry Kitty," Illyana managed as she slumped down, having exerted the last of her willpower to get the brown-haired woman a safe distance away.
"It's too late."
"No…" Storm said in despair.
Through her bangs Illyana saw her Soulsword, the last remaining piece of her sundered soul, sticking upright into the ground. If only it were close enough to reach!
It wouldn't do you any good, a voice muttered in her mind.
A soulless wretch has no need for a light like that.
Your destiny is in the darkness, and you belong in the dark.
A feral growl stirred in her throat. Layers of iridescent black scales began sprouting over her skin, and her hair grew down to her waist, stained the color of dried blood. Feet gave way to hooves as her legs inverted into sinewed digitigrade stalks. Her eyes turned solid red, then black, then receded altogether as the last traces of Illyana Rasputin withered into a deathly visage. A pair of long goatlike horns and a reptilian tail completed the transformation.
Through lidless, sapphire globes of flame she looked out on the world. Smoke trailed from her hair as she turned her head, first blankly regarding Kitty, then the students, then Belasco. Illyana loosed a blood curdling howl and the school shook.
Belasco began to laugh.
"Tremble before her, mutants! The Child of Darkness has been born, and your world of light will die!"
_Cerebro Files [Name Pending]
_Civilian Name: N'Ezhno, Son of Abidemi
_Mutant Ability: Strength Augmentation
_Wakanda. It's hard to believe it's been almost eight years since the biggest bombshell in 200 years of sociopolitics was dropped. The Olympics ought to be sensational this year. Our new friend N'Ezhno hails from Wakanda, and he's as enigmatic a boy as anyone I've ever seen come out of that place. I imagine our world must be as unknown to him as it is the other way around.
[ADMN_F/0507-2024]
_Miss Pryde says that N'Ezhno will be getting slightly different training than the rest of his class. He's a pacifist, both by choice and as a consequence of his mutation, which puts a great strain on his body. So no fight training. I hope he won't feel left out.
[ADMN_R/0501-2024]
_Cerebro Files [Angel]
_Civilian Name: Warren Worthington III
_Mutant Ability: Flight (Organic Wings)
_We have received invitations to Warren's wedding today. Jean insists I attend, and though I seldom leave the manor these days, I think I shall relent. When she and Scott married, I had never felt more old. But now there's a certain peace to it. I'm told the bride to be is a mutant as well. Bioluminescence; a fascinating mutation. I will have to mind myself not to pry.
[ADMN_X/0219-2004]
_Mr. Worthington's son must have inherited powers from both his parents, like I did. It's not actually that common. I wonder how far back the wings mutation goes in the family? Maybe as far back as the name Warren.
[ADMN_R/0320-2024]
_Worthington holds stakes in several very lucrative business ventures. Blonde, handsome, and wealthy? He's like a male version of me. I wonder if we have the same therapists.
[ADMN_F/0323-2024]