Belasco retreated from Storm as the Darkchilde bore down on her. Ororo faced it and closed her eyes.

"Illyana. I tried everything I could. But I will not hurt you, whatever of you remains."

"How noble," Belasco oozed. "What a touching sentiment, just before the end."

She waited for an inglorious end. But it never came. To her surprise, the creature was locked in place, looking at the burning sword in its hand.

"Darkchilde, finish the witch off!" Belasco ordered.

It stayed in place.

"Now, Darkchilde!"

Nothing. The monster twitched and growled.

"Illyana, you do not wish to upset me, do you?"

The Soulsword erupted in blue fire, spreading up the Darkchilde's arm and immolating its entire body.

"It can't be... possible," Belasco's eyes widened.

The towering beast was lost in a column of flame. Within it, Kitty could just make out a shape. It became more defined as the fire twisted around.

Illyana, her body clad in silver armor and her eyes blazing, stepped out of the fire. The Soulsword pulsed in her hand.

"She fought it," Ororo said, amazed and relieved.

"Yes! Kick his ass Yana!" Kitty shook her fists.

"Illyana, you break my heart," Belasco clutched his chest mockingly.

"You never had one in the first place," she scowled.

"And you have so little left, yourself."

Plumes of black smoke filtered from Belasco's cloak and engulfed the two. Belasco's voice cut through the smog as he circled her.

"Everything you are, everything I made you - you would deny it? Leave it behind for what? Your conscience? All the parts of you that were ever worth saving are mine, now."

"I'm not afraid of you anymore, Belasco."

"Yes you are," he hissed. "You're terrified. Your worst nightmares are coming true. Because deep inside you were always the monster inside your own closet. And now all your friends and loved ones have seen it in the flesh.

"That thing wasn't me. And it wasn't the Darkchilde either."

"You may believe that is true. You may even be right."

The smoke dissipated, and Belasco gestured at the crowd of mutants on the lawn.

"But what will they believe?"

Illyana pointed her blade at his head.

"I'm taking my soul back, and after I do, that thing will never be able to hurt them."

Belasco laughed haughtily.

"You've always lacked the strength to stand up to me."

"I was raised in Limbo, raised in the dark magiks of it. I'm not the frail little thing you tempted with flowers and baubles."

Blue whips of lightning emerged from her hands, and she lashed out to ensnare her tormentor.

"You have talent," Belasco conjured a wall of magic far greater than any he had used in battle with Storm. They caught the thunderbolts and absorbed them effortlessly.

"Talent I could use, if you would let me. But do not fancy yourself an enchantress after your paltry years of study. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen while I was probing the depths of the arcane. You are nothing! I control the magic of Limbo!"

His hair stood on end as energy beyond mortal comprehension pooled inside of him. Illyana only continued to glare at him.

"No."

Illyana was under the away of a power even she didn't know the source of. An instinct she had built up over years of fear and helplessness.

"You cannot control my magiks."

With a few deft movements of her arms, she conjured a new pentagram in the air. This one was bright blue, like the glow of her sword.

"I… am Magik!"

Beams of light surged from the five pointed symbol, homing in on the Lord of Limbo

"And you cannot control me."

Belasco screamed in the spell's embrace, its brilliant light cauterizing the gash made by Storm's knife.

The pendant containing the four Bloodstones flew out of his robes and froze in place before him. The "magiks," as Piotr and Illyana had learned to call them from fairytales they heard as children, squeezed and pried at the foul instrument. Fissures erupted from the earth beneath the sorceress' spell circle, until finally one of the cursed stones wrested itself from the pendant and flew into Illyana's hand. One of the points of the star behind her illuminated in silvery light, the second to bear such an effect. Her Soulsword turned a searing white. But Illyana did not waver. The same look of absolute determination on her face, she twisted her hand and continued her assault.

"She's going to tear this place apart!" Blink called to Kitty. It was hard to hear, and even harder to see what was transpiring.

"Do not interfere!" Storm bellowed, her voice as audible as ever in the din.

"This is her moment. To become whole again."

Belasco continued to writhe in the agony of Magik's purifying light. His spine bent in all sorts of ways that would be unnatural to an ordinary man. After a great deal more struggle, a second Bloodstone was pulled out of its setting, the last one he had taken before Storm and Illyana had made their escape so long ago.

The Soulsword flashed as it returned home, nearly doubling in size from a straight sword to a heavy broadsword.

Ilyana's strength was beginning to run out. She had never channeled this much magic before. It was at that moment that Cyclops' party of mutants emerged squinting from the portal out of Limbo.

Thinking quickly, Belasco snapped his fingers and fired a ball of green fire at the portal, where Sam, Bobby, and Emma were now standing.

Instinctually, Illyana teleported in front of the other mutants and cleaved through the Eldritch bolt with her Soulsword. As the smoke cleared, Belasco was gone.

"Goodbye for now, Illyana," said a voice, inches from her ear. She wheeled around to see the demon king retreating like a gust of wind through the rift, a smile on his face despite the lurid wound in his face. He held up the pendant, displaying the two glowing points of red still inside it.

"But not forever."

The rift closed, and sunlight filtered through the scattering clouds.

"Yana! Yana, wake up!"

Illyana was in the backyard. Kitty was there, and Elixir and Triage were next to her.

"He's gone."

"He is. Are you okay?"

Illyana pulled herself up and looked around.

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

She quickly limped back into the house.

Across the lawn, Emma approached Polaris. Her white boots and cape were full of dirt and mud. She was trying to cross the saturated grounds in as dignified a manner as possible.

"Miss Dane. Good to see you in one piece."

Lorna smirked.

"Nice of you to think of me, Miss Frost. I'm also glad that you weren't killed by demons."

"Of course," Emma shrugged.

"Of course."

"Lorna, you've surely met a number of mutants in the underground."

"Yeah?"

Emma looked around the yard. Branches and leaves were strewn everywhere, the grass was scorched in several places.

"I don't suppose any of them were landscaping mutants, by any chance?"