Extraordinary Times

by Kenchi618

The life of a young mutant is perilous enough on its own. Follow the experiences of a student entering the hallowed halls of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, learning just what it takes and what it means to count himself as one of a race that is feared and targeted by many. Welcome to the X-Men, Bellamy Marcher - Hope you survive the experience.

36. Your Pretty Face Is Going To Limbo

Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or X-Men. Man, screw 2020. Can I go back to a previous year? I'd like to hit up 1996. Sure, I was five at the time, but come on! It was still my best year!

Chapter 36: Your Pretty Face Is Going To Limbo

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Among the many problems that needed solving as leader of a would-be squad of junior X-Men was that I needed a way to make sure everyone stayed up-to-par. I couldn't really trust everyone to just train themselves on their own time. But even if I called group training sessions, what exactly was I going to do to make it worth anyone's while?

Just sparring against each other, or running drills against whichever X-Man was around and was willing to spare the time to help out wouldn't do much. It also wouldn't do much to instill any sense of autonomy, which was the point of all of this to begin with. I let it be known amongst all the others that I was willing to take suggestions if anyone had any. I hadn't gotten anything that was workable, or just not idiotic, until one day.

Early in the morning, before classes started, David sent me a message asking me to meet somewhere. He was vague, saying he had something to show me. Given what had happened when I'd sent an equally vague message to Noriko, who was his girlfriend, I smelled a setup. But if that was what it was, I figured I had it coming.

The thoughts that I was walking into some kind of ambush only intensified when I found myself wandering through caverns underneath the school. Certainly a good place to hide my body if I ran afoul of someone on campus.

"If someone's gonna jump me, can we just get it over with!?" I yelled, letting my voice echo through the caverns, "I've got a test first period, and I hate math."

"Bellamy," A voice not too much farther down the path said my name, "Over here."

I walked into an open cave space with lots of metal pillars and machinery lining the walls. There, I found David and Noriko waiting for me. I greeted them with a nod. Both Nori and David returned it, the former rather stiffly, I noted, "Hey guys. What is this, your love nest?" I tried to joke to break the ice.

Noriko turned a bit red, while David adjusted his glasses, "Uh, no. I meant to build this place as somewhere for the New Mutants to get extra training, but I didn't get it finished in time for the last Field Day," I grinned, thinking to myself that they needed more training to beat the Paladins. David realized my train of thought and rolled his eyes, "I call it the Danger Cave."

"Isn't that name a little derivative?" I asked. David just shrugged, which was just as good an answer as I cared about in the first place, "How'd you build this place anyway?"

He was happy to tell me, proud of his work, which all things considered, he should have been, "I've been working on it for a while. I started on it last year," "This is what happens when you borrow the knowledge of Henry McCoy and Kitty Pryde."

Yeah, but he didn't retain that information. To take notes and then be able to make heads or tails of them when he wasn't around the people that inspired them? Even without gleaning the intellect of others, he lived up to his smarts enough to warrant the codename Prodigy.

I felt a bit of a pang at the mention of my old teacher's name, but moved past it. Couldn't have people walking on eggshells whenever she came up, "Sounds... way more technical than anything I'll ever know about. What does it do, exactly?"

"It's a three-dimensional light-projecting, self-adapting training simulator."

I took in the information he tried to give me, and my brain simply spat it back out. At a loss, I turned to Noriko for hopefully a layman's terms explanation. She didn't let me down, "It lets us relive old field missions. The X-Men have hundreds, and David was able to program them into the system."

That was pretty nuts. It wasn't anything like what we had with the old Danger Room, but for a teenager to create this on his own time was remarkable, "David, that's fucking insane. Are you kidding?"

He was not kidding. Not at all, "I know you've been trying to come up with some way to run simulations and scrimmages for the team. I'm pretty sure this can help, if you want."

I was ecstatic. I didn't even bother trying to hide it and play things cool, "Hell yes, I want. I'd like to take it for a spin when there's more time, but... this is a huge help. Thank you."

David seemed happy to be able to contribute with his intellect. Our would-be crew would need more people willing to use their brains instead of their brawn - a brain trust, if you will. We had enough tough guys and gals.

"We can figure things like schedules and grouping out later," David said, "I don't think it would work with everyone at once. I'm not keen on trying to fit more than a handful of people in a simulation."

That did sound awful. Also, there were some people that I knew better than to try and put together in any setting that required productivity. Speaking of which, I finished thanking David, but as we headed out, I stopped Noriko. It was time to address the elephant that had clearly been in the room.

"Nori, do you have a minute?" I asked, "I want to talk to you about something."

Noriko frowned, but nodded, "I'll catch up in a minute, David," She said, sending her boyfriend away before turning back to deal with me. She waited until she was certain he was out of earshot to start, "Well? What is it?" She asked, arms crossed over her chest.

As if she didn't know. But, if I were setting myself up to eat crow, it was for the best that I did it properly, "I wanted to apologize."

Nori seemed confused at my demeanor, "You look like you're in pain."

If I did, it was because it was a struggle to say I was sorry, "I hate apologizing. So much," I told her, shaking my head, "But you deserve one from me. That thing last night? In the Danger Room? That was on me. I had a bunch of thoughts about what the deal between you and Julian was, none of them were accurate. And so..." I stood strong and closed my eyes, bracing for some sort of impact.

Again, Nori was taken aback by my display, "Uh, what are you doing?"

I explained myself, "You get a free shot, anywhere you want-, not my balls!" I hurriedly amended, putting both hands on my junk, "But anywhere else. Don't tell me where. Just do it. Punch. Kick. Headbutt. Electric shock. Titty-twister. Scratch me hard enough to draw blood. Hell, you can slam me onto my head if you can pick me up for it."

I expected her to take me up on the offer, not her complete and abject horror at the idea of doling out corporal punishment, "What? No. I don't want to hit you."

I opened my eyes, more than a little surprised, "You don't?"

Noriko scoffed, "Why does that surprise you?" Maybe because a lot of people did? Maybe because I was a piece of garbage? "Yeah, you fucked up, and I know you think you're a dick, but you're a pretty solid guy usually. You've built up enough goodwill where I can let it go. Don't ask me to bury the hatchet with Keller, though."

I wasn't going to. That was a choice only she could make, "I'll just try and keep you two away from each other. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to stick you two with me in the first place," Let alone for the first mission, "I mean, you two are my big powerhouses, but still. I think the X-Men in charge just like making things more difficult."

"Sounds like them," Nori said with a wry smile, "Ever feel like you're being set up to fail, running this whole thing?"

Not really. Mister Summers hadn't talked to me about what he'd seen in the Danger Room with Julian and Noriko. Not only that, but I had the impression that once you proved you could do something, that something then became the expected normal. Even if what you accomplished was a one-in-a-million shot. We very well may have been in over our heads, but my ego would never say I couldn't do something.

The original X-Men weren't any older than us when they got up and going. If they could do it, with no real idea of what they were doing at the start, we definitely could. I refused to believe we couldn't.

"Nope, because we're going to make this work," Somehow. I didn't know how to get things running smoothly yet, but we would all get there. I was determined to, "As far as I'm concerned, you guys are all my Paladins now. Ask Hisako what that means later," I gave Nori a pat on the shoulder before leaving to head to class.

"We all trust you," Nori suddenly said, stopping me before I could go, "Not just me. Not just the New Mutants. I'm pretty sure it's everyone involved. Like I said, you've built up a lot of goodwill."

I couldn't help but smile, no matter how hard I tried to fight it off of my face, "So what you're saying is, 'don't fuck it up'."

Nori smirked back at me, "Your words, not mine."

No pressure, right?

XxX

We all have talents. Life is just a matter of finding out what you like, what you're good at, and nurturing it. Apparently, that was what high school and college was for. Could have fooled me, with the uniform curriculums most of them had. But at Xavier's you had the chance to spread your wings and figure out what your thing was.

Ruth could paint her ass off. For someone who couldn't really see in the conventional sense, it was kind of nuts that she could make anything that could be recognized by others, but her stuff had a real touch of baroque to it.

...And I only knew what that was because the Paladins' advisor doubled as the Xavier Institute's art teacher. He was also the main person to encourage Ruth's talents. It was a fairly recent thing, given that she'd only taken the class at the start of the semester.

Ruth wasn't on the baby X-Men squad I was heading up, but that didn't mean she still wasn't my favorite goddamn telepath and a Paladin. That meant that I would always have time for my little sister.

"I can't wait to see you finish this thing," I said to her, appraising the progress she'd made on her most recent piece on the easel, "It looks all hellfire and brimstone, like it's shaping up to be some kind of Dante's Inferno shit."

"Thank you, yes," Ruth said, beaming at me for a bit before frowning, "She sees it in her head, yes, but only part of it. Pardon, Mister Rasputin, but finishing it will not happen until I can see the whole picture."

What she'd said left me curious, "Is this a precog thing?" I asked, getting a gentle nod, "Wow. And here I thought you could only use it to see bad stuff," Not use it to make fucking art.

Ruth shrugged her shoulders, "Sorry, but she still does not know what it is yet. Good or bad, no one can say yet, nor for whom, no," She took off her apron and went to try and clean the paint from her hands, "Pardon, she will be ready to go in a minute, Bellamy, yes!"

"Take your time," I told her, waving her off. It wasn't like I had anywhere to be. Classes were over, and as an insomniac, I had all the time in the world.

Mister Rasputin had finished setting things away after his last class and made his way over to me, "Ah, how are you doing, Bellamy?" We hadn't really spoken since my new elevated position, "I figure you've been trying to get into a groove."

"It's been... work," I admitted, omitting particular details. Before I started begging for help, I wanted to try and figure things out on my own first, "Still not sure how well everyone's going to work together when everything hits the fan, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

"All you can do is prepare," Mister Rasputin said for my benefit, "You will do fine. You are smart boy."

Or smart enough to know when to ask things of smarter people. I kept that to myself though, "I'm not trying to worry about it too much today," I said. I was just going to grab a snack with Ruth, and find other things to do to knock around for the rest of the day and night. I wasn't going to get everything together in one day, "Has she been doing well in here?"

"Ruth obviously cannot see, but still-," He trailed off and went elsewhere to grab something for me to see. From a cabinet behind his desk, he pulled out another painting. A very good rendition of the Paladins holding the Field Day trophy. It was fantastic. I wanted to frame it and hang it over wherever the hell Eddie was hoarding the real trophy, "When she sees something in her head, she does things like this."

I was impressed, "Awesome," I was always stoked to see my friends succeed. It warmed the cockles of my heart.

"She finished this before Field Day," Mister Rasputin said, sounding just as proud as I was, "There are four others like this. She spends all class working on them, of things she sees in her head. Sometimes, she does them fast. Big pieces take days or weeks sometimes. Sometimes she doesn't want anyone to see them. I don't think she does it because they're not good."

I studied the Field Day picture anew, "If it's precog stuff, it might be because we agreed not to tell people everything she sees. Just the important stuff," Thinking that she was seeing and painting things she'd rather not see made me frown, "I hope she at least enjoys it. She seems happy so far."

"There may be good days and bad days, much like anything else," Mister Rasputin reasoned, "Perhaps this helps her come to terms with her power," One could only hope. Telepathy and precognitive abilities were two big burdens to have to shoulder, "...You care for her very much, don't you?"

"Of course I do," I said with a big grin, "I'm surprised it never came up around you, Ruthie is my little sister," I started launching into my own head-canon about our familiar origins, "We were separated at birth you see. Long lost. And after many years apart, we came back together here. She sought me out without even knowing who I..." I trailed off when I noticed a change in Mister Rasputin's demeanor, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Mister Rasputin tried to say, only to realize that I wasn't buying it. Having no reason to keep anything from me, he let me know what was up, "I have little sister, Bellamy. A real one. She is... not with us anymore."

"Oh," I droned, feeling like a jerk for saying something that reminded him of his loss, "That sucks."

"Yes," Mister Rasputin agreed, understanding that I was at a loss for anything substantial to say, "It was not you speaking of Ruth that made me think. When you said in your report last week that the 'cure' Icarus had was simply a mutated version of the Legacy Virus, it brought up bad memories. Still fresh."

Again with that stupid virus. Damn pox of the mutant world, "The Legacy Virus killed you, didn't it?"

Mister Rasputin nodded, "It killed Illyana first," I winced sympathetically as he continued, "I had to watch my sister die in front of me. I could do nothing to save her. Was hardest thing I ever experienced."

And life hadn't gotten any easier for the man from that point. He'd killed himself to save the world from the Legacy Virus, got brought back from the dead, was experimented on, and then had to watch his girlfriend be shot off into space to save the world again. After all of that, he was stuck with my group of misfit mutant kids as an advisor.

It might have been years since the first of those things had happened, but as far as he was concerned, the time frame had been a matter of months. Mister Rasputin was a tough dude to suck it up and work through all of that.

On his desk was a small picture frame. It was a picture of him and a young blonde girl. His sister, I presumed, "What was her name?"

If nothing else, he was at least happy to share that much with me, "Illyana," I made sure to commit that name to memory, even though I would never meet her, "I miss my Little Snowflake every day, Bellamy. As do I miss Katya," I nodded stiffly at the reminder that my first teacher was gone, "Protect the ones that make you feel complete. It is probably the most important advice I could ever give you."

XxX

David, Eddie, Hisako, the Cuckoos, Cessily, Sooraya, Josh, and Julian were all first up to take part in a Danger Cave simulation. I stood on the sidelines, just outside of the cave chamber, to observe, alongside Santo, Megan, Laura, Noriko, Sofia, Ben, and Nicky. We were set to go second, but everyone was going to get a chance to go, and a chance to watch.

It was the first time we had all been together since I'd gotten the team roster. Seeing us all in one place just helped it sink in for me that this was real.

Eddie, Hisako, Julian, Cessily, Santo, Sooraya, Megan, Nicky, Ben, Sofia, David, Noriko, Laurie, Josh, and the Cuckoos. All of those people were under my umbrella of influence. I was responsible for them, and I had no plans on letting any of them down.

Eddie couldn't get over the fact that someone his age had designed his own combat simulator, "This is so money," He said to David, constantly looking around, "Dude, if I were you, I would have sold this."

"I still can," David informed him with a smirk. Eddie gaped at him before offering a congratulatory 'too sweet'. Unfortunately, he wasn't privy enough to the inner workings of the Paladins to know how to reciprocate.

Hisako took note of all of the people around her that she was set to work with, and then over with me, "Sol, what's with these weird combinations?"

A grand question. One that I was excited to answer to show off my leader chops, "I already know that everyone who's been on teams together are fine, but I've gotta find which other combinations of us are good," Honestly, I'd been rather tame on splitting people up. There were at least two people from every student training squad together on a team for some sense of familiarity, "I'm gonna start mixing it up like a mad scientist during practices. Everyone's gonna work with everyone at some point."

Except for any combination involving Julian and Noriko. Not anytime soon. Like, until the heat death of the universe.

"We all ready to go?" I asked, eager to see the Danger Cave in action.

"For sure," David confirmed, "The simulations can support up to ten people. We're going to start with us ten in the first place and the rest of you guys can give it a go afterwards. Solaris?"

"Right. This is just a test run," I said for the benefit of everyone, "I threw a bunch of New Mutants in this one so they can help all the newbies through it."

"You're a newbie too," Noriko 'helpfully' pointed out.

I rolled my eyes, knowing that she was poking fun at me in good nature, "Yeah, that's why I kept you, Wind Dancer, and Wallflower out for the next turn. We're going to need you to walk us through it too, Pikachu."

"That's kinda racist."

My entire body turned Nori's way at that accusation, "What? How!?" I thought it had been a good crack.

Nori raised an eyebrow at my indignant reply, "Because you specifically compared me to a Japanese mascot character."

I stopped her there, picking up where she was trying to lead me, "-Wow. I hadn't even thought of that," I'd only had the electricity comparison in mind, "Great, now I need to come up with a new name to fuck with you. I liked that one."

"-And apologize again," Nori added cheekily, making me believe that had truly been her goal.

"I'm sorry. And that's the last of those you're getting," I droned, narrowing my eyes while the blue-haired girl grinned at me, "Don't get used to that. None of you get used to that, you hear me?"

Hisako let out a laugh amongst the others in her group, "Wow. You got an apology out of him. Way to go."

I needed things to progress before I lost the room completely, "Stop talking!" I demanded, through most everyone else's snickering, "Prodigy, start the simulation, so I can have it out with your girl without as big a peanut gallery!"

David chuckled to himself, but did as I asked, hitting a switch on the wall that turned the Danger Cave on. On a nearby terminal, he booted up a simulation of his choosing, "This one should be a mission with enough people. We'll be taking on the Marauders."

Once he chose the simulation, the machine kicked in and all we could see from the outside was a mishmash of lights concealing whatever was happening inside. We could hear everyone though, which was good. Eventually, from our point of view, it turned into a picture of what was going on inside, like looking through glass, only not.

Santo giggled to himself like a kid in anticipation. It was weird seeing a giant rock-person so giddy, "Man, my first X-Men training session. I'm so ready! We'll finally get to kick some supervillain ass for real!"

Others tried to play it cooler than him, but it was clear a lot of the others felt the same, especially the ones less used to real action than others. One in particular though, didn't share the same sentiment to the letter.

Megan, even surrounded by Ben and Nicky, her former Paragon teammates, couldn't find a taste for the danger that lay ahead, "Uh, I could do without jumping into that just yet," She said uncertainly.

We weren't together anymore, so I couldn't just sit her down and candidly ask her why she even volunteered for the team. The last time we spoke, I'd talked to her just long enough to make sure she was okay with me being the leader, which she said she was, along with Nicky and Ben.

Before, she'd made it clear to me that the breakneck life wasn't her thing, and she could have bowed out. The new squad was entirely optional, even for those who qualified to be on it. But she didn't. So, there she was, my ex, suited up with the rest of us. Granted, it was just for training. But we were training for the real deal. I made a mental note to try and come up with some way to build up her confidence more. That would be awkward, but then again, what interaction with Megan hadn't been since she dumped me?

Problems for later. Maybe I could even do something to fix them during the current training session? Who knew?

"Should I have gone in with both groups?" I asked aloud to no one in particular, just trying to make conversation as we looked on at the fracas going on in the simulation, "We won't be running any missions without me being on them, so it would make more sense, right?"

Ben, blunt and humorless as he was, was the first person to speak up, "That's a 'you' call, I'd imagine. I wouldn't worry about it too much for the first time, but I'd keep it in mind," He was right, of course. I was in charge, so whatever we did was my decision in the end.

Nicky showed a bit of concern for my well-being, "Wouldn't that wipe you out? Doing two sessions back-to-back?"

"I think I'll be fine," I said. Truth be told, it was getting harder and harder to wear myself out, "Doubling up on training will be good for me, I think."

Inside the simulation, as the fight continued to go on, the walls and floor of the cave began to vibrate gently, "Man, they're going to town in there," Nicky said, "Is the Danger Cave supposed to do this?"

Noriko shrugged, "I've never felt anything outside when it was running before."

One could have mistaken it as a minor earthquake, but as a guy who lived in motherfucking California... no. No, it was not. It was also getting warmer fast, and it had nothing to do with the power output from the Danger Cave. It felt like something was wrong, but nothing anyone could put their finger on.

And then the world turned to fire. Out of nowhere, we could see nothing but thick flames. The ground collapsed underneath us, and we all fell. We fell, and fell, and fell. We fell so long, that when we finally hit the ground we weren't as... dead as I'd expected us to be.

I sat up as quickly as I could, hands glowing for a fight, only to find no enemy upon us. We were on a cliff, and from where I looked out, I found nothing but a desolate, rocky expanse. The ground was cracked, glowing red just underneath the surface. That couldn't possibly bode well. What also wasn't good was that there was no sunlight in sight. From a look at the power sensor implant in the palm of my hand, I was still in the blue, which was good. The light I had available wouldn't be enough to recharge.

The others started to pick themselves up, the ones more used to danger doing so quicker, despite the lack of an immediate threat.

Santo got up, looking none the worse for wear. Sometimes it paid to be made of rock, "Okay, what the hell just happened?"

"Great question," I growled under my breath and yelled out loud, "Is this part of the simulation, Prodigy? Because that fire and that fall felt fucking real, but we're not dead!" My voice echoed in the open air, over the sound of bubbling lava, but I didn't get a response, "Prodigy?"

Noriko started searching around for her boyfriend, only to find nothing, "David?"

A quick headcount told me that I only had my group that I'd prepared to train with as company. Santo, Megan, Laura, Noriko, Sofia, Ben, and Nicky were with me, but no one else.

Nicky couldn't help but let concern bleed into his tone, "This is part of the sim... right? Solaris?"

"I..." I looked around at everyone. When I got to Laura, she softly shook her head 'no'. My stomach dropped, "...No, Wolf Cub. No, I don't think it is."

A grave expression formed on Sofia's face, "Bellamy, what do you know?"

Honestly, nothing. I had seen what everyone else had, and nothing more, "From the looks of things, we might be in some serious trouble. Any ideas where we are?" I asked around.

No one else had any answers either. Santo especially, "I dunno. Hell? Looks like Hell."

"It's not hot enough to be Hell," I replied, taking in our surroundings, "I'm assuming Hell is stupid-agonizingly-hot. This place isn't that hot. It's mostly just ugly as sin and smells like butt."

"What you're smelling is sulfur," Laura pointed out with a wrinkle to her nose.

"-Which smells like butt, Laura," I added after the fact. The scent had to have been playing hell on her and Nicky's senses.

"Half of us are fucking missing!" Noriko snapped, "We've got to do something!"

Sofia did her best to reassure her friend and longtime teammate, "We will, Nori. But we need to know what has happened first. We don't even know what this is."

This had never happened before, so we all had to fall back on what we were taught. How many of us were taught to find our way when we were lost in hostile environments? I was, because Miss Pryde had been very thorough in making sure I was caught up with the rest of the Paladins when I first arrived at school.

"Wind Dancer or Pixie," I said, getting the girls' attention, "Can one of you head up and try to get a bird's eye view? Maybe you can see something. Maybe the others?"

Megan raised her hand and started to take off, "I'm on it!"

I watched her ascend before turning to the others to say more, "When Pix gets back, we'll start moving. We all fell together, right? Wherever we are, we can't be that far away from the others."

I didn't even know if that was true or not, but I needed to take charge and get people to chill out somehow. If I hadn't, I felt that Nori would have scrambled off trying to search this place we knew nothing about all on her own. She had the speed to ditch us if she really wanted to. I just hoped she wasn't that impulsive.

Nicky was the youngest out of us, and couldn't help but be a bit scared, "The X-Men will come for us, right?" He was on the team, but he'd never seen real fighting. Despite looking like a junior werewolf, he was a gentle kid.

As much as I hated to break it to him, I needed him to know what he was in for, "As far as we're concerned, we are the X-Men," "Even if this was something where we could reasonably expect a rescue, they don't exactly have the best track record with students lately."

A silence fell over everyone at that. There were fairly fresh wounds all around, given that people we all knew had recently died during Stryker's attack. Santo was the first to speak up, "Dude, harsh."

"I know... I know..." I said it, and I wasn't going to apologize for it. I meant it, and I had a point, "This team was put together so that when shit like this happens, we don't just sit around waiting for the 'real heroes' to do something. We're all trained. At some point it's just a matter of throwing us into it."

We were the real heroes here. No one was going to save us but us.

Ben scowled, more annoyed than afraid, with his flaming balls of steel. He didn't disagree with me, "And this is that point, huh?"

"Looks like it," I said begrudgingly. I would have rather we got a more controlled environment to dip our toes into first. Then again, I doubted anyone was ever ready when they started, "So, who's ready to go on an adventure!?"

No one raised their hand or said yes... except Santo. I don't know what else I expected, especially since I barked the question at them without the slightest hint of positivity. I was all about defiant sarcasm and angry inspiration, not fanciful whimsy.

"BEL! EVERYONE! LOOK OUT!"

Megan's warning from above came in time for us to all see a horde of creatures ambling our way. Monsters and demons of various shapes and sizes shuffled for us.

Everyone got ready for battle. I stood between Laura, her claws popped, and Nicky, his claws and fangs bared, "How did neither of you guys hear or smell them them coming?" I asked, not really wanting an answer. I fired the first shot before anyone could defend themselves.

A preemptive blast from me started the chain reaction of the creatures charging us. Ben and Noriko followed suit, hurling fire and electricity respectively. There were so many though, they pushed through despite their fried cohorts.

Santo charged down the biggest thing he could find and started trading haymakers with it. When smaller monsters tried to crawl all over him to help bring him down, Laura jumped onto his back and started stabbing and slashing all of them off of him.

So, wherever we were, humans didn't dwell. That was good to know. We were on another planet, or what?

"This is not working!" Sofia said, using her wind powers to keep mobile around the battlefield. She had no qualms with blowing anything that got too close to her off of the cliff. Good for her, "We're being pushed back! And there's nowhere to be pushed back to!"

Nowhere but over the edge of the cliff. None of us could survive a spill into lava... except maybe Santo... and maybe Laura. But that was it.

This wouldn't work. We had no coordination. With the Paladins, when things broke down and original plans inevitably failed, we'd drilled enough to be able to fall into a default formation without thinking about it. There was no form here; no line. Laura had originally stuck close to me because she remembered the Paladin formation, but other than that original bit of teamwork, we were scattered.

And with the sheer numbers of our enemies, it didn't take long for it to start to wear on many of us. We needed an opening, and watching our two airborne teammates, I got an idea.

"Pix, launch dust!" I ordered, ducking the swing of a... sharpened tentacle? A hastily thrown light blade quickly removed that problem, "Lots of it!"

Megan could hear me, and moved into position, willing to give it a try, "Where!?"

"Not on us!" I replied vaguely. I didn't care as long as it went up some bad guy's nose, "Wind Dancer, control the Pixie's dust!"

Sofia saw the glittering dust from Megan's wings and controlled the air around it to blow in the faces of the most monsters she could aim for, "Will this work?"

"I don't fucking know, Sof!" I yelled candidly, in the middle of helping Nicky fend off a handful of creatuers that had gotten close. It was then that I noticed two flying monsters gunning for Laura on Santo's back, "Laura!" I warned her before one hand fired a concussive shot her way.

With reflexes that, I'll admit, I would find myself drifting off and randomly think about the mechanics and precision of, Laura got in the way and used her claws to split my beam and shoot down both monsters after her and some of the ones crawling up on Santo.

I didn't have the chance to appreciate it at the time, given the chaos of the moment, but in hindsight, it was one of the coolest goddamn things I would ever see her do. Seriously, I have no idea how she did that on the spot. I have to just stop right now and break down all of the moving parts involved, because I refuse to gloss over this.

Laura couldn't move faster than light, because, duh, light, so she had to get in the way of where she saw my fist aiming before I took the shot and already have her claws where they needed to be to properly split and re-aim said shot. To add onto that, she had to know at a glance it was a concussive shot that was stable enough to touch, because if it had been an explosive shot, she couldn't have reflected it. It would have just blown up on her and spread bits of Laura all over Santo's rocky mass.

We repeated the feat afterwards as a regular move that we did, but those were always planned. There was always a specific tell to let her know it was coming. We even fucking named it Tequila Sunrise. However, there was nothing like the first time. The original was spontaneous. She had no warning, she just did it and it worked.

I don't mean to spend so much time on what amounted to three decent seconds, at most, of action in real time, and I don't mean to be needlessly vulgar... but my dick moves a little bit every time I think about that moment. Good God, woman.

...

...Oh, yeah. Using Sofia's wind to blow more of Megan's pixie dust in the monsters' faces totally worked. That was very important to us not dying.

"It's working! Brilliant!" Megan seemed pleasantly surprised by her role in the success, "They're actually stopping! They're not running though."

Sofia hovered in the air nearby, taking in the scene before her with a measure of confusion, "Megan, what does the Pixie dust make them see?"

A question that she had never been able to answer, "I have no idea. Something awesome, I bet."

As someone who had been hit with it before, I don't know what it made them see, but it confused them just long enough for us to tear through them and buy ourselves some breathing room – like the momentary lull in a beat 'em up video game when you're fighting waves of enemies. It was still a battle of attrition. There were more of them than there were of us, and things got worse from there.

"This is bullshit!" Santo snapped, holding both of his fists up in the direction of an approaching group, "Eat rock fists, demon!"

Something went wrong. Santo could detach parts of himself. Most of us had seen him do his flying fists thing before. Only, this time, for some reason, when he went for it, his entire body. Chunks of rock went flying everywhere, making for particularly effective shrapnel against monsters and Laura alike.

"SANTO!" Ben exclaimed. Much like the rest of us, he couldn't believe what he'd seen.

Laura flew away from Santo, where she'd been fighting up until that point, and nearly slid off of the cliff until I stopped her by blasting the path in front of her. Hopefully it didn't hurt, but after getting shredded by Santo pieces, she probably had other pressing concerns that she needed a moment to deal with.

So, that left us without two of our close-range fighters, which meant when the enemy started to encroach, it was harder to beat them back. And everyone else was starting to get tired. Most people weren't living solar batteries. As Ben and Noriko started to slow down, I tried to pick up the slack. At least by then, we had established a line.

"Sol," Ben said. The flame emanating from his head was weaker than it normally was, "What are we going to do? There's nowhere to fall back to."

When in doubt, I would have told them to buy me some time to make a Lux Bomb, but when the stupid thing went off, it would destroy the cliff we were all on. That meant the only way out was through. Laura had recovered enough to keep going, and I was prepared to issue the order, when a large winged, clawed demon swept into the enemy ranks.

The lot of them fled, even casting themselves over the sides of the cliff to get away. Not from us, but from that one demon. Or more specifically, the axe-wielding person riding on its back that lopped off the heads of anything unlucky enough to get close. Then, it was just them and us.

I was almost fooled into thinking the person on the demon was human. Almost. She had long blonde hair and the frame of a woman just a bit older than us. She was scantily clad, with armor on her shoulders and arms. But when I looked closer, I could see red horns on her head, a red tail coming from her back, and beneath her spiked metal kneepads, she had the lower legs of a goat.

"What in the hell?" Noriko remarked, "Is this good, or bad?" A great question. But at least it gave us a chance to catch our breath.

Nicky didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, "Seeing as how she made the demons go away... I'd like to think it was good," To be fair, I couldn't blame him.

By this time, Laura was fully back on her feet, with a few new holes in her costume that would have to be repaired, "You okay?" I asked.

"I was blown up," Laura replied matter-of-factly.

I rolled my eyes, "I know. That's why I asked," If she wanted to take a bite with her sarcasm baby teeth, I was the wrong one to do it with in the middle of a combat zone, "I was just being courteous. I've seen you with your rib cage open before, girl."

In the meantime, the demon woman dismounted from her flying monster and took in the sight of six dirty, bloody, tired teenagers with her devilish red eyes. Eventually, we finally heard her speak, "N'Astirh," She said, getting a growl from the creature with her as she pointed over at one of us, "...Bring me that one."

It was Megan, "Oh, nuts," She'd been pointing at Megan.

The demon, N'Astirh, flew straight for my ex, brushing most of the others out of the way when they tried to put themselves between it and her. Whatever the circumstances behind our breakup, I was not prepared to allow my ex to be chained up by some goat-legged bitch in Hell, or wherever we were.

"Nah, fuck that," I said to myself shooting N'Astirh in the face. It took a header into the rock and dirt, showing that it was pretty durable. Good for it.

N'Astirh started getting up, glaring at where he'd last seen me, "I will rip out your-," The threat went unfinished when I cut off its goddamn wings from its blind spot with a light blade.

I ignored the pained roaring and screeching, aiming for N'Astirh's open mouth as it writhed on the ground, "You're gonna what now? 'Die?' That was a very astute assumption of you. Points for being self-aware," I was waiting for a good angle to put an explosive blast down its throat and end its life.

Unfortunately, N'Astirh was not the most dangerous thing we were dealing with at the moment.

Anyone getting up from getting bowled over by a demon beast was kept down by bright, presumably painful green-colored light. I shot back before I could be hit, clashing my light energy against... whatever she was using. She was not pleased by our stubbornness.

"You're fighting me!?" The demon woman snapped, slowly pushing me back, "I saved you!"

I grit my teeth and tried to dig my feet in, but on solid rock, I just felt myself losing my footing, "We don't even know who you are!" Parts of her beam branched off and honed in on me, hitting me while I was occupied, "GAAAH!"

It hurt. A lot. That probably went without saying.

"The name is Darkchild, boy," The woman taunted as she walked past me. I tried to lunge at her from the ground, but she blasted me again without even turning around, "Don't forget it."

I wouldn't. Pain was a very good method of retaining information.

The last two of us standing at the moment were Megan and Noriko. All the while, Darkchild slowly moved toward them, "You're only alive because of me. Because I pulled you away from him. If it weren't for me, your innards would be strung across Belasco's castle right now. Just like your friends."

Nori bristled at the reminder that we'd landed without our full party, "What about our friends? What did you say?" Impulsively, she lashed out get the answers she wanted, but a snap of Darkchild's fingers collapsed the ground beneath her feet, leaving her a sitting duck for the same blast that put most of us down for the count.

"Don't worry. There's a solution here," Darkchild said to Megan and Megan alone, a vicious grin on her face, "If you ever want to see your friends again... I need one of your souls," She wasn't looking anywhere else.

I didn't like the sound of that, and started getting up again, probably to get knocked back down again. That was when I heard Nicky calling out to me from where he'd been felled moments before I had, "Bellamy. Bel. That's... that's..."

I couldn't make out what he was trying to tell me at first, "Nick, what? I can't tell what you're saying."

"That's... that's Colossus' sister," My lupine comrade said, pointing at Darkchild, "She was... teammates with Miss Sinclair in the original New Mutants. That's how I recognize the name."

I looked at the demonic woman that had handed us our asses and tried to reconcile her image with that of the sweet looking girl in Mister Rasputin's picture, "I don't remember Mister Rasputin telling me about his sister having horns, a tail, and goddamn hooves, dude," Then again, I never did ask him what her powers were.

Nicky insisted, "I'm telling you man, I'm sure! I'm absolutely sure!"

He was so insistent about it that I had to take the idea into account. It wasn't like we had much else to go off of, "You willing to bet your life on it? Because we're about to," I looked around at all of the others who were down.

Nick and I both got up and limped over to Darkchild from behind. She was busy backing Nori and Megan down, continuing to try and persuade them to do things her way.

"I can feel him. Belasco. He's hurting your friends right now," Her voice was even and confident. Assured in the information she was sharing with us, "I know what he's thinking, what he's feeling. But he's stronger than me. He made sure of that."

Megan shook her head, keeping her distance that was quickly running out. She could have flown away, but she didn't want to leave us, "I don't understand. What do you want?"

"The only thing that can kill Belasco for good is a Soulsword, and I've lost mine," In what seemed like an instant, Darkchylde was upon her. But instead of attacking, she tenderly stroked Megan's cheek, "In order to form a Soulsword, one needs a soul. Now, tell me. Do you want to save your friends? Would you give your soul to save them?"

Megan placed a hand on her chest and looked down, "You want... my soul?"

I fired a quick blast from behind that hit Darkchild in the back. She hissed in pain and glared back at me and Nicky, "Megan, don't listen to her!" I yelled as we kept limping over, "We'll find another way! We don't know her, and we haven't tried anything else yet! We-!"

"No more saviors, little Pixie," Darkchild snapped her fingers again, raising the rock around us and encasing us all in it. All with the exception of herself and Megan, "You are alone. The decision to save your friends or save your own skin is yours alone," She held out an amulet with a pentagram and five empty slots on it, "I can hear their cries."

I couldn't break free. I wasn't strong enough. None of us were. Even the ones of us who could be considered in fighting shape.

"Please stop," Megan finally asked, shaking her head, "I don't want any more of my friends to die," Tears welled up in her eyes. It was really hard to see. Even if she was my ex-girlfriend, I still cared about her. I cared a lot, "I'll do whatever it takes."

Mister Rasputin's sister or not, the devilish smile on Illyana's face made me want to punch it, "Good girl," She put her hands out toward Megan and began to draw bright, wispy blue light directly from her body, her eyes, and her mouth, "Try not to scream."

She did scream. She screamed a lot.

"I was six years old," Illyana said over the sound of Megan's screams, "Belasco took apart my soul piece-by-piece to form the Blood Stones. He took my innocent soul and twisted it, to use as a sacrifice to the elder gods."

Nicky couldn't so much as move his head, "Guys, wake up!" He begged the others. Our faces were the only parts of us free so that we could breathe, "Bel, do something! She's hurting Megan!"

I didn't respond. I was trying. I was in the same exact position he and everyone else was in. I might have been faster and stronger than regular people with my power enhancement, but I couldn't just break solid rock, especially with no momentum or leverage. The best I could do was start chipping away with small concussive shots. Small, because the kick from large ones would break my arm with nowhere for it to go, and concussive because I couldn't open my hands. It took time, but I could feel things loosening up.

Illyana continued draining Megan's soul, pulling into an amulet around her neck, "When he had all five pieces of my soul, he would have the power to bring them to Earth. You and I, little Pixie, we will use your innocence against Belasco," She declared, "Innocence is power. And power is the Soulsword."

"Please stop! It hurts!" Megan begged of her, and all for nothing.

"I know," It seemed as though Illyana honestly felt some kind of remorse or empathy, if only for a moment, "I remember."

I could feel myself starting to wiggle loose, and kept firing. Just a little more.

On Illyana's amulet, a red stone began to fill in one of the open slots, "The Soulsword is your life, Megan. It is your soul forged into a weapon. With the Soulsword, your innocence can destroy. It can cut magic, and make spells bleed."

In the air, above Megan's body, her soul began to form a blade and handle. Okay. It was there. Great. Now, stop. But she didn't stop, and another slot in her amulet started to fill.

"With your soul, Pixie... I can kill Belasco."

She wasn't going to stop at whatever it took to make one Bloodstone. She wanted all of them, and it would take everything Megan had to make that happen.

I finally got loose enough to blast myself free, right at Illyana. I slammed full-force into her back with my feet, and sent her flying. I didn't get the satisfying feeling of any bone breaking, but there were more pressing issues to deal with.

Megan fell to the ground, eyes closed, with new black streaks in her formerly solid pink hair. Her lack of any kind of motion gave me no small amount of anxiety, when I made it to her side, "Pix! Pix, I swear to God, if you're dead, I'm gonna strangle that bitch with her own tail! Tell me you're okay!"

She was breathing, so I kept trying to shake and pat the poor girl awake. Eventually, I was rewarded with her eyes slowly cracking open, "Mmmm..."

That would have to do for the time being, because we weren't alone. I blasted away some of the rock around Nicky and the others so they could get themselves out whenever they started to stir, and turned to face Illyana, who was far from pleased by being dropkicked fifty feet away.

Green magic covered both of her hands as her red eyes glowed angrily, "You will suffer for-!"

"-Get away..." A familiar voice from seemingly nowhere said as chunks of rock began to tear from the ground in front of Illyana. "YOU GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS!"

I couldn't believe it, "Santo! You're not dead!" Illyana hadn't even known we'd had another person with us before she showed up, from the surprise on her face, and in her reaction of immediately blasting him with both hands.

Unfortunately for her, our rock boy was back with a vengeance. His body now looked more like the land around us, dark, with lines of molten rock all over him. He walked right through Illyana's attack, "You hear me devil chick! I don't care how hot you are, I'm gonna rip those horns off and use 'em as toothpicks!" He snatched her up off of the ground like she was nothing, "And that's just for starters..."

While Santo slammed Illyana against the nearest surfaces he could find, Megan had fully come to, "I'm... I'm..." Looking down at her hand, she held a small dagger, still steaming with the blue energy that had formed it, "...My soul."

Illyana's attempts to fight Santo back were all for naught, "Your stupid light show ain't doing shit, Dazzler," He taunted, slamming her against a wall and holding her there, "I saw you. I saw you hurt them. All I could do was watch, but now… you're done."

With Megan seemingly being alright, I stomped over to where Santo had Illyana pinned. Completely ignoring the fact that he was already putting the squeeze on her, I punched her dead in the face, "Whoa! Marcher, uncool!"

Really? He'd just ragdolled her all over the place, and me hitting her was the bridge that was too far?

"I don't give a fuck!" I bellowed, feeling the spittle fly out of my mouth, "She magicked my whole team and made me watch her torture my ex. As a matter of fact, I still want to do the whole 'strangle that bitch with her own tail' thing. Yeah, that sounds great, actually!"

Before I could do the aforementioned strangling, Megan, of all people, flew in and literally held me back from throttling my teacher's demonic little sister, "Bellamy, stop! We need her to take us to find the others."

Hearing that we had plans for her stirred Illyana. The Darkchild still had plans for us, it seemed, "The rock person's form may be resistant to my magic now, but I will kill-!" She shut up when I punched her again.

"Dude!" Santo said, "I know she's an evil, demon chick, but I've got her! Quit punching a woman!" It was weird being rebuked by Santo of all people, "Seriously, Goat Legs, you're gonna wanna take us to wherever we want, 'cuz he ain't gonna let you not."

"I will cut stuff off of you," I spat hatefully, verifying Santo's statement, "They can't stop me."

I don't know if it was from the reality of currently being the vulnerable one, or if my second punch hit her hard enough to jar something loose, but Illyana suddenly ceased being the sadistic, spiteful demon we'd come to know over the last hour. Instead she seemed confused; afraid, "I... I can't. He sealed his castle from me. My magic... my powers... I can't," For perhaps the first time, she was looking at us. Specifically, what we were wearing – our uniforms. They must have been familiar enough to trigger something, "Who are you? Where's Kitty? Where are Dani and Sam? Please... where is my brother?"

The three of us looked at each other. I couldn't help but press my palm to my forehead, "You've got to be kidding me."

XxX

So, Limbo. Another plane of existence. One the X-Men were apparently familiar with. It would have been nice to learn about that at some point or another, so we'd have some frame of reference for how to respond if we ever wound up there, but to be fair, who could have seen any of this coming?

As far as Illyana went, it was her... but part of her. I listened to her with Megan, who was wronged the most by her, and Santo, who could smack her back down if she popped off. I asked Nicky to help free the others and help them get back in order and up to speed.

Illyana held her head, likely from the concussion Santo and I gave her, "I remember. I remember my life with Piotr, then coming to the school. Belasco, the X-Men, the New Mutants," She winced in pain, "I remember the dark times, the inferno... then nothing."

"I don't understand what that means," Megan said.

Illyana held out a finger and stared at it. We all tensed when a small bit of magic formed there, "When Belasco took back Limbo, he used his magics to summon me, pulling to him every bit of my essence. Every memory that he could find," She looked up at us, and noticing our defensive stances, quickly extinguished her magic, "I appeared before him. But my soul was missing. Instead of Illyana, Belasco got Darkchild instead."

Which meant we got Darkchild, who was at her strongest in Limbo, a place that already enhanced magic.

"That's messed up," Santo observed before his train of thought quickly derailed, "Hey, if you go into a church, would you catch on fire?"

I stood skeptical, arms crossed over my chest, "Belasco wanted you, but not you?"

"He wants my soul, not me," Illyana specified, "He wants to have everything that I was. And I'm going to kill him before he gets it," She said, sounding like something of a promise to herself.

Santo let out a derisive snort, "Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Evil Illyana," He summed up her little story in one contemptuous name.

I added on, still pretty pissed off at everything that had happened since we first saw her, "Right now, the only reason I'm not losing my soul by fucking you up for the sake of karma is because we need to get our friends out and get home. How do we get to Belasco's castle?"

Illyana shrugged impotently, "I told you, I can't... but the girl can," She gestured to Megan.

Megan was still quite wary of Illyana, and stepped away, "Me?"

Illyana eyed Megan uncomfortably, "The creation of the Bloodstone has made a hole in her soul, which was filled with black magic. And now, she has a Soulsword... of sorts," More like a Souldagger, really.

"A hole in my soul?" It took Megan a moment for the severity of what she'd been told to dawn on her, "Oh my God! I'm evil now! You turned me evil, you bi-!" She stopped herself by covering her mouth at the last moment. Not that I wouldn't have said far worse in the same situation, but Megan hadn't cursed one time since I'd been around her.

"I'm pretty sure if she turned you evil, you wouldn't have stopped me from strangling her earlier," I said. I still kind of wanted to do it. Just a little bit, though, "Look, um, Illyana. How can Pixie get us there?"

She seemed to take a moment to mull over her options, before deciding on one. And not one she particularly liked, "I can teach her a spell. A teleportation spell."

XxX

Magic is bullshit.

"Jesus Christ, Marcher," Santo complained. Everyone had by now recovered enough to sit and watch with me while Megan trained with Illyana, "This is your big plan? Evil Illyana turns Megan into Dark Pixie, teaches her a fucking magic spell, and then we go fight the devil? You should replace Cyclops right now," He finished sarcastically.

"Suck my balls," I snapped back, less enraged than before, yet somehow grumpier. All of the dirt, soot, and blood on me had started to harden on my skin, and it was really uncomfortable, "If anyone else has a better plan than 'stomp Illyana out and go it alone', because that was my first idea, share. Please."

As Megan floated upside down, exuding pink magic, Sofia tilted her head along with the angle, "I mean... it seems to be working."

Megan concentrated on an incantation as she familiarized herself with the spell, "Sihal Novarum Chun-."

"-No," Illyana interrupted impatiently, "You are not trying hard enough. You should be able to do this without speaking!"

Megan huffed at her in return, "This isn't even English! And there's a lot of words! And you're mean!"

Upon the slight show of backbone, Illyana looked back at me. I raised my eyebrow as if to say that this was her idea. With a sigh of resignation due to her lack of options, she turned back to Megan, "...Again."

My mind was turning, and not in a good or productive way. The individual we were about to fight was stronger than Illyana, and she'd handed us our asses. Granted, we were tired when she attacked, but we were hardly any better now. We would get maybe an hour of rest, and then we were back into it.

Hopefully less, because every minute we rested was another minute that Belasco had access to our friends. I wasn't the only one who realized this. Everyone else did too. Noriko and Sofia were the antsiest though, not that I could blame them. Their boyfriends were there.

Laura came over to sit down next to me on the rocks, "What are we going to do when we get to the castle?" Right to business, she was.

"Step on Belasco's neck, shoot him in the head, grab our crew, and go the fuck home," I said. There wasn't going to be anything complicated about this.

Laura seemed a bit taken aback, "That's it? No battle plan?"

I didn't know what she expected me to say other than that, "Today was meant to start getting us used to working with each other. I don't have any real formations or tactics in mind yet for the whole team," What was kind of play was I supposed to call? And even if I did have something, no one would remember it once the bodies started flying, "If this guy is anything like Darkchild, we jump on his ass before he can chuck magic around, and grind him down until he's pulp."

Laura looked at me closely, specifically my eyes – the color of them, "Are you alright?"

"No," I held up my palm to show the sensor implant colored deep yellow, "I used a lot of power fighting demons and digging myself out of Illyana's stupid rock stockades. There's no recharges here. So, you know, whatever happens next better be decisive."

Laura seemed like she wanted to talk about something else, something unrelated to what we were going to do next. Before she could ask though, Illyana sauntered over, a pleased expression on her face, "She's learned the spell well enough to reach Belasco. Let's go."

Wow. That took an hour. Maybe less. The point was, Megan had some talent. I was impressed. Megan seemed happy with it too, if only because it got us a step closer to going home, "Which way is Belasco's castle anyway?" I asked.

Illyana gave me a curious look in return, "Why?" I didn't say, just shrugging in return. She rolled her eyes and pointed, "In exactly that direction. It's good you let me teach Pixie. Walking there would take you weeks... without the immeasurable number of demons you would have to fight along the way."

Laura chimed in, "As opposed to the immeasurable number of demons we'll have to fight once we're there?"

"At least you'll be there," Illyana said.

"True," I couldn't deny her that, "Alright guys, last preparations! It's time to do this!"

XxX

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-!"

XxX

Eight hours. However long we had been in Limbo, it had been eight hours on Earth. Eight hours of hell.

It was supposed to have been a training day. It had been anything but.

All of us had been returned to the Danger Cave, from where we'd been taken. Not a thing was out of place from how we'd left it. However, that would have meant an annoying and painful walk back to the school proper, had it not been for that neat teleportation trick that Megan had been forced to learn.

The senior X-Men were quick to flock to us, check us all over, and make sure we were all in one piece. I bowed out and stepped away from the physicals. The medical staff would have enough work ahead of them. Everyone else's injuries mattered more than mine. I didn't even bother sticking around for a debriefing. I didn't know if I was going to get my ass chewed out or not, but if I was, it could wait until I had the energy and patience to deal with it.

I washed off all of the blood and grime in the privacy of my own shower. I stood there under the water, my head against the wall for so long, I lost track of time. Leading this team was heavy. It was all of the weight of leading the Paladins, times one-hundred, because we would go on missions.

I knew realistically that they couldn't all be as bad as getting sucked into a literal hellscape, but given my experiences, there had been few easy details that came with the X-Men style of living.

"How the hell do the rest of them do this?" I muttered to myself aloud as I turned the water off and got out, "...Gotta pick Cyclops' brain when I get the chance."

When I finished drying off and returned to my phone on my bed, I found a handful of messages from some of the others.

Good job. From personal experience, Limbo is a rough place, but everyone got out alive. Stop by my office tomorrow morning.
Mister Summers (Cyclops)

Where'd you run off to dude? Man Ive got some shit to tell you. We gotta compare stories. Bet mine are worse lol
Eddie (Wing)

Hey :) Its been kinda weird lately huh?
Megan (Pix)

Just wanted to say ty for everything in Lmbo. Can we talk later?
Megan (Pix)

There were more from other people, and most of the ones who sent them were probably still awake, but I didn't feel like responding to any. I fell face down on my pillow and blacked out. It felt great, but it didn't last long enough for my tastes.

A knock at my door late, late at night woke me up. It wasn't Wolf, because if he didn't have a key, he'd just pick the lock and break in.

I wiped a hand down my face and got up to open the door, "Hmm? What up?" I asked, squinting my eyes at whoever my visitor was.

It was Laura who stood in my doorway, changed out of her uniform and into much comfier clothes. She raised an eyebrow at the sight of me in my designated sleep attire of basketball shorts, "I woke you up. I thought you had insomnia."

"I dumped enough power in Limbo to actually get to sleep tonight," I told her, leaning my head and the bulk of my weight on the doorframe, "Probably gonna miss some classes tomorrow. It's gonna be amazing," I whispered.

Laura cracked a small smile, "I wouldn't want to keep you. Some other time then."

I scoffed and moved out of the way so she could enter, "Fuck that, you're here now. As leader, I should expect to be called upon at all hours... or something like that, I guess," I said, flopping back down onto my bed.

Laura watched me by the door for a moment, then sat down on an open spot on my bed, "Are you alright?"

I ached all over, in some places more than others, and from looking in the mirror in the bathroom, I wasn't going to be very pretty for a few days, but I wasn't in terrible shape, "I'm probably doing better than just about anyone else. What do you need?"

She chewed on her lip for a moment before replying, "Would it be a problem if I stayed here until morning?"

I pushed myself up, newly alert, "You mean like... with me? Here?" I down pointed to the bed I was in. Laura nodded stiffly, "...Yeah, why the fuck not? Come here."

Laura was quick to take the invite and scurried under the covers with me. I couldn't help but chuckle as I turned the lamp.

...Get your heads out of the gutter, jerks.

We both had clothes on, and I was too beat up and tired to do anything else but sleep. Despite her previous assertiveness, Laura didn't seem to want to do more than that on this occasion either. She settled in, pressing her back against me. The little thing wasn't shy at all about wanting some contact, and that was fine with me. I wrapped my arms around her and she placed her hands over mine.

It didn't take her long to relax, and when she did, it was comfortable. Her hair was soft, and she smelled amazing, having clearly showered and shampooed thoroughly after the violence that was Limbo. This was as far away from that as I could imagine, and that was just what I wanted.

I had one last bit of banter in me before I started to drift off.

"Do you pop your claws in your sleep?" I asked.

"Sometimes," Laura readily admitted, "When I have nightmares."

"Do you have a lot of nightmares?"

"..."

"Glad I've got you facing the other way, then," I took an elbow to the kidney for that one, "Ow. Goodnight, Laura."

"Goodnight, Bellamy."

---

And that's the chapter, guys. Probably (undoubtedly) long as hell for you to read, but I had fun stitching this thing together, and that's really what I do this for.

Thank goodness the winter holiday slog is over. I am not a holiday kind of guy. Happy New Year, for those who care about that kind of thing, I hope your 2020 is better than your previous years.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. Until the next time, Kenchi out.