About a day or so after Captain Gamma's visit, the Tower of Fate was looking in much better condition. The mess and disarray were restored, replaced with a quality fit for a sacred bastion for the upholding of order. The Emerald Witch swept away the months of delivery food boxes, empty coffee mugs, and trashy gossip magazines. After Banner gave her a much-needed reality check, Jessica started to work on herself again. There was also the need to find her lantern to recharge her ring.
Jessica stared at her father's helm on the side table. It didn't bother her as much to look at it anymore. She was still afraid to go back out into the world and be a hero again, but she knew that it was her responsibility to the world. A raven sat on the windowsill, bathed in the moonlight. It almost appeared a deep blue. It cawed loudly at the witch before Jessica swung her broom at it to shoo the bird away.
The witch pushed aside the last of the trash with a broomstick to finally find the emerald lantern. "Always the last place you look," she commented, chuckling to herself. Jessica set the broom aside and picked up the lantern, raising it into air.
The lantern was beautifully ornate. The device used to recharge the power rings was sculpted from crystal and etched with various mystic runes. Within the chamber, a green flame roared with power. The fact it took so long for Jessica to find such a conspicuous object was embarrassing to her. The lantern and ring came from the Green Mystics Coven, not to be confused with their cosmic counterpart, the Kree Lantern Corps. The Fatal Compass was gifted the ring and lantern by the Coven in return for assisting them in defeating Desperomammu, and they were later gifted to Jessica.
Jessica stared down at her other hand with the ring on it, "Well, here goes nothing," she said taking a deep breath. She closed her fist and plunged her ring into the green fire of the lantern. The Emerald Witch waited for a moment to feel some sort of surge of energy, but nothing happened. Jessica then remembered to activate the lantern, she had to recite an oath to the Coven. Did she remember what it was she had to say, well no. But this is somewhat excusable, everybody forgets their passwords every now and then.
She racked her brain to try and remember the "magic words" she set aside for herself to unlock the power of the lantern. But while she tried to focus, the raven returned to the windowsill of the tower, cawing again. Jessica flinched and she dropped the lantern with a clatter. This, naturally, made Jessica quite annoyed. She grabbed the broom again and ran to smack the raven again. The witch swung at the bird, but as the bristles made contact, the raven disappeared in a cloud of smoke and feathers.
The cloud swirled around Jessica; the echoing sounds of cawing radiated from it. Jessica started to panic as she clenched her fist to try and muster some power out of the ring. "C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon, do something," Jessica shouted at the faintly flickering ring. The feathers flew around the girl as all the candles lighting the tower went out. The fear started to overtake Jessica as she struggled to conjure anything at all from the ring. She looked to her father's helm. Perhaps by tapping into its power, she could have a chance against this dark force.
Jessica lunged towards the table and grabbed the Helm of Iscariot from the table. This was the one artifact untouched by the merging of worlds. It was the only conduit for which the normal realm had access to my power. At least that was before I myself was amalgamated. The Phantom Stranger's power is now bound by the confines of the Watcher. I can no longer lend my aide, and must simply witness the events of the universe as they unfold. Jessica would learn this as she placed the helmet on her head as a last-ditch effort, and the faceplate did close over her face as a function independent of my power. But with Nabu ousted, and myself restrained, it was nothing much more than an ornamental dinner bell.
Upon seeing Jessica wear the helm to no avail, the cloud of feathers cascaded to the other side of the tower. As each feather touched the stone walls, they melted into a viscous, black, goo. The darkness shaped into demonic portal. The hole opened in the shape of a large "X", revealing a chaotic hellscape behind it. The black smoke gathered around the portal to create…what could only be described as a wheelchair ramp.
Jessica was extremely confused with what was happening, the helmet not working at all also distressed her. She awaited what was going to emerge from what she could only perceive as oblivion. Jessica was terrified, but still held out her ring. Everything was telling her to run, but if she was to be the Emerald Witch, she had to stand in the way of evil regardless of her own fear. There only a small amount of charge left in the ring, but hopefully it would be enough to fend off whatever was coming. It glowed with the emerald light Jessica needed to fight back, "Here goes everything."
A silhouette emerged from the chaotic mess of a dimension within the portal, a very short silhouette. Out from the portal and down the eldritch ramp was an old wooden wheelchair. And within that wheelchair was a well-dressed, 14-year-old boy. He had black hair that pointed up like little devil horns. A yellow wool blanket was draped across his lap. The boy wheeled his way down the ramp and looked up to notice the helmeted Jessica, "Erik, it's time for your biannual ass-kicking! Round one hundred and… ah it doesn't matter. You keep score, not me. Sorry I'm a bit late this time 'round. Your buddy Corrigan really put me through Hell, literally."
Jessica was even more confused about what was going on, but there was a demonic-looking child talking about order vs chaos, so she was taking action. She charged up a blast of energy from her ring, and let loose a beam of green force at the boy.
The boy held out his hand and absorbed the green beam. It swirled around him like a firework until it fizzled out, "Wow, using the ring too? You really wanted to shake things up for this one. The new clothes, honestly a little drab, have you let yourself go, Erik?"
Jessica removed the helmet with her free hand, keeping her ring focused on the boy. "Who are you, and how do you know my father," she asked as she charged up another blast, despite already knowing that wouldn't do anything.
The boy's eyes lit up as if he saw his presents on Hannukah; mild excitement, but not all too shocked. "Father? Oh, this is a twist. He told me he got busy, but which one are you?" The boy slowly wheeled closer to Jessica; the wooden wheels creaked as they rolled across the floorboards.
As he advanced, the boy looked back and snapped his fingers. This triggered the portal behind him to close, and the black goo reformed back into feathers and flew to the boy's side. The feathers transmuted back into a raven, now easily noticeable as truly deep blue with striking yellow eyes. Afterward, it perched on the arm of the boy's chair.
"Stay back," Jessica shouted as she stepped back and fired off another blast from her ring. But instead of absorbing this attack himself, the raven flew out in front of the chair to take the blow.
Before her very eyes, the bird transformed into the figure of an astonishing female avian humanoid. Blue wings shielded the boy from the attack before fully reshaping into slender arms. She didn't speak, only glaring at Jessica as she stepped behind the chair to wheel the boy the rest of the way across the very large room.
The boy put his fingers to his temple, closed his eyes, and sent a powerful psionic wave at Jessica. The dark forces of the boy's mind compelled the witch to lower her ring and dropped the helmet to the ground. "Now, now, Jessica. There's no need to be postal," the boy said before the bird woman squawked at him, seemingly correcting his words, "Hostile, right. Sorry, I mess up my vocab every now and then. You can call be Khlarion X. My lovely assistant here is Miss Tiquel. She's my familiar, my anchor that lets me interact with this realm. You call yourself a witch, you should know about familiars, yes?" he asked stopping about six feet from Jessica.
Jessica wanted to fire another blast at Khlarion, but she couldn't. Her mind wouldn't listen to itself. All she could do was squirm, "What's going on, how did you-"
"I'm a telepath, deary. I read your thoughts and shut down your will to fight me. I'm also your old man's designated nemesis," Khlarion began to explain. "He works for the Lords of Order, real stuffing bunch, I work for the Lords of Chaos. Every six months we duke it out to maintain balance I the universe and all that. A flaming skeleton in a green cloak has kept me from fulfilling that duty, so I must make up for lost time. So if you please, can you point me in the general direction of the Fatal Compass?"
Jessica was quiet. She realized that he didn't know that Fate was dead. "Well…that's complicated," was all she could spit out.
Khlarion scowled, "Come on, I don't have time to doddle here. Ah bolt it, I'll just get it out of you myself," he said in frustration before plunging back into Jessica's mind to get his desired answer. As he scanned through her memories, Khlarion's look of anger faded to that of great sadness, "No…it can't be." Upon the realization, Khlarion was starting to tear up.
Khlarion lost his focus on Jessica, freeing her from his psychic stoppage. She went to blast him again while he was distracted, but she had used up the remaining charge in her ring. There wasn't much she could do anymore.
Despite a now present sense of dread for what was coming next, there was something familiar about the boy, at least appearance wise. He was dressed in an all-black suit reminiscent of wear from 1940s Europe. Based on the few old photos she'd seen, Khlarion reminded him of her father at that age, that dreadful time. As Jessica looked upon the now crying Khlarion, he reminded her of someone else. "I thought he was your nemesis, why are you sad?"
"Oh, dear girl, it's never that simple." Khlarion answered through sniffles. He then conjured a tissue out of nothing, wiping his eyes. "Especially when you're dealing with the buckets that is magic. Erik and I have been doing this for almost 80 years. We fought twice that amount, but I loved that man like a brother. Heck, before I got trampled and got hired by the cosmic madmen, we were brothers."
It then all clicked for Jessica, she knew who Khlarion was, or at least who he used to be, "Are you…my Uncle Charles?"
Khlarion laughed in spite of himself at the proposition, but it was technically correct. "Nobody's called me by that name except for Erik in decades. It feels weird to have somebody else say it."
Jessica was awestruck, she was literally seeing a ghost. "Dad told me that his brother died during the war…in the camps." She paused for a moment before she mentioned the latter. Such atrocities still greatly unsettled her. "What happened to you?"
Khlarion was quiet for a moment. He glanced around the room as if he was waiting for something bad to happen. Once nothing did, he moved on to answer her question, "Well, after Erik got the helmet from the Lords of Order, he tore apart the barbed wire and all the fences to free everybody and exact sweet revenge on our captors. It all happened so fast; people were scrambling to get outta there. I tripped and the hordes flattened me. Erik never found me, the ghost in the dinner bell whisked him off for greater things," Khlarion answered with a twinge of resentment.
"So, while I was left to die, until a whacky little bunch called the Lords of Chaos picked me up by my bootstraps, threw me a chair and a bird," Khlarion gently stroked the side of Ms. Tiquel's face before continuing, "And they made me into a demon, hellbent on pestering my little brother to weaken the resolve of his new bosses."
Jessica eventually pulled up a chair and sat down across from the boy, "What did you do?"
Khlarion smiled at his niece, "I used my powers to make things weird for people. Cause a little chaos, do a little trolling as the kids say, at least I think so. Curve a bullet here, stage a moon landing here, exponentially grow the number of Metamutants in the world there. You know, I had a little fun," he answered with a chuckle.
Jessica was on the edge of her seat as Khlarion described his escapades as an avatar of Chaos. While irrelevant to the amalgamated creations, all these acts were original to this universe. Obviously Charles Xavier had never done these acts in his home world, but nor had the Witch Boy. The ultimately restructured timeline of Charles and Erik was caused by Magneto's reality warping with the Infinity Helmet. Magneto cut and pasted various puzzle pieces of his reality. And while I opened the new box for Kent Nelson, he and the Witch Boy incorporated those pieces into their own jigsaw themselves. And this simple yet convoluted session of multiversal arts and crafts forged the relationship we learn about now.
"Meanwhile, Erik would have to clean up all my messes. We did that for about 80 years. He got old, I didn't, by the nature of me being dead. Now he's gone, and I don't know what to do with myself anymore." His voice broke upon that last sentence. Khlari…Charles knew Erik better than anyone. Despite being on opposite sides of the cosmic coin, they were extremely close, as is the nature of a coin.
His story shook Jessica, why hadn't she ever heard about this? In turn, she asked "Why didn't my father ever tell me about you?"
Khlarion sighed and rolled his eyes, "Erik's willingness to keep to himself was always one of his greatest qualities. I was a telepath even before I died, but he kept it a secret from the police. Always tried to protect me he did. I don't blame that he wanted to protect you from me."
Jessica huffed, "I can protect myself. At least I should be able to. This ring is running on fumes," she said with annoyance. "It runs on willpower, but I don't have that much of that. I could use the lantern, but I forgot my oath. Where does your magic come from?"
Khlarion wheeled himself forward and conjured a green flame in his hand, "Chaos, Jessie, chaos. The Coven made those rings to restrain and focus the magical energy inside every being. They put limits on that power to keep everybody who uses them reliant and under their control. Too many rules, your potential is squandered." As Khlarion explained, the flame twisted and reshaped into a pristine silver rose, then into a messy array of black tendrils, and finally into a miniature version of himself. That miniature version also held an even smaller version of himself, and so on.
Jessica tried to wrap her head around the abstract concepts lying within her uncle's power. "Chaos magic, it feels so alluring…but, Dad told me that if I were to take his place, I had to maintain order."
Khlarion scoffed, "Oh cheese. Erik never gave two shifts about Order. He had a megalomaniacal god yelling in his ear 25/6 that it was the more imported thing since sliced bread. Order and Chaos are just abstract concepts used to give divine beings with overingrated Eggos a sense of purpose. I know my little brother hated the stuff he was being fed. He liked that justice guy though, the Invisible Clock Man or something," the boy briefly rambled before finding his point. "Anyway, I know the thing Erik loved using his powers for the most was helping the world become a better place. I never really got what he meant, but if he chose you of all his kids to be his successor, you probably do."
Jessica was getting confused again, which was a common trend over the course of tonight after meeting the strange demon child with a magic bird lady who claimed to be her uncle. Today was a strange day. "So, what are you getting at," the witch asked.
"Well, evidently, my schedule has been super freed up. But I'd rather not bide my time waiting around in some nightmare dimension. I could some extra company, particularly some family. Family is harder to push away," Khlarion answered. "If you let me stick around here, give me some non-bird company, I'll train you in my abundant knowledge of Chaos Magic. That way you can uphold your father's legacy by being a hoagie!"
Jessica gave Khlarion a look before Ms. Tiquel squawked at him again. "Sorry, being a hero. Maybe with my power, you could even surpass your old man."
Jessica pondered the proposition. Khlarion was the only family she had that she knew the whereabouts of, assuming he was telling the truth. He seemed like someone who was hiding a lot under the surface, whether it be grief or something sinister. Either way, keeping an eye on the witch boy in the wheelchair was wise. The prospect of more power also intrigued the Emerald Witch. She wanted to uphold her father's legacy, but without a working ring or helm, this seemed to be her best option.
"I know that you know that this is the best case scenario for the both of us. I'd rather not try and track down your other sister," Khlarion commented before outstretching his hand, "So, we got a deal, Jessica?"
Jessica hesitated briefly, but then she looked over at her father's helm. He would've wanted her to get stronger and always have someone there to support her. And there was that staring her in the face. She could get everything she wanted, so the Emerald Witch shook the demon's hand, their union igniting in a green flame, and would soon begin her training in the ways of Chaos Magic.
As the champions of this world come to terms with a world without the Fatal Compass, new threats have arisen to fill the vacuum of power. The enigma that is Khlarion X taking Jessica Maximoff under his wheels can either lead to the salvation or the destruction of this world. While this world was created unnaturally, those that reside in it are still worthy of life, and for now, life shall go on. And as your guide, I will show you your way through the magic and monsters of the Amalgam.