aterat | Return of the Queen

Entry tags:

Return of the Queen

Who;Illyana + You
What; Network + Log of her return
Where;
When;Night on May 2nd
Warnings; Talk of death

I. Network

I found Athony. Turns out he has his own pocket dimension. Aspect of death and all that. Looks like they've at least mastered using the portals to go from here to there. Good for them.

Anyone visited the Academy while I've been gone. Been told recently that we could all do with a few lessons.

II. Wandering the streets

After what had happened before Illyana probably should have learned her lesson. Too bad she'd never been that great of a student. Sure, she picked up on things unusually fast, but she'd always been too headstrong to make a perfect student. Besides, she'd just gotten back and she wasn't really sure if she actually wanted to see anyone. Her head was a jumbled mess of memories of death from her home.

Memories of a small child slowly wasting away from a virus her own brother gave her. The memory felt more like watching a movie, as though it weren't actually her own memory. I hope to act like it does, if nothing else.

Was that all she was doing here? Acting like a real girl? For the first time she felt the full pang of missing her brother. She wished he was here. Big simple Piotr who only ever saw his little sister as the Snowflake she once was. She missed him, just like she missed Kitty and every one of the New Mutants. Tears welled up in her eyes, tears that she'd insist mainly came from frustration.

A portal appeared around her feet and engulfed her body only for her to remain exactly where she was.

"How dare you," she muttered as she wiped the tears away from her face. A series of curses in Russian escaped her lips and she pulled the hood of her jacket up.

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He chuckled slightly. "Okay, fine. They don't count, but maybe there can be...exceptions to rules." That's how a lot of lore went, too, that demons were human once, at least some of them. It wasn't too surprising to learn that guy had been a human once. Twisted desires made for the deepest evils.

"Do...I want to know what a Ghatanothoa is?" Yes, he did, actually.

"I don't think the exception is going to be a human and a mutant sorceress." Strangely, she actually did sound a tiny bit sad over that thought. At least his question managed to create a distraction for her and she looked up with a wry smirk. With a wave of her hand a blue and white light brought magic to life around her. With the magic came an illusion of a behemothic creature with eyes tucked into tentacles that grasped towards him. It lifted it's head up as if it actually knew it was being summoned and then a flurry of thick octopus-like tentacles hungrily towards Jagger. As the tentacles moved through the air something viscous dripped down from them and for a moment one couldn't help but wonder if it was more than an illusion. The amorphous blob flickered in and out of vision until it eventually vanished completely leaving behind just a brief echo of one of it's red eyes.

"Ah, he saw you," she said with a chuckle. "Ghatanothoa. Legend says even a simple glimpse of it can turn a human into a mummy." She tilted her head. "How are you feeling?"

"And you've got a whole precedent on that one, do you?" He would have continued, about how the likelihood of her having encountered a relationship between a human psychic and a mutant sorceress, and how likely that was to have failed or succeeded, but with the appearance of whatever the hell that was, he cried out and raised his hands. Maybe she'd be impressed for a moment at the fact that he also pulled up a decent shield, just like she'd taught him, before blinking as the illusion disappeared.

"...f-fine. I'm fine." He looked over to her, lowering his arms and the shield as he did so. "What in the Lovecraftian fuck was that?"

"I know humans and mutants who have gotten together, it never ended well," she said with a shrug that was quickly interrupted by his panic at her illusion. His quick shield got a decent nod of approval from her before she burst into laughter.

"Doesn't seem like you are," she said while trying to control her snickering. she wasn't quite prepared for him to react so badly to something like that, but it sure was slightly amusing. More than slightly. "Ghatanothoa. As I said. A lesser relative of the Old Ones I destroyed."

"Completely, thoroughly fine." He had not nearly pissed himself at an illusion. She was not going to get him to admit it. Ever. He took a steadying breath.

"So, when you say 'The Old Ones', you mean...Cthulu, Azathoth, all that?" He looked momentarily terrified. "Jesus Christ, they aren't just stories?"

"Gibborim, N'Garai, they are many and have many names," she said with a shrug. "Did you think my mission was against some simple sect of demons?" That was vaguely insulting. "I was taken to Limbo originally to be used in a ritual to free them from their banishment from both planes of existence. Innocent souls are not needed to free most demons. Some of the Elder Ones of Limbo were from those stories, some were the children of them."

To prove her point she chanted a few demonic words and raised a hand summoning an illusion of the towering beings that had tormented every corner of her life. They were only seen from the torso up, too massive to even fully comprehend with a single finger being larger than a human body. Many had tentacles lashing about where their jaws should be, some looked as though they were nothing but tentacles, and some looked like they were amorphous masses of tentacles trying to take some sort of humanoid shape, and another looked like a giant purple man wearing armor that indicated he might have been an influence to an old people on Earth at some point. Each looked like something straight out of Lovecraft's worst nightmares and Illyana stood cold as she looked up at them.

She brought her hand down and with it the partial illusion disappeared.

"Most stories have some truth to them."

To his credit, Jagger did not look away as she conjured the illusions, forcing himself to share some small part of her history. He'd underestimated more than he cared to admit, and yes, it had been the idea of demons to him, but until this moment, demons had been some supreme definition of bad. That had changed, and he felt a little dislocated once the illusions were banished.

A small, gibbering part of his brain insisted those things couldn't be real, but he shoved it down under the rational, the realistic that guided him to sorting through the visions he was bombarded with most days. They were real, because they weren't something an imagination could cook up.

"I had no idea what you could have meant, and I'm sorry I was mistaken." She truly was a marvel, even if she didn't realize it, to have faced such foes and still remained, at least partially, herself, even if she didn't see it. "But shit, love, warn a bloke next time."

"Where's the fun in that?" she asked with a shrug. "I never got a warning." That was probably a tiny bit childish of her, but really she couldn't help but be a bit frustrated. She'd never gotten a warning for anything she'd seen in Limbo or since, so why should anyone else? It wasn't as though Belasco had warned her about what his Master's had looked like. He'd just taken her soul bit by bit to open their portal back up.

"Ah, how nice it is to finally know I am really free from them." No matter what the cost had ended up being, it was worth it. The satisfaction of seeing their expressions before they realized they were finally being written out of existence was pure magic. "You know, one of the future's I went to we went to war with them on Earth."

"I realize that, love, and I'm sorry for all the evils you've had to endure, but you're better than the people who did these things to you." His expression was pointed but not cruel, more meant to drive home a point than to be a dick about it.

He shook his head at her remark. "And no, I didn't. That must have been..." He trailed off for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't think I can picture it, honestly."

That sounded dangerously close to a lecture and all that managed to get from her was a quick glare cast his way. "Good. I hope you never do something like it." She paused for a moment as her expression softened. "They all died." There was no elaboration on who she was referencing with the word they and she moved on quickly enough. "I nearly did too. But I was able to teleport back in time. That's when I knew I had to stop them." Originally it had been about herself, as so many things were. She had wanted vengeance for everything that had been taken away from her and she'd wanted her soul back. She'd wanted to be whole.

But after seeing that future? It became more than that. So much more. It was strange that it had taken coming here for her to fully realize what her real feelings and motivations about that situation had been. Had it been people like him and Mono that had helped her to realize those things?

"Strange." she shook her head. "I think I would like to rest." It had been quite an ordeal after all since she'd gotten back. Would you...like to go back with me?" She intended to teleport herself there and she might actually feel a bit bad about just leaving him behind.

It was a lot to process, her seeing a failed future destroyed by Elder gods only to teleport back through time in order to stop it. It was noble, in a way, even if the motivations were selfish, and, well, heroic, even if she didn't see it that way.

He was distracted from his thoughts by her question, though, and he paused. Had...she just invited him back to her place? He was pretty sure she had, and he felt bad for his mind wandering there immediately even if he couldn't help it.

He nodded. "Uh, sure, love. I'll come back with you."

The white stepping discs appeared quickly around them both teleporting them nearly instantaneously to her place here. The light smell of sulfur lingered when they arrived in an apartment that was pretty much exactly what someone would expect from her. Nearly everything was black (even the walls) with a small splash of maroon here and there. There were small tea candles everywhere and a giant pentagram had been etched into the floor near the sofa. There were occult books scattered haphazardly around the entire place along with random parchments with symbols that looked more like random scribbles than anything important.

She went over to the couch and flopped down, clearly a lot more exhausted than she'd realized. "Make yourself at home if you want to stay." Did any implications about all of this occur to her at all? No. Not at all.

The smell of sulfur that always accompanied teleporting with her seemed to suit the apartment, which wasn't a bad thing. Looking around the placing, noting the candles, the pentacle (which probably actually worked and wasn't just decorative), and all the black was shocking, he hadn't really done much with his own apartment other than put things in it, but not surprising. It suited her.

It occurred to him, watching her plop down on the sofa, that she hadn't thought past bringing him here, or even necessarily whether or not she wanted anything from it. She was exhausted, that was clear.

He flopped down next to her, close enough that he could nudge her with his shoulder, which he did.

"Sofa sounds good, unless I can get you something?" It was her place, but she was the one who looked thoroughly knackered.

In the past she would have immediately flinched from the touch of someone outside her tiny little circle. Had he somehow infiltrated the ranks? She was far too tired to actually fully process anything about that.

"I doubt I have anything left." The things she did had probably spoiled during her death and disappearance. She'd have to go shopping soon. What a pain.

In the past, he wouldn't have tried to make physical contact with someone intentionally, and he was aware he'd let her into his circle. At first, he hadn't been pleased she'd ended up there, but now? Now he wanted her to stay.

"I could fetch us something."

"I can go out tomorrow. Or send the imps out." Surely they could handle a list. Right? Surely. Probably not.

"Maybe we can go together, after you have a good night's sleep." He hesitated for a moment, not sure how to proceed, but ultimately he moved his arm behind her on the sofa, if she wanted to lean closer, that was fine. If not, completely fine, too.

If she hadn't been so tired she might have been confused by the fact that she did lean back just a bit closer. Alas she was far too tired to make much of a deal out of it. "Perhaps."

He didn't respond further, but instead let her drift off into whatever sleep she might be able to find. As they sat, the reality of spending his evenings searching for someone who'd disappeared night after night began to catch up with him, and his eyelids began to feel heavy as well. If the silence stretched on, they would most likely both end up falling asleep on the sofa.

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Return of the Queen

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