aterat | When ur luck stat is in the negative somehow

Entry tags:

fate (ou): waver velvet

When ur luck stat is in the negative somehow

Who; Lord El-Melloi II and anyone around
What; Dark Hour Event
Where; Aterat on the other side of the mirror
When; Backdated to the 10th because I am slow
Warnings; None yet, but I will update!

The arrival - OTA:

A certain magus had not trusted the standing mirrors that appeared in everyone’s lodgings from the moment he saw them. Even before he’d heard the whole ‘other world’ thing, he’d seen his reflection, and it had been irritating to see to put it lightly. So rather than interacting with it, or continuing to put up with it. He’d covered the mirror with a sheet and simply ignored it for the last few weeks since his arrival.

Then the bloody thing had started shaking one night, and the sheet fell off… On the one hand, the annoying sight of his other self had not been present. On the other hand, the sight of the room on the other side of the glass had still set off warning signals. So scooping up the sheet, he moved forward to cover it again and go back to relaxing and playing a round of a tactical game on his Gameboy. Only… Well, the sheet was dragging on the floor at his feet and he’d stepped on it and pitched forward clumsily.

And through the mirror, one Lord El-melloi II had gone.

With no mirror present on the other side, the man had done the only thing he could do: Utter some frustrated curses at his bad luck and leave the building behind in search of answers and hopefully some portal back.

What he found outside the building wasn’t much better, of course. Not the worst sight he’d seen in his life… But damn disturbing, accompanied by a tug of unpleasant nostalgia nonetheless, as he looked down at the blood covered streets before his eyes came to rest on the countless coffins stood in rows. What kind of messed up reality had he inadvertently slipped into?

At least this was… manageable outside the obvious disturbing sight. He ended up in weird situations all the time, after all. This was just another day at the office for the professor back in his world… Sure, usually Gray or one of his students was around, but he could manage a small investigation to getting himself out of here easily enough, right? Right. Wrong.

On the run - OTA:

If one skipped forward about two hours, ignoring the standard investigation sequence that inevitably leads to someone finding something they shouldn’t in a horror movie and ending up on the bad side of the thing that’s been lurking in the shadows for most of the movie.

Instead of wandering from one building to the next in a thorough search for a mirror that might be the way out, the mage was currently running (not an activity he enjoyed) between buildings and down side-streets in an attempt to lose more of the damned dark shadowy creatures that kept finding him. Getting too close seemed to cause them to shift into something else though, strange or frightfully beautiful at times, making him wonder if they were some kind of security system for this place, familiars created by something else… But it wasn’t as though he were stupid enough to stick around and ask, they seemed prone to attacking and Waver wasn’t really suited for confrontations of this nature.

At first, running into one here and there had been troublesome, but… not entirely impossible to slow down with a few low-grade gandr shots and flee. Running into several at once was another matter entirely, especially if you say… Were being chased by two and then found yourself cut off by another group ahead that soon morphed to look something like a giant starfish with an eye in the center. “Shit…!” He muttered, skidding to a halt and backing up slightly. Waver’s hair was in total disarray at this point, one hand reaching up to brace his arm as he let another couple cursed shots fly from his fingertips, grimacing as they did little more than slow the things down slightly as they seemed annoyed by the attack more than anything.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Should Illyana have known better than to go over? Yes. Would she insist she actually had known better? Also a yes. This hadn't been her fault and she was going to maintain that no matter what. It wasn't her fault that it'd started vibrating and she'd decided to just knock it over to make it stop. That had been a sound plan! What she hadn't counted on was that touching it for even a second would end in a ticket to whatever this place was.

Somehow this place managed to actually almost look worse than Limob. It was darker than Limbo. Maybe that was a positive, it meant it wasn't quite as hot. A voice in the back of her mind (that sounded a lot like a friend of hers form home) told her to look at the bright side. She'd never been good at that. The first thing she did was try to teleport out. She didn't think it would work but it'd be stupid to not at least try. To the surprise of nobody at all, it didn't work. She frowned as she looked around at the coffins and the blood on the streets. The decorating here seemed even more over the top than Belasco's dungeons, which was really saying something. She heaved an overly exaggerated sigh and slumped her shoulders as she looked around. It looked like she'd have to find another way out.

First things first though: she pulled the soulsword out of her chest both for a bit of extra light and a bit of protection. One could never be too prepared. Just as she began to walk forward out of the building she spotted someone familiar.

"Maybe you should open it and see what's inside."

Waver turned on his heel, a look of surprise and something close to relive crossing his face at the sound of a familiar voice and the sight of Illyana there (with a sword, no less) just coming out of a building. That relief instantly giving away to a slight bristle and a deepening of the wrinkles between his brow at the suggestion. One that he couldn’t tell if she was serious about or not. “Why not just start at one and work our way down the line, huh?” He muttered with some prickly sarcasm. See which one hides a surprise to kill us. He thought to himself, it was like something out of a horror movie that he really wanted no part in. Either they contained harmless corpses… Or maybe movie-style vampires or zombies with his absurd luck.

Still, his shoulders sagged slightly, eyes turning away from the coffins again to focus on the woman’s approach. “So I’m not the only one who ended up going through the fucked up looking glass, huh?” Though to be fair, most people who ended up here probably came by choice and not stupid clumsiness like him… He found himself wondering if it was curiosity that brought her here, or boredom. She had a weapon, so at least one of them was prepared for the potential for danger.

Unknown to him that there was a door number three for the woman, like himself, that was accidental.

"Oh, good idea!" She moved continued to move forward and then slowly, and rather dramatically, reached a hand out towards a coffin back near her. All the while she watched him with only a hint of a smile on her face. It'd probably be obvious to anyone that she was just doing this to get a rise out of him. Even in the face of some screwed up bloody coffin dark world she still couldn't help but tease people. Maybe it was the way she showed she cared. Or maybe she just actually enjoyed it.

"I wanted to investigate. I didn't bother with the mirrors but this was different." He didn't need to know it was a tiny lie. Nobody ever needed to know she made mistakes. She was above mistakes. "How'd you end up over on the other side? Did you want to run experiments on it?" That seemed like something he'd want to do. He seemed like the type to think it'd be a good idea to go into a mirror to run experiments on what was going on.

It was hard, sometimes, to not wonder how he kept ending up becoming acquainted with people who went out of their way to try to ruffle his feathers. It almost seemed like every time he found himself in a situation (or fell into one), that there was someone who was bound to act a certain way or say something with the intent to get a rise out of him. Illyana was no exception, and he ground his teeth slightly at the sight of her dramatically making a show of reaching towards one of the coffins.

“Ha bloody ha!” He snapped back with a severe frown, hands on his hips before one moved to gesture at the surrounding coffins. “Between the fact that this place seems to closely mirror Aterat, and the disturbing lack of anyone beyond us? I expect the correlation between that and the sheer volume of coffins at least gives a vague idea… And one that gives a distinct feeling that opening them would be ill-advised.” It could be some kind of system, and until he had some kind of information to analyze it… he wasn’t sure that opening them would be the best move. Hell, there could be security measures they weren’t aware of yet, and tripping them could spell disaster if they didn’t dismantle them carefully.

And while she had a sword? He wasn’t skilled enough to hold his own, nor did he have more than a large pocket knife on him as far as weapons went. Somehow he doubted she would be keen to baby-sit and defend a mage with little magic at his disposal… Which, depending on what went on here, she probably would realize about him sooner or later.

“No? I would have thought you’d be curious about them before, especially with the odd reflections they displayed.” He mused, wondering what her reflection had been like. Still, considering the way she spoke of boredom? Perhaps investigating this time seemed like a good way to her to occupy her time and avoid further boredom. The pause that followed her question was brief enough that it could be overlooked. He also was not about to admit to her that he’d literally tripped and fallen headfirst into the bloody thing. Somehow, he expected he’d never hear the end of such an event. “The same as you, more or less. Seemed like it needed investigation, especially given it differed from what the mirror displayed before.” He frowned, though, as one point of concern was at least apparent enough now. “Probably should have known the damn way out was going to be different from the entry point, though.”

"So no to opening it? A shame." She put her hand down and then folded them over her chest while a smirk toyed with the edges of her lips. She really shouldn't be teasing someone in a time like this but she'd been a part of the New Mutants. A part of the X-Men. The Sorceress Supreme of Limbo. You do all those things and you kind of learn to go with the flow and make the best of things. Besides, the New Mutants liked to be quippy when they fought. Sometimes she liked to remember that even if it brought a strange pang of sadness. "Do you think opening it would cause the fifth remake of Night of the Living Dead?" Maybe sometime she'd have to figure out how many sequels and remakes there were to that franchise now.

He might be surprised about how willing she was to babysit. But it would ruin her hard image to just tell him that up front that she sometimes did the whole heroic thing.

"It didn't show me anything I hadn't seen before." In fact it had shown her something she distinctly didn't want to see again. "Darkchilde." And she was willing to offer up just a bit of that. It was generous of her, at least she thought so. She gave a nod at his response. "I guess we both made a mistake." It seemed easier to just admit that than admit they made a mistake. This was a good story to stick to for them both. "My stepping discs aren't working."

His expression relaxed as much as one could expect it to as she withdrew her hand, letting the earlier relief ease some of the annoyance that had flared up. It was good to have company, after all, even if said company seemed more prone to teasing or making light of a situation. Waver had never been particularly good at that, in all honesty. The few times he did tended to worry people more often than not, because it usually was something he said at his own expense.

The question gets an arch of one brow. “Fifth? I thought there were only two of those movies.” He murmured before shaking his head a little. This was probably not a subject to focus on right now. “But to answer your question, it’s anyone’s guess what would happen… But I wouldn’t be surprised considering how luck tends to go with things like this. The decor is somewhat macabre after all.” He added with a glance around at the state of everything, the bloody streets getting a light frown. There’s literally a mage with a zombie hunting cooking show in his world, so… it’s fairly easy to imagine the living dead roaming around in a setting like this.

“Would be the same for myself, at least in a way…” He shrugged. The mirror had displayed himself looking as he had at 19. A tiny brat that grated on his nerves to remember. Only there was something decidedly off about it, making it that much more frustrating to see. “Darkchilde?” He parroted the small, offered information with a light curiosity. More looking for something to distract from the abysmal situation in hopes that an idea would come to him while he ran things through the back of his mind.

It was definitely easier to admit to the mistake of not considering the way out might be different from the way in, than it was to admit the actual proper mistakes made… So he focused on her comment. “They’re not?” That was… actually useful to know. “So we’re that contained that teleportation abilities won’t work. Are they just flat out dead or do you get any kind of sense of resistance or feeling from it?”

She rolled her shoulders in a shrug and threw one hand up and waved it dismissively. "I just picked a number. It feels like there's been a lot." But what would she know? Between Limbo and death she'd missed out on a lot. At least she managed to not sound a bit bitter about it all, despite occasionally feeling bitter about it. She turned her head to look at around more closely at the new other-other world they'd ended up in macabre was a decent way to describe it. "Gives Limbo a run for it's money in hell-dimension looking places. Maybe that's what this is." Could be another hell dimension. There were tons of little splinters after all. Blood on the streets and coffins littering the walkways seemed pretty hell-dimension like. "If it is, the demon who runs it definitely has a flair for dramatics. They should try focusing more on actually being dangerous and less on looks."

She probably shouldn't test this place by hinting that she didn't think it was that dangerous. After all they'd only been here a short while and the most they'd seen was this little area. But Illyana liked to test places as much as she liked to test people. Maybe she just liked to push her luck in general. She'd already died and lost her soul and then died again. There wasn't too much more someone could go through.

"Not a pleasant version of yourself?" Now it was her turn to be curious. What sort of version of himself had he seen that could have possibly caused discomfort? He seemed so...unthreatening that it was hard to imagine what the mirrorverse might have dredged up for him. "Darkchilde." She parroted right back at him with a tug of a smile on the corner of her lips. She knew exactly what she was doing there. "The demon version of me without a soul. She'd like you." She'd probably think he'd be easy to entice. Or at the very least she'd think he might be easy to find a use for. That was all that mattered to Darkchilde: who could be useful. "If you ever meet her, never accept a deal no matter what she offers. Even if the lives of others are in the balance, don't accept it." The tone in her voice actually switched there to be something much more serious with a lot more weight behind it. That statement was genuine advice and not just cryptic teasing.

"They're not." She scrunched her mouth up into a twisted almost pout. "It's annoying when they don't work. I hate being trapped." She'd been trapped in Limbo until she'd learned how to work around that. To answer his question she formed a disc around herself and teleported directly behind him. "They work to travel here. But not out of here," she answered in an overdramatic whisper at the back of his neck. "Trying to go out just sends me somewhere here."

Waver offered a small shrug, he wasn’t quite sure himself… But he only remembered two, but that was only because the third wouldn’t happen until about a year after he came from and he only looked into movies if he was hosting a movie night for his students again. And this particular genre was only an occasional inclusion when it came to their gatherings.

The mage tsk’ed though, a frown deepening as Illyana suggested whoever was in charge should focus on making the place more dangerous than making it look that way. “That just seems like an invitation for the universe to make a joke out of that comment.” He muttered, shaking his head slightly. “I only just arrived a few minutes ago, so I can’t say I know much yet… But just because we haven’t seen anything dangerous, doesn’t mean we won’t, huh?” The way the place looked could very well be a hint of worse to come… And while he was a nosy, curious man by nature? There were some things he was pretty sure he’d be happy not learning about first hand.

Glancing at Illyana as she voiced her curiosity, he let out a small huff. “Something like that… We all have parts of ourselves that we’d rather stay in the past, I’m sure.” And that much was confirmed as Ilyana explained the Darkchilde to him. For a moment, as she parroted back the word again he thought she might not… But then she started explaining it and the man’s expression shifted to one of surprise. That was… Alarming to say the least. Waver had at least a vague idea that Illyana had some power of a magical nature. She must, to have decided to work on getting the Academy cleaned up… But this was news, and it made him wonder… If the Darkchilde was that much to worry about, what could Illyana do as she was now? Not having a soul, though, he could at least understand the dangers that would run if someone was that powerful. “I see… Would this be an alternate timeline version of yourself, or something that you’ve since changed by regaining your soul?” Waver couldn’t help but ask, of course, whether he would like what he heard or not. Knowing how this other version of Illyana existed might help in understanding the mirrors in general, if it was possible for versions of themselves from different points in their lives or a version from another world… or both…

The warning gets a shake of his head and a shift in his expression. There was something distinctly unsettling about the idea of a soulless demon liking you. It was pretty easy to see he didn’t like the idea. “I’ll keep that in mind if I run into her. Can’t say I’m fond of the idea of putting myself in debt with a demon, anyway.” He was in enough debt in life already, he wasn’t about to dig himself in deeper if he could help it. At least he liked to think he wouldn’t, but there were always complicated situations that could change things.

The mage would argue that it would be strange if she didn’t hate being trapped here, but that seemed obvious enough… And it seemed a little more personal if her expression were anything to go by. Plus, getting an explanation for how her ability was being affected by this world was important. More information to compile to figure this whole place out… But Waver hadn’t expected her to demonstrate, and expected even less for her to appear behind him and whisper at the back of his neck.

Which was why he actually jumped visibly, losing his balance with a gasp and having to flail a bit to regain his balance instead of falling face first into the blood covered street. You couldn’t just do that to him, Illyana! He startles easily! “The hell!?” He grit his teeth and muttered to himself, rounding on his heel to face her again, fixing her with a look that was usually reserved for when his students had done something ridiculous… Clearing his throat, he tried to sound and look less ruffled than he felt… This was all starting to give him an inkling of an idea that she was more powerful than he’d first thought. “Alright, so you can teleport, just not outside this place. There must be some kind of ward against teleporting outside the bounds of this version of the city.”

"The universe makes a joke out of everything." This place would make itself more dangerous no matter what they had to say about it. "I don't think they listen to us for ideas." What did they do when they weren't around though? She actually had no idea now that she considering it. "I'm sure we will see something dangerous. There's blood on the streets." What kind of place like this wasn't dangerous? It'd be foolish for either of them to suspect it'd be a peaceful walk in the streets with the coffins. It was a nice thought though. For things to just go nicely and calmly for once.

"Oh we do. It's always good to know about those parts though." In the past she'd have said that because that sort of knowledge held power. More than anything it made it easier to know how to manipulate someone. Learn their sore spots, offer them a way to compensate from those, it had been Belasco's bread and butter. She wasn't going to be Belasco though. Not again. "Both. There are other me's that have fully become her." In other realties she'd heard of. Her universe held a lot of knowledge about the multiverse and she knew well enough to know that anything was possible. "Bits of my soul were taken from me as a child. She came from the black magic left behind. Then I died and with me so did she. Until an idiot decided to resurrect me."

She tilted her head and the grinned wickedly at him. "See, he wasn't nearly as smart or powerful of a sorcerer as he thought. He seemed to have forgotten to account for where my soul was. He wanted Illyana, but all he got was Darkchilde." Where her soul had been was an entirely complicated situation in itself but that was too long of a story to just bore someone with on the spot. "That's who I saw."

Despite the darkness in her smile there was also something strangely sad about her eyes. Just the faintest hint that maybe the story held it's own degree of pain for her that she liked to hide behind an overly exaggerated ominous mask. "You're smarter than most mages then. At least in my world. Magic users always want to find more power and the best way to do that is to find a demon." There were also plenty of magic users that just weren't capable of thinking things through and so in the moment they were easy prey. She'd found one like that. Guilt still kept her up some nights over that.

She put her hands behind her head and laughed at his reaction. It was exactly what she'd wanted and more! How wonderful. At least that lightened her mood up a little. "Limbo." There was a grin on her face at that, as if she were inordinately proud of the joke she'd made at his exclamation. Limbo was a hell dimension. Kind of! "I was thinking ward too. Couldn't decide if it'd be easier to try to track it down and destroy it or just find an exit. Maybe a mirror?"

“Yeah… It seems to consider itself a damn comedian.” He muttered in annoyance, though he would argue that sometimes it felt like it listened to them for ideas, at least when it came to the timing of whatever it threw at him. Glancing at the blood underfoot, he huffed. “Exactly. There’s got to be something that caused all that. Even if we haven’t seen it yet…” The professor would be happier if they could avoid running into it, of course. But he doubted they would escape a glimpse of whatever dangerous entities prowled this place.

“Fair point…” Waver muttered, still not liking the idea of talking about it or even acknowledging his reflection. With any luck, this change in the mirrors meant they wouldn’t be seeing it again. Not that he had that kind of luck. Sighing, he raised his shoulder’s in a shrug. “It looks like my younger self. You probably would find him annoying. I had a hell of an attitude and was pretty whiny and prone to making stupid decisions.” He could stand there all day listing off the bad traits he possessed back then. Sure, he still possessed some of them now, but he was far better at conducting himself and not letting some things rise to the surface. Instead, he grimaced and added. “Problem is, it seems like a version of myself that has more skill with magic than it should.” Sometimes, before he covered the mirror, he’d caught glimpses of himself doing things that Waver knew he damn well never could. Not back then, and certainly not now.

Hearing the rest of Illyana’s story, though? That made the wrinkles between his brow deepened rather severely. Not only was that damn complicated as magic went, but it also was a hell of a thing to go through… Mages pushing too far while thinking they were greater than they were, though? Tale as old as time, as they said. “So mages are about the same in your world as they are in mind. Damned overconfident and pushing into territory they can’t possibly fathom because they think that much of themselves.” He muttered, shaking his head. That said, the magus glanced at Illyana with some curiosity. “That said, you have your soul back now. Or at least I presume so, based on the way you describe the Darkchilde. So while she still exists in other realities and through the mirror, you overcame that problem yourself?”

Which definitely meant she was more powerful than he might have first considered. Good thing they weren’t enemies, he supposed. Not that it didn’t leave him feeling a slight prickle of thought that keeping on her good side would be smarter. Not that he could avoid grumping at her based on how she very clearly was the kind of person skilled at pushing his buttons.

The compliment gets a dry tone and a small shrug. “I’ve just made peace with my own inadequacies and have other goals than focusing on gaining more power.” He’d worked hard to make up for what he lacked, even if he did feel the inferiority based on his skills as strongly now as he did back then. It didn’t control him, it only drove him to try to learn as much as he could to make up for what he lacked, all so he could do better next time he had the chance to stand by a certain King’s side. That wasn’t to say, though, that he couldn’t be pushed to some desperation, especially if it involved that goal. He was only human, after all. Just a slightly more cautious human that would take the risks into consideration first.

And there she went again, pushing his buttons. It was hard to not frown so deeply that it seemed a risk for his face to freeze that way as she laughed at his happless state and over the top reaction. “We back to using me as a one-man show again, huh?” He bit out in annoyance, calling back to their meeting with a frustrated huff as he tried to regain his composure. Pushing some of his hair back, he tried to focus on her next words. “If this place works at least somewhat like the other place that people going through the mirrors ended up in, there should be mirrors to exit… If not, then breaking whatever ward is in place would be the next best thing to get out.” Both were time-consuming, both required a search… But at least the mirrors seemed like a slightly more sure thing. “Looking for a mirror out might be a good place to start, while keeping an eye out for anything that might be related to the ward in case we’re unsuccessful.”

"Oh, you'd love Mojo. He's not the universe but he runs a world where everything is TV. Kidnaps people all over the universe just to make different TV shows using them. Comedies included." She cupped her hands to her mouth and whispered: "He's never actually funny." That wasn't even taking into account the numerous actual universe creating or destroying beings that definitely thought the world was a comedy for them to play with. Mojo was just the first thing that came to mind because he lightened the mood and it seemed like a good time for that.

"Doesn't sound that different," she said with a little self-satisfied smirk. Okay, time to be a bit more serious now. She tilted her head. "Hm, you weren't curious how he got more power than you?" Interesting. Smart of him though and spoke to the fact that he might have been telling the truth when he'd spoken about not being interested in making deals for power. "Smart of you." It was an actual honest to gosh compliment this time, without any hint of sarcasm at all. Even if she was kind of curious about his mirror self now.

"Definitely. Belasco was a sorcerer before he became the demon king of Limbo. He sought power in different universes and that power eventually corrupted him. Funniest part is he never actually got that. Thought he was in control the entire time." Which spoke of the arrogance that Waver also mentioned. "Of course I did. I had to sacrifice a lot to do it but it was worth it." She would do it over and over again if she had the chance. "Not everyone thought so though." Oh well. She could live with the consequences. The second she'd come up with her twisted plan she'd accepted there would be repercussions. Really, they were a small price to pay to get her soul back, rid of the world of some of the Old Ones, and save her friends from certain doom and death and all that. Sometimes you had to pay big prices to solve big problems. "Not everyone believes in sacrifice for the greater good." Idiots.

"Maybe I'm trying to be the next Mojo." Wait that left an awful taste in her mouth to even suggest and she stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Never mind." Can't even tease someone with that. She tapped her chin thoughtfully while she considered what he said about this place. He was probably right that mirrors would be the key. "Maybe I could make a tracking spell based on the residual energy where we came in..." That might lead them back to a mirror that could take them back. One thing occured to her though. "We might not have much time. The mirrors started vibrating at a specific time. Before that they were just mirrors. That might imply they're only active at certain times."

Waver could at least read sarcasm better than other people could. It was pretty obvious what he thought about the statement alone, by the frown fixed in place and the roll of his eyes. Mojo was definitely someone that Waver would find annoying as all hell, and the idea of that kind of power was unsettling. Not a good time, in his opinion, not a good time at all. “Most people who consider themselves to be funny aren’t, in my experience.” Although that never stopped them from trying and grating on everyone’s nerves. “Remind me to make myself scarce if we ever hear that name come up on the network if we get out of here.” He added, shaking his head with a huff.

His eye twitched at the comment. Illayana was going to add to the stress lines between his eyes at this rate. One could almost name them after certain individuals at this rate. “Ha-ha… Honestly, if you ever run into him, I’d almost encourage you to mess with him freely. Might teach him a lesson he needed to learn sooner than I did.” He muttered, shrugging slightly. “5’1”, both hair and temper far shorter than my own…” Was the guy really giving her permission to piss off his younger self? Yes. He was a complicated guy, okay? He’d probably admonish himself if he had the chance to. Her question wasn’t a bad one though, and he ground his teeth. However he had gotten that much power was a point of concern. What kind of dumb-ass decision had he made in some other reality? “Considering my track-record, it can’t have been anything that was born of a good idea.” There was one other detail that stuck out to him as weird, but he wasn’t about to bring it up because that would result in a very personal conversation that he wasn’t ready to have.

The genuine compliment does get a slight glance, as if he was trying to read her for any hints of sarcasm. When he found none, he awkwardly brushed it off by focusing on the topic of this Belasco. Sure, compliments were nice, and hers was appreciated. His younger self would have preened under it, but he could only shove it down in an attempt to not get caught up in it and lose sight of what mattered at the moment. “Definitely sounds like the standard mage in my own world, then.” He huffed, shaking his head. They were a foolish lot, not that he couldn’t say he wasn’t foolish either, being one of them. “There are always people who would disagree, especially depending on the path to achieving the goal and the sacrifices in question.” Sacrifices could be quite necessary, although those made in the name of ‘the greater good’ could be a slippery slope… Another member of the grail war learned that the hard way, not that Waver had known about it at the time.

Waver’s annoyance eased slightly at the comment, if only because of the expression on Illyana’s face five seconds after she said it. The tease had backfired, and he’d take that for now. Face masked with indifference, there was at least a hint of amusement hidden behind a cough as he graciously turned his attention to the suggestion. “That could prove pretty convenient, actually. I’ve tried a few things with compounds I keep on me, but there’s too much muddying the readings in general.” There were traces of magic everywhere, so finding the right traces for a potential path were unlikely. “And if we’re on that kind of time limit, we should work quickly… I’m not keen to be here longer than we have to be.”

"That's true. Bobby thinks he's funny all the time but he's really not that clever." Never tell him that though. She grinned. "If you ever saw Mojo you'd make yourself scarce even without my story about him. He's pretty gross." That's an understatement. A giant green spineless blob was probably more than just pretty gross. She scrunched her nose up briefly in disgust and then shook her own head as if she had to get the very image of him out of it. The X-Men had some really weird enemies. Really weird.

"Nah. It's never as much fun to mess with someone with permission." If he hadn't given her permission though? She might have. She was also probably just kidding there. "Though...the more you describe the more fun it sounds..." She wasn't kidding there. Everyone needed a hobby and hers seemed to be teasing people. It was weird, when she'd first gotten here a long time ago she hadn't really known how to act. Getting her soul back hadn't been some magical cure all that had gifted her with humanity and all the answers. Slowly though she felt more and more like what Illyana was supposed to feel like. She felt more like a teen super hero that fought in a costume by day and played truth or dare at night and less like a demon sorceress of Limbo. Sometimes

and he ground his teeth. However he had gotten that much power was a point of concern. What kind of dumb-ass decision had he made in some other reality? “Considering my track-record, it can’t have been anything that was born of a good idea.” There was one other detail that stuck out to him as weird, but he wasn’t about to bring it up because that would result in a very personal conversation that he wasn’t ready to have. "If I run into him, I'll let him know his other self gave me permission to do whatever I wanted. Then I'll ask him about the power. Maybe I'll tell you after I get an answer. If you're nice." Or maybe not.

In a way she'd almost have preferred him to ask about the compliment then to have focused on Belasco. There were few people she hated as much as that idiot. "He'd probably like your world then." Which meant she'd hate it. On principle. "The sacrifices were worth it. Besides, keeping Legion locked up wasn't really fair either. Really, what I did was heroic on two fronts!" Just ignore the part where freeing Legion meant lying to everyone, manipulating her own friends, and freeing Legion. Legion. The god-mutant able to re-write reality with a single thought. Seemed like a pretty great power until you factored in the other personalities inside of Legion, the ones that were definitely more than a tiny bit evil themselves. The last time he'd been free he'd nearly destroyed the universe. She'd been pretty sure that her plan to kill his bad personalities would work out for the best though. So far so good!

"I see that look." She narrowed her eyes at him briefly and then just sighed. Oh well, she'd done it to herself. He could be smug about it or whatever he wanted. Didn't bother her if her own joke had backfired on her. Nope. Not at all. "Guess I can give it a go. I don't have any of my supplies on me so I'll just have to tap into me. Tracking is white magic, it shouldn't be a big deal." She turned back to the door she'd just come through and plunged her sword through her own chest. The energy went back inside of her which freed up both her hands for use in a spell. She closed her eyes and muttered a few words, causing an iridescent white light with a blue hue to sparkle around the door. Wisps of light swirled around and then formed a faded line that just seemed to go in a circle for a few seconds.

"Oh...come on. You can't be that confused." Sure there was a lot of magic and energy around but...hmm. She concentrated a bit more and the energy split off into three different lines that seemed to lead in different directions deep into the fog. "I think that's the best I'm going to get. Either there's interference and all three will lead us nowhere or there's multiple exits or its a trap." All three were valid options but at least it gave them an idea of three different directions they could head in.

The arrival

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Running

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