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'I am exposed. It is only a matter of time before someone comes knocking. Before -he- comes looking.'
Jean sits in the corner of her room, her hand frantic as she continues to draw the crude lines into her wall.
'And they will start to pick. And pick. And pick. I am not there yet, but you cannot, cannot let go of me.'
The drawing itself picks up, Jean nearly feverish..
'..And you'll make me do it, won't you. You'll make me start before it's time. I AM NOT READY!'
Something within snaps, as her back arches, her eyes widening and rolling into the back of her head as she collapses against the floor. Thankfully, she wasn't standing.. for that sleep that she was induced into would have lasted longer than necessary..
LIMBO: Who knows the time…
'No matter where you go.. I am there..'
The soft whisper in her ear wakes her up, her eyes snapping open to reveal a swirl of purples and red within the odd sky. Her arms stretched out upon the ground that felt a little too hot but warm all the same. It was odd. She had never seen anything like this before and parts of her wanted to wake up this instant, but the biggest part of her had her standing up with a slow grunt and a bend over with hands upon her knees. Her hands. There was no longer a cast upon her arm. No bruises. In fact, she couldn't tell if they were actually arms or something else for that matter…
But she could feel her hair. The tickling little wisps upon her cheek and what could or could not be her hand that moves it out of the way as she stands and begins to walk.. was she barefoot? Did she have any clothes..? She felt exposed…
*
The world of Limbo has neither end nor beginning. Even up and down exist as abstracts of direction.
So when Illyana arrives, the world more or less folds around her and makes room for her. Gone one moment, there the next.
Clad in yellow and black, she wears regal clothing with the disdain of a person accustomed to rougher garb. She eyes Jean, and reaches into the empty hair. She clutches the nothing and draws forth a long, glassy blade from nothingness, holding it with a negligent expertise.
"Why are you here, Jean?" she inquires, in perfunctory, even bland tones. The world of Limbo writhes in riotous motion around her, the very fabric of reality warping in response to her presence.
*
Black magick can be messy. High Sorcerors like Stephen Strange had to follow rules, formulae. Precision was required. But the dark side isn't afraid to color outside the lines, to splatter things about a bit. Jackson Pollock would be appreciative, if he wasn't too busy fucking some groupie or cutting himself in a corner to be bothered.
So Daimon wasn't entirely sure how he got here. Chasing a dragon, he suspected, grasping at its scales in a puff of opium smoke. He walked along the border between the realm of Nightmare and this realm, this Limbo. He had visited it before, but it had changed, the personality of its new mistress bleeding into the bones of the place.
Daimon rather liked it.
He resembles himself, of course, having a fairly strong self-image, whether astrally projected or no. He's shirtless, the brand on his chest constantly ablaze, a ward and a signature and a badge. He carries his trident on his shoulder, like a wayfaring lad hitchhiking his way along Route 666.
When Illyana manifests, he slows his approach, sensing the power around her. He is in her place of power, after all, so he will tread carefully. Well, as carefully as the Son of Satan ever treads.
"Too much to hope for that I've stumbled upon a few disciplies of Lavey, I imagine? Too bad, he does have such lovely disciples - but none so powerful as you two," he says in his black velvet voice.
*
She looks down again, there were five fingers per hand. Wrists. The arms were slowly forming. Her hair touches the crook of her arm, and both hands draw up to feel the ponytail and down it's length. And then her face. She even touches her face as Illyana Rasputin forms in front of her. The blade.. a shocking sight, drawn out of thin air and wielded by the woman which gives her brow a slight raise.
"I.. someone pulled me here, Illyana. I didn't mean to intrude."
Jean barely knows the woman. But somehow she does. She knows that she should be frightened, but the very presence of her appearance makes her feel safe. "Where am I?"
The sound of the mans voice causes her to step aside. Backing up to form a perpendicular line next to.. a friend? Foe? No, friend..
"Daimon Hellstrom." Now she knew him. The hows and whys? It didn't matter in this place. Her mind was moving, warping and flexing against the currents of time. Some stuff bleeds, important stuff.. while others do not. At least she could feel that she herself? Was displaced..
*
Illyana turns to regard Daimon with an uptilted blonde brow, the sword balancing on her shoulder. She seems wildly unconcerned with their sudden presence in her home.
"I'm disciple to no one," Illyana tells Daimon, quite firmly. "But you—" she points the huge blade at the man, swinging it as if it's made of air. "You stink of brimstone and sulfur. Make sure you don't leave any of that hellstink around my home when you leave. I like my home tidy."
She peers at Jean again, frowning at the redhead. "You don't know where you are? You're in Limbo," Illy says, frowning. "My home plane of Limbo, to be specific. I don't normally like visitors swinging through here. Did I leave the door open?" Despite her heavy Slavic accent, she speaks English with an eerie amount of ease.
*
Daimon peers more closely at Jean when she calls him by name, "An oracle, it seems. That or a one night stand I've forgotten. Perhaps both," he says. At Illyana's warning, he, too, seems unconcerned, but nods, "No open door for me, I tend to slip in through the cracks. But I will leave no trace or trail, I assure you, little wolf. I am merely passing through," he says.
He taps a finger against his lips, walking a bit around the pair, "Of course, I am sorceror enough to know that kismet and coincidence rarely mean anything but an alignment of fate's fickle fingers. Usually sliding right up your ass and making you uncomfortable. So well, me ladies, what's tickling at your backdoors today? What strings pull at your marionette limbs - and mine - that we find ourselves together today?"
*
Woah. This was strange.
The entirety of what makes Jean her, by flesh alone suddenly feels present. But not. Here and then gone again, hands hold and clutch against her stomach and she could feel the leather fabric of an X-Men uniform, complete with the riblets and ugly yellow that decorate it. Her hands felt hugged, gloves no less, the pads of her fingers a mild sweat as she brings them to her vision to turn and fold yet again.
"What the hell am I doing in Limbo?" She finally asks, her brows raising as she takes stock of the place… for if Illyana left the door open.. "Someone dropped me here."
Not someone. Something. The someone is subjective.
Her fingers sink into her hair as she rubs along her temples, Daimon's speak was a little bit to riske' for her character, for her cheeks burn a maddening red that has her turning halfway to keep her own backside out of his viewing..
"I know I fell here.. somehow. You wander.." She says to Daimon. "And this is your home?" She finally opens her eyes, she wasn't the smartest tool in the toolbox, but this was starting to feel like a little setup. The paranoia was slowly building as her eyes scan the area, her hand reaching out to try to grasp for Illyana, the other reaching for Daimon. "I.. I think we need to go. Or someone needs to wake me up. Or.. something, but we gotta go!"
*
Illyana stares at Jean's grasping hand for a moment, then helps her up. "It's my home," Illyana confirms. "You're in it. I didn't invite you, but you're here. I don't like unexpected visitors." As soon as Jean's on her feet, Illyana stops making the effort to help support the redhead.
"I was here first," she points out, as people seem to be missing the point. "I've been here a while." That doesn't quite jive, but then again, Limbo's not a realm that lends itself to spatial/time related directions. "I'm /supposed/ to be here. You two, aren't. So."
She looks at Jean and Daimon.
"Why /are/ you here?"
*
Daimon points at Illyana, "Exactly!" he says.
"The little morsel there seems to be sensing danger, which, given that she plucked my name from the aether, I suspect is probably a warning we should heed," he says. "She seems known to you and she strikes me as a lost heroine, an Alice or a Dorothy, prone to stumbling into the criss-crossed paths of the heinous and the wondrous," he says.
"In other words," he says, drawing down his trident and lighting it aflame, the hellfire licking the length of the Netheraneum shaft almost perversely, "We three probably aren't the only ones here."
*
And he was right.
There was something coming. Something that followed Jean as she slipped sideways and not too far off from their location. And whatever it was, it was big. Sight unseen - but a ripple within the air that was formless and shaped all at once. Invisible to the naked eye.. but this was Illyana's home after all. Wasn't it?
She could see it.
"Nice place." Jean says as she's helped up, popping up to her feet with a little bit of a bounce. As Illyana doesn't offer more help, she wasn't going to take it, but she was already backing up and preparing to run for the hills.. "I don't know why I'm here.. but.."
There was a call from the Thing Which Is Unseen, a shrieking cry of battle. It was high in the air as it makes it's approach, arching down at full speed as she points a gloved finger towards the air.. Daimon was right. They all were right. Something was coming, it invaded Illyana's home.. and it was -here-.
*
"Big."
Illyana stares up at the roaring, invisible beast, looking totally unafraid. As if it's a regular occurence.
She grips the sword a bit tighter, and purple energy starts coruscating inside the blade, filling the glass with a deep inner fire that emits no heat but a blinding violet light. It crackles around the blade, as if the weapon is unable to contain that energy wholly.
"You two should probably run. I'm pretty sure these can breathe fire. Or frost. They breathe /something/," she frowns.
Then she steps forward, swinging the blade in a fast, diving loop, and aims the point of the blade at the descending beast. Lightning erupts from the weapon and slahses skywards.
*
Daimon shakes his head, "Tsk, tsk, trying to keep all the fun for yourself. I know we're in your sandbox, darling, but there's no need to keep all the toys," he says.
The Son of Satan spins his trident for a moment and then aims it upwards, unleashing a gout of hellfire almost more experimentally than anything, intending it more to coat and perhaps outline the nature of the unseen enemy. Although if it also makes it go up in screaming flames and dying horribly, well, that would be an absolute bonus.
*
Yes. Big. It possibly wasn't the biggest that Illyana has seen, but it certainly gives Jean the shock factor that it intended. IN fact, Illyana didn't have to tell Jean twice, she was no fighter. In fact she was attempting to tug Daimon along until he revealed his own show of power with the flame of the trident in preparation of battle.
"You two are nuts! I'm out of here!"
Yes. The only thing that was seen of Jean was her backside, and her longer-than-normal hair as it bounds away in the distance. Adios, amigos!
The first thing to strike the beast was the bolt of lightening that scathes the beast. For a moment, they could see that it was feathered, but the visage of it immediately disappears again after a loud, ear-shattering cry. It falters in the air, it's wings flapping menacingly as it backs away, coming in for another swoop towards Illyana as the Son of Satan batters it down with a blast of hellfire.
Now -that- was enough to get it to reveal itself, the smoke teeming from a wing, burning it, but it was still wild enough to attack even though the power combination from the two sends it landing upon it's taloned feet with a scrape and a skitter across the cold plains. Or hot. Hard to tell in Limbo.
*
Illyana snaps her sword around in a vicious half-circle over her head, and that blade crackles with eldritch power instantly at her demands. Power surges from her and Limbo itself responds to her calls.
A crescent of raw magical force snaps over her head in a growing arc, flying skywards as swiftly as a loosed arrow. Illyana lowers the blade to a guard position, watching the beast shriek and spook, then gestures curtly at Damion without quite looking away from the giant beasty.
"How close do you need to be to stab it? I can lure it to the ground, but you'll need to be quick," she tells him.
Jean gets ignored. Scaredybutt.
*
Daimon smirks at the Mistress of Limbo, "Depends on if I'm feeling my javelin skills on a particular day. Not exactly a whale, but I'm not afraid to throw a harpoon. Are you sure you want it stabbed, though? It's kind of cute, maybe you'd want to keep it as a pet," he says.
With his Darksoul alive within him, his features have changed somewhat, horns protruding from his forehead and his eyes spilling red like blood. Much more and he'll have a set of hooves rather than feet. "Between us, we probably know enough containment spells to keep it penned in. Perhaps it's lost or looking for its mother," he says, looking back over his shoulder at the retreating Jean, "Do you think that one laid an egg?"
*
The descending bird-raptor lifts into the air once more, intending to pluck Illyana from her place upon the ground, but the powerful arch that flies from her sword was enough to blow it back higher into the air, catching it's chest to send it screeching yet again. It's back arches, head tossed up, the uneven flight pattern it takes has it bounding in an awkward circle until it crashes to the ground with a loud *BANG*.
It hurt. And the pain makes it ravenous enough to lash out at anything nearby. Like that well placed tree! It was captured by the beak and snapped in half to shower a flurry of limbo-debris in their direction.
Jean?
Well.. she was out of there! No sign of her in sight for now. Though, if they were to look closely they'd see a mess of red hair hiding behind a rock, and a pair of green eyes watching with wonder.
*
"Bet it's yellow," Illyana says, agreeing plainly with Damion's sentiment. "So da, I go high, you go low." She doesn't visibly arm up like him. She barely seems concerned. The avian swoops and screeches, diving, and Illyana gathers a fistful of magic in her hand. It wouldn't be terribly impressive except that she does it without words or focus or even a gesture. She just /grips/ the raw fabric of reality, forcing the threads of this world to obey her raw willpower, and flings her hand skywards. The energy lashes out into a giant net, and she snaps it back towards the ground— there is no real 'down' in Limbo— so Damion can pounce on the beast, and skewer it with his oversized cocktail fork.
*
Daimon mutters under his breath, an arcane incantation that sounds as obscene as it is unintelligible. Mortals merely overhearing the words would likely be seized with images of fornication and foulness, the dank interior of a devil's mind pressing theirs in an unconsenting kiss. With forked tongue.
But the result is coating him in a thin sheen of golden energy, armoring him against any potential harm he might come to - he's potent, but it never hurts to be careful when battling unknown chimera. He watches Illyana grasp the fundamental laws of the place in her grip and chuckles, "Show off," he says. But then he dashes, maneuvering with surprising speed and grace to leap in and strike, attempting to drive the Devil's own trident into the belly of the raptor.
*
High, the bird-raptor was already falling, the giant pulse of energy bent the reality within the place to see it actually go -down-. In a sense. The energy traps it. Nets it. Stops it's wings from flapping into flight. Stops it's beak from moving to snap at anything else in the vicinity. It was down.. and it was prime and ready for the strike that was to come.
And it was a terrible strike, no less. The golden blur of Daimon strikes the belly of the beast, the binds of time and limbo magic lessening just enough so that the bird-demon-raptor could scream. It's shriek was something unheard of.. terrible.. haunting, lacking the gorgeousness of death as it's blackened fluid leaks and seeps below like ichor. The darkest of the dark…
.. Which is when Jean finally turns away from the scene of death, her back pressed to the rock as her hands cover her face. But yet in one reality or the next..
..A hand plants itself upon the rock
..A hand plants itself upon her floor..
..Right upon the side of her head as her eyes snap open..
Yet nothing was there. Trembling slightly, her arms draw over herself as she looks above the rock just so, calling out.. "Is it gone? Is it over?"
*
Illyana rather casually helps dismember the demon-bird's corpse. She just starts chopping at the neck until the animal's completely decapitated, then for good measure she cuts out the heart and tosses it aside.
"Gotta completely kill it. It's the only way to be sure," she tells Damion, her fine, high features completely serene.
"Hey, zajka," she calls to Jean. "It's dead. Come back and see for yourself." Already the ichor is seeping into the stones of Limbo, drinking it down like rain-starved saltflats.
"So. You're Damion. Lucifer's son," Illyana tells the demon man, keeping her sword negligently loose in her hand. She looks him up and down.
"I thought you'd be taller."
*
Daimon lets Illyana hack away - he did his part, the rest just starts to seem like excessive labor. He doesn't do work when he can help it.
"I don't remember Belasco having such a nice rack either, but this is the world we live in," he says. "Anyway, haven't you heard? It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean," he says.
He looks over at Jean, waving a hand, "Yes, indeed, come out. She seems to know you, so perhaps she better understands why giant spectre birds want to eat your liver. Did you piss off any Greek gods? Are you going to end up having to push a rock up a hill for a few thousand years? Say what you will about my father, but he's not nearly the asshole Zeus is."
*
Hearing the call that it was dead allowed Jean to draw from the rock, picking up in her stride to arrive at their sides, long enough for her to witness how Limbo begins to eat the ichor of the dead. Bluech.
Their interchange was interesting, each word spoken had her eyes darting from man to woman as they exchange pleasantries. At least they know each other! How she knew Daimon, that was another tall tale all together.
"I'm not Sisyphus.." Jean says rather crossly, now joining her hands in front of her to mask her slight insecurity. "And.. I don't know.." She looks on towards the bird, wanting to take a step forward to touch it, but she leaves well enough alone as it is.
"It was scared. It almost felt like something dropped it here too so that this could happen to it." She frowns a little, then looks towards Illyana. "Maybe.. Ms. Rasputin, a door -was- left open." Or maybe someone busted itself into Illyana's home, or maybe it was an act of war.. or maybe someone was being childish. At this point? Anyone could guess.
The fact that the Son of Satan and Magik worked well together under hellish conditions were telling. Maybe it was something of kismet.. Either way, something was in store for these three. Something horrible. But for now?
"Not to be rude? Um.. if you don't have anything to eat down here that doesn't wiggle out of my hands when I try to bite it, I'd like to go home. I'm hungry."
*
"I don't leave doors open. But we're at the High Point," Illy explains, looking around. "This is the natural seam where it joins Limbo proper. So it's possible it just… walked through." She shrugs at Jean.
"Belasco's also dead," Illyana tells Damion. "I killed him." She speaks rather casually of having slain one of the most powerful magi in the lower planes— and makes no bones about the implications of that statement.
*
Daimon smiles and heads back towards the hinterlands at the edges of Limbo to make his departure, "I see. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving demon," he says. "He did owe me a few hundred bucks, but I suppose we can call it even. I'm sure you inherited enough of his debts already," he says.
"You two ladies take care of yourself - who knows, this might not be the last time we cross paths. The oracle there might be a crossroads of some sorts. And every crossroads needs a Devil," he says.
*