Summary:Illyana goes to talk to Scott about the X-Men helping to defend the pillars holding geomantic spell in place. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It's been a year now since Xavier's High School Class of 2018 graduated. Since Illyana graduated. And then she fell off the map. Of course, she didn't have a lot of close friends and those that she did have were far enough away that it wasn't immediately noticeable she was missing. The blonde has never been one to clear her itinerary with anyone ahead of time.
When she returned earlier this year, she was seen around the Institute quite a bit. It was where she'd spent pretty much all her time on Earth she could remember and there was free food. As time's moved on, she's been seen around less and less. Especially without Piotr or Kitty at the Institute to visit.
And when one of her stepping disks opens to set her down near Scott Summers, it's not either her brother or best friend that she's come to see. The blonde queen of Limbo is in her more familiar black leather and silver jewelry, attitude worn like armor.
Scott is in his office, grading papers. When he hears the tell-tale pop of Illyana's disk, he glances up from his papers, and frowns. "You can knock." He raps his knuckles against the desk in example.
He's currently dressed in his teaching clothes - check out that tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. That's draped over the back of the chair, and he's wearing a crisp light blue shirt and khaki pants. "But since you're here - coffee is over there.." he gestures towards the coffee pot with his marking pen. "And you can tell me what brings you by."
"I could. I could also have grabbed you and brought you to me. Take the small wins, Scott." Illyana was always rather irreverent as a student. Even though she wasn't the ruler of Limbo when she was in high school, her demonic upbringing meant she didn't take well to authority and modern, civilized people tend to consider the actions that would be needed to get her to toe the line to be… unpalatable. Especially given her age.
Now, Illyana's older. But she's also the ruler of Limbo. Something she hasn't advertised but something she admitted when she showed back up seven years older when convincing people she wasn't dragging a threat along after her. It's so much harder to trust someone immune to mental scans.
The blonde heads over to make herself some coffee, glancing back to arch a brow his way, mute question to see if he needs a refill. It's friendly, for Illyana, so she's probably not here to bitch at him about Elena's mother not being allowed on school grounds.
"You want the short version that tells you what you need to know or the long version of what's going on?" Illyana thinks all he needs is the first but, it being Scott, she won't be surprised if he wants the latter. Probably in part because he doesn't entirely understand who she is, what she does, and what she's involved in. Not that she's made any attempt to educate him on that front. Not that she's made much attempt to educate *anyone* on that front, really.
"I don't know. If it's about the Kurita woman, short. Answer's still no. Even after Jean's scan." And Scott's going to leave it at that. Though he does lift the mug. Yes, refill please. "As for dragging me anywhere? We know how that'd gone." He may have blasted her.
He'd probably would have become even more stubborn and reluctant than he usually is.
Illyana finishes with her coffee first and then refills Scott's mug. Finally she takes one of the seats across his desk, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. Elbows resting on the arm of the chair and mug cradled between both hands, the blonde smirks at him over the top of the cup. "Be honest. You'd recognize my stepping disks and figure it was an emergency situation." And that's part of why she *didn't* do that. Even if she butts heads with Scott, if he called, she'd show up. No questions asked.
"There's a geomantic ritual around New York City that's been keeping it safe from extradimensional intrusion. Recently, someone's been attacking the physical manifestations, pillars, of that ritual, weakening the protective barrier in a likely precursor to some sort of invasion." Illyana watches Scott as she takes a slow sip of her coffee. "I wanted to see if you had some hands free to help keep an eye on the pillars to at least slow down the incursion while I look into how to stop it."
The glasses make it hard for Illyana to get a read on Scott, but she still watches for his reaction with a smirk.
"I know that you've become the type of woman that doesn't bother to knock and doesn't have the couth to at least be apologetic when barging in on someone." He remembers the younger Illyana. And much like new Coke, he preferred the classic. And yes, he'd shown up. It's what he does. Just as she would show for him.
"You're actually asking for help? Which means it's large enough to be considered a threat." No, he's not going to put her down and suggest that she had to come to him for help. Instead, it's concern that shows in his features.
"What type of hands should I be looking to use?"
"I've never really been apologetic. About anything." Illyana says, still smirking. She's amused that he's still hung up on her skipping his closed door. "I knew you were just grading papers. Not like you were in the shower or in bed with someone. Be glad I waited until you were being boring." That might lead to some disturbing thoughts.
Illyana doesn't point out that she didn't actually *ask*. Because she was kind of asking. Without actually asking. "A reality trying to invade is generally a threat, yes." Her tone is very dry. "It's demonic types, so mostly big, strong and tough so heavy hitters and not those with more subtle powers. Having someone on any given team that can shield the pillar and keep it from being damaged while others bring the smack down would be ideal."
Reaching up to rub at his chin, Scott nods as he considers the mission. Though she knows she piqued his interest when she mentioned the geometry of it all. He just plays it close to the chest when it comes to her.
"I take it you already know where the sites are?" he asks her as he sits up a little more formally. "I'm going to need them - and what sites you may have visited already."
"I can get that information." Illyana says with a nod. Some of the WAND eggheads love doing maps and diagrams and whatnot. She's pretty sure they've already got some with notes from any of their own research.
The blonde taps one finger against her mug thoughtfully, pale blue gaze never leaving Scott as she thinks. "I don't keep you in the dark on purpose." She says then, her honest tone lacking her usual sarcasm. "Things I get involved in just usually come with a lifetime of backstory that's totally out of your wheelhouse."
Illyana's lips are pressed into a frown. "I wanted to spare people any pain or frustration that comes with knowing things they can't do anything about, so I haven't been up-front about a lot of things." She admits. "Of course recently, I've learned that comes with its own downsides. So if you want more detail on anything, I'll give it. But I don't know that it will put your mind at ease any." It might do the opposite.
It's an offer. Not just to explain things for the mission, but her own story she's kept quiet on. But the warning has been given.
For a moment, Scott seems almost ready to blow her off as she has done to him so many times before. Every time that he tried to reach out to her when she first came back, and things were weird and confusing for her.
But that's not the type of person he wants to be. So he gestures to the seat across from him, the other plush leather chair in the office. "Tell me what you have, Illyana." he offers in what is a friendly tone for him.
Illyana is quiet for a bit, getting her thoughts in order before she speaks. "I was kidnapped to Limbo when I was seven and kept by its ruler until my mutant power manifested and I escaped and got enrolled here." That's the part that Scott would be familiar with.
"Limbo's what's called a 'splinter realm'. Extra-dimensional but more contained than.. Well, here." She gestures about to mean the dimension they're in now. "There's a lot of them, and most of them are controlled by ancient, nasty beings. A lot of the places people consider 'hell', are in fact splinter realms. The ruler of each is akin to a god while in their realm. Not like Thor 'I shall smite thee' kind of god but like, 'let me re-write the laws of reality' type god. Sometimes, a human manages to get control of one of these. Belasco, the guy that had me, was one of them. He was a 13th century sorcerer that got his power from a group of primordial nastybads called 'the Elder Gods' who are currently imprisoned so they don't eat our reality. One of their main agendas is to get back out. Part of his plan to do that, was me."
Illyana takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "As part of that, I wasn't just his prisoner. I was his apprentice. Hence the magical tricks." Most of what Illyana's used around the school have been minor things, easy to do with the reduced levels of magic on Earth. "Last year, after graduation, he managed to find me and haul me back to Limbo, looking to complete the ritual I'm a part of to let those Elder Gods loose. It gave me a chance to challenge and defeat him, thus giving me control of Limbo." And why she asserted that Belasco wasn't a threat to the school anymore.
She's still left out most of what her life was like there, but like she said. It's not likely to put him at ease, so unless he asks, she'll stick to the more tactically relevant facts. Things she hasn't given him before.
"That makes me a player in a very dangerous game. It's part of why I didn't come back to the school to live, even if people would have made room for me. During the Nightfall incident, when some of the other X-Men were protecting that mutant kid? They were being backed by a Splinter Lord called Plokta, which meant no matter how many Nightfall cells were found and stopped, and kids saved, they had the resources to just move on and keep going." Illyana frowns, fingers fidgeting around her cup a bit. "And now I'm just rambling, aren't I?" She shakes her head, leaning forward to set her mug down on the edge of his desk. "None of this is relevant to you." She says, annoyed with herself.
"It's all relevant, Illyana. You were a student of this school. You are still a member. Noone kicked you out of here. And if you ever decided to return, there's a place for you." Scott offers a hint of a smile.
"We could always use a defense against the Dark Arts teacher."
The humor out of the way, he continues to listen and consider. "I assume that this recent incident has something with you suddenly becoming an Aunt as well?" he asks her curiously as he folds his hands in front of him, trying to digest it all. "I deal in practicalities. I know what has happened.. where you have been, what you have done, that's all way above me."
"But you're still family, at least in the broad sense of the word. You have your close family to watch out for. As do I. And sometimes, it's not going to mesh." Keiko, for example, but that's still a sore spot. "All I want to know is when we can help. We'll be there. So. We have elder gods, splinter lords, and stuff that Zatanna would probably be better off handling." That's his first time mentioning the woman.
And he doesn't go any further than that on that point. "But, to what I'm saying. It's relevant because you're relevant. And not in the we need to keep an eye on you because you might be dangerous. If I did that, I'd need a Venn diagram to keep up with who and who I should not keep an eye on, and as one of those so called gods that is friends Jean likes to point out, I'm named after something with only one eye."
Illyana wrinkles her nose a bit at the Harry Potter reference, but it does get a smirk out of her. "You'd need a *lot* of chocolate." She advises. "And I do try to make sure the Institute is somewhere my demons stay out of." It wan't an issue when she was a student. She was just an apprentice on the run. But now she has legions of monstrosities that follow her.
The bit about being an aunt gets an annoyed sound. "Possibly? But nothing tangible on that. So far, it's an isolated incident. Sam made the call to pull off a rescue and we got caught. Time runs different in Limbo. Usually, I'm able to keep them mostly in-synch but while I was trapped I couldn't do that. My demons decided they needed a replacement and grabbed Piotr and Keiko got wrapped up in it." Sam had at least left messages with both SHIELD and the X-Men. They just weren't gone long enough in 'real' time to set off any alerts.
Scott's assurances get a small nod. "My people-skills aren't great." She admits. Her *social* skills are fine. If you're a demon. "But we are family. If we weren't, I wouldn't bother fighting with you." Illyana says, giving him another small smirk.
"As long as noone's going around here humming 'I've got friends on the other side', we're golden." Scott responds and then shakes his head. "By the time we got the alert, Agent Turner had already brought everyone home. I tried to sit down and math out the time difference, but it gave me a headache."
"What if I could get you passes to Hersheyland?" That much is offered with a smirk before he gives a nod. "We're not supposed to have great people skills - we're kids that found out that we're different from everyone else as teenagers, and most of the world fears or despises us. All we really have at times is each other."
"I'm a demon sorceress that's supposed to unlock the prison to unspeakable evil. I *am* the friend on the other side." Illyana offers dryly.
The blonde nods when Scott notes Koa had already gotten them out. "No one's faulting anyone for not being fast enough." She assures him. Though, after a thoughtful moment. "It was about seven weeks, for Sam and I. But you know, we never considered that someone wasn't coming for us. Was just a matter of who. And when." That's a certain kind of Faith on its own.
"If you're really interested in me teaching your kids about what really goes bump in the night, I'll give it a shot. But my own instruction to those things… Wasn't kind." That would be something of an understatement. "I'm not sure if I could drive home the severity of the things I'd be teaching and not cross lines, as it were." Things like 'thou shalt not torture your students'.
"How about this…" Scott drums the pen on the desk a few times in thought as he considers his thoughts on the matter. "We don't make it a mandatory class." That's his first thought.
"Maybe a night class. Once a month or so. Purely voluntary. If you don't want to do it that month, you don't have to. Want me to have the students sign a waiver?" he asks with a lift of his brow. "But if you plan on taking the under 18 set on a field trip? Will need to get parent's permission."
"There'll be a small salary attached. The standard fare for part-time instructors. Not that I assume money is an issue for the sorceress that has everything." he smirks at her.
Illyana seems to think it over and then finally shrugs. "Sure. I'll see if I can come up with something approaching a syllabus." The slight frown that lingers on her lips and the distant look says she's probably already Thinking.
The comment about a salary gets a short chuckle. "You know what phenomenal cosmic power doesn't buy? Groceries. As it is I barter rent with WAND. I watch over one of their magical hot-spots, I get to live in the house it haunts." If Illyana wanted to she could always take stuff. Or conjure it, though that comes with her Limbo Clause. But normally if she can't get it through regular means, like mooching, she just lets it slide.
"Yes, well, we'll avoid the obvious jokes about that." Scott responds with what would probably be a roll of his eyes if they were visible. "Let's see what you come up with. If you need help? I'm around. You could probably talk to Dani as well."
Then he pauses, and considers. "Though her magic is more flying ponies and such and friendship being magic."
"It'll give me something to talk to Agent Turner about during our weekly coffee klatch." While she's smirking, Illyana does not seem to be joking. "Apparently, since I'm a splinter lord that spends so much time on Earth, WAND has a vested interest in making sure I don't suddenly go AWOL." Pause. "Again."
Illyana finishes off her coffee and stands. "I'll get you the sites of the pillars and what their current status is, as we're aware of it. All I really need is 'keep them from getting damaged' as best you can. I'll see about how to stop it up-stream and see if the ritual can be renewed with the more magically inclined folks."
"In the meantime, I'll see who's up for a training exercise. We've been disorganized too long. Need to start acting like a team again." Scott's really scolding /himself/, when it comes to it. He's had too many times where it just seems like things are just.. not clicking.
And it gets under his craw something ferocious.
Illyana's grin is wide and feral. "Well. Nothing says team-building like bashing heads."
Pale blue eyes glint as she lets him know, "I'll show myself out." And with a flare of light, a stepping disk whisks her away. She did leave her empty coffee cup on his desk, though.
"Maybe she should get a job as a busboy." Scott mutters as he watches her depart and moves to clean up the coffee cup she left behind. "I swear if she left a tiny…"
..okay, no tiny demon in the cup.