Cerebra's Files

Illyana was stolen away by an alternate Storm, who tried to teach her white magic to help her oppose Belasco. However, she was unable to create an acorn from her soul as Storm had, due to the corruption placed there by Belasco. After some time, Cat (a version of Shadowcat), concerned that Storm's teachings would further open Illyana to Belasco's influence, as Storm herself had once been his apprentice, abducted Illyana and began to train her to fight with knives and swords. Evenutally, Illyana created a Soulsword for herself, which was the ultimate expression of her power. However, when she and Cat attacked Belasco, they were easily defeated, and Illyana was enthralled again. While learning his dark arts, Illyana yearned to escape, and as she reached puberty she manifested her mutant power and began to control the stepping disks scattered throughout Limbo. Biding her time, she waited until Storm attempted a rescue and was stopped by Cat and Belasco, who commanded Illyana to kill her former teacher. Refusing to kill Storm, Illyana instead used her Soulsword to overthrow Belasco, in the process changing into a demonic form, while he reverted to human. However, she managed to regain control of herself and returned to normal, banishing Belasco and taking ownership of Limbo. Then she used her mutant power to access time and space through Limbo, generated a "stepping disk" to take her home.

However, while Illyana had aged eight years in Limbo, on Earth, only a few months had passed. Still, she joined the New Mutants and became best friends with Kitty Pryde. Whenever she used the Soulsword, which disrupted magical enitites and constructs, Illyana also manifested a magical shoulder and arm armor. As time went on that armor covered more and more of her body, until by the time of "Inferno" she was completely encased in it. Then, with spells and urgings from N'astirh>, Magik transformed into the demonic Darkchilde, a devilish creature with goat legs, horns, and a tail. Eventually she beat the Dark persona back and became a Child of Light, using her Soulsword to stop a demonic invasion, and merging with her younger self to negate her life in Limbo, reverting to her true age of six years old. Illyana returned to Russia, but was taken back to the U.S. by her brother Piotr when their parents were killed. In the States she became symptomatic with the Legacy Virus, and died shortly thereafter. It now appears that Illyana was infected with Legacy in the past, when she was a teenaged member of the New Mutants, by her eldest brother Mikhail, who was also suffering from the disease and looking for a magical cure.

Magik (not dead, and somehow teenaged but apparently without having been in Limbo) was a S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit assigned to the Hellions squad for a mission to find a group of Japanese terrorists. She has a mean streak, and enjoys teleporting people to volcanic caves (telling them that it's Hell). She wields a sword, but knows nothing about it, as it was procured by S.H.I.E.L.D. and given to her, though she does know that the dimension from whence it came is somehow tied into her powers. After finding the terrorists, the Hellions discovered that Sunfire's Project Genesis was experimenting on humans. The Hellions freed the humans, and Dani ordered Magik to get the survivors out while the rest of the mutants attacked Sunfire's troops and Sentinels. Illyana may have been the only one to survive the mission.

Recently, Belasco re-conquered Limbo searching for the Illyana from House of M, whom no one remembered. Strangely, a Darkchilde (commanding a non-Techno-Organic N'astirh) found some of the New X-Men who had been brought to Limbo and saved them, only to demand the soul of Pixie III so she could make a new Soulsword. Whether this is really the original Illyana is still unknown. She claims that Belasco re-created her after seeing her House of M version, but he did not include her soul, since the Soulsword was in Nightcrawler's possession. After defeating Belasco, Magik vowed to get her soul back..
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