The woman you see off to the side there is my best friend in the whole wide world, or was, Illyana Rasputin...aka Magik to her teamates.

I first met Illyana when she was a mere eight years old. She was a cute kid that Piotr brought over from Russia to take care of. I learned Russian telepathically, actually, so that I could communicate with her (learning languages that way is so cool although it hurts I gotta say that, but once you know them...kick butt!). Well one day I thought young Illyana had wandered away from the rest of us X-men, but then I realized something was wrong (just a feeling) and I ended up getting sucked into Limbo where I became Belesco's plaything (see more in Belesco's bio). Belesco, a demon Lord, had kidnapped Illyana to become his pupil and Illayna grew to the age of fourteen in the demonic realm known as Limbo going through unspeakable horrors.

In Limbo, Illayna had parts of her soul tainted and turned to evil (three out of five pieces), by Belesco...he with a henious and evil plan in mind for her...namely using her power to deliver unforetold evils upon the Earth. His plans were hampered however by the alternate versions of Storm and I of that alternate reality, a reality in which the rest of my friends had lost to Belesco, Storm had embraced her mystical heritage, and in which all of the X-men but Storm and I had been killed or turned to evil by Belesco. I'm sure it wasn't fun living there, let's put it that way.

The Storm of limbo was also trained in the arts of black magic by Belesco and was bascially his slave, but she managed to wrench herself free of his influence and learned white magic by the time she rescued Illyana from Belesco. Her independance was finalized when she created an acorn out of a piece of her soul. This acorn was a symbolic link to the woman she once was...one dedicated to life. This acorn grew into a great oak...a thing of life in the middle of Limbo's evil...and an embodiment of all of Storm's white magic. Storm and Cat/me rescued Illyana from Belesco when she was still young and raised her for a few years. In that time Storm taught Illyana magic to a point. Storm and I, well the other me anyway, were later defeated by Belesco and (unfortunately for her mental scars) Illyana was forced to kill both Cat (me) and Storm. Illyana also killed Nightcrawler (who was evil in that reality) and Belesco got mad at her for denying him the pleasure of her company all of those years. Illayna was forced into exile in a cold hades of Belesco's making. She perservered however and vowed she would survive that torment. And she did with flying colors.

While she was in exile Illayna tried many times to make her own tree by creating the acorn like Storm showed her...to show independence from Belesco, but all the acorns she created with a piece of her soul were rotten inside. She drew sustainance from the oak tree that Storm had planted (which was huge), but this did not help...the acorns continued to be rotten inside. Finally she felt the tree dying and knew she could not be good and free herself from Belesco like Storm had done...she instead used the last of the tree's energy, along with equal portions of rage and hate in her soul and created, not an acorn, but a sword!?!

Illayna used this sword to defeat her master in combat, thus becoming supreme ruler of Limbo... a conquest that would later come to haunt her through the remainder of her young life.

Illayna rejoined Piotr, her brother, and the rest of us using her powers...her normal mutant powers actually (she could create teleporation disks that could teleport as many people as she wanted to at one time...with one catch and that was her powers were routed through Limbo naturally, so it got interesting to teleport with her sometimes). Due to the passage of time in Limbo being quite different then that in normal time she was now fourteen years old...only a couple of hours passing in real time to record all those years she suffered. This new older Illayna became my roomate...as well as my best friend. If ever there was a soul sister in the universe it was us two. It was like we were twins separated at birth or something. We were that close. Our friendship and bond was so great, that at any loss of her magical abilities Illayna's soul sword would transfer itself, along with her soul steel armor, to me. Which by the way isn't as great as some would crack it up to be...it in fact has caused massive problems in the past.

Illayna was later deaged in the Inferno fiasco... sacrificing her older self and her powers for the innocence she thought lost long ago, and I, once again found myself in possession of the sword and looking down at a child that remembered me only briefly from the times I had babysat her. I lost my best friend and gained a sword and responsibility I wanted nothing to do with all in one day. I turned the sword over to another guy who was ruling Limbo responsibly but something happened to him later on. Illyana then got sick and I ended up with the sword (again) later. I then, in another fiasco, turned it over to Amanda who then turned it over to Margelli (Amanda's mother) and I learned to regret that I had done it when she tried to raise a demon in London. Anyhow, it's been a problem for me, but Illayna didn't mean to make me miserable with the thing I'm sure.

I've been referring to Blondie (the nickname Illayna went by) in the past tense. The reason for this is that I lost my best friend, deaged though she was, to the Legacy Virus a while ago. At times I still find it hard to believe that she's gone. She was everything you would ever want in a best friend and she put up with a lot of my faults and I hers. I often wonder if I'll ever find a friend like her in this lifetime again, and for some odd reason a voice in my heart and head tells me "No". I hope that you're happy wherever you are Blondie and that you've found peace. I'll look up at the sky every once in a while, picture God, and smile thinking that you are with him again. I love you Illayna. Goodbye.

Back