"Ah! Kamar-Taj! Damn you, Ancient One!"
Belasco cursed furiously. The moment he saw the familiar golden fiery portal, he knew exactly whose handiwork it was—and what it signified.
Grooming a successor? That idea was planted in his mind by the Ancient One, disguised as an Elder God!
He had unwittingly created his greatest enemy—a being who, like him, wielded a Bloodstone and was favored by the Elder Gods.
But his moment of clarity was fleeting, quickly drowned out by a cacophony of whispers. The Elder Gods, sensing his entrapment in an endless spatial loop, bombarded him with suggestions to escape. Hundreds of voices, each speaking in a different tongue, turned his mind into a chaotic marketplace.
The freefall didn't last long. With a deafening crash, he hit the ground, unscathed except for his racing heart, as if the fall had been an illusion.
He turned toward the cell's entrance, only to find four figures standing there. The little girl once bound in the corner was gone.
"Kill him. Claim Limbo," one said.
"Got it, mentor," replied a young blonde woman, grinning as she drew a massive sword from her chest. The blade, as wide as a door, gleamed white, its radiance illuminating the cell.
This was Magik, fully grown.
Su Ming, with the aid of Professor X and Phoenix, had sent the four back ten years. Even with Professor X guiding the Phoenix Force, its terrifying power reminded Su Ming of their last encounter.
Reversing a decade was akin to forging an independent timeline outside the main continuity—a "parallel universe" for Limbo. Barry's correction of the Flashpoint event worked similarly, discarding the altered timeline to restore the original, though it reshaped countless stories, effectively rebooting the universe.
Su Ming's strategy drew inspiration from the Comedian's badge. While he couldn't slice a segment of the timestream to create a looping system like Doctor Manhattan, this was enough.
He disliked tampering with timelines due to their unpredictable outcomes. But that didn't mean he was unskilled at it. As a former observer, he manipulated time better than most.
Loki wanted to weave stories? Then Deathstroke would stir the timestream into chaos. Future Loki wasn't the only one who could time-travel—Su Ming could assemble a legion of such beings from across Marvel's multiverse.
In that isolated timeline, the trio raised Magik. As a half-demon nurtured by humans, she inherited their strengths: Hamir's magical expertise, Ciri's swordsmanship and combat skills, and Su Ming's cunning.
With Limbo hosting only one demon—her—she naturally became its Hell Lord.
Returning to the main timeline, she overwrote her younger, injured self on the throne, rewriting her childhood. Instead of growing up with the New X-Men, she was raised as Deathstroke's disciple in Limbo—a far better fate than the "story" Belasco had planned for her.
One issue remained: the convergence of the branch and main timelines left Limbo with two lords, inadvertently fulfilling the conditions for a hellish power struggle. If Magik killed Belasco, he'd be finished. Hell Lord battles were straightforward—claim the opponent's domain to prevent their resurrection.
Perhaps Belasco's "masters" might revive him elsewhere, but Magik would ensure he never reclaimed Limbo.
Ciri had it easier; her ability to traverse time and space let her slip away when teaching grew tedious. Su Ming and Hamir, however, lived a full decade in that alternate timeline. Su Ming remained unchanged, but Hamir had visibly aged.
Seeing the once-young girl become Limbo's lord, Hamir sighed, his words growing more reflective with age. "Finally back."
"Yeah, it's almost over. Now it's her turn to help me," Su Ming said, stroking his beard like an old man. He'd once seen Magik as a tool, but after years together, treating her as a mere pawn felt difficult.
Ciri, exasperated, complained about returning to the main world in late 1945, where time seemed to reset repeatedly. A month of hunting with Geralt would vanish upon re-entering the branch timeline, the wheelchair tracks still fresh on the ground.
The decade in the branch timeline didn't consume external time, rendering it meaningless relative to them. Su Ming's egg-in-egg analogy about relativity only confused Ciri further—she had no patience for it.
So annoying.
Young Magik started obedient but grew more like Deathstroke by her mid-teens. Mastering Hamir's white magic—soul projection, soul-shaping, and other advanced skills—she forged a soul-crafted sword modeled after Su Ming's Night's Veil.
Though not identical (soul-casting wasn't blacksmithing), the result was a massive two-meter-long, forty-centimeter-wide blade. Ciri declared it unteachable—witchers used single-handed swords, not greatswords. Who'd heard of a greatsword-wielding witcher?
Su Ming couldn't teach her either; his methods would turn her into a Colossus-bodied, youthful-faced "Muscular Barbie." So Ciri, half-giving up, taught Magik the only greatsword technique she knew: the "New Year's Blade" Su Ming had shown her and Geralt in Novigrad. That explained the familiar, sweeping strikes when Su Ming saw Magik cleaving German soldiers in Paris.
As they spoke, the four unleashed a brutal assault on Belasco, who stumbled through the portal. Black and white greatswords danced, interwoven with multicolored magic. Belasco barely resisted.
Weapons aside, a black, amorphous creature—neither fully organic nor metallic—pinned him down, biting unpredictably. Even Su Ming was impressed by Belasco's resilience under his and the symbiote's onslaught, enduring hundreds of slashes, with Su Ming alone bisecting him dozens of times.
Yet Belasco stood, the Elder Gods ceaselessly repairing his body and restoring his strength, nearly convincing Su Ming the plan had failed.
But the Elder Gods betrayed him.
In a desperate bid, Belasco sought their aid to comprehend the timeline's distortion, requesting the power to traverse time and space. Who are you? Who am I? Are you me? Who's that?
I am you.
The Elder Gods, misinterpreting, bestowed the power on Magik instead.
Belasco fell, his curses echoing as the four stood over his pulped remains.
"The power to traverse space and time—that's how I got it?" Magik said, flicking blood from her face, her red eyes gazing at Limbo's dark sky. Horns sprouted from her head, her voice now raspy. "Limbo is mine!"
"You've always been its lord. Why so thrilled?" Ciri teased, ruffling Magik's hair and tugging her horns.
"It feels different," Magik replied, reverting to human form and dodging Ciri's grasp. "Those ten years in the branch timeline felt… unreal."
"I get it," Ciri said, frustrated. Each return to the main world reset everything, her car appearing and vanishing. "It's not owning anything."
The branch timeline's decade flowed normally, sparing Ciri from aging ten years—she'd have gone mad otherwise.
"It's not unreal," Su Ming interjected. "It's just hard to grasp. Illyana, be wary of Belasco's resurrection and his daughter seeking revenge."
"He has a daughter?" Illyana sheathed her sword, unaware such a monster had kin.
"He doesn't know either, but that's for later. For now, we deal with the 'story.'"
Magik nodded obediently, leaning in for a head pat. "I can wield Limbo's power with white magic to reach any point in any timeline. Afterward, I'll return here, wait for 1992, and rewrite the final story."
"That's nearly fifty years. You should visit Kamar-Taj, learn some dark magic," Su Ming said, ruffling her hair as she squinted happily.
"I know, to patch up timeline paradoxes. There's time—I'll sneak off to find you all. Where to now?"
She grew serious, awaiting Su Ming's next move.
"To the 'End of Time,' in Latveria."
With Magik's aid, Su Ming was confident he'd secure his final two allies.