Magik (Joint Venture)

Magik is a mutant, a sorceress, and a member of the New Mutants and X-Men. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.

Abduction
Illyana Rasputin was only a little girl when she was playing in the fields of her family's farm in Siberia. Unfortunately, a neighbor's tractor got out of their control and came barreling towards her. Her brother Piotr saw this tractor and charged without hesitation to help his sister, Manifesting his power to turn into organic steel for the first time. As he touched Illyana, her own power also manifested, and a circle of light opened up beneath them, dropping them into another dimension.

Limbo
Illyana and her brother landed at the feet of the dark sorcerer Belasco, ruler of the dimension of Limbo. He took Illyana under his wing, giving her a special talisman as a wecoming gift. When Piotr tried to interpose himself between them, Belasco simply had his demonic servitor, N'Astirh, fly him away.

To Illyana's surprise, no sooner had he been sent away than he burst back through the doors with a small army of strangers in tow. These strangers, the X-Men, battled Belasco to save Illyana, but lost, and lost horribly, with many of their number dying or becoming corrupted Even Illyana's own brother, Piotr, was transformed by Belasco's dark arts into the brutish S'ym, and send to hound Illyana and the surviving X-Men until he could bring her back to his new master. Only Illyana and the X-Men Storm and Wolverine escaped, and even they were not unscathed.

Illyana, the Fiend, and the Silver Witch
In the years that followed the X-Men's failed battle, the three survivors tried their best to make a sanctuary in Limbo, Ororo using the magical power of her ancestral line, combined with magic the Scarlet Witch had bequeathed her upon her death, to create a small garden villa, shielded from Belasco's magics, where they could rest, recuperate, and train for a rematch to avenge their fallen friends.

Even so, the trio rarely got a moment's peace. Wolverine, now a Fiend with no name, was constantly in batttle with S'ym to try and keep him from discovering Illyana's whereabouts. In thier rare moments of safety, Ororo traed Illyana in her white magic, and the Fiend trained her in hand-to-hand combat -- one of the few ways he could cling to his humanity.

Eventually, the Fiend, the Silver Witch, and a thirteen-year-old Illyana battled Belasco and his forces. Even though they defeasted several of their corrupted teammates, killing them and freeing them from Belasco's control, N'Astirh used his demonic magics to complete the Fiend's transformation into an animal, and he savagely attacked and mauled Storm before Illyana was forced to decapitate him. Belasco tried to absorb Storm's powers, and the chaos-magic bound to them, but Illyana mercy-killed Ororo before he could complete the ritual. Furious, Belasco banished her to the coldest, most unforgiving part of his realm, where she is left alone to starve or freeze -- but not die.

The Final Battle
Eventually, freezing and alone, Illyana discovered two new powers that would turn the tide in her favor. The first was her mutant power to control Limbo's stepping-discs, which had led her there in the first place, but could now be used to teleport anywhere within the demonic realm -- perhaps even out of it. Second, her magic could join her soul and the heart of Limbo itself, and from that union, forge the Soulsword, the most powerful weapon in the eldritch dimension, and a symbol of mastery of its magic. These new powers shattered Belascp's sealing of her abiltiies, and gave her back not only her own magic, but the magic Storm and the Scarlet Witch had bequeathed her upon Ororo's death. Using it, she scried for the X-Men, who had risked and lost so much to save her the first time. Finding them, she summoned them into Limbo, ironically being the reason they were there at all in the first place. But this time, she swore, she would fight alongside them, introducing herself to them as Magik.

Working together where they had failed separately, Magik and the X-Men fought Belasco, N'astirh, and S'ym a second time -- only now, Magik was a young woman, possessed of the combined powers of Belasco's greatest magical rivals, as well as her own. During the fight, S'ym came to his master's defense, but Magik defeated him easily, cleaving him in half with the Soulsword -- which, to her surprise, did not harm him, but instead broke the enchantments on him and transformed him back into her brother Piotr.

Furious at the loss of all his servants, except craven N'Astirh who had abandoned him, Belasco fought Illyana himself. Unfortunatly for him, he had greatly underestimated Illyana. No longer the little girl whose every nigthmare bore his face, Magik overwhelmed him with a combination of the combined power of her teachers and her superior skill in swordplay, thanks to her training with the Fiend. She was about to strike the killing blow when Storm -- the younger version of her old mentor -- stayed her hand. Belasco had lost, and in losing, had relinquished command of Limbo over to her. She hesitated, and Belasco vanished, leaving Illyana and the X-Men alive and victorious.

Seven Years, Seven Seconds
She used her stepping-discs to travel back to Earth with the X-Men -- only to discover that she had traveled too far back in time. Instead of years having passed on Earth, she had returned to a point where it had been a matter of seconds since her disappearance. Now a thirteen-year-old girl and unrecognizable to her parents, Illyana found herself forced to seek refuge with the X-Men at the Xavier Institute. Piotr, grateful for having been freed of the curse that had kept him as S'ym for so many years, came with his sister, and they became Magik and Colossus, the newest members of the X-Men

Mutant Sorceress
To be disclosed

Powers
Illyana possesses a special link with another dimension, known as "Limbo", or "Otherplace". As such, nearly al of her powers connect directly to it in some form or fashion.

Stepping Discs: Magik's mtuant power, wholly distinct from her magic, is her ability to mentally control "stepping discs", which allow herself and others to teleport across any distance she desires Whenever Illyana mentally calls for a Stepping Disc, the discs use Limbo as a midway point before letting her teleport to an alternate location. It is not known if Limbo is linked to her genetic code, or if her study of its magic and having gorwn up within it affected the discs in some way. Magik has the potential to teleport herself, and as many people will fit inside a disc, across continents, between continents, and even to other planets or galaxies. She uses her scrying mirrors in Limbo to help her better pinpoint a location. Limbo Control: The dimension where Magik grew up, Limbo, is not a void as such, but rather a small pocket dimension, where time does not pass in a physical sense. As a result, while aging is possible to an extent (Magik herself aged from seven to fourteen while there), no one can die there unless they are actively killed. The matter within Limbo, and indeed, Limbo itself, can be shaped and transformed by her thoughts and emotions, as its master. Sorcery: Magik is the Queen of Limbo, and as such, she is also its Sorceress Supreme, with access to all of its spells while she is within its bounds. After defeating him and claiming Limbo for herself, Magik had access to Belasco's store of mystical knowledge, whcih he had been collecting since the 16th century AD. Her sorcery is a unique mix of Belasco's black magic, white magic taught her by the Silver Witch Ororo, and chaos magic, which Ororo had inherited from her teammate the Scarlet Witch upon her death, and Magik had inherited from Ororo upon hers.
 * Time Travel: Unlike most teleporters, due to the nature of Limbo's relationship with time, Magik can teleport through time, as well as through space. She has teleported moments, days or years into the past and the future. Magik has the potential to manipulate time on a vast scale, but without knowing the exact ramifications of her alterations, she is aware that to do so could spell disaster for herself and all of Earth and Limbo, so she refrains unless in tire need.
 * Demons: Magik is not only Queen of Limbo, but of nearly all its denizens as well. She can summon any number of them anywhere in Limbo, or to Earth, where she possesses absolute command over them. Only a select few with unusally strong minds, or magic themsevles (such as Belasco's former apprentice N'Astirh) can resist her control.

The most common forms of magic Illyana casts are: On Earth, her power is more limited, but by no means suppressed completely.
 * Binding Spells: Illyana can trap her enemies in any number of paralyzing spells. She can freeze them in their tracks, imprison them in solid crystal, wrap energy bands around them (similar to the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak), or seal away superhuman powers for a short time.
 * Elemental Powers: Illyana possesses spells that allow her to manipulate the four classical elemens: Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. She can also form and manipulate ice, and strike her enemies with lightning, either projected from her hand or Soulsword or called down from the air. Because these powers are magical, their real-world threshold outside of combat is unknown.
 * Healing: Thanks to tutelage from the Silver Sorceress, Illyana can cast white magic to heal wounds, cure diseases, and raise mystical protections. In Limbo, this power is absolute; she can even resurrect the dead there, in perfect health. However, the magic only possesses that level of strength within the boundaries of Limbo.
 * Scrying: Unlike most fortune-tellers or clairvoyants on Earth, Magik's divinatory power in Limbo is absolute. She possesses a set of three scrying mirrors that she can conjure at will to show her anything, past, present, or future. She can locate and spy on others, see past events and possible future outcomes, and pierce through most illusions with this mirror; however, as it is a tool of Limbo's sorcery, it only works there.
 * Mental shielding: Illyana can protect her mind from attack or invasion through the forming of intricate mental shields. These work flawlessly in Limbo, preventing her mind from being intruded upon at all while she is there. On Earth, her psychic resistance is still exceptional, but not impenetrable.
 * Conjuring: In Limbo, Magik can conjure any object she desires into existence, including simulacrums of people. Things she conjures usually cannot leave Limbo without vanishing, though certain things -- like food -- are exempt.
 * Chaos magic: Illyana can alter probabilty in a manner similar to the Scarlet Witch, though this effect is unpredictable. However, it is also one of the few powers she can bring with her to Earth.

Soulsword: Illyana's main weapon, created when she bound her own life force energy to the soul of Limbo itself. This bond created the Soulsword, an artifact of Limbo. It has often been compared to the Artifacts of the Vishanti (the Eye of Agamotto, the Cloak of Levitation, and the Book of Vishanti) in terms of how it was created. It has come to be seen as their equivalent, the standard of Limbo's ruler and Sorcerer Supreme. At first, the Soulsword could merely disrupt magical spells of beings, breaking enchantments and slaying demonic creatures. But as Illyana began to practice more of Belasco's dark magic following his defeat, the Soulsword became able to damage physical beings as well. Simply wielding the blade gives Magik more access to her power as Sorceress Supreme of Limbo, as it is a symbol of her covenant with her eldritch kingdom.

Eldritch Armor: When Magik is attacked, on Limbo or on Earth, the same power that granted her her Soulsword also covers her body in a protective layer of silver, eldritch armor, resistant to both physical damage and spells. The more of it she wears, the more physically powerful she becomes. It is unknown what would happen if her entire body were to be covered in it.

Weaknesses
Dimensional barriers: While Magik can travel freely between the dimensions of Earth and Limbo, this is only because she is native to both dimensions. Even so, Illyana's magical power, while absolute in Limbo, is greatly diminished while on Earth. Here, she only has access to a portion of her powers. These include weakened forms of the white magic she learned from the Silver Sorceress and the chaos magic she inherited from the Scarlet Witch. However, she can also summon her Soulsword, a piece of Limbo joined with her own soul, which increases the power she has access to considerably.

Destination control: Illyana's stepping-discs appear merely as circles of white light, and do not show their destination when they appear. Consequently, Illyana must cross her fingers and hope for the best when she opens one. Although in Limbo she can use her scrying glass to improve her control over the discs' destination, in the end it remains an inexact science. Her level of control often depends on the amount of concentration she puts into opening a disc.

Mystical senses: Illyana can sense the patterns of magic around her. Often this serves as a kind of sixth sense, enabling her to detect when magic is being used in her vicinity, but it can also be used against her if someone casts a malevolent enough spell.

Corruption: Lastly, though she has fought it nearly all her life, Illyana remains vulnerable to the corruption Belasco subjected her to when she first arrived in Limbo. The more black magic she uses, the more corrupting the influence becomes. Although white magic can slow its spread or even halt it completely, Magik runs the risk of becoming the demonic Darkchilde if ahe uses a surplus of Belasco's black magic. The Darkchilde is the ultimate expression of Magik's power as ruler of Limbo, but it is also her dark side given full reign over her.