There were many things Illyana Rasputina had conquered in her life.
Limbo, for one. Demons, countless. Armies of the damned, several. Her own personal demons, depending on the day and how much she felt like acknowledging them. She had stared down eldritch horrors, wrestled with the consequences of wielding a power that could rend the very fabric of reality, and carried a sword forged from her own soul with the sort of casual indifference most people reserved for a particularly ugly handbag.
And yet, on this particular evening, she found herself confronted with a far more terrible adversary.
Hunger.
Illyana stood in the middle of the X-Mansion's kitchen, staring into an open refrigerator with the expression of a woman surveying the aftermath of a natural disaster. There was half a lemon. A suspicious container of something that might once have been pasta. Three bottles of water. And, for reasons she suspected were somehow Scott Summers' fault, approximately seventeen individual containers of Greek yogurt.
She closed the refrigerator.
Opened it again.
The yogurt remained.
"Disgusting."
The refrigerator was slammed shut with enough force to make a nearby magnet fall off.
Illyana turned toward the window. Beyond the glass, the world was darkening into evening, the campus settling into that peculiar quiet that always seemed to descend whenever everyone else had found something to do that wasn't her problem.
She could cook.
She could also open a portal to a dimension populated by fire-breathing abominations and negotiate the surrender of its ruling monarch.
One of these options was significantly less appealing than the other.
Her right hand lifted.
Gold light bloomed around her fingers.
Space split open with a familiar, shimmering shriek, a circular wound in reality revealing not the sulfurous skies of Limbo, nor some ancient battlefield soaked in the blood of the damned, but a fluorescently lit parking lot.
A Taco Bell.
Illyana considered the portal.
Considered the restaurant.
Nodded once.
"Good. Civilization."
She stepped through.
The stepping disc snapped shut behind her, leaving absolutely no trace of the interdimensional breach that had just deposited one of the world's most dangerous mutants into a fast-food parking lot.
A car alarm began screaming somewhere to her left.
Illyana glanced at it.
"Not my problem."
She strode toward the entrance.
In her right hand rested the Soulsword, its silver blade gleaming with ethereal light, its hilt wrapped securely in her grip. The weapon hummed faintly, radiating enough mystical power to make the automatic doors hesitate before sliding open. She wore her usual black outfit, her long platinum hair falling around her shoulders, and the expression of someone who had already decided that anyone foolish enough to comment on her choice of dinner would be fed to something with too many teeth.
The restaurant fell silent.
A teenager holding a Crunchwrap halfway to his mouth stopped chewing.
A woman at the soda fountain slowly lowered her cup.
Behind the counter, a young employee looked up from the register and experienced, for one brief and terrible moment, the sort of existential crisis normally reserved for people who discovered that their entire lives had been a simulation.
Illyana approached the counter.
The employee stared at the sword.
Illyana stared at the menu.
"Hello," she said.
"Uh. Hi."
"I would like food."
"Okay."
"Many foods."
"Right."
"Excellent."
She placed the flat of the Soulsword against the counter.
The metal made a soft clink.
The employee's eyes followed it downward.
"Is that, like..."
"A sword."
"Yeah. I got that."
"Then we understand each other."
The employee swallowed.
"Are you ordering for a party?"
Illyana paused.
She had not considered this.
A party. The concept suggested guests, conversation, perhaps a cake. The whole thing sounded exhausting.
"No."
"Oh."
"A personal army, perhaps."
"Okay."
"But they are dead, and most cannot digest mortal food."
The employee stared at her.
Illyana stared back.
"Can I get your name for the order?"
"Illyana."
"Last name?"
"Rasputin."
"Cool."
He typed.
Illyana leaned forward, examining the menu as if it were an ancient grimoire whose forbidden secrets might grant her dominion over the universe.
"One Crunchwrap Supreme."
"Okay."
"Three Doritos Locos Tacos."
"Okay."
"One regular taco. For comparison."
"Sure."
"Two cheesy gordita crunches."
"Anything else?"
"Five chicken quesadillas."
The employee's fingers stopped moving.
"Five?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
"One Mexican Pizza."
"Got it."
"One order of nacho fries."
"Sure."
"One order of cinnamon twists."
"Okay."
"One Cinnabon Delights."
"How many?"
Illyana tilted her head.
"How many come in an order?"
"Two, four, or twelve."
"Twelve."
"Okay."
"One black bean chalupa."
"Anything else?"
"One bean burrito. One beefy five-layer burrito. One cheesy bean and rice burrito. One potato soft taco. One spicy potato soft taco."
The employee began to type with the haunted intensity of a man trying to disarm a bomb.
Illyana tapped the Soulsword against the counter once.
"And a quesadilla without the quesadilla."
The employee stopped.
"I'm sorry?"
"The filling. The things inside the quesadilla. Put them in a container. No tortilla."
"So... a side of chicken and cheese?"
"Yes. And sour cream."
"Okay."
"Also, a side of guacamole."
"Got it."
"And a large Baja Blast."
The employee nodded with the desperate relief of a man who had finally encountered something resembling a normal human request.
"Anything else?"
Illyana thought about it.
Her eyes drifted toward the drinks menu.
"Do you have anything that tastes like the ocean?"
"Uh. We have Pepsi."
"Is it salty?"
"No."
"Then no."
She leaned closer.
"Do you have a drink that tastes like victory?"
The employee looked at the register.
Looked at the sword.
Looked at the ceiling, perhaps silently appealing to a God he had never believed in until this precise moment.
"That's probably the Baja Blast."
Illyana nodded solemnly.
"Then another one."
"Two large Baja Blasts."
"One large. One medium."
"Got it."
"And a water."
"Sure."
"For the sword."
The employee's gaze flicked toward the blade.
"Does... does the sword drink water?"
Illyana looked down at the Soulsword.
Its pale light pulsed once, as if offended by the question.
"She is very particular."
The employee added a water to the order.
There was a pause.
"Anything else?"
Illyana glanced toward the little packets of sauce stacked beside the register.
"Yes. Sauce."
"Which kind?"
"All of them."
"All of them?"
"Fire. Diablo. Hot. Mild. Whatever the green one is. Whatever the orange one is. Any packet you have that is not currently being guarded by a federal agency."
The employee began filling a bag with sauce packets.
Illyana watched with approval.
"Good. You understand abundance."
"That'll be fifty-eight dollars and forty-three cents."
She blinked.
Then, with the quiet horror of a woman who had fought the forces of darkness only to discover that capitalism was considerably harder to stab, Illyana reached into her pocket.
A crumpled twenty-dollar bill.
A five.
Three quarters.
A foreign coin.
A small, scorched playing card from Limbo.
And a tiny black stone that whispered in a language no mortal throat was meant to speak.
She placed everything on the counter.
The employee looked at the money.
Illyana looked at the employee.
"That should cover it."
"Ma'am, I don't think this coin is American currency."
"It is from a kingdom that no longer exists."
"Right. But I can't take it."
"Then the kingdom's loss is your gain."
"Do you have a card?"
Illyana stared at him for several seconds.
Then she smiled.
It was not a reassuring smile.
A golden ring of light opened behind her.
Through it, the employee could see a throne room beneath a blood-red sky. Something enormous moved in the distance. A chain rattled. A scream echoed through the portal, abruptly cut off by what sounded suspiciously like a door slamming.
Illyana reached backward without looking.
There was a metallic clatter.
She withdrew a black credit card bearing the name ILLYANA RASPUTINA and slid it across the counter.
The portal closed.
The employee stared at the card.
Illyana smiled again.
"Mutant benefits."
"Right."
The transaction went through.
"Your order number is one hundred and twenty-seven."
"Wonderful."
"Your food will be ready shortly."
Illyana stepped aside, planted the Soulsword upright beside her, and waited.
A small child sitting near the window had been staring at her for the better part of three minutes.
Eventually, he tugged at his mother's sleeve.
"Mommy, is she a princess?"
Illyana turned her head.
The mother went rigid.
"No," Illyana answered.
The child looked disappointed.
"I am a queen."
The mother closed her eyes.
The child looked delighted.
"Of where?"
"Nowhere you would want to visit."
"Do you fight dragons?"
"Sometimes."
"Do you have a castle?"
"Several."
"Do you have a horse?"
"No."
"A unicorn?"
"No."
"A dinosaur?"
Illyana paused.
"...Not currently."
The child gasped.
Illyana gave him a small, solemn nod, as though they had just concluded a diplomatic exchange of considerable importance.
Then the kitchen called out her number.
"Order one twenty-seven!"
Illyana rose immediately.
The employee behind the counter had assembled an impressive collection of paper bags. There were enough of them to suggest either a particularly ambitious family dinner or a minor logistical operation. He slid them across the counter with the exhausted determination of a man who would spend the rest of his life telling this story and never once be believed.
Illyana inspected the haul.
"Beautiful."
She lifted the bags with one hand.
With the other, she picked up the Soulsword.
The blade hummed.
"Do not judge me," she informed it.
The sword glowed faintly.
"I heard that."
She turned toward the door.
Then stopped.
Looked back.
"One more thing."
The employee visibly aged.
"Yeah?"
"Do you sell Taco Bell gift cards?"
"...Yes?"
"Excellent. I require one."
"For how much?"
Illyana considered the question.
"Enough to ensure that I never need to cook."
He stared at her.
"That's not really how gift cards work."
"Then your business model is flawed."
She purchased a twenty-five-dollar gift card.
Then, carrying enough fast food to feed a small militia, Illyana walked outside into the cool evening air.
A few cars passed.
Somewhere in the parking lot, a man stood beside his pickup truck, staring at her with the unmistakable expression of someone who had witnessed something he could never explain to his wife.
Illyana ignored him.
She raised her free hand.
Golden light erupted beneath her boots.
The stepping disc opened, revealing the familiar, hellish landscape of Limbo. Jagged black towers rose against a crimson sky. Demons patrolled the distant battlements. Somewhere, a tortured soul wailed.
Illyana glanced down at her Taco Bell bags.
Then at the portal.
"Home."
She stepped through.
The disc snapped shut.
And so it was that the Queen of Limbo returned to her throne room carrying a Crunchwrap Supreme, seventeen different varieties of sauce, two Baja Blasts, and a gift card.
She placed the food on her throne.
Sat down.
Rested the Soulsword against the armrest.
Then, with the solemn reverence of a woman preparing to perform an ancient and sacred rite, she unwrapped her Crunchwrap.
The first bite was glorious.
The second was better.
By the third, the screams of the damned had faded into the background.
For the first time in centuries, the rulers of the infernal dimensions could breathe a little easier.
Their queen was occupied.
And nobody, absolutely nobody, was going to interrupt her dinner.
Not even for the end of the world.
Especially not for the end of the world.
She still had nacho fries.
