Q: Oh look, an update! So, who do we have in this A+X chapter?
A: In this chapter we have LOKI, the Norse God of Mischief who used to be an ADULT and a BAD GUY until he died sacrificing himself to stop some really BAD STUFF he orchestrated and then got brought back by his brother THOR as a young CHILD and a GOOD GUY who now tries to save the world instead of destroy it, teaming up with the mutant ROGUE, who absorbs people's powers and knowledge on skin-to-skin contact, and who used to be a BAD GAL with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants until she joined the X-Men and became a GOOD GAL. She is one TOUGH COOKIE, and she thinks Loki is a NUTTY COOKIE.
Q: Right... and this takes place...?
A: It DOESN'T MATTER! (Although, if you do keep up with MARVEL comics, this takes place sometime not too long after "Journey Into Mystery: The Terrorism Myth" for Loki, and sometime after "Uncanny Avengers: The Red Shadow" for Rogue, when she's also on the AVENGERS team as well as being an X-Man.) But you can enjoy this chapter whether you know ANYTHING about ANY of that or NOT!
Q: But wait a moment: Loki's not an Avenger—
A: SO?! His brother THOR is an Avenger! And Loki eventually joins the YOUNG AVENGERS for a time!
Q: Loki does what?!
A: But that's NOT IMPORTANT so FORGET ABOUT IT! The only thing that IS important is that LOKI and ROGUE are TEAMING UP and COMBINING THEIR AWESOMENESS! NOW STOP THINKING AND GET READING!
Loki + Rogue
"ATTENTION, PETTY MORTALS!" Loki yelled, darting out of a dark alley and sprinting down the middle of the street and waving his arms, as hoards of poison-drooling and fire-snorting demons that were bleeding out of the fabric between realities followed after him. "If any of the multitude of superheroes that populate this frequently invaded and invariably unfortunate city of New York are currently in the vicinity, let it be known that Loki, Norse God of Mischief, is here to cause trouble with this army of demons! Everybody run away in terror!"
Several minutes earlier...
Out of thin air a fiery portal opened up, and two figures stumbled out, the portal closing up behind them as a bird made it through just in time.
One of the figures was a tall, leanly muscled man with chin-length fiery red hair, wearing leather trousers and a black leather jacket with a high collar but no shirt. There was the mark of circled, inverted pentagram his chest, that at first glowed with flames, as did the man's eyes and the trident he held in his right hand; but after a moment the fiery glow died down and the man slumped forward.
He was caught by the other figure, a boy who looked to be around the age of twelve or thirteen years old. The boy had bright green eyes and dark lashes and eyebrows, though his hair was covered by a black hood, his head encompassed by a gold circlet, and he was wearing a gold-trimmed green tunic with long sleeves, and black gloves, trousers and boots. The only skin showing was that off his face, and both his gold circlet and his tunic were adorned with a design that vaguely resembled the horned helmet he'd worn in his previous life.
The boy did his best to catch the man, except, being far smaller, there wasn't much he could do besides keep the man from faceplanting into the ground, and instead set the groaning man down gently.
"Loki..." the man started, but was broken off by a coughing fit, splattering the sleeve of his jacket with blood when he covered his mouth with his elbow.
"Daimon!" Loki said urgently, pressing a gloved hand to Daimon's forehead. "Are you going to be alright? That was foolish of you. I was supposed to be the one who gets mortally wounded, being the 'sidekick' and all, so that you can obtain the motivation to overcome the final adversary, remember? We have to—" he glanced up, peering out of the dark alley to regard the huge skyscrapers, the bustling crowds of people, the streets clogged with honking cars, the stink of garbage and gasoline and other stenches he'd rather not identify. "Er, Daimon? What level of Hell have you brought us to now?"
"It's... New York..." Daimon grunted, trying to sit up, grimacing and clutching his side, the flesh of which had been torn away. He was bleeding heavily, skin pale and sweaty, red hair sticking to his face.
"Oh, good," Loki said. "So can those hellish demons that have been following us follow us here?"
"Yes."
"Oh, not so good then," Loki amended, grabbing one of Daimon's arms and draping it over his own shoulders, trying to tug the man to his feet. "Ups we go! We have to—"
He was cut off by a gargling roar. The air was suddenly filled with the scent of sulphur. Cars started honking, and there was the sound of tires screeching.
"This is bad," Loki breathed, green eyes wide, as he tugged on Daimon more desperately. "We have to go go go!"
But Daimon just sagged against the alley wall, eyes rolling back as the pain and blood loss rendered him limp and unconscious.
"Uh oh," Loki said, glancing around anxiously, before turning his gaze back to the injured man, allowing his teeth to worry at his lower lip.
The black and white magpie that had flown out of the portal behind them returned from its reconnaissance of the surrounding area to flutter down and land on Loki's shoulder.
"Mephisto's demons are peregrinating to this world," the magpie told him. "I suggest you contrive a plan with due haste."
"I know that, Ikol!" Loki snapped, glancing towards the entrance to the alley as the ground trembled with a great many heavy footsteps. "If I had my magic, I could heal him, or even send the demons back to the hell they came from, but..."
"But you don't have your magic," Ikol said. "But what do you have? What does Loki always have?"
"My evil genius?" Loki guessed. "Except that I am totally not evil—unlike you, you echo of my past evil self."
The magpie on his shoulder fixed him with its unnatural green eyes and fluttering its black and white wings irritably. "But are you Loki?"
"No duh," Loki snorted, rolling his only slightly-more-natural green eyes.
"And what does Loki do when he cannot or will not fight a battle himself?" Ikol prompted.
"He manipulates someone else into fighting his battle for him," Loki answered immediately, an idea lighting up his childish face.
And then he abandoned Daimon in the alley to ran out into the middle of the street and started yelling at the top of his little godly lungs.
"ATTENTION, PETTY MORTALS!"
Now...
It was Rogue's day off, both from being a teacher at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, and from being an Avenger, so she hadn't borrowed anybody's powers for the day. She'd figured that she would go to the sumptuous spa that Black Widow had introduced her to, so she'd grabbed her keys and started driving her slick silver sportscar from Westchester to New York City.
She was nearing the block with the spa, when she heard:
"If any of the multitude of superheroes that populate this frequently invaded and invariably unfortunate city of New York are currently in the vicinity, let it be known that Loki, Norse God of Mischief, is here to cause trouble with this army of demons! Everybody run away in terror!"
And she saw Loki running down the middle of the street to her left as she came up to the intersection, an hoard of huge, red, sulfur-stinking demons behind him. There was quite a variety of them, from armored trollish brutes to huge mandibled six-legged monsters to flying creatures that looked like crosses between pterodactyls and bulls.
He was younger than when Rogue saw him last, nothing but a svelte boy of perhaps preteen age, but she still could tell exactly who the little menace was even if he hadn't just announced it to the world, and she was overwhelmingly annoyed that he apparently hadn't stayed dead.
"Loki!" she growled furiously, stepping on the gas as she whipped her car around to the left and started speeding down the street in the opposite direction of the fleeing traffic, slamming the front of her car straight into the Mischief God.
"Aaagh!" Loki yelped, as he was hit by a silver convertible and rolled up onto the hood of the car and splaying out on his stomach.
He managed to pick himself up and coil himself into a crouch just in time to dive over the windshield into the shotgun seat as the lady behind the wheel kept the gas pedal pressed to the floor and plowed through the demonic mob, sending them flying, or crushing them beneath the wheels.
Loki turned in the seat to grin at the woman behind the wheel, as she glanced over at him to meet his emerald gaze with her own bright green eyes. She was clothed in green as well: green leggings and thigh-high green boots with a matching hooded jacket with a vertical white stripe down her front that ended at the white belt around her hips, and her hands were covered by white gloves. Her long hair fluttered behind her as the car sped on, the tresses auburn, except for streaks of white framing her intense face, which was the only area of exposed skin.
"Ha!" Loki cried, "You think that running over them once with a car is going to stop them?! Hellish creatures, attack this fair lady!"
The 'fair lady' promptly removed one of her white-gloved hands from the steering wheel to punch the godling in the face.
Then she slammed the car into reverse, and proceeded to slam the car into the demons a second time, and then sped the vehicle forwards again and ran them over a third time, and then, when that still didn't off them, backed the car up again and hit them a fourth time. Even for demons, being crashed into by a metal vehicle at over 60 miles per hour had to take a toll eventually, right?
"Mwahahah!" Loki laughed maniacally, leaping out of the car and running down the street that was now filled with sulfuric red demon dust, "You shall never catch the God of Mischief! You misjudge the threat you are facing!"
The magpie fluttered down to fly beside him.
"I do so enjoy this villainous talk, Ikol!" Loki claimed conversationally. "It is so frivolous!"
"You overdid the evil laughter," Ikol said coolly.
"Whatever," Loki said, quickly sprinting over to the injured redhead and pressing his fingers to the man's neck. "Oh, good, he's still alive. Let us hope he remains that way."
"Daimon Hellstrom," the green-clad lady breathed, when she saw the shirtless man slumped unconscious on the ground, covered in blood. Then her gaze landed on Loki and hardened, and she grabbed him by the collar, slamming him hard against the brick wall. "What did ya do to 'im, ya hellspawn?!" she demanded furiously.
"I didn't do anything to him!" Loki protested, eyes wide. He didn't even bother trying to struggle out of her grip. "And also, technically he's the hellspawn, being the Son of Satan and all that. I'm a half-giant, actually. And in fact—and I know this is hard to believe—but none of this is my fault! I didn't do anything!"
"Didn't do anything?" the scary lady hissed, "Sugah, ya know how much hell ya have unleashed on us? Ya orchestrated Osborn's siege on Asgard, ya unleashed the Sentry and nearly destroyed us all—"
"And then sacrificed my life to save everyone!" Loki pointed out, hands around her wrist. "But look, that wasn't me! Sure it was Loki, but it was the old Loki, and I'm the new Loki, Thor brought me back but I'm trying to help now, I'm trying to be good!"
"Yeah right," she snarled at him. "After that stunt back there with all those demons—"
"Oh, that," Loki said, somehow managing to shrug even though he was being held off the ground and pressed up against the wall. "I needed a superhero to find me with most hasty haste, because Daimon is grievously injured, demons are after us, and I don't have any magic and can't rectify either situation."
Steely eyes narrowed at him. "Look, sugah—"
"In case you didn't notice, those demons were actually chasing me," Loki pointed out. "Trying to kill me, not following my orders. I only masqueraded as the villain because I needed to get you to follow me here. Imagine if I'd just asked you for help. Would you have believed me?"
She glared at him.
"That's what I thought," Loki said, giving a saddened and exasperated sigh. "Everyone thinks I'm evil. I have to play with it. It's kind of my super power."
"Why're all these demons chasing you?" she demanded, voice threatening and glare level as she clenched her fingers tighter in his collar.
"Daimon and I kind of pissed Mephisto off... it's a lengthy tale," Loki said, "and one that I believe would be best reserved for a later time when we are not predisposed to be attacked by his demons at any moment. Hint hint: we're wasting preciously precious time."
"You're the God of Lies, sugah. Ya can't expect me to believe any o' that bullshit," she growled at him, leaning closer. "Do ya know who Ah am?"
"Rogue of the X-Men?" Loki hazarded a guess that was definitely more of a statement than a question, trying for a small smile. "And thus, given your criminal history as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the second chance that was given to you by Charles Xavier that let you turn your life around and join the good side, I am most disappointed to see you so uncompromisingly unwilling to give me a second chance here."
Rogue's eyes flashed with fury. "So ya do know me. Good. So then ya know that Ah can absorb all your dirty little secrets with a li'l touch."
"I really wouldn't do that if I were you," Loki advised, squirming slightly as she held him there with one gloved hand and grabbed the fingertips of her other glove with her teeth, starting to tug it off. "A) I'm an Asgardian, and the effect on both of us from you using your powers on me would be unpredictable and most likely incredibly unpleasant. B) I have no powers, and thus you would gain no advantage from touching me. And C) I am Loki. Do you really want my knowledge and personality inside your head?"
Rogue stopped tugging on her glove, glaring at him seethingly.
Loki's expression had been rather smug, but something caught his eye and he glanced up, his eyes widening as he murmured, "Oh hell..."
"Give us the Son of Satan and the godling," one of the flying, horned dragon-like demons hissed, from its position on top of the building that formed the other wall of the alley. (If the demon's words were made visible in a speech bubble, they would be a dripping, Haunted House font.)
Loki shook his head emphatically.
Rogue didn't even turn to look at the demon, keeping her eyes on the Mischief God as she said, "An' if Ah do, will ya all go back to hell an' leave this world well enough alone?"
"Yes. Now give them to us."
"Don't!" Loki gasped, as she tightened her grip around his neck. "You can't trust demons...! And I know you can't trust me either... but Daimon would tell you never to give demons the benefit of a doubt, too... if he were conscious."
Rogue pulled off her glove with her teeth. "Shut up, sugah," she said, before leaning closer so her lips were mere millimeters from his ear. "Daimon, does he have super-strength?"
"To an extent," Loki murmured."He can also shoot fireballs from his pointy trident thing. And send demons to his personal portion of hell."
Pulling back, Rogue turned and tossed Loki to the ground. "He's all yours, then," she told the demon.
"What?!" Loki cried, as the demon jumped down and grabbed him in its claws, and he struggled uselessly against its grip. "Come on! This is not cool!"
Meanwhile, Rogue knelt down next to Daimon, pressing her exposed hand to his cheek.
"Oh," she breathed, eyes widening as she absorbed his knowledge and abilities. "Oh."
And then she grabbed the trident from where it had fallen next to Daimon's unconscious form, and she whirled around, shooting a ball of soulfire at the winged hell creature just as it started to take off with Loki, disintegrating the demon and dropping Loki to the ground.
"Thank you!" Loki said, as he picked himself up and brushed off his hands, turning to grin at her. "If we get out of this alive, I will totally friend you on Facebook!"
"Ah know how to send the demons back to hell," Rogue said, picking up the Son of Satan and slinging him over her shoulder, striding out of the alley, trident in hand. "Hope you're up for a li'l tussle, angel, 'cause Ah got a feelin' things are goin' to get hairy from here on out."
"Oh, goody!" Loki said, trotting after her. "Sounds like fun! Assuming it doesn't involve me getting sacrificed or subjected to some other painful fate, of course."
A red, disgustingly insect-like demon sprang at them ("Gross!" Loki muttered with a grimace as he ducked behind Rogue, "A potato bug from hell! And I thought regular potato bugs were repulsive.") as they cleared the mouth of the alley, but Rogue pointed Daimon's trident at the creature and blasted it with a ball of fire.
"Then ya might want to try not gettin' eaten, sugah," Rogue advised, as she dispelled the droves of demons that came at them with torrents of fireballs, whilst carrying Daimon and running in the opposite direction. "An' make yourself useful, if ya have any talents besides bein' a nut job."
"Well," Loki grinned, childishly and impishly gleeful as he ran beside her, holding up his StarkPhone and pressing something on the screen. "I know how to drive."
Several hours later...
When Daimon checked his phone after waking up in the Avengers Mansion with his injuries cleaned and tended to—and after dealing with the 'WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED' moment, which involved quite a bit of shouting from him and a brief explanation from the butler Jarvis—his phone beeped from its place in one of the pockets in his leather trousers, and he pulled it out to find that several text messages were waiting for him.
(photo of Rogue running while carrying Daimon over her shoulder)
LOKIOFASGARD: Don't look now, Son of Satan, but I think your machismo has been compromised.
(selfie of Loki driving a truck with a parade of demons chasing after him)
LOKIOFASGARD: THE 'NO TEXTING WHILE DRIVING' RULE IS FOR HUMANS!
LOKIOFASGARD: I AM A GOD. THUS I CAN TEXT WHILE DRIVING AND BEING CHASED BY DEMONS. GODLY MULTITASKING!
(photo of Rogue flying using Hellstrom's soulfire powers)
LOKIOFASGARD: She's a quick learner, that Rogue. I'm almost impressed.
(photo of Rogue setting up a ritual circle in the middle of the street)
LOKIOFASGARD: I hope she knows what she's doing.
LOKI OF ASGARD: My pet magpie flew off somewhere. He has no faith.
(photo from inside of a truck of demons trying to tear their way inside, the view of the skyscrapers speeding by)
LOKIOFASGARD: THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT FOR BEING UNCONSCIOUS, HELLSTROM! I BLAME YOU!
(photo of the hoard of demons disappearing into the fiery portal Rogue set up, taken through the rear window of a truck)
LOKIOFASGARD: Bye bye infernal demons. Miss you!
LOKIOFASGARD: (NOT!)
(photo of the inside of the wrecked truck, the view of the city sideways through the cracked windshield)
LOKIOFASGARD: Oops. I apparently require more practice driving these fragile Midgardian transportation vehicles. I may have overestimated the break pedal and steering capabilities.
LOKIOFASGARD: Hellstrom, wherever did you misplace that delightful carriage pulled by those three demonic horses?
(photo of Hellstrom unconscious in a bed at the Avengers Mansion, wounds all tended to)
LOKIOFASGARD: This is what you look like when you're sleeping. Just so you know. You are going to have terrible behead hair.
LOKIOFASGARD: If I'm not there when you wake up, it's probably because Rogue and I ventured forth into the city in quest for delicious cooked flesh.
(selfie of Loki grinning and sitting next to an annoyed looking Rogue in a restaurant booth)
LOKIOFASGARD: You are missing out, Daimon! This place serves breakfast all day! They have pancakes. And bacon. Lovely, lovely bacon.
LOKIOFASGARD: And Rogue isn't nearly so scary now thasjfkljewmklsmdnfkldsaj
LOKIOFASGARD: This is Rogue, confiscating Loki's StarkPhone. I honestly don't understand how you've been putting up with the kid, Daimon. He's a real nutcase.
Daimon snorted, thumbs tapping against the keypad on the screen.
"Rogue!" Loki protested, trying to grab his StarkPhone out of her hands as she held it out of reach. "Give that back!"
"Not a chance, sugah," Rogue said, pushing him back down into his seat, lips twitching upwards slightly.
"Meanie!" Loki pouted, crossing his arms and leaning back, glaring at her with childish indignation.
"Those doe eyes an' pouty lips ain't gonna work on me, angel," Rogue said, tapping out a text on his phone, before reaching over to lightly poke his nose. "You're still Loki, even if you're a li'l one."
Loki made a face at her, before leaning over her shoulder to read what she'd written.
"I AM NOT A NUTCASE! I TAKE OFFENSE TO THAT!" Loki protested, loudly and indignantly.
The phone beeped as a new message showed up.
SONOFSATAN: Heh.
END.
I'VEBEENLOKI'DYETAGAIN: Well, that was fun to write ;D
I'm really trying to write these team-ups so that they can be enjoyed by anybody and everybody... so if you are familiar with these characters in the comics, please let me know if I've portrayed them correctly and/or done them justice! And if you aren't familiar with the comics and/or these characters, please let me know if I was able to write this so it was enjoyable even if you don't know anything about them! I would be exceedingly grateful :3