Chapter 3: Supremely Sorcerous
.o.o.o.
"So, what are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
Daimon glared over his coffee, "I introduce you to great American animation and this is how you thank me?"
"It kept me out of your hair so you could go to a bar and get very drunk, yes?" Loki asked happily.
"All right then, Pinky, tonight we're going to rent a motel room and I'm going to watch the Super Bowl and you can look for interesting-looking things on your phone that we can investigate later," Daimon said.
"No. The room must have two televisions—I have heard good things from Volstagg's children about a 'puppy bowl' of much cuteness," Loki said.
"Fine, I've got some cash from a couple exorcisms…you want popcorn?"
"I prefer chips, actually."
"Fine, but if you say you don't like soda this will be a short career for you," Daimon warned.
.o.o.o.
"How was your bowl?" Daimon asked.
"The puppies were excellently cute and the narrator clearly went the extra mile to make it sound like they were genuinely playing a game of football," Loki said. "You?"
"Won some bets. Need to head into New York City to collect," Daimon said. "First team to make touchdown, worst injury of the night, who wins, and my personal favorite: hair color of most of the halftime show performers."
"Why?" Loki asked.
"Because Spider-Man and Captain America both made sure Iron Man couldn't cheat by looking up the celebrities, but forgot to keep tabs on me," Daimon said.
"…That's why you had me googling all those celebrities on the way to Colorado?" Loki huffed. "Inform me when I am involved in a scam, please, I'm trying to better my reputation."
"I can leave you here for the day. Want to go to New York or not?" Daimon asked, starting on a teleportation sigil.
"New York, of course!" Loki said.
.o.o.o.
"Loki, how do our finances look?" Daimon asked.
"Well, you got fifty dollars from Captain America; twenty from Spider-Man; twenty-five from Hawkeye, Valkyrie, and Iron Man each; five each from Johnny Storm, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, three members of the Young Avengers, and the Prowler; and one hundred from Deadpool, who also gave me ten bucks for 'beating continuity' of something or other," Loki said. "All in all, ten short of three-hundred."
"We still have one more stop," Daimon said. "Dr. Strange owes me twenty. And that ten is yours kid. So I made three hundred and you made ten…good day."
"I still want to know why that man gave me money," Loki said as they got off the subway.
"He's Deadpool. Don't try to figure him out," Daimon said. "Hell Lords are all fighting over who has to take him when he finally kicks it and ends up on their side of things—of course, that's only if Thanos removes the immortality curse because the man is in love with Death, but hey-"
"How do you know that?" Loki asked.
"Loki, I own a Hell-Dimension. I get to hear their gossip—and if human gossip is bad, demons and gods and titans are amazingly worse," Daimon said.
"…How do you fall in love with Death? I mean, a goddess of the dead like Hela, maybe, but…what?" Loki asked as Daimon led him up some steps. "Death is a—a concept!"
"I told you kid, don't even try," Daimon said, knocking on the door. An Asian man opened it. "Hey Wong. The Doc owes me money, he in?"
"Daimon Hellstrom," Wong greeted. "And Loki, it seems."
"Loki it is!" Loki said brightly.
"I have a sidekick now. Cool, huh?" Daimon asked.
"Let us hope you do not expose him to too much debauchery," Wong said, letting them in.
"I'm from Asgard. Daimon can't even top half of them at getting drunk," Loki said.
"Watch your mouth," Daimon said.
"Dr. Strange set aside your twenty," Wong said, handing over an envelope. "I'm afraid he's rather busy at the moment."
"Well, shit. Was going to ask him if he had any magic books pipsqueak here could use," Daimon said.
"Now who needs to watch their mouth?" Loki huffed.
"By the Hoary Hosts of Horgoth!"
"…That's bad, right?" Daimon asked dryly.
"Yes," Wong said as the trio hurried up a staircase.
"I'll suppose the thing in the Black Forest will have to wait," Loki murmured, pulling out his phone and delaying the event.
Daimon swore very loudly as they neared the room, but Wong did not scold him this time.
"Oh my," Loki said as the very room they entered seemed to radiate energy. "Err, what are those?"
"Well, to be perfectly frank they're lesser fiends that serve Dormammu," Daimon said. "A shitload of them."
"Are you going to stand or fight?" Wong asked, taking a bo staff off a rack.
"Fight, of course!" Loki said, drawing his daggers.
"Remember, I have to keep you mostly intact," Daimon warned, incinerating two of the fiends as he summoned his trident. "In the mood for help Doc…wait, what?"
"Fire makes them stronger!" Doctor Strange huffed, blasting away some more.
"Oops," Daimon said as Loki re-sheathed one dagger, grabbed a platter, and clapped a fiend over the head with it before slitting its throat. "Nice one, kid." He whipped the trident around, giving them some room.
"It'd be nicer if we could disperse them quickly!" Loki said.
"No good, more will take their place," Doctor Strange said. "We must find how they are entering our dimension—should they rip a hole large enough, Dormammu himself may come through!"
"All right, I'm about to declare the the world almost ends twice a week at this point!" Loki said, bashing another two demons on the head so Daimon could spear them.
"Pessimistic, but fairly correct," Wong admitted. "Does either of you see a point of entry?"
"What sort of portal do you need for the fire-head's dimension again?" Daimon asked. "I don't quite remember…" He whacked one fiend back, right into Loki's swishing dagger.
"High power, highly concentrated, low energy once activated," Dr. Strange said. "Loki, left!"
Loki used the platter as a shield and the doctor blasted his attacker away. "Anything else? There's a lot of magic flying around in here!"
"I'm afraid not," Wong admitted.
"Oh you have got to be—would they poof in the same general area or something?" Loki tried. "You know, give a certain radius for us to work with—oh my!" He ducked and hopped up onto the back of a couch, precariously balancing. He sheathed his other dagger and pulled out the darts. "Can we please have a plan, people?"
"You're the trickster, you do it!" Daimon grunted, getting into a brief tug-of-war over his trident with two fiends before Wong helped him out.
"All right," Loki said, nailing one fiend in the eye. "They disperse if enough energy or pain is applied, more take their place, the number seems to stay fairly constant…perhaps they appear only at the speed we" he cracked another in the face with the platter, "get rid of them, but then someone would likely boost the portal's abilities which would give an energy spike and let us find it, unless of course—get back, you!—they cannot because it is not a portal but something allowing a specific number to manifest! I am brilliant!"
"Say what?" Daimon called.
Loki gulped—he'd hopped a bit far from the group. "Don't disperse them, just bind them! The number will remain constant to wear us down!"
Doctor Strange quickly summoned glowing ropes and Wong snatched ties off the curtains, giving some to Daimon. Soon the fiends were bound and Loki could have a look about.
"All right, what sort of thing allows a certain number of manifestations…" Loki mused.
"An enchanted object." Doctor Strange pushed a desk aside to reveal a glowing gem. "This should be dealt with easily enough. It seems this was merely an annoyance, not one of Dormammu's break-into-this-universe plots."
"Hey, wearing you down is probably a first step in tones of those," Daimon said.
"It was a good plan," Strange agreed. "Luckily we has a clever planner on this side as well."
Loki rubbed his arm, "Just…doing my job."
"You do it well, young one," the Sorcerer Supreme stated. "Thank you for helping, Daimon. Ordinarily you'd have taken the twenty and left."
"Ordinarily I don't have a pestering, never-shuts-up sidekick," Daimon replied.
"If I'm your conscience we might have problems," Loki said.
Doctor Strange laughed, "Well, you have both done good today. May I offer you a room for the night?"
"Sure," Daimon said. "We're going to be doing some saving if Loki says the next big stop is the Black Forest of Germany. Free room is nice."
"If Loki says?" Wong asked.
"Hey, life's easier when the sidekick finds the jobs for you," Daimon said.
"This better mean I can add secretary to my resume!" Loki said.
"You can put it under schemer, realm-saver, and snarky brat," Daimon offered.