Chapter 6: The Price

.o.o.o.

"What say you now, Hellstrom?" Morgana asked. "Give me the boy and you may as of yet go free."

"Are you not merciful?" Daimon huffed. "Fun fact, witch. Plants? They burn."

He swung his trident, sending a wave of fire at Morgana and her forces. Morgana vanished, but several of the imps and and vines caught fire, lighting the surrounding blackness with its inferno. "Kid, eyes. Tell me where she's popping up!"

"You're acting like I can see more than you!" Loki retorted.

"Then look where I'm not looking you pain in the neck!"

"Already doing it!"

"Then why did you say—oh never mind!" Daimon snarled, spearing one of the imps and then flinging it off his trident with a hard flick. Still ablaze, the projectile-imp managed to light up a bit more of the area, giving Daimon just enough time to see Morgana and lunge.

They hit the ground in a rough tumble, both swiping wildly at anything they could reach in the dim firelight. Daimon had just gotten in a particularly satisfying hit to Morgana's jaw when a yelp distracted him.

Without him, the circle of fire had gone down. Without the circle, the plants were going for Loki. Daimon quickly blasted the largest batch, only for Morgana to take advantage of his split attention to kick him in the head and get some distance back between them.

Daimon began a rather long string of curses as he stalked over to Loki, vines turning to ash at his feet. He reached out with slightly smoldering fingers and tore through the growths that had managed to get a hold, "Got a plan?"

"Try to stay alive?" Loki offered.

"Got a good plan?"

"Not particularly as of yet," Loki said. "Oh, damn it, damn it, fire, Daimon! Now!"

Evil Dead jokes aside, Daimon was damn sure the cinema was where Morgana's inspiration was coming from. Those had been going for their faces, as iff trying to get insides of…he stopped that train of thought where it was. "Loki, how far does this stupid darkness spell of hers go?"

"What are you talking about? How should I know?" Loki said.

"You have a phone with Wi-Fi! Use satellite maps or something!"

"Right, right," Loki said, hurriedly typing while Daimon continued with the supernatural weed-whacking. "Germany…"

"Loki!"

"Got it…about fifty feet on all sides, I'd say! Wow, it seemed bigger than that…"

"Good enough!" Daimon declared, making a portal and chucking Loki headfirst into it before lunging through himself. "Sweet, light."

"Such as it is," Loki said, glancing at the moon.

"I take what I can get—hey!" Daimon snapped, tossing his trident and neatly catching three imps on the spines. "Feel like a roast, kid?"

"Daimon, for all we know that spell is mobile. We should keep moving," Loki said, backing away from the dome and stabbing an imp in the face when it got too close.

"Better idea," Daimon said, raising his trident and surrounding the darkness in flames. "Trap it all."

"I think Morgana will be harder than that trap—urk!" Loki choked as Morgana appeared behind him and grabbed him by the neck. He kicked her shins and swung his head backwards, managing to get out of her grip and tumbled away towards the trees.

Morgana shrieked as Daimon cracked her across the face with his trident, the longest tip leaving a gash across her nose.

"You," the Son of Satan snarled. "Do not. Attack. My sidekick." He swung again, the trident hitting Morgana's ribcage with a sickening crack. "I don't care," another swing, this one wide, scattering the imps, "what the hell he did," a kick, "hell, I already know," another swing, "what he did, I helped!" Daimon stabbed his trident down on the hem of her dress, lighting it on fire and outright obliterating the nearby imps.

"How dare you!" she yelled, blasting Daimon back. "How dare you endorse his actions! The subjugation of the Otherworld! The rise of the Manchester Gods!"

"I thought it was right," Loki said. "You can hate me for it…when I found out I had been wrong I hated myself for it…but I thought I was doing good."

Morgana threw Loki against a tree, "You are no threat, are you boy? So you just sit there and think of your torture while I deal with him…"

"You'll find me a hard deal," Daimon growled. "You may not face aging, witch, but I can make you face Hell."

"You cannot scare me out of revenge," Morgana laughed. "Hell? Death? There will be others to follow me!"

"Then I will hunt all of them too!" Daimon said. "Until you all leave Loki alone!"

"He will suffer as long as I live, Hellstrom," Morgana hissed.

"Good thing no one will miss you," Daimon said, pinning her to a tree with his trident. He drew back a hand, a fireball already forming.

"No! Daimon…no," Loki sighed. "She's right. It was my fault."

Daimon glared at Morgana, his eyes still glowing a bright red, "That doesn't give her the right, though."

"Don't kill her!" Loki said. "I…I have a compromise. My pain for her giving up on vengeance."

"I'm not going to hurt you," Daimon said. "And like hell I'm just letting her go to hurt you."

"Not you. An associate of yours," Loki said. "The Ghost Rider's stare. The one that makes you feel all pain you've inflicted."

Morgana started laughing, "Oh, that should be interesting! All the sins of Loki, all at once!"

"Kid, I'm not going to do that," Daimon said. "You have multiple lifetimes behind you, it could-"

"Then I will go find him myself! If it will get Morgana to leave these people alone and leave her vengeance on me, I will take a just punishment!" Loki yelled. "Killing her will just extend the cycle to someone else, and I deserve to pay for my crimes against the Otherworld!"

Daimon hit Morgana over the head, knocking her out. "You sick kid. You want that, don't you?"

"I cannot atone for being Loki if I cannot be all of Loki," Loki said. "I need to know, Daimon. I need to do it."

"Fine," Daimon said, opening a portal. "Your idea still sucks, though."

"…Will you stop me? If I go evil?"

"I'll be there to stop you from going evil, kid," Daimon said, tying Morgana to the tree. "And if it comes to that I'll grab Thor so he can be too, okay?"

Loki just watched the portal.

.o.o.o.

Daimon and the Ghost Rider didn't exactly get along, per say, but if there was Penance-Staring to be done and Daimon facilitated transport the rider rarely complained.

Now Daimon just had to work on not stabbing Morgana as she tittered with glee at the growing horror on Loki's face. He was losing that mental fight, his trident-hand getting very, very twitchy.

Ghost Rider nodded and stepped back, Loki slumping to the ground. "He repents," the spirit of vengeance said. "He has repented for a long time. Do you?"

"Yes, do you?" Morgana asked Daimon.

"I'm the intended antichrist, lady," Daimon said with a grim smile as he went over to Loki. "The whole stare thing doesn't work as well on me."

He had to admit, her screams as the Rider stared into her eyes were pretty satisfying.

.o.o.o.

Loki woke up on a hotel cot at half-past three in the morning with a wrapped deli sandwich and a water bottle in front of him. "…You…stayed…"

"I'm a jerk of my word," Daimon said. "So, you've had your first official sidekick torture, huh?"

"You don't have to try and keep it light," Loki groaned, his mind still having issues sorting out all the past sins and cataloguing what were repeats and what weren't and all the rest. "It sucks."

"So you remember everything?" Daimon said.

"Yes. No. Painfully," Loki said. "Still mostly the whats and the hows and not the whys."

"Why not the whys?" Daimon asked.

Well, I suppose I remember the whys, but I do not understand them, not very well. Especially the whys against Thor," Loki admitted. "Some of the others, I get. I guess. It hurts."

"Yeah, well, I'm not so good at the whole comforting thing," Daimon said awkwardly. "But you need me to smite somebody or do something vengeful or what have you-"

"Can…you just stay there?" Loki asked, rolling against Daimon's side. "I don't care if you watch TV or anything. Just…stay there?"

"Son of Satan and mentally-unstable godling's teddy bear," Daimon sighed, patting Loki on the head. "How about we check in on your brother soon? Maybe that'll help?"

"…Not so fast. Chocolate factory a town over…"

"Weird kid," Daimon muttered as he began to flip through the channels. "But yeah, that sounds good."

.o.o.o.

A/N: Daimon, while a generally good person, is still half demon. He is therefore better with sinful behaviors or behaviors that can be classified as sinful. Like wrath. He's good with wrath. And while Loki now remembers everything, Kid-Loki is still the dominant personality.