"Oh, hey Dr. Strange! Big fan!"
A moment of distraction. That's all it took.
The beast surged forwards, a moving wall of muscle and power hurtling forwards a a velocity that was, given it's size, flat out ridiculous.
"Oh Shit!" "Oh Shit!"
Stephen and the new kid were of one mind.
Even as it approached, he was already moving, pushing the girl father away from him and calling a more complex barrier spell into existence, fractal shapes of orange light being woven into existence before his eyes.
He needn't have bothered.
He watched in disbelief Arcane raised both palms and purple light exploded into the world on command.
A moment later, Tentacle Monster nearly blew out his eardrums in it's fury as it rammed into a translucent, meter-thick wall of the very same light with enough force that it bounced back. The moment it hit the ground, the wall seemed to spill, morphing into a wave of purple light that enveloped the screeching monster and hardened into a solid dome between one breath and the next.
...
Fair enough, Stephen nodded, because that was a creative use of-
Of-
He stopped and looked closer.
That... wasn't a spell.
It was unquestionably extra-dimensional in nature, yet there was no intent he could detect, no will actively imposing it's vision into reality. As far as his senses were concerned, the kid hadn't woven a spell but rather propelled enough raw, unrefined power to halt whatever the hell that thing was in it's tracks.
"That was-" He started, before pausing momentarily, at a loss for words.
Arcane favoured him with a grin. "Pretty cool, right?
He snorted. Kids
"Incredibly inefficient and borderline stupid, kid."
His expression fell and Stephen winced.
"Sorry."
Right. That came out...harsher than he'd intended, but it didn't detract from the truth of the words. Spells weren't just used for the sake of versatility, but for efficiency. They were a medium by which one could manipulate reality without draining their reserves of power. That lesson had been drilled into his head during his years in the Sanctum more times than he could count.
Having a greater degree of raw power meant jack shit when you ended up using most of it to achieve simple containment measures you could replicate using spells and a mere fraction the cost in energy.
Given that this kid clearly wasn't a sanctum student, he'd wager he was self-taught, which was... rare.
Stupidly rare in fact, just like young girls who could apparently travel the multiverse and monsters who could outright nullify his magic.
Stephen's bullshit senses were tingling, but he shoved the feeling down for the moment and tried to get his priorities straight.
This mess needed to be dealt with and it needed to be dealt with stat.
"Good effort, kid. You've got talent." The boy perked right up at that. Kids, honestly. "Now, how long can you keep it contain-?"
The dome buckled and it's creator paled, which answered Stephen's question well enough.
Typical
"Uhh...Apparently not as long as I expect- move!"
The dome shattered and Stephen was already diving even as Arcane jumped up... and continued rising in a display of what appeared to be genuine, self-powered flight.
Because of course he could fly. why wouldn't he be able to accomplish what Stephen needed an ancient artifact of incapable value to achieve?
Right, priorities.
Away!
The cloak of levitation respond to his will and sent him rocketing up.
The fight was on, and seeing as he had back up, however unknown, he could afford to stop rationing his strength a little and really let loose.
...
America had somehow managed to dose off for a an indeterminate amount of time, exhausting finally pulling he under, but it's not very long before the chaotic cacophony she was stuck in the middle of woke her right back up again.
She opened her eyes blearily just in time to see Not-Strange effectively backhandthe Tentacle Monster with a wave of orange light, sending it bouncing down the street like a demonic ping pong ball. The sight was so surreal it took her a full twenty seconds just to parse, and just when she did-
"Awesome!"
- a voice came from right besides her and she screamed in startled fright, trying to jump away but abruptly realising that she once again suspended in mid-air and completely incapable of moving.
"What the f-!"
The words die in her throat as the boy steps into her line of sight.
Or floated into her line of sight, actually, violet light wafting off of him as he moved in front of her and paused. The sight of him was so surreal that she just wound up staring up bewildered disbelief.
He was... just a guy. Her age, maybe a couple of years older, with black hair, glowing violet eyes, and wearing a grey hoodie and jeans.
And he was just hanging there without a care in the world.
"Hi!" He grinned "I'm Elias, but you can call me Eli! But, uh, keep that on the down low, alright?"
"...America?"
She wasn't even sure why she said as much, but she'd chalk it up to sheer confusion and leave it at that.
"Cool. Nice name." He flashed her a thumbs up. "Nice to meet you, but let's hold of on other introductions for just a second."
And then he turned around and started yelling at full volume.
"Hey Doctor Strange!" The boy (Eli?) called out to the man currently going head to head with the object of her nightmares, shimmering light and distorted gusts of air being flung every which way as the two of them rampaged up and down the street. "Let America go! I'll catch her and you can kick this Oodaku wannabe's ass!"
Not Strange didn't turn to face them, but there eas a very slight decrease in his flight speed-
And then she was falling.
Crap!
America was stronger and hardier than any human could ever hope to be, and ordinarily a fall from this height wouldn't hurt much, but that didn't mean it was pleasant. She would have tried to deal with it as best as she could, but the ground was rushing up too quickly she was exhausted and sore and her limbs were too slow to break her fall-
"Gotcha!"
- but they didn't have to, because a moment before she hit the ground head first a dome of purple light materialised and she slammed into that instead, only it wasn't solid. It was like being dropped into a bouncy castle, the violet light folding around her and bouncing her back onto solid ground with enough speed to have her tumble and trip over her own feet.
Irritating, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
"Sorry!"
Hands reached under her arms and pulled her up to her feet, the self-introduced Eli looking down at her sheepishly.
"Sorry. I've only just learned how to change the properties of my constructs. It's a work in progress."
He grinned at her, all bright and eager and shining with a low radiance, and she'd had anything even approaching a clear mind she would have thanked him for the help, but that's when the culmination of the last few dats slams into her at once and there was really no helping what came next.
America doubled over and threw up all over his shoes.
...
"Okay. I kinda deserved that."
...
Son of a bitch!
Stephen growled as Tentacle Monster took the nth swipe at him, the injuries he'd just inflicted it doing nothing to hinder it's efforts.
It regenerated almost as quickly as he could cut into it and was resistant enough that he could feel his reserves being bled dry as he struggled to push it back.
What kind of ridiculous hell dimension spawned this thing!?
He'd find a way to track that place down and nuke it if that's what it took to prevent a repeat performance of this fiasco, but for now?
He was done.
Another wave of surging muscle rose towards him and he prepared to defend-
"Nope!"
Only for an ever so familiar shield of purple light to flare into existence ahead of him and save him the trouble of taking the impact.
Good kid. That was the opening he needed.
Pierce
The power he'd held in reserve burst forth, and the resulting spear of light was unavoidable despite the beast's best efforts.
The eye seems to widen a moment before his weapon struck, piercing through the relatively vulnerable ocular tissue and through it's internal organs, and that was just to start with.
Tentacle Monster didn't get another chance to scream before the secondary spell cluster he'd woven into the attack triggered.
Destroy
The condensed energy that had accumulated in the beast exploded, not getting off so much as a twitch of motion before hardened shards of light quite literally shred it from the inside out, flesh and bodily fluids exploding in a wave of gore and organic mists that splattered up and down the street in a macabre display.
Thank god for shield spells, because he hadn't wanted that crap on his anything.
Finally, it was done.
He spent a moment to make sure it wouldn't pull any regenerating shenanigans out of thin air, because with the stuns it had been pulling he refused tot ake any chaces, before he finally turned and-
And-
He actually had to turn back around to muffle his sudden hysterical laughter.
Oh god, that was too good.
The kids had evidently not seen that last part coming, because they'd been drenched from head to toe in god knows what, clothes dripping and reeking and faces sporting shell shocked expressions of horror and shock, like veteran soldiers returned from a war.
That wasn't what had him nearly in tears from laughter.
No, that would be the third individual who had evidently just portaled in and hadn't been any more prepared than the kids were.
Slowly, after making sure to school his features and standing with careful dignity, Stephen turned and bowed at the hip for the first time in six months.
"Sorceror Supreme, Sir."
Wong, splattered and covered in blood and gore, glared at him with an expression of unholy fury.
"Strange"
He couldn't help it. He just couldn't.
Stephen managed to hold out for another five seconds before collapsing into gales of demented laughter.
...
Half a country away, red eyes snapped open as the Scarlet Witch awoke.
"Fine then. The hard way