Okay, so… it's been a while. Two and a half months or so, in fact. Before I get around to everything else, I should note that I split the chapter. Part of it is for practical reasons, as I think it'll work better, and part of it is because writing this chapter was exhausting and difficult. Now, onto why I've been away for so long – not to offer excuses, as you have all very kindly assured me that such excuses/explanations are not necessary in the past, but because this is important context.

A lot has happened in that time: I've got a job as a receptionist/admin person/auxiliary cleaner at a gym (yay!) on a Zero Hours contract with wildly varying shifts that mean I can be waking up at 0500 to get in at 0615 on one day for a morning shift, and leaving at 2245 to get home at 2350 on another. I can have five shifts in one week, and just two in another. This rather disrupts my rhythms for… everything.

I am also undergoing therapy (private, not NHS – NHS mental health is great for under 18s and terrible for everyone else). This probably isn't a surprise, especially considering how much I advocate it in my writing, but… well, the blunt fact is that I've got a proud streak and I hate to admit that I might have something wrong with me and need help.

Basically, my thoughts had been going to some dark places and even while my getting a job helped my mental state considerably, I recognised that my inner demons, while quite helpful in the writing department, were taking a long-term toll on my mental health (especially since my self-worth has been tied to my employment status or lack thereof for a while now), and that I needed to confront my issues. While no official diagnosis has been issued, both Depression and Anxiety have been floated as likely sources. Also, it seems that they go back to probably well before boarding school, which I'd imagined to be their source.

All that and juggling my financial stuff (which I find stressful at the best of times – I hated dealing with money), including sorting out the investment of my belated inheritance from my grandfather's estate… well, that's a problem most people would kill to have, and understandably so. But it, and all of the above, and a variety of other things, have left me exhausted, which didn't help my creative impulses – especially not since this chapter decided to be particularly difficult.

Rest assured, I am fine – more or less. Or perhaps it would be better to say that I am getting better.

SilverLion80: Only time will tell…

Random Norwegian: I couldn't possibly say.

Guest: Actually, it's not. I've never actually seen John Wick, it's just a relatively common turn of phrase. Sorry. Hah! Good guess, but no, definitely not – though I was channelling a bit of Liv when writing her, partly thanks to having recently watched Spider-Verse, and partly thanks to having watched a LOT of WandaVision – Agatha Harkness was played by Liv's voice actress and carries much the same energy about her.

The Bayou is not silent at night, nor is the wood that surrounds it. But for all the sounds of nature, it may as well have been silent, those sounds somehow subdued. There was a sense in the air, that something was coming. No, not coming. Something was here.

Those that might have stopped it were in no position to do so. Enchantments based in cloying candle-smoke had done the wicked work for most, while blunt force trauma and spider bites had only added to the effects. One of them might come to in an hour or so, depending on the strength of the enchantment – for while it was cast with skill, he was rather resistant to such things, his body inevitably returning to its natural, degenerate state. In fact, he and one of the others might come to rather more quickly, owing to a bit of quick thinking.

However, that still wouldn't be quick enough to stop what was coming.

Thankfully, they had back-up.

That is not to say that Carol was entirely pleased when she found out who that back-up was.

"Monica?! What are you doing here?" she demanded, sitting up and finding that not only was she outside, but her head was clearing rapidly.

"Love you too, Carol," the other girl said dryly. "I came all the way out here, to this creepy-ass house in the middle of the swamp to save you, Parker, and your…" She eyed Gambit and Deadpool, the latter of whom was already up, moving, and cleaning his own guts off of his sword. "… friends."

"Thanks, really," Carol said. "But Mon, shit is going down. Serious, serious shit. Also, the hot one is Gambit, the weird one is Deadpool. He's a mercenary."

"You hired him?"

"I was looking for Gambit, he came to kill Gambit, we beat him up, I called grandma, and it turns out that he owes her a favour," Carol said, shrugging. "She called it in, so he's helping out."

"You trust him?" Monica asked.

Carol waggled a hand. "I trust that he knows grandma and that she'll come for him if he tries anything," she said. "Other than that, he's an annoying asshole, but otherwise pretty helpful. Also, I don't think he kills people unless he's being paid for it."

"When I found him, he had a sword – his sword – in his guts and was on his hands and knees and complaining about how he wasn't being spit-roasted the fun way. That is not exactly helpful."

"Well, crazy thing is, I kind of think he did that on purpose," Carol said, looking around.

"On purpose?" Monica echoed sceptically.

"To wake up faster. We were whammied with magic smoke, I blocked the door open to try and let it out and wake us up faster –"

"It was kinda working," Monica said helpfully.

"– thank you, and he heals super-fast, so he probably figured that the pain would force him awake."

Monica blinked. "The scary thing is, that actually makes sense," she said, then shook her head. "You know the weirdest people, Danvers."

Carol flipped a hand. "He barely even counts as an acquaintance," she said dismissively.

"And yet you aren't fazed by any of his weirdness."

Carol grimaced. "Well, I… look, he'll probably play it straight, but keep an eye on him and whatever you do, don't ask him to take off his mask," she said.

"Why, he's got some kind of Medusa stare?"

"No, it's just disgusting."

"That bad?"

"I've met actual zombies who don't look that bad."

"Gross."

"Definitely. Anyway, where's Peter?"

"Yeah, about that," Monica said, wincing. "It's… honestly, it's better if you just see for yourself."

A sick feeling gathered in the pit of Carol's stomach. "He's okay, right?" she asked urgently.

Monica just pointed at the roof of the veranda. Carol looked up, dreading what she might see. What she saw was, in fact, not what she had feared, hoped, or even expected. She stared. Several long moments passed. Eventually, in the flattest tones imaginable, she spoke.

"Monica."

"Yeah?

"What the actual fuck am I looking at?"

What she was looking at was a figure of shadows and moonlight with gleaming red-tinted eyes, pointed canines, and taloned fingers. It clung impossibly to the ceiling, a perfect vantage point from which to pounce and rend the flesh of its prey. Said figure could have been quite intimidating, even by Carol's jaded standards, if those gleaming eyes hadn't been very wide and extremely frightened.

It squirmed under her regard (a strange thing to witness in something upside-down), coughed and said, in a small, apologetic, and rather nervous voice, "Um. Me?"

Peter Parker was many things, but intimidating was not one of them.

"Peter, how the fuck are you doing that?" Carol demanded, tempered relief washing over her. "And why the fuck do you look like…"

"A vampire?" he asked nervously.

"He's not one," Monica said helpfully.

"Okay, let me guess," Carol said. "You thought you might be one, like you regressed or something, and jumped in the air to try and get away from us, and you got stuck on the ceiling, and now you won't come down."

"Pretty much," Peter said.

"We did a couple of tests with a mirror and some candles. He appeared in the mirror and didn't catch fire when the candle touched his hair," Monica said. "He didn't believe us."

"I don't want to take any chances," Peter said defensively.

Carol sighed. "There's one way to prove it, one way or the other," she said, then turned to the door. "Seriously? It's still stuck there?"

"It was pretty damn wedged," Monica pointed out. "Plus, the only other possibly super strong person is stuck to the ceiling and the only other option to get it out involves blowing up the door. Hard pass."

"Fair point," Carol conceded, wrenching it free. "Okay, hold still."

A pair of red eyes went very wide.

"Oh man oh man oh man, you're gonna use the shield because it's magical, no it's holy, it's holy-magical and it's –"

"Peter."

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"But – hey!"

There was a loud thunk as Carol ignored the protest and jabbed the shield into Peter's exposed forehead.

"Ow!" Peter whined.

"Any burning sensation?"

"No, but that hurt."

"Is it burning hurt?"

"No, it's I-got-smacked-in-the-head-by-a-metal-shield hurt," Peter snapped.

"Then you're not a vampire," Carol said. "You're welcome. Now get down from there and stop your damn whining."

"Okay," Monica said, drawing out the word. "I'm confused."

"You ever heard about the scar he's got on his chest?" Carol asked, as Peter began experimenting with letting himself down.

"Yeah," Monica said. "Wait… your shield did that?!"

"He was part vampire and it's enchanted by Odin," Carol said matter-of-factly, as Peter pulled his right foot loose. "Turns out there's an upside to having a shield blessed by a god."

"A shield that is a lot more than just a shield," Monica observed.

"Which you did something to," Carol said. In the background, there was a crunching noise as Peter managed to remove his left hand, and took a chunk of the ceiling with him.

"Yeah, we don't have time for that story, especially since I'm not all that sure about it myself," Monica said, ignoring the furious hand-wiggling above her, and pulled out a silver ball. "I got the Cliff Notes summary, for all of us."

Before Carol could respond, she lobbed the ball underhand into the air, where it stuck, and began to spin, glowing brighter and brighter, before flaring. As the light faded, a silvery-blue life-sized figure remained.

"You," Carol growled.

"Me," Doctor Strange said pleasantly. "Or rather, not me. This is… well. You're a Star Wars fan."

"You're a Force Ghost? I'd have thought you'd have to actually die for that."

"Not a bad comparison, though I was going for a Holocron," Strange's projection said. "It's a short-term imprint of my spirit on an enchanted object. Think of it as a sentient recording – or possibly a temporary ghost."

"I'm figured you knew each other," Monica said. "He mentioned the whole 'fate is a jackass' thing as proof he knew you. You call him that often?"

"Actually, that would be the first time," Carol said. "Though the sentiment isn't exactly new." She shook her head. "He knows stuff, it's what he does. It's also part of what makes him so useful and so incredibly fucking irritating."

"Huh," Monica said. Peter was now dangling from the ceiling by one foot head downwards and staring at the projection with wide eyes. "That'd be how he knew I'd steal a bike if he gave me a map and a message, I'm guessing?"

"It is," the projection said. "Now, the summary: you're on your own."

"Oh, I hadn't guessed," Carol said, before blinking at the projection's glare. "Okay, fine, no interruptions."

The projection sighed. "Trust me, Carol, I'm rather short on options at the moment," it said.

"Oh, hey! It's the Doctor!" Deadpool said cheerfully, arriving with Gambit to investigate this new and interesting sight. In the background, a loud crash signified Peter finally detaching himself.

"For example."

"… fair point," Carol said. "Seriously, no one?"

"Very few people of sufficient power to make a difference could approach unnoticed," the projection said. "Of those who are –"

"We're on the clock, Strange. Or whatever you are."

"When this activated, time was slowed within a fifty-foot radius. It'll wear off relatively soon, but I have time for a few answers," the projection said. "Besides, you deserve them."

Carol blinked, taken aback. "Thanks?"

The projection nodded.

"Wanda and Albus are occupied, with Harry," it said. "Given that Hermione has been possessed and her x-gene activated by a god-eating horror, they are, in fact, very occupied. Loki is busy playing cat-and-mouse with a Great Captain. While I could get his attention, that would almost certainly get him killed, and I'd rather avoid that. I – or rather, the real Stephen Strange – am occupied dealing with the fact that Harry and Hermione's troubles are being used as a distraction, by Voldemort, to get into the Department of Mysteries, and fixing the messes he's made, both accidentally and on purpose. Though not all of it is his work, I must say…"

"Maddie an' Jean?" Gambit suggested.

"Jean-Paul?" Carol threw in.

"Limited by travel speed, and a back-up plan for evacuating the city, respectively," the projection said. It shook its intangible head, and continued, tone clipped.

"You were chosen partly because of circumstance, partly because you have the capacity to be a threat, but power levels sufficient to pass unnoticed," it said. "Your enemy believes you are defeated, but she is watchful for others. She has the power of the Green Lantern at her command, and particular skill with which to use it."

"She ain't just some over-ambitious witch, is she?" Gambit said grimly.

"Her true name is Nimue. She is a High Priestess of Avalon, and a particular servant of the Triple Goddess, with the associated additional ties to Faerie and to Hecate," the projection said. "She was not Merlin's apprentice, and she did not imprison him. Rather, she was his elder and his enemy, and of all his enemies, none came closer to truly killing him. Repeatedly. He was still young when they finally fought, but he was still Merlin, and he hit her with a thunderstorm that would impress Thor himself. He turned her to ash and thought her destroyed."

There was a long pause.

"So, that's a no to the 'just some over-ambitious witch' thing, then."

"It is," the projection said. "Nimue never lacked ambition, and she has a streak of arrogance a mile wide. But she is also not to be taken lightly. Of all the people who fought Merlin, only she survived on her own terms."

"As a pile of ash?" Peter asked dubiously, from the ceiling.

"As a spirit, healing under the Earth," the projection corrected. "Though her body was destroyed, a High Priestess of the Old Religion is not so easily slain, not on her own ground. She re-emerged from centuries of dormancy in the 1970s, shaken loose by some unwise investigations of the Isle of the Blessed by Project Pegasus. She was unfinished, awoken abruptly, and thus denied her full powers. She inveigled herself into Pegasus to get them back."

"She survived a Thor-sized thunderstorm," Carol said. "Just for clarification."

"At the height of her powers, yes, and she was greatly reduced afterwards."

"She has the Green Lantern Ring, which I'm guessing more than makes up for her being 'reduced'."

"Yes."

"And you expect us to kill her?" Carol exploded. "Are you out of your intangible mind?! Why not just get Merlin?"

"If I did, I would be out of my mind," the projection said flatly. "Though I doubt you'd really notice the difference. As it happens, I don't expect you to kill her, and Merlin is not an option. Not unless you want to sink the entire Mississipi Basin into the ocean, thereby splitting the continent in half, killing tens of millions of people and, separately, breaking open the most hardcore magical prison on the planet, the defence mechanism of which would obliterate most of the Great Lakes Region and more or less anyone else left within a fifty-mile radius."

Carol grimaced. "Fine. What do you expect us to do?"

"Be yourselves," the projection said unhelpfully. "You can't meet power with power, not against Nimue with the Ring, or with the powers she can access at Pegasus. Even if you disarmed her and she 'only' had her previous full powers restored, you would be ill-advised to try and overpower her. Her native magical strength is equivalent to my own, and while she lacks my experience, so does everyone. However, you do have options available. The Ring is only answering to her because she is bending it to her will – break her focus and it will abandon her. To do that, you will need to get close."

"I've used that thing to punt the Omega class avatar of an Elder God across a city when I was using it in the equivalent of training wheels mode," Carol said. "It also drastically expands your senses, which in the hands of someone who actually knows how to use it, leaves us kind of screwed."

"If you were beings of great power looking to simply force a direct confrontation, yes," Strange's projection said. "But you're thinking of this in the wrong way." It smiled. "At your disposal, you have the greatest thief in the world, a young woman who, as she will explain, is a human lockpick among many other things, a young genius with a knack for electronics, and a lunatic who just so happens to be one of the greatest mercenaries in the world. All with power levels perfect to slip under the radar."

"Can I put you down as a reference?" Deadpool piped up, and was ignored.

"Wait," Gambit said slowly, a smile spreading over his face as he caught on. "This ain't a fight, all gun's blazin'… it's a heist."

"In a mostly abandoned extremely creepy magic-super-soldier-thingy base full of monsters and freaky plants and freaky plant monsters and a crazy ancient undead witch with a super powerful magic ring?" Peter rattled off, once again apparently demonstrating that he didn't need to breathe. He'd managed to get to his feet and was examining his hands uneasily.

Carol eyed him. "More or less," she said. "Which means it can't possibly go wrong."

"Your sarcasm is not reassuring, Danvers."

"I wasn't trying," Carol said. "I'm guessing, then, that I'm either the muscle or the distraction."

"You can be both," the projection said. "Though you sell yourself short; you are a gifted strategist, and those skills will be needed. No, your role will be different, and you are perfectly suited for it."

Before Carol could demand a straight answer to what the hell he was getting at, it pointed at the shield, smirked, and said one word.

"Shazam."

OoOoO

"Well? It's all done."

Nimue turned to face the speaker. It was not a whirl. It was not even quick. It was a slow turn, one perfectly designed to carry an unmistakeable undertone of menace, irritation, and you-should-not-take-that-tone-with-me-if-you-want-to-avoid-your-insides-becoming-your-outsides, and coupled with a glare from eyes like chips of blue ice.

Really, it's amazing how much you can say with body language.

Certainly, it was said clearly enough that the speaker cringed, impatience and petulance vanishing in an instant. He might have vast ambition, a raging inferiority complex, and the general demeanour of a cockroach, but Jason Woodrue was far from stupid. Cockroaches, after all, tended to survive.

"Really," she said. "Is it? Or are we likely to have someone else put two and two together to make four and follow the trail your thugs left back to here?"

"They were children –" Woodrue protested.

"Two were children, and two were grown men," Nimue snapped. "And in my day, even the youngest of them would have been old enough to see battle, which the girl most definitely had. All of them were superhuman in some fashion or another, two were super soldiers, and one of those super soldiers was themercenary that you assured me would solve our Gambit problem. Since he turned up with Gambit, that was quite clearly not the case."

She glared at him as he shrivelled before her wrath, her shadow stretching long in the harsh brightness of the floodlit clearing.

"You are lucky, Woodrue, very, very lucky that they came to me to answer their questions. I subdued them, but the fact remains that they knew exactly where you were going," she hissed. "Even if they didn't tell anyone – which I severely doubt, since the girl's grandmother is Alison Carter herself – the fact remains that they worked it out. And if they did, others will too. As it was, I was forced to reveal myself to prevent decades of plans from being completely upended. And all of this is thanks to your incompetence, you pathetic halfwit!"

She advanced on him, backing him up against the ruins of lab equipment.

"I took you under my wing, everything worthwhile that you know is thanks to me, and yet outside of a lab, you can't even manage to perform the simplest of tasks without my help," she snarled. "Remind me, Jason: why do I bother with you?"

Woodrue swallowed, before drawing himself up, stiffening his spine and doing his best to loom over her. Considering that he knew exactly who he was staring down, this was no small thing.

"You need me," he said. "You've been lurking out here for twenty years, Nimue. Twenty. Years. You might have been hot shit back in the old days, but whatever big plans you had for this place went down in flames decades ago. Until I turned up, you weren't much more than a half-baked old witch, foraging on the edge of the exclusion zone. You taught me a few tricks, but it's my drugs, my contacts, and my men who got us here. Where you are? It's thanks to me. You owe me."

The words echoed into the silence.

"You're right," Nimue said. "I do owe you, Jason. All of this… it wouldn't be possible without you. I'd forgotten that." She looked him in the eye, and nodded slowly. "Yes… I'd forgotten how useful you have been. How valuable you could be."

Her gaze shifted over to the two-dozen strong group of Woodrue's most hardened and lucid men, the very best, the ones he'd held back. While Gambit was a challenge, and the LeBeau and Boudreaux families were another, they were nothing – nothing – on what was inside Pegasus. They were mostly ex-military, with a few ex-HYDRA-via-SHIELD and heavily armed, with everything from assault rifles and grenades to axes and flamethrowers.

They were also heavily enhanced. While they didn't have the finesse or stamina of the likes of Captain America or the Winter Soldier, for as long as their comparatively quick and dirty enhancements lasted, they were roughly as strong and as fast. They'd demonstrated that on several occasions while getting here, surviving where their less able and fortunate comrades hadn't, and most recently by setting up equipment at this little floodlit basecamp outside the mossy and overgrown gates of Pegasus itself, including several large boxes of scavenged materials.

Most importantly, thanks to a little bio-chemical and alchemical tinkering, they were obedient. It dulled their thinking somewhat, which might have contributed to the mortality rate, but Nimue wasn't especially bothered by that. For starters, she had never seen much value in the thinking ability of mortal soldiers, or indeed, of soldiers in general – like all servants, mystical or mundane, real or conjured, they were there to take commands, and execute them efficiently.

Still. Everything could be improved.

She gestured at several of the boxes, turning them to splinters with a mere thought. Their contents, several hardened glass tubes, fell to the ground with a ringing clatter. Woodrue stared at the tubes with bafflement and sudden, rising fear as he identified their contents.

"Nimue," he began. "What –"

Nimue smiled and without looking away from him, flicked a finger. The glass, designed to resist bullets and acid, shattered. At another flick of her fingers, the contents pooled, then surged forward towards the assault team. While their thinking was dulled, that only went so far.

Screams shattered the night, screams that would have drawn predators from throughout the exclusion zone, if not for their brevity, drowned out into helpless gurgles like an animal in tar-pit. And then, silence once more claimed the night, disrupted only by the buzzing of the electric lights, the creaks and groans of trees in the wind, the distant sounds of night-birds, and the rapid, terrified breathing of Jason Woodrue.

"Look, Nimue, what I said before –"

"You were right to say it, Jason," she said, tone reassuring, smile kind and utterly sincere. "I wouldn't be here without you. Your muscle power, and your men, and not least your ambition, they've helped so much."

She raised a hand, cutting him off.

"I know. You only did it because you wanted power," she said. "Reflected glory, at first, then to take it wholesale once you'd milked me for everything I knew."

"Nimue, please," Woodrue began, pleading, backing away. He didn't get far.

"You were so blinded by your ambition that you forgot who I am," Nimue continued calmly, kneeling down as he squirmed against his restraints. "You knew my name, but you only saw, what was it? Oh yes: 'a half-baked old witch'. I don't blame you for that, Jason. I really don't. You didn't see me, because you weren't meant to. But now…"

She raised her right hand, the Ring glowing a bright gold-rimmed green as the wind picked up, and rested it on his forehead in benediction.

"… let me show you."

This time, the screams went on for a good deal longer. Soon, though, they faded. And all that could be heard was the sounds of the trees in the wind.

OoOoO

To say that Peter was having a strange night would be drastically understating it. He'd been teleported into the room of a girl who genuinely scared him, by a magic ring that seemed to want something from her, and which she refused to put on. Him too, for some reason. He still wasn't clear about why, though Carol's guess that it involved their encounters with Harry Thorson's magic blood made as much sense as most things magic-related did.

Then they sort of used the ring to find a friend of Carol's who he'd met before called Gambit who was actually some kind Cajun ninja-thief-lord who'd been attacked by minions of some magic drug lord who were actually on super soldier 'roids (and that had some very interesting bio-chemical roots, even if you ignored the weird magic stuff). That fight was kind of brutal. Then they'd been attacked by a crazy mercenary called Deadpool with super-healing powers, Gambit had blown him up with Carol's shield, and he'd teamed up with them after Carol's grandma had had a word with them.

Then they'd gone to talk to this cool middle-aged lady who knew stuff, who wasn't actually all that cool but was actually a literal wicked witch who'd drugged them all. He'd thrown a chair at her, she'd thrown him into a giant tub of spiders (and he'd been bitten, and that had hurt), and Carol had thrown her shield at the door to keep it open.

After that, he'd thought he'd turned back into a vampire and jumped onto the ceiling and got stuck (until Carol had proved he wasn't a vampire by smacking him with her weird shield – again) and Monica had turned up with Obi-Wan style instructions from a guy who was kind of like Obi-Wan except weirder and super scary (Carol definitely didn't totally trust him), and they were all on their own, and then he'd said, "Shazam" and Carol's shield had done… well, sort of what it did when Monica had touched it back in the hotel.

Except then, Monica's hands had glowed, it had glowed, and turned into a gauntlet attached to a slightly thinner shield, and Carol had gone all weird and freaked out. Then, she'd glared at it, and it had turned back, said something about a long conversation with Monica (who also looked freaked out), and left.

Now? It had gone a bit differently.

If Peter was grandiose, he'd have said that it was something that would live long in the memory of everyone present, that historians would reflect that it was a milestone in the age of the superhero, perhaps the standout moment in a night that contained many beginnings. It wouldn't be entirely without reason, either – it was quite significant. Also, historians often say things like that. Or they do if they want to get talk-show appearances and book contracts.

However, there was one opinion that Peter would share with even the most serious and academically inclined historians, writers of dry as dust accounts that focused on the most technical of analysis. That opinion was formed in response to four simple words:

"I understood that reference!"

It was a truth held self-evident by all that Deadpool ruined everything.

In any case, the shield had immediately reformed on her body like a nanotech battle-suit, covering her from head to toe, the way some of the tech blogs were saying that Mr Stark was planning with his new Iron Man suits. Except it wasn't exactly tech, because it was a magic shield. At the same time, though it wasn't exactly not tech either, because it was Asgardian, and Asgardian stuff was a mixture – sort of magi-tech.

Gambit had let out a long, low whistle. "Now that, cherie, is a dress t' go dancin' in," he said.

"Damn," Monica had breathed. "What else can that thing do?"

Carol, head encased in a red metallic red helm with a sharp nose and white eyes, had looked down at it, taking it all in (and there was a lot to take in). It was moulded to her like tailored sports gear, or one of Captain America's or Black Widow's tactical suits, and most of it was navy blue, except for the gold-lined red boots, gauntlet-gloves, belt, and shoulders and upper torso, with a gold band between red and blue and a golden star in the middle of her chest.

Peter had stared at the latter for ten seconds, trying to work out how the shield mapped onto the body in deployment, before he'd got a 'move your eyes or die' look from Carol (even through the armour) and he realised that he was kind of staring at her boobs.

"Sorry," he had said. "So, so sorry, I was just trying to figure out how the shield transformation worked and –"

She folded her arms, the material flexing like cloth but meeting with a metallic clink, and stared at him for a moment. "Ya know, from almost anyone else, that would've just been a lame excuse," she'd said, voice carrying a metallic burr (a side-effect of the transmission system? Her mouth was covered, but her voice wasn't muffled). "You? I can actually believe it."

"Um. Thank you?"

She'd continued staring at him for a second, then, slowly, the helm folded down, revealing her compressed hair and a wry smile. "Don't worry about it," she'd said, before looking back down at herself, expression half awed, half troubled. "What can it do? I'm guessing a lot." She'd eyed Weirdy Wan. "And I'm guessing that you know. What the hell is this, and what the hell did you do? Cliff notes version."

"I've shown you part – a very, very small part – of what it can do, in a way that, unlike earlier, you couldn't simply set aside," Weirdy Wan had said. "You can't afford to ignore this, or just pretend that this weapon is 'just' a magic shield."

"Then what is it?"

"The full explanation would take far more time than we have now," Weirdy Wan had said. "The very short version is that as Mjolnir is not just a hammer, this shield is more than just a shield. When you command, it obeys. It absorbs power at your will, and as it does, that power becomes your power. Since it is without an inherent charge, it is perfect for going unnoticed until you're ready. Since it is made of the same metal as Mjolnir, it is quite useful even as it is."

Then, he had smiled. It was a smile that Peter had noted, because it made Carol's eye twitch.

"Any further questions?"

"Yeah," Monica had said, frowning. "How do you know about me? What can I do?"

"I make a policy of knowing things," Weirdy Wan replied. "In your case, however, I had particular reason. The answer will have to wait. The short version is that you see yours as simply a means of unlocking doors. That is correct, but far broader than you might think – something you probably noticed when you 'unlocked' Miss Danvers' artefact. I realised that somewhat earlier, and so did others. For the answer to who, ask Harry Thorson. Ask him to think about where he's heard your name before."

"That is avoiding a lot of questions."

"He does that," Carol had said tiredly. "Trust me, it gets old, fast. Stop dancing, Strange, or whatever you are, and answer the question, the basics at least."

Weirdy Wan considered this for a second. "Open your mind," he said.

Then, he had vanished. Needless to say, that had not gone down very well. For starters, Carol's eye had started twitching again.

However, there had been no alternatives, so instead, they had set about following the directions given by what was now a glowing compass. As the dirt had turned to mud and mud to water, the compass leading them into the swamp, they had found a very old looking boat with the chipped remains of a SHIELD logo on it.

On the one hand, this had meant that the engine wasn't working.

On the other hand, it turned out that with some creativity, that didn't actually matter. Gambit could charge matter. Usually, that charge was limited by the capacity of the object being charged. Carol's shield-armour-thing, however, had capacity. It had capacity like you wouldn't believe. It also had the ability to redirect energy, which was why Carol was sitting at the back, her hands together and pointed out behind the boat, unleashing a constant jet of purple-white energy with a subdued humming roar.

Meanwhile, Gambit was sitting next to her, eyes front, one glowing hand on her shoulder, constantly feeding her power. As for the other two, Monica was on the wheel, and Deadpool, for once looking absolutely serious (or, you know, as serious as you could look in a black and red SHIELD knock-off), had an assault rifle in his hands ready to fire at any threats.

As for Peter? He was the scout.

That, Peter reflected, was how he'd ended up swinging through the trees like Tarzan, flying from branch to branch with instinctive grace sharpened night vision helped by bits of eerily glowing fungus as he picked out pathway after pathway through the winding water-ways.

At first, it had been terrifying, but it had quickly become exhilarating, his muscles singing with the kind of power that surpassed even what he'd had as a vampire. Not only that, but it felt more natural. The more vampiric he'd become, the hollower he'd felt; dried, dehydrated, and hungry. This? This felt alive.

Suddenly, Peter froze. Something was moving up ahead. He waved frantically down at the others, and they throttled back as far as they could, turning to brake – and bouncing off a few tree roots in the process. This gave Peter time to do the same, albeit rather more gracefully, landing on the deck with a muted thump.

"Bad guys," he said. "We're nearly there, and there's bad guys waiting."

"How many, and how bad?" Carol asked in a clipped tone.

"Three, and, uh, very."

Several minutes of charging Carol's shield-armour as far as Gambit was willing to let it go, and several minutes more cautious advance later, no one could find it in themselves to disagree with this assessment.

Each of the three was different.

One was shaped like a boar, but vast, eight feet tall at the shoulder, four feet across at the shoulders, fifteen feet long, thick with muscle, and with dark russet red against which stood yellowish-white tusks like broadswords.

Another was like either a very large crocodile, or a relatively small dragon – if small was an appropriate adjective for something as long as subway car, nearly as broad, and two-thirds as tall, with mottled dark green skin.

The third, though, bore most watching. Smaller than the others, it was seven feet tall, and roughly human shaped, hunched across its broad shoulders like a great ape. It had long, powerful arms, designed to swing through canopies or wring necks with equal ease, arms that ended in clawed fingers, as long and sharp as combat knives. It was as black as shadows, something that contrasted with an over-stretched mouthful of needle like fangs, through which wriggled a dribbling, serpentine tongue.

However, what was most disquieting was not its humanoid appearance, or any of its most obvious features – not even the swirling, restless skin, with the texture and reflectiveness of an oil slick. It was the eyes, the solid, jagged edged demonic white eyes, full of directionless, predatory hunger. Oh, it shared those eyes with its companions, to be sure, along with the skin, they hinted at what their shapes belied, their shared creation. But in this creature's eyes, there was one thing that the other two lacked: intelligence.

"Okay," Carol murmured. "Heist means guard dogs. Big, mean ones. Any way around?"

Peter shook his head. He'd looked.

"Nope," Gambit confirmed. "Pegasus was sealed up tight, an' I figure there's only one entrance. No point makin' more." He rubbed his jaw. "Big and mean rarely means smart," he said. "'cept maybe for the small one. Still, I don' think these are trained for de job. An' I reckon they ain't being monitored."

"Right," Carol said. "Should be easy to distract. On the one hand, any distraction that lasts on something that big means maybe no element of surprise. On the other hand, if they eat us alive, that'll be a bit too surprising."

"I'm going for the not eaten plan," Monica mumbled, eyes wide.

"Me too," Carol said. She glanced at Deadpool. "Grenades?"

Deadpool reached down into his suit and pulled out something small, dark and deadly. "And a launcher," he said, thankfully keeping his voice low. "It's a big hit on black ops missions and at children's birthday parties."

Carol eyed him, then shook her head.

"Gambit, Peter, Monica, get us inside," she said. "Me and Deadpool will distract the Three Stooges in the meantime, wait until we're engaged to do it. One of 'em, probably the one that still looks like a person, might break off. If it does…" She hesitated, looking between Peter and Gambit, weighing it up. "Peter. You've got speed, strength, and reflexes. Remember the vampires on Halloween? Treat it like one of them, stay clear, stay on your toes, and be ready for anything."

Peter, face paler even than before, nodded.

"Monica, you and Pete are with Gambit, and you do whatever he says, when he says it, no questions," Carol continued. "It could save your life." She glanced at Gambit. "You know your job better than anyone, but my advice? Let the distraction set in first."

Gambit flickered a smile, but nodded.

She ran her gaze over all of them, expression absolutely serious.

"This is for real," she said quietly. "We do this quick, and we get it right, because for now, we're on our own."

Her helm folded over, covering her face entirely, as she clenched her now glowing fists and the eyes of her suit burned like stars.

"Now let's go stop this crazy bitch."

Well, there you have it. Honestly, I think it works out a bit better this way, not having to lead up with all the explanations in the last chapter and letting it stand on its own. Serendipity, I guess. Or enforced better pacing.

Also, if you are feeling low, if you feel like there's something more to it (and think hard, don't try to convince yourself otherwise), then call someone. There are mental health helplines by the dozen, all over the world, which I would link if FFN allowed such things. I beg you to get help, you won't regret it. In my experience, the hardest thing is admitting you need it. It gets easier from there. Not easy, by any means, but easier.