Author's Note: So, sorry for the wait. This chapter was originally closing in on eleven thousand words and I ended up finding a place to chop it in half. I think that it will still work pretty effectively where I cut it at and it was just too long to even look right next to the other things next chapter, of five to seven thousand words should be posted tomorrow.

The study door inched open with a loud creak, mana lantern light from the hallway spilled through the cracked door and across the floor almost making its way to Roswaal's desk. By the time that Ram had stepped onto the plush carpet the Margrave was already turning to face her.

Even through the shadow she could see a subtle hint of his his smile, the way the corners of his mouth lifted and his yellow eye twinkled. Even though he wasn't looking at her yet. Ram shut the door behind her back with both hands, leaning her weight onto it for a moment. The mechanism clicking into the wall seemed to echo through the halls, disrupting the still air. The moon was absent from the sky and the only light that trickled in through the windows behind the Margrave came from the stars.

Ram watched him, sitting at his desk with his legs cross and his body turned toward her now, but his eyes were still locked on the black leather bound book that he was reading. Her gripped the wooden door frame for several seconds before she decided to step forward and say something.

"Ram," Roswaal said in that subdued way he had of speaking at times. He closed to book, with his thumb jammed between its pages to hold his place and held the smile as locked eyes with her. "I guess I did leave you here alone, it's been some time since I could attend to you," he said.

Roswaal placed the book on his desk and motioned for her, patting the cover with a kind of reverence. He lifted his hand and motioned for her to come over. Then he patted his thigh. Ram moved across the room quietly and took her seat in his lap, curling up to rest her head against Roswaal's chest.

She let her ear flatten against the warmth of his chest, listened to the thud of his heard muffled under the layers of fabric, skin, and bone.

He reached up, brushing the bangs back from her forehead. His fingers barely grazed her skin. "In a few days everything will begin in earnest," Roswaal said in the same quiet tone.

"I know." Ram answered.

His other arm curled around, catching her at the waist but leaving her arms free. The hand that was still on her forehead, the hand that he had raised up to brush her bangs away, moved with a deliberate familiarity across her skin until it fount the spot in the center.

The place where her horn had once been.

As his finger circled the spot, it began to glow and Ram stirred, but didn't dare lift her head.

"In the meantime we must be sure that everything is ready," Roswaal said.

A breakfast made by Rem, Steve practicing throughout the morning with Wilhelm to perfect his use of the sword in conjunction with the shield he now carries, and many of the others dig through old tomes and ancient texts to find anything at all that they can about the White Whale.

Though Peter's reading isn't the best yet, he can still look over what they find and compare it to the things that they have seen elsewhere. Some of the information seems to have no basis in anything else that they see and most often that stuff is treated as questionable at best. Other than the fog accompanying the creature having strange abilities, one of the things that keeps coming up is that magic seems to have a lessened effect on the Whale.

Peter takes that into account and tries to figure out what could make magic work differently on something. He remembered back when they fought Elsa her cloak had done something to the spells sent at her. Though, in that case she had to discard the cloak after the fact. Surely, the Whale couldn't just shed its skin.

Could it.

A lot of the other stuff didn't make sense to Peter, like how these people even knew what a whale is. They don't have oceans or as far as Peter could tell large bodies of water. He didn't really think it would be something that he could just ask, it would have been a bit off topic and out of left field for what they were dealing with. Still, he couldn't shake the thought and this, on top of the fact that he was missing Emilia already was weighing on him badly.

When they broke for lunch things were quiet and everyone was in a rush to get back out into the city. Rocket and Kate went back to questioning people in the slums and Peter made his way back to the labs to look over something that he was trying to get perfect before they actually needed it.

That's when he came across him.

"Oh hey, you're that Spider-Person from Vimeo." Wade Wilson had let himself into the room that Peter had been using as a lab was going through everything that he found, haphazardly picking up and moving bottles and materials around. He was standing near a table filled with hollowed out wooden tubes. The hole bored through the tubs was wide and uniform enough that a large cable could pass through it, but that wasn't what Peter wanted to fire out of there.

"You're Wade, right?" Peter said. Wade was still wearing the red and black mask over his face and he still have the pair of katana on his back and the gun on his hip, though Peter wasn't sure why he had been carrying a weapon that couldn't have had more than a few bullets that were basically irreplaceable in it.

When Wade picked up one of the long sticks off of the table to look it over, Peter waved his hands frantically out in front of himself. "Wait, wait, wait. Don't touch that," Peter said.

"Oh, is this one of those large pixie sticks? Trying to keep it all to yourself? I see how it is," Wade said. He didn't move to put the stick down and instead brought it up to his eye to peer through the hole at the end.

"That is the most generous reading I can think of for "what is he doing with these tubes," Wade added. "I hope you're not planning to…oh no…"

Peter snatched the tube away from Wade and turned it over in his hands to examine it before he placed it back on the table. "These are part of something I think might help us on against the whale."

"What are we going to put through these tubes that will help against the White Whale. Please don't say our dicks," Wade said.

"What? No," Peter said, sucking on his tongue so that there was a small click. "These are for web. Like, I was thinking that if a little bit of my web can hold my weight that enough of the web fired through these tubes from different angles might be able to tow the White Whale to the ground."

"Hmm, yeah, yeah. I like where this is going—we could have that Trash Panda Guy rig up some harpoon guns and turn this into a proper whale hunt. Maybe I could get under a bell and…"

"Get under a bell? Why?" Peter asked.

"I don't really know, I saw it in Assassin's Creed 4."

Peter stared at Wade wide eyed. "I never played those games?"

"You never played Assassin's Creed? And you call yourself a gamer?"

"I didn't say that, but yeah I played games."

"Like what, Fortnite or some live service trash?" Wade asked. "You weren't there for the good ol' days, kid. I had to walk fifteen miles to the Walmart and rip hints out of a Tips and Tricks magazine just to figure out how to get Simon Belmont to use that red orb to make a little tornado."

"It sounds like you're doing a bit," Peter said. "Your voice changed and are you looking to that side of the room all the time," Peter pointed off to his right as he spoke. "What's over there?"

"That's where the live studio audience would be."

Peter scrunched his face up in confusion. "I feel like the last several minutes have barely made sense."

Wade slapped his shoulder. "Good talk, Spider-Man. I have to get back out into the city. Got to hit the pavement and find the rest of my crew—I've even chartered us a whaling boat!"

Wade struck off toward the exit of the room and was out down the hall before Peter could really gather his thoughts on the last few things he had said.

"Does he think we're fighting this whale on the water?" Peter wandered out loud. He had been warned about Wade by May and several others, so he assumed that this was one of those things that the warning had been about.

'Wade doesn't take anything seriously and half of what he says is to people who aren't even there—the other half is nonsense' was the gist of what Peter had been told.

Still, the idea about the harpoon was kind of a solid one. Peter didn't know what kind of resistances this creature had, what if for some reason his webs couldn't stick to it?

Wade was right, if there were some harpoons at least the the ready they could get around that issue. Peter would run the idea by Rocket. Realistically, they were kind of taking shots in the dark here. Most of the people who had potentially wounded the White Whale were completely forgotten about or had vanished.

Drawings of the creature that he had found were few and far between. One of the more haunting sketches he had seen, and the one that he trust most, was just a large, bulbous eye shrouded in fog and peering toward the artist.

The look of the whole thing had freaked him out and he had put it away without dwelling on it, but the picture kept popping up in his mind. He got a strong Battle of New York vibe from looking at it. That event was kind of a landmark moment for Earth. That was how the news from the time had framed it, but New Yorkers had a front row seat to the whole thing.

Facing down something even a tenth as bad without most of the Avengers seemed impossible. No Mister Stark, no Hulk, no Black Widow, no Hawkeye…

Really, Peter had all the confidence in the world in Steve. The two of them would figure something out with the others.

They had to, it was all that they could do.

It was already dark when Peter made his way up to the top floor of one of the manor's towers where there was a small space set aside for intimate gatherings. He had spent much of the day brainstorming for what was to come and going over the battle plan in his mind, working out different methods they could use to attack. Some of that even involved going over what he knew of whales in his mind and trying to think of anything that might be of use here.

The door to the rooftop of the tower was cracked, candlelight flickered from inside of the space that it opened into. He stepped through it to find a lavishly decorated room with a plush round carpet laid out over the stonework bricks of the floor. There was a table near the window of the tower that was set with two places. Champagne flutes were out next to plates and silverware all at the ready to be used.

Miss Crusch was in one of the seats, her green hair dropped down around her face to frame her features. She was not wearing the business attire that he knew her to usually be in and it was hard to even tell it was her on some level. If he hadn't know who had summoned him, he might be a little confused.

She wore a black dress with deep diving scoop neck hole that was adorned with lace. There was a pink bow and ribbon running just under her bust line she wore a simple pink cloak over the dress that was tied up at the neck. On the whole this outfit gave her a different look that made her seem very unlike the person that he thought her to be. It might have been offensive to think that a powerful woman couldn't dress in frilly and delicate clothes. There were examples of them all around him here and back on Earth.

Her yellow eyes flicked toward the side of the room where Peter was standing. "Please, have a seat," she said pointing to the chair across from her.

Peter crossed the room and pulled the chair out to sit down. He dropped in to the seat with an awkward look on his face as he examined the room.

"Miss Crusch—I'm not sure that I know, like, what all of this is about?" said Peter.

"Well, for starters myself and some of the others were concerned about how little that you have been eating or even coming out of your room or the workshop," she said. "You have barely taken time to yourself that wasn't spent in study."

Peter nodded. "It's kind of the thing that I do, back home if you give me a problem that needs to be solved and there's research that I can do to figure it out—I'm going to do it."

"Well you're doing it to your own detriment and to mine, if you're too sluggish and tired from not taking care of yourself when the attack comes to help us, it would be better if I hadn't bothered to ask for your help in all of this," Crusch said as she began to pour herself a drink.

She passed the bottle to Peter, who thought about the last time that he had drank anything and the shenanigans that had involved. He started to refuse her, to tell her that he really shouldn't, but the last thing that he wanted to do was show that he was some little kid that wasn't in charge of his own facilities in a moment like this.

"I'm still getting rest and finding time to eat," Peter said.

"That's hardly the truth," Crusch said. He couldn't be sure if this was her Divine Protection or at work or if she was really just reading him without it, but the fact that he thought of it told him that he didn't believe his own words either.

"We just need to have a game plan so that when we can do something, it actually works, you know?" Peter said.

Crusch took another sip from her champagne flute. "I think that you are also in a rush to get back to Miss Emilia."

Peter stared across the table at Miss Crusch. "I guess, like, that is part of it," said Peter as he lowered his head.

"Don't cast your gaze downward," Crusch said, her voice took on the commanding tone that he had heard her use earlier, at the meetings they held and the Royal Selection event. "There is nothing wrong with being inspired by someone that you care about and using that feeling to propel yourself forward," Crusch said.

Peter lifted his head, locking eyes with her now. Her arms were folded across the sheer black dress she wore, despite that she wore the gaze and expression of the Crusch that he had seen at the Royal Selection.

"The sooner that we get this over with the sooner you can go back to Emilia and the safer the whole Kingdom will be," Crusch said, her tone softening. "Those are admirable goals, but let's make sure that we can accomplish them alive first."

Peter finally took a drink from his own glass. "You honestly think that after all of this time we can do it? That we can bring the White Whale down."

"Well, I don't intend to go out there and die," Crusch said. "In the past the Subjugation of the White Whale has been a thing that people have spoken of and even tried. But an operation this large with this many moving parts has never really been attempted for it before. There are three potential rulers working in conjunction, multiple mercenary groups, financiers from all over the Kingdom, plus yourself, Captain Rogers, Sergeants Wilson and Barnes and the Sword Demon himself."

"The Sword Demon…" Peter repeated the moniker out loud, confused. "Who is that?"

"Wilhelm van Astrea," Crusch said. "Do you remember how I mentioned to you that Reinhard can't be allowed to join us in this mission, despite the fact that it would all but assure us victory?"

Peter nodded.

"Reinhard is Wilhelm's grandson, though the Astrea name is not Wilhelm's true last name—he took it when he married," Crusch explained.

"May mentioned that they were related and things were difficult between them, it still seems like a weird reason to turn down his help if it would mean that we could rid this world of the White Whale," said Peter.

"It would also almost certainly be a victory for Felt's Camp and despite her odd promises, I wouldn't want to give her a chance to gain any legitimacy in the eyes of the people. If the Sword Saint is involved in all of this, if Reinhard gets involved, it will shift the focus off of Anastasia, Emilia, and I," Crusch said.

"He's that powerful?" Asked Peter.

"There is a reason why it's illegal for him to freely visit other countries—there is a whole system of precautions and steps that have to be taken just for him to travel. Maybe the Whale will appear inside of our borders. In fact it will for sure given the data, but there are many complications with involving him."

Peter nodded his head in disbelief. "Wow. I mean, that does make sense. He basically blew up that castle courtyard and chased that Inquisitor lady off," said Peter.

"There is something else," Crusch said.

"For a long time, this Kingdom has depended on the Divine Dragon, Volcanica. They have used the dragon's protection as a crutch and hid behind its influence. It's gotten to the point that when the Royal Family died out due to a mysteriously illness any worry about the people who we had lost or if this could spread to the others in the kingdom hardly entered into the conversation. What we were told to worry about most was the Dragon Covenant and preserving it," Crusch said before taking a long drink and pouring herself some more.

"That is what this whole Royal Contest is really about—it's nothing to do with the best woman to run the Kingdom, it's just a way to prolong an archaic rule that has held our Kingdom back since the time of the Witches," Crusch said.

While there was no dragon running around back on Earth, at least not that he knew of, but there were many old traditions and things that held society back in his world.

"What exactly does the dragon do?" Asked Peter.

The door opened to and two nondescript servants entered carrying plates of food. The plates are placed before Crusch and Peter. After a thanks, the two servants make their way out. The food that they have left seems to be a kind of chicken, potatoes, and stalks of some vegetables that look vaguely similar too asparagus.

"In times of dire need, Volcanica is supposed to come to the aid of the country. Farsale Lugnica, the King during the war with the Vollachia Empire made the pact with it to protect the kingdom from any external threat," Crusch explained.

"I'm guessing that the White Whale doesn't count as an external threat," Peter said.

Crusch began to cut into her chicken. "It is rare that the dragon shows itself at all. It did help bring about the end of Satella four centuries ago," she said. "But that was a threat to not only Lugnica, but the whole world."

"Have you met Volcanica…before?" Asked Peter.

"No," she said plainly. "And let's hope that until the day I go to break the Covenant that I never have to. Now then, go ahead and pick up your silverware and eat. It seems that I may have to sit and make sure that you eat to keep your strength up."

Peter thought to argue that he wasn't a child or that he was eating, but he decided to do as he was hold. It did smell really good and, after all, he would have to pick his battles. He didn't have the energy for every fight.

When Rem opened the door to her bedroom it was well after midnight. The exhaustion from the last few days was all over her face, but especially under her eyes where the skin had darkened and puffed up. The moment that she actually saw Steve Rogers standing there though it was like she perked up by a factor of one hundred.

Her blue eyes sparkled and a wide mouthed grin overtook her feature before she opened the door wider and motioned to usher him in.

"Steve, I thought I had been dreaming or hearing things," she said.

"Did I wake you, ma'am?"

Rem fanned her hand back and forth nonchalantly. "It's not a big deal," she said. "Come in."

Steve stepped into the room and he realized something that he hadn't thought about consciously before. There was a smell to the room that was distinctly Rem: a kind of perfume mixed with the fragrant spices from the kitchens with just a hint of something else that he had never noticed before.

Maybe this was a thing with all women, Steve didn't have much experience in that department so he really couldn't be sure. But it was there for Rem now.

In her room he felt more at ease, he felt the stress of figuring out this puzzle of the White Whale fading away.

Rem shut the door behind him and then stepped forward to comb her slender fingers through his beard. Her face went flush with red and she tilted her head.

"I think we're past the point where you should be calling me ma'am, sir," Rem said through a small chuckle.

"Sorry, Rem," Steve corrected himself.

"Was there something you needed?" Rem asked, her hand still on his face.

"This." Then he leaned in and kissed her, pressing Rem against the door. Her lips were soft and parted against his. He didn't know much about Rem, she preferred to steer conversation away from herself, but he knew that she kissed him like one of those dames from the old movies that Nick Fury had suggested that he go back and watch.

She kissed like their world was ending and there was no tomorrow.

And when their lips parted she looked into his eyes in a way that he didn't think anyone ever had. Her hand was poised up next to her face now and for a long time she said nothing, content just to stare into his eyes.

Steve was fine with that.

"And you were the one who came in here calling me ma'am."

"I already apologized for that," Steve said.

"I know," Rem said. "But you can call me ma'am if you like of if you'd prefer something a little more intimate—I may be fine with that."

Ever since the other night Rem had been a little more 'free' around him. This new open relaxed nature just made her more attractive. All it had taken was them kissing for hours on end and well…

"Did you miss me?" Rem asked.

Steve nodded. "I'd say that's a definite yes."

For all of his one hundred year life could comfortably say that he had been nowhere in the vicinity of sex in his dealings with women. Sure, there were the girls who definitely wanted to bed him, but it had never seemed right or fit with what he felt at the time. During the War he knew some of the men had girls in the nearby town they were sweet on. Some of the time they even bragged about what they had gotten up to. Europeans were more liberated, more free when it came to these things. At least that was what they had said. Then Steve got to the twenty-first century and he saw an entirely different side of what free and liberated meant.

He had run across things while on the internet or heard talk around the SHIELD that made him uncomfortable. Some of the boys on the Strike Force joked that Steve Rogers was the only man around who would fall in a barrel of tits and come out sucking his thumb. Having been in the military that kind of talk wasn't uncommon. It didn't get to him. He just hadn't been ready and he knew what he didn't want to do.

Whatever it was that had been different about Rem, he didn't really know. He knew that he liked her and the other night it had come close to being more than just kissing. Really, kissing while almost totally naked was more than kissing.

But there was a nagging feeling that he was reading into something that wasn't that deep, that he was being taken for a fool by one of the women who saw him as a status or even a conquest.

Maybe it was that Steve didn't see Rem as the type to be competitive or chase after something just to increase her on status.

"Did you want to sleep with me tonight?" Rem asked.

Steve's entire body locked up, it was like he had been put back on ice. He couldn't think or see straight for a second. Then she continued to speak.

"I feel like, I missed my Steve shaped pillow." Rem rested her weight against him. There was something else this new dynamic had awakened in her, a little devilishness that he guessed was a little appropriate given her circumstances.

"Have to admit that I sleep better when I'm curled up next to you," he said.

Rem opened her mouth like she was yawning, but it seemed forced. "On one condition, you'll have to carry me to that bed." Rem pointed to her bed at the other end of the room.

Steve, who had no problem with this request, scooped her up into his arms to ferry her over to the bed. He placed her down gently, lowering her upper back and head to the surface first and then the rest of her. Rem lay on the bed, her hands up near the sides of her head in a manner that made her look almost helpless. She gaze up at him through half closed eyes with this kind of hunger behind them.

It was true that one of the many things that Steve did not have a lot of experience with was women, but he recognized this look. He had seen a similar one on Elsa's face a few times now.

Part of him had forgotten the speed with which Rem could move before her hand shot up and she grabbed him at the collar and pulled him down into her. Steve collided with his face nestled against her neck and his legs hanging off of the bed. When Steve spoke, his lips were brushing against her skin.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to be spontaneous and playful," Rem said. "I had heard somewhere, I think from a traveler passing through the mansion, that men like it when you're surprising and spontaneous. I heard it was…sexy."

Steve thought for a long while. He was worried that he was going to say the wrong thing or hurt her feelings, but then he realized that wouldn't be a problem with what he had to say. He lifted his head to look into her eyes, pressing his elbows into the bed at her sides. "If I can say this without sounding too forward, but I think I already find regular Rem sexy. And demon Rem. And highly professional-work Rem."

Rem's face reddened, really her whole face and neck, even her shoulders colored. For several seconds she stared at him. She slapped her hands over her mouth as if trying keep something from slipping out.

"Rem, I'm really sorry—"

"You think I'm sexy?" she asked in a small voice.

Steve stared at her in disbelief. "Yeah, Rem. You're beautiful and…sexy." He crawled up onto the bed more so that he was laying down next to her and looking in her eyes. "So are we ready for bed?" Steve asked.

Rem set up in the bed and as he looked at her he knew for sure she was very sexy to him, but he couldn't really see any one thing that represented all of the sexiness. The shoulder of her night gown had slipped down a bit, not to the point that it was scandalous or anything.

It was enough to get his mind thinking though.

When she had sat there for a while Steve asked, "I thought you missed your Steve shaped pillow?"

"Yes, but you have to take your shirt off," Rem said.

"I do?"

Rem nodded. "Yes, that's the rule."

"What about your night gown?" Steve asked.

WIthout a word Rem began to remove her night gown, Steve was hardly able to stop her. "Wait, I think that if you do that we might not get much sleep up here."

"Oh, well sleep is very important," Rem said resigning herself to crawling up onto Steve's chest to rest her head on him.

Steve wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. He reached over and tugged the blankets and sheets onto the both of them to cover them up. As he did this, Rem muttered something that he couldn't quite make out. He smoothed her hair down and moved to kiss her forehead. It seemed that she was still as tired as she had been when he first came to her door.

"Good night, Rem."