Well, this one took a little longer than expected. Real life and my new project, Children of the Stars, had something to do with that. Anyway, though, I am back, and getting this show back on the road. Now, we start to get into the meat of the story, and see a few surprises…

Trigon: It took Alan Scott's full power to contain it, and not only was he not alone, but he used to go toe to toe with Magneto. I invite you to consider the power involved.

Svata: Well, now that you mention it, that sounds like a rather good idea…

Zetca: For various reasons, the Ring actually wouldn't be appreciative of that right now.

Thanks. :) It took a bit of work, and a lot of mental calculation, but it was worth it.

Carol was pacing and thinking, occasionally pausing to shoot a glare at the Ring (which was hovering hopefully about two feet behind her left shoulder), then a puzzled frown at Peter.

Peter and Monica exchanged a series of uneasy speaking looks. Monica had known Carol for a while, and she'd never seen the other girl like this. Peter didn't know Carol half as well, but had seen her like this, and it hadn't been on a very pleasant occasion for either of them. If there was one thing they silently agreed on, it was that this was not going to end well.

"So, just to be clear, it was definitely that ring brought the Lord of the Babble to our room," Monica said eventually, somewhere around Carol's dozenth circuit of the room.

"Yeah," Carol said.

"Okay. Just asking, because if it's doing room service, then maybe I could make a few suggestions."

Carol rolled her eyes as Peter went red. "Really, Monica?" she asked irritably.

"Just trying to ease the tension," Monica said, shrugging.

"Well, try not to wish for anything around this thing," Carol said. "It's more or less like the ultimate genie in the lamp, if you've got enough willpower to make it work. It's meant to only work if you wear it, but…"

"Be careful what you wish for, I get it," Monica said, raising her hands. "But I'm pretty sure that it's not operating off of either of our wishes. I mean, if it was, Peter wouldn't be here. No offence."

"None taken," Peter said.

Carol nodded, frown deepening. "So, it definitely wants you here. But why?" she repeated, frustrated.

"Could you," Peter began, before hesitating under her sharp gaze. "Uh. Um. Never mind."

"What?"

Peter squirmed. "You could ask?" he suggested, in the small voice of someone who expects to be smacked down, so is going as low as possible to avoid being smacked down very far.

Carol's frown deepened at the question, before she eyed him, and her expression softened a little – concerned and perhaps a little bit ashamed. "There's worse ideas," she said. "I mean, it can communicate, sort of. But it hasn't yet, because it wants me to put it on. Which I am not doing."

The Ring drifted backwards, dipping in the air, glow dimming, looking almost like a kicked puppy.

"Looks like you hurt its feelings," Monica said after a moment.

"Good," Carol growled, then looked up, listening, a couple of seconds before Peter did so too. The latter's eyes widened.

"Ned! And Gwen!" he yelped, and dashed to the door.

"Oh no, you are not getting them –" Carol began, but Peter already had the door open, sticking his head out. "… involved," she finished with a sigh.

"Peter!" Ned began, with a mixture of astonishment, confusion and relief clear on his face, just as they were on Gwen's. Before he or Gwen could say anything, however, Carol shoved past Peter, grabbed them by the fronts of their shirts and yanked them bodily inside like they were made of paper, kicking the door shut as she went.

"What," she growled. "Are you two doing?"

"Looking for Peter," Gwen said, shooting a defiant look at Carol. Ned, acutely aware that he was being effortlessly held at least half a foot off the ground, gulped and nodded.

"Right," he said. "Looking for Peter, who is, somehow, here… which we were wondering about because he, um… vanished."

"In a flash of green light," Gwen added. "Kind of like that floating green ring behind you. Now, can you put us down?"

Carol rolled her eyes and unceremoniously plonked them on the floor. "Well, Peter is here," she said. "Peter is fine. That ring…" She shook her head. "Look, it doesn't matter."

"It does," Gwen said, folding her arms. "Something's going on, and –"

"And it's none of your business," Carol said flatly.

"My friend is involved," Gwen countered. "That makes it my business."

"Look, I'll just go," Peter said. "It was probably an accident, anyway, or, or, making a point, or something."

As he went to do exactly that, an emerald green barrier appeared over the door.

"Or… not."

Carol, glare dialling up a few notches, went to snatch the ring out of the air, before pausing. "Alright, you smug little mood ring," she growled. "You're here for a reason, and I get the feeling that I'm not going to like it. So, let's get it over with: what are you up to?"

"Wait," Ned said suddenly. "It can think?"

Carol looked like she wanted to kill something.

OoOoO

The argument raged on, low and often hissed, mostly between Carol and Gwen – Peter had declared himself neutral territory, and Ned had quite quickly come to realise why Peter was a bit scared of Carol. However, he hadn't left, either, something that Carol would later be grudgingly impressed by.

Part of her was also grudgingly impressed by Gwen Stacy, who was most of a foot shorter than her and about 100 pounds dripping wet, and didn't seem remotely inclined to let that stop her arguing with someone who could probably snap her like a twig. It was a kind of stubborn gumption that Carol possessed herself, something she normally admired. Right now, though, it was really goddamn annoying.

The essence of the problem was that the Ring had essentially demanded Peter's involvement, and since Gwen and Ned now knew that Peter had been turned into a vampire last time something serious had gone down, they (well, mostly Gwen) were not inclined to let him go anywhere.

Speaking of the latter secret, Carol was not at all happy. But she had conceded that it wasn't his fault – from what she parsed of his babble when she rounded on him in disbelief, they'd stumbled upon it thanks to a poorly timed change of contact lenses and a lucky guess (aided by his complete inability to lie) just before he'd been teleported. Besides, of all the things to be annoyed about, that was the last.

"Hey!" Monica said, eventually breaking in. "Enough!"

Both blondes broke their glares to stare at her.

"Carol," she said. "Is something going down?"

Carol shot a look at the Ring. "Maybe," she said eventually. "If it is, though, I can't imagine why it would want Peter along." She glanced at the boy in question. "No offence, but you haven't got serious superpowers and the Ring doesn't know you."

"Um. None taken?" Peter offers.

"And it knows you?" Gwen asked, but only a little sceptically. After all, Carol was clearly familiar with (and annoyed by) it.

"I've used it, and it more or less trusts me to use it right, which is why it keeps trying to get me to put it on," Carol confirmed, and frowned at Peter. "It has its reasons to have you along, but I don't know what they are. Unless…"

Before anyone could ask what that unless was, Carol's eyes widened and her expression contorted with anger and frustration, the latter fuelling a stamp that caught the edge of her shield. She had dropped it after Peter's arrival and it had so far gone unnoticed by the latest arrivals. Now, as it leapt into the air, spinning like a doomed plate, it caught every eye, including Monica's as it flew straight at her face. The other girl caught it, barely, in an astonishing display of reflexes that was undercut by a sudden torrent of swearing in English, French, German, Spanish, and a language no one present could identify. It went on for some time.

Finally, Carol sat down on her bed with a thump.

"What was all that about?" Ned asked, with more curiosity than caution. Carol, however, now seemed more grumpily resigned than outright angry.

Carol just shook her head.

"Is it the ring?" Monica asked, eyeing the object in question. "I mean, it's a magic ring that thinks, and talks –"

"It doesn't exactly talk, Mon," Carol said.

Monica waved an impatient hand. "Fine, communicates, and that you used to use."

Carol heaved a put-upon sigh. "I used it once," she said. "At the Battle of London. Which is why I'm not exactly happy it's shown up again, especially since it said to Doctor Strange that it doesn't take teenage wielders." She punctuated this with a glare at the ring which, through a slight dimming in its green glow, somehow contrived to look embarrassed.

"But you said that you used it at the Battle of London," Peter pointed out.

"Apparently it makes exceptions," Carol said sourly. "Or it lets Doctor Strange make them."

"Doctor who?"

Carol sighed again. "That," she said. "Is a very long story. Short version? Monica, you know how I mentioned that I'd met the next best thing to fate? That he was a jackass?"

"Yeah…"

"That would be him."

Monica eyed her. "Interesting, but not actually helpful, Danvers," she said.

Carol sighed. "Fine. Strange is an immortal time-travelling magical super-badass with a spectacularly warped sense of humour. He never lies, and I'm not even sure if he can – he nearly murdered the last person who even suggested he might be lying, and the only reason he didn't was that that person was our age. That doesn't really matter, though, as he's slipperier than melted butter and manipulative enough to make Loki look like a fucking amateur. He is also a total asshole and terrifies anyone with even a passing acquaintance of the spooky for some exceptionally good fucking reasons."

She nodded at the ring.

"For instance, he got me to put that on before the Battle of London by telling me that it was a magic ring that would protect me, make up for the fact that I'm not bullet-proof, that sort of thing. Cut to a half an hour later, I get hit with dark magic that should – that does – kill me, and this thing? It stopped me from dying, because I didn't want to die. I wasn't even trying to use it. It just kicked in because I was stubborn."

"And this is supposed to be a bad thing?" Monica said, eyebrow raised, and expression troubled.

"Yeah," Peter said. "I mean, if it wants you to put it on, why not? It helped you last time."

Carol stared at him for a long moment, trying to remember the last time she'd been that naïve.

"No," she said eventually, shaking her head. "It wasn't a bad thing. But I'm not putting it on," she added, directing the words at the ring as much as the other two. "Not unless I absolutely have to. If there's one thing I've learned about power, especially magic, is that it comes with a price. Always. And more to the point, I don't have a single fucking clue what this thing can really do. Even the things that I know it can do – and I only got the very basics – scare the fucking shit out of me. And that was before it started randomly teleporting people."

"How do you mean?" Monica asked warily.

Carol pointed at the ring. "I mean that this, this ring? It isn't jewellery. It's a weapon."

"What sort of weapon are we talking?" Monica asked, a little dubious.

"Not a clue," Carol said. "I only got the very basics on how it works, and I don't know much beyond the facts that it does more or less whatever you want it to and it's at least as powerful as Mjolnir. When I was wearing it at the Battle of London, that was fine. The city was mostly evacuated and pretty much all there was to hit was demons and HYDRA tech. Here? If I put it on, it might all go fine. But I didn't even touch its limits last time, and If something does go sideways, and the ring reacts, I'll blow up the entire French Quarter." She grimaced. "In fact, probably more like all of New Orleans."

"And that would be bad," Peter said soberly.

"Very bad," Monica agreed. "What do you think it wants you to do?"

"And what does it want with Peter?" Gwen asked, frowning.

"And what language was that?" Ned put in. Everyone stared at him. "What? I haven't heard it before. French, Spanish, even German, sure. But not… whatever that was."

"Russian," Carol said absently. "My boyfriend's fluent." She closed her eyes, thinking. Then, she grimaced again, and nodded. "Yeah. That's probably it."

"What is?" Monica asked.

"I don't think it's the Ring that wants Peter along," Carol said. "I think it's Strange." She nodded again, firmer and grimmer. "Yeah, this… this feels like the beginning of one of his plans."

"That's an awfully specific kind of feeling," Monica said.

"It's also an awfully unique one," Carol said sourly. "Trust me, after a while, it becomes kind of familiar."

"Wait, this super-wizard is getting Peter, you and Peter, to do his dirty work?" Gwen demanded indignantly.

"Maybe," Carol said. "Though if it's that, it's not just that. Strange has no problem doing his own dirty work." She shook her head. "No, he never does one thing when he can at least three. Or more usually, about thirty. And he's shown before that he can make the Ring do what he wants, without putting it on."

"So, what is going on?" Ned asked, thoroughly confused. Carol couldn't blame him – he was, after all, hardly alone in that.

"No idea," she admitted. "I can make a few guesses, but…" She paused and looked at Peter, then groaned. "Oh, no."

"What?" he asked warily.

"I was hoping," she said. "Just a little, tiny bit of hope, that I could persuade the Ring into leaving you behind. Maybe by using it myself." She shot Gwen a look at the girl's expression shifted in astonishment and affronted disbelief, because that was what they'd spent the past who knows how long arguing about. "I didn't expect it," she emphasised. "It was a little hope."

"But?"

"You've still got vampire in your system," Carol said bluntly. "You've also got something else in your system, something that I had too. Something that saved both of our lives."

Peter's eyes widened. "Harry's blood," he breathed. "Oh my god, that explains everything!"

Carol nodded. "It cured you," she said. "And it kept me alive until they could top off my tank."

"Wait, what?" Monica demanded, startled.

"She had her blood drained on Halloween by Dracula," Peter said matter-of-factly. "Like, there was none left."

"Hey, I still had a pint or two in there," Carol objected a little feebly, wincing under a series of horrified stares.

"And Harry, it was amazing and totally crazy, but he hooked himself up to this really creepy magic blood transfusion machine and gave her his blood," Peter continued excitedly.

"How much?" Gwen asked, appalled.

"About four pints," Carol mumbled.

"What," Monica said flatly. "Danvers, why did you never tell me this?"

"Because you'd react the same way you are now?" Carol offered.

"Wait," Ned asked. "How many pints are there in a human body? Eight, right?"

"Ten," Peter supplied. "But, he'd, uh, also donated for me. Which was about a half-pint."

"And dad said he'd lost a lot of blood when the cops scraped him off the street," Gwen said, sounding even more appalled.

"I know," Carol said matter-of-factly. "My boyfriend is crazy."

"Crazy about you," Monica countered.

"He's both," Carol said, and there was a twitch of a wry, fond smile that spoke of something far deeper. "Anyway, we all survived –"

"I swear, the way you two are going, you'll be married by graduation. College freshman year, at the latest."

"Monica."

"Call it like I see it," Monica said, shrugging. Carol's mood was not helped by Peter's sober nod.

"Anyway," Carol growled, in a voice that promised murder if she was interrupted again. "I have no idea what might be going down. I think it's got something to do with what happened to me and Peter, how we ended up with Harry's blood in us, and what, if anything, it did. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but it seems like a good place to start." She looked out the window. "And while I've never been to New Orleans, as luck would have it, I do know someone who might be able to help."

She opened the window, and nodded her satisfaction at how it easily parted wide enough to allow her through.

"Don't wait up," she said.

That would have been an excellent and mysterious way to depart. Unfortunately, however, that was when she reached over to take her shield.

OoOoO

Carol slipped out of the window with the cat-like grace of a super-soldier. Her enhanced agility and reflexes, honed by sessions with Steve, Clint, and Natasha, let her move onto the roof with disturbing a single tile, much less anyone below.

Questing about in the moonlight for the best route to the ground, she slipped across it as swiftly and silently as a passing shadow, before dropping into the alley with only a minimal sound of impact, one easily swallowed by the nightlife on the main streets. There, she waited, with folded arms and an irritable expression.

Two minutes later, there was a scrambling sound, a muted thump, and the clatter of slow, careful, but poorly judged footsteps on slate roof-tiles. Carol let out a small, put-upon sigh, and dipped into the shadows, before emerging once more, pushing something with squeaky wheels.

She paused once or twice, looking up with a cocked head and a calculating expression, listening carefully, and adjusting the placement of the object in question in line with what she saw and heard, before nodding to herself and standing back.

A couple of moments later, her work bore fruit. There was an inevitable ominous scrape of roof tiles coming loose, a frantic scrabbling sound, as of someone desperately trying to regain their foothold, handhold, and balance, then a muted shriek as a slight figure plummeted from the roof into the soft and yielding embrace of the hotel's carefully placed dumpster, landing with a vaguely flatulent squelch.

"Remind me: why am I putting up with you, exactly?" she asked, as the now groaning figure of Peter Parker slowly began to extricate himself from the dumpster.

"Uh, because your magic ring said so?"

"Right. Could you at least hurry up?"

"Well, maybe if you – oh god, is this what I think it is?"

Carol looked up to see Peter, surrounded by an almost throne-like collection of black bin bags. A couple of them had burst, which, to be frank, was several fewer than Carol had expected. Peter, however, was not taking the bright side as, with a nauseated expression, he held up a limp, thin, soggy object.

"Yes," she said after a moment. "It is definitely a used banana skin."

"But –"

"Do you really want to think about the alternatives? Right now? Including what else you might be sitting in?"

"… Good point."

He discarded the 'used banana skin', then eyed her, cat-like eyes gleaming red in the darkness. "You know, you could help me out," he said reproachfully.

"I could," Carol agreed. "But then, I'd risk being covered with stuff too. Like, uh, used banana skins. At least one of us needs to be moderately presentable to find my friend, and since I'm the one who actually knows him, it's gonna be me." She eyed him. "Speaking of that," she added, as Peter set about levering himself out. "It's not too late for you to turn back, you know."

Peter managed to flop over the edge of the dumpster, landing with a thump, but immediately pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, getting to his feet and shaking his head.

"No way," he said. "I know that you don't want me along." He looked at the dumpster, then up at the roof, then at himself, then finally at an unimpressed looking Carol. "And…" He swallowed. "And I can't blame you. But that magic ring of yours? It teleported me into your room for a reason. It glowed when I tried to leave, and it did it for a reason. I don't what that reason is, you don't know what it is, but for some reason, I'm meant to come along." He squared his jaw and met her gaze.

Carol softened. "Fine," she said. "You've got a point." She glanced out the alley and into the main road, which was still active and full of people, before looking Peter up and down. "Garbage wise, you don't look too bad, except your hands and your butt. We head down a couple of streets, then into a café. You get cleaned up, and I figure out where we head next, okay?"

OoOoO

Several minutes later, Peter emerged, smelling very strongly of soap. This smell, Carol thought, wasn't quite enough to hide a faint hint of dumpster underneath. However, since it probably wasn't detectable to anyone without a super soldier's sense of smell – or a generally enhanced one, going by Peter's dubious sniffing – and wouldn't be shifted by anything short of a serious shower and washing the jeans, it would be good enough.

"So," he said. "Where to?"

"No idea," Carol said, shrugging. When he looked at her askance, she tapped the ring, which was hanging on a piece of string around her neck. "The ring knows, though – I told it who to look for."

"… and are you going to tell me?" Peter asked after a moment.

Carol smirked. "Now, where's the fun in that?"

As it happened, the answer didn't take too long, as the ring led them inexorably down the streets of New Orleans. Soon, they were entering the heart of the French Quarter, the oldest part of the city, with the somewhat old-fashioned and occasionally rickety architecture to match. Peter frowned slightly as his sharp ears picked up the words around them. "Is that…" he began.

"French?" Carol finished. "Kinda. It's a dialect, though half the time they're mixing in English too. I can understand it if I listen."

"Uh-huh," Peter said, glancing around a little warily.

While the French Quarter, as the class had been so helpfully informed, was a historic district popular with tourists, Peter was a life-long New Yorker and knew enough to know that the words 'historic district' often meant 'you have been warned'. Especially when, as now, you started going off the main streets.

"So," he said after a few minutes. "Are we going to, you know, talk about what happened back in your room? What your shield did? What Mon – mmph!"

Carol had slapped a hand over his mouth and shot him a warning look. "Some things, you don't say in public," she said. "Not 'round somewhere like this. Not… not when you're not certain what's going on to begin with."

Peter nodded seriously. "I just…" he began, then nodded at the improbably small bag on her hip, which was currently containing her shield. "Something happened. And if I'm guessing right about where you got that from –" At her sceptical look, he shrugged. "Not many kinds of things burn a part you-know-what on contact," he pointed out. "Except something holy. Like the blood of, well. You know."

"I do," Carol said, and she shot him a thoughtful look. "Okay, you worked out that much. It wasn't from him, but it came from the family, you could say. Where are you going with this?"

"Well, I don't know of many other things from, uh, the family," Peter said, hedging. "But there's one other… and it seems to do kind of a lot. And the, uh, interface. It's mental?"

"It is," Carol said. "So's mine."

"So, in theory –"

"In theory, I can get it to do what I want," Carol said. "Unfortunately, I have no idea what the things I can get it to do actually are."

She stiffened suddenly, and Peter nearly walked into her outstretched arm, as she looked down at her chest, where the ring is hanging on a cord. Then, suddenly, smoothly, she strode towards what he belatedly recognised as the sounds of a fight. They rounded the corner, and, well. Peter hadn't seen anything like it. Or at least, he inwardly amended, he hadn't seen anything like it since Halloween.

On balance, he thought he might have been the better for it.

On balance, he also thought that he was going to follow her anyway.

OoOoO

Gambit, Carol knew, was downright dangerous when he wanted to be. She'd seen him fight on several occasions and he'd never been anything less than impressive. Red Room hardcases, insane Black Widows, vampires… none of them held any real fears for him. As a result, when she saw him in the midst of what appeared to be a brawl with a group of ordinary thugs, her immediate impulse was to feel rather sorry for the thugs.

After all, there were only about a dozen of them, and even though Gambit hadn't got out his pack of cards, four of them were already down the floor, while a fifth was reeling backwards and gasping for breath after a particularly brutal jab to the throat. As she watched, a sixth was sent flying backwards with a bang after Gambit charged the front of his shirt with a mere brush of his fingers.

Unlike her expectations, though, the four who were down were launching themselves up with furious snarls, mindless of their injuries, at least one of which included an arm facing in entirely the wrong direction. And several of them were now armed.

"Maybe we should –" Peter began, but by the time the words left his mouth, Carol had drawn and hurled her shield into the fray in one whip-like motion, straight at the most collected and focused looking gunman who was lining up a shot at Gambit's back. Before he finished the sentence, the shield had smashed the pistol out its owner's hand, pulverising the weapon and breaking several of his fingers with a sound like a bunch of dried twigs snapping, and Carol was on the charge, hand outstretched to summon it back.

The gunman, letting out a scream that sounded rather angrier than actually hurt despite the fact that several of his fingers were pointing in wildly different directions, went in swinging with a series of wildly telegraphed and brutally powerful blows. Normally, Carol would have grabbed either or both of his arms and either overpowered him or made already bad injuries that much worse.

But the gunman was much faster than he looked, which also happened to be much faster than Carol expected, and didn't hesitate in the slightest in the face of pain as most people would. Instead, he clipped her jaw with a punch like a locomotive from his mangled hand, sending her spinning.

As she spun, however, the shield returned back to her hand, adding to her momentum and coming around straight into the gunman's face. There was a very final sounding clang underscored with some very unpleasant crunching pops, rounded off with a thump as the gunman, hurled through the air by the force of the blow, hit the ground in a stupor, his now flattened face covered in blood.

Carol winced, but before she could spare a moment to think about it, another thug was coming in with a knife the size of a small sword. Carol had no problem dealing with the technique – handling knives was one of the first things she'd been taught regarding hand-to-hand combat, and several of the Avengers (as well as Uhtred, who carried an alarming number on his person) were very good with them. This idiot, by contrast, was half-mad, probably high on something, and devoid of any technique. However, this added a randomness to his attacks, which combined with their speed and the fact that they would genuinely hurt if they landed, was not fun to deal with.

Accordingly, she retreated, taking one cut alarmingly close to her eye. But her opponent over-extended in doing so, allowing her to grab his arm and hurl him to the ground with bone breaking force, before kicking away the knife and kicking him in the head for good measure.

All this had taken place in a matter of seconds, but she knew well enough that seconds could be a very long time in a fight, and immediately looked for Peter. To her relief and surprise, he was handling himself surprisingly well.

For someone who'd spent his entire life as class kick-ball and proved so ungainly on the roof, he was a fairly good defensive fighter, ducking and weaving with remarkable speed, exploiting his small size, reflexes and dodging almost every blow, only being clipped by the few that landed. He even directed a few of their punches into his opponents, as well as into walls, the limited space, his opponents' blood-lust, making them comparatively easy for him to fool.

His apparently endless commentary didn't hurt.

"Missed me! Missed me again! Oh, is it going to be third time lucky? Nope! Oh, man, you guys really weren't picked for your aim. Or for talking. I mean, is it too much too – whoa! – ask for some conversation? Some witty banter? I mean, even vampires talk more than you guys do, and all they're thinking about is the next meal!"

Carol shook her head. Even Harry rarely talked this much in a fight. Still, there was no denying that he could dodge well enough (for one thing, he was still talking), and he could hit back (she hadn't known he was still capable of punching someone hard enough to crater a brick wall, and apparently, neither had he).

Most importantly of all, though, it was keeping their attention, and meant that she could line up a shot. As she did, she caught Gambit's eye, as the mutant flicked out a new hand of cards. He'd apparently spotted her already, and didn't looks surprised. Instead, he smiled slightly and inclined his head, as if to say, "Ladies first."

Carol rolled her eyes, waited a moment for the goons to line up. She'd never tried a ricochet off more than one person, before. But then again, first time for everything. She spun and hurled her shield. As soon as it left her hand, a grin spread over her face as the uru sang, ringing like a bell as it struck three of the thugs in quick succession, while a flicked card from Gambit hit the fourth, smashing him into the wall and putting him down for the count.

"And that's all she wrote," Gambit said with some satisfaction, before smiling at Carol. "Miss Danvers, y' are a sight for sore eyes." His gaze shifted to Peter, and narrowed, taking in Peter's reddened eyes and now slightly protruding canines. "And y' are a sight for surprised ones."

"He's fine," Carol said, seeing where his thoughts were going. "Residual after-effects, but nothing more."

Gambit nodded. "Mah thanks for helpin' out," he said. "Though I am wonderin' what y' doin' here. An' how y' found me."

"School trip and a magic ring," Carol said, fishing the latter out of her shirt for a moment. "What's going on with you?"

"Professional disagreement," Gambit said, then glanced around. Even this deep into what was clearly territory that held an uncertain relationship with the law, explosions and brawls caught official attention, and sirens were distantly beginning to wail. "C'mon. We need t' get off de streets."

Peter shot him a slightly dubious look, but followed at Carol's nod.

On the rooftops above, a dark figure watched them leave.

"Well," it said, unheard by those below. "Looks like this solo just became a team-up."

OoOoO

'Off the streets', in this context, meant cutting down several dark alleys, through the back rooms of at least half a dozen shops, and slipping up the rickety back stairs of an old building that was probably half-rust, half-woodworm. Within was a pallet, a space heater, a small, half-eaten box of ration bars, and a back-pack full of clothing. The facilities – a sink and a cracked mirror – were similarly sparse.

"Well, this is... nice," Carol said.

Gambit snorted. "It's not great," he said. "But, cherie, it does de job."

"What job is that, exactly?" Carol asked.

"It ain't exactly a place dat many would look for me," Gambit said.

Carol supposed that this was true. While Gambit gave the impression of being very much an outdoor cat (so to speak), being charmingly scruffy, he also gave off the impression of an outdoor cat who could and would charm/trick his way into the lap of luxury.

"Besides," Gambit said. "It ain't long term. I've been 'ere maybe two weeks? Dat's already longer than I usually stay anywhere."

"Why?" Peter asked, puzzled.

"You're running from someone," Carol said, before Gambit could answer. "Who? Remy, we can help. Or at least, I can. No offence."

"None taken," Peter said. "I'm just, you know, along for the ride."

Gambit raised an eyebrow, and Carol rolled her eyes, pulling out the Ring again. "This stupid thing insisted he come along," she said. "And it's pretty hard to say no to."

"It's not –" Gambit began, concerned.

"Controlling me? No," Carol said, shaking her head. "It just stopped Peter, here, from leaving. If it could control me, it'd have made me put it on. As it is, we came to an arrangement."

"And what would this arrangement be about, cherie?" Gambit asked.

"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours," Carol said.

Gambit raised the other eyebrow, this time in amusement.

"I have a boyfriend. I'm not as easy to embarrass anymore."

"Now dat just sounds like a challenge."

"Gambit," Carol growled.

Gambit sighed. "Long story short? Dere's a gang war goin' on in New Orleans. Y' may have heard a thing or two about it on de news, but it way more serious than that," he said. "Ah'm tryin' t' stop it."

"All by yourself?" Carol asked, surprised.

"Dere's two big crime families in New Orleans," Gambit said. "De Boudreaux, and de LeBeau. I'm a LeBeau; adopted, but next in line t' be in charge, 'til I left. My girlfriend, before I left, she was a Boudreaux. Bella Donna Boudreaux. Now, her brother Julien, he was next in line t' be in charge of de Boudreaux, an' he didn' like the idea of us bein' together. An' my powers… dey were actin' up. Dat was why I ended up wit' Sinister in de first place." He glanced at Peter. "Bad company. Don' ask." He shook his head. "Anyway, Julien confronts me, I panic, my powers act up. He don' survive. My father paid my bail, I ran."

He sighed.

"Now, de Boudreaux wan' my head on a platter," he said. "De cops are lookin' de other way where ah'm concerned – an' I think I know who t' thank for that – but I ain't exactly gettin' protective custody, either. My father, 'e made clear t' me that either I come back t' de fold, or he ain't helpin'. Y' go t' war f'r family, but if someone don' want t' be family…"

"Well, that sucks," Carol said. "Also, it's nice to know that someone else has an asshole for a dad. We should start a club."

Gambit snorted. "'e's bein' sensible," he said. "I ain't never been easy to control, an' never much of a team player. An' I have other business t' take care of. See, de Boudreaux and de LeBeau, an' all o' New Orleans, got a new problem. Dere's a new group in town, from where, I don' know. Out of state, definitely, but beyond dat?" He shrugged. "They've got members from everywhere, even a few local boys – more and more, now. Y' ran into them tonight."

"Those roided up thugs?" Carol asked.

"Y' an' I both know that those weren't ordinary thugs, or ordinary 'roids," Gambit said levelly.

Carol froze. "Please tell me that you're not implying what I think you're implying," she said.

"De group don' exactly give names," Gambit said. "But they've got a street name – de Patches."

"The Patches?" Peter asked, snickering.

"Yeah, I know," Gambit said. "Sounds stupid, right? Comes from de sales pitch for their drugs – an' they're big time drug runners, all kinds of new designer drugs, everythin' from opioids t' hallucinogens t' poison… an' t' enhancers. That pitch? 'Nobody's got a patch on us.' Sounds stupid, I know. But considerin' that they've got all kinds of patches for all kinds of effects, it's appropriate. An' y' ain't laughing any more, not after y' see some 90-pound asthmatic slip a couple o' those patches on before tearin' the door off a car."

"Jesus," Carol muttered. "Well, they sound… awful."

Gambit nodded. "They run through bodies like water," he said. "In personnel an' customers, from overdosing, an' in collateral damage when they take over. Now, I ain't gonna pretend that de old gangs are saints. I know better than anyone that they ain't. But there's some things y' don' do, if only because it easier, keeps de police less motivated – lesser o' two evils, y' know? An' then there's de fact that if y' want t' do any business up de Mississippi, 'specially up towards de Great Lakes an' Chicago, then there's rules y' need to follow, because Marcone, de big man in Chicago, don' like civilian casualties or children gettin' involved. An' if y' break his rules… if y' lucky, he just switches to a competitor. If y' ain't, or if y' in arm's reach? He breaks y'. An' he's got a long arm."

"Friendly neighbourhood crime lord," Carol said. "How nice."

"Works f'r him," Gambit said, shrugging. "Anyway, most of de old-time criminals, they stay away from de Patches – too much trouble, too much heat, an' too much of de kids takin' their own drugs. An' they are kids, mostly. Young, poor… desperate f'r a taste o' power."

"You've been trying to take them down," Peter said.

"I've been tryin' t' find an' take down their boss," Gambit said. "Groups like de Patches, they're top-heavy – keep de street level operatives on de stuff t' control them, don' encourage initiative, keep de information about transport o' de stuff t' themselves. If I can find de boss an' cut off de supply, they'll be easy t' mop up."

"And then the Boudreaux will still be trying to kill you," Carol pointed out.

"I can handle de Boudreaux," Gambit said evenly. "An' I've sent every assassin they paid f'r packing. Sooner or later, they'll accept that they need t' talk."

"That sounds very optimistic," Carol said.

"Well, I ain't leavin' New Orleans, an' I ain't plannin' t' take down half de underworld," Gambit said bluntly.

Carol frowned, and nodded. "Fair enough," she said reluctantly, then fished the ring out again. "Is this what you wanted me to get involved in?"

The Ring flared briefly, before dimming.

"Is that a yes?"

A milder blink of green light, followed by two more.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I think that it's saying 'yes and no'," Peter suggested.

The Ring blinked again.

Carol rolled her eyes in disgust. "Of course it is," she said. "So, what are we looking at? Enhanced people?"

"Maybe more," Gambit said. "There's this guy I know, Waylon Jones. People call him de Croc."

"Because of his taste in shoes?"

"Because he's seven foot tall, he got scales, an' he look like a crocodile."

"Oh. Never mind."

"He mostly just wants t' be left alone," Gambit said. "Spent most o' his life in de business because no one would give him an honest job, an' he spent all his time growin' up bein' told he was a monster."

"An honest job… like a shelf-stacker?" Carol asked.

"Like runnin' a homeless shelter or runnin' a branch of Alcoholics Anonymous. 'e 'as a way wit' people," Gambit said. "Thanks t' de internet, these days he's got his own business, selling cakes an' cookies online."

Carol stared at him. "You know a giant crocodile man who runs his own online bakery," she said.

Gambit nodded. "Me an' Waylon, we go way back," he said. "I was differen' too – not even close t' de same way, but y' know kids. With my eyes de way they are, they thought I was weird. Kids don' do well wit' weird. An' I wasn' bothered by him in de least. 'e liked that there was someone who saw past de scales."

"Honestly, the scary thing is that this exchange is almost normal for me," Carol said. "What's he saying?"

"De boss of de Patches approached 'im," Gambit said. "Man called himself Jason Woodrue, promised a cure, in exchange for a few favours. Waylon goes along wit' it, at first. An' at first, de treatments that seemed to make him more human… but each time, his transformation kicked back in with a vengeance an' got worse, so he stopped. 'e got out. An' by the sounds of it, just in time – 'e didn't exact go into detail, but I'm pretty sure 'e was becoming more crocodile than man."

Peter shuddered. "That's not going to be pleasant," he said, with feeling.

Gambit eyed him, gaze settling on Peter's canines and red eyes, and nodded. "No, it ain't," he said. "Anyhow, way that Waylon tell it, Woodrue's answering t' someone. Someone who scares him. Maybe a bigger syndicate from out of state, a cartel looking to muscle in on those enhancers he's got, I don't know. But they scare him. Now, Woodrue, from what I hear, ain't an easy man t' scare. He keeps all dese drugged up super-thugs in line, an' I hear stories o' how 'e kills people jus' by touchin' them. 'e definitely scared Waylon, an' considerin' that Waylon's a seven-foot-tall bulletproof crocodile man who rips sharks in half, wit' his bare hands even. I think that whatever scares a man like that, someone who scares a man like Waylon, might be somethin' t' take seriously."

Carol sighed. "Well, I'm beginning to see why the Ring came to me for this," she said. "The super soldier with a magic ring ends up investigating the probably magic drug lord making his thugs into cheap super soldiers. What a shocking twist." She frowned at Peter, who'd cocked his head. "Peter?"

"We ain't alone," Gambit said grimly, catching on.

Carol spun to face the door, hefting her shield, the three settling into close formation. As they did, the door went shooting off its rusty hinges, driven into the room by a single kick. That kick was delivered by a black combat boot, itself part of a black and red suit. It looked, Carol thought, almost like a cheaper and thicker version of SHIELD's combat suits, colouring aside. Also unlike those suits, it was festooned with weaponry and pouches containing what looked like more weaponry and ammunition.

The wearer's head was also masked, red and black, with blank white eyes, and framed by the hilts of two katanas, both of were immediately drawn and twirled with professional ease.

Then came a surprisingly perky voice.

"Did someone say 'super soldier' or 'shocking twist'? Because I'm both."

Yup. That is exactly who you think it is. After eight long years of solidly refusing to write Deadpool for fear that I wouldn't get him right, I've finally taken the plunge – may God help me and the chimichangas forgive me. Or is it the other way around? Howsoever.

But where oh where did Monica go? What happened in between the jump-cut of Carol picking up her shield and her and Peter's departure? That's an answer for the next chapter. However, I will say that if you go back to chapter 65 of Child of the Storm, and look near the bottom, at a list of names… you might get something of a clue.