Unfinished Business

by Nimbus Llewelyn

Spinoff of 'Ghosts of the Past'. When a school trip takes them to New Orleans, Carol Danvers is expecting trouble and Peter Parker is hoping to keep up his façade of normality. One's right, and one's deluded. Now, the future awaits, the past refuses to remain buried, and the fate of the world is in the hands of two teenagers who only kind of get along. What could possibly go wrong?

7. Chapter 7: From The Ashes

Yeah, so I've been doing a lot of shifts recently at work – I have one day off a week and I'm double-shifting on Sundays. This actually suits me in many ways, career wise, but it's wearing and leaves me a bit burnt out for writing. Also, I have about a million plot bunnies, none of them focused on the next chapter of this fic – even when they're focused on the series as a whole. A lot of them focus on the next chapter or so of Ghosts, and believe me, I have at least two chapters of material ready for that, if not more. Ghosts is a long, long way from dead.

Indeed, it might be split, as it's getting super large and very unwieldy. I'm considering titles. Currently under consideration are 'The Book of Revelations', 'What's Past is Prologue', 'Days of Future Past', 'The Death of Doctor Strange', 'The Phoenix and the Serpent', 'Secrets and Lies', 'Childhood's End', and 'The Surtur Saga' (which would have the Surtur Saga bolted on to the end rather than as its own book).

Thoughts on the split and on titles (including alternate suggestions) would be much appreciated.

Still, now, the long awaited finale. Well. Part 1 of it. I wasn't originally going to split it, but then I decided to see how long it was and realised that, yeah, this was over 15,000 words long. It drew out a bit, but hey, this is going to be a fairly epic scale throwdown. And yes, I know, my conciseness issues continue to be issues. However, I have been having a fair bit of trouble with these chapters, as I generally do when trying to make something that is suitably epic/important (i.e. a tipping point that I want to get absolutely right).

Anyway, I do hope it lives up to the billing.

There's a couple of pieces of short poetry in this, and unfortunately, I've always been more of a prose writer. So I consulted with the good people of a Facebook group I am part of, and the results owe much to their aid, particularly Marcus S. Lazarus, Thunder Stag, ToaOfWriting, and one fellow who prefers to remain nameless but knows who he is.

Power was frequently attached to temptations. Such as the temptation to gloat, to make sure that the helpless know exactly how helpless they are, to defer the exercise or the very literal execution like a good meal – all the better for the anticipation. Very few, heroes or villains, are entirely immune to it, especially if that power is newly acquired. Godhood, after all, can be a little disorientating.

Nimue was not quite disorientated, and she was certainly not immune. Nevertheless, an observer might note as bare, milk-pale feet touched damp ashes, the years had bred a little pragmatism.

"Was this absolutely necessary?" Strange's shade asked with some asperity.

"Was what necessary?" Nimue asked, smirking.

Strange raised an eyebrow, then looked down pointedly.

Around his glowing ankles was a small menagerie: a shivering brown-furred spider monkey, a white-backed black eagle with puffed out feathers and a wild-eyed look, and an irritated looking cat with dark reddish-brown fur.

Nimue followed his gaze, and her smirk widened.

"Would you have preferred that I killed them?" she asked rhetorically. "It would be the more practical thing to do, after all."

"You didn't kill them because I am here," Strange said.

"Yes, an echo of a powerful sorcerer," Nimue said. "But still only an echo."

"An echo, yes," Strange said. "And like all echoes, one that returns to its creator."

Nimue laughed softly. "You think that I am afraid of you?" she asked.

"I think that you are sensible enough not to underestimate me, whatever form I may take," Strange said with chill calm.

"That is true," Nimue acknowledged. "There were other reasons, though. I wanted to try out my new power, and to test whatever protection spells you had placed upon them. Both were entirely successful, though the latter was a little disappointing – an obfuscation charm? Really?" She gestured at the animals below. "These children trusted you, they put their trust in the great Sorcerer Supreme, and all you did for them was make them a little harder for me to see?"

"Former Sorcerer Supreme, actually," Strange corrected clinically. "I passed the title on to my former apprentice."

"Ah, the Chaos Child… yes, I had heard a few rumours about that," Nimue said. "Nice to have it confirmed."

"Why are you still here, Nimue?" Strange asked quietly. "You have what you want. You did not need to do this. You did not need to do any of this."

"Pegasus would have imploded without my assistance," Nimue said, shrugging. "They meddled with forces they did not understand, and they paid the price. Oh, I helped them along the way, but truthfully, if it had not been this, it would have been something else – do you have any idea half of the things that were in here? They certainly didn't; they piled relics powerful enough to extinguish volcanoes together with the pettiest of manufactured glamours, storing glorified cough syrups with artefacts capable of regenerating worlds. They were children, playing with the powers of creation."

"I understood exactly what was here," Strange said. "Far better than you did. I stole most of it before Pegasus fell, and much of the remainder thereafter."

"That would explain where most of it went," Nimue said idly. "I did wonder."

"Your speculations are at an end, now, as to mine," Strange said. "Why are you still here?"

"You don't know?" Nimue asked, amused. "Oh, this is rich. The great Stephen Strange, a seer renowned from sea to stars, who claims to have been a contemporary of mine… does… not… know."

"I am an imprint, an echo," Strange reminded her. "I have some of everything of my original except his prescience. And even if I did not consider your natural mental strength, let alone your strength now, mind-reading was never my favourite subject." He shrugged. "Though, really, it's not about me not knowing. It's about you."

"Me?"

"Yes. You have plotted and planned for decades, first to regain your former powers, then to gain power that would make the Triple Goddess herself tremble," Strange said. "And, now, you have succeeded. The likes of Kemmler and Grindelwald could only dream of what you have achieved. Your raw might rivals, if not surpasses, that of Merlin himself. You could do practically anything; you could restore the Isle of the Blessed, you could open a portal to any of the mystical dimensions and carve out a realm of your own, or turn to the stars, find a world, and be worshipped as a goddess. But instead, you stand in a ruin, surrounded by transmogrified children and a suppurating mass, talking to a spirit."

"I could," Nimue acknowledged. "And yet, I am standing here, doing exactly what you say I am. I suppose I just wanted to meet you and look you in the eye, metaphorically speaking. I knew that you must be formidable; Sorcerer Supreme for centuries, and apparently a survivor of my own age? You'd have to be. But I wanted to see what had everyone so afraid."

"I'd imagine that you're not impressed," Strange said dryly.

"Even as a shadow of your true self, you managed to obscure my scrying and guide a group of the inexperienced and the practically powerless through Pegasus," Nimue said. "Even after Alan Scott's scouring, that's no mean feat. I'll admit, I am a little bit impressed."

"But only a little," Strange remarked.

"Yes," Nimue said. "Because there was something else I wanted. I want to know why."

"Why what?"

"When I went under the earth, Merlin had tapped into his true strength, revealed a glimpse of the true Emrys. With that strength, raw though it might have been, he could have torn apart Camelot and not all the knights in the land could have stopped him," Nimue said. "Yet the records say that Uther ruled for nearly a decade more. His son took the throne, and it is true, Arthur was much more sympathetic to magic. His achievements under Merlin's guidance were noteworthy."

She smiled faintly.

"And I'm sure that you had your say, didn't you? I don't know exactly who you were from back then, but something about you tells me that you were involved. I think I even have a couple of ideas who you might have been…"

"Ah," Strange said. "I see where this is going. This is the 'how could you let it fall apart?' speech. The 'Why didn't you do more?'"

"Yes," Nimue said. "Camelot achieved great things. It was Albion's golden age of magic, I freely admit it. Even better? It was built on a foundation of Uther Pendragon's corpse." She smiled, savouring the word. "His own heir, a young man that I conjured into being, was responsible for undoing everything he ever achieved and rebuilding Camelot into something truly great. Oh, the irony was delicious. The only thing that could have made it better is if Uther himself had been able to watch."

Her expression darkened.

"And then Merlin, and you, allowed it to stagnate. Arthur never pushed on, never retook the whole isle for the Old Religion. He never had an heir, never even adopted one! Did you think he was going to live forever? He was mortal, they die – and rather more easily than the likes of us! And when an heir willing to act stepped forth, his half-sister, Merlin struck her down. Mordred, who would at least have been a viable King, fell slaying Arthur. And then, it all fell apart. You had Albion, you had everything we ever dreamed of, and the power of Emrys to build it into something that would last for eons! Magic would never have had to retreat to the shadows in the face of the New Religions and the blind sciences! We would never have burned again!"

The last howl of frustration echoed through the concrete complex, as an ashen drizzle began to fall.

"When I awoke, it was to a world changed," Nimue said eventually, voice low and bitter. "For better, in some ways, I will admit – the sciences have their uses."

"Plumbing is certainly much more civilised," Strange agreed.

That actually startled a laugh out of the witch.

"Yes, it is," she admitted. "But also for worse. Our people were chased into the shadows, and now scuttle in the darkness, rats congratulating themselves on how well they hide. That, or they live on the edges, as little more than healers and wisewomen at best, or mocked eccentrics at worst. Worse, the very concept of magic is held in contempt by the mighty of this arrogant age."

She looked around at Pegasus' ruins, her icy blue eyes burning with cold flames, and an expression of savage satisfaction.

"Pegasus was always going to fall, and I helped it down as a means to an end, yes… but even with my plans delayed by decades, it felt good. Yes, it felt good to see all their works crumble to nothing, to show them how little their sciences, their machines, and their theories, meant in the face of magic's raw power. To show them the true extent of what they did not understand."

"That was what it was meant to do," Strange remarked. When Nimue raised an eyebrow, he smiled slightly. "As I told the children, I subscribe to a certain teaching philosophy: 'the burned had teaches best.'"

Nimue considered this, then laughed. "I wondered why such a supposedly powerful seer would let such meddling come to pass," she said. "The girl said that you knew my every move before I even emerged."

"She was right," Strange said, and his expression hardened. "Incidentally, Nimue, I am very fond of that girl. So, our chummy little conversation aside, if by some infinitesimal chance she has come to any permanent harm…"

In any instant, he was right in front of her, standing eye to eye, the shade having crossed the space between them in less than an eyeblink.

"… then I promise you this: you will become a prime example of exactly why I am so feared."

Nimue froze, then smiled a chill smile. "You do a lot of talking, but you do not act," she said. "A common failing of those who consider themselves great."

"One you are, of course, utterly immune to," Strange said dryly.

"I can multitask," came the arch reply. "And, now, be in multiple places at once."

"Ah," Strange breathed. "I had wondered. This isn't even the largest part of you."

"Well deduced, Doctor," Nimue said, mock-impressed. "However could you have figured that out?"

"Oh, I was almost certain. I just wanted confirmation," Strange said idly. "So, now you're acting." His gaze dropped to the cracked green object. "Something, I suspect, that has a great deal to do with the fact that the Green Lantern lies broken before us."

He dropped down onto his haunches and ran spectral fingers over its surface, exciting little more than a hint of a glimmer.

"Really, it's quite amazing how few people actually wondered why, if the Ring was known as the Ring of the Green Lantern, there was no sign of any actual Lantern," he remarked. "Or, for that matter, where it might be. In this case, at the bottom of Pegasus these last twenty years, as the cork in the dam. But now, the cork is out, and the dam is broken." He nodded, standing up again. "Yes, it has a very great deal to do with the Lantern, I think – both practically and symbolically."

"You're getting better at this," Nimue said, smirking. "So, projection to projection, echo to echo… what do you think I'm doing? You asked why I'm doing this… so tell me. Why?"

"I suspect I'd have to dust off one of my psychology degrees and book several months of sessions to entirely answer that," Strange said mildly. "The what of it is easy enough, though perhaps the why provides the greater context. You saw how the world had changed, in your day and in the centuries since, and deemed the old ways insufficient. The Bearer of the Green Lantern, Earth's Champion of Magic was not good enough. So, they had to be replaced. And since the Champion's focus has a rather inconvenient mind of its own, that had to be replaced too. You have done both. You are now the Champion of Magic."

He tilted his head back, looking up at things only he could see, expression one of professional judgement.

"By the looks of your spellwork – rather neat, by the way, my compliments – you're jumpstarting the Dragon Lines," he said. "Every Ley Line, every Convergence in the world. You're jolting them into life, tapping deeper into those wells of power than has been done for eons, forcing forth power."

"Magic is a part of this world, Strange," Nimue said. "Woven into its very fabric, more so than any other world in the cosmos."

"More than very, very many, yes," Strange said, narrowing his eyes. "Ah… you've Seen something, haven't you?"

The capitalisation did not go unnoticed.

"I have," Nimue said. "The same thing you have seen, I am sure. The darkness, as the stars go out. A shadow falling over all of creation. And at its heart, six stones. Six stones set in a golden gauntlet around which everything revolves, wielded by something older and more evil than anything this world has ever witnessed."

"Thanos," Strange said softly.

"So that is its name," Nimue said. "Good. It is important to know the names of things."

Strange tilted his head, reading her body language, what went said and unsaid – which, in the form of a projection, could be a great deal more than normal.

"You're trying to prepare the world," he said.

"There will be no 'trying' about it," Nimue said coldly. "You and Merlin, and who knows how many others, have had eons to prepare for this. You failed to prepare even one kingdom, and now you have failed again. Instead of acting, you have stayed in the shadows, let this world fall into dormancy, selecting only small bands of heroes to deal with immediate problems. You have been so set on preserving the status quo that you have never looked beyond the next crisis, and it is clear to me you never will. Not until it is too late." She shook her head. "This world needs to change, and fast."

She looked up.

"The groundwork has already been laid," she said. "The Battle of New York heralded the return of the old gods. The Battle of London cracked open reality, and the scars remain. Spirits and mortals drift between each other's worlds as easily as breathing in some places. Magics and powers, both old and new, are stirring, as they should. Earth is a realm full of magic, bursting at the very seams. And yet, all too many think that magic is something confined to a few individuals or out of the way places. They think that magic is faded to embers and ashes, even if many now accept that it at least existed. Well, so be it: from those ashes, let a fire be woken, a fire fit to defy the coming darkness."

"And what if that fire rages out of control?" Strange asked. "What then? What if you burn the world in trying to save it? What if the very people you are trying to save are destroyed in the process?"

"Wildfires burn away the old, Strange, and allow new growth," Nimue retorted. "We need the old magics, but we cannot maintain the old ways of doing things, the old patterns. The old systems must either change or be replaced. Once, I learned that lesson myself, and I learned it the hard way. You had it right, Strange, exactly right. The burned hand does teach best."

Strange regarded her for a long moment, then sighed. "You know, I agree with you," he said. "Many of the conclusions you've come to, I came to as well. So much of what you've said is absolutely right."

"And yet you never did anything," Nimue said, a twist of contempt in her lips.

"I have done far more than you could ever imagine, you petulant, arrogant, short-sighted child."

The words struck like a lash, Nimue's eyes widening as the shade advanced.

"You claim to think long term, yet you can't see anything beyond the immediate future," Strange continued savagely. "It makes you a poor seer and a barely adequate strategist. I can forgive you for not knowing that I am a time traveller, nor to see the sheer scope of what I have done, because I have spent a long time obscuring that."

Now he was close, circling her, his voice as cold and smooth as knife wrapped in silk.

"Nevertheless… did it never occur to you to take the broader view? To consider what someone with my abilities could set in motion? To think that a battle lost would mean a war won? To realise that all that is necessary to change the course of history is the right person, in the right place, at the right time? To perhaps consider the possibility that the fall of Camelot taught me never to take anything for granted?"

Nimue stared at him in shock, for once lost for words.

"No, clearly it did not. You looked but you did not see, you heard but you did not listen. You said it yourself, what Carol had told you: I knew your moves before you even emerged from the Isle of the Blessed. You heard her say that, enough to repeat it like a braindead parrot, but you did not listen. You did not realise the implications. I knew this was coming. I knew that all of this was coming to pass. Some of the details changed, but they always do. With that in mind, perhaps now you will understand."

"You never needed to do this," Nimue whispered. "Because I did it for you."

"Exactly," Strange said, then sighed, visibly shoving down his frustration. "Forgive me, that outburst was… inappropriate. But please, Nimue, listen to me. You can control Pegasus; the magic of the Earth flows through you, you are indeed now its Champion, and all the more remarkable for it. The Green Lantern smoothed out the bumps and the difficulties, buffered the flow of power, but you have it all, raw and untamed. There is not one in a billion with the strength of will to handle that, let alone do what you are now. I will be the first to say how extraordinary that is. But you are making a mistake."

He waved a hand all around them.

"You can leash Pegasus, but not everywhere, not at once. This will happen all over the world – lesser to start with, but spreading from the epicentre, and fast. Unleashing the magic of the world and letting it do as it will isn't simply wildfire ecology – Pegasus showed that. You are a Priestess of the Old Religion, your connection to the Earth was unlike that of any still living even before you took on this power. Now?"

He gestured, as if to say there was no way of summing it up in words.

"I implore you, use that connection now. Listen to the Earth, feel the power in it, the power you are forcing forth. Feel the echoes in the stone, the traces of fossil-magic. This world is ancient, Nimue. We are not the first to walk upon it or to wield its power, and you are not the first to try something very much like this. I was there the last time it happened, I bore witness. All that was left were echoes and ash."

He stepped forward.

"Nimue, please. Do not do this. I am not a Priest of the Old Religion, much less a High Priest, but my folk were druids, I was the Sorcerer Supreme for eons. Please, listen to me: much of what you are doing is right, but the way you are going about it is wrong, both practically and ethically. You are meddling with the essence of Gaia herself, the kind of power that spawns pantheons, without any form of channelling or stabilisation! At best, you will unleash a magical Dark Age, not the Golden Age you suppose! Let me help you. Let us do this together, properly."

For a long moment, Nimue was silent, seeming to waver. The world held its breath, as it stood on the verge of a choice.

Then, she laughed, short and sharp and devoid of mirth.

The choice had been made.

"You think I don't know?" she asked contemptuously. "Time may be your servant, Strange, but as you acknowledged, my roots run deep. I know what you speak of, and I am not going to be swayed. Magic is under my command now. Even if I fail, even if it does run wild, as it did before? So be it. Nature does not play favourites. Call it trial by fire: if humanity does survive this, then we will be all the stronger for it. If it does not, then it would not have survived at all. That being said… I think we have rather better odds than a race of sentient vegetables." She smirked. "After all. If we didn't, wouldn't you have stopped me?"

Strange's shade closed its pale eyes.

"Petulant," he said quietly. "Arrogant. And childish." He looked up. "I extended you a courtesy, I gave you a chance to stop this, to achieve all you wanted safely. But you would not compromise. You would not be patient. And I was a fool to hope that had changed. So be it. You have said your final piece. Now I shall say mine – if with a little constructive, and appropriate, plagiarism from an old friend."

He met her gaze, and when he spoke again, the voice echoed through the complex, from stone to whirling cloud, reverberating with power, the rolling cadences of great bard and master mage. With each line, they echoed and harmonised, a distant figure seemed to get closer and closer, two voices merging and overlapping.

"Gone, gone, the Shade of Man,

The Spirit has done all he can,

So banish the Spirit, bring on the change,

Now behold – the true Stephen Strange!"

The last silvery outline vanished with a snap, as small clouds of ash puffed beneath booted feet. Diamond blue eyes narrowed, and fingers flickered and danced. The noises of distressed animals were replaced by more recognisable groans and moans. Before they could cohere further, flickering fingers became a hurling arm, and a spear of brimstone-smelling dark red flame blurred through a hasty golden shield, impaling and incinerating the echo of Nimue before she could even scream.

The blue eyes glanced down, and their owner crouched, murmuring softly. Four orange portals appeared in the earth, then closed, rendering the air silent once more.

And then there was one, looking up at the skies, gaze piercing through all mortal impediments to pick out the owner of the soul fragment he'd just destroyed.

"You had my curiosity, Nimue," Strange, the true Strange, said softly. "Now you have my attention. You may come to regret that."

OoOoO

When Monica sat up, she thought it was quite reasonable of her to hunch herself down in a ball, patting herself repeatedly to reassure herself that she was once again human, while her eyes darted around, looking around for any sign of Nimue, and maintaining a resting heart rate that would probably have made any reasonable monitoring device scream.

Later, she thought it was quite unreasonable that the highly neurotic Peter was not having the expected (and entirely understandable) panic attack, instead simply gulping down air, doing his best to settle his breathing. Even more unfairly, Gambit didn't seem to be affected at all. Of course, as she would also later realise, what Gambit 'seemed' rarely had much to do with what he actually was.

"Y' all right?" he asked.

Monica let out a hysterical laugh.

"Oh, I'm just dandy," she said. "I just got turned into a bird by a psychotic witch, then turned back by…" She trailed off. "That was this Doctor Strange guy, wasn't it? Not just some weird ghost, but the real thing."

"It was," Gambit confirmed.

"And he's squaring off against Nimue."

As if in answer, there was a vast booming roar from high above, one that rattled every bone and tooth in Pegasus, and probably across the most of Louisiana to boot.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Which is bad," Peter said, pale but admirably maintaining his composure. "I mean, I doubt Nimue would have ditched the Ring if she hadn't had something as good or better, and…"

"Strange said something about Merlin not stepping in because him versus Nimue with the Ring would break… the US," Monica said, nodding as she remembered. "I don't know how Strange stacks up, but considering he fixed us and sent us… wherever we are, without Nimue even making a peep, I'd say he's pretty strong."

Peter swallowed. "He is," he said. When Monica sent him a questioning look, he elaborated. "I don't know as much as someone like Carol, let alone her boyfriend, but after Halloween, I really started looking into this sort of thing. I know a few people online, and one of them, guy called Mr Knight –"

"'Mr Knight'?"

"It's a pen-name," Peter said, a little impatient. "Well… he had a few stories." He looked up. "Strange is kind of the guy that everyone's scared of."

Monica tried to square this with the oft flippant lecturing semi-ghost she'd met, the one who'd alternated between dry amusement and resigned exasperation, and was only very occasionally serious. Then, she remembered the tone Carol had used when talking about him. It was much like the one she'd used about Gambit. If the two had something in common, it was that they might not have seemed dangerous, but that didn't mean they weren't.

She shook her head and looked around again, properly taking it in. They had landed on grass, in the middle of… well, it looked a bit like a forest, nearly as strange as the one they'd been in. But somehow friendlier.

"Yeah," Peter said, and she realised she'd said the last bit out loud. "Friendly's the word I'd use too. Or at least, you know, it doesn't want to hurt us."

"That's 'cos it's already been hurt," Gambit said grimly. He was crouched by a relatively small willow tree of some kind, examining the roots and the soil around them. Carol's shield, which had apparently come with them, was slung on his arm. Then, he stood up and sighed bitterly. "Ah'm sorry, cherie."

"Gambit?" Monica asked.

"Oh no," Peter whispered. "Oh nononono, this can't be happening, this can't."

"Guys. What. Is. Going. On?" Monica demanded, the hair rising on the back of her neck.

"What's going on is that we know Nimue didn' get dis by askin' nicely," Gambit said, hefting the shield, before looking back at the tree, his expression tired and sad. "Now, we've figured just how."

"You mean –" Monica began, her bile rising as her mind's eye picked out familiar shapes and contours in the wood and stringy golden leaves.

"Nimue caught her, alone, an' no magic shield was ever gonna be enough," Gambit said, then swore savagely under his breath, whirling away as he paced back and forth. "She should never have been 'ere, she didn' stand a chance!"

"It can be fixed, though, right?" Monica asked, clinging to shreds of hope. "Like we were? Like, maybe Strange just parked us here, out of the way, with Carol, for afters. You know, so he can fix her and pick us up, all at once. I mean, the guy's busy, it'd be a time saver…"

Her bout of desperate babble trailed off in the face of two sombre expressions.

"I ain't a wizard," Gambit said quietly. "But not from anythin' I ever heard. Animals is one thing, but plants? Plants is a whole other problem."

"Animals have nerves, organs, circulatory systems," Peter said, subdued. "Especially the ones we were turned into – all vertebrates, all warm-blooded, all with the same number of limbs, all different variations on the same design. I've done some digging – being turned most of the way into a vampire is good motivation. Anyway, animal transformations happen a bit, and they can be dangerous, but fixable. People with the right magic can turn themselves into animals and back." He closed his eyes. "Plants… plants are a different story."

He looked up, hands clenching into fists, and for the first time, Monica saw just why Peter had been so scared when he was changed by that spider bite. Before, he'd just looked like ordinary Peter Parker; sweet, a bit shy, and dorkishly awkward. Red eyes, pale skin, and slightly pointy teeth hadn't changed that in the least. Now… now, there was nothing ordinary about him. Now, those red eyes burned.

"She's gonna pay for this," he said quietly.

There was a loud groan from the undergrowth and a tall figure staggered out. His clothes were ripped and torn, full of holes in some unsettling places – though none, thankfully, that would outrage decency.

"Oh, she's gonna pay. Starting with a new intestine. And new tastebuds – I don't think I'm gonna be able to look at a mushroom omelette the same way ever again…"

"Deadpool?" Monica said, astonished. "You were… you know. Being…"

"Turned into a giant mushroom?"

Everyone glanced at Peter, who shrugged. "That is more or less what was happening," he said. "Except, you know, it was both eating him and transforming him, and ripping him open to spread his spores and how did you survive?"

"I'm hard to kill," Deadpool said cheerfully, before his mood switched abruptly. "Which doesn't mean that it didn't hurt."

"Y' weren't in any state to heal from that," Gambit said, certain. "Ah've seen healin' factors before. Yours is strong, but it ain't that strong. No one's is."

"I also got some help from David Attenborough."

"Huh?"

"'e means Strange."

"Yeah. He basically made me absorb the mushroom rather than the mushroom absorb me," Deadpool explained. "Still had a fuck load of healing to do, though." He cracked his neck and sighed. "Ahh… so, what did I miss?"

They told him.

"Oh. Is that it?"

Monica took a deep breath as everything went red. "You insensitive motherfucking –"

"What you mean?" Gambit asked sharply, interrupting her tirade.

"Look," Deadpool said. "I'm no big brain, and here, I'm just a side-character in this side-quest, so I'm not in on everything. But I do happen to know enough for useful exposition." He pointed at Gambit. "You. Hot Summers. You're a con. And you've seen Strange at work before. He's like, the ultimate con, right?"

"Dere's worse summaries," Gambit remarked, suddenly looking thoughtful.

"And every good con doesn't just stack the cards so they should win…"

"… they do it so they can't lose," Gambit finished.

"Exactly," Deadpool said. "And if I'm Gandalf the Smug, I'm not going to just do it all myself – I'm going to build in some contingencies, to trick people into doing stuff for me."

"Or put them in jus' de right place, at jus' de right time," Gambit said slowly. "With all de tools dey need."

"So, we can save Carol?" Peter said, eyes suddenly shining with hope.

"Of course we can, Petey-cakes," Deadpool said, ruffling his hair. "Because if we can't, her boyfriend is going to snap and kill us all, along with the rest of the world, and probably most of the universe too."

"Wait, what?!" Monica yelped.

Gambit grimaced. "Again," he said. "Dere's worse summaries."

"I could do with hearing the expanded version," Monica said, then glanced at the tree, her expression hardening. "Later." She frowned. "So, Strange put us all here, because we could save Carol. He gave us all the tools." She looked up. "Like Deadpool, knowing it was possible. Like Peter, who's been doing some reading into some pretty weird shit – no offence."

"None taken. Believe me, some of it is very weird."

"Right. And Gambit…" Monica continued, before stopping, meeting his gaze as they shared the same realisation.

"Y' powers," Gambit said slowly. "This mission's been a lotta things: gettin' Deadpool off my back and on our side, alertin' SHIELD and de Avengers to what's goin' on, spookin' out Nimue… an' a heist."

"Well, that didn't go so well," Peter said. "Nimue beat us to it."

"Oh, ah'm not so sure," Gambit said thoughtfully, reaching down and picking up a small object, which he flicked into the air, catching it. "I think she got what she wanted… but it ain't what Strange was lookin' for."

"And her powers come into this how?" Deadpool asked. "I mean, I know, there's been all sorts of foreshadowing, going right back to the first book –"

"What?"

"Fourth wall break. It's how I know so much."

"None of that made any sense."

"I know. It's part of my charm."

"If it provides useful information then, sure, charming," Peter said. "But it's not."

"Take the double act on the road, guys," Monica said. "My 'powers' are a glorified lock pick. Or… I thought they were."

"I used t' think my powers were jus' blowin' things up," Gambit said shrewdly. "Our powers ain't the same, but they're close enough, thematically speaking. Very close. Could it be y' jus' ain't ever used them f'r much more than pickin' locks? 'til tonight, that is." He folded his arms. "Some o' de locks we picked had a lot o' security measures – much more than jus' some kind o' key or combination lock."

"That goo monster, for one thing," Monica half-agreed. "And Carol's shield… thing. But even that was still, you know, separating stuff. Another kind of lock. Sort of. It was weird."

"And?" Gambit asked, shrugging. He eyed the tree thoughtfully. "What's a magic spell, but another kind o' lock?"

"I can break the spell," Monica said, then blinked. "That is not a sentence I thought I would be saying. Ever."

"I think y' can do one hell of a lot more than that," Gambit said, as she headed to the tree. "Could be that y' the most powerful one of us all."

Monica eyed him. "Are we talking in an after school special kind of way, or a practical way?"

"Eh, six of one, half a dozen of the other," Deadpool said, shrugging. "I mean, you're a teen superhero, it comes with the territory."

"I am not a superhero."

"Right. You're just an ordinary girl who rolled in as last minute back-up to bail out all of us, break into a mysterious and horrifying ex-super soldier base full of nightmarish abominations of science in the middle of an apocalyptic battle between morally ambiguous good and cheerfully amoral evil that could break open the planet, trying to use your super-secret superpowers which have very specific plot relevance to save your friend and the world from magical doom, all while tapping into hidden potential to save the day. Happens all the time. Not a superhero kind of thing at all."

Monica glared at him. He shrugged.

"What? I've been doing this for a while. It only takes four or five moments in life to be a hero. Not all of them have to involve spandex."

"That… was surprisingly profound," Peter remarked.

"And some of them involve latex."

"That wasn't."

"It was also wastin' time," Gambit said, with a hint of impatient growl, as the remains of Pegasus shook once more. "If dey keep goin' on like this, New Orleans is gonna get wiped off de map."

"What, from a few bangs… oh."

Everyone stared up, following Gambit's pointed finger. What they saw was not encouraging.

The last clash had shaken loose enough pieces of metal and concrete to provide a clear view of the skies. Bands of dark cloud stretched from horizon to horizon, pouring in from the sea and thickening by the second, blotting out the stars. The great mass of darkness was only illuminated by periodic flashes of multi-coloured light; many in colours not seen outside of auroras, and some not seen outside of the minds of the greatest mages and the truly diseased artists, those most touched by unreality. Most prominent, however, were blasts of ice-blue lightning, and flares of eldritch orange light, each of which tore through the skies like tongues of Hell's own flames, ripping apart the clouds as they passed.

"Hey, aren't those clouds…" Peter began, before paling. "Oh crap."

"I'm going to regret even asking," Monica said. "But, Peter, what is that?"

"Well, Nimue's pulling out a lot of power from, you know, here," Peter said. "And the containment system… well, I'm guessing she's improved it, but it's clearly not perfect. A lot's leaking out. And, uh, last time it did that –"

"Yeah, yeah, magical apocalypse, I know. So… magical clouds?"

"Um. Yes and no," Peter said. "I think."

Before Monica could demand a further answer, Gambit quirked a wry, mirthless smile. "You know what Strange said about Pegasus? About de sense of de place, the impressions left behind? An' what all that magic did t' all that?" he asked.

"Yeah…"

"Y'all ever hear of a hurricane called Katrina?"

Monica looked up, then down at Gambit, then up, then down once more. "Oh no," she said. "Oh, you absolutely have to be fucking with me."

"It jus' an informed guess," Gambit said, in an almost disturbingly casual tone. "Could be something different." He shrugged. "I mean, it ain't like New Orleans ain't had other hurricanes. An' this time, there ain't a thunder god in sight."

Monica stared at him, then took a deep breath and settled down by the tree that had been Carol. "Okay," she said. "Enough delays. We're gonna somehow figure out how to use my stupid powers to save Carol now, then work out how to stop a fucking hurricane, and then have a much delayed panic attack. Sound good?"

"Sounds reasonable," Gambit said, settling down beside her and laying a hand on her shoulder. "An' Monica?"

"Yeah?" she asked, looking up.

His handsome features creased into a warm smile. "Y' can do this," he said.

"Because I was picked to by the guy who knows everything?"

Gambit shook his head. "Forget about Strange," he said. "Anythin' he's said, or has been said about 'im. This is about y', an' her. Y' can do it because Carol's y' friend. An' she needs y'."

"She does, doesn't she?" Monica said, and reached out, touching Carol's roots. "Let's get started, then."

OoOoO

Carol sat up and blinked. Then, she shivered.

Remembering being transformed into a tree would have that effect. But she was up and about now, so that must have been a… hallucination? An illusion? A bad dream?

She swallowed. Or maybe, she thought, it was the other way around. Maybe, just maybe, she was dead.

That thought sunk, leaden, into her mind. It wouldn't be the first time that she'd been on the brink of death, or even the second. The first time, she'd learned how to wield the Ring.

"Fat lot of good that turned out to be," she muttered, before her chest clenched painfully. "Fat lot of good I turned out to be."

Nimue had beaten her, after all. First, because she'd been too stubborn and prideful to actually use the damn ring, and then again, when it was too late to make a difference, because that bitch of a witch had already won.

She sucked in a shaky breath. She was dead. And Nimue had won. And this was… where was this? There was no sign of Death, who she'd also met. She'd been nice. Also the sort-of adopted aunt of her then future boyfriend.

"Life's weird, makes sense that death's weirder," she said, in an attempt at bravado. "Also, colder."

She wrapped her arms around herself on instinct, then looked down and yelped.

She was naked.

"Oh god, please let this be one of those bad dreams," she said to herself, covering up as best she could. "Also, speaking of gods, if one of you shitheads is behind this and thinks this is funny, then I swear, you're going to regret the day you were ever born, you pervy fucker!"

Her voice rang around her surroundings. No response was forthcoming, not even a change in the sense of the silence.

She swore under her breath, and looked around slowly. It wasn't hell, and it wasn't heaven, either. Really, it just looked kind of like… a garden?

She frowned, looking around again. There was something almost familiar about it, something in the air... She blinked. It looked like another part of Pegasus. Yet… it wasn't what she would have expected.

"Also, that's impossible," she said to herself. "I'm dead. Aren't I? This just looks like Pegasus. Maybe what it used to be?"

Wind soughed through the trees. There was a resounding and unhelpful silence. She huffed a sigh and considered her surroundings, closing her eyes to think, to feel. She liked to tell Harry that he was a Jedi to annoy him, but the 'feel, don't think' was surprisingly applicable, from what she understand. She clenched her eyes tighter shut against tears, drawing in her mental armour. She wouldn't tell him that, not now. Not again. Not ever.

Based on her past experiences, she'd have thought it would be unsettling at best, a place of power and horror. Pegasus was, after all, a mysterious former SHIELD installation dedicated to weaponising magic itself, one currently surrounded by a swamp-forest of nightmarish living plants and infested with horrifying magic-warped monsters. Having seen magic warped landscapes and secret bases before, her bet had been on 'post-apocalyptic horror'.

Yet what she found was different. Frankly, it looked very much like a garden, or a forest glade, or a combination of the two, having grown beyond its original limits. Yes, it was a little unsettling, and it was certainly a place of power. Even though her enchanted armour was the only magical thing about her (and here and now, even if it had been present, it would be nothing more than her imagination), she could feel the magic in her back teeth, it was that strong.

But it was beautiful. Strange, but beautiful. And so very, very alive.

She reached up to brush away a tear, then froze as metal brushed against skin.

"Okay, this is weird," she said. "An improvement, but weird."

She had imagined her armour, and here it was.

"Okay, so I can at least control myself," she said to herself. "Sort of." She picked out a possible path and headed on.

Slowly, cautiously, she made her through, using senses and instincts whose extent she hardly understood to warn her of any sign of Nimue. Somehow, she doubted even being dead would keep her safe from that bitch if she got bored. Even if her shield-armour was, you know, real, even fully charged up by Gambit, she would be nothing more than a campfire before a tidal wave in a direct confrontation with the witch.

Especially since she had the strength of will to bully the Green Lantern Ring into submission, then apparently replace it with something that could still even that. Dead or not, she was up and about again, somehow, and she was going to make the most of it. First, she was going to find out where she was and what was going on, and then, if there was any weird magical connection she could use to get at Nimue, then… well, her only chance was a sneak attack, or –

She paused, as a glade emerged up ahead. Her eyes told her that there was a vast tree with a trunk of silvery bark as broad as a giant redwood, a grand crown of drooping branches that hung low like a forest in their own right, all adorned with golden-green leaves and fruits like gleaming jewels. Her shield… armour… whatever the hell it was might just be a figment of her imagination, but something told her that she could stand in a ring of a dozen arc reactors, even Harry, even Loki or Thor in full flight, not even approach the endless wellspring of power pouring out.

"This," she murmured to herself. "Is a terrible idea." She paused and mentally reviewed some of her past experiences, and shrugged. "On the other hand, I'm dead already, and it's not like that's ever stopped me before."

That was how she found herself amongst the roots of the great tree, magnificent in their own right, probably running for miles out into the bayou around them... They were doubtless a wonder of nature. Or super-nature, as they case may be. More pertinently, they were also a giant pain in the ass to discreetly navigate.

She didn't know why she needed to reach the trunk of the tree itself, but instinct said she did, and in her experience, where magic was involved, instinct was rarely wrong. Except when it really, really was.

Still, if Nimue tapped this power on top of the Ring, no wonder she'd tossed it aside. She'd be beyond godlike – that had been made very clear. Also, back-up wasn't going to be here soon, and wasn't like to include Thor, Loki, or Wanda – and Strange, the real Strange, was not only unavailable, but had made it quite clear that he felt it was their problem to solve. So. Here, as they said, went nothing.

She placed her hands on the tree's trunk, feeling the power pulsing through it... and surrendered.

A moment later, she opened her eyes. This was a rather disconcerting experience, since she hadn't remembered closing them.

She was in a forest - or at the very least, surrounded by plants. Trees, mostly, but they were odd. Not alien, they were too familiar for that, but there was something off about them, too. She was hardly a botanist, but they almost looked unfinished. Primitive, like pre-human fossils compared to the average person on the street. Mist swirled around her, rising from the mossy ground beneath her feet, and fearsomely bright moonlight shone through it in strangely filtered beams.

Harry might have waxed lyrical about their primal nature, the sheer depth of age, the hum with truly natural power, of magic born of life itself.

Carol mostly just wanted to know where the fuck she was and what the fuck was going on now. And expressed it. Loudly.

She did not expect an answer.

"You sought us. And we came."

Carol whirled to see a strange figure emerging from the mist. It was surprisingly human. If, you know, you had humans that were part wooden statue, part mobile compost heap, with eyes like red berries, and hair made of fronds. She couldn't tell if it was meant to be male, female, or something else entirely.

"You're, what, the spirit of this place?" she guessed, and remembered a term used about the mountain last Easter. Was it only that long? she wondered. Gods, that felt like an eternity ago. She had been a very different person. Well, she amended, maybe not that different. "A... genius loci? Or are you some kind of dryad, a nature spirit?"

The androgynous figure cocked its head. "Not exactly," it said. "For one thing, the dryads you speak of were born long after our time. We only live now as an echo of what we were, an imprint filled with wild magic. For another, we are not one. We are many."

A wave rolled through the forest like a breeze without a breeze, and Carol felt a sudden intensification of interest.

"You're the forest," she realised. "And you're... what, exactly?"

"After a fashion," it said. "I am the speaker. You stand in our mind, so I have taken a form you can understand, based upon the body and consciousness of one of your people. His..." It frowned. "His being had a description. A... name, you would call it. Yes, a name. Alec Holland."

"Okay, Speaker," Carol began, before pausing. "'Based upon the consciousness'. What do you mean by that? My boyfriend - someone I'm connected to, if you don't understand the term - is a telepath. All this mental-magical stuff with consciousnesses is his thing, but I've picked up a couple of things. Am I speaking to Alec Holland's ghost, or are you just using his knowledge, or what?"

There was a pause as the Speaker seemed to consider this. "Alec Holland died here," it said. "As both your kind and ours would understand it. But he had a connection to the world that few of your people have." It gestured at Carol. "You do not, not naturally."

"Then how am I doing this? Because the last thing I remember was Nimue…" She trailed off and shuddered. "Is it my armour?" She paused. "Uh, how do I explain this, it's sort of made of metal and magic and –"

"No."

"Oh. Then, again, how?"

"I speak to the trees," the Speaker said simply. "Though your roots are new and they run shallow, they are roots all the same."

"Roots," Carol said slowly. "My… roots." She swallowed, throat suddenly very dry. "You're the trees. You're the forest. And you said… you said that you speak to the trees."

"Yes."

Carol didn't remember collapsing, save only that the landing was remarkably soft. Her heart hammered, her breath came in short, fast gasps, desperate sips of air as her hands clenched at the fresh moss that was her living cushion. Flowers blossomed around her, soothing scents mingling to provide a mute comfort. Eventually, after what might have been a minute or a month, she rocked back up into a sitting position, arms tightly wrapped around her knees, staring at them as if they'll change and vanish the moment she looked away.

"I'm a tree," she whispered, the truth finally, really, truly hitting her. "I'm a tree. She turned me into a tree."

"Yes," the Speaker said. His response was not unkind, but it was by necessity blunt.

"I'm… I'm dead, then," Carol said, swallowing, eyes damp. Her lips twitched into a gallows smile. "Well, looks like I lived the dream: live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse." She closed her eyes on more tears, feeble attempt at a smile cracking and falling apart like dust on the wind. "Oh god. My family, mom, Stevie, little Joe, Steve… and Harry. This is going to break him, I swear, he's going to lose it." She snorted. "God, it'd almost be worth it to see Nimue's face when the Dark Phoenix comes out to play." She shook her head, sobering. "Nothing's worth that, though. Not really."

She looked up.

"Am I like Alec, then? Just a ghost in the forest?"

"No."

Carol blinked.

"Alec Holland died here, and he died with a purpose. He stood with one like you, one who was given a root with which to wield the Green, one which has now been torn from us. They wished to bind our grove to protect their own. Alec Holland passed from your world, into ours, and his spirit was preserved." He reached out and flexed his fingers slowly, examining them. "I have his memories and his shape. But I have other memories, other perspectives, of different shapes and different natures. So, I suppose that I both am Alec Holland, and I am not."

Carol stared. "So, sort of reincarnated ghost," she said. "Fine. You mind if I call you Alec?"

It shrugged, a peculiarly human gesture. "If you wish," it said.

Carol huffed in damp amusement, remembering the last time she'd heard those words, and who from. This time, the meaning was rather different. All things considered, she felt that this was a good thing: 'Alec' seemed like a nice guy, but dead or not, she wasn't really into the idea of being hit on by Treebeard.

"Okay, Alec," she said. "What do you mean that I'm not like him? Or you. Whatever. That I didn't have that same kind of purpose?"

Alec didn't reply immediately. As far as Carol could tell, he was thinking. Or he could be photosynthesising. Or whatever plant-ghosts did in this weird place.

"Alec Holland, as he was, died," he said. "He became one with us after his death. His spirit imprinted onto the roots and the trees, and the memories of the world. Your spirit is different. Yours is not imprinted. It is contained."

Carol's eyes widened, a sudden leap of hope so fierce it was painful. "I'm not dead?"

"You are a tree," came the singularly unhelpful reply. "Your tree lives."

"And I'm trapped within it?"

"No."

"Trapped as it?"

Alec seemed to consider this. "You have changed from one state to another," he said.

"And if I was changed back?"

"Your spirit is different to that of Alec. Whether it will remain the same as it was, as it is, I do not know."

Carol sighed. "Not the clear answer I was hoping for, but I'll take it," she said. "Okay, cool," she said. "Alec, I've got a few questions and not a lot of time. What are you guys? Where did you come from? What do you want?" She took a deep breath. "More importantly... that woman, the one who did this to me? I don't know much about her, but anything you can tell me would be appreciated. She isn't up to anything good. She used to work here, and she's been trying to get back inside. She's been getting people killed just to do it, and I'm pretty sure she thinks she's killed me. She stole that 'root' to finish the job, and now she has. She was involved in what went wrong in the first place, why Alec had to die, and now, she's up to worse."

She squared her shoulders.

"I'm certain she needs to be stopped," she said. "She's done enough for that already, and god knows what she's doing now. But I can't stop her alone, not when she doesn't even need the Ring - that 'root' you mentioned way back. I need to get back, to be a person, not a tree. And I need to be able to stand up to her." She swallowed. "I'm gonna need your help."

The thing that had once been Alec Holland considered this for a long moment. Then, it looked at her.

"Your forms are not designed to communicate as we do," it said. "We existed eons before the earliest of your ancestors emerged from the waters, when lands were placed differently to how they are now. We were, to our knowledge, the first thinking children of this thinking world. We are as different to you as you are to the trees, and far more different to the trees you know than you are to the creatures you know as monkeys. The closest sounds that your form of communications have to our name would render it as Co-Ta-Ti."

It smiled faintly.

"On our passing, we became part of the Earth once more, a minor part of a part of the mind of the world. In terms you may more easily understand: we are children of Gaia, and we are part of her, an aspect of the Green. You may call us the Parliament of Trees."

Carol absorbed this, then coughed.

"... uh, do you mind if I just call you Alec? I mean, you-you, not all of you."

"That would be acceptable."

"And will you help?"

"I do not know if I can. But I will try."

Carol closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. "Thank you," she breathed.

Then, she snapped them open again.

"Okay," she said. "I need info. Now, about that 'root' thing..."

'Alec' nodded. "The Ring of the Green Lantern," it said. "Alec was familiar with it. He studied it." It frowned. "He also knew the one who wielded it, until she broke it."

"Wait, what? No, never mind. Deal with that later. You know her. Good. Saves on the explanation." She frowned. "Why break the Ring?" Then, she shook her head. "Because it's stubborn, it has a will of its own, she'd always have to be focusing on it to contain it, let alone use it. Now, she's chucked it for something better."

She looked over at 'Alec'.

"This power, the power that woke you guys up, that warped Pegasus, that Alan Scott sealed away. That's what she's been after, that's what she's got – here and now, she's got it, her full powers and then a shitload more. She destabilised Pegasus in the first place, just to get all of this to herself."

She paused. 'Alec' was impassive, but attentive. He seemed to be waiting. She took a deep breath.

"Okay," she said. "You'll help me, right?"

"So far as I can, yes," 'Alec' said. There was an expression of implacability on that mossy face now, the sort of strength that drove a tap root through three feet of concrete. "We are long beyond our time. But now, the Green is awake again. Nature is unbalanced, in ways it has not been since we ourselves unbalanced it. What happened before must not be allowed to happen again."

"Good," Carol said. "Can you do anything about getting me out of here?"

'Alec' looked up. Carol followed his gaze. The clear sky was flooding with a strange, eerie blue light. "I do not think that I will have to."

"And about fixing the Ring?" Carol asked, eager, heart hammering with hope.

"The Ring is not what was broken," 'Alec' said. "Only the Lantern. The true Root. Without a Root, I can do nothing."

"Shiwaitaminute," Carol said, segueing from swear to revelation in an instant. "Root. Like, say, something that can tap into and handle, oh, massive amounts of pre-existing magical power?"

"Yes. Why?"

Carol smiled like a shark.

OoOoO

Up until about ten minutes ago, Nimue had been enjoying her ascent to godhood. All the power she had lost had been restored, all the power she had sought had been pooled in her hands, and the Green Lantern itself had been destroyed, leaving open the position of Champion of Magic.

She hadn't originally planned to make grand changes – when she'd set out, she mostly just wanted restoration, to fill the aching gap that her botched resurrection had left and make her the mistress of her own destiny once more. Then, as she had worked at Pegasus, she had come to understand this new world, and all the new possibilities that it offered.

Now, those possibilities were different – some had fallen by the wayside, with the return of the old gods and the ascent of superhumanity. Yet those same factors, and so many others, had made destiny open like a flower. Even now, empowered as she was, she had far more peers than she would have otherwise believed. The world was no longer a blank slate for her to draw her desires. Not that it had ever truly been a blank slate, but the fact was that now, there were many more people who had the wherewithal to object. And yet… at the same time, the world was so much more mutable. It crackled with potential.

And now, for the first time, she had the power to truly shape the world. No longer at the beck and call of the Old Religion, no longer subject to its whims and caprices, no longer a stepping stone for others with a greater destiny (others, mark you, who despite that destiny, and raw power sufficient to challenge her even now, had still managed to completely fuck it up. Honestly. Men).

The world was ripe for change, and she was perfectly placed to change it. The rules of magic itself would rewritten, and the rules of society, of mortal and mage alike? They would be bend, or they would be broken. And no mage, no sorcerer, no matter how weak and petty, would be helpless. Her people would never burn again.

Of course, all these grand aims depended on raw power, utter security with which to consolidate it, and a free hand with which to use it. Right now, she only had one out of three, and the same person was being a significant obstacle to both of the other two things and her enjoyment in general.

Honestly, he could at least have let her have some fun first.

"You know, I would have thought that you of all people would understand," she said, the clouds beneath her swirling and forming a winding stairway that carried her upwards.

"I understand perfectly, Nimue," Strange replied, drifting upwards with insouciant ease. Nimue did her best to conceal a twinge of irritation.

Flight, at least in human form, was always supposed to be the one feat even the greatest sorcerers could not achieve, one that even after millennia of study and innovation was limited to enchanted objects. Unaided flight was supposed to be impossible for mortal mages. And yet, with eyes that now saw the flow of magic as easily as they would the contrast in shades of shadows on a bright summer's day, she could see that she was dealing with someone who quite clearly didn't care.

"As I told you before, I share many of your aims," Strange continued. "It is just your methods that I find variously short-sighted, foolish, and repulsive."

"If half of what I have heard about you is true, then your hands are hardly so clean as to criticise," she said archly, her fingers flickering as she loosed a spell that would turn him to water. Even more irritatingly, despite the power behind it and the fact that it was no small spell, it was countered without any sign of real effort.

"Oh, my hands have more blood on them than you could possibly imagine," Strange said calmly. "The dead have names, even the most despised of them, and mine would take eons to list." His expression hardened. "But I do not act for my own advancement. I do not harm children. And I never discount the cost."

"High minded sentiments indeed," Nimue sneered. "From someone who let Albion fall."

Strange went white.

"I don't know who you were in those days, but you have power and that counts for a lot," she said, masking a slow and steady focusing of power. "Enough to tip the balance of fate. And… yes, this is personal for you, isn't it? A regret. A wound. A chink in the armour of the great Doctor Strange – but not so great that he could save all he loved."

"You speak of things that you do not understand," he whispered.

"Do I? Do I really? I remember the Purge, Strange, I was there. I saw kingdoms rise and fall in my time, I saw society after society turn against sorcery," Nimue said. "I saw hundreds of my friends and loved ones burn, and I swore that I would do whatever I could to prevent it from ever happening again. I died trying to do that."

"You died because you tried to unshackle Merlin from his mortal attachments," Strange said, deadly cold. "You played a deadly game of power, leavened with spite, to hijack the prophecy of the Once and Future King for your own ends. And you lost. I remember, I was there."

"Were you now?" Nimue asked.

"Oh yes. I was there. I saw what your magic wrought. I saw the price you paid as destiny struck back," Strange said. "And don't speak to me of the Purge. You lost friends? I was orphaned by it. My people were druid-folk. My first memories are of my mother's tears as she exchanged my certain death for an uncertain fate by casting me into the river in an enchanted basket, her dying screams as I floated downstream. I grew up in Camelot, in the shadow of Uther himself, knowing from earliest childhood that a single misstep meant my death."

"Then we are kin, you and I, closer than I had realised," Nimue retorted. "And you should know better than to stand in my way. You should have made Merlin see, and yet you didn't. Once all that was wrong was made right, you allowed, yes, allowed, it to fall apart again. I have read the histories, what they say and what they do not, and they are clear: had Merlin and Arthur not been so preoccupied with being so just and noble, Albion could have reached from shore to shore and stood forever. The Saxons could have been defeated, the survivors made to bow."

She whirled, almost pacing in the air, words coming faster and more impassioned.

"The New Religion, the interlopers of Rome and the East, would have been relegated to a background whisper. Morgana and Mordred, heirs to the High Priestesses and High Priests of old, would have stood with Camelot rather than against it, and the Old Religion would have blossomed once more, covering all of Albion and bringing about a true Golden Age."

She paused, and regarded him.

"But instead, the Once and Future King was slain, taking Morgana and Mordred with him, Merlin vanished, and Camelot fell. The Old Religion withered, creeping into the darkest corners of the Isles, a pathetic shadow of its former self. The prophecy failed, Strange. And unless I miss my guess, you had a part in that."

There was a long, dreadful silence.

"Do you think I am blind to this?" Strange asked in a whisper that was carried on the winds, resonating through the hurricane-filled sky like a vast speaker. "Do you think that I have not spent millennia torturing myself over this?" His voice sharpened to a razor's edge. "Do you think that I did not notice what you were doing while you thought I was distracted?"

An amateur would have frozen, uncertain. Someone with only a shred of experience would have reacted by unleashing whatever spell was prepared on reflex. Nimue was neither of these things.

"Well," she said mildly. "I hoped you would be." Her voice hardened and she clenched her fists, blue lightning dancing around them. "But I meant what I said, Strange. I have seen enough of us die, and I decree: No. More. You let the Golden Age slip through your fingers, you and Merlin alike. I will not make the same mistake."

"You mean dithering?" Strange asked, suddenly dry. "And wasting time by talking? That spell you're preparing is very intricate, reinforced so that even I can't disrupt it, and the fact you can balance it with a conversation is quite impressive. But really… you could have done it so much faster without me to distract you."

"I consider it more a probing of weaknesses," Nimue retorted. "One of which was confirmed beyond all doubt."

She raised a crackling hand, and blue lightning arced down from the wild skies, whipping through the winds in a swirling torrent that poured down onto something only briefly made visible by the lightning-light – a massive, hulking figure, eight feet tall and indistinct, a man, no, a thing, charging towards the city.

It became taller, very much taller, with each stride, lightning crackling over its skyscraper sized frame, illuminating crimson red eyes and its body, a vast, dark suppurating mass of plant-matter, water, and earth, long strides becoming earth shaking impacts that forged through hundred-mile-an-hour winds and raging storms, devouring the distance between it and the city, as the bayou churned and rose around it in a voiceless roar.

As it closed, a tidal wave of darkness followed, some of it gleaming off metal, some off scales, some off slippery, oily hide. Pegasus had been unleashed. And ahead of that bow-wave of horror, that eerie lightning burst off of the terrible giant, leaping out towards the city, earthing itself on very specific individuals – the Patches, and their clients – and each added their unearthly bellow, of ripping and tearing earth, to the chorus as they too were transformed.

It was, naturally, quite a shock. Even the most dramatic 'don't do drugs' campaign had never listed among the risks, "don't do drugs or you too will turn into a giant plant-monster at the whim of an ancient and easily bored witch." It was probably for the best, really – as slogans went, it lacked a certain something.

"Well, Strange," Nimue crowed. "You can try and stop what I have already started, or you can try and save the mortal city, and we both know which one you'll choose."

Power crackled around her in a storm, rising from the earth and crackling down from the heavens in the form of eerie blue lightning, before rebounding back on themselves and raising through the ground and sea and across the skies from horizon to horizon, lighting up the storming clouds like a glittering array of stars, their light replacing the darkness that had consumed New Orleans.

"The world is ripe for change, and as magic's new champion, and I decree that it changes now! There shall be no more waiting, no more burning – this is the foundation of the Golden Age!"

"A Golden Age built on blood," Strange said.

Nimue's head snapped down, her tone turning from exultant to snippy. "Don't play innocent with me," she snapped. "I know perfectly well how people Merlin murdered to put Arthur on the throne, and even aside from what you did later, if you are who I think you are, I am quite sure you had a hand in all of them and more besides."

"Innocent I most certainly am not, but none of the people we killed were by any means innocent either," Strange said, examining his fingernails, before looking up. "Enough of this. You think this is your night? You think this is your show? You think that you call the tune? You could not be more wrong."

He snapped his fingers, and every molecule thrummed, like it was being tuned.

"Your little calculus is missing a few things. First of all… you assume that the city is unprotected."

As he spoke, New Orleans lit up with blazing white light, bright as a full moon, as intricate wards stretching across from the sea defences to the river, through the very bones of the city itself, ignited with a defiant lunar fire that swallowed the winds, steamed the rain and scorched the seas.

Meanwhile, the earth, the seas, and the skies, even their very blood and bone, resonated to something vast and ominous and all-pervading.

Boom. Boom. Clap.

"Second of all, you assume that I am alone."

The silvery light caught on something as it erupted out of the swampy bayou, something huge and green with grand antler-like horns, like a forested mountain growing in stop-motion, one that strode forward and slammed into the charging Man-Thing with an impact that shook the city.

Boom. Boom. Clap.

"Because unlike you," Strange said with casual smugness, as Nimue gaped. "I have friends." He waved a hand. "And powerful people willing to believe phone calls about oncoming magical apocalypses in the middle of the night, which, under the circumstances, is functionally the same thing."

Then, the former Sorcerer Supreme smiled like a dragon.

Boom. Boom. Clap.

"And, thirdly, and finally, o 'Champion of Magic', as I set the tone…"

He spread his hands as a new light burst into life, something that made the lunar wards of New Orleans look like a penny candle.

"… there's someone who might dispute that title."

OoOoO

Carol fell to her hands and knees with a thump as she sucked in a gasping breath of air, staring fixedly at the ground for several long moments as her fingers flexed open and closed, assuring herself of the tactile sensation of hand against grass. And, you know, accustoming herself to once more having fingers. And being able to move. And not being a tree. Oh, she was going to get Nimue for that, she thought muzzily as gasped and retched, eyes blurring as they focused and unfocused and filled with unwilling tears, barely restraining sobs of relief as the reality set in.

"Carol?" a voice said, and she choked out a laugh, because yes, she was Carol again, not just a tree or a ghost in the plant machine, or whatever the hell had happened. "Easy, easy," the speaker, Gambit, said softly, helping her sit back and look up, supporting her as she lurched dizzily.

"I'm okay," she said, swallowing a couple of times. "Yeah. Okay. Definitely. I… just wasn't expecting that."

She let out a little hysterical giggle. 'Wasn't expecting that'. Wasn't expecting that? Even Harry wouldn't expect that!

"Yeah, I don't think 'get turned into a tree' is on anyone's – whoa!"

Monica's attempt at a quip, undermined by a wavering voice, was interrupted by a white-brown blur as Peter all but catapulted into Carol, wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug, burying his face in the hollow of her neck. Blinking, Carol returned it, perhaps a little harder than she meant to, grateful as much for something to hang on to while the world stopped spinning as anything else.

"Hey," she said as gently as she could manage. It was a little harsh and quite a lot wobbly, but it was the thought that counted. "I'm okay. I'm okay. Thanks to… uh. Someone."

"Me," Monica said helpfully. "And Gambit. Deadpool too. They helped me figure it out."

Carol raised an eyebrow.

"I can break spells now."

"Huh. Neat," Carol said, and took a deep wavering breath. "And thanks."

"You're not dying on my watch, Danvers," Monica said, tone belying the look in her eyes. New tricks or not, that had been closer than either of them liked to think about.

Carol met her gaze and nodded, absent-mindedly patting Peter on the back, drawing a mumbled response. "Huh?"

Peter raised a somewhat suspiciously damp face from her shoulder, which Carol did him the courtesy of not commenting on. "Thought you were dead," he said, a little thickly, then paused and shuddered. "Or worse. Definitely worse."

"I wasn't," Carol assured him. "Hey, look. I'm fine." She met Monica and Deadpool's frighteningly identical sceptical looks. "A bit wobbly, yeah. But just a bit wobbly."

"An' that is t' our great relief," Gambit said quietly.

"Yeah, your grandma might actually have succeeded in killing me if you hadn't been okay," Deadpool chimed in. "If, you know, she could have found the time before your boyfriend snapped and killed us all."

Carol looked up at him sharply, before looking at the others, particularly Gambit. The latter shrugged. "'e knew," he said simply.

Carol grunted, putting that aside, and – more politely – Peter along with it, before looking around and spotting what she wanted.

"Well, I'm relieved to be fine too," she said with a groan as she got to her feet and grabbed first her shield, which moulded itself to her in armour-form once more between one step and the next, and then grimaced as she bent down to pick up the dulled and discarded Ring. "So this is the way it is, huh?" she said to herself. "You get what you wanted after all."

"Yeah," Monica said, darting a glance at the broken Lantern. "I'm guessing that that's kind of… broken."

"Hmm?" Carol said, frowning at the Ring.

"The Ring. It's busted."

"Nope," Carol said.

"Come again?"

Carol hesitated for a moment, slipped the Ring onto her finger. "Nimue broke the Lantern," she said. "Not the Ring, and is it just me, or can you guys hear something? Over the imminent hurricane, I mean?"

"The floor's vibrating," Peter said matter-of-factly. When he got a bunch of disbelieving 'and you didn't say?' looks, he looked defensive. "I thought that might be normal for here."

"Nah," Deadpool said. "Definitely not normal."

"'e's right," Gambit said, hand pressed to the floor. "There's a beat to it."

"A beat?" Monica asked.

"It's Queen," Deadpool said authoritatively. "Only Freddie Mercury tickles my prostate like that."

"What."

"What happens on tour, stays on tour."

"'e's right," Gambit repeated in disbelief, and when two horrified glances went his way, grimaced. "About it bein' Queen. Insane as it sounds."

"Oh, not insane," said Carol, who had tilted her head and was drumming her leg in a very distinctive rhythm, in time with the greater beat.

Boom. Boom. Clap.

Boom. Boom. Clap.

"Not insane," she repeated. "Just… heh. Strange." She raised the Ring, regarding it thoughtfully. "And perfectly timed."

"Isn't the Lantern busted, though? You know – the important bit?" Peter asked, after a moment.

Carol had knelt by where her roots had been, and looked up, hand now hovering just above the ground. "Well, given the circumstances," she said. "No. Because when it comes down to it, for tonight… I am the Green Lantern."

She laid her gloved hand flat on the bare earth, and when she spoke, it was a clarion call; a challenge in a defiant voice that echoed like a choir, each syllable achingly clear, each molecule a speaker, as it was carried on the howl of wind, the roar of thunder, and the crash of waves.

"In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night,

You overestimate your stolen might,

You broke my Lantern, tried to end my fight,

Now face the wrath of the Emerald Knight!"

OoOoO

First was the word, a battle-cry in rhyme, a challenge to the forces that had been unleashed.

Then came the light, a shining emerald star that blazed across the lightning-lit night.

And then, appropriately, came the chorus.

Which, in turn, came as quite the surprise to many people, including the inhabitants of a Quinjet speeding its way towards New Orleans. They were twenty miles out, but it was still easy to hear. In fact, it was very hard not to hear.

"Tony, can you hear that?" Steve asked.

"Hear what?" came the puzzled reply over the Quinjet's intercom.

Steve glanced at the pilots and nodded. One of them flicked a couple of switches, routing the outside sound through to Tony's helmet, which was not only well sealed, but like its owner, closer to seventy miles out – and closing.

There was a pause.

"Well, it sounds like Mardi Gras came early."

"Tony, it's coming from the city."

"I figured."

"No, Tony. Not somewhere in the city – which is still twenty miles away. It's coming from the city."

There was a pause as Tony parsed this.

"Steve, history was never my best subject, but I'm pretty sure New Orleans wasn't built on a giant amp."

"I'm pretty sure that someone doesn't care," Steve retorted.

"Yeah, and not only am I jealous I didn't think of it first, I think I can guess who beat me to it."

"Oh?"

There was a pointed silence, one that said that Tony thought Steve was being very stupid. After a moment, Steve realised why. Even without considering the circumstances, he only knew one person other than Tony himself who would be both willing and able to do something as ridiculous as this in the middle of a decidedly unnatural disaster.

He sighed.

"I don't know why I'm even surprised."

"Hey, at least he's the type of crazy with good taste in music."

"Oh, that's supposed to be a comfort, is it?" Steve asked rhetorically. "Have you got anything from the satellite feeds?"

"Yeah. New Orleans has an almost fully fledged Category Five hurricane sitting on top of it, and the last time the magic readings were this high, they were scanning that Nevernever place, and they're still climbing." There was a pause. "Also, mixing that with smartphone footage, there are eight foot tall plant monsters running around in the streets, two plant monsters the rough size of the Tower fighting just outside the city, and I'm pretty sure I just saw a crocodile man running after a four-legged shark that's running after a kid who, according to JARVIS, is called Flash and, despite being dumb enough to star in his own edition of Jaws, is in Carol's class."

"So, basically Tuesday, then," Steve said.

"Basically."

"The kid's okay, right?"

"Well, he hasn't been bitten."

"But?"

"But the crocodile man just ripped the shark in half in front of him. In fact, I'd go so far as to say 'on top of him'. The video's cut out, but the screaming mostly sounds traumatised rather than painful, so he's probably fine."

Steve winced. "What about Carol?"

"Take a look at the window."

Steve obliged.

"You know," he said, fond exasperation mixed with more than a hint of wry pride. "I'm not sure why I even asked."

OoOoO

New Orleans was in chaos; rain blasted downwards as if fired from a hose, while winds, even attenuated by the silvery wards, whipped through the streets with the devil's own menace. The levees were holding, for now, but there was a sense that it was only a matter of time before they broke, taking the rest of the protective magical cage with them, allowing the full wrath of the storm to descend upon the fragile city.

The fragile city which, incidentally, had many other things to worry about.

The Man-Thing once known as Jason Woodrue and now mostly known as Oh My God What The Fuck Is That was being held up outside the city, wrestling with a man who had become a spirit who had become something very much like a god. However, even the remnants of Alec Holland and the Parliament of Trees could only do so much.

While it could hold the behemoth it faced in place, in a duel that was rapidly becoming less a wrestling match between two colossi, more a drastically speeded up documentary about competing ecosystems with all the elemental savagery that entailed, it could not stop the feelers and questing roots and vines that reached forth towards the collection of light and life.

Normally, the wards would have stopped them. This, however, was not normally.

For one thing, in a very real sense, the Man-Thing was an extension of the same enchantment and alchemy that had transmogrified his dealers, muscle, and active clients, thus bypassing them.

For another, they were backed by the kind of raw power that could reignite stars, directed by the conscious will and subconscious whimsy of Nimue herself. All things told, it was hard to tell which was the more dangerous.

Now, the carnival had come early, and magic danced in the streets of New Orleans.

First, ancient rhythms played to the weeds between stones and the dead wood in the buildings, playing a song of forests and fields, swamps and seagrasses, marshes and meadows. And they listened, and rose, thorned vines tearing through stock and stone like diamond-tipped drills. What they did to flesh and bone did not stand description. They transformed the city, proud promenades becoming windy paths, dingy alleys becoming ascending stairways to canopied roads, and towers of wood and reclaimed earth arose over the suddenly onrushing waters, alight with glowing flowers.

The sight by itself was as beautiful as it was terrible. But as any student of nature could have said, brightness and colour were often their own warnings. And so, when those towers bloomed in the torrential rain, their pollen whipped across the city by hurricane winds, it was not simply a work of art or an act of beauty. It was an attack.

Some blooms brought ecstatic mania, some brought bacchanalian madness, while others still burned all that knew fear with their touch, as below their siblings of vine and stem, branch and root, reached out to continue their conquest.

Second, the wards crumpled, and the horrors Pegasus were unleashed, and they were legion: Choirs of metal-winged angels, shrieking a battle-cry, their feathers loosed into the wind, turning the elements into a blender; spliced creatures both mortal and mythic, twisted monsters of flesh and steel, their supernatural power multiplied or modified by human craft; living blast-shadows, the ever-shifting remnants of their former owners; creatures of tide and fang that sank into the growing pools and flooded streets, hunting for disoriented prey.

These and so many more stalked the streets, so many transmuted beings of horror and wonder that had once been human, in full or in part. And all were of human-making – though that made little difference to them or those they now hunted.

Third and finally, the wave of crackling blue-white light that rolled over the city, seeping into its every pore, before erupting like a volcano of fireworks and auroras. Those buildings that stood changed further in that light. Some became more eldritch, as if shaped of materials of an older age: a City of the Dead became a true Necropolis; others became glimpses into an eerie future of crystal and steel; and others still seemed spliced and scrambled, mixed with echoes of past, present, and possible future, branching like mortared trees.

Some, meanwhile, just became outright strange, as the inhabitants of a karaoke bar found when it went from hosting a Def Leppard cover to being buried under an onslaught of deaf leopards.

And the light shone brightest from very particular individuals. Those with magic. Weak talents and strong talents, sensitives and sorcerers, whether their whole lives revolved around magic or whether they never even knew the potential was there at all, it did not matter. They were all lightning rods for this storm, channels for the surge… and all entirely unprepared.

Well.

Almost all.

Because Nimue's tune had an answer.

An emerald star lit up the night.

Heroes stepped up to be counted.

And from the topless towers to the lowest depths, in blood and bone, from its very heart and soul, the city sang with defiance.

OoOoO

Being a wizard is not a job that lends itself to regular hours.

I mean, I have an office. Unfortunately, warlocks and fiends from the netherworld don't keep what you'd call normal hours. Nor, as it happens, does the White Council, which had called me from my warm bed in hopes of dealing with what was a small problem, albeit one that could be potentially London-scale clusterfuck quietly. Apparently, some small-timer was about to crack Project Pegasus, which had made the infamous Ring of the Green Lantern antsy and minded to sort out its unfinished business.

It had then turned to its last wielder, who not-so-coincidentally happened to be in the immediate vicinity of Pegasus on a school trip. Did I mention that said wielder was a teenager? A teenager with a hot temper, plenty of personal trauma, very limited direct experience of magic, and from what I understood, a deep distrust of authority even beyond that of most teenagers? While her prior experience with the Ring, and the fact that Strange had given it to her last time gave me great faith that she wouldn't simply lose control of it and blow up the city, I wasn't feeling too optimistic. Or happy.

Martha Liberty of the Senior Council was the Wizard in charge on the ground given that New Orleans was her stomping grounds, and she was gratifyingly prioritising protecting the city in case Pegasus did go nuclear. Or worse. I'd never got a clear story about exactly what happened at Pegasus, though it didn't take much imagination to realise that the sort of super-tech that SHIELD and its affiliates could bring to bear, combined with a probably very incomplete understanding of magic and a late Cold War arms race, could create something bad. Bad enough to require the Green Lantern. Bad enough to, apparently, almost kill him.

Of course, facing death and untold horrors is kind of literally what I'm paid for these days, and the sad thing is, I can definitely say that I've seen worse. I duelled Gravemoss one-on-one at the Battle of London, and I Saw the rise of the Dark Phoenix. What annoyed me considerably more was the unspoken but very clear intention that as the one person on the Council with even a passing acquaintance with Carol Danvers, I should do my duty and talk her into giving it up to the responsible adults at the White Council.

That would make me mulish even if I didn't think that this was very, very unlikely to succeed. I had some credit in the bank with the kid, what with getting her future boyfriend's mind out of the Red Room's lock-up, and the implication – and it was a clear implication, though Liberty had the good grace to sound a bit abashed about it, and I rather suspected it wasn't her idea – was that I leverage that to get the Ring handed over.

Even though I had certain moral objections to child endangerment, which is exactly what giving a teenager the Ring was, I also had certain moral objections to blatant emotional blackmail. Plus, again, it wouldn't work.

First, the Ring required near superhuman stubbornness from its wielders.

Second, Carol Danvers and I didn't actually know each other, but I did know that she wasn't stupid. If she gave up that Ring, it would be to someone she trusted.

Third, the Ring apparently both could and did move on its own – and even if it didn't, if Doctor Strange wanted to steal it, he would.

Fourthly and finally, I knew it was doomed to failure the moment that I arrived and saw Wanda was on the scene. You know, the one magically inclined adult around that the kid was actually going to be inclined to trust.

All in all, it was almost a relief when the monsters arrived. No more stupid supernatural politics, no more questioning small-time drug dealers who clearly didn't have a clue about anything to do with Pegasus besides the fact that 'the Green Man' was interested in it, and – most recently, no more fighting literal forces of nature.

Hurricanes are a bit out of my wheelhouse. So is actively hostile landscaping. Monsters, on the other hand, are pretty much right where it's at. They were a problem that I could actually do something about.

The fact that it was set to a backing track of Freddie Mercury's masterpiece courtesy of Doctor Strange was merely a bonus.

And frankly, I wasn't going to lie: part of me had been looking forward to what came next.

I picked out the nearest monster, a shambling heap-like thing, eight feet tall if it was an inch, with massive red eyes empty of anything but an overwhelming drive for violence. It was menacing a group of teenagers in various states of dress who had piled out of their hotel, being ineffectually but bravely marshalled by their guardians. One of the kids was already covered in blood and guts that I was praying wasn't his, and it was pretty clear that they were in trouble.

That was my cue.

I drew my new blasting rod, and ignited it.

WE WILL!

Snap.

WE WILL!

Hiss.

ROCK YOU!

Whaum.

Heh. Say what you like, I've got style. Excessively dramatic style, soap-opera like style (I prefer to think of them as cinematic and mythic respectively), but style nonetheless. I kid. Catch on you on the flipside.