"What do you mean she wasn't known to any of the villagers here," Steve asked again as he rested his butt against the wall of the village matron's house. She was an ancient woman with a slight hunch to her back and though she looked every bit her age there was a watchful nature about her that Steve could pick up on.

He would have downplayed her at first glance, maybe that was a thing that he needed to be better about.

"We had seen her playing with other children in the village recently, I mean, it's not that odd for a traveling merchant or vagabond to come through with their family," she explained, "but she's not one of the children that lives here."

Steve nodded. "If she belonged to an outsider's family is there any idea who they were?"

"There actually aren't any outsiders in the village," said Milde Irlam as she pulled her yellow cloak tighter about herself. "I guess no one noticed or thought to put the two things together."

Steve folded his arms and lowered his head in thought. Things had come to a head quite fast; there was the mabeast attack and the missing children all on the same day that the others had visited the village. Then there was the crystals that were missing here from the protective barrier. If Elsa was removing the ones around the manor could she be removing them here too?

Even then, it seemed very odd that this girl would vanished right after being attacked. He had to think there were probably more people out there than anyone wanted to admit that would like to see harm come to Emilia, especially how she speaks about her resemblance to the witch. Steve thought back to the things he had seen done just because people shared a few traits. Locking families in camps because a nation half a world away declared war on you, scrutinizing another people because sixteen men flew planes into buildings—he had a good grasp of how racism could drive people to do awful things.

He also had an idea of how the mind of an assassin worked. Had someone used that little girl to spy and sent those mabeast to extract her. If so, how did someone train and control a creature like that.

"If you keep standing around like that with your little tight tush on my wall, I might bite it," said Milde Irlam breaking his silence.

"Sorry, ma'am," Steve said getting back to his full height. "I'll get out of your hair in a minute. Are you sure that things are going to be fine around here?"

Milde nodded. "They usually are. A little thing like this is all fine and well long as everyone is safe. And a wide scale attack on the Mathers Domain is ill advised at best. They don't call the man the most skilled magic user in the Kingdom for no reason."

Steve patted her shoulder and hoped that he never had to be on the receiving end of what passed for the most skilled magic user this world had to offer. "Thanks for filling me in," he said.

As he moved to walk out of the door he felt a little pinch on his butt. It barely registered through the suit and he felt that it was best not to stir things up. When he stepped out side a cool wind swept through the street. He didn't know the seasons here, but this might have been the coldest night yet.

Beatrice was standing near the center of the town with her hands folded in front of her. He walked over to meet her.

"Miss Beatrice," Steve said. "Can I ask you about something."

"Mmm, go ahead, I suppose."

Steve wanted to choose his words carefully, so he plotted the sentence out in his head first. "Is there any way you know of to control a mabeast?"

Beatrice stared at him, her blue and pink butterfly print eyes studying his face for a long time before she made a noise. "It would be possible, I suppose. There are stories of someone using the horn of a mabeast to gain control of it."

Steve sighed. "Right, but those wolgarm didn't seem to have horns."

"Not all mabeasts do," she said.

"Have you ever heard of an attack of this kind on this village?" Steve asked. "Were these mabeasts acting normally?"

Beatrice folded her little arms, pouting out her cheeks a bit. "You're not as dumb as you look, I suppose. I think that I can see what you're insinuating."

"Thanks for the compliment, and yeah, I think that this whole thing was a kind of attack," said Steve.

"It's not that surprising," Beatrice said as she started to walk away. "When that clown threw his lot in with her he basically declared war on the Witch's Cult."

Steve connected the dots to the her in this situation being Emilia and the clown being, well, obviously Roswaal. "What is this Witch's Cult?" Steve asked, chasing after her.

"Keep your voice down, I suppose," Beatrice said, turning to shout at him. "Mentioning groups like that can land you on someone's bad side."

Steve froze in place, standing with his hands down at his sides as he watched her walk away. There was a cult in play now? One that he had heard no mention of before right now. If he was to act as a guard for Miss Emilia, then he needed to be able to assess the threats that there might be coming her way. The one person that he could think to ask, since they were the one who had charged him with this duty, was Roswaal.

Surely he would have some information.

By the time that the group was ready to head back to the mansion, it was well past the time when most of them would have been in bed. The road was silent. The only sound there was the chirp of crickets or something like crickets. Everyone was slightly slumped, worn out from the days fighting. Rem had to actually lean on her sister for support to walk.

Peter thought it was best to say something to her about what had happened. He caught up to her, telling Emilia he had to do something, and got on Rem's other side.

"Hey, Rem, do you need some extra help?"

"Oh, Peter. It's you," Rem smiled a weak smile.

"How are you feeling?" Asked Peter.

Ram shot him a side eye, before looking down at her sister. Rem nodded. "I'm very sorry for all of the trouble that I caused you, you have my respect for trying to help me back there."

Peter laughed. "It wasn't trouble, you basically wiped out that whole herd of wolgarm," he said. "I guess it's kind of genocide though."

"Jin-Oh-wha?" Rem asked.

"Never mind. I'm really glad you're okay," Peter said. "And that you're on my side."

"You're not mad?" Asked Rem.

Ram sighed. "I told you that you really didn't attack him. Why would he be mad?"

"Has Captain Rogers said anything?" Rem asked.

"Well, he was pretty worried about you. He hit you with that shield pretty good," Peter said.

Peter didn't think that there would be anything that Rem could have done out there that would make Steve Rogers too mad, especially considering that she had done it all in the name of helping a child. It didn't even matter that the child in question had run off. Peter tried not to think about that part.

"Since you're dense, I think I need to spell it out for you: Rem is very exhausted. Let's not upset her with your inane babble," Ram said.

"I'm glad that you're okay too, Ram," Peter said.

The mansion came into view, the gates open as they had left them and the whole place glowing majestically against the backdrop of the darkened forest. They made their way up to the house only for the door to fly open as the approached. Margrave Roswaal stepped into view, now wearing his nighttime clothes and holding a cup of warm drink.

"Well-he-he-ell, what kind of late night engagement did we get up to," Roswaal said. "You look positively ragged."

"Apologies Lord Roswaal, there was an emergency in the village," Emilia explained.

"Imagine my surprise when I returned to my mansion only to find it completely empty—if you got Miss Beatrice to go out with you, it must have been a very serious matter then," Roswaal said.

Beatrice pushed her way past Roswaal and turned down a hall to open the first door that she came to just to step through into her library. She shut the door behind herself with a hard thud.

"Things got out of control," Peter said. "Steve, Rem and I went, but we needed a lot of backup," he explained.

Roswaal's smile deepened. "It all sounds positively riveting, but it seems that we've all had full days," he looked at each of them in turn.

Steve and Peter glanced to each other, but it was Emilia who spoke up. "Yeah. It was kind of a lot."

"I can read it all on your faaaay-ces," Roswaal said. "Ram, may I see you before bed?"

Ram nodded. "Captain Rogers, can you make sure Rem gets to her room?"

Steve smiled down at Rem. "Should I carry you up…or do you want to carry me?"

"Th-that was a one time thing," Rem said. "I mean, I can make it to my room on my own."

"Can I walk with you?" Steve asked.

"I'd like that," Rem said. "Yes, Captain."

As everyone started to their room Peter jogged up beside Emilia. "Walk you to your room too—toooo make sure you get there safe."

Emilia laughed. "Sure, Peter."

What was he doing? Peter followed along with her behind Steve and Rem. Emilia looked over at him. "Is this part of going on a date?"

Peter sighed. "Yeah, I think that could be considered part of it."

"Have you taken other dates home?" Emilia asked.

"Not the way you're making it sound."

"I'm confused, sorry. How am I making it sound?"

"I mean, one time when I went to this one girl's house, Liz, I kind of found out that her dad was this crazy super villain guy who had this terrifying bird suit that he used to steal alien…Metias…" Peter trailed off as he realized what he was saying and who he was saying it to.

Emilia had been hanging on his every word. "That all sounds a bit amazing. Did you record it on your…cellphone?" Emilia asked.

"That would have been kind of hard," Peter said with a slight chuckle. The pair stopped at Emilia's door and Peter turned to her. "This is you."

"Yep. That's my room," said Emilia. "Good night, Peter."

"Night," he said.

Salicylic acid was a beta hydroxy acid that occurred as a natural compound in willow trees. It tended to be a good anti-inflammatory agent. Peter was sure that he could get that in this world with relative ease.

Toulene was found in crude oil naturally, Peter wasn't sure if this world had oil or could even get to it if they did have it. He could probably substitute in some other material here.

Methanol was something that he could produce with a mixture of copper and zinc oxides. That was simple enough.

Carbon Tetrachloride would require Peter to chlorinate a low molecular weight hydrocarbon. That was simple enough, though it would end up being a few extra steps and ingredients.

Potassium Carbonate could be produced with potassium carbonate from something here as it was commonly used in soap. He would have to ask Karen for another idea of a source. Hopefully her being disconnected from the Stark satellites wouldn't mean that she couldn't offer some assistance.

Ethyl Acetate was easily enough found in pineapples and sweet oranges.

Peter thought over the list of things that he needed. These weren't even the kind of materials he would be able to acquire in the same kind of place in this world. He wondered if he would have to be back in the capital to get most of them. There was little chance that Irlam Village would care even two of these things—maybe the fruits and and willow trees?

He had looked through the things that Roswaal had stocked in the lab. Some of the stuff he needed might even be in the room already, but it might have been labeled as something completely different.

The lab itself was different than the ones he was used to in many ways, but there were some familiar sights. Containers ready to heat objects and liquids, protective walls meant for someone to stand behind when doing something dangerous and pairs of thick rubber gloves laid out on the counter. There was a little dust on some things. It didn't seem like the maids cleaned down here.

Or maybe this was Ram's part of the cleaning—that made more sense.

The only way to be sure was to speak with Roswaal, he was nowhere near ready to try and read the the names on the bottles in here with his growing knowledge of I-glyphs and a few other glyphs here and there.

Peter was determined not to run out of web here again. It had only happened a few times to him when he was on Earth, but here it seemed especially dangerous. Dealing with some muggers without web would be one thing, but dealing with magic demon dogs or was not as easily doable.

Wrapping his arms about himself, Peter tried to rub his hands up and down his forearms to get a little warmth going. He didn't know why, but Roswaal seemed to be keeping this part of the mansion extra cold. It felt as if the temperature was dropping by the minute.

Since he had completed his exploration of what he needed complete he could return upstairs. With breakfast out of the way and a good idea of the lab's capabilities, Peter was at least ready to start gathering the things to make his web fluid with full confidence that he could start using webbing again like he was used to.

There was one other thing that he wanted to try for the day or at leas ask to try. If Emilia would agree to it, that is.

Emilia stood, hands clasped in front of her chest with a very serious look on her face. She wasn't sure if anyone had asked her something like this since she was much younger and that person had been Puck.

"You want me to fight you?" Emilia repeated the question.

"Only to spar with me and tell me how to defend against magic and spirit users," Peter said. He was crawling down the wall of her room, so he had to arch his back and bend his head to look at her.

"Look," Peter started again, "What if there's an-an assassin who comes after you and they're a spirit arts user? Wouldn't it be better if I could hold my own against them?"

Emilia considered this for a moment, her pristine nail pressed to her lips. "Well, I don't know. If you're wanting to see how you fair against me and Puck…that would be a little hard as Puck isn't really able to come out today."

"Is Puck like sick? Do Spirits get sick?" Asked Peter.

She shook her head. "No, it's nothing like that. It's like—it's a little hard to explain," Emilia said. "Maybe in a few days he'll be able to help you train some?"

"Alright, until then can I just spar with you?" He asked.

"Just me?"

"Yeah, you're still a magic user. You used all that ice magic the other night without Puck even out," Peter said.

"Right," Emilia spoke as if she hadn't realized what she had done even though she had been the one to do it without being provoked. "Okay then, it can count as my exercise for the day."

Peter nodded and flipped down off of the wall and landed on his feet. "Do you need some time to prepare?" He asked.

Emilia shook her head.

"Then let's take the fast way down!" Peter offered out his arm to her and she came and rested her weight against it. He bounded out of her window, catching the upper part of the inside windowsill and swinging out away from the house. The fall was of a moderate distance, so as they landed Peter made sure to catch her legs behind the knees so that she wasn't injured.

He stood her up on the cobblestones of Roswaal's garden path. "Thank you," she said.

"Hey, you didn't even scream this time or clench up," Peter said giving her a thumbs up.

Emilia smiled and gave him a thumbs up in reply, though by the look in her eyes he could tell that she didn't fully understand what doing it meant.

They walked a few paces from each other and Peter began to speak again. "Let's try not to tear up all Roswaal's plants and stuff," he said making a circle with his arms in the direction of the nearest hedges as if to show which plants it was he was talking about.

"Right," Emilia said.

Peter gave her a come here motion with both his hands. "I was thinking we could start out with some ice balls or something like that, just try to hit."

"Are you sure?" Emilia asked.

"Better that you than some barefoot dark wizard with a thing for snakes or something," Peter said.

For a moment Emilia seemed to ponder what that meant, but then she dropped the whole thing and held her hands out to the sides. "Here we go."

A dozen balls of ice formed, six on either side of her and they began to fire off in sequence. From the start of the exchange Peter was impressed. She didn't fire them from the same side or even area each time, nor did she alternate back and forth. He dodged most of them, though there was two that he smacked away with his hands.

"I'm going to try to get close to you!" He shouted. Emilia already had another round of ice. She fired them faster, trying to trace his movements. When Peter would advance to far, she would attempt to drive him to the sides—when someone was moving side to side it slowed their forward progress.

Peter was attempting to save web and not fire on Emilia, but he was honestly kind of shocked with how well she could cover all sides of herself at this speed. Sure, he wasn't going as fast he could, but he was also sure she was holding back. He crouched and sprung up high into the air, opening his arms so that the flaps under the arms of his suit could catch enough wind to steer him to the ground.

Then his tingle hit and a second later a ball of ice slammed into his head. The irises of the suit started to bug out, dilating back and forth. Peter hadn't even thought that she would aim up so fast. He had only jumped as high as about the third story of the house, but it was such a steep climb that he needed to adjust his descent and didn't even consider what she might do to counter him.

Peter landed with a thud in the bushes off to Emilia's side.

"Oh, goodness!" She cried.

Peter climbed out of the hedges with bits of leaf and sticks clinging to him. "I'm okay, I'm okay," he glanced further down this line of bushes to see Rem and Ram working to trim the next set of hedges.

"Sorry," Peter said with a wave. "You guys did a very good job, they're uh, soft for landing in?"

Ram's face reddened to the point that there was no telling her skin from her hair.

Emilia waved her hands in front of herself. "I think that's enough training for the day. Take off your mask and let me get—"

"It's nothing, Emilia. Let's try again," Peter said. His body caught a chill. He glanced up at the sun and then out at Emilia. He motioned with his hand for her to begin again.

This time there were less balls of ice and she seemed to be firing them with significantly less enthusiasm. Peter continues the dodging exchange with her, hoping that she will start to attack with more fervor like she had been previously. It takes several minutes of him dancing in and out of her attacks before she ramps the number up again.

From watching her Peter thought that he knew how this worked. She seems to be using her hands to kind of direct and control the attacks, so it was like a Dungeons and Dragons thing: you get in close and grab the spell caster's hands. Maybe he could spare just a little webbing fluid here.

Peter dodged right, then further right and finally flipped over another ball of ice that shattered on the cobblestone behind him. He landed and fired a strand of web at Emilia. What he didn't expect at all was for her to reach up with a lightning fast reaction and snatch the end of the web out of the air. Though her hand should have been stuck closed, held together by the webbing she just released it and it dropped out of her palm uselessly.

She froze the webbing before it had time to bond to her skin? Peter realized suddenly.

She would have had to produce an insane temperature drop to accomplish. The freezing point of his web was an issue that had never come up before and it was the kind of thing that he would have started to plan contingencies for immediately upon thinking about it.

He had accomplished one thing. When she reached up to catch the web, she had stopped firing ice. Peter was too fast for her in a straight dash and he closed the gap easily enough. His plan was to grab her at the shoulders. He couldn't very well just try to hit Emilia, but maybe she misread that and he hadn't laid out any real ground rules except for keep firing ice.

When he reached for her, Emilia went to push his hands up. In an attempt not to ram her to the ground with his weight falling on hers, Peter rolled to the side to take the fall. Emilia was still holding to him and pressed against him just right so that her fingers dug into the palms of his hands.

"Wait, Emilia—awww," Peter said as the web sprayed out around him an stuck him down to the cobblestones.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Peter!" Emilia raked at the webbing trying to clear it off of Peter's stuff. "This is my fault."

"No, it's okay. Really," Peter said.

There was heavy footsteps nearby and them Roswaal's midnight blue locks dropped into view. "Don't fret Peeeeee-tear, this kind of thing happens to the best of us," said the Margrave.

Oh, great, everyone had come out here to witness this. Peter ripped the web away and sat up, looking over at Emilia. "You're a lot faster than I thought," he said breathing heavily. "I should apologize to you for going too easy on you."

"There's no need for you to apologize," Emilia said. She went to pull of his mask and, sensing no threat from her, Karen let her remove it. She pulled Peter down so that he was nearly resting his head on her lap and examined the spot between his eyes where the ice had struck him.

"Let me take a look at that," she said.

Peter stiffened up, the back of his neck was against her stomach and he could feel his ear barely touching the soft fabric of her skirt. There was a glow and then a gentle warmth set in over the spot where he had been hit. It was the healing magic that he had seen her use before.

"That actually feels much better," Peter said closing his eyes. When the pain was totally gone he felt a stroke of her hand through her hair.

"There we go," she said. "I'm sorry, again, truly."

Her fingers combing through his hair, the gentle feel of nails as she trace gentle paths around his scalp. There was this serene wave that washed over him the moment that it started. Was this somehow part of her magic or was it something else? Something else, Peter had to stop thinking like this.

Peter bolted upright. "It's nothing really," he said with a nervous laugh. "I asked you to do it, anyway." He looked toward the mansion door and saw Steve standing there. When Steve locked eyes with him he just smirked and shook his head. He got to his feet and started for the door of the house, passing between Lord Roswaal and Emilia.

"Where are you going?" Emilia asked.

"I heave to, uh, do…some things…" Peter trailed off. "I'll see you at dinner, yeah?" He really didn't wait for the answer as he ran up to the house and past Steve to get inside.