A/N: Well, here's the much anticiapted third chapter of Stabby. This chapter is also the end of the introductory arc, so I can now get to some of the stuff I've had floating in my head since I came up with this fic.

Hope you enjoy!

*Ding*

"Oh for god's sake.." a well proportioned brunette groaned as she ran down stairs towards the front desk. "I just got started my lunch break, and NOW someone shows up." She plastered her best fake smile on her face as she walked out of the stairwell and into plain sight. "Welcome to Agency X, the best place for mercs and-" she stopped short as she laid eyes on exactly who had staggered into their lobby. "Mr. Wilson!" she squealed, launching herself at Deadpool.

She was so busy hugging Deadpool that she didn't notice that she had dislodged the man in orange who had been leaning on him. "Um... Sandi?" Deadpool started. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but you kinda just knocked over my new buddy."

Naruto looked up at the two from the floor. "Don't mind me." he said. "My ankle's just about done." The blonde got to his feet, tentatively putting weight on his injured ankle. "Yep." Naruto said with a smile. "All done!" He extended his hand towards the woman clinging to Deadpool. "Hi, I'm Naruto!"

"Do ya like him?" Wade chimed in. "I broke the laws of space-time to get him here!"

The woman dislodged herself from Deadpool and shook the offered hand automatically. "It's a pleasure. I'm Sandi and... wait, what?!" Sandi released Naruto's hand before spinning on the red-clad mercenary. "What have I told you about ripping apart dimensional barriers and screwing around with space-time?!"

Deadpool sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Do we like it?"

"NO!"

"Does he do that a lot?" Naruto asked.

"No, this is the first time." Sandi replied. Seeing that Naruto was about to ask another question, she headed him off. "And, yes, I routinely give him guidelines for completely random things. I figure that with all the stuff he gets into, eventually one of them will be important."

"Hm." Naruto said. "That kind makes sense."

"There's just soooo many things to follow on that list!" Deadpool wailed. "Don't try to stake vampires with pickles, don't wear green on Thursdays, don't mess with the dimensional barriers! If I followed everything on that list, I'd never get to do anything fun!" He continued on, and Sandi looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

"That's odd." she remarked. "He's usually done by now. Even he has to breathe."

"Well EXCUSE ME!" he practically roared. "It's not like it's my fault that my screen time is getting drastically cut! Until now, I've been one of the main players, a headliner, a draw, but noooo, the ass writing this sad excuse for a story wants to reduce my presence! I'm gonna just be part of a supporting cast, and it's all your fault!" Deadpool finished his rambling by leveling a finger straight at Naruto.

The ninja looked from Deadpool to Sandi, a bemused look on his face. "Did you understand any of that?" he asked.

"Not at all." she said with a shrug. "But that's just Mr. Wilson's way. Sometimes he just randomly goes off like that. It's part of his charm." Even as she spoke, Deadpool seemed to be winding himself up for another tangent.

"And what do you do when he doesn't stop?" Naruto asked hurriedly, before Deadpool could get rolling again.

Sandi began rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Well, usually we call the gang together, crack open a bottle or two of whatever is alcoholic and handy, and then play cards." She nodded to herself. "So let's go get started! I'll introduce you to everyone, and you can tell us what you did before Mr. Wilson dragged you across dimensions."

"Awesome!"

***

Ten minutes later, Naruto was seated at a round table holding cards and a half empty beer. Around the table were seated a collection of people that would damn strange by normal standards. So to Naruto, of course, they looked about average. Understated if anything.

First, right next to Naruto, was Wade. He definitely looked odd, especially now that he had pulled his mask up so he could drink his alcoholic beverage of choice. Naruto could make out enough of his friend's chin to know that the rest of his face had to be truly sickening. The blonde wanted to know what caused it, but, well, he discovered that he had the tact not to ask at such a nice social gathering.

Moving on to much more pleasing sights, next to Wade was a short blonde wearing a skimpy yellow outfit and some weird hat on her head, which Wade had told Naruto was called a cowboy hat. Naruto's mercenary friend had been kind enough to write down a list who's who, which Naruto consulted to find out that the pretty girl was named Outlaw comma The.

Naruto looked back up from the list to see Outlaw looking back at him. She smirked and took a deep breath, pushing her rather nice breasts out at him as if she was presenting them for his inspection. "Like what you see?" she asked, her accented voice lowered into a near purr.

Instead of being embarrassed, Naruto leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. "Not bad." he said conversationally. He knew her type. After all, he frequently spent time with Tsunade, who took great joy out of teasing, then punching, Jiraya in the face. The only time he'd ever seen his mentor not get hurt was by feigning indifference. From the look on her face, Outlaw had either expected him to leer further at her or turn into a blushing, stammering wreck. She also seemed to take the fact that he was doing neither as a personal challenge.

Outlaw opened her mouth, but both she and Naruto were distracted from their little game by a scream from the man on the other side of her. "You think you've got it bad Wilson?! I didn't even get an introductory scene! I was brought in during a scene break! A GODDAMN SCENE BREAK!" The new speaker yelled. Naruto took this opportunity to break his gaze away from Outlaw to look over the new guy.

Naruto hadn't gotten much of a look at the only other non-Deadpool man in the room before. Well, he had, but his eyes had immediately wandered over to the much more appealing Outlaw. Now that his full attention was focused on the other man, Naruto could barely keep his jaw from dropping.

Scars. That was the first thing that Naruto's eyes landed on when he looked at the other man at the table, and he didn't get much further. According to Wade's little cheat sheet, this was Alex Hayden, Codenamed Agent X, and Naruto could easily see why. His head, and maybe more, was festooned with cruel X shaped scars which had to have hurt terribly. They were easily worse than any Scars Naruto had ever seen before, and that included Ibiki.

When Naruto managed to look at something other than the scars on Agent X, he managed to take in some other details, including the green wraparound sunglasses that the man wore. The rest of his outfit was pretty normal, with it just being a black muscle shirt and dark pants topped off with a long brown trench coat.

The tact Naruto had previously managed to grasp at deserted him as quickly as it had come when he looked back over Agent X's scars. "What the hell happened to you?!" he blurted out before he could stop himself.

All the screaming stopped as Deadpool and Agent X both turned to face Naruto. Rather than being angry like Naruto thought he would, Agent X broke out into a hysterical cackle. He pointed at Deadpool, and while he laughed, he choked out "HA! Told you he'd ask about me first!" Deadpool groaned before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a crumpled up bill. He slapped it into Agent X's hand, then spun to face Naruto.

"TRAITOR!" he yelled. "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO ASK ABOUT MY CRIPPLING PROBLEM FIRST!"

"Wha?" was all Naruto could get out. Deadpool began another rant before Sandi, the last person sitting at the poker table, laid a hand on Naruto's arm in a comforting gesture.

"Don't worry about it." she said. "They make bets on random stuff all the time. Then they forget about everything that just happened." True to Sandi's words, Outlaw had just thrown a coin in-between the two scared mercenaries. Deadpool's rant had stopped, as he and Agent X began fighting over 'The Paragon of Shineyness on the floor'.

"So I guess he's not going to answer me." Naruto mused. He turned away from the scene back to Sandi. "What's his story anyway?"

"Alex? Oh, it's really weird, even for people who usually spend time with Mr. Wilson." She took a deep breath, racking her brain for all the details. "Well, he's kind of a clone of Mr. Wilson's, made up for the brain of him, a super villain, and the super villain's friend, all in the body of that super villain's friend. The scars are from being thrown into a superheated grate. And uh... that's about it."

Naruto stared at her blankly for a moment before shaking his head. "Well, that seems perfectly logical." he muttered sarcastically.

Outlaw broke into the conversation. "Those two ain't gonna be done any time soon." she drawled. "Wanna look at their cards?" At the answering shrug from Naruto and the slight nod from Sandi, she reached over and check the cards that the two mercs had helpfully laid down before starting their brawl. "Deadpool's got nothing, and Alex has a pair of twos."

"I always forget." Sandi asked. "Are we playing Deuces Wild?"

Naruto shook his head. "Nope, I think we're doing Aces Wild. Which is convenient, because I've got two of them and a pair of queens. Four of a kind, read em and weep." he said. The ladies groaned, but Outlaw looked at his hand suspiciously.

"Seems mighty convenient that you're the only one who remembers what's wild, and you just so happen to have two of em." she drawled.

"How's that my fault?" came Naruto's immediate protest.

Outlaw shrugged. "You got a point, I guess. But I've got my eye on you."

"So!" Naruto said, rubbing his hands together in a manner far more like one of his teachers. "What do I win?"

Outlaw smirked. "Usually we play strip rules, but I don't think we agreed to that beforehand so my girls stay hidden." Deadpool and Agent X both groaned, though they continued to fight. Naruto managed to catalogue his own disappointed expression with a shrug. "So I guess you win-"

Before they got any further, there was a loud knock on the door. Sandi popped out of her chair and ran down the stairs to get it. She was back moments later, looking a bit shaken. Behind her was-

"Doctor Strange!" Outlaw gasped.

"HOLY SHIT!" Deadpool screamed.

"THE PLOT!" Agent X finished.

Doctor Strange looked at the odd tableau, his gaze going from the two mercenaries on the ground to the two girls, and finally setting on Naruto. He took in a deep breath then turned to Sandi once again. "I don't suppose you have a spare seat?"

***

Once Doctor Strange was seated in a comfortable chair, he leaned back into it and looked over the room once again. Finally, his eyes settled on Deadpool. "Wade Wilson," he said, exasperation thick in his voice. "When you asked to borrow some of my least powerful crystals, I did not think that you would be able to do anything with them. After all, they only were meant to contain miniscule amounts of power, merely enough for some of the less powerful cantrips."

His voice hardened, though it kept the same wry tone. "I did not, however, expect you to breach the dimensional boundaries. Nor did I think you would bring forth one of the most dangerous beings in the world."

"Hey!" Naruto protested immediately. "I'm not that dangerous! And besides, I'm leaving as soon as Wade's friend can figure out how to send me home!"

Doctor Strange made a pacifying gesture, and Naruto, despite not having any idea who the fruitcake in the robe was, immediately quieted down. The bearded man just had that kind of presence that made you want to do what he said.

"I am not referring to you, young one. Rather, the one you contain within you." He said, pointing straight at Naruto's stomach. "I know not what that arcane energy is, but it's malevolence has rarely been matched in this world or any other! It took a great genius to forge whatever bonds keep it imprisoned within your soul."

The Sorcerer Supreme sighed. "Rather, those bonds used to keep it imprisoned. I suspect that whatever means Wade Wilson used interacted with my crystals, freeing the darkness from its chains."

Naruto was the only one who understood exactly what that meant, but the others all knew that it was somehow bad news. Outlaw was the first one to respond. "Ha!" she cried. "I knew you cheated!" Naruto snapped out of his stupor and spun towards her.

"How does having a demonic fox in my stomach mean I cheated at cards?!" was his incredulous response.

A shrug was Outlaw's comeback. "Why not? You're the only one here with powers besides healing! Who's to say you couldn't use them for cheating?" Before Naruto could continue the argument any further, Doctor Strange cleared his throat again, drawing their attention.

"As I was saying," He continued in a mildly reproving tone. "I can only suppose, for the moment, why exactly the beast living in you has not manifested. If I may..." Doctor Strange trailed off, gesturing vaguely at Naruto.

"Umm... okay." Naruto said before turning to Sandi. "Umm, I don't mean to be rude, but who the hell is this guy?"

"Oh, yeah. You wouldn't know him." the secretary replied. "Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. That means he's the best at all things supernatural around, at least in this world. Totally trustworthy when it comes to this kinda thing." Naruto nodded in thanks before turning back to Doctor Strange.

"Alright. You want to see the seal, right?" Naruto asked. The Doctor nodded impatiently, and Naruto pulled up his shirt. Everyone stared at his torso, nonplussed. After all, there was nothing there but his admittedly well-honed body. Outlaw let out a wolf whistle.

"Nice, kid. But I thought Doc wanted to see some sorta seal?"

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there." came the response. Naruto molded his fingers into a hand-seal and began to channel chakra. As the chakra began to concentrate around his body, a blue haze shimmered into existence. In the semi-eerie light of the aura, the familiar (to Naruto) circular form of the seal warped into being on his stomach. Doctor Strange knelt in front of Naruto, staring directly at the markings while rubbing his beard in thought.

"Damn it." Wade muttered. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, I was hoping for some kinda clerical error too. But, nope, kid's got an aura, that makes him the main character. It says so in the rule book."

"I just hope he doesn't start asking for the planet and all its inhabitants to give him energy."

The mutterings of the two scarred mercenaries was interrupted again as Doctor Strange barked a word of power, bringing a thick tome into existence hovering near his head. Everyone looked on, fascinated as he made the sounds that all doctors seemed to make, the hmming and the ahhhing and all that. "I see..." Doctor Strange mused, absently snapping his fingers to send the book back where it came from.

He stood up, gesturing for Naruto to lower his shirt which he hastily did. "Well, that answers that. It appears that not all of the creature escaped. The mystic seal on your abdomen holds strong, restraining what looks to be the majority of the beasts power! Quite fascinating work! I would love to study this in more detail at a later date."

"But you said that you would be leaving as soon as possible?"

Naruto nodded. "It's not that I don't like your universe or anything, it's just that there's a bunch of stuff I have to do at home."

The doctor nodded. "You can certainly attempt to go home. I wouldn't dream of keeping you here against your will, despite the fact that you know this creature that Wade Wilson has released upon our world better than anyone. But I would still caution you not to attempt to leave this dimension until the being is dealt with."

Naruto's hackles started to rise. "Is that a threat, cloaky?" he growled.

Doctor Strange waved his hands pacifying in front of him, trying desperately to calm Naruto before he got angry beyond reason. "No, not at all, and I offer my most humble apologies if you thought otherwise. I merely council caution. After all, this being is still partially entombed within you. The ramifications of you attempting to leave, but at the same time having an anchor here, could be catastrophic both for you and for our world as a whole."

At every word, Naruto deflated more and more. He had really been looking forward to finally getting together with Sakura, and even those two weirdoes that Tsunade has assigned them, and going out to look for Sasuke. But if he did...

Behind him, Deadpool and Agent X traded a high five. "YES!" Deadpool hissed. "We haven't tried to stop the end of the world in years!"

Naruto squared his shoulders. "Alright. I'll stick around, just until the Kyuubi is dealt with. But right after that, I'm heading home. Since you seem to have all the answers, Doctor, what would you suggest I do to track it down? And how should I fight it anyway?"

"How to fight it? This demon seems to be different then the run of the mill demonic entity, so I have few ideas. I do, however, have an idea of how to start. We shall schedule a time, and I shall study that sigil. It should give us a good idea of how to combat the creature."

"As for what to do to track it down, you should-"

"Stick with us!" Deadpool yelled, draping his arm over Naruto's shoulders companionably. "As the forerunners in the mercenary field, no one has more experience tracking down and hunting just about anything! And we're fun!"

Naruto shrugged and sighed. "It seems as good a plan as any."

Agent X let out a cry of relief. "Sweet! I've been needing a new hand here anyway since Tasky decided this place was beneath him! So, welcome to Agency X! Let's show you to the armory!" With that, the two mercs grabbed Naruto by either arm and pulled him out of the room.

"Nice to meet you Doctor!" Naruto called behind him.

Doctor Strange stared after him, a bit bemused. "An odd young man." he mused out loud. "Serious and bloodthirsty when he feels it is called for, yet light-hearted and smiling most of the time." Doctor Strange turned to Sandi. "I do not beleive I got his name, Ms. Brandenburg. Could you enlighten me?"

Sandi nodded and smiled. "That was Naruto Uzumaki, Doctor Strange. We're still looking for a codename."

***

Kyuubi floated through the air, nothing more than a disembodied consciousness with a bit of energy perception. 'Damn that fourth Hokage!' it cursed mentally. 'That seal... it was risky, just getting my mind out of it! I barely managed to retrieve a mere two tails worth of power!'

If it could have, it would have let out a feral smile. 'But there is always more power to acquire. And this place, it's practically oozing dark powers that I can consume.' The spirit 'sniffed' the air, tasting the various flows of energy that floated throughout the air.

'This one reeks of death and sorrow... delectable.' It thought. 'I haven't done this in a while, but let's see if I can...' The spirit followed the trail of darkness that was floating through the air, eventually finding one human as the source of it. It didn't waste any time before it 'dove' into the person, gently inserting it's mind into the target's subconscious, where it could observe and influence the man.

Frank Castle frowned as a chill passed over him. "Odd." he grunted before shrugging it off and taking aim at another mobster.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed that. Questions? Comments? Leave a review! It'll make my inner review whore happy!

Also, I'm looking for someone to bounce ideas off of. If you're up for it, send me PM, Email, Review, or some other form of message. Cheers!