The next week was a buzz of activity, between Lena, Angela and I, we now had plenty of space to house all ten on us easily and the virgin earth was being prepared for use as an actual base.

The information I gave Winston and Tracer meant that Overwatch's recall was done more slowly and subtly. With the media hubbub about Angela's disappearance and subsequent return dominating the news, the recall could be done in a somewhat controlled manner.

Winston had already managed to whip up a portal-stabiliser for Elizabeth's portals, using some anti-gravity tech to stabilise the wormholes that she created, so Elizabeth had decided to go exploring the two new worlds. Starfire headed off with her, just in case something went wrong.

I was managing work from home, claiming sickness. I had also put in my two weeks notice when my little gold-venture worked out well, netting me plenty of ore that we could refine at our pleasure.

Even a few kilos would give me the capital I needed to set up the fusion plant. I had already managed to start putting some of the paperwork for a new company together, so hopefully, I would have requisite land by the end of the month.

Selling the gold would be the tricky part, but I had a few pathways to explore on that front.

Still, as the weekend drew closer, I found myself at a busy table once more.

The group dinners at the growing compound had become a regular thing, even as we spread out across the three worlds.

Tonight was a bit special though, with the last day of the work-week cleared up, we had decided to dip into our collective liquor stash and unwind a little. Traver had even brought Emily over for the night.

Sipping my blue lagoon, I heard my name called out by a tipsy Ahri. Ambling over, I raised my drink in greeting, "What's up?"

She looked me up and down, "It looks like you've been taking good care of our re-model."

I laughed, "The metabolic boosts you gave me were a big help with that!"

Gwen turned to me, "Come on, shirt off! It's only been a week, but Angela should be able to tell if you've been slacking!"

The doctor blushed and pushed the other blonde away, "Gwen!"

I laughed as I pulled off my shirt, "Don't worry, it's been a while since I've had something to show off like this"

"So Angie, what do you think?" Ahri asked, "Has he been doing well?"

"I mean, I know he's been sticking to the exercise regimen I prescribed." She declared, "But that's because he uses the gym in Watchpoint Gibraltar for that."

I cocked an eyebrow, "Has someone been spying on me?"

Gwen grinned, "You naughty girl!"

"But-but! You said I could watch!" Angela whined.

I chucked, "And I meant it, I assume that the security feeds spiced up your day?"

Ahri perked up, "Do you have recordings?"

I grinned, "If she does, I'm fine with her sharing it."

"Umm… no? Sorry?" Angela replied.

"I'll make sure to make it look good tomorrow then, You girls can even watch in person if you want!" I declare.

Gwen looked at Angela, "What do you think? We book out the gym tomorrow and Jon gives us a show?"

Ahri nodded, "We should get Raven in on this too! Hey Raven!"

The gothic girl floated over, "What is it?"

"Jon's offered to give us a show tomorrow when he works out!" Gwen called out, "Want to see if we did a good job?"

She touched down on one of the many bean-bags, "Really?" She looked me up and down.

Looking over to her, I relaxed. "Eh, it's all for fun anyway."

"Um… I guess that's okay." she said, "When are we doing this?"

I shrugged, "We'll probably want to sleep this off, so I'm thinking after lunch? I broke out some of the good shit for tonight."

Ahri nodded, "That sounds like a plan. In the meantime, I'm going to take advantage of that and get properly drunk. I don't know how long it's been since I've been able to get wasted without my manager yelling at me the next day."

I give her a thumbs up, "Celebrating the success of feeding on Biotic energy?"

"Yeah, that was huge. I'm still going to be touring with K/DA once I get home, but at least I don't need to worry about going hungry. I can even try out some of those acting gigs I was offered!" Ahri cheered, "Winston's working on mocking up a version that looks magical so that I can bring it with me and share the fun."

I considered it. A lot of beings on her world actually fed off of human life force, being able to grant access to that sort of thing would be a massive carrot in any sort of negotiations. I'd have to bring that up with her later. We could probably pass Winston or me off as some reclusive artificer if we needed to.

As she wandered off, I pulled my shirt back on and sat down among the girls. So… how have things been?"

"Pretty good," Gwen commented, "I'm trying very hard not to think of the fact that I've been missing from home this long. The last time I was captured like this was when I was helping Richards with Doom. I'm hoping Strange is willing to work some magic to keep things under wraps."

I nod, "It might be better to get in touch it Xavier. Elizabeth has agreed to try and open up a portal to The Access next week. From there, I think we should be able to get in touch with Strange and Richards to help smooth things over with the other three destinations. I'm a little worried about the situation in the Elemental Nations. Hinata is the heir to a noble family there and I wouldn't be surprised if the two weeks she's been gone for hasn't kicked off some sort of conflict."

Raven nodded, "The Justice League might be able to help from my end too. I know you don't trust Nabu, but he's still a powerful magic user, and he'll be able to help."

I considered it before bringing up a point, "Why don't we see if Dr Mist is kicking around in your world first. I'm more likely to trust him than the body-snatching lich. He might even want to help with Trigon."

A sickly green strand of consternation nearly knocked my drink out of my hand, and raven quickly pulled it back, "Sorry!"

"Eh, nothing to worry about," I reassure her, "I'm guessing you want to know who that is?"

At her nod, I rifled through my memories, "You might want to double-check this, but Mist is an immortal mage that used to rule a kingdom in Africa. He's been a force for good for centuries."

Raven nodded, "It's a better plan than going to Constantine."

"You know what I meant!" I defend myself.

Raven looked at me dryly, "Any plan involving Constantine is a bad plan."

"And I fully accept that." I reply, "Really, I just want to meet that succubus he knows. I think I might be able to name one other scry ward that can match something of that power."

They looked at me with interest, "Something else that powerful?"

"Don't even think about it. That world is an absolute mess beyond even your worlds. Constant secret wars between demon lords for control over the oblivious populace, to start with. They have their own Bludhavens and Gothams, and if my knowledge of the situation isn't too bad, they aren't exactly unheard of either."

Everyone paused to let that sink in.

Raven's world may be rife with magical threats, but there were heroes. The world of Buffy barely had champions.

I'd done a bit of research on the subject when convincing Elizabeth to be careful. Her powers were immense and with Winston's Stabilization Rings, she ran the risk of being kidnapped by planeswalkers and other beings that would see no issue with forcing her to sit there and endlessly make portals for them.

It had taken an introduction to Pylea and the Phyrexians to really get her to take her travelling seriously, plotting out her trips ahead of time and bringing one of us along to keep her safe long enough to escape.

She'd even picked up a shield generator, a teleport beacon and one of Lena's spare auto-pistols in case of emergencies.

She was having the time of her life exploring the world there though, so as long as she was safe, I was more or less happy. She'd been a little uncomfortable with Winston at first, but the Portal Stabilization Rings had gone a long way to winning the young woman's trust in the primal professor.

As the party wound down, I carried the more tired people over to their rooms in the compound.

Lifting Vishkar's hard-light architecture had been the best idea I had. Simply embed the emitters in a solid concrete foundation, hook up the power plant Winston brought over and we had a perfectly customisable living space.

It wasn't great for proper labs, but between Winston, Raven, Starfire, Gwen and me, we could make good progress. The cleanrooms would be assembled and sanitised by the end of next week and the fabrication bays would go up in the following month.

We could get away with clearing some lang for a testing range, especially for the prototype fusion reactors I was designing.

Crafting something passable from technology nearly a decade old in Winston's world was proving tougher than I expected it to be, but hopefully, the testbed would be ready and stress-tested by the end of next month.