Elizabeth was on Columbia again.

I tried to keep my mind off of it, exercising to acclimate myself to my new body, but my mind kept returning to the thought.

Elizabeth was on Columbia again.

We had put her through a hell month, making sure that she was adequately combat-ready, developing her reflexes and making sure she knew what to do in a firefight (mainly just get the fuck out of there to a better position to that her strength or range was best suited to keep her out of trouble).

I had even begun training her in magic. Things were going slowly, but between a basic biotic generator and her own powers, she was able to create some basic force-blasts and even achieve some decent line-of-sight teleportation.

I was still uncomfortable letting her go there though.

It was, admittedly a largely nonsensical worry. Elizabeth knew enough about gravity manipulation at this point that she could singlehandedly rip Columbia from the sky if she wasn't concerned about the mass civilian deaths, and she was able to transport herself so effectively that Comstock couldn't hold her.

Still, Wehn I heard the portal open up again, I switched off the electromagnetic bench press and threw myself out of the gym.

I touched down in the portal room as I saw Elizabeth come though.

"How did things go?"

She grinned, "I just raided Lutece's labs. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, that you might want."

I nodded, "Had fun?"

She smiled widely, "Yeah, Comstock's panicking so much right now!"

"Going to wrap things up soon?"

She frowned, "Maybe, I mean, I could, but it's kinda nice letting things drag out and watch him try and recover, especially now that I took everything he needed from to make those stupid prophecies."

I shook my head, "I suppose, just don't let it go too long. It's not healthy to obsess over things like that. Taking joy in other people's suffering. It's fine in the short term, but actively being malicious? I'd recommend against it."

"When should I stop then?"

I shrugged, "Set a goal or a set of goals for how you want them gone. Set a plan and follow that as you wish, and if they collapse in the meantime, let them do that. Don't try and prop them up so that they can suffer more and don't torment them after they're gone."

She nodded, "Thanks! Here's Rosalind's stuff!"

She tossed me a bag of holding and ran off.

Sighing, I opened up a portal to Watchpoint Gibraltar.

The base was a lot busier than it was the first time I arrived here, with a lot of staff passing through the hallways.

"Hey, Winston!" I called out as I entered his lab.

"Jon?"

I stared at the morass of scientists and aides, "Er… Sorry about that, didn't know you were busy."

Winston shook his head, "No, I'm just wrapping up. What is it?"

"Elizabeth got Lutece's equipment and notes, you free to work on an updated portal projector together?"

Winston looked around the lab, "Sorry, I don't think I am."

I shrug, "No big deal, I'll work on it myself. Send word along with Angela if your schedule frees up some time soon."

Winston nodded, "Might not be for a month or two. Talon was apparently hoarding a lot of technologies and I'm in the process of testing them all so that the safe ones can be released as soon as possible."

I nod, before heading back to the portal.

Leaving it to shut down behind me, I sighed.

I opened up a portal to my lab and started to unpack the equipment.

Serving up dinner, I sat at the table and started to dig into the bowl of delicate ramen.

"What's wrong?"

I turned to Gwen and sighed, "Not much, just been alone here for almost a week now, ever since Elizabeth spent some time in the Under Realms. I mean, You, Angela, Winston and I had a great time last week working out some more genetic therapies for release in that world, but since then, I've kinda been alone here."

The others paused before turning to me, "Sorry, we hadn't realised that we hadn't been back here."

I shook my head, "It's not a big deal, It just feels a bit odd. Wasn't really a social person before all of this and I don't really know how to deal with feeling lonely."

"Really?" Gwen asked.

I shrugged, "I mean, I was never super happy about being alone, but I ever had great social skills, so trying to be around people was always super tiring, so I preferred being alone. I guess my psychic abilities make it easier for me to be around people and I've gotten used to it."

The others stared at me.

I looked at them, "What?"

"No, just. I don't think that any of us realised that about you." Angela offered.

I shrugged, "Artificial social skills when I was dealing with you, I suppose. And I could use them to fake social skills with others. It's only now that I can reliably know how the people I'm speaking to are feeling. It's quite interesting actually.

We ate in silence for a while.

Eventually, Gwen looked at me, "By the way, what's the plan with Loki?"

"The events of the Thor movie haven't started yet, and all indications suggest that it won't start for a couple more months. I'm currently in the process of hashing out a deal with certain Jotun factions for the peaceful settlement of this little ice-ball I bought off of the Kree. It's a lot bigger than Jotunheim and while it's barely livable by our standards, it's more than fine for them."

"And Loki?"

"We're mixed. I don't want to leave him at the mercy of Thanos, but I can't think of a way to get the Mind Stone away from that madman without letting events play out."

"So, you're going to facilitate his breakdown." Angela said with a frown.

I shook my head, "I honestly don't know what to do. I want to spare him, but leaving the Mind Stone where it is would mean that we probably won't be able to take down Thanos, even if we did find him. The best plan I have right now is to meet with Frigga and arrange therapy for when he arrives on Earth."

"Really? That's it?" Angela asks.

I shrug, "Can you think of any other plan on that front? I mean, the movies suggest that Thanos is an idiot and doesn't know how to use the Stones at all, but we can't count on that. We've locked down the locations of four of the other stones, Space, Time, Power and Soul - I'm going to be checking with Axel about moving the Power Stone somewhere where it won't cause problems. We don't know where the Aether is, so we can't get a hold of that, but the Mind stone is in his possession and that would allow him to casually take control of any of our agents. If things stay according to our… predictions and the fact that the Time Stone can detect something happening in about six months but can't give any details on what is happening suggests that it will, we remove an immensely potent weapon from the hands of a megalomaniacal madman."

That left the table quiet.

Raven was the first to speak up, '"Why couldn't you arm an agent with some of the other stones?"

"We don't really have a safe way to use them. Technically the Dwarves could do it, but we don't have allies among them. Even then, we don't know how different stones interact. Would any of the stones preserve the sanctity of the user's mind? As long as that's not true, all he'd have to do would be to use the Mind Stone to take over the mind of our agent and we've just given him another stone."

They paused.

"Well, couldn't we use the Time Stone to alpha-strike him? Maybe let Loki fall, but once that happens, use a tracker on him to take out Thanos in a blink of an eye? Or at least remove the Mind Stone from his possession?" Angela suggested.

"We considered that, but the destruction of the Bifrost is such a chaotic thing, that we don't want to alter it in any way. It is, after all, pretty much blind luck that Loki arrived where he did, and not good luck at that."

I looked around the table helplessly, "Does anyone have an idea?"