The Seventh Infinity Stone

Titus Gets Portal Sickness

"I don't see why we can't just go and get the Reality Stone now. The Avengers are fighting themselves and have split. If there was ever a time to get the remaining stones, it's now," I pointed out.

I was annoyed. I did not understand why we had not acted by now. We had been stalling for weeks and I understand why we had stalled a bit to tear apart the Avengers, that needed to be done. However, after we let them do it themselves, why didn't we go and get the rest of the stones? The Avengers were fighting themselves therefore the only thing that would stop us (other than the TVA) was taken care of. Strategically it did not make sense, and technically I am the goddess of battle strategy, so I would know.

"Al, I already told you we need to finish the locator otherwise we will never find Set. The Duat is huge and with how fluid and split the Duatians are, if we do not get it just right, we might find a part of Set but not a part we need to talk to. My men are working on getting the last piece, we just need more time," Titus tried to placate me.

"We don't have time! I'm not even supposed to be in this dimension Titus! The longer we stall the sooner the TVA will notice that I'm not where they left me last. Time isn't a tool we have; it's the TVA's and I'm not going to sit here and let them use it when we don't want them to! We're lucky that they're dealing with something else right now otherwise none of this would be able to succeed. My very presence here should be creating a nexus event, so it's a miracle that they have not tried to apprehend us yet. Loki, you're with me, right? You understand why we can't wait."

Loki was sitting on an armchair, his chin resting on his fist. He had been watching Titus and I bicker and strategize for the past hour now, though I knew he had not been fully listening. I mean he knew everything that we were saying clearly but his thoughts, his heart had been elsewhere. He had been pondering his mother.

Loki's emotions were unlike anyone I have ever felt before. He was filled with hurt but also immense guilt that he battled with consonantly. He showed his hurt more, his guilt he locked deep down, but he could not escape it. It kept pushing until he felt like he would burst. So, he hid it through other bits of his personality and goals. His smile, constantly shifting between what he would do and whom he trusted, his sarcasm, the way he talked, trying to assert himself as important and powerful. His nature was that he needed to feel loved and accepted, his nurture told him that the only way to get those things was from power.

The reason Loki's emotions were unlike anyone I have ever felt before is that they reminded me of myself. They were my emotions, my pains, though with different stems and I hid that deep guilt inside myself in a different way. As he thought of his mother it was, in the same way, I thought of my father. Loki knew he was the reason why she was no longer a part of his life and he was trying to fix it. He was trying to make her proud the only way he knew how, and it was breaking him.

He considered what I said for a moment, "You're both right, we are low on time and we need the last piece. So, you two will go and get the piece together today, saving both the time and getting what we need."

"What?" Titus and I said in unison.

"That's a terrible idea. To get into a facility like that with only two people is suicide!" Titus said.

"Well...if it was suicide it'd only be you Titus that would die, you know because I can't die," I pointed out.

Loki stood up, "You're an Infinity Stone and a living embodiment of chaos, I would be more worried about those who get in the way."

****

"This is still stupid," Titus said as we perched on a cliff overlooking a small fortress in Russia.

It was a small thing with the security being pretty lax but if we were just two normal humans trying to take it alone it would have been suicide as Titus had suggested. However, we were not two normal humans, and this would be nothing more than a night stroll for us.... a night stroll where you punched people's faces in.