I knew I had some time until the events of Guardians of the Galaxy, specifically 4 months and some change.
Based on what I knew from my last life, the events of Winter Soldier happened in March, and the events of Guardians of the Galaxy happened 5 months later in August. I had already wasted some time with travel and procuring a ship, so there were a little over 4 months until I needed to be ready for the invasion of Ronan.
My plan would begin after I met with the Tivan Group.
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(Next Day)
I received a message on the communicator that Glebe gave me to let me know when the meeting was and he said that they were very interested and he sent me the coordinates they gave him.
I told him I'd meet him there before the meeting as it was going to be tonight.
(That Night)
I arrived at the coordinates Glebe gave me and I saw him waiting in what equated to a warehouse on Xandar as he looked at the door waiting for the representatives from the Tivan Group to arrive.
I sent him a message that I was there and would wait until he finished the meeting before I did anything.
He assumed I would be meeting with the representatives, but that's not entirely true.
About 25 minutes go by and the time for the Tivan Group to arrive has come. After about a minute longer, we all saw a group of 4 walk in and walk towards Glebe.
"How are you doing Glebe?" One of the reps asked.
"Can't complain. I was surprised you all got back to me so quickly about a meeting." Glebe commented.
"It's to be expected, The Collector was very interested in the information you sent him. As a matter of fact, he'd hoped to meet with your supplier." Another rep answered.
"Unfortunately they wished to remain anonymous and if I were to give away their identity they wouldn't give up the metal." Glebe explained giving the explanation I instructed.
"Are you saying you don't have the sample on hand?" The rep asked.
"No. I was given this." Glebe said while taking out a large round circular metal plate and put it on the ground.
"And what is that?" The original rep asked.
"This is a teleport pad, I was told as long as I followed his instructions, he'd teleport the sample to the pad. I only needed to message him a symbol and it'll be teleported here." Glebe explained.
The representatives seemed to be deliberating with each other quietly before they nodded and said the terms were satisfying.
Glebe nodded and then took out his communicator and sent the symbol.
I knew that was my cue and used a combination of Invisible Woman and Nightcrawler's powers for Glebe to hit a "button" and for a puff of black smoke to appear on the metal plate, after the smoke cleared, a large ball of metal was in its place.
They nodded and then one of them grabbed the metal, walked over to the rest, put the sample in a glass box, and walked off.
"Pleasure doing business once again Glebe." Glebe's Tivan Group acquaintance said.
I walked over to Glebe once they left and told him he did a great job and that I'd take care of everything else and make sure he received his money.
Glebe nodded and left as Nat and I quickly trailed after the Tivan Group representatives
We followed them until they arrived at their spaceship and then as they were walking to their ship through the busy spaceport, everything slowly stopped moving with the exception of Nat and I.
"What's happening?" Nat asked as she saw me with 2 fingers to my temple copying a certain telepath.
"It's nothing to worry about, I have connected to the minds of everyone in the immediate vicinity. I just needed them to stop long enough for us to sneak on the ship." I explained as Nat stared at me in shock.
"Stop staring and start moving, we gotta be quick I can only use this power for so long before people start to get suspicious. We wouldn't want people from outside the area to arrive and see everyone frozen like this." I explained as I started to walk towards the ship.
Nat snapped out of her stupor and began to walk to the ship following after me. I was glad to know that her thoughts had absolutely nothing to do with her wanting to Inform Fury about anything.
Whether that was due to there not technically being a S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, or simply because she doesn't care about S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, I didn't know.
But I got out of her mind after just confirming that she wasn't still monitoring me.
We got on the ship, hid in the cargo hold, and waited.
Outside time seemed to move again as everyone began moving once again, not even realizing what had happened.
The representatives of the Tivan Group entered their ship, stopped in the cargo hold, unable to find the two stowaways due to me making their mind not see us and they left and soon the ship took off.
I walked out from my hiding place and went to open the glass case and took back my sample they were transporting.
I was able to essentially re-absorb the metal using my Osmosian powers which is what I originally used to create it.
I had plans to create an even larger or maybe just denser form of the metal when I would sell it The Collector.
That's right, my plan was to use The Collector to be my cash cow to get all the money I'd need for what I had planned.
As we were in the ship on the way to Knowhere where I knew The Collector was stationed, I started to think about everything I'd been through to get to where I was and how I could gain more strength, when a thought occurred to me.
I had let Thor take the Aether back then after I killed Malekith and if things follow the original story, Tivan will have the Aether as part of his collection.
This will most likely be my one chance to get the Aether back.
While I wouldn't have been able to do much damage to The Collector if it had been back when I dealt with Malekith, I am light-years ahead of the strength I had when I fought against that Elf. And I have also been able to get used to my abilities, both copied and personal.
My Osmosian powers alone would be very effective against The Collector.
Effective, not enough. It would help me fight him, but I'd need more. If I was able to get the Aether back, I don't see why I couldn't easily beat him.
Something that Fury and even Nat doesn't know is that I can now use more than 3 copied abilities at a time.
I could always use at least 2, but after I copied more and more powers and a certain point after The Convergence, I found myself able to use up to 5 at a time.
I say five, but that is only the copied abilities, I can also use my spider abilities and my Osmosian powers on top of those.
The only issue comes with determining when to use the powers and which powers to use in any given situation.
We would have some time until we got to Knowhere so I decided to use this time to get more powers.
How would I do that when I'm stuck in space you might ask?
Well, I'm not the only 'Me' in this Galaxy.
While the main 'Me' deals with the Tivan Group, the other 'Me' on Earth will be getting more power.