Chapter 17- All of Infinity in the Palm of my Hands

“Do you remember Project αύξηση?” I asked Kelex once I took my place back on the ship. Tivan was dead, his property, and belongings were mine in their entirety, and the celestial skull that made up knowhere would become mine in due time once I finished figuring out Braniac’s tech completely. It could wait; however, the goal was to study the celestials, and the fruits pf such study were unlikely to show themselves for years, so I could focus on more pressing matters. ‘The waiting room will always have patients, just show up as your best self and deal with the most urgent ones first’ I recited a phrase from one of my favourite productivity creators back on earth. Since I’d basically started and controlled the content boom, enjoying content from Instashare had been one of my favourite means of wasting time back when I called the Earth home. Now, so much was riding on me that I could rarely have a minute to myself for whiling away time and wasting my hours. 

“My databanks are uncorrupted, Kal El. I do not forget anything” He said, sounding slightly offended at the question. I resisted the urge to chuckle in amusement. Of course, he was affronted. 

“Good then. Remind me why we didn’t bother with it anymore?” I asked, trying to do my thinking out loud with Kelex as a sounding board and partner. Just what he had always been. 

“We calculated that the expected rewards were too limited and unnecessary. We projected, using your memories from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that your present levels of strength and power were more than enough to deal with any realistic threats and for the more fantastic ones, more strength would have done little to solve the situation” he said, accurately summarising our rationale behind abandoning the ambitious project that we’d been working on to take my powers to the next level. 

“We were wrong,” I replied, looking away from Kelex to stare at the vast expanse of space. 

“The Black Dwarf was nowhere near as strong as me. But he was durable, and he had stamina for hours. If I didn’t come up with something unique to get through the durability, then it would have been possible that I’d have lost that fight if it went on for longer than it did. Especially without a close yellow star to enhance my powers and energise me” I said, feeling a twinge as I made the confession that it had actually been possible for me to lose in a fight like that. 

“If the rest of the Universe has seen similar buffs in power, then what we first viewed as sufficient to get by might end up falling short in an unexpected way. I need not explain to you what could happen if I ever came up short, do I?” I asked rhetorically. 

“Death”

“Not just mine. But thousands of people under my protection. Maybe even trillions when Thanos wipes out half the universe. Project αύξηση must begin.” I said to him, pressing the urgency and thought process on him.

“I agree with you. You must do whatever is necessary”. Kelex said, and I nodded. 

“Pull it up, then” I said, watching my previously clear glass view be overtaken by multiple displays charting my increases in strength, speed, and durability over the years. Everything was tracked, even down to the strength of my ice breath and heat vision. The only problem was that the records were a few years out of date. That would be the first thing we dedicated our time to doing. 

The second thing was a bit more esoteric. “Using the star charts, can you find any blue stars between our present location and New Kylos?” I asked Kelex and he nodded. The goal here was to test if this universe was like the ones where Kryptonians could get even stronger under the influence of a different kind of solar radiation. What I remembered was that blue made us even stronger than yellow, and white even stronger than that. 

I doubted that we could build a blue sun on our own in a few months or maybe even years, as we didn’t have much of a technology base to build on. Most of the work would have to be our own. 

“I’ve found one,” Kelex told me after about twenty seconds. His unfamiliarity with AIKO’s means of information organisation and categorisation was becoming obvious. In his own systems, Kelex could search for any bit of information and apply it to the preset situation in less than a second, here it took him about 20 times longer. 

“Good. Plot the path’” I said, and relaxed back into my seat before returning to the plans for Project αύξηση. 

From what I could see, the plans had five main categories; strength, speed, senses, esoteric powers, and endurance. There wasn’t necessarily anything for improving my invulnerability, since trying to do that skirted a bit too close to the self-harm category. More pragmatically, there was the fact that scarcely any things could hurt me in the first place, so trying to train that to get better was next to impossible. Even further, I wasn’t absolutely certain that consistently harming myself would improve my base durability by much. 

Apart from the exercises for improving those four categories, there was another aspect to Project αύξηση. Actual combat training to make sure I got combat experience in using the full range of my powers and fighting opponents roughly on the same level as me. This one would be harder. Unless I made use of virtual reality, it was going to be basically impossible. Anything I could build would be easy enough for me to handle. Even vibranium would only manage to take two punches from me at full power, so even the miracle metal wouldn’t help with that. Another option was to seek actual challenges, but if I didn’t manage to find therm in full-scale war with the Kree empire, then they wouldn’t be forthcoming for a bit. Maybe I could search out Asgard to use Thor as a sparring partner. I was sure that once I helped him awaken his full power, he’d give me a run for my money, as I stood now. Possibly, he’d even manage to beat me until I got stronger. 

Then there was the exercise aspect of that. For that, I’d taken lessons and inspiration from Dragon Ball. I’d do some good old-fashioned gravity training. The machine to do it was basically already prepared, and the only thing to do about it was integrate it into the fortress and the training room within. If I could ramp up to about 60 or even 100 times the earth’s base gravity, then I could train my speed and flight. Strength was even easier. I just had to use the gravity device to build special weights that, instead of being impossibly dense and accidentally creating a singularity, would just utilise enhanced gravity to make themselves harder to lift. Heat vision, I’d just practice by using it more often and trying to do more and more with it to make myself get better both at channelling it, reducing the time needed to charge up larger blasts and also getting more endurance with it, so I could use said larger blasts more often. Ice breath would work on the same principles.  

As for my senses, that would be easy. Controlled sensory deprivation would be the name of the game. I could already plot out the training exercises in my mind’s eye. Trying to dodge projectiles using only my sense of smell or something like that. I also had to prepare for sensory overstimulation. Hopefully, the new suit would help with that, but I still needed to be ready for when I got caught with my pants down. I needed a strategy for sonic or flash weapons, and the ability to endure them for long enough that I could actually do something about them. Having such obvious weaknesses was just begging to be killed by some two-bit bounty hunter with a dream and a large enough pair of balls. 

“Arrived at destination” Kelex announced, and I took in a view that felt like it knocked all the breath out of me. The blue sun pulsed. It was almost like it was breathing. If a yellow sun was a controlled fiery explosion, then the blue sun was just a series of pulses that each sent out power that made me feel like I could do the impossible. I took a deep breath, not focusing on the air but the radiation. It was like taking your first sip of coffee when all you’d had before was water. It was liberating and also surprisingly nauseating. It was like I was bloated after only a few seconds in the presence of this sun. And I was still on my ship. I could only imagine how it would have felt if I dared get closer. I wanted to. But common-sense won out in the end. It wouldn’t do to permanently cripple myself messing around with forces that I didn’t entirely understand. 

“Take all the readings and samples you need and then plot a course to New Kylos” I said to Kelex before sinking deeper into my seat and closing my eyes. I began to meditate on myself and the newfound power I felt coursing through my body. 

XXXXXX

“AIKO, meet Kelex” I said, walking into the tower I called home with the physical body of my best friend walking in behind me. 
“Kelex. Kal-El has spoken much of you. It is an honour to finally make your acquaintance. I hope we make great things together” She said.

“Likewise. I feel much the same.” Kelex said, before walking forwards to the terminal and placing his hand on it. The moment his eyes began to flash, I figured that he and AIKO had gone to continue much of their interaction in cyberspace, which I’d been told would be much more freeing and less time intensive. 

His eyes returned to normal in seconds, and he turned right back to me. “I will work on the anti-hyperspace shields and defences. AIKO will assist. Can you work on the amendments to be made to _Vanguard_?” He asked me, not waiting for an answer before he began to walk towards the lab. I just smiled and nodded. It was good to see that they’d be getting along, at least. 

And the Vanguard was an interesting addition. When I’d told Kelex of my plans, he’d suggested a different ship to serve as the flagship for my fleet, and my personal ship. What I’d built was good, but what he’d managed to design and construct back in the fortress with access to Kryptonian building materials, steel, and information, was much better. He called it the Vanguard. 

It was better than my present ship, but there were still a few things that I needed to add to it to make it completely suitable for my purposes. 

First things first, gym equipment. Yup, I was going to be building a gym for the ship. Well, a training room that would have some gym equipment, but that was just semantics. I would have loved to have something like the danger room the Xmen used in the comics, but that was leaps beyond my present abilities and definitely going to take much longer than I had to spend on it. The first piece of equipment to be designed were the weights. Using enhanced gravity for training would improve my strength as well as my speed, but something about the idea of lifting weights called out to mer. That was what led to the creation of the benchpress Infinity. I created two special circular disks made of vibranium, since the miracle metal would be the best fit for the kind of mass I was going to be adding to the metal. 

The disks would be hollow in the middle, with the addition of a single device. Gravity Amplifiers. They’d interface with the computers on the benchpress Infinity to use enhanced gravity to simulate whatever weight I decided to use them for. Since the numbers would get ridiculous from the get-go, I decided to make the default unit of measurements, kilotons. 

Next thing next, was the treadmill. I got this idea from the CW Flash series. A treadmill that could handle the speeds I was capable of running was going to be one hell of a device, but since I could fly much faster than I could run, it was more of a tool for improving my endurance than anything else. First things first, the internal components would all use vibranium. The outer parts, however, would be made of good old kryptonian steel. Vibranium’s tendency to store kinetic energy and release it would be pretty fucked up on a treadmill, so I went for the most viable alternative. Kryptonian steel would be durable enough to take the wear and tear that would come from me repeatedly striking it with my feet at high speeds, so it was good enough.

Subsequently, the other thing I needed was a dedicated gravity chamber that would have spatial enhancements built right in. Why? Well, flight, of course. I could fly fast, but nowhere near as fast as Superman had been able to in certain comic versions. I’d been fine with waiting to get better with time, but the Black Dwarf had shown me. I hadn’t needed to fly in combat with him, but if I had been a faster flier, I wouldn’t have spent so much time dealing with the pilots and their ships. If I’d been a faster flier, I’d have got to the ships before they could fire those attacks at me. If I’d been a faster flier, I would never have needed Captain Marvel’s help, and would never have placed my people in danger in the first place. The gravity chamber would have an onboard computer that would use sensors scattered across the room to track my flight speed, lap times, and even the number of laps. The goal would be to not only get faster, but to also train myself to be able to fly for longer. 

With those things put together, the next thing was a shooting range for my heat vision. Sensors covered in vibranium would be used in measuring temperature. Separate sensors on my end would calculate the time taken to charge up the attack, as well as how long I could keep the attack going. I also had another group of sensors to work through for measuring the kinetic impact of the heat vision. Heat vision was a bit of a misnomer of the attack if I was being completely honest. It was more like concussive vision, but also with superheated lasers. Does that make sense? Of course, it doesn’t. It was like I had two settings for it. First, was the regular superheated laser. That was the traditional heat vision. The other form was the concussive vision. The one that charged said lasers with kinetic force that sent things flying along with burning them up. For my cold breath, it was the same. I had both ice breath that cooled things down, and super breath that allowed me to blow out hurricane force winds from my mouth. That was why I used a similar set of sensors for the breathing range. 

Then for my senses. This one was much more difficult to design tools for. The first idea was a full sensory deprivation room that could turn off all my senses except one. Then that sense would be the one focused on. The problem was that whenever I ran the models and calculations, everything I figured turned out to be insufficient. For example, sight. I could make a room that didn’t allow any visible light inside, but that didn’t matter because I could see across dozens of wavelengths. Even in the absence of visible light, I could still see. Even if not as well as I should have been able to, it was still something. That was why I ended up scrapping the idea of training my senses. I’d never come across a situation where they were insufficient for my purposes, and since time was one of the few resources that I still had in scarce supply, I made the decision that my time would be better spent elsewhere. 

Apart from the added gym, however, much of Kelex’s designs for the ship were fine and suitable for my purposes.

XXXXX

“What is this, Ovette?” I asked of Drax’s wife as I came out of the tower at her request to be met with dozens of Kylosians. I’d seen them from above, but I still didn’t know what they intended or their reason for being here. 

“Lady AIKO told us you would be leaving to the stars to fight the ones who almost destroyed our home” One member of the crowd said. Oh. So that was it. They wanted me to stay to keep them safe in case of further attacks. 

“Yes I will, but I assure you that New Kylos will be completely…”

“Please take us with you” They said in unison. What? What??

“They’ve been training for almost a year to be better warriors and want to join you in getting revenge for their dead friends and loved ones” Ovette explained. But still. What? 

“It is war. It will be dangerous” I explained. 

“We are fine with the danger, Captain.” Another spoke. Ovette had clearly been chosen to bring them to me, but it was obvious that this lot were more bold about speaking for themselves than I was used to seeing. 

“You have given us a new life. A life without hardship. A life worth living. I have not worried about my son’s meals in all the time we have been here. I have not woken up at night fearing being preyed upon by Vaarks or Golugs in a year. You built us Aclopto here. They threatened to bring an end to that. We want to join you, Captain. Join you in making them pay” He said, and I could see those that came with him nodding their heads in agreement. Fascinating. 

I thought over the decision. They were all clearly from the soldiers' corps. I’d designed a training program to turn them into space marines, so I was sure that they’d be competent warriors at the very least. I was also sure that they’d follow my orders. The entire point of the program was to make them good at that, at the very least. 

“Are they ready, AIKO” I asked the one who’d overseen the day to day of their training to make sure, and also to outsource the decision-making a bit. I wanted to give them the agency. I wanted to bring them along so they’d gain experience and be useful in training the next corp of Kylosian warriors, but only if they were ready. 

“Yes they are” She said through the speakers in the building, so everyone could hear her. 

“Then pack your things. We leave at dawn.”

A/N; Let’s go!