Chapter 15.1- All of Infinity in the Palm of my Hands

Sadly, with four days remaining until I had to make the journey to Xander with Carol Danvers, I couldn’t make the journey with my flagship.. it had to stay behind for upgrades. Thankfully, AIKO was more than sufficient to hold down the fort while I went to get back up. I thought to myself and wondered why I hadn’t done this sooner. It was just one of those things that was a no—brainer in hindsight. Kelex was my best friend. I guess it was because part of me was uncomfortable with returning to the earth the way I was now. 

My Kingdom, and boy would I need a better name for that soon, was located in what the earthlings referred to as the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, so the journey to earth was a short one. It was basically a stone’s throw away when it came to galactic terms. It hadn’t been a factor in consideration when I’d decided to set up roots, but it was proving its usefulness now. The short distance and the much improved thrusters of my ship meant that even though I was using basically amped up copies of the hyperdrive that called the Dark Aster home, I made good time to earth. Hopefully the full Kryptonian database back on earth would have the designs I needed to make the truly major improvements. I had a good copy of a lot of the information on my Suit’s storage but considering all the information in the Fortress was so much that it was essentially infinite from my perspective meant that even that copy only contained the bare tip of the iceberg. 

I sat at the helm of the ship as the planet Mars came into view. I knew that Earth would not be able to have sensors or scanners this far out but I still engaged the stealth mode. The ship I sat in was made with one purpose in mind, stealth. It could cut itself from detection across 90% of the observable frequencies in the universe, from visible light to infrared, to ultra violet radiation. There was a reason her name was Ghost. Ghost was the product of one thought I’d had. If I ever needed to take out a target on my lonesome, I couldn’t take one of the larger ships because that was just begging to get caught. The job Ghost had was to deliver me to my target without detection. That was why she had no weapons. No internal heating or most of the comforts normally found in a spaceship either. Her purpose was basic, and the utilitarian design helped in her stealth functions. 

I disengaged the space thrusters in favour of the less powerful ones as we entered the Planet’s atmosphere. From above, the earth looked exactly as it always had. When I’d been lost across space, my first goal had been to find my way back here as quickly as possible, but now I was here and I felt nothing. The Earth had never been home to me. Not truly. My only friends had been Kelex and Tony. There was nothing that particularly concerned me with the rest of the planet. Sure, I’d step in if it were ever truly in danger but that was out of loyalty to my first life and not any particular attachment to this one. I guided the ship towards the North Pole as I headed towards the Fortress of Solitude. 

XXXXX

“Welcome, Kal-El” The voice of Idris Elba spoke to me as I got out of the ship and walked through the giant doors away from the harsh winter of the North Pole and into the warm comfort of the fortress of solitude. 

“It’s good to be back, Kelex. I’ve missed you” I said to him. 

“You took much longer than I calculated. The portal should have taken you about 117 million light years away from here, but I expected that you would have acquired space faring and travelling technology of your own with about 94% certainty. In those situations where you do acquire space faring technology, I estimated your arrival to take about Seven-Nine months and not two years” Kelex didn’t sound irritated or anything but I did know there was a silent question there.

“Oh boy, have I got a story for you. I’ll fill you in as we travel, but I need you to split a kernel for me to take with me back to my planet” 

“Your planet” 

“Yeah, I bought my own solar system. It’s been a wild two years”

“I find myself confused, Kal-El, If you now own a planet of your own, why not move the entire Fortress to that location. That way, we could begin to set up New Krypton as your father dreamed” Kelex said, the 3d hologram of his face, tilting itself to convey confusion with my  instructions. 

I thought it over for the first time as I hadn’t even considered the option. It had completely skipped my mind. Moving the Fortress down to New Kylos seemed like the beginning of a set of events that I did not want to consider. The resurgence of Krypton and the Krytonian race. My people were too dangerous for the wider galaxy, and I would not place the world in that much danger from my actions. 

Regardless of how little I cared for the people not under my protection, I was still not going to put them in that kind of danger. On the other hand, the Fortress being on New Kylos would mean unlimited access to the treasure trove that was Kryptonian knowledge. I could just imagine what Kelex and AIKO could cook up when it came to defences by applying some of the truly nasty shit in Krypton’s archive. I could even foresee untold advancements for the Kylosians. I had no idea how to set up an economy or any of the fancy stuff so now they still relied on me for their feeding and everything. Krypton had such a large archive of the soft sciences that what Kelex and AIKO and I would manage with full access was practically limitless. 

In this case, the pros far outweighed the cons, and I trusted Kelex. There would be no new Krypton under my watch. 

“Fine, pack up the Fortress. But how have things been going down here. I left a will leaving you in charge of future industries, how has that been going?”

“After you were basically declared dead by the government, ownership of the company passed on to me, and while I haven’t released any new products since, I’ve been consolidating our market share in existing products and now 1 in every 2 people connected to the internet is using one of our services or the other. We remain the most valuable private company in the world, and the money basically comes pouring in” He said, sounding bored of it all. 

“I see. Leave a kernel of yourself behind in your physical form to manage the company? I don’t know when having a foothold in Earth would come useful, but we lose nothing by keeping it” I told him as I walked deeper into the Fortress, getting to have a good look at the place I’d once called home. 

A/N; First part of the new chapter, ey?