Chapter 5.5- All of Infinity in the Palm of my Hands

Zod and Jor-El. The training, wisdom and experiences of both of these pillars had been gifted to me by that machine. No cause to use either of those gifts, I’d let them take the backseat as what I’d been born with had been more than enough to take me as far as I’d gotten. But now? I leaned heavily on Zod’s training. Left on my own, I’d have given in to panic. Left with only Jor-El, I mioght have wasted away trying to study the remnants of the Chitauri tech that the nuke had left.

But trained to be a soldier and leader, my inner Zod knew the most important things to do. The first step was checking my suit. As expected, all systems were at full power and capacity. Energy would never be a problem in this suit. Not if everything kept working as it should. My power source? A miniaturised arc reactor stored between the suits centerpiece that held the engraved symbol of the House of El. Unlike Tony, I wasn’t going to be using it for its own attacks, so I could keep it covered, and also unlike Tony, my arc reactor was actually a fully sized one. Large enough to take the size of an entire room. So how did it fit in my chest piece? I hear you ask. Brainiac tech, of course. Well, not quite Brainiac tech. The building blocks were in already there, and with a result in mind, it had only taken Kelex centuries in simulated time within our computer core to crack the secrets and come up with our own version.

Even with all the time, the machine itself was the size of a large hall,  but it could send things down to practically microscopic levels. The Arc Reactor ordinarily large enough to occupy a room had the surface area of a single bead when the machine was done. It was a wonder for compactness and discreteness, but it also meant that if anything went wrong, I’d have practically zero chance of fixing it. Its why the steel chestpiece was called steel but was anything but. It was an alloy of Krypton’s densest substance. Hard enough that even I wouldn’t be able to simply break through it.

The rest of the suit, nanotech that flowed from the centrepiece was also in tip top shape. The only thing passing through the portal had lost me was Kelex in my ear. We hadn’t bothered to add a kernel of Kelex to the suit itself since the original was always going to be my man in the chair. That oversight meant I was practically flying in on my own. I’d trust Kelex to reach out to me eventually, but it was my duty to get to more recognizable space.

That was why my next act after making sure everything I had was in good order was reconnaissance. I flew over to the closest piece of wreckage and began to salvage what I could find, searching for any form of computer or navigation system.

XXXXXX- TWELVE HOURS LATER

Single minded discipline and focus. If you asked what Zod’s greatest strength was, this would be the answer I’d give you. After going through training made with him as the template, I’d inherited much of that strength and it was the only reason I still hadn’t given up. Finding a computer had been the easy part. With supervision and senses, finding what I was looking for was easy. All I had to do was catalogue the wreckage into categories and figure out what a computer or the remnants of one would look like.

The first one was found in minutes, but had been much too brutalised to find anything on. I eventually found a computer module that was mostly intact, but the difficult part had been interfacing with it. Getting it to do what I wanted or even searching it for information had been a hell and a half. I’d had to build my own interface that could convert the code the Chitauri ran on into kryptonian code with a universal cypher. One was already baked into the suit’s systems so the entire thing wasn’t impossible, just very very hard.

Hard enough that with intellect rivalling Krypton’s brightest mind, it had taken half a day for me to even come close to completing the device. The first test had been a partial failure, but that gave me the information I needed to complete the interface. It should only take me another few hours to fix everything.

XXXXX

One thing that the MCU really skipped over was what exactly Thanos was. And what was that? An intergalactic warlord in truth. He wasn’t just a raider or something like that. No, Thanos took planets and added them to his empire. It was nothing compared to the greats like the Nova or Kree, but the fact that he controlled multiple solar systems by virtue of what was essentially his own personal strength and that of an army he’d built on his lonesome.

A single person at the helm of such an empire should have been impossible. That was the kind of strength Thanos had. Part of me wanted to fly off right now and confront him but I quite liked the thought of being alive much too much for that. Even if I was stronger than Thanos (and that’s a big if), could I take him on and his Black Order? Ebony Maw alone was a planetary threat at the least. Cull Obsidian had strength to match up with the hulk, and there was Proxima Midnight along with the rogue daughters- Gamora and Nebula. There were too many variables to take into account. If I tried and failed, I’d either die or draw the mad Titan’s attention and make sure he’d be prepared for me the next time.

No, I’d stick to my original plan. Face Thanos on a battlefield of my own choosing with four infinity stones on my side.

But all of that aside, the reason we were talking about the mad titan now was that the Chitauri mothership was at the very center of Thanos controlled space. The Kree and Nova Empires were lightyears away, and Xander itself was almost on the other end of the galaxy. Earth, the blip that it was, was even further than that. My next actions could only be decided once I secured transportation capable of travelling the galaxy at any speed slower than a crawl.

Of course, it ended up not to be as there was nothing here that could be salvaged into meaningful transportation with the tools I had on hand. Especially without Kelex here to run simulations of my designs, I wasn’t altogether very willing to take risks with faster than light spacecraft. Not like I cold design anything that would come even close. The only available source of propulsion here were the remains of the Chituari speeders, and those would be lucky to get to Mach speeds on a good day. That meant I had to do things the slow way. The very slow way. Yup, I was going to fly. Unaided.

XXXXX- ONE YEAR LATER

How quickly does a Kryptonian fly through space? Well, the answer was  not very quickly at the end of the day. What I’d found in the last year of travel was that no matter how much I pushed myself, I was still stuck firmly below the Light Speed requirement for making space travel anything near reasonable. I guess we were now sure that I wasn’t one of those suped up Kryptonians like Superman One Million or anything like that. And I also definitely wasn’t from one of those uber powerful continuities. At lowest in respect to this body.

Sure, surviving for so long out in space with no help and no supplies was a feat worthy of mention to some, but with my advantages, it was almost laughably easy. All a Kryptonian truly needed to survive was exposure to the vital yellow rays that gave us our powers. And the good news? On the inside of the nanotexture weave that made up my suit were millions of tiny cells that projected that essential type of radiation right on my skin.

It meant that even without traditional nourishment, I’d actually grown stronger as time passed instead of growing weaker. Before this trip, my top speed was measured at around Mach 150. Right now, costing along the space and feeling no signs of tiredness, I was on a steady Mach 620. Yup. 620 times the speed at which sound travelled through air. My top speed was probably at least twice that, but even though that was impressive and definitely beyond what any other being in the galaxy should be able to reasonably hit. Except for Captain Marvel, that is.

Whenever she showed up, I’d have a field day studying those powers of hers. Light speed was a fun thing to get thrown about in comic books, but now in a universe where there was a living being capable of going that fast, I just couldn’t wait to see what she could do in person. As well as answer the age old question, that is. Who’s stronger? Superman or Captain Marvel? Still, light speed or no, I’d travelled for so long that I was finally beginning to creep up on my location.

There it stood, the bright green planet. Just beyond the very edge of Thanos space and out of any of the major empires that surrounded it. If there was any planet that was safe for me to regroup and refuel in respect of my situation. Also, if there was any place for me to prepare and safely obtain a spaceship, it would be here. Now, the question was how would I do this.

XXXXXX- SEVEN MONTHS LATER

“Uncle Clark! Uncle” The little girl screamed as she ran into the workshop I’d been allowed to claim as my own for my small business of producing tools for the village.

“Yes, Kamaria. I could hear you from all the way over there. No need to shout.” I said as I walked forwards and picked the girl up before plopping her down on my shoulder.

“But Uncleeeeee. You promised to teach me how to hunt R’sani today.” She whined, drawing nothing more than a chuckle from me.

“Did I? I don’t remember that”

“Really? We must get you to Healer Amara, Uncle. Your memory is gone.” She said, face suddenly worried as she began to tug on my ear as if trying to steer me like a horse.

“It was a joke, Kamaria”
“A joke?”

“Yes. A joke. I’ve taught you about jokes before, sweetheart”

“Oh. Yes. Uncle. A joke. Ha ha ha” It took me all I had to avoid facepalming.

“What was that?”

“Laughter. I was laughing. You said I should laugh at jokes.”

“But only if they are funny.”
“Oh. Then that was not funny, Uncle. So I shouldn’t laugh?” The question actually made me burst into laughter of my own as the ability of the Kylosians to just be brutally honest in all sorts of situations was a refreshing way of living that had done a very good job of drawing me in in the time I’d spent here.

Sometimes, I wondered if this wasn’t the life I truly wanted. Life where my greatest worry was a little girl who seemed unable o understanding the dangers of being in a workshop. Speaking of said little girl though, she’d taken advantage of my inattention and jumped off to find something in the shop to capture her attention.

“No. Kamaria. Come here. Let’s go hunting”

“Yesssss. Thank you Uncle.” She screamed before jumping on me again as I walked out of the building. The Kylosians were an especially kind people who lived in multiple villages. It would be generous to refer to them as civilised since most of their technology was very basic, and the major source of income was agriculture which made products that they traded amongst themselves with no currency beyond other goods. Any earthling that stumbled upon them would label them as primitive withoiut paying any more attention to them, but stuck here for months, I was forced to notice some things that no one else would have without a deeper look. For one, this place was peaceful. Even things like theft and murder happened so rarely that the time a daughter of a local farmer was raped, pretty much the entire community had gone up in uproar until the guilty one was found after his own parents turned him in to face justice. And contrary to what part of me had expected, it wasn’t just mob justice. They’d constituted a whole court for themselves made up of one adult from every household who would vote towards the verdict.

The accused was given the chance to defend himself and offer evidence while his accusers were given equal opportunity to do the same. And when it was all over, instead of sentencing him to execution, for the Kylosians had no prisons, he was branded and set loose into the jungles. It was an interesting way to do things, and I could see the merits of the lifestyle they lived the longer I stayed here. Their communal nature wasn’t just about crime, they also ate together, and essentially lived together in a lot of ways. There was no poverty, no hunger. I was hesitant to declare it a perfect society, but it sure was better than anything we had going for us back on Earth.

A/N; Just stopping here for today. Will probably return tomorrow.