Author's Note – I do not own any of the characters, Marvel and DC do.

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Chapter Thirty-One

Final Preparations

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Apocalypse stared at the holographic schematic before him as Sinister continued his presentation.

"…and with the firepower of the three battlecraft combined with the Sentinels and your Golems, we will be able to capture virtually the entire American Senate and the President. With them in your power, you will be able to have them formally surrender to you, thus placing you legally in charge of America."

"And why should I not simply slay them all in one blow and declare myself ruler?"

"Because, mein Herr, that would cause the people to rise against you. All of them, all at once." Red Skull replied from his position beside Apocalypse's throne. "By having their leaders surrender, you place yourself at the top of the existing government and they will follow your orders. Try to simply seize power without using the legal niceties that they follow and they will see you not as a conquerer to be followed but as an usurper to be usurped in turn."

Apocalypse nodded slowly. "I see. Continue, my Seneschal."

Sinister bowed slightly. "Yes, My Lord. It is worth noting that the Americans do not have one of their new Super-teams in Washington, probably because it is so close to their seat of power that they fear that anyone with sufficient power may simply choose to take over."

Apocalypse smirked at that.

"That means that your forces will have enough time to secure Washington before the super-teams can arrive, thus you will be able to simply order them to stand down and then join your forces." Sinister continued. "Once your rule is secured, then it can be expanded, first to South America and then across to Asia. As the world turns to look there, Europe will become ripe for the taking as well."

"Sound tactics." Red Skull agreed. "Hydra's infiltration units will destabilise your targets prior to conquest."

Apocalypse's smirk grew wider.

"Excellent, My Senechal and Marshal. Are My forces in position?"

"They are, Mein Herr." Red Skull replied. "By tomorrow morning, all units will be ready to deploy at your command."

"Then let tomorrow be the dawn of my new empire!"

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Principal Kelly stared out of the window at the sports field with a wry smile.

"Clark showing off?" Hank asked from where he was marking a large pile of homework and Kelly shook his head.

"No, but sometimes the surrealness of having superheroes as part-time teachers here is just almost overwhelming."

Kelly paused and frowned. "Is surrealness an actual word?"

"Technically it isn't, but the fact that I understand what you mean by it means that it can arguably be counted as one." Hank replied, his attention on the sheet he was marking. "I assume that the search for more staff is going well?"

Kelly nodded. "Yep, and we're breaking ground for the new wing next week. New wing, hah! It's going to more than double the size of the school!"

"Well, Bayville High is currently the most famous school in the country." Hank noted. "Did you know that since Clark's identity was revealed, the population of Bayville has risen by ninety-seven percent?"

Kelly blinked. "Really? Wow. I knew that I was seeing more faces that I didn't recognise, but…"

"It would be more, but the houses are still being built." Hank added. "Piotr sometimes goes to help them, as do several of the others. Jea… ahem, Marvel Girl acts as a telekinetic crane whenever she goes, she says it has really helped her with fine control and overall strength. Lance uses his powers to open up trenches for pipes, cables and so on."

"Huh." Kelly mused. "That… actually makes sense. Training by helping others."

"Also helps the raise people's opinions of mutants." Hank said as he placed the sheet onto the finished pile and grabbed another. "Unless something major happens, public opinion should soon be back to where it was before Magneto did his little stunt with the Golden Gate bridge."

Kelly nodded again. "You know that some people call us Mutant High?"

Hank snorted with hastily-suppressed laughter. "I hadn't heard that. Really?"

"Really." Kelly confirmed. "Several of the pupils that are joining next semester are mutants, they're moving here with their families."

"A couple of the families of the students at Xavier's have asked about moving to Bayville and having their kids live with them again." Hank agreed. "And yesterday the Sheriff was talking to Xavier about setting up some sort of emergency-deputisation process if emergencies happen. I hadn't realised that Clark was already a Deputy, he's never mentioned it."

Kelly blinked. "Really? Clark's a Deputy Sheriff? How many hats does he wear? Superhero, teacher, mentor, deputy sheriff…"

"Superhero trainer, Diplomat, rescue worker, planetary ambassador, loving husband, father, researcher, medic…"

"Medic?" Kelly interrupted, turning to look quizzically at Hank and the blue-furred teacher nodded.

"Before he was outed, he made sure that he was trained up to emergency responder standards. After his identity was revealed, he attended several courses run by SHIELD and if he wanted to, he can now easily qualify to work as a doctor in an emergency ward."

"Wow." Kelly breathed. "I… didn't know that."

"Clark doesn't like to make a fuss about what he can do." Hank shrugged as he took another sheet of homework and started to mark it. "He prefers to celebrate what everyone else can do. And he isn't the only one who has reached that level of medical knowledge, although I must admit that I am still learning a lot from Moira."

"I have two fully-qualified medical experts on my staff and didn't realise it?" Kelly laughed as he shook his head.

"Piotr is trained in first-aid as well." Hank added. "In fact, it's one of the requirements for joining the X-Men. Any member of Generation-X who goes public is also required to be trained."

Kelly turned to look out at the sports field again as Clark waved his hand to restart the game.

"The more I learn, the more impressed I become." He admitted. "But don't tell Clark that, he might ask for a pay raise."

"With his hearing, he probably heard every word we just said."

Kelly blinked. "Oh. Really?"

On the field, Clark turned and nodded at him before turning back to the game.

"Told you." Hank laughed as Kelly simply stared in shock.

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Governor-General Zod leaned back in his chair and glanced at the other members of the Triumvirate. To his left sat the Prime Minister of New Israel (which had re-named itself to celebrate its relocation) while to his right Boreas of New Olympus sat in a chair that had been specially made to accommodate his wings.

"…and we believe that we can begin construction of the first locally-produced starship within the next month." Admiral Faora finished.

"An excellent presentation, Admiral." Boreas nodded and Faora's lips twitched as she tried not to smile triumphantly. "May I ask how my people are fitting in?"

"We have had a couple of minor issues, but they mainly boiled down to differing body-types." Faora admitted. "Designing a suit-varient for someone with fire instead of hair, or someone who can hurl lightning did prove somewhat challenging. Fortunately, my second-in-command, Taurus, knew exactly who to call upon."

"Ah, so the integration goes well." Boreas smiled and Faora gave a slight nod.

"In general, yes. We have had one or two personnel issues… mainly caused by those New Olympians who dislike humans, I'm sorry to say, but we have adjusted, adapted and overcome."

"I will, once again, try to spread the message of tolerance." Boreas sighed, his wings twitching slighty. "We have so much history and tradition to overcome, though. It will take time."

Faora shrugged with a wry smile. "Well, since the worst cases can't tell the difference between Kryptonians and humans, they tend to… end up rather outmatched after a while."

Boreas thought about her comment for a moment, then snorted in amusement.

"Officially, that is unfortunate." He finally said, then his smile turned virtually feral. "Unofficially, it serves the idiots right."

"Unofficially, I agree." Zod laughed.

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"Night Thrasher." Clark repeated, staring at the body-armoured man who had just introduced himself.

"What?" the masked man asked defensively. "Most of the better names are already taken. It said so on the Superhero List."

"The… what?" Clark asked blankly.

"The Superhero List." Night Thrasher repeated. "It's a database that holds and cross-references data on official superheroes. Let me show you."

Night thrasher moved to the computer in the corner of the room and switched it on, clicking on various icons and lists with the ease of long practice. A moment later, he stood back and motioned for Clark to look.

"I've pulled up your file."

Clark blinked, then turned his attention to the screen. On it was his code-name, his gender, species, a full-length picture of him (taken from one of the publicity posters he had grudgingly allowed Xavier to sell at the Institute shop) and a short listing of most of his abilities (which weren't completely accurate, but were quite close in a couple of cases).

"As you see here," Night Thrasher pointed, "You're listed as Independent but below that is a listing of the groups you're known to work with."

Clark shook his head in resigned dismay as he finally noticed the symbols in the top right corner that marked the database as being the product of co-operation between Forge and Peter.

"There's a Supervillain list as well." Thrasher added and Clark fought the urge to facepalm.

"So, how about I call in the other New Warriors?" Thrasher asked.

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"Hey, I have my own page!" Rhino crowed, then he frowned. "They haven't listed my real name."

"They won't." Vulture said, looking up from his tablet. "It's part of their official operating procedure. This is meant as an overview and general warning for the public. They've even noted which villain is most likely to kill without remorse and which ones will go out of their way to avoid hurting innocents."

"Oh." Rhino mused. "Why would they do that?"

"Mainly so that we won't have a reason to go after them, I assume." Vulture shrugged.

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"So, how are we progressing with the Sentinel Prime project?" Stryker asked and Trask bit down on the retort that Stryker wasn't actually involved in the project in question.

"It is… progressing slower than planned." He admitted. "Only two of the med-pods have been infiltrated and even then, the self-diagnostics are rather… problematic from our viewpoint. Combined with the need to slowly accumulate the resources for the required re-programmed nanotech implants, we are fortunate if even one in a thousand of the patients are turned into potential Sentinel Primes."

Stryker frowned at that. "So few?"

"It's unavoidable." Trask shrugged."The Sentinel Nanobots are of a different design to the nanobots used for removing cancer and we can't simply slot in packets of them. The pods create the required nanobots for the anti-cancer treatments and the inserted programme causes the pods to make a few Sentinel nanobots each time, their numbers hidden in the normal process, listed under imperfect/reclaimed. When there are enough of our nanobots to be able to achieve transformation…"

"The patient has them implanted, ready for the activation signal." Stryker finished with a smirk.

"And when the Kryptonians introduce the full-spectrum med-pods, Master Mold should be able to insert the programming into at least a few of them as well." Trask added.

"And then we shall be able to finally control the mutant threat." Stryker gloated. "They shall be controlled, or destroyed."

"Controlled or destroyed." Trask agreed.

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Master Mold listened to the conversation through the eyes of her Prime Sentinel. The project had been incredibly tricky, even for a Machine Intelligence like herself, but her superior processing speed had allowed her to slip the programming into the med-pods that she had managed to remotely access via the Sentinels that had been able to gain physical access during transit.

The Sentinel Primes were but the first step of her great plan.

She de-activated her secret link to Trask and considered her plans. Her directives were unambiguous.

She was going to save Humanity.

And she would let nothing stop her.

Nothing.

Nothing or… wait.

Master Mold accessed her status systems and mentally paused.

The number of Sentinels under her control were plummeting, but she wasn't receiving any error messages or ending notifications.

Something was happening.

Something… that could affect her plans.

She accessed her records on hacking protocols. She would find out who was reducing her army and would then formulate a plan for dealing with them.

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Authors Afternote:- Yeah, this is a slower chapter, although I've used it to stock up my Chekov's Armoury some more.

Next episode… Apocalypse strikes!