Questions, comments and concerns? Reach out to me on discord on this link; disc ord. gg /TK AR 4KpV (just remove the spaces since ff doesn't play too nicely with links)

A/N; I am entirely reader-supported. Here are my special thanks to those of you who enjoy my writing enough to support me with your hard earned money on my pa-atreon page. Not just them though, special thanks to everyone who even just reads this story, reviews it, favourites or follows it. You're the reason I keep going. Thank you. Welcome to this new story, feel free to check out my other work if this is your first.

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 might 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 centrepiece 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 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 cipher. 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 could design anything that would come even close. The only available source of propulsion here were the remains of the Chitauri 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 to understand 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 without 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.

XXXX

"You see, Kamaria. The trick to hunting R'sari is silence. It's all about the silence."

"Silence?"

"Yes. You see, they have very sensitive ears. They can hear you coming from miles away if you aren't careful so we need to be completely silent in our approach" I said to her, speaking in a whisper.

"But how do we do that?" The fact that her voice had dropped into a whisper to match mine brought a smile to my face. She could be so cute when she wanted to be.

"Just follow me. Copy my footsteps." Another thing to be noted about Kylosians was how their bodies learned quickly. It took her only a few seconds to begin to place the heel of her foot on the ground fist, before softly rolling it to place the entire sole of it on the hard forest floor. Sometimes, it was like they were gifted with such malleable body learning and muscle memory to make up for what they lacked in higher functions. No, they weren't stupid. Just a bit dense.

My point was proven when Kamaria began straying away to poke at a Y'naro in the path and forgot to maintain her quiet movements. Metres away, I could spot the R'sari taking note of her presence and fleeing deeper into the forest.

I guess that would make things just a bit harder. I grabbed the girl by her outstretched arm before she could touch the creature that reminded me of butterflies from earth and tossed her onto my shoulders.

She didn't so much as flinch from the treatment that would have looked rough to anyone without basic understanding of Kylosian biology. After spending so much time here, I'd gotten ample opportunities to obtain samples of their dna and had begun to study it and what it could mean. One of the most noteworthy things was just how durable they were. It wasn't much of a surprise though. In the canon MCU, Kamaria's own father, Drax, had gone on to become one of the most dangerous warriors in the galaxy in his rampage as he sought Thanos' head. The fact that he'd done all that even though Kylosian society had no such thing as military training was even more impressive. It meant he went from farmer to warrior in a few short months and became one of the most dangerous in the galaxy in just that short while.

Using my enhanced senses, spotting the raccoon-like creatures where they had retreated to was easy. Now, just to somehow teach this child to catch them.

XXXX

"Uncle. Will you be coming to the harvest festival?" The little girl asked, looking up at me as I busied myself tending the forge. To avoid too much suspicion and as my own way of giving back to the people of this planet for taking me in, I'd began to produce tools for making their farming easier. The fact that they'd wasted no time in giving me the space to work and adapting my tools for their use was something that I found to be very impressive.

I'd have expected people like this, for the most part cut off from the wider galaxy, to be much more insular and xenophobic.

"Did your mother put you up to this?" I asked her instantly. Ovette was a raging extrovert and did her best to project that on everyone she met. The way she'd practically taken me in and adopted me into their place for the first few days after my landing on this planet until I could get a place on my own was something that would never cease to inspire me. Drax, more cautious and logical, had preached hesitance, but she'd ignored him, citing the feeling she had about me being a gift from the spirits and took me in over and above all his protests.

It was so impressive. I'd never seen anyone so blatantly say no with someone that probably had enough strength to snap them in half leaning over their shoulder.

She took a great risk on me when I was young and alone, and that was why I swore that as long as I lived, nothing would happen to these people.

"No Uncle. You put me up here, yourself" She replied with a confusion that made me want to slap my face with my palm as she talked. Of course.

"That's not what I mean, Kamaria. It's another metaphor."

"Metaphor !" She screamed before jumping off the shelf and landing on the floor with both her feet. She wasn't even fazed by the impact. That shelf was taller than me!

I watched with a fond smile on my face as she searched the desks around the workshop until she found the tablet I'd built her and wrote down the new phrase.

"But are you coming, Uncle?" She asked after her amusement with the new phrase had ended.

"Just like I told your mother, I have work I need to finish up by then."
"Work?"

"Yes" I said, not giving the curious creature any more to work with. I'd spent way too much time here already, and even though I loved the life I was living with the Kylosians, this wasn't my purpose. I was gifted with enough power to virtually be considered a god. Wasting it away as a toolmaker for a planet of backwater farmers would be ridiculous and downright criminal. That was why for the past few months, I'd been using a fabricator made out of some spare nanoweave from my suit to produce the part necessary to change up the suit to include a faster-than-light drive and also toughening up the thing a bit and running calculations to make sure both it and I would be surviving the journey.

Thus far, the project was almost complete already. I just had some finishing touches to place tonight.

"But Uncle."

"I'll be really busy. No, Kamaria."
"Pleaseeee"

"That won't work on me Kamaria. I taught you how to use those eyes to get your parents to do what you wanted, remember?"

"Pleaseeeeee" Fuck. I looked. Fuck. Staring at the orange skinned girl's wide blue eyes was one way to have all your resolve crumble in seconds. I could finish the drive tomorrow.

"Fine. Let's get going" I said.

You try saying no to those eyes.

XXXX

One thing the Kylosians did know how to do was party. For a species with not much in the way of industrialization, their alcohol was firmly centuries ahead of the rest of their stuff when it came to development. I nursed my tankard as I moved around the bonfire and just watched as members of the community interacted with each other.

As a species, the Kylosians weren't the most united of peoples. There were at least a few billion of them on the planet, but the community I stayed in had only a couple million people. There were hundreds of such communities around, and while they regularly traded with each other and never seemed to go to war or have conflict, they didn't seem to have much of a desire to unite, though. People born in one community stayed there. Drax's great grandfather's grandfather had lived in the house he, Ovette, and Kamaria now stayed in. Which was both a flex and slightly sad. I mean it was great that the house had managed to remain standing across so many generations, but on the other hand- just fucking move on already.

On my second round, I found myself quickly drawn into one of the conversations. "So Clark, you said you come from a planet where they have giant birds that people fly in?" Knarr, a farmer asked, dragging me into his conversation about birds with another farmer, Kofu.

"No. Not birds. They're like birds"

"But not birds?"
"Precisely. They are made of metal like that hoe I made you."

"That can fly?" Kofu asked, astounded.

"No. Not on its own. We use something called an engine and wheels. Think of it like a wheelbarrow like what you use to carry the produce to the barn."

"Wheelbarrows don't fly, Clark. Don't be ridiculous" Knarr said, shaking his head at me and looking like he was about to call for a healer to look over my head.

"Of course they don't. They're not really wheelbarrows." I said, trying to search for an appropriate analogy to help them understand.

"Earthling!" Drax shouted from the other end of the crowd. I took the out that the man presented and quickly extracted myself from the farmer duo and walked over to him. Drax, like a lot of people here, owned a farm of his own, but most of his family's sustenance came from hunting. The man was a skilled hunter, so I wasn't surprised to find him standing amongst a group of his fellow hunters and several of the teenagers in the community. As the hunters were regarded as the cool ones, the younger Kylosians always flocked after them when they were gathered like this.

Off to a corner I could see Ovette watching the entire thing with Kamaria on her back, fond smile on her face as she watched her husband in his element. "Fild here says he can drink me under the table. And before I embarrassed him with my superior constitution and drinking skill, I decided to open the competition up to everyone here so I could embarrass you all at the same time. What say you?" He asked, looking down at me. His close to seven feet form that shared a striking similarity to a certain former WWE star from my past life somehow managed to not be imposing as he stood amongst his people.

I stared at the barrels, and then at the fellow contestants. A terrible idea, probably. But what was life without a few terrible decisions.

"Count me in"

XXXXXXX

Screams. I woke up to screams. It was almost instinctive for me to stretch my senses across the whole community, and that was how I noted people being dragged out of their homes by armed and armoured assailants. What the fuck?

I got out of bed in a blur and stared through the ceiling of my home at the structure floating in the sky, that could only be vaguely described as a ship. The Dark Aster, personal ship of Ronan the Accuser. Fuck.

A/N; Oh ye of little faith. We've got the next two chapters of this story, along with the next five chapters of another fic that I uploaded at the exact same time as this one (an OCSI into a firebender during the 100 year war in the ATLA universe) all available on pa-atreon, and you can read all of that right now just by heading to the link on my profile or searching for my username up there. Feel free to have a look.