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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.

28 days. That was how long it ended up taking the Kylosians to pack up their things and prepare to move on from their planet. Altogether, it was a short time frame and I recognised that they'd probably end up leaving behind things they wouldn't even end up realising they needed until it was much too late to fix. But still, I did my best. In the four weeks it took them to get ready, I practically overhauled the entirety of the dark aster's internals and workings to align with my own preferences and the Kryptonian best practices.

The ship's thrusters were further reworked to work exclusively on muon particles like Tony's repulsor tech. The space expansion tech was integrated into the ship's fundamental internals, turning it from being capable of carrying a couple thousand in cramped facilities, to luxury accommodations for millions. I was even able to perfect the space bending to the extent that every member of the Kylosian race was able to get a room of their own. And then came the slaves. Ronan had stored hundreds of slaves in the brig of the Dark Aster, and when I finally released them, it had taken a few hours to convince them that Ronan was dead and that I was essentially giving them their freedom.

They came from a wide variety of races, most of which I could not recognise without the help of the Ship's database. Ronan had previously used them as deckhands, so offering to employ them to perform the same functions with better accommodations, no mistreatment, and the offer to turn them over to the Nova corps once we got into the Nova empire had been jumped on by them with little hesitation.

A few of them had declined, of course. More willing to risk it out on Kylos with the Kylosians who had ended up breaking apart from the rest of the species when the decision to travel with me was made than they were to take the risk that I was just like Ronan and was merely lying to them for some sick joke or prank. Still, with those people, I'd taken off their colours and disabled the explosives implanted into them. For those who followed me, I actually went to the trouble of surgically extracting the bombs to make sure none of the dime a dozen tech geniuses in the universe didn't end up using the inactive explosives against me.

Apart from improvements to the ship, of which there had been a lot, I'd also spent the rest of the time in Kylos preparing for a kind of Noah's Arc situation. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Kylosians. Loved them a lot, but definitely not enough to spend the rest of my life on a ship with them. No, they'd need a planet. So, to make sure the planet could indeed become home for them, I was doing my best to gather samples of the flora and fauna of the planet for terraforming the new one when we eventually found it. Of course, the thought of getting them a planet did bring something else to my mind.

I'd checked back on earth, and I did have the codex in me. The genetic information for restarting the entire kryptonian race. When I found out on earth, the information had been of little use to me. Just an interesting oddity that helped confirm the continuity this body had come from, but nothing more than that. But now that I was actively going to be searching for an empty planet for one race, it brought the question to mind again. 'Why not restart my own?' I could already see it now, a civilisation of superpowered beings, working to make the galaxy around us a better place.

I'd probably solve universal peace with that kind of army at my control. Just thinking about it. The Guardians of Oa had been able to create 3600 Green Lanterns policing every sector of the DC Universe and used that to keep much of the Universe in line. What could I do with millions or even billions of soldiers more powerful than any green lantern? A lot of good, and also a lot of harm. The Guardians had been able to prevent abuse of power by their lanterns because the rings they gave could be just as easily taken away. If I wanted to do anything even close to that, I'd have to either implant bombs in their heads to make sure they obeyed or brainwash them from birth to ensure their loyalty. Needless to say, neither of those seemed like appealing options in either the short or long terms so turning them into an intergalactic police force was pretty much out of the question.

And then came the question of what the fuck would I do with a whole planet of Kryptonians if I wasn't going to be making the universe a better place. The answer was not a whole lot. I wasn't going to turn into the Kryptonian council of old so preventing people from leaving was out of the question. Which meant that in the long run, I'd probably still have to deal with superpowered bad actors with the power to destroy planets if they got ticked off or got into the wrong mood. Nope. And then there was also the possibility that I'd create the Marvel Universes' very own Viltrum except with the potential to be a thousand times more powerful. I could just imagine it now.

All it would take is one government. One charismatic, ambitious Kryptonian who'd look at what I'd given them and declare it as not enough. If a full powered Krypton sought to conquer the Marvel Universe, I saw very few things that could stop them. So was I going to bring back my race and then accept all the things- good or ill- that could come from that? Not right now, no. Not with Thanos still out there, and probably not for a while after that. It just wasn';t worth it right now. Maybe not even ever.

I flew through the skies of Kylos, doing my last survey of the planet after having checked out the ship and made sure everything was ready. While I flew, I began to consider my plans for the future and the wider galaxy. Returning to earth wasn't an option for the time being. It would be funny to unleash the Kylosians on the earth populace but there was no way that was going to end well after the initial amusement disappeared. Humans were shit at accepting people with something as trivial as a different skin colour. Just imagine how they;d react to a whole other sapient species. They hadn't evolved to be able to take challenges to their supremacy over the planet.

But with that clear and ruled out, the goal was finding a planet. One far away from Thanos and Kree space. After what I'd found out from The Dark Aster's computers, it was clear that my perspective of the universe was a bit uninformed. The leviathan mainframe must have been at least a few centuries out of date or just filled with incomplete data. There were way more players out there in the world than I'd been able to properly appreciate after the first bit of info I got. First of all, there was the Shi'ar empire.

They spanned a whole tenth of the galaxy, and were the largest single contiguous unit in the galaxy. They were centred around a single man in much the way Thanos' empire was, but where Thanos ruled because of his personal strength and the might of his character, the Shi'ar emperor ruled by virtue of his birth. It was basically a monarchy. I had no problem with that on its own. What I did have a problem with was how they treated their subordinate planets. All planets apart from the species' main homeworld were basically production mines. They were both the food basket, and the manufacturing hub of the galaxy.

The Shi'ar empire produced goods that were sold and resold across the galaxy many times over. It would have been impressive if all of it was not built by slave labour. Sure, they were referred to by a different name, but a rose by any other name still smells just as sweet in the same way that forcing people to work in dangerous and stressful conditions to produce cheap goods for sale would never sit right with me. If I had the resources to, they would have been my first target.

Apart from the Shi'ar though, there were the Skrulls. They didn't have any empire so to speak. Not anymore, at least. They'd once conquered planets with ease as they changed shapes and took advantage of native confusion to supplant governments and rule whole planets from the shadows. Of course, that all ended when they tried to hit a bit above their weight class.

You see, in the war between the Kree and the Skrulls, the Skrulls had been the ones to strike the first blow. They attempted to, and even succeeded in replacing several high ranking members of the Kree military at a time. They sought to supplant the Supreme Intelligence but ultimately failed, and then the Kree levelled their entire war machine on them. One genius in their weapons division even managed to build a device that could scan for Skrulls across a whole planet and identify them no matter what disguise they chose to use. Once that happened, the Kree had gone on a crusade, killing every Skrull they found, man, woman, and child. It was genocide. In its purest, foulest form. It was a terrible thing, but I couldn't even call myself surprised that a world on a bigger scale than the one I'd come from would have even bigger atrocities.

The worst part about it, in my opinion, was what the rest of the galaxy had done about it. The Nova Empire, instead of continuing their war with the Kree, had signed a treaty of temporary cessation of hostilities, to allow the Kree focus on eliminating the Skrulls wholesale. They'd essentially stepped aside and let it happen while vocally condemning the actions. The Shi'ar had been even worse. They'd actually paid the Kree to scan the entirety of their empire to make sure no Skrulls were hiding within and killed the hundreds who were.

Kree intelligence proudly proclaimed that not a single Skrull remained alive today. Of course, I knew it was false. There were probably a few within the Nova Empire. It was one of the only safe spaces for their kind while the Kree carried out their massacre. There were also more than a few on earth. MCU canon told me that, and common sense confirmed it. Every Kree database that mentioned earth highlighted the planet as off-limits for all purposes. Earth was highlighted as a member of the Empire of Asgard, and it was clear no one wanted war with a planet of literal gods.

Asgard's empire was also something unique to note. It was essentially the Nine realms. What made it most interesting was the fact that the planets within the empire were nowhere near each other in most cases. Some of them weren't even identifiable. After all, Kree records only listed six member-planets of Asgard's empire. There was also the home of the Dwarves, but the database listed the planet as unlocatable and unplottable. Some commenters even referred to the place as fictional.

In the end though, I'd been forced to disconnect myself after downloading all the information I expected to need. I loved the information the Kree database offered, but I couldn't ignore the potential it had for being a tool for tracking me. I'd killed one of the Kree's accusers, rogue or not, so I had no doubts they'd come for me eventually. Even if not for the Cosmi-rod I now wielded as mine, then definitely for the Dark Aster. A ship like that could not have been cheap. They might have been willing to let Ronan go fucking off with it, but not someone like me. It was a stain on their reputation.

I completed half the circuit around the planet, and turned to my next avenue for contemplation. Where to go next? We needed a planet. And resources. And information. Even more information. Getting it all from the Kree database was one way to guarantee that I'd never get a truly impartial perspective. If one ever wanted to be truly informed on anything, one had to consider as many sources as there existed on the matter. Every source would come with its own bias and it was only through comparing and contrasting every single one of those sources that one would ever be able to get to the truth of the matter with any degree of certainty.

With all my needs and the fact that I was still in possession of valuable Kree material so I couldn't just go fucking around gallivanting the universe for the time being, there was only one real choice before me. Not a person I particularly wanted to deal with, but my only real option if I was being honest. Taneleer Tivan of Knowhere. Probably more well known by his epithet of the 'Collector'. He'd existed since roughly the beginning of the universe so if there was a place to get the things I needed, it would either be at his hands or from a source he'd recommend. The only problem was the notable lack of things to trade. I had no credits, the galactic currency to my name. So the only thing I could pay with would probably have to be an item of some sort. But this was where the problem came.

I had no doubts that I could make something suitably impressive to make him give me all I wanted just to get his hands on it, but there was also the question of if I actually wanted to do that. You see, the movies did a good job of underplaying it, but the Collector was not a good person. Not even in the loosest sense of the world. From canon, I knew that he owned multiple slaves in the past. And then there was his brother, the Grandmaster. Yup, that guy. Fruits of a rotten tree, both of them. But did I have any other choice beyond dealing with them and working through them? I didn't seem to. Not right now, though.

I'd love to go to Xander and get this all sorted out, but if they didn't open fire at the sight of the ship, then it would only be because they were waiting to take me out with a bigger weapon once I got into a closer range. And even beyond that, could I truly trust them? Could I trust anyone?

That was why at the end of my flight, I went right into the biggest building in what had once been Drax's village. All the gathered elders turned to me in surprise as I practically barged into their meeting. It didn't matter though. They'd sworn fealty to me. I was essentially their king right now. Their meetings were my meetings.

"Captain, is there anything we can help you with?" Ovette asked as she was the first to find her voice. Normally, she wouldn't have a seat at a table like this one, but it was clear that after she'd made the decision to approach me and ignoring the cowardice of the others, she'd been made their defacto spokesperson when it came to interacting with me. Of course, that meant Drax's village now had two representatives on the council but no one wads objecting for the time being.

"We're all ready to go, are we not?" I asked, stepping further into the building.

"Yes. Yes we are. We're just making sure we have everything we could need and the supplies to tide us over for our journey." She replied instantly.

"Ahh. Yes, that. There's a slight problem"

"Captain"

"Not a problem necessarily, just a decision I need to make and would like your input on."

"We'd be happy to help" She said with a bright smile that a few people across the hall shared. I guess those books that said that the easiest way to endear yourself to people was to ask them for a favour, not necessarily doing one for them.

"I'm a bit indecisive as to our first destination."

"What? You promised that we'd go straight to the new planet" One of them spoke out in shock at my statement, making quite a few of them narrow their eyes and turn to me. They were scared of getting fucked over. I lifted my hands in mock surrender.

"And you are right. The goal is to get the planet first. There are two choices. We could either buy one from the Nova Empire or the Collector."

"So what's the problem?" Ovette asked. "Can you tell us a bit about each of the options and why you can't seem to pick one?"

"Of course. The Nova Empire is a large conglomerate of planets, centred around Xander, the homeworld of Nova Prime, the head of the empire. They are basically the largest force for good in the galaxy right now. The only problems with reaching out to them are that the ship we have, the Dark Aster, belongs to a guy who's been killing their people for over a century. If we approach, there's every chance they shoot us out of the sky before we even get the chance to explain ourselves, and there's also the fact that I don't have any of the intergalactic currency to use in purchasing the planet from them." I said, pausing to let them collect their thoughts and make sure they were following along.

"And the other?" Ovette asked.

"The Collector. He's almost as old as the universe. He lives on the head of a dead celestial, and if there's anyone that would have a planet for sale, it would be him. On the other hand, he's a bit of a scumbag and I'm hesitant to do anything to help someone like that. He keeps slaves and wouldn't hesitate to sell us out if he saw a profit in it for himself" I explained, watching them begin to consider it among themselves.

A/N; Finally completed the chapter, eh? How's it look? We've got the next two chapters of this story, along with the first Nine 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.

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