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.
"New Kylos is ahead in the polls again, Kal" AIKO's voice rang in through the speakers and I resisted the urge to facepalm. I was bent over on the work desk as I tried to manually change a few of the transistors on one of my latest projects. It had been roughly six months since these planets had become mine, and looking around this one, it was almost impossible to tell that it'd been uninhabited until only about three months ago. The world engines were something else. Sure, I had the schematics in my head and I knew what they were capable of, but seeing was believing. I'd made the machines by cannibalising a good portion of the _Dark Aster,_ since I was giving it away, either way. So it was from the remains of the less than fully operational ship that we watched the devices float off into space. They floated for a few seconds before breaching the planet's weak atmosphere, heading to the predetermined points, and blasting out powerful beams of changing light. It had taken days for the process to begin, but when it was all done, the scans and my vision showed me results beyond my wildest dreams.
The first planet to be terraformed wasn't this one. It couldn't have been. If we needed to build homes, and all the other good things, which we did. Then the first thing we had to secure was our manufacturing base. That wasn't this planet, either. The planet, _Piji_, Greek for source, was quite literally going to be the source of everything. It was the largest planet, the one closest to the sun, and also the one with the most already existing potential for raw materials. In fact, all the raw materials seeded into the planet by the World Engine were already present in some earlier form or the other, all except one at least. The main fruit of the excursion to Knowhere. _Vibranium_, Knowhere had a shit ton of the stuff deep in its crust. So deep that it must have been unsafe to mine, or even be known to the inhabitants, but that didn't matter to enhanced Kryptonian scanners. We had the chemical composition, the base elements and arrangement, and the World Engine did the rest. It had seeded a planet of Vibranium for me. Needless to say, I'd laughed. A full-blown supervillain laugh. Carina had been understandably unnerved, but Ovette had decided to take her out of my presence for that period, lest she reported to her master that I was an insane man who just laughed at nothing.
With planet 1 done and dusted, I now had to come up with the rest of the plan. Vibranium and all the ores I'd sought to create had gone off without a hitch. Now, all I had to do was manufacturing. Considering most of it would be done by nanobots, all I needed was a planet or planetoid dedicated to their production. A whole planet just for printing out nanobots was a tad unrealistic by every margin, so I decided to use the moon of Piji for the plan. This way, the nanobots would be within range of the raw materials they required, and that was going to be a massive boon for their production. That was why I called over a screen to myself and inputed a few orders. AIKo was nowhere near Kelex when it came to parallel processing or multitasking, so I'd been forced to take over most of the directions for the Nanobots already on the ship. It was child's play to turn them into mining equipment, as I went on and spent weeks mining Piji of iron ore and vibranium. Foundry, Piji's moon, had taken the better part of a month to complete to my specifications, but once it was done, I was practically printing robots made from vibranium and designed to work with the miracle bio-metal- hybrid substance. Even weeks of study weren't sufficient for me to say one way or the other what exactly the substance was and what it wasn't. Or even where its limits lay. It could do practically everything, and that was a scary thought. After I'd figured out manufacturing as it stood, it made sense to prepare the second planet for inhabitation and now three months later, this is where we stood.
The World Engine had been able to place the seeds for life and all the things we needed, but it was only careful monitoring and building with nanobots that turned this place into the vision of paradise it was. We lived on the largest, and only city on the small planet. The planets in my system were small. Even Piji, the largest, was still quite a bit smaller than the Earth had been. This planet, about the size of Mercury, was the second closest to the Sun the system called home, and it was still on the larger size when compared to the rest of the system. The city was a metropolis, a city of the future. Filled with skyscrapers that reached out to touch the clouds, while greenery covered the majority of the floor.
Everywhere one walked, there was some form of greenery or the other. The Kylosians would have much preferred to live in a similar manner as they did on Kylos, but I wasn't really giving them much of a choice in the matter. Being spread out like that could cause problems. But here? With one single population centre? Keeping ahead of things was easy enough. Skyscrapers and apartment buildings were the majority of the buildings, but every here and there we had small standalone structures. Most of them were empty, as I was waiting for the Kylosians to somehow figure out business and begin selling stuff in the would-be stores. There was already a coffee shop run by AIKO as a sort of proof of concept. I was going to have to figure out things like currency, the economy, and how exactly the society would function eventually.
But for now there was a bigger concern. The name of the planet. Ovette had rightly pointed out that the Kylosian populace were beginning to feel like their views and opinions weren't being taken into account, and as a benevolent king, I'd decided to nip that kind of thinking in the bud. How? A poll, of course, giving them the right to vote over the name of the planet. 'New Kylos' had quickly surged to the top, but after spreading some subtle propaganda (in the form of bedtime stories about the Dune universe from AIKO to the Kylosian children), I'd been able to snatch first place for a small bit with my preferred choice, Arrakis, but that was quickly losing ground. Fuck Democracy, man. Arrakis would have been such a cool name. And also a reference no one else would have been able to get.
I blinked and stood up from my hunched over position. It had been pretty stressful figuring out just how to make the device that was sitting on the desk, and then how to adapt it for the subject's unique biology, but I was pretty certain that I'd figured out all the fundamentals. Planning and waiting were some of the worst parts when working with so many unique elements and pain points. Sometimes, I missed Kelex so much that I considered travelling all the way back to earth just to pick him up. Sometimes, I got even more stupid and considered cloning myself, so I could be in two places at once. Literally.
I had to monitor and take charge of all my development plans while simultaneously working to ensure that I didn't end up missing anything in regards to the actual living beings that I ruled. I was going to be a monarch, so I'd be a damn good one. Of course, cloning myself was nothing more than a flight of fancy. I wasn't that stupid. Not yet, at least. It would be the heights of insanity to even consider making more Kryptonians now. It wouldn't even matter whether the new Kryptonian was me in every way shape or form. Yeah, I admired the Mauler Twins from the Invincible comics, but I'd never be able to live that kind of life. Never knowing who the original is, and who the clone is. Even worst would be if one of us knew, without doubt, that they were a clone created to serve the whims and needs of another. I didn't need to be an introspective buddhist to point out why exactly that was a bad idea. I'd kill anyone whoever dared enslave me. My clone would be no different. And no matter how we tried to dress it up or make ourselves believe otherwise, that kind of existence was slavery. Simple and short.
So, with those flights of fancy gone, I moved my mind over to my next project. Wiping Carina's mind was a high priority, but in order to have a way to return her to her Master, we had to figure out how to return the Dark Aster to factory condition. Luckily, I'd preserved the original schematics and specifications of the ship. All I had to do was command my greatest pet project to get to work.
"AIKO. You can release the fog now" I said, watching with supervision as a horde, billions upon billions of microscopic robots, nanobots, flew in a cloud and swept through the Dark Aster. AIKO had remotely coded the orders into their software, so I watched as they, with frightening efficiency, ate everything that ewers not supposed to be there. That was the power of the Fog, and what made them so different from all the other nanobots that I'd ever made. They could not just destroy as they were doing now, but they could also build. Within each of them lay a miniaturised full-fledged matter fabricator, basically a fancy 3-d printer, that had too main functions. It powered the 'eating' power all the bots had, helping them break down matter to subatomic particles and make up, and then reassembling those particles into predetermined elements and constituents. If I was being honest, it was pretty small scale. One of them could manage to generate enough matter to make a thumb drive in a year if they kept going non-stop. But when billions of them worked at once? It was like magic. How they'd pass through an area and leave nothing that was not supposed to exist behind. They were working most diligently with the original schematics.
The best part was that I knew that immediately after their first pass, they'd make another one, fixing and replacing everything that they had taken with the original components.
I'd agonised over what to do with the materials used in the Dark Aster, and this was the most efficient thing I could think of. The idea had come from a film or two, but Kryptonian science, Jor-El's intellect, and AIKO's help had made it a true reality. Let's also not forget the literal magic metal, I thought to myself, as I spotted the telltale purple glow as they got to work. Vibranium was something else. It could basically do everything and when you put it to work, it was more often than not, just perfect for the purpose. It was almost like magic and being completely honest, I found it difficult to make a case that it wasn't. You put it to work, and it did it. No limits I could find. Beyond the dark Aster, though, there were still a few other objectives.
Terraforming for the third and fourth planets in the system was well in progress. Piji and her moon, Foundry, were a massive success, so that meant I could focus on all the other things I'd wanted to do. First would be a planet focused on food production. The Dark Aster had been our food basket, and that was quickly disappearing. What I wanted to create was a planet specially made for food production. Climate that was temperate and perfect for agriculture all year round. And then with natural bountiful forests to seed the Kylosian wildlife. A new planet to explore was keeping them entertained for now, but I knew that eventually things would get boring again. They needed a way to exercise that nervous energy, and a planet just for hunting and farming would do that for them. Of course, I'd set aside a good portion of the farmland to farmed by my robots to ensure that food security was never placed in jeopardy. I had affection for the Kylosians, but I knew just how much chaos one could cause, and I was not completely comfortable leaving everything in their hands.
The next planet, however, was for a different purpose. Piji and Foundry made nanobots. I needed a planet to do two things. One, train my army. I was not stupid enough to believe I'd never need one, and considering what I knew canon MCU Drax had been capable of, it would be wasteful of me to not even try turning the willing Kylosians into a fighting force of some sort. And it would also be good if they were not entirely dependent on me for survival. The second was building ships. Not just for my use in creating a personal fleet-one can't be a Captain without a ship, can they?- but for another purpose. What I'd noticed in all my studies of galactic history was that those who failed to contribute to the intergalactic economy often found themselves dead and gone in centuries or less. I needed to intertwine myself with all factions. And the best way to do that, make noice ships. I knew I could design ships better than the best that the galaxy had to offer, and since I was the one designing them, I could do so with all sorts of safeguards. That was still a pipe dream for the time being. Everything was, if I was being honest with myself. I just had to put my head down, one foot in front of the other, and move through the challenges day after day. The future would come in its time.
XXXXX- THERIAN, THE KYLOSIAN (SIX MONTHS LATER)
I was late. Again. This was the seventh time it was happening in just two of these 'months' as they are called now. Months. What a strange word for referring to a complete moon cycle. Our new Chief was filled with strange words. Every day there was a new one to learn or become familiar with. I couldn't even bury my head in the sand like Voss or Roose. They didn't have little ones attending that 'school'. The very first day Drey had returned and began to speak words I could not understand, I was almost tempted to pull him out of the school entirely. What kind of parent would entrust their child's learning to another. Why should Drey not learn the same as I did? The same as my father, and his father. It was enough for us. Why would it not be enough for him? But no, instead of learning to till the soil and dig and plant like a good farmer, he was learning to read, and write, and do sums. Coward work. Lazy work.
I couldn't pull him out, though. The Chief had made it clear that there was to be no child not attending the school. Some of the others considered it. I never did. They were fools, I was not. I could see it in the way the Chief acted or the laws he laid down. He'd saved is, and now we were beholden to him. He didn't see himself as one of us, a Kylosian. He saw us Kylosians as his underlings, different, separate and below. That was the truth of the matter. I'd mentioned my fears to Drax, but the fool was taken in by the pretence of friendship. He saw the Chief as a friend. Saw no problem with his daughter being sent off to learn differently. Saw no issue with his wife spending half the day with another. Drax, like the rest, was a fool.
I dressed up quickly. Another change from living on Kylos. The clothes. When we weren't working, we could wear whatever we pleased. Thankfully, the seamstresses of Kylos had wasted no time in getting to work upon our arrival on New Kylos. But the difference now was that if we wanted to work on the farms or anywhere, we had to wear uniforms. The Chief had provided the outfits, and they were as comfortable as nakedness, but they were alien wears. Moulded to our forms, the white outfits were skintight and seemed to cover every visible bit of skin below our necks. Once worn, they felt like I wasn't wearing anything, but I missed the comforting familiar weight of my old clothes. My Kylosian clothes. I got out of the tiny house in a house that had been given to us and walked to the 'elevator'. The magic machine that took me from floor to floor with no effort. The Chief was a powerful wizard. A mighty one who disguised his magic with big words that made no sense. How could mortal technology allow a man to disappear from one planet and appear on another in seconds? He called that form of magic 'teleportation'.
It was to the magic teleporter that I marched towards. There was one on every street, and every Kylosian only needed to give their name and thy'd be whisked away to their destination by the machine's magic. I marched forwards with purpose, careful to ensure that none of the sweeping clouds that moved across the big village hit me. I'd seen those things eat stone like it was nothing.
When I arrived at the platform, the raised circular platform that glowed with blue light, I said my name before stepping upon the platform. I blinked and when I opened my eyes again, the surroundings had become wholly different. I was in the arrival hall. I almost ran as I rushed to register my name and get my equipment. The last time I'd been too late to get my equipment, my rations had been reduced for a week.
"Right on time, Therian" The machine woman said in that voice of hers. She spoke Kylosian well, but it still sounded inorganic. Fake, to my ears.
"Just walk ahead and join the line." She said.
"Thank you, AIKO" I heard the man behind me say as he received his equipment.
A/N; Not so certain about this POV, but it is what it is. I'll hopefully start the next chapter with an earth POV. We've got the next two chapters of this story, along with the first twelve chapters of another fic that I uploaded at the exact same time as this one (an insert is into an OC firebender in ATLA) 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.