Chapter Fifty-Three, Part Three

"I never visited Corellia in my own time," Revan walked at Victor's side, through the crowded streets of the system's central world. "The people here are fiercely independent, unified in mind and spirit."

"Indeed, it seems that a separatist movement is gaining popularity," Victor's lips turned up in a near invisible smile. "But these people intend to stand alone, free of both the Republic and Krypton… a noble goal, but one that would require great minds to accomplish."

"Then, are we here to sway them towards Krypton?" Revan paused as a ripple in the Force brushed across the back of her neck. There was a presence here, wrathful and dark. "We are being watched… a powerful Master of the dark side, but I cannot find their location."

Victor nodded, his smile fixed in place as emerald runes glowed behind his eyes. He made a turn down a secluded alleyway, with Revan right behind. The eyes on her skin grew heavy, weighted and filled with an intense cold.

"I believe my decision to visit this place was correct," Victor's body rippled, casual clothing replaced by his runic armour. "With Abeloth and Sidious on the loose, Corellia will be one of their primary goals."

Shadow swelled up around them, ink-black bands of darkness that covered the narrow alley and silenced the noise of the city. Movement flickered behind the emptiness, voids that mimicked a mouth and eyes.

"You seem confident, Hound of Krypton," the voice rippled against her mind, a corruption so foul that she drew on the Force and reinforced her mental barriers. "In our last encounter, your life was saved by the arrival of your Master… now he is gone from the galaxy, too far away to protect his precious toys."

"Our last meeting was certainly in your favour, but I was woefully misinformed about your power," Victor waved his hand and an emerald formation took shape around them, a wall that kept out the Fallen Sith's chill. "I'm not one to repeat my mistakes."

Victor withdrew a small, metallic orb from his belt and tossed it into the air. Runic light flashed, countless lines of luminous scripture that burnt at the living shadows. Sidious's form flickered into sight, twisted and bent as it slammed against the purification seal.

"It seems that your kind truly is vulnerable to cleansing spells," Victor glanced at Revan, who remained unaffected by the golden light. "Although this seems to be a projection, not the real you."

"You may destroy this fragment, but you will never convince this world to join Krypton's cause," Sidious' shadow snorted as the light boiled layers from its frame. "Abeloth will be free and you and your Master will be devoured…"

"Perhaps," Victor snapped his fingers and a flash consumed Sidious' projection. A wave of his hand dispelled his defensive formation, smile still in place. "But I have no interest in converting this place to Krypton's banner."

– – – –

"Nearly finished…" Dan scanned through the programming one more time, assisted by his laboratory's lesser A.I. He'd considered bringing Ultron along, but both he and Jor-EL were needed back home. "This crystal core should create an underground base at Charles' mansion, one big enough to train an army of x-men."

A legion of robots bustled around him, busy in the construction of more of their fellows. Some were destined for the new base, but most were needed to manage his experiments while he was away. It was almost time for his first long term sunbath in this universe, one of many to come.

"Between Cal, Kara and the Mutants, things should be well enough in hand now that the war is finished," Dan left the crystal to cook and floated from the matter converter. Across the lab, bound by an All-Spark empowered field, the tesseract glowed an ominous blue. "Now, what to do with you?"

The space cube was a necessary part of his quest, but also a lure that could bring him more stones. It would be fine here for now, but in the future he may loan it to Shield and see if Loki took the bait. Dan turned from the captured cube to the All-Spark.

"Drones one through twelve, come over here for a moment," his words summoned the first robots to be constructed by the lab. They hovered on anti-grav repulsors, smooth metallic cones with nanotech tendrils at their sides. "Line up next to the All-Spark, I'm going to give you a bit of an upgrade."

A flutter of his biofield and one side of the Spark was exposed. Dan placed a hand against its textured surface and let Venom channel the energy into his body. Connected to the mechanical cube in a circuit, he reached out and placed a hand on the first robot in line.

Light filled the chamber, harsh enough that the other drones paused in their work. A changed figure emerged as the glow dimmed. Its form resembled Dan, but cast of the purest silver. The reborn drone placed a fist against the sigil of EL on its chest and bowed at the waist.

"What are your commands, Creator?"

Dan motioned for the Silver Superman to wait and carried on down the line. Each changed robot took a Kryptonian form, some masculine, others feminine, but all with the same metallic flesh.

"You shall be the twelve Primes of Krypton, caretakers of the Order and the worlds under its influence," Dan motioned to the unchanged robots within the laboratory. "You are free to expand the robotic forces under your command, but all uses of the All-Spark must be approved by either myself or another Kryptonian."

Given time, these evolved machines would be as capable as Ultron. Dan would nurture these robotic lifeforms, with the hope that they could better aid his research than their more simple counterparts.

"Now, all that's left to do is to drop off Charles' fortress crystal," Dan plucked the finished crystal from the matter converter and floated from his laboratory. "Then it's time to sit inside a blue sun and practise the magic of this universe…"

– – – –

"Professor Logan, were you really alive during the first world war?" Neena Thurman, aka Domino, waved her hand in the air and disrupted Logan's story about the first night of the war. "You don't look old enough… wouldn't that make you between seventy and eighty years old?"

"You know the Professor's mutation slows his ageing," Armando Muñoz, aka Darwin, flicked an eraser at Domino's head, a grin on his face. "He was around when humanity wiped out the last of his people, can't you see the neanderthalic slope to his brow?"

"Shut the hell up, you two," Logan rubbed the bridge of his nose and repressed a sigh. It had been over fifteen years since he joined Krypton's School for the Gifted, and he questioned his choice every morning. "We have midterms in a few weeks and I'm not interested in getting chewed out by Charles, the last class barely passed and I expect you to do better."

"It's not our fault…" Elizabeth Braddock, aka Psylocke, pushed her bangs from her eyes and snorted. "Half the time, our lessons are anecdotes set in the backroom of a random tavern… I can tell you the best places to drink from the eighteen-hundreds onward, but that's about it."

"I enjoy the Professor's stories," Piotr Rasputin, aka Colossus, smiled as he picked up Darwin's eraser and returned it. "He even has some from Siberia… they remind me of home!"

"They are fun, but Psylocke is right," Philippa Sontag, aka Arclight, shook her head. "I don't think any of us are going to pass…"

"Just open your book to page two-hundred and eleven and start reading…" Logan sank into the chair behind his desk and scowled at his class. "One more word out of any of you and we're doing double training this afternoon!"