Oh Wtf? Lol I didnt notice the file was bugged, all the bold and italic text was normal text. Well thats annoying lol, so many people read the messed up version before I noticed. Sorry guys. I copy and paste from google drive.
HuangBaiLian: Ask and you shall receive.
OgFrosty: LMAO! How do you think I feel? Lol I want to move on already but damn it I wrote myself into a grave, and now I have to lie in it. Originally this story was supposed to be on earth by 20k words…..were at 50k atm. Stick with it a little longer lol. Or I can just pm you when it gets to earth?
Mary D. Black2000: Glad you like it so far. Yeah no. I do not, and will NEVER do a Harem. Its increadibly stupid/unrealistic to have so many people within close proximity to eachother to all be comfortable with sharing. Zod is honestly my favorite character from DC. At least in theory. The idea of a person being so right, but be so very wrong is fascinating. He wants to save krypton, and it's his desire to see his people saved that drives him to do horrible things. The Zod from man of steel was my favorite interpretation to date. Although I kind of wish they gave him an excuse for wanting to terraform earth, other than wanting to say fuck you to Kal. I mean they had a terraforming machine so they could have gone anywhere once they got the codex right?
Alertpoet91: To kill or not to kill? That's the important question that all heroes are plagued with. It's a question that isn't so simple to answer. So instead of answering, let me give you insight into my thought process. (Keep in mind this isn't me saying she wont/will kill people. I'm just trying to explain my thoughts on the matter.)
When you have so much power that killing is actually easier than not killing, can you allow yourself to cross that line? I know its super cliche to say, but once you cross it there is no going back. Eventually you will cross it again, and again, and again. Eventually the line will be so blurred you won't even realize you are crossing it. Yeah it sounds increadibly stupid, and youre probably thinking "But I wouldnt allow myself to get to that point." And you would be right. Under normal circumstances you wouldn't get to that point. But these aren't normal circumstances are they? When you have so much strength that you could kill someone by bumping into them on the sidewalk, when you have enough power in your lungs to knock down buildings, heat vision that could turn entire neighborhoods to slag. When killing someone is literally as easy as blowing out a candle, can you honestly say that you could maintain a moral high ground forever? How long until you go from killing monsters, to killing anyone that you see as being a problem?
For us humans, killing people is something that not only takes genuine effort, but also comes with consequences. So what happens when killing is not only easier than not killing, AND has no real consequences? Can you afford to even take a step on that slippery slope?
Xenocanaan: Zod is my favorite character, from krypton at least.
Riveg: Yes but actually no. (lol not sure what else to say here)
Shadowjab17: Glad you liked it so far. Also yeah I feel you, this is taking WAYYYYYY too long. I really didn't plan on staying on krypton for so many chapters as I did.
Doctordan123: Which way will it go I wonder? (JK I already know lol) But im glad you like it, and hope I don't disappoint
Loke13: Thank you! Your constant support is appreciated.
DannyPhantom619: Why yes. Yes I have.
Shugokage: Glad you like it!
/
Chapter 11
/
Penny had marked dozens of files for perusal. Each one contained dozens, sometimes hundreds of other files. Sometimes, those subfiles had subfiles of their own, and so on and so forth. Each sub file holding relevant information in regards to the first file. It was to say the least, extremely time consuming and tedious.
A week into it, I came across a file that peaked my personal interest, not because it had anything to do with my research, not truly anyways. The thing that had drawn my interest was that I recognized it.
It had taken me a full five seconds of staring to realize just where I had seen it. When I had been undergoing the Sword of Raos inquisition it had shown me glimpses of what its past wielders had seen. This was one of them, a picture of a grayish hulking humanoid with wispy gray hair, blood red eyes glaring hatefully, and multiple bony protrusions all over its body.
Designation: Doomsday
Classification: Biological Weapon
Origin: Krypton
Number of Units made: Seven
Number of Units Serviced: Seven
Number of Units Decommissioned: Three
According to the file the Doomsday project was Krypton's attempt at creating a weapon capable of destroying its enemies without risking any kryptonian lives. By splicing together the genes of all the deadliest creatures of Krypton into one apex predator. They could just drop it onto any Military installation or city and just walk away, come back and pick it up when the job was done. And it worked out rather well, for a time at least.
Then they made a mistake. A very critical and in hindsight stupid mistake. They dropped it on a world with a yellow sun. Seemingly drunk on how successful previous deployments of the weapon had gone, they had decided to drop seven of them on a single world. The goal was to cull the population a bit, using the weapons previous track record and the technology available on that world, it was deemed that when they came back in a month's time roughly thirty percent of the planets population would be dead. And as an added bonus their infrastructure would be damaged quite extensively which would keep them busy rebuilding for a while.
When the Kryptonian ship finally came back a month later, to the great surprise and horror of the crew, the entire population of the planet was dead. The once lush green world was now a gray irradiated wasteland, with still glowing hot craters big enough to be seen from space littering its surface.
In the month that the Kryptonians had left, it seemed that the Doomsday units had exceeded the thirty percent estimation by a very large margin. So large in fact that the natives had decided it was a better option to glass their own world in their attempt to kill the monsters hunting them.
Only two of the doomsday units died in the world ending conflagration. Putting the remaining five back in their stasis pods was an easy task with the use of the organic compliance chips grown into the weapons. The weapons would listen to and follow any command given by a Kryptonian, it was designed in such a way that even a random Kryptoninian child could command the beasts, so in the unlikely event that something went wrong, no kryptonian would ever be in danger. With the reassurance that the compliance chips were still functioning they made their way back to Krypton.
The moment the first pod was opened in a lab, all hell broke loose. A month under a yellow sun had somehow enabled them to ignore the commands of the compliance chip, using intelligence the scientists had been unaware they possessed they had merely feigned obedience until that point. The first monster made short work of everything in the lab, quickly rousing its compatriots from their forced sleep.
Programmed literally since before even being born to destroy, every strand of DNA was practically designed with destruction in mind. The only emotion it was allowed to feel, if one could even call it that, was rage. They were meant to destroy everything in their sight, to kill, to sunder, to obliterate. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise when City after City was razed by the unstoppable and unfeeling yellow sun empowered monsters. Even with their might waning under the red sun, the beasts pushed ever onward in their quest to see their creators gone.
Five weeks.
That was how long it had taken for the entirety of Krypton's Military to neutralize the threat. In that timeframe, half the population had been killed. And even in the end, after all that death and destruction they only managed to kill one of the monsters.
That one victory had cost the lives of no less than three different Sword of Rao wielders. Three of my ancestors had died just to kill one of them. The remaining four Units were sealed away into an empty parallel dimension, in fact that was where Jor-El had gotten the idea of the Phantom Zone from.
I couldn't help the shudder that ran through me when I finished. Three wielders dead in the span of five weeks? After feeling the raw power the sword granted its wielder the thought of one, let alone three dying was unthinkable.
Taking a moment to center myself I closed the file and moved on. As interesting as that file was, It wasn't what I was looking for. Brainiac thought we were already doomed, so whatever kills Krypton must already be in motion. Those monsters were in a different plane of reality, they were not a threat.
I hoped.
/
None of the files Penny had marked had what I was looking for. It was rather maddening. I didn't even know what I was looking for, or what I was even doing. Just poking around and hoping something would jump out at me.
Jor-El was supposed to be the one who uncovered Krypton's demise, and when he had gone public with his claims. No one believed him, a world full of scientists more brilliant than anyone to be born on Earth. And not a one believed him. Or at least no one with the power to do anything believed him. It was very much a possibility that some people had believed in his research but lacked the resources needed to escape or save Krypton.
Yet here I was, just over nine years old, trying to figure out what only the brightest mind of Krypton had caught. Everyone thought I was some prodigy, that I was an up and coming world mover. And maybe one day it could be true. But at the moment?
I was just a very determined person. While determination could get you places, it couldn't change facts. For all the knowledge I had absorbed over the past few years, I lacked an oceans worth more in knowledge and the experience to apply it. Any one of my family members had probably forgotten more about science than I had ever learned, which is saying something since Kryptonians had an almost eidetic memory, but that was besides the point. The point was that I had a long way to go before I could truly think of myself as in their league.
I had seen some of Jor-Els work before, and it always left me scratching my head. Everyone in my family was leaps and bounds ahead of me in the intelect department. It only made sense as all of them had nearly two centuries of scientific experience compared to my measly seven.
So with no choice left I forced myself to read through every file that popped up in response to the term 'World Destroyer'. It was somewhat nerve racking to see that the list was in the thousands. Each file representing a different way to destroy a world. Thankfully a lot of the methods described were one offs and couldn't be repeated without a frankly ludicrous amount of circumstances aligning just right. Everytime I opened a file I had to compare it to the planetary survey data I had compiled to see if they matched.
After the almost four months of constant reading, it felt like my brain was about ready to dribble out of my ears. Even Kryptonians had limits it seemed.
I leaned back, staring at the metallic ceiling in silence. My headache caused the entire room to ripple and pulsate in a rather mesmerizing if extremely nauseating fashion. I made a mental note to tweak the circlet to not respond to headaches.
Briefly I contemplated using my nanites to deal with the headache, but in the end I decided to let it be for now. Headaches were usually best left to run their course, they were the bodies indicator that something was wrong up there. Once the headache abated I would resume my research. I needed a break if I wanted to be working at peak efficiency. Penny wrapped around my head, massaging my scalp, trying to relieve the built up tension.
I sighed in appreciation. "Thanks Penny, don't know what I would do without you."
"Probably starve to death no doubt."
"Probably." I agreed readily, more often than not it would be Penny who would remind me that I needed to eat. This was especially important since my body didn't have as much solar energy as was recommended. I couldn't afford the distraction the burning would cause, so I limited my intake to only what was needed to keep my brain running at full power.
I shuddered at the memory my thoughts conjured up. During the first week of research I had yet to get used to the full body ache caused by my damaged solar receptors, it hampered my ability to concentrate on my work. The medications Krypton had to offer for such cases were less than optimal as they had nasty side effects after prolonged use. Not wanting to deal with those I had decided to simply stop absorbing solar energy altogether, our nanites could be used to inhibit our solar receptors. Usually they could only be used to fine tune the receptors to absorb less energy, but with them damaged as extensively as they were, my options were a bit different. I couldn't lower the amount of radiation absorption, but I could turn it off entirely. Normally the nanites couldn't do such a thing due to the bodies natural defences but with how damaged they were, the nanites could do it.
It had been a nightmare. Oh at first it had actually been bliss, to finally be free of any pain after over a week of constant burning. But as the days went on and my body used up the stored solar energy I began to notice something was off. I was progressively growing weaker, and I could practically feel my IQ dropping. Well perhaps that wasn't quite right, my intelligence was still the same, but my ability to process information was slowing dramatically. What should have only taken ten minutes to do was taking me almost an hour.
Realizing what was happening I quickly turned on my solar receptors again. The burning that accompanied their activation was unpleasant, but the returning strength to my muscles and increased mental performance was worth it.
A kryptonian could survive without any solar radiation, but it was far from optimal. All life on Krypton had evolved to take in solar radiation, their bodies using it to supplement themselves in some form or another. The planet's harsh environment had all but made it necessary for the added supplement. Of course that was a long time ago, now the planet was much more hospitable after Kryptonians terraformed the planet into a lush garden world rather than the veritable ball of ice it had once been.
I groaned in satisfaction as Penny moved onto my shoulders, working the tense muscles perfectly.
/
"Hey Mom." My hand resting on the cool glass. I stared down at her peaceful expression. "I know I haven't visited you in a while." I winced as I said it, in the six months since the invasion I had visited her only eight times, with the last one being a month ago. Considering she was moved into our home on Argo, I really should have visited more often. "I've been...busy. I know that's really not a good excuse to visit, but it's really important I promise. Like stopping an apocalypse kind of important."
She didn't respond obviously, maintaining that same position throughout my entirely one sided conversation.
I sighed. "At this rate though I don't think I can figure it out." In the six months I had been researching, I had found many leads that looked like they were going to be the one. But every time I followed them, it turned out to be nothing.
I spent the next hour or so just talking. No particular focus really, just trying to fill the silence with anything that crossed my mind. I was well aware that she couldn't hear me.
/
Seeing the futility of my own actions I finally shelved my research. I wasn't giving up on it obviously, but I needed a viable back up plan to fall back on incase my research didn't pan out.
Throughout my nine years of life I had come up with a great many plans. Some were rather well thought out, some were not. This one was somewhere in the middle.
It essentially boiled down to calling for help. Krypton was an old race, we have interacted in some capacity with hundreds of different races. Sometimes to their benefit, sometimes not. After reading through all the interactions and how they ended, I picked fourteen different races to call on. Krypton didn't have any allies, in fact we had snubbed, or outright fought with almost every single race we had interacted with in some way.
Tamaran, Oa home of the self proclaimed guardians of the universe and the green lantern corp, the New Gods of New Genesis, even our estranged cousins on Daxam were on that list. Out of all of them I have the highest hope for Oa. After all saving doomed planets is there whole stick right?
These fourteen had generally neutral interactions with us for the most part and were not allied or overly friendly with those races that we had particularly bad blood with. I deemed them the most likely to help us.
I had decided on who to communicate with, now I just needed to figure out how to go about it. With the interference field I couldn't simply open up a comms channel, unless I was willing to use radio waves and wait a few thousand years for a reply. My next thought was to send an FTL communicator far enough to exit the fields influence, but I quickly canned that idea as Krypton's military no doubt would detect the satellites broadcasts, and even if they didn't, the races I contacted would have no way of confirming the authenticity of it, probably assuming it was some other race trying to trick them into entering Kryptonian space. Whatever method I used would need to be undeniably Kryptonian in origin.
So I went with the communication drone idea and took it a step further. I would make satellites that could travel to those planets and deliver the call for aid. The clearly kryptonian designed craft should be enough proof of the messages authenticity. And with each one of them fitted with communicators that were quantumly entangled with corresponding devices in my lab, I could receive and send transmissions without emitting any detectable signals, allowing me to talk with the races I was calling on. The link while instantaneous and discrete, it had the rather large drawback of only being able to transmit voices, anything more than that would require a much more complex device and therefore bigger device than what I could currently transport.
The drones were ridiculously easy to procure, as all it took was a simple search through the database for an already existing design. I had previously taken a cursory look into the principle of FTL drives. Imagine my shock and confusion when I learned that I could print one out in a matter of minutes?
The confusion had been quick to fade however as I looked further into it. Yes, I could print one out in a matter minutes, but it would only be stable enough to transport a few molecules. FTL drives were actually ridiculously simple, at least on a conceptual level. The problem lay in the fact that the more mass was being transported the more unstable it became, leading to the need for more complicated designs with increasingly exotic materials to stabilize it. Unless of course your goal was to spread every atom of your cargo across multiple light years between your destination. There was a reason it took most races centuries of effort to streamline their designs enough for commercial usage. Hell some races never manage to figure it out, only getting access to the stars because of the charity of other more technologically inclined races.
Getting it to transport something as heavy as a pebble took almost a month of solid work. It took me a week longer to design one that could carry the drones to their destinations...probably.
With the design process out of the way, it took an additional month before I managed to acquire enough of the more exotic materials. It wasn't even a matter of the material being hard to aquire in large quantities, not really at least. The problem lay in procuring it without raising any red flags on my file. It wasn't like there were all that many uses one could have for unstable quantumly entangled tachyons. Coming up with viable excuses for my need for them had been quite the circus act.
Finally after two months of work it was ready, drones hardly bigger than a tennis ball lay on the floor in front of me. Taking a breath I backed out of the airlock sealing the door. A press of a button and the drones activated, floating smoothly into the air, another press and they all disappeared. Opening the airlocks outer doors allowed the now cloaked drones to make their way into space and towards their preprogrammed jump points.
Considering my FTL drives were less than optimal, it would take at least six months before I could expect the first drone to arrive at its destination. The farthest planet would take eight. It was a long time to wait, but considering the light years involved I couldn't really complain.
After studying the capabilities of Krypton's defenses, I managed to find a frequency that would hide the small drones as they made their way out of the field range. Even then they would barely pass as being under the radar, only thanks to their diminutive size was it even possible for them to slip by undetected.
At least that was the hope. On the bright side I wouldn't have to wonder if it worked or not. The military forces sent to bring me for questioning would be rather obvious.
/
I breathed deeply through my nose, holding the awkward position as well as my breath. The burn in my abdominals was a familiar one, but one I rather liked. It was a much more rewarding pain in comparison to the burn that constantly permeated my body.
My muscles began to twitch in rebellion, threatening to give out entirely. Eventually I was forced to release the breath I was holding, along with the tension in my stomach. Now upside down, I willed the bar of liquid geo my legs were hooked around to lower itself so I could touch the ground.
I was never much of a fitness nut in my last life. Hell to be honest, I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I had gone to the gym, and maybe two hands the amount of times I had done a workout at home on my own accord.
In this life however, I exercised every morning. Nothing too strenuous as I was still a child, simple body exercises, pull ups, push ups, squats, crunches, etc. It was kind of embarrassing really, I was probably more physically fit now as a nine year old than I was at any point in the twenty one years of my previous life.
Although to be fair, even if I had never exercised a day in this life, I would have still been more fit. Kryptonian genes were kind of bullshit, but I sure wasn't gonna complain. No matter what we ate, no matter how lazy we got, we would always maintain a good physique. The Warrior caste had that trait enhanced even further, growing muscles that were much harder and stronger than the other castes.
Even with the cheatiness that was kryptonian physiology, exercising was still beneficial. The body could only do so much without help. Just like most races, exercising made our bodies even better, promoting stronger bone and muscle growth. As a science caste member it was kind of irrelevant for me, as my expected activity shouldn't require any physical activity. Most of my colleagues would have scoffed at me, saying it was a waste of my time. Time I could be using to study or work on my projects.
But I was working on my projects. As I exercised I would think, allowing my body to go through the motions while my mind would review and revise what I had learned thus far. Using the time to work out my next course of action, it was also a good way to decompress.
As I moved on to my next set of exercises, my mind wandered onto a topic that I had hardly touched in my rush to figure out what was going to cause the apocalypse. Kryptonians couldn't live outside of our solar system, our bodies rejected solar radiation not from our own sun. The constant burning and my comatose mother was proof enough of those claims.
What was I supposed to do if I couldn't save Krypton? Even if I managed to get everyone off world somehow, what were we supposed to do? We couldn't leave the solar system, not unless we fixed whatever it was that caused such a visceral reaction in our cells.
And therein lay the crux of the problem. For all my studying, all my achievements. I was no biologist. In fact I had practically gone out of my way to only learn the bare minimum needed to pass the Trials. Almost all of my efforts had gone into engineering, physics, geology. Things that would help me save Krypton, or failing that, help save more than a single baby and a teenage girl.
With all the other things on my plate, I didn't even know if I had the time to get caught up enough to figure out how to fix the problem. I was one person. No. I was one Child. Even with taking my reincarnated status into account, I was still a child by kryptonian standards. What was thirty years of life compared to centuries? Saving an entire race shouldn't have even been on my list of things to do.
For the first time in years, I felt genuinely overwhelmed, my breaths came out more labored as I thought about just how much I still had to accomplish. I didn't even have a date for when the world would end. For all I knew it could happen in the next hour. Butterflies flew in my stomach as I tugged sharply on my hair. I felt clammy, and I didnt think it had anything to do with my previous workout.
How did I ever convince myself I had a chance?
I was biting my lip now, hard enough that I could taste a bit of blood. My breath came out in harshe pants, as my thoughts raced faster and faster. My vision blurring slightly from the frustrated tears that came unbidden by the sudden and overwhelming influx of thoughts and emotion.
I laughed bitterly. Hubris. It was the only thing I could think of. Why else would I presume I could do anything about the situation? I wasn't some hero of prophecy, I wasn't destined for great things.
A fluke. That's all it was. I just had the extraordinarily good luck of being reincarnated as Kara Zor-El. It didn't mean anything, there was no script for me to follow, no guiding hand ensuring I succeeded. I was just dropped into the situation by pure happenstance.
For all I knew, my actions so far had damned krypton. Perhaps something I had done caused a ripple effect? Perhaps now Jor-El would never even figure out the world was ending, and if that happened, then it would just be me trying, and no doubt failing.
I punched the wall in front of me, my fist just sinking into the metal. The lack of pain just served to make me angrier. This time when I reared back I forced the wall to remain solid, punching it full force. The pain that shot up my arm was lovely. I punched it again and again, reveling in the sensation. I laughed all the while, the tears streaming down my face had nothing to do with my bleeding knuckles.
Finally when I stopped I could hardly feel my arms after all the jarring impacts. I breathed harshly, my tense shoulders rising and falling. The wall had taken on a mirror sheen as I had punched it, streaks of blood marred the reflective surface.
I sank to my knees, watching as the blonde girl in front of me did the same. She looked horrible, blonde hair a mess, sticking up in all sorts of angles despite the sweat that weighed it down, shiny tracks marred her face where tears had run down it. Her blue eyes were puffy and red, her nose even more so.
The girl in the mirror looked lost. The girl in the mirror looked tired. The girl in the mirror looked defeated.
Not willing to look at my reflection anymore I closed my eyes, allowing myself to slump forward. Enough so that I could feel the cool metal press against my still hot forehead. I let out a slow breath through my nose.
Why?
I didn't even know what I meant by that at this point. Why was I trying to save everyone? Why was I having a meltdown? Why wasn't I able to figure it out? So many "why's" in my life, yet I seemed to not have an answer for any of them.
No that wasn't right. I knew why I wanted to save this world. I had grown to love it. This world, its people, the culture, my family. I loved it all. But most importantly I felt guilty. I knew it was stupid. I had thought I had gotten over it, or at least I had gotten very good at convincing myself.
I sat back, studying my reflection once more. The reflection of the little girl who had never breathed air looked back at me a damning light in her blue eyes. I had killed her, whatever life she would have had, whatever hopes and dreams she had held. They had never even existed. She had never even had a chance.
Reincarnation had made sure of that. Forcing my soul into this body before its owner had a chance to even draw her first breath. I hadn't been given a choice in the matter, never once consulted, or even given options. I had no control over what happened. I couldn't even apologize to her.
I had lived my life already, sure it had been cut short rather abruptly, but that was life wasn't it? You lived, and you died. The blonde girl staring back at me had never lived, yet she had still died.
The only thing I could do was try to make it up to her. I had no way of knowing if I could ever make it up to her, but saving her homeworld seemed like as good a place to start as any.
And yet, despite my determination, I didn't think I could do it.
Finally my chaotic emotions overwhelmed the circlet. The mirror began to distort. Now instead of a perfect copy, the girl looked like she was made of stretched taffy. The sight sparked some memory inside my head. Of something I had seen years ago. My kryptonian brain did what it was practically designed to do, and it followed that spark until it found the memory.
My eyes widened as the memory played behind my eyes.
I ran out of the room and into the lab. Typing on keyboards, completely ignoring the pain from my most likely fractured if not broken knuckles.
It seemed that my little tantrum was good for something. It had opened my eyes to a new possibility. Something that most likely would never have occurred to me before.
/
In the early days of cloning, the results had been less than optimal. Most clones coming out warped in some way. I had seen images of such failures in our history lessons. It had been a short anecdote, hardly even a few sentences and a picture or two. It was only meant to lead up the real meat of the lesson.
The Clone War.
It was an event that had literally reshaped Krypton. Both culturally, and physically. Leaving actual scars on the planet. Patches of land that even today could not support life.
Thirty thousand years ago, long before the use of even the genesis pods. We didn't have the organic nanites in our bodies to keep us young and healthy. Yet we still managed to live for centuries regardless. We had found and utilized a much simpler, but horrendous method.
Clones.
Everysingle Kryptonian on the planet had clones of themselves grown and held in vast facilities. Whenever the person had a disease or injury, they would simply cut out whatever ailed them and replace it with the healthy and still young parts of their clones.
This practice went without any noticeable hitches for nearly ten thousand years. But that all changed when a woman smuggled one of her clones out of a facility. For some reason she had decided that nobody was good enough for her son, so she set it up so that her son fell in love with her younger clone. Of course she did it without letting him know the girl he was falling in love with was a younger clone of herself.
It ended in tragedy as eventually as time passed and the clone aged, he couldn't miss the clear resemblance to his mother. Realizing what she was and what his mother had done. He had killed them both, not even sparing the child he had sired with her. He then killed himself.
For years a political faction had been growing in power, trying to push for the clones to have rights and be treated more humanely. This event was all they needed to push them to more drastic actions. They freed and armed the clones, leading to a war that ravaged the planet.
Superweapons were being developed and pumped out by both sides, and just as quickly countermeasures were being developed to neutralize the advantage. Both sides locked in what was essentially a technological stalemate. The government though had access to far more resources and slowly but surely were winning, if only through sheer numbers.
The clone faction seeing that they were losing decided that if they couldn't win, no one would. In the last battle they used a new weapon. A beam of pure nuclear energy shot directly into the planet's core, its intention was to set off some sort of self sustaining reaction and blow up the planet.
Someone must have carried the wrong zero, because after firing for only a few moments the weapon promptly exploded. The war ended, and Krypton's government was left to pick up the pieces.
In its weakened state Krypton couldn't afford to spread its defenses so thin. So to ensure its safety they issued a mass exodus of all the colony worlds, and the abandonment of any on going projects outside Krypton's solar system. From then on all interstellar travel was banned, even after Krypton recovered and got back on its feet. The council saw no reason to lift the ban, and so it remained in place.
Now lacking their method for staying healthy and young, new research was put onto the task. Eventually the genesis pods and their ability to make drastic changes to our genome was settled on. With the organic nanites, kryptonians could enjoy the idyllic lifestyle it had grown so accustomed to. The Genesis pods had the added bonus of being able to enforce the travel ban by modifying our solar receptors in utero.
The thing that had me running into the lab though was the tidbit about the nuclear beam. It had failed. Kryptonian scientists had never figured out what had gone wrong with the device as it had blown up rather spectacularly. The fact that it had been deemed as a failure meant it wasnt in the database when I searched for world destroyers earlier.
It had been over twenty thousand years ago, and to be frank it should have been irrelevant. But I had looked at everything I could think of over the past few months and turned up with nothing. So I figure it was about time I tried to look at things a little less conventionally.
Using the formula derived from the few scraps of data they had recovered from the wreckage I set the computers to work forming a detailed simulation of what would happen if the machine hadn't blown up.
It would have taken four hours for the reaction in the core to reach the levels needed to blow up. A graph of the planets internal radiation levels showed a steep incline. A very steep staircase going upwards.
"Penny? Change the formula so that it happens over the course of twenty thousand years instead of four hours."
A secondary graph appeared next to the third, it was obviously much more stretched out, but side by side the resemblance was clear. "Bring up a graph of the planets internal radiation levels over the past twenty thousand years."
I nearly stumbled as the graph superimposed itself over the second, only the smallest of differences could be seen. My mouth going dry. The eclectic mix of fear, excitement, and a cocktail of other unnamed emotions running through me nearly making me slightly dizzy.
I had found it.
I had finally found what was going to kill everyone, and it was twenty thousand years in the making.
/
AN: Yeah the whole clone wars thing is actually canon. Not really sure what continuity it comes from, but it's on the DC wiki.
Leave a review or PM if you have any complaints, ideas, or just wanna talk, etc etc. I love hearing from you guys.
Also as a reminder that I do have a Lux SI League of Legends story, go check it out if you're interested. Or don't. I don't really care. I'm just putting it out there in case anyone is interested. League of Legends has a surprisingly small fanbase in the fanfic community considering how widespread the game is.