“You want me to train a bunch of kids?” Canderous gave Dan a look of vague disinterest. “I’m not a babysitter…”
“These children are special,” Dan smiled at the Mandalorian’s response and withdrew Venom from his face. “I’m only ten years old, but I could walk through all of Mandalore with brute force alone.”
Canderous frowned at Dan’s bold statement, eyes narrowed. His fingers drummed on the table between them, some tune Dan didn’t recognize.
“You’re fast, I’ll give you that, strong too,” the Mandalorian leaned back and shook his head. “But you’re crazy if you think a single person can stand against the combined might of my people…”
“Revan did, and so can I,” Dan resisted the urge to grin as Canderous stiffened. “But I’ve got no interest in the task and the fallen Jedi did the job well enough.”
“Those are brave words!” Canderous lurched to his feet and drove a fist toward Dan’s indifferent face. A single finger held the Mandalorian’s attack in place. “What…”
“I see you’ll need some convincing!” Dan wrapped his fingers around the man’s wrist and gave a feral grin. A push of his willpower and Venom prepared a jump. “Let’s take a trip, shall we?”
Canderous’ mouth opened in a silent wail as the phantom zone swallowed them both. They emerged in the upper atmosphere of the moon of Endor. Before Dan could wrap the Mandalorian in a Venom clone, the man tilted to the side and vomited.
“Sorry about that…” Dan winced at the liquor heavy reek and released the symbiote clone to clean the man up. “It looks like the direct jumps are harder on humans than I expected.”
“What… what was that place?” Canderous shuddered, unconcerned that he was held kilometres above the ground. “We spent years there…”
“Just a temporal illusion,” Dan patted the man on the shoulder with his free hand and hauled the man into space with the other. “That organic suit will let you breathe in space, now come with me!”
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Faster than the man could complain, Dan accelerated toward one of the uninhabited planets in the system. He settled Canderous into a stable orbit around the sun that had a clear view and left the dismayed Mando adrift in space.
“Hey! Wait!” Canderous ground his teeth as he failed to catch hold of Dan. “You can’t leave me here!”
“Relax,” Dan laughed as he floated toward the planet ahead. “I told you, I brought you here to show you something, so just sit tight and watch.”
A blue tint entered his biofield as Dan accelerated at the rocky, airless world. This time his test wasn’t about control. He would use this display to see how much damage he could actually do to an unprotected world.
The planet’s surface rushed to greet him, ignored as he smashed past its embrace. Rock gave way to magma, a warm tingle on his skin. Dan carried on, speed maxed as he punched through the other side of the world and back into space.
The ground behind him heaved, torn upwards by the remnants of his momentum. A cascade of moon-sized projectiles that leapt free of their parent world and into the solar system. Dan surveyed the damage as he arced back, toward the horrified Mandalorian.
Under their eyes, half of the planet fell into its core, while the rest began a journey into interstellar space. Reduced to a molten, malformed lump, the world would take centuries to settle and cool. Dan slapped Canderous on the shoulder and gave the man a vaguely wicked grin.
“So, what say you?” Dan’s words snapped Canderous from his stupor, a flinch that sent him into a spin. A flick of his biofield steadied the man and turned him to face Dan. “Still think I couldn’t take on the might of Mandalore on my own?”
“No… but I do wonder why you’d even want someone like me to train your people,” Canderous clenched and unclenched his fists, eyes drawn back to the ruined planet. “This kind of power… what good are the teachings of Mandalore to you?”
Dan pulled the man closer and gripped his shoulder, ready to jump once more. The man’s thoughts were somewhat valid, but that line of thinking was the downfall of many Supermen.
“Brute force and overwhelming might are all well and good, until you meet someone with equal strength… brace yourself to jump,” Dan pulled them through the phantom zone and into orbit around Yoggoy. The Mando shuddered, but fared better than his first trip. “I want all of my people to be able to use their strength to its fullest, a big part of that is training before they come into their power.”
“What kind of enemies do you think you’ll find, to match power like yours?” Canderous shook himself and squinted at the planet below. Lush green bathed in pure blue sunlight, covered in countless, mountainous hills. “With power like that, you might as well be a god…”
“Gods can die, usually at the hands of other gods,” Dan snorted. Kryptonians were powerful, but they were not alone. Many races had absurd limits, or no limit at all to their growth. “If my people ever encounter such a foe, I want them to be ready… not killed by their own hubris.”
“Hubris, huh…” Canderous barked out a laugh. He turned to face Dan and extended a hand. “My people know alot about the backlash that can bring,” the pair shook and the Mandalorian waved to the planet below. “Now is this place going to be another display of your power, or is it the home of the kids you want taught?”
“It’s the temporary base for our operations in this galaxy,” Dan pulled the man into the atmosphere and angled toward the only artificial structures on the planet. “I’ll introduce you to the group, but after that you’ll be on your own for awhile.”
He had business to finish on Taris. After that, was a trip around the galaxy to collect a few stray companions, then it was time to visit the Starforge. Juhani and Jolee Bindo would be more than useful in the future, and Hk-47 had to be acquired. Nostalgia demanded it!