Only after my status as an Exemplar was solidified had the first Golden Child Racial Level abruptly popped, and the Mimicked abilities from Kismet suddenly locked in and slowly become permanent.

The Racial Levels had stopped at Golden Child/3, which basically matched my Human Hit Dice. But I only had to look at Kismet to know that they advanced much, much further... and with the 50% Mimic on top of my own, I was effectively a Golden Child/8 for now...

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Kismet Rantha, The Golden Girl

Lawful Good Lesser Exemplar Female Golden Child/10

Melee/3; Psion/3; Monk/3

Strength: 18-> 54/63 Height: 6’6

Dexterity: 18-> 23 Weight: 390 lbs.

Constitution: 18-> 23 (43) Hair: Golden Blonde

Intelligence: 14-> 18* Eyes: White

Wisdom: 8 -> 13 Age: 6 (21 physical)

Charisma: 8 -> 13 Skin: Golden

Health: 315

Soak: 123

Movement: 100’

Golden Child Racial Powers: Regenerative Adaptive Cocoon; Rapid Learning*; Cosmic Energy Attunement; Cosmic Strength; Cosmic Flight; Cosmic Invulnerability; Cosmic Energy Manipulation; Cosmic Matter Manipulation; Cosmic Vitality

Exemplar-Lite Template Conferred Powers: Ex-Lite Foundation Stats (+4); Ex-Lite Vitality (Health and Soak); Blessed by Fate (Insight Bonuses); Blessed by Chaos (Luck Bonuses); Ex-Lite Talent (Competence bonuses to Skills); Ex-Lite Resistances (Energy); Ex-Lite Defenses (Physical); Ex-Lite Speed (double all modes)

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Still had no idea how the Enclave who had designed her had lucked into an Exemplar Template...

Kismet was physically an adult, but mentally still a child, maybe a teenager, evolving quickly by being around people who were incredibly well-developed mentally. She was good at acting older than she was, but it was plain on a telepathic level that she was still underage.

Mimi and Kismet looked like a pair of sisters around the station, which was pretty much the point of things. Mimi was naturally much more powerful, but since she was obviously the more experienced older sister, that was only natural.

I could easily and obviously have joined them, but as Dynamo I had my own image, which I kept carefully separate.

The quietly biggest useless event had been Primus announcing that they were moving Venus and Mercury over to the other side of the sun and using them to establish another world with a moon, equal in size to Earth.

Ben Parker also cleared away the vast majority of asteroids in the system at the same time, not incidentally eliminating a lot of hidden bases and mining camps from many aliens in so doing. Non-valuable ones were used to buttress the mass of the new planet, valuable ones were deposited in an orbital ring around the new world for processing.

On the stellar scale, the Xandarans loudly claimed credit for all of that, and since they actually had the tech to do so, there wasn’t too much suspicion. They did warn everyone in the asteroid belts to get their shit out before the ‘singularity shovel plowed through and dragged everything away’, and those who didn’t leave in time became part of the compressed mass of the agglomerated asteroids.

It also removed any threat of asteroid-sized impacts threatening Terra for some time, which was a potential attack vector for some alien civilizations.

It was a useless event because all it did was take Venus off the astronomical observers’ scopes, and the rest of the planet basically went on with life. There was some clamoring to settle the new world, of course, but the High Guard just laid out the amount of terraforming that had to be done, especially with Venus’ completely caustic atmosphere, and the urgency died down quite a bit.

Also, while some nations were trying to get into space on their own, the Tribal/Russo/Wakandan presence in space was a done deal, and frankly had a lot of the planet squirming as they considered the forces dominating the skies above them, putting things into place there which they could complain about, but couldn’t actually stop.

The people Sama and Briggs allowed into space were Terrans, globalists, and could not bring their countries’ baggage into space with them. Unlike the rest of the world, they could totally filter out the people with those mindsets.

The Xandarans moved in force onto the new world, getting to work with super-science and great enthusiasm. After all, they hadn’t lived on a planet of their own for generations.

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Sucking the heat out of the mantle of a whole world is an interesting experiment. I had to borrow the Atom’s growth power to get big enough to do it, extending my energy draw in to slow down the movements of all those atoms, and drain the heat away to make the place livable.

It was a delicate balance, but there were a lot of Xandarans on top of everything, monitoring the whole process as I cooled down first Mercury’s molten surface, then the acid storms of Venus began to chill out.

Literal oceans of sulfuric acid rained from the sky as I drained the endemic heat away from the atmosphere and the mantle. Blankets of carbon dioxide swirled madly in the changing thermals, possessed of the raw materials for life, but there wasn’t a lot of free nitrogen around to keep things controlled.

That was fine. The Xandarans began to mine the sulfur out of the oceans in massive amounts, sending the masses into orbit as raw material for conversion into other substances, or straight up starting the nitrogen and other conversion processes. Cubic miles of new air were being pumped into the atmosphere, the required protective layers were being settled in place, and the storms on Venus were vanishing into strange oceans, which themselves were changing hues and colors as the unneeded elements were stripped from them at speed by massive Xandaran Element Converters.

Being huge in size helped increase the area effect of my energy draw, but did not increase the area of my ability to manipulate matter, as I still had the same Core. I could spread it over a larger area, courtesy of being so big, but I couldn’t actually get more work done.

That was actually fine. The machinery was at work 24/7, doing the brute force work of converting unusable stuff to usable stuff. There was still tons of terraforming to do, and the formation of the higher, heavier elements was far more energy-intensive than working with the building block, foundational stuff.

Ben Parker was on oversight, watching everything that was going on, learning from what was being done as the highest levels of science in the galaxy did their things.

My borrowed Matter Manipulation stacked on the Golden Child racial ability gave me roughly the raw power that Sersi had, except I had a lot more focus than she did. Actually, sculpting the landscape was pretty damn fun, and I alternated between higher elements and actually just shoving around cubic miles of stuff to make new hills and mountains and the like.

True terraforming was damn fun, and kept my thoughts off all the greedy powers looking at Terra and Venus hungrily...

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The figure in heavy armor dominated the room. His helmet was off, revealing the crude features of a Neanderthal with the heavy brow, flatter nose, wide chin... and incongruously sharp, pale violet eyes.

Every single set of eyes in the room had actually seen Neanderthals in the past, and had simply watched as they died out, done in by the superior community, teamwork, and cleverness of Homo Sapiens. That they were looking at one now was simply amazing to some of them.

Briggs could feel their stares, and they didn’t bother him. Their aloofness, arrogance, and superiority held back brittle truths, and for all their colorful outfits, godlike power, and longevity, he didn’t feel at all overawed by them.

They were just Celestial-made Eternals, and he was perfectly capable of killing them.

That confidence was upsetting them and making them uneasy. It was like their stares were being turned back on them, and they were being found wanting before someone who was mortal-born.

They didn’t really realize he was a Natural Eternal, someone who had earned the right to long years. He didn’t have the rebirth ability that they did, the Celestial technology that would reconstitute them if they died, but that tech could be both subverted and destroyed. He was their peer, even if they did not realize it, and he had clawed his way up to that status, not merely had power conferred upon him by alien space gods who intended to see the world, and indeed, the entire system devoured to create another one of their own.

“Master Briggs.” His intense gaze moved slowly from his casual inspection of the chamber to the brawny Eternal with a mane of red hair who occupied the center seat. Zuras, considered the eldest and most powerful of the Eternals.

He could see wariness in the ancient Eternal’s eyes. That was smart. This entire chamber of mighty beings was far less a threat to him than they believed. The speed at which they could die forever would likely have shocked them utterly, as they probably took the words of Gilgamesh with many grains of salt.

“Elder Zuras,” he acknowledged the other with a slight bow. If they whispered at his effrontery, he owed the Eternal no more. Zuras, like most Eternals, had stagnated long ago, his power come to a halt at Twenty-Two, unable to find challenges worthy of him. His closest rival was Mentor of Titan, who was a Twenty-One. No other free Eternal of Terra, save perhaps Thanos, had broken Twenty.

Briggs was a Twenty-Five, and that only because he was expanding sideways when he could, and pouring the Karma from his people into changing and enhancing the destiny of the World. He could easily have been a Thirty if he only cared about his own power.

“Gilgamesh has long spoken of you and your deeds, and the Eternals have watched you over the years as your hand stretched across the fate of the world. We have not interfered with the deeds you have done or the plans you have undertaken, yet you have sought us out at this time. What brings you before the Eternals of Olympia?” the ancient Prime Eternal inquired of him.

“I am unfortunately a man afflicted with weighty thoughts, Elder Zuras. My Russia is, in the end, a tool and a means to that end. The weight of my thoughts turned to the Eternals as you began to retreat, and I heard rumblings of conflicts arising among you.” He paused to survey the chamber, seeing more than they thought in ways they did not consider as he did so. “You are now a people without purpose. The Celestials have departed. The Egg, the reason they were here, is also now gone, along with its purpose of slaughtering all upon this world to raise a new Celestial.” Only the minutest amounts, but they did squirm when they heard that. “I appreciate your lack of interference with the procedure that extracted it.” Although Galactus could have exterminated them with a thought, Erik might have been vulnerable to a concentrated attack, and had been key to the process.

That was actually why he and Sama had been there. The Eternals had also been monitoring the situation. Watching a Celestial leisurely get chopped in twain by Sama had more than one purpose, and dissuading any fanatic Eternals from interfering had been one of them.

At least a dozen of the Eternals in this chamber had tensed at his words. He marked them all absently, unmoved.

Zuras regarded for him a long moment. Eternals naturally had a great sense of patience, and a day could pass like a second to them. However, there was a Weight to the presence of the Great Bear, and it built up with every breath and heartbeat. Trying to outlast him would place them under ever-increasing spiritual pressure from the man just standing there, waiting for more words.

“What is it you are asking here, Master Briggs?” Zuras replied carefully. He could not see through this member of an extinct species, a disconcerting feeling, and his attempts to exude his own psychic pressure were having no effect whatsoever.