Willful Thinking (Invincible/DC | Green Lantern OC-Insert) - Interlude: Multitudes (Patreon)

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Angstrom Levy

Misery and despair, hatred, agony, the underbelly of human existence that threatened to unmake even the strongest of souls. Angstrom had seen and felt it all. He knew what it was like to be unmade ad infinitum. He knew what it was like to die, hundreds of times, in fact. Maybe thousands. Counting was difficult when the memories refused to remain separate. Sometimes it was quick. Invincible’s fist through his chest. His neck snapped. His skull crushed between two hands before he could even understand what was happening. Omni-Man was there for some of them, usually hovering over his son’s shoulder or doing the killing himself, but it was Invincible more often than not, tearing off his arm, chasing him while he ran, killing his wives, killing his sons and daughters, and other loved ones.

Angstrom’s fingers dug into the sides of his head. Were they his? Their children. The memories were all jumbled, and their lived experiences were as equally valid as each other. People liked to imagine memory as information written somewhere, stored in the brain to be retrieved when needed. Angstrom knew better than most that memory was experience reconstructed. The brain didn’t care whether the event had happened to the body carrying it. Give it the memory, and, as far as every relevant process was concerned, it had happened.

Intellectually, he was cognizant enough to know they were not his children, in truth. The man he had been before was, unfortunately, childless. But the children were dead. Their fathers were him. He was their fathers, all. His jaw clenched at the recollections. Holding a newborn boy in his arms as he entered the world. Teaching a little girl how to ride a bicycle. He remembered getting into an argument with his wife over whose turn it was to wash the dishes. Or the time he forgot an anniversary and spent the next week making up for it.

…He remembered coming home to an empty house after she left him, a little before the Viltrumites attacked. The same face kept appearing at the end of it. Mark Grayson. Invincible. There were exceptions. Angstrom knew that. Somewhere beneath the migraines and noise was a mind capable of holding knowledge gathered from realities beyond counting. He knew, objectively, that Mark Grayson was not universally evil. There were dimensions where he was precisely what the people of this world believed him to be: a hero. 

There were dimensions where he died young. Dimensions where he never received his powers. Dimensions where circumstances produced a man entirely unlike the ones Angstrom remembered screaming at. There were even Marks who saved lives. Angstrom knew that. …However, each time he saw that blue and yellow suit, somebody inside him started screaming. Nevermind that he was in this… state because of him. Had he just listened, everything would have been fine. Invincible killed the man he had been—no, the men he had been and now was all at once.

My children are upstairs.

An Invincible revealed he had killed them first.

Why are you doing this?

Invincible smiled.

…Had he? Yes. Angstrom could see the exact curl of those lips behind his eyelid, with the blood on his cheek. Except that memory belonged to… who? Did it even matter? They would point to their Invincible as though it settled the question. This Mark helped people. This Mark loved his mother. This Mark agonised over killing. This Mark wasn’t responsible for what another version of himself had done. A statistical absurdity masquerading as morality, a childish argument.

How many Mark Graysons did one have to meet before noticing the pattern? How many worlds had to burn before allowing oneself to draw a conclusion? Angstrom had seen more versions of Mark Grayson than anyone alive. He had memories from more realities than entire civilisations could catalogue in a thousand years. Nobody on this Earth possessed a fraction of the information inside his head.

And they would call him irrational?! His shoulders began to shake as a laugh escaped him.

“Irrational?”

Inside the Technicians’ stronghold, on their barren world, Angstrom paced, reconstructed and reborn. He pressed his fingers together beneath his chin. A good Mark was merely a Mark who hadn’t become the other kind yet. One bad day, one loss, or perhaps his father whispering the right words into his ear would be all it took. And, what? He was expected to wait until after he proved Angstrom right? Again?! A dozen dead Angstroms laughed with him.

This one is good, they would say.

His wife screamed in terror within his mind.

This one would never.

His son’s skull burst against concrete.

Angstrom’s nails broke skin, making him stop momentarily to glance at the blood slowly running beneath one finger. He studied it with detached interest as it dropped to the floor with a small smile.

“No, I won’t wait,” he decided. He had made that mistake before—or someone had. What difference did it make? Mark Grayson existed in an infinite number of universes. Angstrom had once thought that beautiful. Infinite variation, with infinite possibilities. Proof that no single decision had to define a man. What a fucking idiot he’d been. Infinity hadn’t absolved Mark Grayson; it convicted him.

“Judgement will come,” Angstrom muttered to himself. “Surely.”

【—〄—】

Firstly, there was the matter of the Technicians to settle.

Angstrom, above all, was a man of his word and, on his quest to better the multiverse, knew that he had to make certain compromises for the greater good. Promises he needed to enlist the cooperation of seedy individuals whose expertise was very much required for his grand design. Most commonly, promising them a universe in the infinite tapestry. As much as it galled him, in the grand design of the multiverse, these were necessary sacrifices.

Provided it all went well, he could go back once everything was in order and liberate those universes, too. Thus, this arrangement was one that worked on most, since his… aides possessed some common traits that tended to coincide with brilliance above the rest in their given fields. Megalomania, god complexes, narcissism, and so on.

The Technicians, however, were unique in the specifics of their desire, if not the motivation therein. In return for his healing his deformed body as best as they could, all they asked in return was using his powers to siphon the infinite resources of the multiverse to revitalise their dying world. After which the scant population would grow, entirely dependent on their goodwill, worshipping them as gods.

If all went well, this would be the last Angstrom would see of them. The experiment, for all its catastrophic downsides, had instilled with him vast swathes of knowledge. Enough that he wouldn’t require the aid of these amoral, unfeeling psychopaths ever again.

“Now, I will be back after enacting justice upon the one who made this way” he said, facing the eerie trio. “At which point I will return to uphold my end of the bargain, that I promise you.”

The three decrepit men stared at him, the red lenses over their eyes reflecting his own warped, ugly reflection.

“We find this… agreeable,” the rightmost Technician after a moment.

The second one nodded slowly. “How long until your return, exactly?”

“Ideally? About a week. I’ve a few pit stops to make along the way,” Angstrom replied, opening up a portal behind him and stepping through it, leaving the Technicians and their bare halls behind.

…Though certainly not forgotten.

The procedure had taken plenty from him. His body, for one, and his face for two. Plus any hope of looking into a mirror and seeing the man he remembered himself being. His sense of individuality had fared even worse. Thousands of lives had been poured into his head with none of the neat divisions the machine was supposed to provide, leaving Angstrom to sort through a lifetime of memories only to realise halfway through that the lifetime in question wasn’t his.

But the knowledge remained. Not all of it for even his brain, enlarged as it was, could only make sense of so much at once. The useful parts had survived remarkably well, however. Sciences developed centuries ahead of his own world. Political histories, military doctrine, engineering, medicine, names and faces, and events from Earth after Earth after Earth, but, most importantly, patterns.

His Invincible presented a problem. The Invincible responsible for this. Angstrom had tried to save him. That fact was so utterly ridiculous now that it almost made him laugh. He had stopped the machine because Mark Grayson blundered into a situation he didn’t understand, unwilling to discuss, and rather than allow the resulting explosion to kill him, Angstrom had sacrificed everything, in a mad moment of morality, for him.

Thanks to the Angstrom of that universe, he now knew that Invincible had acquired something that Angstrom could find almost nowhere else. A Green Lantern. He had checked, and thoroughly at that. Worlds where Mark joined his father. Variants where he opposed him, or where Mark Grayson killed Omni-Man and became an authority unto himself. Even versions of the world that were never bothered by the Viltrumites at all.

The commonality between them all was that they all lacked Green Lantern. That alone had occupied Angstrom’s thoughts for days. The boy was an aberration inside an aberration. A man who, by all available evidence, simply did not belong. Where he had come from was another question entirely, and Angstrom intended to answer it eventually.

For now, what mattered was the ring. With it, his portals would easily be sequestered. Angstrom could open a doorway anywhere. Distance meant nothing, but Green Lantern could interfere with that, which meant the Green Lantern had to be occupied.

Fortunately, Angstrom had already seen that particular shade of green before, though not in a world with Viltrumites. That had been the mistake in his search. He’d spent so long looking through variations of his own Earth that he’d almost forgotten how wildly the wider multiverse could diverge.

There were Earths where Invincible and Viltrumites didn’t exist and where different heroes took the place of the familiar ones. On more than one Earth, a man in a red cape seemed capable of handling the Viltrumite problem by himself. Angstrom could simply step through a portal, explain what Mark Grayson was, and bring back someone strong enough to put him down. It was tempting, painfully so, but what happened when Invincible spoke to them?

What happened when one of these self-righteous heroes decided Angstrom was the villain because Mark hadn’t murdered anyone yet?

He could already hear it.

You need help.

This isn’t justice.

He isn’t evil.

Empty platitudes, all. Angstrom’s fingers twitched with fury. …No. He would not entrust the safety of the multiverse to another hero’s judgement. He needed pieces he could predict, thus his predisposition to the simple-minded villains. And on those strange Earths, Green Lanterns had enemies. Yellow ones.

That being said, finding the right universe took longer than expected.

One Earth had no Lanterns at all despite otherwise appearing nearly identical. Another had a Green Lantern, but no corresponding yellow organisation Angstrom could locate. A third was so badly damaged that he left almost immediately after opening the portal, what was once a bustling Earth turned into a hellscape under the boot of a Superman-turned-despot. Ironically, it seemed even he was not so above it all that falling from grace was impossible.

Dozens of universes later, Angstrom arrived to a war. He stood behind the safety of a portal no wider than his face and watched yellow streaks carve across the sky above a burning city. One green streak answered yellow by the dozens, but he was not alone. The Justice League, this side of the multiverse’s planetary defence force, was fighting back in earnest and winning, despite the widespread destruction.

Angstrom watched and learned. More importantly, however, he waited. Despite the world he’d seen, the temptation returned when the man in red and blue appeared. Superman. Angstrom knew the name from other memories. He’d dismissed some of them as exaggerations until he’d journeyed the infinite multiverse himself and seen with his own eyes.

In most universes, Superman was a beacon of hope, more powerful than any Viltrumite. He could take him through a portal and explain everything. Show him the memories if he had to. Surely a man like that…

…No, Invincible was cunning when he wanted to be. In the face of insurmountable power, he could make himself look frightened and confused and young because he was young. And heroes, none more so than Superman himself, liked saving people. In the end, Superman was an unknown variable, and Angstrom had enough of those.

He opened another portal. The battle had moved several blocks. The yellow forces were losing now. Their formation had broken, individual Lanterns retreating or being beaten down by the Earth’s defenders. Angstrom followed the fighting without ever setting foot in the universe himself. But he was always ready to disappear the instant one of them looked his way. Alas, no one had the attention to spare during an active alien invasion.

Eventually, he found what he needed. The alien was enormous. He lay at the bottom of a crater punched into the street, yellow spandex stretched across a body that looked built to maul something equally unpleasant. Blood ran between jagged rows of teeth as he lay unconscious. Upon his massive club of a hand was a yellow ring, identical to Green Lantern’s own—a name Angstrom now knew was a title rather than a name. Angstrom smiled and opened a portal beneath him, closing it once he dropped through.

Angstrom closed it.

“Ah, sir? Your jacket is ready!”

“Excellent, my friend.” He turned to the clerk with a grin, stretching out a hand.

The multi-armed man chuckled. “I could possibly let you do it yourself. Allow me to help you.”

“...Well, if you insist.”

“An excellent fit, if I do say so myself. May I ask, sir, what’s the occasion for such a fine suit?”

Angstrom opened a portal. “I’m visiting an old friend.”

Stepping out onto the overgrown road, he walked a few steps before opening another, repeating the process until the hospital-like walls of the Technicians’ stronghold greeted him once more. As he stepped through the portal, all three Technicians turned away from the several hundred pounds of battered alien bleeding out on their floor. The yellow creature snarled, one massive hand scraping against the stone as he tried to rise feebly.

“What manner of being is this, Angstrom Levy?” one asked.

“A part of my plan.” Angstrom stepped around the alien, eyes fixed on the yellow ring.

The leftmost Technician tilted his head. “Your plan continues to expand. You have made extensive use of our facilities.”

“So does its likelihood of success.” He laid a hand on his sternum and inclined his head. “And I appreciate your hospitality.”

“Our hospitality,” another Technician said, “is not without cost.”

Angstrom finally looked up to find the three of them watching him through those eerie red lenses.

“When the debt comes due, we expect it to be honoured to the letter,” the centermost Technician said as a robotic gurney hovered into the room. The alien’s laboured breathing left the room, and silence returned once more.

“...Of course,” Angstrom said, hiding his unease behind the smile. He meant it, too. If nothing else, he was a man of his word. Soon, the Green Lantern would have his hands full. There would be no ring interfering with Angstrom’s portals with his natural enemy motivated by a universe to command unfettered. And there would be no one to stop him from saving the world.

Angstrom’s smile widened.

“Oh, this is going to work.”

【—〄—】

Angstrom stood at the edge of a rooftop with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out over the city. Thousands of lights shone from windows and streetlamps, cars moving along the roads. People walked the pavements. Ate dinner outside and inside restaurants, slept and argued with their spouses while probably worrying about work in the morning. There were no craters stretching for miles like he’d grown used to seeing. No bodies hanging from streetlights as warnings to the rest, beneath Viltrumite banners draped over government buildings. No Invincible hovering above the city, daring anyone to challenge him.

…Not yet, anyway.

Angstrom breathed in slowly. This world was far from perfect. Humanity still seemed intent on killing itself in petty wars, squabbling over pieces of dirt when there was an entire universe waiting above their heads. The planet itself was warming into a hellscape while governments debated whose responsibility it was to stop it once they could no longer deny it was happening. All while people starved while others possessed more wealth than they could spend in ten lifetimes.

All solvable problems. He had the knowledge of a thousand Earths sitting between his ears, able to develop technologies that could render fossil fuels obsolete. Agricultural techniques from worlds where hunger had disappeared centuries ago. Not to mention medicines, economic models, political systems, and answers to questions this world’s brightest minds hadn’t even thought to ask yet. Once this was done, perhaps he would turn his attention to those worthwhile issues.

Why shouldn’t he? He could make this Earth better, not merely save it from Invincible, but build something from the ashes of what humanity currently accepted as civilisation. A world where no child went hungry and wars were uniquely historical curiosities. One where monsters like Invincible were never again allowed to decide the fate of billions because they happened to be born strong enough to enforce their will.

A utopia.

The thought made Angstrom smile. He rather liked the sound of that… but first Invincible had to die. He glanced over his shoulder as his compatriot exited the portal at last. Arkillo stood near the centre of the rooftop, enormous arms folded over his chest. The Technicians had done good work. There was little evidence remaining of the beating he’d received beyond a few marks across his exposed skin, and the yellow ring on his finger shone brightly once again. He had been surprisingly easy to negotiate with.

The offer of an entire universe tended to have that effect.

“There is one matter we need to make absolutely clear before you leave,” Angstrom said.

Arkillo’s bestial eyes narrowed.

“No innocents die.” The alien’s lip curled. Angstrom turned fully towards him. “You may destroy whatever property is necessary, and fight anyone who attempts to interfere. But you will not deliberately kill a single civilian.”

“...I don’t bow to you, human.”

“No, but apparently you require instructions on the terms of our agreement.” Yellow light flickered around Arkillo’s fist, but Angstrom didn’t move until Arkillo snorted.

“Fine.”

Angstrom smiled again. “Then we understand each other. The Green Lantern is your only concern. Keep him occupied until my work is complete.”

“And when he is dead?”

“He isn’t to die.” Arkillo made an amused noise and Angstrom almost laughed. 

“You don’t care about him. Whether he lives or dies shouldn’t matter to you.”

“I want him occupied, not killed,” Angstrom corrected. “However he ended up here, from what I’ve observed, he’s done this world a great deal of good. I have no quarrel with him despite his poor choice of friendship.”

Arkillo’s nostrils flared. “You summoned me to battle a Green Lantern and expect me to spare him?”

“Unless you can’t manage it. Of course, if restraining yourself while keeping him occupied is beyond your abilities, I understand. I could find another member of your Corps.”

“You will do no such thing.” Arkillo took a step forward. “I will break your Green Lantern without killing him.”

As expected, playing upon his pride was the right move. Angstrom’s smile widened. “Then once Invincible is dead, our arrangement will be honoured. A universe of your own, completely removed from the Green Lantern Corps and anyone else who might contest your rule. Govern it however you please.”

“Rule,” Arkillo corrected with a low growl.

“Of course.”

Arkillo walked to the edge of the building. “Where is he?”

Angstrom raised one finger towards the distance and spoke the address aloud. Surprisingly, it seemed the ring was a multi-functional tool on top of an interesting weapon. Perhaps, when the deed was done, he could honour his bargain with Arkillo at last… though not before taking the yellow ring with him. He kept those thoughts to himself, of course, as yellow light enveloped Arkillo, trailing behind him when he launched himself into the night.

Angstrom watched the yellow streak disappear between the buildings, waited several seconds, then opened another portal that emptied him onto a neighbourhood he knew well. Debbie Grayson was a traitor. Angstrom hadn’t always thought so, but this was another conclusion the memories had helped him reach. There were worlds where Debbie resisted, having recognised Nolan Grayson for what he was.

This Debbie knew what her husband was, abetting the false story the masses had been told of Chicago. The GDA had obviously bought whatever lie it was that Nolan Grayson had told them while he bided his time to outlive those who knew what he’d done. Have the Earth nice and pacified for seamless Viltrumite rule. And Debbie Grayson welcomed that monster back with open arms!

Angstrom stepped quietly through the portal into the Grayson home. Darkness greeted him. He let the portal close behind him and stood still, listening. The house was quiet enough that he could hear the fridge humming across the open plan kitchen. Even with the upgrade to his body making the darkness entirely ineffectual against him, he knew the layout by heart, better than any home his iterations had lived through. He moved through the house without turning on a light, one hand held slightly away from his body, ready to open a portal at the slightest sound.

Almost every Invincible loved his mother, which would make her a useful hostage in the battle to come. When he reached the stairs, a part of him wondered what she would say when she saw him. With her husband off-world, as he was when Angstrom first came here, and her son not home, she would be without the strength that she’d come to rely on. Would she defend her son? Would she forget him and plead for her own life? He’d expect it of her, of course.

…Would she understand when he explained what Mark was going to become? Angstrom’s mouth tightened. No, they never understood until it was too late. Always.

The bedroom door was ajar, but not enough that he could slip through, so Angstrom pushed it open. Debbie lay beneath the covers. He took one step inside, then stopped. There was someone beside her. Broad-shouldered, even when lying down, but the angle made it difficult to see his hair. His mind, capable of sorting through knowledge from countless universes, supplied the answer immediately: Nolan Grayson.

Angstrom’s eyes widened. Omni-Man was supposed to be—he hadn’t checked. Why hadn’t he checked? Angstrom’s fingers twitched. A portal began to open in the hallway behind him, though not soundlessly. Angstrom stepped away to find his back against the wall. A hand closed around his throat, his feet leaving the floor. The suddenness made the portal in the hallway vanish.

Debbie jolted awake with a gasp as Nolan stood beside the bed, one arm extended, Angstrom dangling from it. The Viltrumite’s eyes moved over him once before settling on his face once his wife flicked the bedside lamp on.

“...Who are you and why are you in my house?”

Angstrom grabbed his wrist with both hands. Nolan’s grip didn’t shift a millimetre despite the upgrades made to his body. They couldn’t push his body to the echelons enjoyed by The Immortal, let alone Viltrumites. Angstrom couldn’t look away from that face. That accursed face. He’d seen it countless times, an omen of calamity, covered in blood, above burning, ruined buildings. He remembered Nolan holding people down for Mark to kill for the sake of practice, and vice versa, father and son.

Viltrumite filth passing humanity back and forth between them like a toy.

“You.”

Nolan’s brow furrowed.

“You fucking animal!” His lips pulled back from his teeth as he stared at Debbie with the purest of hatred. “You chose them. You knew what they were, and you chose them!”

Nolan tightened his grip. “Don’t look at her.”

“You think you’ve won? You think because this world hasn’t burned yet that you’re different? I’ve seen you! I’ve seen your son! I’ve watched the two of you butcher this planet more times than you could fucking comprehend!” Angstrom laughed despite the air steadily denied to him.

Debbie pulled the covers against herself. Angstrom saw the fear on her face and smiled when Nolan glanced at her.

“...Yes. Look at her. Take a good fucking look because she’ll be dead soon. So will your son,” Angstrom hissed. “I’ll kill Mark. I’ll kill her. I’ll kill every last member of this diseased fucking family before I let you do it again!”

As the rage worked itself over the Viltrumite’s barbaric mind, Angstrom thought. He needed a portal. It didn’t matter that he was attached to Nolan. They would fall through it and he could move from there. Angstrom reached for that familiar sensation, but nothing happened. He tried again to no avail. Then Angstrom realised they were moving. Baltimore became lights beneath them, and then even those were gone. Wind tore at Angstrom’s suit, his limbs snapping behind him as Nolan accelerated into the night.

Angstrom tried to concentrate, but at the speed they were flying, and with how high up they were, it was impossible. His eyes watered violently as the air thinned. Finally, Nolan stopped. Still held at arm’s length, Angstrom choked, staring around them. The curve of the Earth stretched beneath his feet, but they were just barely in the atmosphere. For the first time since entering the house, Angstrom understood that he had made a mistake.

A very simple mistake.

He had been so concerned with Invincible that he hadn’t checked whether his father was home. Nolan stared at him without a trace of anger on his face, which frightened Angstrom more than anything.

“You threatened my wife.”

Angstrom clawed at his wrist.

“And my son.”

His lungs burned as the fingers tightened.

Angstrom’s eyes bulged.

….He remembered dying like this. Not him, but another him that was still him. Several times, in fact. The memories crashed together as panic tore through every Angstrom Levy at once. 

Nolan Grayson looked him in the eyes and squeezed, and Angstrom Levy died one more time.