Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Stupid Angstrom, stupid alternate fucking me… Stupid fucking- GAH!” 

How could he let this happen?

How could he let this happen?! 

He’d enslaved his entire world and beyond! He’d taken down his bastard of an old man with ease! But NO! He couldn’t see the fact that that deformed and smug Angstrom was going to leave him here on some dust bowl to die?! 

He was Mark Grayson! He was the man who’s yellow cape made everyone on the ground below him shit their pants! 

His yellow and black person soared over the endless nothing below him, looking for anyone he could use to help get him off this rock. His fists clenched tightly ahead of him as he flew. It shouldn’t be that hard, he turned lowly humans into red stains on the wall and the chunks on the floor!

He was ruthless!

He was the strongest! 

HE WAS- 

“Why on earth do you fly like that?” 

His face wrinkles up in frustration as he looks over his shoulder at the sound of his own voice, only he wasn’t the one talking. Gaining on him like it was nothing and soon pulling alongside him with his hands almost laxed at his sides as he flew along was one of the others . The one in all white, sporting that cringe inducing Viltrumite outfit he’d seen before. 

“Huh?” he grunts. Making no effort to slow down or hardly acknowledge this lesser version. 

The wannabe Viltrumite’s speed increases almost effortlessly until he’s the one ahead of him, looking back over his shoulder. 

“You’re flying, not doing a pull up,” the viltrumite says quietly. Just loud enough over the wind whistling past both of their ears for it to be heard. “It’s a lot easier if you-” 

“Like I give a shit? You know who you’re talking to?!” the villain yells. 

They keep flying for a moment longer before the viltrumite looks back once again. 

“Do you even know where you’re going?” 

The villain grits his teeth, straining his already battle weary body as he speeds up, tearing past the viltrumite. 

“I thought I made it clear I was getting off this rock!” he shouts, feeling his cape tugging at his back with the way he scythed through the air. “You go and tell the rest of those shitstains that-”

He can’t even finish before he feels a palm slam straight into the middle of his chest, knocking the wind out of him as he’s held in place. Only being met with the unyielding and unamused gaze of… himself. He was in front of him… How?! 

“I am not your errand boy,” the viltrumite sternly states. 

The villain grits his teeth as the air whistles in and out of them, the pair of them hanging in the sky as the sun slowly begins to collapse more and more in the atmosphere above their heads; the irritating and never ending blue starting to morph into a vibrant and sickly orange. He swats away the hand of the viltrumite and shifts backward in the air. 

“You realise how many people, heroes, viltrumites I’ve killed? Yet you’re talking down to me like a pissant!” the villain yells. 

The viltrumite folds his arms, looking off into the distance for a moment as he taps his fingers on the bicep of his white outfit before looking back at him. 

“You really think that we would be transported to a planet that had means of escape on it? Think how unlikely that sounds rather than running off on your own,” he says quietly. His voice not once rising above the volume that would be classed as uncomfortable or intimidating. “If you get lost out here, you’ll end up on your own. If you’re on your own, you have much less of a chance of surviving.” 

The villain snorts, looking down at his slightly torn up yellow cape as it swayed behind him; the heroes in that other dimension were weak but they at least managed to mess up his outfit a little. Didn’t save them though, did it?

“Who says I need other people to survive? I never needed ‘em before, why start now?” the villain calls out. 

He was doing his best to unnerve or unsettle the version of himself that hovered before him. The villain had perfected the art of doing that to people, it was practically second nature to him. Looking down the nose, cracking the knuckles, stretching out the muscles, even positioning themselves on the side that showcased the most blood. Yet this one here, he was unamused by all of it, it’s like he didn’t even care. 

“Do you want revenge on Angstrom Levy? Do you want to get back to your… rather pitiful excuse for a civilization?” the viltrumite asks. 

Suddenly all of the mannerisms and the facade dropped. It wasn’t an act anymore, he was pissed . 

The villain floats right up to the face of the viltrumite, getting in close, real close. 

“What the fuck do you think?” he mutters. 

The viltrumite looks him up and down. 

“Then stop gambling and start thinking,” they reply. “Follow me back to the others. We can come to some kind of agreement and find a way out of this dimension. Back to where we belong… back to where we can tear that fool limb from limb.” 

The villain smirks. He liked the sound of that last part. 

“Now you’re speaking my language, nark.” 

The viltrumite sighs. 

“Don’t speak ill of my viltrum allegiance again,” he calmly says. 

“Seriously?” snorts the villain. “Or wha-” 

With a fierce crack, he whistles through the air until he slams into the unforgiving endless sand that seemed to coat this shithole of a world. It did nothing to cushion his fall, only proceeding to make the rest of his slightly scarred outfit sandier and slightly itchy. 

What the hell was that? 

His ears were ringing, his head was pounding… he could feel a warm liquid leaking from his lip. He ran his tongue over it and to his surprise, it had a metallic taste… He couldn’t even remember the last time he bled. 

The irritating sun that hung low in the sky is obscured by the silhouette of the viltrumite who slowly hovered to the surface of the sand before touching down and walking towards him, crouching slightly as the small red mark on his knuckle that so deeply contrast with the white of his attire was wiped away. 

“It is in my interests to work with you and the others. Though I don’t need seven of you to work with,” he says calmly, his eyes drilling into the villain’s with an intensity he hadn’t seen up to now. “I’ll make it clear. If you insult me, berate me or treat me unlike an equal… You will be my example to the other six that I’m not to be mistreated. Got it?” 

The villain grits his teeth in frustration as he sits up. The eyes beneath his lenses surging with anger, ferocity and longing to tear this smug, high and mighty jackass to pieces. To stain the sand with his blood, to hear his screams echo out around the vacant and empty planet… It makes him almost want to grin with joy thinking about it. For now though; he’d play this game. He liked games. He’d let this poser think he was onboard, that he was someone who could fall into line… then when it was all sorted… He’d gut him. Then Angstrom, then that other goody two shoes Mark who’s fault it was in the first place that he’s stuck here! Yeah! 

“... Whatever,” the villain mutters. 

“Excellent,” the viltrumite replies, offering a hand. “Get up. The others were going to stay put. Despite the version of us with questionable hair’s insistence.”

The villain lightly swats away the outreached hand and pulls himself up onto his feet. He was inclined to play along, to let this go, for now , but that didn’t extinguish his pride. 

“I’m not some weakling ya know, ya got lucky, I’m strong!” the villain insists. 

“I know,” the viltrumite replies. 

“I’m unstoppable! I’M-” 

“I know.”  

The viltrumite hovers into the air and gestures to the area behind them. 

“Keep up, they’re this way.”

The viltrumite then begins to fly away, the villain meanwhile stared at him as he did. Back turned, unsuspecting… He could fly up behind him and rip his head off his shoulders without the bastard even realising. His fists trembled and his body yearned- no, lusted for the intoxicating feeling of victory. 

Yet he doesn’t take it. 

He simply runs the back of his gloved hand across his lip, a small stain of red appearing on the yellow of his costume. He stares down at it for a moment… The villain then too hovers up into the sky and flies from whence he arrived. 

—----------------------------

The sun had long since gone down. The only light source coming from the sea of stars in the sky and the hastily assembled fire at the centre of an all powerful circle. 

They started off as eighteen three days ago. Since then, through whatever reasons, they had become eight. 

One draped in white, yet his body scarred, tormented and altered forever by horrors and tools the others didn’t know. A prisoner. 

One fitted in red and white, carrying with him the temperament and ideals of an individual who was instrumental to each of those present. A pretender. 

One cladded in blue and black, his rambunctiousness illustrated by his maddened expression and his unique mohawk. An agitator. 

One expressed in a classic blue and yellow, yet a familiar symbol on his shoulder which carried with him the necessity of his actions. An enslaver. 

One obscured in black and blue, his face hidden by a mask that concealed the individual behind it, yet did little to hide his intentions. An emoter. 

One dressed in classic yellow and blue, yet no mask or obstruction of any kind, his emotions and blood there for all to see. A regretter. 

One dressed in white and grey, his allegiance clearly stated and his motivations encompassing that. The viltrumite. 

And one dressed in yellow and black, his strength and his ruthlessness emphasised in his iconic and fear inducing presence. The villain. 

The only sound around the Mark Grayson’s is the crackle and snap of the fire and embers dancing around their wooden prison. The emoter starts to look around the group, taking in the reservedness of each of his fellow man before clearing his throat. 

“So… d-did any of you read seance dog-”

“Oh my god… Of course we did jackass! We’re all the same person!” the agitator cries out. “This fuckin guy-” 

“I never did…” the regretter mutters, looking toward him. “Dad said it was distracting to have hobbies so I only read what I could when I was with William.”

“Aah… Your dad was as shitty as mine then, huh?” the prisoner raspily chuckles. 

The regretter blankly looks at the prisoner, then to the emoter for a moment before back at the prisoner once more. 

“Well… yeah?” 

“He wasn’t bad. Not for me,” the pretender replies as a few of the pairs of the same eyes fall to him. 

The pretender grips at the red cape that sat idly on the floor beside him before he sighs. 

“He nurtured me, my mother too. Looked after us. When my powers developed, he trained me as best he could and he explained to us where he came from. About what we had to do for the greater good… We argued with him at first, told him that he was crazy to turn his back on the planet,” he begins, sighing as he looks up at the stars. “That’s when the GDA bust down the door and dropped a Kaiju on our heads,” the pretender explains, pausing for a moment before going on. “Mom got crushed by the rubble… I went to help dad but by the time I got there, I watched Red Rush, War Woman and Immortal beat him to death. I then realised that earth couldn’t be governed by the powers at be and… I took it upon myself to act.” 

The silence returns, only lessened by the crackling fire before the agitator pipes up once more. 

“ Your dad got killed by the Guardians? How the fuck did they do that?” he calls. 

The pretender simply sighs, his gaze focused on the stars above. 

“They cheated. Dad would never lose to them in a fair fight.” 

The emoter nervously taps his fingers on his knees in the way he sits before looking at him. 

“I-I’m so sorry that happened to you… I know it’s different but-” 

“Wahhh… You gonna tell us the story of what happened to mommy and daddy around the campfire?” the agitator grins. 

The emoter’s mask slightly wrinkles up. 

“Are you really doing this again? I don’t know what I’ve done to you-” 

“Just shut up! Nobody cares! You went crying in front of Angstrom earlier too, god, that was so embarrassing!” the agitator snidely insists, his gaze now falling on him entirely. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, shit for brains, you were covered in blood earlier too. No doubt you probably took away a lot of other folk’s mommies and daddies. Gold star for you!” 

The viltrumite simply sits there with his eyes closed and his arms folded as the situation plays out around them, the enslaver was very much not paying attention as he drew in the sand with his finger but the villain couldn’t help but snort at the remark. Comedy like that was in short supply from where he came from. 

“I was trying to find my, our mom! That’s all I wanted out of this!” the emoter yells. 

The agitator’s face starts to grow slightly more frustrated, he leans forward ever so slightly. 

“You’d turn your back on a larger empire for one person? God you’re even more of a fuckin’ loser than I took you for.”

The regretter however, who had been watching this conversation intently looks back to that of the agitator and his face too creases in frustration. 

“I pity you for not grasping that feeling,” he said coldly. 

The agitator’s gaze slowly softens before snorting and looking towards the villain with a smug yet telling look on his face. 

“This fucking guy,” he mutters, gesturing to the regretter with his thumb.

It’s in the blink of an eye that the agitator tears across the campfire, dousing the flame with the force of his own propulsion and rifles a fist into the regretter. The rest of the Grayson’s present all taking note as the agitator clicks his neck before looking down at the emoter and punching him in the face. Hard. 

“Wo hooo… Give ‘em hell Mohawk,” the villain chuckles. 

The agitator pins the emoter to the floor as he rifles him in the head with his fist again and again. 

“You crybaby pussy! You’re not shit! It’s dumb luck you didn’t get killed during that fucking fight on that earth!” 

“S-stop it! Please! AGH!” the emoter yells. 

His mask started to shift slightly from blue to red as the other Grayson’s watch on as every crunching blow rifles into the emoter’s head. 

Smash. Smash. Smash. 

“Why should I? It’s not like you’ve got anything left you sorry sack of-” 

Before the agitator can finish his sentence, there’s a slam in the back of his neck that causes his entire body to flop and go limp as he falls to a heap on the floor. 

“... Way to spoil the fun,” the villain sighs. 

The viltrumite looks down on the agitator and folds his arms, shaking his head and walking away back to his designated spot in the circle. 

“If I believe any of you to be some kind of hindrance to our survival, I won’t hesitate,” the viltrumite mutters. 

The pretender nods to him as he pulls himself off of the ground and walks toward the now unconscious agitator. 

“I’ll take this one over there. Hopefully he can sleep off his stupidity…” he mutters, before looking down on the emoter who was snivelling and clutching at his masked face. “And you. Don’t let him see you like that again. If he thinks you're weak, he’ll keep pestering you, or worse.” 

The emoter sits up, going to make a dive for the agitator before he feels someone grasp firmly at his arms. 

“I’ll kill him! I’LL RIP HIM APART! THE STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE! I HATE HIM!” they yelp, thrashing in the hold. “HE HURT ME! HE HURT THE OTHER ME! LET’S JUST FUCKING KILL HIM!” 

“Calm down…” mutters the regretter. His lip and chin wetted and faintly glistened in the faint light of the stars with that same crimson liquid. He forcefully tugs on the emoter who starts to breathe heavily and clutches at his face, snivelling slightly. “I’ll take him out of the way… See you later… I guess.” 

With that, the emoter is forcefully yet gently carried away by the regretter and at the same time, the agitator is hurled into the distance by the pretender who then follows after him. Leaving only four of them around the now doused and forgotten fire. 

“Okay, I’m bored of being around you idiots. I’m gonna go explore,” the enslaver grumbles, getting to his feet. “Later nerds.” 

“It’s the middle of the night,” the viltrumite replies. 

“And?” the enslaver responds.

“You’ll go out there, get lost and starve to death you fucking idiot. How did you ever conquer your earth with that kinda brain?” the villain snarls. Doing well to not pay attention to the stare the viltrumite happened to be giving him. 

“Ugh alright fine… You, c’mon,” he sighs, pointing at the prisoner. 

“Oh. Uh, sure. Later then,” the prisoner replies, immediately taking off in a different direction to that of the recently departed four. 

“Hey! I wanted to go the other way you dumbass!” the enslaver calls, following after him quickly. 

Leaving just the last two sat in the dark a ways away from one another; the viltrumite and the villain. They sit in silence under the stars for a moment, neither of them wishing to instigate another conversation for the time being until the grunt of the viltrumite draws the villain’s attention. He had moved himself into a lying position on the sandy floor. 

“The hell are you doing?” the villain asks. 

“I’m going to get some rest. Given that we’ve been entrenched in battles for the last three days, it’s the first rest we’ve gotten. You should take it,” the viltrumite answers. 

It was a simple answer. As if it was the most apparent thing in the world. Though all the villain can do is smirk as he looks over, the eyes behind his lenses getting more and more predatory. 

“What’s to stop me from snapping your neck the second you shut those eyes?” 

“I assure you, that's a very a stupid thing to attempt.” 

“Oh yeah, and why’s that genius?” 

“Because even in my tired state … I can crush your head like a grape.” 

The villain finds himself pausing once again, the viltrumite letting his gaze linger a moment longer before turning away onto his side and sighing out. The villain watches, looking down at him before he himself grumbles under his breath and lays back in the desert sand looking up at the stars in the sky. There weren’t as many as usual and they weren’t all that bright, but they were there to look at at least. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he ever looked up at the stars. 

“... Why didn’t you go up?” 

“Huh?” 

“You went across a planet that quite clearly had nothing instead of leaving it and looking on nearby worlds and settlements. Why?” the viltrumite doubles down. 

The villain clenches his fists at the thought. It wasn’t his dimension, probably nowhere near close to his dimension… but still. Who knows who was lurking around up there… could he be up there somewhere? He shakes his head before scoffing, disregarding the question and any potential answer he’d have to give. 

“Why do you care?” the villain spits. 

There’s a moment of pause. 

“Simply making conversation,” the viltrumite calmly replies. 

The villain though can’t take his eyes off of the stars above, everything else around him starting to fade away as his tired and weary body finally begins to accept the rest it was receiving. It’d been a weird three days, a fun three days of chaos, mayhem and death sure… but now he was literal worlds away from his world. He’d been duped by some mystery man wanting revenge and left stranded with seven other versions of himself. 

He was supposed to be victorious! He was supposed to be unbeatable! 

…

He was supposed to be Invincible. 

Chapter Text

Days, nights, hours, minutes, seconds. The flow of time meant everything to some, yet was completely nothing to others. 

Now imagine if time was the one possession you had left. At times, you’d cradle it in your hands, making sure every single second had your complete and undivided attention, yet other times you’d take it for granted; periods of it going by without you even realising or being able to realise. 

That was the life of the prisoner, well, he wouldn’t call it a life. It was his existence before that silver tongued devil materialised out of thin air through a veil of sickly green offering him anything he could ever want in exchange for his services on a certain mission. How could he ever refuse? 

Days went by and he turned cities to rubble and people to corpses, more days went by and he found himself in another kind of prison with some very unlikely cellmates. But in this prison at least, there was a breeze that caressed his sensitive and mistreated body, there were smells and sights that intoxicated his senses beyond compare. There were people, people who probably had the greatest chance of understanding who he was and why he did what he did. 

A few days had been and gone since he and the seven other versions of himself had been transported here. He’d not really gone out of his way to talk or interact with them, rebuilding social skills after an unknown amount of time of being at the mercy and order of others was a costly process. There were a few arguments of course, a couple of scuffles that were quickly broken up by those dressed in the attire that made his stomach churn and palms sweat. 

He’d not had much to do with them though, instead he found himself in usual proximity to the one who sported the iconic colours he himself used to wear. Albeit they were now tarnished with that fucking symbol on his shoulders. At times he couldn’t help but stare daggers into it, the white and grey, those three lines. Those fucking lines. 

The lowest one to symbolise the weak and defenceless. The naive and the foolish. 

The one in the middle to symbolise the worlds and galaxies that lie out amongst the stars. 

The highest one to symbolise Viltrum, the empire and its citizens. Above all. The way it ‘should’ be. 

He could feel his teeth gritting together just taking it in now, any harder clench of his jaw and he thought his teeth would chip or splinter. He should just rip that symbol off. He should tear off that red and white outfit of that other version. He should just gouge out the eyes of that Viltrumite version of himself for- 

“Yo! Baldy! Whatcha getting yourself so worked up about?” the enslaver yells. “You got a problem with me or somethin’?”

He snaps out of his mental prison. No room with flat surface, no viltrumites or guards, no tools or instruments. Just him sitting atop the sand on a dead world, a version of himself nearby, practising his punches. 

“Course not. I’m not looking for a fight,” the prisoner replies bluntly. 

Was it nice having someone to talk to who wasn’t inclined to taze, torture or mutilate him? Sure. 

Was he happy that it was this particular version of himself? … No. 

“I’d sure hope not,” the enslaver replies, stretching out. “I’ll have ya know, I took down people mightier than you when I built my empire. So if you’re spoiling for a fight, I’ll let you know why they call me the scourge of the Milkyway.” 

The prisoner meets the gaze of his counterpart, their lenses reflecting against one another. That’s when the prisoner begins to smirk, then smile, then he lets out a rather gargled and rather unnerving grunting noise over and over again. The enslaver’s partially revealed face initially conveyed confused, before he started to frown and pace towards him.

“Is that… Are you laughing at me?! ME!?” he hollers. 

The prisoner meanwhile waves his hand, the snorting and screeching noise that pulsed out of his body starting to die down. 

“T-that is nowhere near as intimidating as you think it is,” the prisoner pants, starting to splutter and cough as they beat their own chest. “Wardens are supposed to be intimidating, ruthless-” 

“I’ve peeled the skin off of anyone who took me for a joke,” the enslaver sternly states. The prisoner in turn looking up as he coughs, trying to get his breathing and body to respond to his wishes. “ With an honest to god smile on my face too.” 

The prisoner tries to talk once more, practically clawing at his own chest now as he splutters and chokes on a breath that won’t come. Mercifully, with one small twinge in his chest, he doubles over and coughs up the blockage, a reddened chunk of the damaged organs inside him that miraculously kept him alive. He wipes his mouth as small bits of blood stain the back of his scarred and wrinkled hand. 

“G-guess you can do that part at least…” the prisoner gasps. 

The enslaver looks down to the recently ejected innard of his counterpart’s body and grimaces slightly. 

“Ew… Guess you feel as rough as you look, huh?” he jokes as he adjusts the gloves on his hands. “How the hell did you make it through the three days of putting down heroes if you were like this?” 

The prisoner continues to wipe his mouth, licking away the familiar metallic taste with his tongue as he leans back on the sand. 

“Ain’t it obvious? … I’m-” 

Before he can finish, the pair of them are obscured by a shadow above their heads blocking out the sun in the sky. They both look up to see the red cape swaying in the wind and the folded person of the pretender above their heads. He looks silently between the pair of them for a moment before he finally speaks. 

“Meeting, usual spot. Let’s go,” he says in that usual assertive tone. Just as quickly as he’d appeared, he booms off back towards their destination. 

The enslaver groans, slapping himself in the face once with each hand before he clicks his back. 

“Meeting this, meeting that. How about you meet a fucking end, jerk,” the enslaver mutters in his rather half hearted defiance before groaning. “Let’s get this other with. My bet is that mask pissed himself in the night and blamed it on mohawk. Go on, you first.” 

The prisoner is still wiping his mouth and lips to get rid of that all too familiar taste of his own blood, not looking in a good condition to move just yet; the enslaver however rolls his eyes with a grunt, taking a few steps towards him. 

“Ain’t got all day here! Go!” they double down. 

Instinctively, the prisoner feels his body stand to attention; he’d been given an instruction, an order; defiance was never a good idea. Despite his splutters and the aching in his body, he kicks off of the ground and flies toward the meeting point that they’d established. An immediate boom behind him and a harsh flurry of air buffets him as the enslaver tears past, not even looking at him as he does so. A great metallic spire coming into view on the horizon. 

As they were a rather dysfunctional group, the viltrumite and the pretender came to the idea that they should all have their own space in the surrounding desert, but that they also had a specific point where they’d come together to meet. The emoter, the regretter and the prisoner agreed with the idea; the agitator and the enslaver didn’t really care… and the villain called them all idiots for wanting to willingly spend more time in each other’s presence. 

“Don’t hold me up, baldy!” the enslaver calls as he shoots ahead through the air. 

The prisoner goes to reply, only to let out another barrage of coughs that irritatingly tickled the back of his throat, leaving it hoarse and rough. He hated his body, everything about it, everything they did to it… the fact that sometimes his own form would prevent him from conveying just how much hatred lied within him was on par with some of the most obscene tortures he endured at the hands of the cause he once served. 

Soon enough though, the duo close in on the meeting point, the same familiarly coloured outfits sticking out to them as they float down. By which time the prisoner’s hand was covered in a thin seal of dried blood, the enslaver not caring or even bothering to look at him as the other six pairs of the same eyes they possessed look to them. 

“What’s going-” the enslaver begins.

“The hell took you so long?” the villain grunts, his arms folded in their usual manner. “Could’ve conquered a continent in the time it took you.” 

The obnoxiously loud laugh of the agitator boils the enslaver’s blood. The more time that passed, the more he started to hate even the smallest details about those who claimed to be him. 

“Blame the freak, he was practically coughing his guts up,” he growls, gesturing with his thumb to the prisoner behind him. The latter went to defend himself, only for the enslaver to not give him the chance. “Like I was saying. What’s the point of this?”

The villain looks to the viltrumite, muttering something under his breath as their empire acquiescing counterpart gestured to the planet around them.

“This world is dead. No life, no inhabitants. Nothing. Our anatomy is sustaining us for now… but eventually we’re going to require water and food. Something that this world can’t provide us,” they summarise. Their voice stayed as calm and composed as it always did, almost unnervingly so. “As such for the sake of our survival, we need to determine our next moves.” 

The Agitator is the first to speak up, running a gloved hand over his mohawk as he looks around the group.

“Are you suuuure this planet is dead? What’s to say that you didn’t find somethin’ and want the rest of us to fuck off and leave you as the last man- Mark, standing, huh?” he suggests, his voice deliberately bitey, aiming to rile up his intended target and those present. 

Unfortunately, he had more of a chance of finding a portal back to his own dimension than he did unsettling the viltrumite. 

“If that was my intention, I would have simply cut you all down the moment we arrived,” the viltrumite responds. 

“Tch, as if you could,” the villain mutters. 

“... Might’ve been your best move honestly,” the regretter mumbles. 

“Hey- hey. We can’t talk like that,” the emoter insists, holding his hands up as he looks around the group. “For better or for worse, we can’t turn on people like that. We’re in this together- at least until we get back to our homes, you know?” 

The begrudging silence amongst the group is enough to confirm that whilst the emoter’s presence might not be appreciated, his thoughts were mutual. The viltrumite nods, his eyes locking with the pretender for a moment before looking around the circle. 

“Correct. Which is why when I tell you that this planet is dead, I assure you that it is very much dead.” 

“... So… What’re we going to eat?” the emoter croaks nervously. 

The villain's face cracks open with a dastardly grin as he unfolds his arms. 

“Eachother.” 

Silence descends once more and each of the others pay the villain a rather disturbed expression, regardless of masks or lenses that obscured the looks, they all conveyed a certain level of unease. The villain seeing this suddenly shoots glances between all of them before thrusting his arms up in the air. 

“W-what? Are you serious? I was joking! God I fucking hate you guys,” the villain growls, scowling as he looks away. “As if any of us would ever do that.” 

… 

“... I have,” the prisoner mutters. 

“WHAT?!” the villain yells. 

“You’re not joking, are you?” the pretender asks, his voice just as gruff and mature despite the topic. 

The prisoner shuffles in place slightly, the warm sand beneath his feet and under his toes offering more comfort to him than he’d received in years. 

“Viltrumite prisons are shitty,” he pants, his lenses staring daggers into the viltrumite himself. “ Real shitty. ”

Even the agitator himself looked a little disgusted, something that took the unhinged gleam out of his eyes for once. There’s another beat of silence before the emoter asks the seemingly inevitable question. 

“W-why?” they say quietly. 

The prisoner clicks his neck as he tilts his head to the side. 

“I had no choice,” he says, looking to the same blue sky above as he grumbles to himself. “Which means I know when one of you viltrums is hedging around something, so get to the damn point already.”

The viltrumite stays silent for a moment, letting his gaze remain on the prisoner, his eyes scanning up and down for a moment before he clasps his hands together in front of his person. 

“We need to find a hospitable world. It’s a different dimension, but it’s still a universe. Albeit with far less stars in the sky than there should be,” the viltrumite summarises. “As such we’ll need to survey the neighbouring planets and stars. I was going to propose we’d venture in shifts-”

“Next time just lead with that… and for the record? I’m not going because you told me, I’m going because I’m hungry,” the prisoner growls as he starts to float upwards. 

“Whatever you say baldy,” the enslaver chuckles as he suddenly jolts upwards into the sky, making it so that he looks down on each of these inferior versions of the image he worked so hard to build up. Though instead of them looking up at him in fear or respect, the agitator simply cackles. 

“Baldy? Pfft- HA! Good one there shoulder pads-” 

“Like I need validation from you,” the enslaver hisses back. “Or any of you for that matter! I’ll find a damn planet with whatever we need on it and I’ll make sure the people living there know exactly who to bow to… Me. ” 

With that he soars into the sky and towards the deep blue above, his hands in front of him as he cuts through the air like a knife, flying higher and higher into the sky until he and the prisoner who followed him up into the heavens of this unknown until they were simply two specks flying out of view of the remaining six on the ground. 

“... Not to be negative but um… d-do they know where they’re going?” the emoter asks. 

The villain folds his arms, starting to walk away from them. 

“If we’re lucky… nah.” 

“... As if I’d ever validate that asshole. Oh look at me I have viltrumite shoulder pads - get fucked ,” the agitator grumbles as he too starts to stomp away in a bit of a huff. 

The regretter and the emoter simply keep their eyes trained on the skyline over their heads, whilst the pretender and the viltrumite both find their gazes cast to one another. Even though the relationships between each of these variants was strained and complicated at best… between these two, there was a seed of understanding and respect starting to bloom. 

—--------------------

Seconds, minutes, hours, days. The flow of time was sometimes as hard to tell as it was as easy. In the eerily chilly vacuum of space, the pretender and the enslaver had been flying through the void.

Compared to the universe they came from and the one they had inhabited only days prior, it was quiet. The number of stars and lights all around them weren’t rare, but they were much more spaced out, the universe around them appearing much more empty and vacant. The same could be said for the three planets they had found on their way off of that dusty rock they arrived on. One was a planet of nothing but fire, ash, lava and smoke; another was a world that was nearly identical to the one they appeared on. 

The third one? One that had no atmosphere. Something that was somehow less useful to them than a planet full of sand and debris. 

The prisoner all the while was forced to follow the lead and whims of the enslaver. The latter was faster, more refined- he was rusty, given how he’d not been able to use his body like this in so long, he had no choice. Forced to follow this sympathizer from planet to planet like a stray dog. It made his already uneasy and empty stomach feel all the more pained. The thought of ripping him apart starts to cascade through his mind in the silence of space, his own inner voice subtly whispering to him to tear off those patches of his. 

To tear that smirk off of his. 

To tear off every limb he had for the way he spoke to him-

There’s a barely audible boom just ahead of him, as he zones back into the universe around him, his eyes beneath the lenses widen at the sight. Floating there in the vacuum of this once presumed ‘dead’ universe, there was a planet. One shrouded in green and blue. He feels his organs start to tick over, the thought of food- actual food almost made his fragile body convulse with joy. He propels himself as fast as he can, not having enough to catch the enslaver, nowhere enough. But the pair sway in and out of the asteroids in their path and feel the scorch as they tumble through this planet’s atmosphere. 

The pair of them taking a sharp gasp of air as they start to look around; the enslaver of whom chuckling to himself as he looks down below them, seeing what looked like a never ending canvas of greens, yellows and blues. 

“Hah… HAHA! It’s just like that planet we raided for that douchebag Angstrom… only no pathetic humans anywhere in sight. C’mon,” he chuckles, nose diving towards the surface as fast as he can.

The prisoner only hangs in the air though, looking around at the sights below him. The beauty, the colours, the nature… He’d not had the chance to appreciate something like this in a long long time. No cells. No torture chambers or fighting pits. No cities on fire or boulevards of bodies. Just peace. 

He slowly flies down, his eyes looking all around in wonderment. Of course the loud slam below him attracts his attention, the sight of a few trees being toppled over from the presumed source made his neutral expression turn ever so slightly frustrated as he finally hovers down to ground level. He looks below the overgrown grass and soil beneath him as he feels his feet touch down on it. 

It was warm. Not warm like the sand, a different kind of warm. One that made him feel a small flicker of emotions and memories he’d not felt in years. 

“What a mess, no doubt there’s all kinds of disgusting organisms out here,” the enslaver mutters. 

The pretender however took no notice, starting to slowly pace around this enclosed yet open forested ground. Though his eyes lock onto something that makes his mouth start to drool, he bounds towards the bush in particular, the sizeable yellow jewels growing from it almost making him croak in excitement. He immediately snaps one off of the bush, squeezing it in his hands before holding it up to his mouth and nose. 

The smell he takes is one of freshness and sweetness. Now he could definitely feel his mouth leaking saliva, he goes to tear into it with delight, only to feel a forcible yank rip it out of his hands and hear a satisfying crunch next to him. His lensed eyes turn to see the enslaver tucking into the yellow fruit, the juices of it messily dripping down his masked chin. 

“Oh my god… Fuck! I know what this is! I have a planet like this in my empire… haha… The inhabitants are scumbags but they could always grow some good shit,” the enslaver chortles. Small chunks of the fruit ejecting from his mouth and sprinkling onto the floor as he spoke. 

The prisoner turned away in disgust, going to reach for another fruit, one that he could call his own. One that could finally reignite his senses- though a gloved hand grasps his wrist. 

“Hey… what if… we just stayed here? We’ve got all the food. Those assholes will just assume we got killed or lost, by the time they find this place we’ll be back to our peaks and they’ll be on their last legs. They’d have to listen to me. Pray that I’d let ‘em eat my food. Hah. Good plan, huh?” the enslaver chuckles, his grin looking all the more predatory. 

“Like I care what you do-” 

“That’s a moronic plan and you know it.” 

The prisoner and the enslaver both cast their eyes upwards, both to be met against the backdrop of the green atmosphere above their heads was the pretender. His red cape fluttered in the refreshing breeze. The enslaver tossed the partially eaten fruit over his shoulder and into the treeline behind him.

“Why are you here?” he calls. 

The pretender floated down, his red boots lightly crunching the ground at his feet as he kept his distance. 

“I suggested that the pair of you would need someone keeping tabs, in case you got lost. Fortunate, wouldn’t you say, Mark?” he asks monotonously, his gaze drilling into the enslaver. 

“Don’t call me that,” the enslaver hisses. “I’m-” 

“A child,” the pretender cuts in. “Wishing to hoard food, to abandon your allies for a sense of power and authority? You never grew up, did you?” 

The enslaver looks down at the ground, between the overgrown blades of grass, all the while the prisoner watches on, cradling a yellow fruit in his hands. The former however starts to crouch down, reaching towards his boot. 

“... You’re talking a big game for someone dressed like a man I killed,” the enslaver growls. He fiddles in the grass for a moment, almost rather obviously as he looks up again. “How ‘bout I fucking educate you!” 

In the blink of an eye, he hurls dust towards the pretender and pounces forwards through the shroud of dirt he erected, seeing the red and white through it, he begins hurling blow after blow towards the body of the pretender. The vibrations running through his knuckles and wrists with every connection and the shockwaves of each acting almost like an intense breeze, rustling the fauna and nature around them harshly. The enslaver however doesn’t care, he simply laughs maniacally as he thinks just how much this smug version of himself must be in pain, how much he must be-

“Enough.” 

He feels two tight compressions snag each of his wrists and hold them firmly in place, he gasps out as his laugh is brought to a screeching halt and the pretender reemerges with the dusty shroud fading. He’s yanked closer, completely powerless to stop it. 

“Two points. First: someone like you could never kill someone like him, so don’t spread defamation about dad like that again. Second: swearing doesn’t enhance your arguments,” the pretender speaks. He clenched the wrists just tight enough to elicit a croak from the enslaver. “Oh. One more thing too.” 

The enslaver can’t even get a response out as he feels a boot kick up into his gut, launching him into the sky hard and fast. He tries to get his flying under control, to get some kind of balance in the air, but before he can even attempt to, the blur of red and white is on him again, this time a devastating blow into his head that causes the air to whistle by him. This time his ears were ringing and his vision was blurry as he felt his descent suddenly halted by the side of some kind of cliff. He falls limply to the grass at the bottom of it, his hands gripping at the dirt as he feels himself wretch and throw up the fruit he just consumed. 

“As I said… that other thing, if you’re finished making a fool of yourself.” 

The enslaver’s lensed eyes look up to see the pretender hovering there once more, very much in his shadow in more ways than one. He grits his teeth as he feels his humiliation grow by the second. Laying in a pile of his own stomach lining, his head ringing, his vision stinging… This wasn’t where he belonged. He was supposed to be invincible!

“If the thought of betraying us crosses your mind one more time… I assure you, I’ll make sure it's slow and I’ll make sure it’s painful. I’ll be back with the others soon.” 

With that, the pretender explodes back into the green sky above, leaving the enslaver discretely gasping for air as he attempts to regain control over a body that had just been disrupted so effortlessly. 

All the while, the prisoner was floating, still cradling the yellow fruit in his hands, albeit with a very large bite chunk out of it and the juices dripping down his chin with a smile on his face. 

The sound, the smell, the sight. 

Of course he’d yearned for a real meal… but experiencing a viltrumite being humiliated? That was something he’d burn down worlds to see… even if the one doing it was dressed like the man he hated most of all. 

Chapter Text

The sky was green. 

Tap. 

He liked the colour green.

Tap.

He liked simple moments like this.

Tap.

It made him feel less alone. It made him feel less like… well, he knew the name he chose. Through one thing and another, he’d had it yelled at him or he yelled it himself enough times. 

Tap. 

He liked being with people. Even if inside his first instinct was to hide away from them, to keep his distance, to not let them in too close or to see his feelings. Despite wearing a mask on his face, it was hard to hide emotion when he wore his heart on his sleeve. 

Tap. 

“H-hey, it’s okay if you don’t want to play, you know? If chequers isn't really your thing don’t force yourself-” the emoter begins to ramble, looking at the tapping finger of his opponent. 

“... I mean I don’t mind it. I’ve just never played this before- or any game like this,” the regretter mumbles, once again tapping the small counter he held in his fingers against the impromptu board they were playing on. 

“Oh! Okay! Sure! Take your time then, don’t let me interfere!” the emoter backtracks, sitting cross legged in front of the board that sat between them on the floor. 

“Got it… got it.” 

He hadn’t been in proximity to someone like this for so long in a long time. Too long. He missed it- no! No. He couldn’t miss it. He shouldn’t miss it. 

Tap.

He wouldn’t let himself be vulnerable like that. Not again.

Tap.

He couldn’t let people in that close. Not again. 

Tap. 

He had to be strong. 

Tap. 

He needed to be unfeeling, cold, distant.

Tap. 

Above all else, he had to be- 

“There… I think that’s okay with the rules you said about,” the regretter says quietly, placing his bodged counter into one of the squares with one final tap. 

The emoter looks down at the board, seeing how the regretter’s pieces were all lined up… He started to feel bad as he picked up one of his own counters. 

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. 

“... sorry,” the emoter says just as quietly, gently nudging all of the regretters counters off of the board. 

The regretter looks blankly down at his now vacant side of the board before rubbing the side of his head. He sighs for a moment before lightly slapping himself on the cheek and sitting up straight again once more. 

“I’d like to try again,” he replies. 

The emoter frantically nods, returning all of the counters he’d taken from him. Rearranging his own on his side of the board. 

“Alright! It really grows on you, huh? Mom taught me how to play this and she’d always give me a game,” the emoter replies, quickly reorganising the board. 

“Which is why the first thing you did was tear apart a tree for the board and eat two dozen of those oversized nuts to make into counters?” the regretter asks softly. 

The emoter readjusts his mask and awkwardly shuffles on the ground.

“I mean it wasn’t the first thing I did… haha…” 

Technically he’d spent a lot of time overthinking. Every single conversation, thought, action. The ones that he’d given himself in the past few days, the ones in the past few weeks, months, years… He spent more time in his own head than he did in his own life. 

He stares blankly down at the board, the colours diluted by the lenses on his mask. It was better that way, things weren’t as imposing or bright. He didn’t need that much colour. Not that he had a problem with his company not having a mask at all or anything- 

“You’re not like the other ones here, are you?” the regretter asks. 

It’s enough to snap him out of his self induced trance.

“What’s that?” the emoter blurts out. 

The regretter holds one of the shells in his hand, gently rolling it on his palm with his fingers. 

“You don’t stand around or give orders or… well… act like a dick,” the maskless individual insists as looks down at the shell. “You talk openly, you make things… you talk to me.” 

The emoter adjusts his mask as he hears the reasoning. They made him feel weird inside, ways he hadn’t felt in a while began to clash with things he’d been made to feel in the here and now. As always a war started to rage inside him as he waves his gloved hand dismissively as he looks away.

“It’s not much, really, it isn’t all that much.” 

“... it is to me..?” 

The emoter meets the gaze of the regretter, the pair staying silent for a moment as a gentle breeze brushes over the pair of them. The regretter breaks the silence with a subtle clearing of his throat as he looks up at the green sky over their heads. 

“Makes me wonder why you even went along with that Angstrom guy at all-” 

“I have my reasons,” the emoter bluntly interrupts. Not daring to let this individual get too close to those parts of him. Not yet. Not ever. No one could ever. “Like I’m guessing you do too, right?”

The regretter keeps his eyes fixed on the green above their heads. Not deviating from it for a moment as he sighs out slightly. 

“William.” 

“As in… William Clockwell?” 

“I- …” he sighs, puffing his cheeks out. He gazes back down towards the emoter and runs a glove over his head. The dried blood on it clashed with the darkness of his hair. “Where I came from; mom left so it was only dad. He wasn’t great. Too obsessed with the whole viltrum empire or whatever.” 

The emoter nods, gently knocking one of his shells against the board. 

Tap. Tap. Tap. 

“He got intense at times. Putting it all on me… So… I hung out with William more and more. After school, on weekends… whenever really.” 

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Sounds like he was a good friend to you.” 

“He wasn’t a friend.” 

The emoter tilts his head. The tapping stopped. 

“... He was… so much more than a friend,” the regretter whispers, leaning his head into his hand as he discretely consoles himself. He sighs again before meeting his gaze once more. “He made everything bearable, everything .” 

“... So, what did you do?” the emoter asks. 

The regretter sighs, rubbing his temple. 

“I… I didn’t want to be the weapon my dad wanted. I was going to move away, far away where he wouldn’t find me. Even if I lived for a million years… I’d still get to live out some of that with the only person who made life worth living,” he gulps. His voice getting quieter, almost a whisper. “I… went to talk to Eve. To see if she could hide us but… at the same time, William went to my house to wait for me.” 

The eyes of the regretter for a moment turn distant, wistful. The shell he held in the hand not rubbing the side of his head was encapsulated by his grip. 

“I got home. Dad was sitting waiting for me in his suit. His gloves were stained red,” the regretter admits. “He told me… attachments to a civilization like this was beneath us. That… I should be thankful he did what he did… All the while I just stared at what was left of- o-of the person I loved and… and I felt every part of me drain away.” 

The emoter keeps his attention solely fixed on the alternate version of himself, though he could see that the regretter himself’s attention wasn’t there. He could tell that their attention was probably not even in this dimension, but the one he left behind. 

“... I-I’m so sorry-” 

“Don’t be. Yell at me.” 

The emoter puts the counter down. 

“... Yell at you?” 

The regretter’s eyes looked glossy, as if one more lingering thought on the moment he’d just spoken into the world could make it all come tumbling out.

“Yell at me. Hit me. Kill me-”

“H-hey, no-” 

“Do it. Do it, I deserve it.” 

The emoter gets up.

“Stop-” 

“He died because of me-”

“Stop!-”

“They all died because of me. I stood by and let it happen, I need to die, I want to die, I should-”

WHAM. 

“I SAID STOP! PLEASE!” the emoter cries, their own voice quaky. His clenched fist trembling as he looks down at it, then looking to the regretter who had a small line of blood running down from one of his nostrils. He immediately unclenches his hand and starts to gently use his thumb to wipe it away. “Agh, no no. Crap. Shit, sorry. Sorry! I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.” 

The regretter sits there, not shying away from the touch, nor looking as if they were a dimension away and ensnared by grief or guilt. 

“... I needed to tell you. To tell all of you,” he mutters. His eyes simply met the lenses that showed a glimpse of his own reflection. “I want to be judged. To be mocked… It’s all I deserve.” 

The emoter stays quiet. This time offering no words of reassurance or comfort as he had done before. He just stayed silent. 

It was too close to home. 

Far too close.

This pain, those thoughts. 

He wasn’t alone… yet that made him feel more alone than before. 

To hear someone voice that darkness. That never ending pain. That was his pain… yet in an infinite multiverse… nothing was his. Not really. 

He didn’t strike him to stop the regretter’s own grief or spiral. He wasn’t that noble, he wasn’t a hero. He did it for his own sanity, for mercy. He was a powder keg waiting to ignite, the one with the mohawk had pushed him close, now this individual had pushed him even closer… 

What would happen if he did just say why he was there? Why all he wanted out of a multiversal conquest, he simply wanted his mother back? … Maybe it’d help. 

Maybe it’d be nice… 

“... You can… stop wiping the blood now,” the regretter mutters. 

“Oh! Sorry about that!” the emoter blurts out, shuffling backwards. He holds his hands up again as a sign of peace, immediately casting aside those thoughts. “Listen, I really didn’t mean to hit you-” 

“It’s okay. Like I said… I deserve that but- … sorry if I upset you.”

… no. He wouldn’t let them in. Not like that… He’d just get hurt again. 

“Upset me? Why would you think that would have upset me? I’m fine, all fine. Don’t worry about it, let’s just play the game,” the emoter rambles, picking up a few of the shells that had been misplaced as a result of the small altercation. 

His own feelings didn’t matter, he just had to bury them. Bury them like always, as best as he could. They couldn’t know the reasons, the why’s and when’s. Not this one or any of them… He couldn’t get hurt. Not again. Not ever. 

“... thank you for inviting me to play this with you,” the regretter offers quietly. 

“... It’s okay…” the emoter quietly responds. 

“... Look, I-”

“Bahhh… god. You two are like an old married couple!” 

They both look up, each of their individual forms tensing internally as the source of the voice comes into view, sauntering over to them with a swagger and smugness, running a gloved hand through their mohawk. The mask did well to cover the rather obvious frown that consumed the face of the emoter as the agitator headed over. 

“Always something with the pair of ya, huh? Sheesh,” the agitator chuckles, looking down at the board and humming in surprise. “Oh nice, you found more of these.” 

He takes one of the shells from the board and flicks it into his mouth as a few satisfying crunches fill the air as he starts to strut around the vacant grass beside them. 

“... You’re not supposed to eat the shells,” the regretter mutters. 

“You’re not supposed to be a whiny bitch,” the agitator immediately claps back, small fragments of shell shooting out of his mouth as he talks. “Guess we’re both disappointments, huh?” 

The emoter adjusts the mask on his face as he follows the path of the agitator. 

“Why are you here anyway? Everything okay?” he asks, his voice doing rather well to mask the frustration that had started to associate itself with the sight of this particular variation of himself. 

“Bored! Bored, bored and fucking bored,” they ramble, putting their boot through a particular rock that lets off a small shockwave as the shattered shingle then cascades into the air and out of sight. “The asshole is off stomping around on his own with baldy following him, the cosplayer is napping or something stupid, tighty-whitey is… somewhere? I don’t fucking know- oh and the flying banana is-”

WHOOOSH!

There’s a sudden fierce gust of air, crashes against the three of them, the impromptu chequers board going flying along with the shells that sat atop it as a yellow and black bolt darts over their heads and into the distance in a matter of seconds. 

“FLYING LIKE HE OWNS THE PLACE! God I hate that douchebag, I wanna strangle him with that stupid tacky cape of his!” the agitator yells at the now distant yellow spot on the horizon, shaking his fist almost comically so. 

The emoter sighs, seeing that his game was now scattered probably over a whole kilometer, he pulls himself to his feet and stretches out.

“Based on how he acts… he’d probably hurt you if he heard you saying that-” 

“Pfft… Yeah! But then if he does, that means I win cause he reacted.” 

The emoter and the regretter, who was now also on his feet, slowly look to one another before turning their attention back to the rather unhinged grin on their mohawked equivalent’s face. 

“... Are you in your right mind?” the regretter inquires. 

Only for a snort from the one he addressed as he starts to pick at his teeth. 

“Says the one who’s taking the spotlight for a murder he didn’t even do?” 

The regretter’s face immediately turns distant, vacant; as if they’d fallen into a trance that they dreaded of falling into. The agitator meanwhile holds his hands up to the sides of his head in faux shock as his voice takes on a rather condescending horror. 

“Oh no! Daddy took my pookie away! … God, get a grip,” the agitator growls before that smug expression returns to his face once more and he waves his hands dismissively, almost as if he was talking about the most light hearted thing in the world. “Listen to yourself talk; he killed him, not you. Besides, what about all the others ya killed in our little party on that other earth? Not enough room in that head of yours for more victims?” 

The emoter steps forward, standing between the pair of them with his arms folded. 

“Don’t talk like that.”

The agitator immediately whistles, a fire shooting off from his eyes at the defiance. 

“Aha… Well now. What are you gonna do about it, mask?” they say quietly, walking forward, teetering on the edge of their personal space. “Because the last time we three amigo’s had the spotlight, you were bleeding and crying… and yelling… and swearing.” 

The emoter this time… stays quiet. The only thing in flux was the rise and fall of his chest as he started into his own deranged gaze being worn by another version of himself. The agitator however steps over the boundary of the personal space, leaning in and poking him in the chest.

“... You want me to push you. Dontcha? You wanna cave my skull in? Rip me in half? … Give it a try, you might even like it,” the agitator smirks, prodding him intermittently as if to reinforce the point. 

The emoter however simply stares back. No words. No gestures or movements. 

The agitator stares for a moment longer, looking between the individual lenses as the smirk starts to disappear, being replaced by a rather unamused frown. It’s a moment later before he groans and turns away, throwing his hands up in the air. 

“Ugh! Like tryna rile up a pile of rubble… To hell with this, I’m gonna fly around and punch the shit out of some asteroids,” they say as they float into the air, clicking their neck. 

“You’ll get lost if you go too far,” the regretter mumbles. 

“Nah, I’m not stupid… Unlucky for you two… feel like you’d both jump for joy if I never came back… specially you, Mask.” 

The agitator smirks as he looks between the two once more, before then taking off with a boom and soaring into the sky, heading for the edge of the planet. All the while the pair on the ground simply look up until the blue and black speck blends into the green skies above their heads and disappears from sight. 

“I swear… I- … I-I’m… gonna end him. He’s gonna die by my hand,” the emoter growls, his fists trembling as they clench. 

The regretter nods ever so slightly before their tense shoulders loosen and they look around the grassy plain around them. He rubs the back of his head before starting to pace in one specific direction. 

“I’ll go see if I can find the board,” he offers. 

In one moment, the emoter’s fists clenched tighter, only for them to loosen and open up once more as he let out a sigh. 

It was strange to him. For someone to be doing something for him, to let someone actually do something for him, even if it was something as small as going to find one of his possessions. 

It wasn’t something he should let happen. 

He was invincible after all, he didn’t need that kind of help. He couldn’t accept that kind of help.

Even so…

“Thanks,” the emoter calls. 

It made that cold unfeeling vacuum inside him feel something strange, something he’d not felt in a very long time. 

God how he missed that feeling.

—------------------------

“I feel that we should start to scout out nearby planets and systems… If we can begin to map out the surrounding area, we can maybe find a hospitable world with a decently advanced civilization,” the viltrumite explains. 

It was night, the air was cool and the green in the sky had been replaced by the blanket of darkness and the stars in the sky. Even so, for two of the more mature members of this hastily assembled herd of invincibles, it was time to discuss and prepare. They stood on a raised cliff, a few torches placed around them to light their nearby surroundings as they exist. 

“I agree… Though knowing some of them, they’d probably get lost and wouldn’t make it back,” the pretender replies, his arms folded as he gestures to the expanse of woodland below them. “There’s a sort of social order here, but if we were to remove ourselves to look around…”

“Then, yes, it’s quite likely that an incident would probably befall the rest here whilst we’re gone,” the viltrumite adds, his hands clasped in front of his uniform as he turns around and looks up at the stars from another angle. “This universe is too different to the ones we came from… not nearly enough stars or planets. It’s odd.” 

“... What if there… isn’t anyone out there?” the pretender puts forward, turning around to look at the viltrumite who looked up at the stars. “Sure it was in the heat of the moment, but chances are that Angstrom probably had no intention of sending us somewhere we can get out of.” 

The vilrumite looks over his shoulder, casting his cool and unfazed expression back to his fellow variant. 

“Was there a Savage Planet in your universe? Or was yours unburdened by one?” he asks. 

The pretender thinks for a moment. 

“Yeah, there was. Dad spoke about it from time to time,” the pretender answers, his hands subconsciously fiddling with his cape. “Went there myself a couple times too… Nasty place.” 

The viltrumite nods subtly. 

“Viltrumite training in my universe demands that each warrior when they take the oath be sent to the Savage Planet. Their only way off is to grow strong enough to escape the gravitational pull… My point being, it’s an adverse situation which they don’t expect many to escape from. Fortunately we aren’t many, we’re the few. It’s not exactly harmonious but… we’re a unit of eight powerful individuals. If there is a way home in this dying universe, we’re strong enough to get there.” 

The pretender can’t help but feel a small smile creep across his face. 

“Yeah… yeah you’re right…” he answers, a small pause halting him before he sighs. “You sound a lot like him, ya know?”

The viltrumite exhales from his nose before turning his gaze away and looking back up at the stars. 

“It might surprise you but… I’m not all too familiar with what he does sound like, if you’re referring to dad, that is.” 

“... Huh? What do you mean-”

“YO! Cosplayer! Tighty whitey!” 

The viltrumite and the pretender both immediately turn around to the sound of their own voice from another source, though the sight they’re met with is enough to disrupt their usual nonchalant and powerful expressions and mannerisms. 

It was the agitator, because of course it was. Though above his head, he held a kind of giant orb with one hand, on each of the sides of this orb were sorts of panels that looked damaged and malformed. All along the rather sizable structure, a lot more sizable than the agitator, there were blinking lights and carefully crafted panels. There were even multiple thrusters on it. 

Despite their missions and their circumstances and all of the other inputs on their vastly differing lives as the same person. 

In this moment, there was one unmistakable truth. 

“... Looky what I found.” 

That was a fucking satellite… 

And it was operational. 

Chapter Text

“So, as you might have figured, we have a choice,” the viltrumite explains, looking around to the other seven versions of himself. Each of them acknowledging the current situation at hand in their own unique way. “Thanks to the discovery of this device-” 

“By ME!” the agitator immediately chimes in, knocking his boot with a metallic clunk against the satellite in the middle of the circle. “Me, I did it. Me! I found it, I shredded it, I bwought it here out of the goodness of my wittle heart! ME! … You’re welcome.” 

The group stays quiet in the wake of that small outburst for a moment before the viltrumite clears his throat. 

“As I was saying… With the discovery of this device, we now know that somewhere out there is some kind of civilization. At least with enough intelligence to get something like this into space. So it does present us with an option. One that I feel we’d be fools not to take.” 

There’s a few affirming nods and noises around the group before a trademark groan sounds out. 

“Hey, genius. Finding a hunk of junk like this is great and all… but what good is it if we don’t know where it came from?” the villain scoffs, knocking his boot against the ruined satellite. “Who do we even know that could make something like this?” 

The agitator patronisingly raises his hand to talk with mock enthusiasm before folding his arms and smirking. 

“Well you see, flying banana, on the side of it… that happens to be face down, fuck sake,” he grumbles as he rolls it over onto the right dimension and a green light blinks on it. “That light there? It blinked less and less as I flew further away from where I found it-” 

The enslaver scoffs, putting his hands on hips, swiftly kicking at the downed surveillance device. 

“What does that matter? Everything had blinking lights back in my empire, that’s how we see things far away you stupid fuck,” he growls. 

The pretender meanwhile sighs quietly, pinching the bridge of his nose as he carefully moves the downed satellite out of the kicking range of the more impulsive members of their group. 

“It means its signal is getting weaker… And don’t swear when we’re trying to make decisions. It’s unprofessional,” the mature variant states. 

The agitator waves his hands dismissively at his two interruptions before clapping them together. That smirk that had been plastered to his face for the entirety of the meeting only getting wider as he turned back to the target of his pride. 

“Which means if we go further back that way… We can find where it came from… Eh?” he gestures. 

The villain meanwhile simply keeps his arms folded and stares daggers at the agitator. 

“How about I tear one of your legs off?” 

The enslaver and the prisoner both chuckle at the threat and perhaps potential promise of the variant draped in yellow and black before the viltrumite is the one to break it up. 

“You,” he points to the villain as he continues. “It’d be good if you could get some kind of bearing for us as to which direction we should head.” 

The villain’s reserved and uncaring appearance quickly evaporated, his folded arms immediately taking action, one falling to his side and the other clenching into a fist that he holds in front of him. 

“I told you not to give me orders-” 

“I didn’t order you,” the viltrumite responds calmly. “I said it would be good if you could pitch in like the rest of us have been doing for our mutual goal.” 

“He’s right, Mark,” the pretender adds, the attention of the villain falling to him. “Everyone here has had some kind of positive contribution towards that, say for you.” 

“These two discovered this planet,” the viltrumite gestured to the enslaver and the prisoner, then turning his attention to the emoter and the regretter. “Those two found us the most hospitable area on this planet-” 

“I found the satellite!” the agitator chimes in. 

“The point is… I think it’d be best for the rest of us if you did something to help reaffirm our trust in your commitment to this mission.” 

“Fuck you!” the villain grimaces, brandishing his teeth with an unsightly frown. “I’ve done plenty! … Besides, the fact I’ve not killed all of you assholes should be reaffirming enough.” 

An uneasy silence descends on the group, a few of them looking at one another in unease, the viltrumite and the pretender staring at the villain with an unyielding look on each of their faces. The villain seeing this starts to smirk as he clenches his free hand into a fist too. 

“Oh… Are you two volunteering?” he chuckles. 

“Don’t be stupid. You know this’d be a death sentence for you,” the pretender frowns as he too gets into a fighting stance. 

The villain’s face almost cracks open with a delighted and unhinged grin, a sudden gust of wind causing the capes and various effects of the group of variants to flutter in the wind. 

“Really? … The last time I fought against someone wearing an outfit like that… I tore them limb from limb.” 

The pretender’s teeth grit together as he hunkers down lower, his senses all zeroing in around that of the villain. 

“Consider your next words carefully.” 

“You really want those to be your last words? Better than what our old man came out with I guess-” 

“Enough, both of you.” 

The viltrumite comes between the pair of them, giving each of them a look out of the corner of his eye; the pretender immediately takes a breath and stands upright again. The villain however groans, his body still incredibly telling that he was itching for a fight.

“You always go and ruin the fun, don’t you, nark?” the villain grumbles. 

“When it is in the best interest of our continued survival? Label it what you want,” he states, an inkling of impatience starting to leak into his voice. “Final time of asking, will you do this or won’t you?”

The villain’s attention starts to turn to those spectating their confrontation, his own eyes looking at him with contrasting expressions. Some showcasing surprise, others displaying curiosity; but in his mind he could all tell that every single glance had the same underlying connotation to it. Whether it be the faint glances he could catch through the lenses, the way their mouths were positioned or that a couple of them had even stepped ever so slightly closer to the scene that could be about to play out. 

They didn’t take him seriously. They thought he was weak. 

HIM. OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE MULTIVERSE! 

“Pretty sure cosplayer could hang you like laundry there, banana,” the agitator smirks. 

“We don’t need to escalate this, right? C’mon man, I’ll even go along with you if you want. Nobody needs to get hurt,” the emoter pitches in. 

“What’s it gonna be, huh?” the enslaver sneers. 

The villain darts his gaze around at all of them, gritting his teeth as he feels his breath start to get more and more out of control. His self-control wasn’t too far behind either, anymore wrong words or acts and it was about to get a hell of a lot bloodier on this planet. 

Yet, he couldn’t even do that. Not yet. Until he was sure that he had way out of this shithole of a universe, the others had to stick around; even if the most they’d end up amounting to was glorified cannon fodder for his plans. 

He snarls and lets out a frustrated grunt and forcefully grabs the downed satellite with one fist, the metal groaning and crunching under his grip. Looking around at all of them once more he stamps his boot on the ground, the earth beneath it splintering as six of them all feel themselves stumble slightly. All say for the viltrumite, who meets his angry gaze with an emotionless one in return. 

“Fuck you guys. I’ll be back, you can be damn sure of that,” the villain hisses, surging off of the ground with a sonic boom as he flies towards the stars. 

He feels the air around him go from a soothing warmth to then a frozen nothing as he exits out of the atmosphere and into the cold vacuum once more. He was out of sight of the others, he was damn sure of that before he even let his heart rate pick up a few extra beats, scanning in all directions with increasing urgency as he stayed perfectly still. 

He had to be sure, he had to be absolutely sure that there wasn’t anyone around. Even now, even in another corner of creation from where he originated. He had to be certain. 

The longer he floats in place, looking around this silent corner of this system, he knocks himself in the head with one of his fists, snapping himself back to his senses before lightly thrusting his arm upwards, the satellite he carried with him now floating up and into his line of sight, particularly the green blinking light. 

He immediately begins to shove it effortlessly through space in the direction he pointed in originally, starting to pick up more and more speed as he flies through space, looking over his shoulder more often than not just to be sure. Though the more he continues on this vengeful and rather cautious journey, he soon realises that the green blinking light which had taken a while to blink to start with was now taking an age between occurrences. He immediately grinds to a halt, clenching at the satellite so tightly that a few bolts and panels come loose, once again looking over his shoulder and feeling his body uneasy- 

This wasn’t him. 

This wasn’t who he was supposed to be! 

The number of people he’d killed, the number of opponents he’d defeated… He wasn’t some errand boy. He wasn’t some fucking coward! 

His head rolls back and he lets out a frustrated scream into the vacuum of space, the only place where he’d even dream of showing that kind of emotion. His head lowers, once again back to looking at the satellite. He hovers around one hundred and eighty degrees before shoving it harshly through the void. 

He looks around, noticing just how few stars there really were up here, on his last flight through space in this universe he didn’t pay any attention to that. All he did was get from the sandy shithole to the shithole with all the fruit on it. He goes to instinctively curse his frustrations and observations, though the coldness of space on his tongue quickly reminds him to get on his way. His speed increasing as he firmly grapples with the satellite once more, shoving it further and faster with every moment as the blinking green light starts to slowly pick up in appearances. 

He looks past it for a moment and sees a familiar sight, with the satellite still firmly gripped in both of his hands, he drops back into the upper atmosphere of the planet that he was now being forced to call home and takes on a fresh, deep gulp of air into his lungs before reemerging into the vacant vacuum once more and only increasing his speed further. 

Whilst the light had returned to its steady blinking that it had done so before, it hadn’t gotten any quicker, not yet. He looks over his shoulder once more before scanning briefly to his left hand side and then to his right. On his left there were a few large chunks of space junk and some kind of moon a long ways away, on his right there was nothing at all; simply the faint light of a few distant stars. In that moment, the villain makes a judgement call, trying to get inside the head of that agitating lesser version of himself and trying to think of what he’d do… Mindless destruction to amuse himself? Of course he would do that. 

He starts to bank left and the light remains at the same speed of its gradual blinks. Narrowly swerving around asteroids and other miscellaneous space junk, he looks over his shoulder once again and sure enough he’s met with the same sight that he had beholden all the times before. Just the vast lifelessness of this perplexing universe. 

It was enough to set his rambunctious heartbeat down a few notches, but it wasn’t enough to totally remove that twisting cringe that seemed ever present in his gut these days. He hated that about himself the most. This only made him push harder, fly faster through the vacuum, enough so that he’d hardly noticed that the blinking light was now starting to bleep ever so slightly more frequently than it had done before. 

‘Huh, shit. Guess this piece of junk is good for something after all.’ 

He stays on his course as his mind starts to wander off of it, not turning to the dread that plagued his being but the existence in which he now found himself. The silence of space doing well to tune out any distractions to that. The rest of them had been on his mind more and more as of late; their capabilities, their motivations, their intentions. 

‘I don’t even know why I’m fucking doing this. Seriously? I don’t owe those wannabe’s anything, not a damn thing. If they saw what happened to people who looked down on me, if that damn nark saw what I did to all of those fucking viltrumites who approached me in that damn outfit… He'd kneel at my feet, begging me. BEGGING! I swear… the second I find a sure fire way out of this hellhole, I swear I’ll-’ 

He stops, his grip on the satellite loosening as it starts to float away from him, not that it mattered. Nor did the rapidly blinking green light that now pulsed on the side of it. His eyes were simply trained on the large silver and white object not too far away. It almost looked like some kind of high tech castle more than anything, with raised towers on the four corners and a kind of central building in the middle. 

Lights blinking up and down it like a Christmas Tree. 

Judging by the size and scale and positioning of it in relation to the reasonably sized planet that happened to reside only a stone’s throw behind it… It was a space station. 

A functioning, living space station and no doubt behind that was the civilisation that owned it. 

All that hidden and pent up emotion simply oozes out of the villain after that, in the vacuum of space he begins to chuckle. Then he begins to laugh. One that even he couldn’t hear, but it was enough to psyche him up, to get all those old feelings buzzing again as he clenched both of his fists. 

‘Let’s see how weak you think I all am after this.’ 

Through the darkness he begins to emerge, slowly into the illuminated portion of space in sight of this systems’ sun. But before he can truly be illuminated by the rays of it he stops, the tips of his yellow gloved fingers starting to slowly be caressed by the distant warmth only to pull his hand back again. 

‘No… I want them all to see this. I NEED all of those deluded little bastards to see this.’ 

With that, he lets his gaze linger on the planet and the space station for a moment longer before strafing to the side and grabbing the satellite which threatened to float away out of his use and dragging it back with him in the direction he came from, moving as quickly as he can. 

—-----------------------

“Honestly… I think he might not come back?” I know that’s rather cynical of me to think but-” the emoter begins.

“He’s an asshole,” the regretter interrupts. 

The Viltrumite sighs looking between the pair of them. 

“You both make valid points, though until enough time goes by that we can assume that, we have to assume that he will return.” 

“So what if he doesn’t come back, the dude’s probably a weakling anyway!” the enslaver shouts from across the clearing, sitting atop a tree, looking down on that of the prisoner. “I think even baldy here could take him in a fight.” 

The prisoner meanwhile stays silent, growling and grumbling something under his breath as he scratches his rough and uneven fingernails- or what few remained- up and down the bark of said tree. 

The pretender meanwhile keeps his arms folded, staring off into the distance at the surrounding treelines. It was rare for him to have such a moment of peace in his life, even if this peace came from an attempted conquest and landed him trapped in another universe. 

“I can go looking for him if needed,” the pretender states, it was a quiet offer but loud enough for the right pair of ears to hear him.

“Can you trust yourself to keep your composure?” the viltrumite responds. 

“About as much as you can trust him to not be obtuse,” the pretender replies. 

“Then I’ll be the one to-” 

SLAM. 

The seven variants all turn their heads to the source of the sudden volley of sound, only to find the smouldering and sparking shell of the satellite; the rest of it now falling into a pile of wires, bolts and scrap on the ground. 

“Hey, losers.” 

They then each look up to the version of themselves raised above them all, the yellow and black contrasting with the green of the sky above as he looks down on all of them, his dangerous cape flowing behind him. The way it was supposed to be. 

“Grab your shit, take a deep breath and follow me, there’s something I want you all to watch.” 

“... Hey asshole! You broke the satellite I found!” the agitator calls back. 

No sooner than he had arrived back on the hospitable planet, the villain watched as the other seven members of the group all tore up into the sky along with him and following that, the eight invincibles left the hospitable warmth of the green planet and all cut through the darkness of space in the wake of the villain. 

Each of them giving one another certain looks or gestures, including the agitator flipping off anyone who stared at him a little too long or the enslaver scowling at each of those present in their flight without them realising. 

All the while though, the viltrumite kept his gaze fixed on the villain, thoughts and questions crossing his mind in regards to this particular variation on his own existence. To see such disregard and disorder to things… it was almost rather disappointing to him. 

The pretender also had his gaze flicking between their surroundings and the villain, also turning his gaze to that of the enslaver from time to time. In his mind there were individuals within this group who were making their true natures more and more well known; some were mature, some were fair enough and some were just… childish. 

The emoter and the regretter flew alongside one another of course, each of them taking glances behind the other to make sure that nothing untoward blindsided the other. 

The prisoner though, he can’t help but observe that of the viltrumite ahead of him, seeing that white uniform, being forced to once again have that damn uniform in his field of view… One that he wanted more than anything to tear apart and anyone who would dare stand for it. 

Though each of them are dragged out of their thoughts by the sudden halt of the villain who had led them back to the spot in which he rekindled his sick twisted sense of joy. All of them look past him to see the space station floating there and the planet that sat behind it. The viltrumite and the pretender look to one another in pleasant surprise and the villain looks back at them with a smirk and folded arms. 

‘Drink that in you stupid bastards. Now watch this-’

Before he can even move himself, both the enslaver and the agitator tear past him into the light of the solar system’s sun. The pair of them with devilish looks on their faces as they tear into full view of the space station, not looking back or having any other thought in their head other than to tear down this first line of defence.

Though the first thing they’re met with isn’t resistance or the crunch of metal under their fists… It’s a blindingly quick and sudden pain in each of their guts which causes them to reel and their swift flight turns into a rather half hearted float as they reel and clutch at their torsos. They then feel a firm grip snag at each of their costumes to hurl them back towards the rest of the group, well, all of them bar one hadn’t moved from the spot they stopped in. 

The villain now being the furthest one forward, having dealt with the two weaker versions of himself directly now floated well within view of the space station. He kept his arms folded as his cape floated limply behind him and he began to move closer towards the craft. He was still a considerable distance away, but for someone like him, it was practically a meaningless gap. 

That’s when the top of the craft began to surge with a kind of purple electricity and a sort of purple sphere started to form atop it with bolts of purple power shooting towards it from the towers surrounding it. It was an attack of pure energy that spouted off bolts and surges of the same aura that dissipated into nothing in the vacuum. 

He’d been noticed. Good. 

They were going to attack him. Great. 

All the others were hanging back. Perfect. 

He looks over his shoulder back at them before surging forward as fast as his body would allow. His fists clenched in front of himself as he scythes through the distance between him and his spectacle. 

‘Look down on me all you want. I’ll be the one looking down on your broken corpses.’ 

All of the blinking red and green lights on the side of the satellite all flash purple as the now massive ball of purple energy cannons forward from its origin point, straight towards the villain. 

He didn’t stop. He only went faster. 

In one moment he was in the cold vacuum of space, the next his senses were engulfed by this rich and strong purple energy. It was violent, it was unpredictable, it was something that could no doubt turn lesser creatures into nothing. 

But he wasn’t a lesser creature. 

He was invincible. 

He shoots out of the other side of the purple ball of power as it shatters and splinters behind him, though he doesn’t look over his shoulder this time, instead he smashes as hard as he can into the very top of the central tower, feeling the carefully designed and assembled architecture of such a weapon crumple and snap beneath his fists like twigs. 

Oh how he missed this feeling. How he longed for it. 

That’s when he upped his speed once more and went from one lone figure who emerged from the darkness of space to a black and yellow blur of death. His impacts coming thick and fast as he began slicing through parts of the station effortlessly, with an honest to god smile on his face the entire time. He corkscrews around one of the large tubes that connected one of the towers to the central structure; parts of it coming loose and flying off into the void. 

He winds his fist back. 

He ups his speed. 

He fires his forward with all his strength. 

The tower he flew towards shatters free from the rest of the station, all of the panels and metal, all of the windows shattering from the force. That’s when he sees those who reside within starting to leak out of the new openings into the vacuum. One of them floating right towards him as they clutch at their throat for a breath that won’t come, praying for warmth that won’t find them. 

All this individual is met with is the hand of the villain at their throat. 

He looks the individual up and down. Purple skin, no hair, strong build. A quick glance around him to more of the victims of his one man war confirm his suspicions. 

‘... They look like the nobody’s that guard those viltrumite prisons back in my universe.’ 

He sees the fear in the eyes of the one he held before he smirks and clenches his shut around their neck, their head snapping off in their cold and floating away, the blood all leaking out and freezing in the cold as it taps against the lenses of his costume. 

He looks back to where he assumed the others would be waiting in awe for him to continue his work, only to see that they had all moved. In fact the next thing he sees as he looks around is the viltrumite above him, swatting his hand through a radar dish of some kind and shattering it like glass. 

Their eyes meet amidst the chaos.

It’s only a moment later that the viltrumite gestures to the entrance to the station that he himself made and sees the emoter, the pretender and the prisoner all fly into it. The agitator, the regretter and the enslaver all making their way over too. 

The villain only stares at the viltrumite as he passes him by and disappears into the tunnel towards the central part of the station. Though despite all of that carnage, destruction and even fun that he just experienced… 

He found that same blood boiling feeling reenter his body and he clenched his fist to the point it practically trembled. 

A sudden but very quiet slam then cuts through the nothingness of the space around him and he quickly looks out into the void around him. He darted glances from where they came, towards the planet, in every which way he could see. Only when he was absolutely certain, did he begrudgingly follow the rest of the variants. 

That prison guarding spineless species being here was one thing but…

He couldn’t be in this universe too, could he?

Chapter Text

His gut hurt, that was the first thought. 

He wasn’t allowed to indulge in any kind of destruction like that damn banana, that was his second thought. 

He would literally rather be anywhere but here right now, that was the third and final thought that shot into his head before he arrived at the end of a very long and enclosed tunnel with what looked like blast doors blocking the path forward. 

Ahead of him were the douchebag, baldy, tighty whitey, cosplayer, crybaby and the pookie mourner. They were all so unoriginal and dull! Whether it be their uptightness, their emotionality or the fact they were just rather shitty- which was saying something coming from him- it was pretty unentertaining. At least on his earth when he conquered it there was a bit more back and forth between himself and those weaklings he killed!

Alas, here he was, floating in the enclosed vacuum with six other versions of himself waiting for… what? Judgement day? It made him wish he listened a bit more to that religious guy with the goofy looking hat whilst he was taking over the planet if that was the case. 

Nevertheless, the agitator, deliberately pushes past the emoter and the enslaver and slaps his palm against the blast doors before looking back to the others, condescendingly tapping his wrist as if there was a watch on it. His eyebrows raised as he looks between each of the others around him, only to be met with a few unamused looks and the enslaver flipping him off as he goes to push past him; though he himself is stopped and yanked back by the pretender. 

In the vacuum, he was bored. There was no noise, so he couldn’t have any fun! He runs a hand through his singular streamline of hair as finally their group is completed with the slow and rather disgruntled arrival of the banana. The banana’s rather unamused expression was evident as he looked around the others, of course this didn’t help when the agitator flipped him off with the intention of looking as smug as humanly possible. 

He was as much a fan of senseless destruction as much as the next unhinged version of himself, the sight of seeing that individual tower floating through space with all of those bottom feeding grunts clutching their throats for air? Almost made him grin at the mental image of it still in his mind, of course though the fact he took a fist in the gut for it to happen from a version of himself that looked so ridiculous practically spoiled the moment. Something he’d very keenly make the banana’s problem for as long as he could. 

The villain swats the gesture out of his face and points towards the sealed blast doors before shoving past the viltrumite and the pretender, the metal being crushed around his fingers like it was dough and he begins to pry open the doors. The calmness and quietness is immediately shattered with the immediate force of air that strikes against all of them from the pressurised insides of the space station. The one cladded in yellow immediately being painted with the red of a guard smashing against him. 

“Ugh- fuckin- Follow me idiots,” he states only just loud enough over the whoosh of air as he dives inside the opening. 

It’s no sooner than he enters that the rest of them all pile through the opening into the innards of the station, the pretender bringing up the rear and once again shifting the blast doors as more and more of the inhabitants of it crunch and smash against the metal, their broken bodies being sucked out into the vacuum of space until the variant draped in red and white pushes them shut again.

One by one, each of the invincibles take a deep and relieving breath after their long flight. The agitator immediately putting his hands on his head as he chuckles, walking around and admiring the numerous red blotches that not only stained the walls but that of his currently un-fun companions. 

“Hah! You guys should look at the walls! It’s like some kinda shitty modern art!” the agitator chuckles. 

“Have you lost all sense of reason?!” the viltrumite says rather loudly. 

The agitator snorts, going to turn around. 

“Well actually now that you mention it-” 

Only to realise that the viltrumite wasn’t actually addressing him or his comments, instead he was staring intently towards that of the villain. 

“The hell are you talking about? We needed this place dealt with-” the villain begins, only to be cut off. 

“Which is why you went after the structure and those housed on board rather than any kind of transmission devices or action points that could give us a strategic advantage?” the viltrumite scolds, his hands behind his back as he starts to pace. “We’ll have to move fast to secure this place, furthermore, we’ll need to make sure that the crew aren’t able to send some kind of distress signal to wherever their central hub happens to be… All that potential, yet you act like a child.”

The viltrumite immediately blitzes with a boom out of sight as he surges towards his destination. Seeing this, the pretender quickly hovers into the air, looking around the others as his red cape starts to sway once more, the sound of blaring alarms not doing any of the group any favours as tensions start to boil. 

“The control hub, now,” he states before surging forwards in flight towards the central command centre of the entire station. Presumably where his viltrumite ally had headed for.

Nearly immediately he’s followed by the emoter and the regretter; after a small moment of hesitation and looking around at the certain aesthetic of the station before smirking to himself, the enslaver takes a step forward as he slowly floats forward, looking over his shoulder. 

“Try and keep up baldy,” he snarls before he flies after the majority of the group. 

The prisoner’s fists clench as he obediently follows, the sound of coughing and choking rattling from his body being so violent that it even echoes over the top of the alarms as he flies away. 

All that left was the agitator who stretches out with a small grunt as he slowly paces around in a small circle. 

“Sheesh, all this shouting and yelling. You guys need to appreciate the smaller things in life… Like the fact I’ve not decided to end all your lives yet!” the agitator growls. Though before he can float into the air and potentially go exploring around this fun looking station with all of these weakling guards just waiting to be killed, he sees that one member of their group had yet to move. “Hey! Banana! Where the hell do you get off, huh?!” 

The villain however just stands there, the only movement coming from the rise and fall from his chest and the slight trembling of his fists as he stares towards one of the blank corridors that led to who knows where. The agitator however is rather unimpressed by the silence of this one, he always had plenty to say the rest of the time, he wasn’t going to be ignored by someone wearing a damn cape of all things! 

The sirens kept wailing as the agitator stomped over to the villain. 

“Don’t piss your pants cause tighty whitey yelled at you! I said-”

The sirens fall silent and he’s cut off as a fist wraps itself around his throat and lifts him up into the air, the villain had turned around in less than a blink of an eye and what’s more? He was pissed. The agitator can only let out a series of gargled chokes and splutters as he slams his fist down on the arm of the villain. He just keeps him suspended in the air by his throat though, even with a series of repeated blows and kicks from the thrashing agitator, he doesn’t budge. 

“Shut… your fucking mouth, Mohawk,” the villain growls. His voice was so quiet and full of hatred, it did something to the agitator that nobody had been able to do to him in a very long time. “If you think for ONE MOMENT … that I’m afraid of that fucking nark… I’ll tear that thought out of your skull along with the rest of your damaged brain.” 

The agitator’s hits stopped coming against the arm and yet the grip on his throat only got tighter. He had the strength to thrash wildly, to try and break free… yet that tone of voice, the presence of this reflection of himself… It made him terrified to do anything but just be a passenger in his own body. 

There’s a small ding at the end of the lobby they’d ended up in, the villain’s head turning to the direction to see a small squadron of the space station’s inhabitants emerge, all of them kitted out head to toe in what looked like very advanced and durable armour. The weapons they were equipped with were almost as big as the individuals holding them; he couldn’t even see the faces of those standing against him underneath the visored helmets. 

That annoyed him… How he loved to see the light drain from the eyes of his opponents. 

The agitator lets out another croaked noise as the villain dastardly smirks. The squadron leader calls out some kind of native order and those present immediately train their weapons on the pair of them and start to fire; but the villain wasn’t going to let the rounds from them hit him. He immediately thrusts the body of the agitator between him and the troops as the volley begins.

The agitator winces as the rather fierce heat of the individual blasts slam against his body. They didn’t hurt, nor were they leaving lasting damage- but right now, in the vice grip of this version of himself; he couldn’t do anything but bare the brunt of it.

“Hey, Mohawk!” the villain chimes with a rather unhinged looking smirk. “I’d keep your mouth shut… unless you wanna get alien blood in it.”

Before he can even comprehend it, he feels himself violently thrusted forward again, the hand still on his throat as the world around him blurs. The intensity of the volleys of energy crashing against his back increased for only a second, the next impact came from the shatter of a body and the crash of armour and equipment against his back. 

In that split second of disorientation, the grip on his throat mercifully releases and he’s able to gasp for air. Only for that same unrelenting grip to take hold of his ankle. From there, the world seems to come back into view, not that it did him much good as he’s swung around like a ragdoll by the ankle into the two squad members nearest him. His durable body bludgeoning the pair of them away into a heap on the floor; before he can even react, he almost feels his ankle snapped out of its socket as he’s violently swung in the opposite direction as he feels another series of crushes and squelches. 

Ones that he would’ve laughed at… were he not like this. 

It goes on like this for what seems like an eternity as the bellows of resistance and even the desperate defence falls silent. His body practically flailing in the air as the villain uses him as a weapon, each slam into something only getting harder. Only causing yet more sickening cracks. He’d kept his mouth shut and for good reason, the agitator’s top half was practically drenched in the blood of those who had just come to apprehend them. Mercifully, after one last smash against what remained of one of the inhabitants of the station, he’s left to dangle by the ankle. 

Being forced to look up to the gaze of the villain who looked down on him. 

“Guess you were useful for a second thing… gonna brag about this one too? Huh?” the villain mutters, his grip tightening on the ankle as he lifts him up a little higher. The pair hovering in the air. “Do yourself a favour. Shut the fuck up and stay out of my way.” 

The agitator grimaces as he feels his body wrenched once more, only this time the grip on his ankle vanishes as he skids and rolls along the floor of the station in a direction that he could only dream of guessing. As he grinds along the irritatingly smooth surface, his head pounding and the air only just getting back into his lungs after being released from that grip, the fire in his being starts to return to him. Even as he slammed through more walls and the temporary sound of screams and grunts hit his ears before a gut turning squelch silenced them, it only fuelled his fire. 

He’d punched him in the gut, choked him out, used him as a fucking weapon?! That did it! 

He instinctively crashes his fists into the surface and the whole chamber around him trembles and groans as he finally gets himself under control and is able to get somewhat of a bearing as to where he really was. It was a kind of tunnel? Not too different to the one that they’d managed to enter into the actual space station through, albeit this one was still pretty much intact. He looked up to see more explosions and chunks of the space station being torn away from the inside, presumably from those in their group. 

That could wait. Far in the distance from where he was just thrown, through all of the now ruined and destroyed walls and chambers, he could see a small blip of yellow and black. 

That fucking banana. 

He flails his arms to get the remaining blood off of his arms before wiping his face off rather absentmindedly before stomping forward, cupping his mouth. 

“HEY! ASSHOLE!” he screams. His teeth gritting and his fists clenching as he goes to take off. 

Only before he could get too far, the small yellow and black blip morphs from a blip into a person. Before he could manage one stomp more, he blinks and in that time the villain was bearing down on him, both fists stretched out in front of him and more than ready to scythe forward through anything in its path… Including him. 

He feels his stomach drop, his body tense, his eyes widen. 

This… this was fear. 

He was gonna die here. Here! In some shitty tin can in some shitty dimension… all on his own. Scared.

The agitator shuts his eyes tight, immediately raising his arms up to desperately attempt blocking the oncoming massacre. He just stands there as he feels like time around him grinds to a halt. He thinks about his life, his empire, his journey to the top… and he can’t help but feel the slightest tinge of something more on top of that as a result of all those actions. He couldn’t believe that this was going to be the last thing that crossed his mind.

There’s a sudden violent burst of air that slams against him and he cringes in place, waiting for the searing pain of what he assumed would be his body getting torn apart as he’d done to so many others… But it doesn’t come. He slowly opens his eyes again, revealing the vacant and ransacked path of destruction from where he came. The villain, nowhere to be seen.

He starts to walk forward, letting out a stress-filled chuckle with his tense body starting to unravel-

“You’re so far beneath me.” 

His body immediately tenses up again and he turns instantly to see the back of the villain, his yellow cape lifelessly hanging off of his shoulders. The agitator’s arms immediately return to their raised position in order to brace for an onslaught, but that doesn’t come either. 

“You’re not even worth finishing off, you fucking rat.” 

Those words linger in the air for a moment before the villain immediately tears off once more at high speed, leaving the agitator to stand there on his own. His breathing starting to get sporadic as the pain enters his neck, he clutches at it as he starts to splutter. He can’t help but fall to his knees as he coughs and wheezes, his eyes almost watering as they stung from the force of his neck being wrung. 

He… He was invincible! He didn’t belong on his knees! He… he was supposed- 

“Are you alright?” 

The sound of his own voice hitting his ears once more makes him grit his teeth, though the sound of it wasn’t hostile or full of evil. This one was gentle, softer… weaker. He looked up to see the emoter standing there with his arms folded. They hesitate for a moment before offering a hand down to them. 

“C’mon. Get up already, yeah?” the emoter insists in a rather monotonous voice, keeping his arm stretched out. “There’s nothing here but Jalzarian’s so-” 

The agitator swats away the hand that was offered down to him, he coughs some more, wiping his eyes with the back of his fist as he prods the chest of the emoter. 

“As if I need help from some crybaby bitch,” he growls. 

The emoter slowly retracts his hand, refolding his arm as he sighs. He looks the agitator up and down, noticing the slightly damaged outfit, the blood stains; then more attentively to the abrasion to his suit around his ankle and then the redness of his neck and the bloodshot eyes that almost looked distant. 

“... Think you could’ve used all the help you could get,” the emoter mutters. 

The agitator simply snorts, looking away as he runs a hand through his mohawk. 

“Wo ho! Look who grew a spine!” the disgruntled agitator comments sarcastically. “Fuck you, you would’ve pissed your pants in that situation.” 

The emoter’s gaze shifts downwards slightly before meeting his unsettled eyes once more. He shakes his head ever so slightly before turning away, not hovering or storming off like any of the other variants would, but instead walking down the vacant and blood stained tunnel that the villain had left in his wake. 

“We’re meeting up at the bridge… you might wanna… ya know- dry the window on that glass of yours before you show up,” he says quietly, respectfully almost. 

“Huh? The hell you mean dry myself off? It’s just blood you weak-willed sack of-” he stops as he takes a step after him. One that makes him cringe and immediately turn his attention to that part of his body. Finding it warm and damp… and not with blood. 

His bloodshot eyes widen as he looks back up to see that the emoter had vanished completely. 

“I-It was water! Water you pissant! YA FUCKING HEAR ME?!” the agitator screams after the silence. Though he does look down at it again and his face wrinkles up into that of disgust, his teeth gritting as he clutched at his head with both of his hands. “FUCK THIS PLACE!” 

No one had ever gotten to him like that before. Never… that banana was a monster. 

—---------------------

The bridge of the space station which had once stood as an organised and well orchestrated centre of activity was now silent and full of blinking lights. Broken and shattered bodies of those who inhabited it once before now littering the floor as the bloodied boots of the variants tread through it. 

“You really went off on them,” the regretter says quietly. “Did you need to use all that force for them?”

The prisoner meanwhile paces along, leaning down and crunching the neck of yet another one of the Jalzarian corpses with a devilish smirk on his face, licking his lips. 

“These spineless bastards were guards in the prison they held me in… god damn that felt good,” he sighs. His white jumpsuit stained with the blood of those who had opposed him. “Any traces of viltrum… I'll happily stamp out.”

His gaze turned to the front of the room, near a kind of command console stood the viltrumite and the pretender consoling some kind of heads up display of the planet below them, there were numerous markings and insignias across the map in front of them as they consulted it. 

“I’ll be honest, I never met this species, I can’t read this,” the pretender mutters. 

“My Jalzarian is rather broken… but it’s a map of the planet below,” the viltrumite replies quietly, gesturing to a few of the signals in particular. “This indicates their prime city, and here indicates the industrial heartland… that’s the extent of what I’m aware of.” 

From across the command room, the enslaver looks around before pacing over to the map. Having overheard their conversation, he silently looks over the map himself, taking in each and every detail; something that the other two seem to notice. 

“Does this mean anything to you?” the pretender consults, pointing to the map. 

The enslaver leans in a little closer to the map. 

“Yeah… it’s all the places that this station relays information too. Which happens to be pretty much all their crucial infrastructure… can’t believe these morons have such a basic set up- even the ones in my empire have it better developed than this,” the enslaver grunts. Pointing to a few of the symbols in particular he starts to chuckle. “That’s their power district, that’s where their military keeps its shit… then by the power that- … that’s just a garbage dump-” 

There’s a gasp that causes all of those present to turn to its source, seeing another Jalzarian, albeit heavily wounded, reaching for one of the consoles. Although it’s in a near instant that the villain grabs him by the neck and effortlessly tears the head from its body and discards both of them to the floor with a smirk. 

“I don’t even remember the name of this worthless species. All I remember about them is that it’s hilariously easy to kill them,” the villain states. Turning his attention to the viltrumite his smirk disappears. “By the way, he was reaching for something… which probably means I just kept our sacred cover, nark.” 

The viltrumite shakes his head, immediately disregarding him. 

“You cleared up your own mess, don’t sound so proud of yourself,” he says. 

“How about I-” snarls the villain as he stamps forward, only for the emoter to finally arrive at the scene, holding his hands up as he comes between the two of them. 

“S-so! What’s the plan? Are we going to use their info to find somewhere that can help us?” the emoter asks. 

“This is the only civilization we’ve found so far. I think we’d do well to go down and investigate,” the pretender joins in. “Can get a better understanding of what this universe holds… not that the Jalzarians will take too kindly to us.”

“I agree. If we all go down there, we can find out what they know and go from there. Shouldn’t be too hard,” the enslaver insists. 

There’s a silence amongst the group as they consider the options for a moment. Either head down to the planet below them, or try their luck amongst what little stars remained in the sky; as the agitator slowly treads into the room and the eyes of the room fall on him, there’s a silent understanding between each of them. 

“... We go down to the planet,” the viltrumite states. “Due to… that one’s actions, the Jalzarian’s will use their heads and consider us hostile. Therefore we’re left with the lone option of having to subjugate the planet.” 

The villain’s expression starts to get more frustrated as his fists clench so hard they shake once more. 

“Easy. You all sit here and do nothing as per usual… I’ll raze that place to the fuckin’ ground,” he spits. 

“Do that and we might as well have stayed on the planet we arrived on,” the pretender chimes in. Folding his arms as he stares down the villain. “We’ll do the smart thing. Take out their crucial infrastructure and then-” 

“Then encourage them to surrender,” the viltrumite concludes. 

A few confused looks turn to him after hearing that. The emoter being the lone individual amongst them that actually seemed to be onboard with the idea.

“... Surrender?” the enslaver asks, puzzled. 

“Why… the hell are we giving these shitstains that chance?” the agitator pants. 

The viltrumite looks between the pair of them for a moment before turning to the enslaver properly to address him. 

“Use your jalzarian, locate their capital city, their power district, their industrial hub and their largest military outpost,” he instructs. 

With that, the enslaver pushes past the pretender rather firmly and starts gesturing to the symbols on the map, one by one. 

“City. Power. Industry. Military… Me and baldy can go after the power, so leave that to us,” the enslaver states assertively, leaving little room for argument. 

The prisoner goes to argue such a fact, though quickly shuts himself down for even attempting to argue. The viltrumite looks around the room at those present before looking to the pretender. 

“Can you handle industrial?” 

“Naturally, though it’d be quicker to go offline if I brought someone with me,” the pretender replies. 

“I’ll come… I guess,” the regretter mutters. 

“Understood,” the viltrumite replies before gesturing to the emoter and the agitator. “You two, we’ll go to the capital city nullify any resistance. It’s a large one so we’ll need coverage.”

The pair of his accomplices nod, the emoter taking a step away from him in response to his request. Before the viltrumite goes on however, he sighs, turning to the villain looking him up and down for a moment before folding his arms.

“You can handle the military base. All of it. Plenty of things to destroy and kill to suit your… tendencies,” he declares. 

The villain stays quiet. 

“Whatever you say… nark.” 

“I thought I made myself clear to you about mutual respect.” 

The tension in the room starts to boil as the two of them stare one another down. The variants around them all looking between themselves and the two at the centre of the action as they waited for something to kick off, something to light the powder keg. 

“... What about the space station?” the emoter suggests, tapping his boot on the floor. 

The viltrumite holds the villain’s gaze a moment longer before turning away, pacing towards the window that looked down on the sickly bague coated planet. 

“It’s irrelevant for what we’re about to do. Move fast. When we achieve our objectives, regroup at the capital city,” he states. 

With that he thunders himself forward, shattering through the window of the bridge and causing the air to come flooding out of it, along with the numerous lifeless corpses. One by one, each of the variants choose to follow him. The pretender, the enslaver, the prisoner, regretter and the emoter all flying out after him to head down to the planet. Although the agitator is still struggling to catch his breath, still trying to steady himself, still trying to- 

“Hey, Mohawk!” the villain calls over the sound of the air whooshing out of the bridge. 

The voice dragging around the attention of the agitator who meets those emotionless, unhinged lenses once more. 

“Wanna not worry about me breaking every bone in your body for a few days?” 

…

As the six descend through the atmosphere and the clotted blood that stained their outfits is seared off by the sheer heat they endure by entering the planet. Though behind them the deafening sound of materials crunching, groaning or otherwise falling apart catches all of their attention as they see the space station of which they just conquered fall from the heavens to then crash down on the planet below. The enslaver and the prisoner can’t help but chuckle as the villain and the agitator surge forward to join their formation. Six becoming eight.

“You said it yourself, nark… It was irrelevant!” the villain snidely reminds him. 

The viltrumite however meets him with a cold and hostile expression before turning his head away and looking down at the planet below them. 

Each of the variants flew themselves forward towards the planet below as they flew in chaotic formation; draped in familiar colours and sporting unfamiliar motivations as they readied themselves for what came next in their own unique ways. 

Ironic that they presumed their means of salvation could come in a way so similar to that of the result of their damnation. 

Yet still they flew down on this unsuspecting world. 

One that could never hope to prepare for that of the invincible incursion about to devastate their planet. 

Chapter Text

As the formation splinters and each of the variants head on their own assigned objective to subjugate this world, the pretender and the regretter are the first to scythe through the clouds that hang in the beige sky as they venture to the industrial area. The regretter following in the wake of that red cape that flapped relentlessly at his back as he flew ahead of him, the red of it practically burnt into his mind, it was almost disturbing to him how the red of that costume was identical to that of the spilt blood from so many of those on the earth from his universe. 

The lives he just watched be taken, the ones he himself took. 

“You don’t talk an awful lot, do you?” 

The regretter’s snapped out of his thoughts as the pretender slows down mid-flight to fly alongside him, partially allowing him to see himself in the lenses of his outfit. 

“Huh? Oh… no, not really,” he sighs. 

The pretender looks him up and down as they fly through the air, his expression hardens up a bit, the bit that was visible through the mask on his face that is. 

“You look at me like I’m gonna hurt you,” the pretender returns, his monotonous face slowly perching into a small smile. “You don’t have to worry about that, so don’t get it twisted, got it?” 

The regretter’s face remains the same. That ever present saddened yet wistful expression that he carried with him regardless of the audience or task ahead. 

“Sure…” he mutters. 

The pretender nods, satisfied, for now at least, and he tenses his body slightly as he starts to pick up speed, pulling ahead of the regretter once more with relative ease. 

“Keep up as best you can, Mark. We get this done, we’re another step closer to getting out of this universe.” 

The regretter tensed his body and whilst the pretender does continue to pull away from him in the air as they fly through the sky, he’s able to keep within a reasonable distance of him. From what he’d learned of the other variants around him in the time he’d spent with them, one thing to him was pretty evident: a good majority were stronger than him. 

Sure he was capable and strong enough to take care of most of the threats that came after him on his own. But he never pushed himself, never exerting himself more than he absolutely needed to. It was bad enough being his father’s weapon, perhaps by keeping his level of strength fixed at a certain point, someone eventually would come along who was stronger than him. Maybe strong enough to finish him off. To make him finally pay for all of the lives he took himself, both directly and indirectly. 

There was a sense of irony in the fact that he was following a version of himself dressed as his father in an attempt to get them home. 

Sure, going home probably worked for most of them, but him? Why would he ever want to go back there? To a place he’d razed to the ground, where he’d killed friend and foe alike, where the one person in creation he loved… wasn’t there. It wasn’t like he ever intended to go home after he even achieved what that Angstrom Levy guy wanted. Yet here he was… though if the variant in the mask made it home, that was okay with him. He was kind. 

As he’s dragged out of his own thoughts by the sight of the red cape in front of him fluttering less and the person wearing it starting to slow down, he too stops in the air. His flight turning into a hover as he floats up to the now stationary pretender. He floats alongside him, seeing where he was looking, to then see the vast number of plumes of steam that were sailing into the sky in which they’d claimed dominion over. As far as the eye could see, factories, processing plants; whatever term or preference takes your fancy, it was down there. 

The Jalzarian Civilisation’s Industrial Heartland. 

It was almost mesmerising, every way you looked, monstrously tall buildings, each of them with different rugged and unflattering designs that reflected the same sickly beige that surrounded the planet. 

“Here we are. We can eliminate any chance of a counterattack or retaliation by eliminating their infrastructure,” the pretender states, folding his arms. 

The resemblance was uncanny. 

‘Get down there and flatten this sorry excuse for a civilisation, boy. It’s what you were born to do.’ 

The regretter’s chest grows tight as he looks at the pretender. 

“W-what did you say?” 

The pretender looks over at him. 

“I said, did you have a preference as to how we were going to handle this?” the pretender states. 

He was surprised hearing that more matured version of his own voice once more as opposed to the voice of dread that had entered his ears not a moment prior. He shakes his head and rubs the side of it as he looks down on the heartland. 

“Oh… n-no. Whatever you think is best,” he mutters. 

The pretender nods, looking down on the scene once more, his gloved fingers drumming on his bicep as he thinks it over. 

“Well it’d probably be best to hit them fast and hard from one direction to start with, then after that split into two separate attacks and do what we came here to do,” he states, looking over occasionally at the regretter as he talks. 

The regretter nods along, his gaze not daring to look in the direction of the pretender. Only staring off into the endless sea of industry. 

“Sounds fine…” he replies half heartedly. 

His gaze wasn’t even focused on the factories below him anymore, it wasn’t focused on anything in particular at this point. Well, anything in this universe at least. 

‘You’re a waste. Always meddling, getting in the way. Do you hear me? I can’t believe a son of mine is so pathetic.’ 

“... I know.” 

‘Listen to me. You need to get out of the way.’ 

The regretter shuts his eyes, pained for a moment before he feels himself turn towards the pretender again. 

“I’m sorry-” 

“MARK! MOVE!” 

He’s firmly shoved by the pretender before he even has any idea of what’s going on, in the split second that follows, a type of energy ball that the villain had dealt with up in space only a few moments prior slams into his counterpart and the explosion it causes is enough to send the regretter spiralling through the air in a sudden daze as his ears ring from the brunt of what was a pretty horrendous burst of force. 

As soon as he can get his bearings and he stabilises through the air, he swats at the cloud he’d happened to fall into which immediately disperses at his force. In the distance he sees the red and white blip falling to the ground and whether it be out of habit, fear or something he didn’t quite understand, he sped after it. 

Was he dead? Was that even possible? No. That was impossible, his dad was invincible, not him. Someone who wore the outfit of his father was no doubt someone who had that same credential. 

‘Are you so dense, you think something like that would kill me? Seriously Mark, I thought you were supposed to be smart at that human school you used to go to.’

He lands at the side of the crater that was carved into the earth by the impact of the pretender and peaks over the side of the hole. He was rather curious as to whether he’d see the mangled or disfigured body within it; only he didn’t see that. He just saw the pretender dusting himself down with a rather unamused look on his face. 

“H-hey, uh… are you-” the regretter quietly asks. 

“Don’t worry Mark, I’m fine,” the pretender insists, hovering upwards out of the crater to meet his gaze head on. “But you seem distant, I need your focus on this, okay?” 

The wind blows against them both as the regretter finds his gaze slowly tilting downwards from the gaze that requested his attention to that of the red and white that the pretender championed. He was so like his father and yet, he was nothing like him at all. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or repulsed. Every time he even caught a glimpse of the colours of red and white blending together, he felt his insides churn and his senses dull as his mind attempted to drag him back to that moment that scarred him. 

“... It was our father, wasn’t it Mark?” 

The regretter’s vacant expression occupies itself with surprise as he turns his head back up. 

“I- … no it was me-” 

“The way you’ve looked at me, not just today but all the time we’ve been together; I’d say it’s something similar to dread,” the pretender explains as he folds his arms, still hovering in the space above the crater, but not once hovering to look down on his counterpart. “... I don’t know what happened, or the relationship that you shared but- … I’m not out to get you. I’m here to help you.” 

A series of garbled and incoherent yells and shouts attracts their attention as they both in the direction of it; seeing a group of Jalzarian’s arriving in the same armour and equipped with the same blasters that they’d seen only a short time ago in their siege of the space station in their upper atmosphere. Behind those on the front line immediately landed two mechanical titans, they were like power armour suits, only a lot larger; a jalzarian in the centre of each of them. 

“... we can discuss this more later,” the pretender assures him as he and the regretter slowly hover forward to meet them. 

The former taking point as he folds his arms. Incurring yet more abuse in the Jalzarian’s mother tongue as one of the titans proceeds to point its great mechanical arm at him, the giant hand of it unfolding into a sort of pronged power device not too dissimilar from that of the one that tried and failed to defend the space station from the villain. Albeit a lot smaller, either way, it was starting to crackle and harness the same purple energy.

The regretter looks between the mob of jalzarian’s all pointing rifles and blasters in their direction as he tries to register whatever it was they were saying. 

“... I don’t understand,” he mutters quietly, stretching his body out slightly. 

The pretender smirks, looking over his shoulder to him.

“Actually, Mark, it’s them who don’t seem to understand .” 

The jalzarian at the front of the hastily assembled mob thrusts his arm forward as a signal, one that was immediately followed up by the titan charging up its weapon as another terrible sphere of purple energy catapults towards the pretender. Only this time he saw it was coming and this time, he was far more unimpressed. He clenches his right arm that was folded into his body, before thrusting it outward, just before the point of impact, the impact of the back of his gloved fist against the purple sphere causes it to fly shimmer and morph as it’s redirected by the sudden impact, sailing off into the distance and colliding with a factory not too far away. 

One that immediately explodes as debris and rubble start to rain down from the sky, all the while, the pretender with his smoking gloved fist still raised looking at the mob in front of him before turning his attention up to the mechanical titans that dared to tower over him… and the pretender smiled. 

“This planet isn't theirs to control.” 

Before any of the jalzarian’s even have the opportunity to register that statement, the pretender hurls himself through the sky at top speed, straight into the titan that hard tried its hardest to end his life. He comes face to face with the pilot of it as he carves straight through both the outer shell of the titan and then the torso of the pilot themselves; flying straight out the other side as the mechanical beast begins to stagger and limply fall backwards to the floor. He hovers out of the way as he lets it fall to the ground, watching its head crash straight through the roof of one of the factories and its large metallic torso crushes any of the mob who weren’t quick enough to get out of the way. 

With that, he sets his eyes on the horizon and all the industrial infrastructure in between and taking off at top speed, his fists clenched ahead of his body as he flies faster and faster, his knuckles vibrating at the force of him shattering through one facility after another. A determined expression hidden beneath his lenses as he tenses his body to go even faster, jalzarian’s, rubble, blood and bone all blurring into one as his body moves almost unnaturally precise leaving no facilities in his path untouched; not bothering to look at the storm of debris and dust at his back that followed him along in the wake of his destruction. 

The regretter meanwhile feels the blasters start to volley against his chest, they stung and felt hot, but did nothing to him or his outfit for that matter. He sighs as her runs a hand through his hair. 

“Damn, too weak,” he sighs. 

With that, he immediately strafes forward in front of the gobsmacked leader and slices his outstretched hand through its torso, cutting him in half with incredible ease. He catches his blaster before it can hit the ground and hurls it forward at a rather leisurely pace, though still hard enough for it to embed itself in the skull of the unlucky member of the mob who was in the way of it. One by one, the members of the mob attempted to rush him, they were brave at least. Though one by one, he cuts them down with a monotonous expression and a surgical precision. 

Though his person is engulfed by a shadow and as he looks up, he sees the metallic boot of the remaining titan motion to stamp down on him like a bug, he raises both of his hands as it comes down and he catches it, gritting his teeth slightly as the exertion turns into a small smirk. His viltrumite blood started to flow enticingly faster through his veins, he hated the viltrumite part of him with all of his being, he hated that it made him feel some semblance of excitement even more. 

“Pretty strong,” he mutters, thrusting both of his hands upwards as the metallic boot hurls up into the sky once more as the titan struggles to regain its balance. He in turn hovers upwards to the height of the pilot within it, just in the upper part of its chest. “If you think you can kill me, then do it.” 

The titan’s arms wind back and they sail forward straight towards him, aiming for a robotical clap with him in the middle. He braces himself by shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth, tensing his body on instinct for the brute force about to slam into either side of him. He hears the whoosh and then the deafening shriek and tearing of metal as both of his sides are buffeted; yet there’s no wound or injury inflicted. The regretter opens his eyes and looks to his sides to see both of the robotic hands were completely shattered and useless, the fingers and inner workings falling to the surface below as he sighs in disappointment. 

“... shit,” the regretter curses. 

Before he can formulate his next plan of attack, a red and white bolt that was practically surging with power sliced through the second titan like a knife through butter and the top half of it topples off of it and flies into the distance; going to ground and taking out a few more buildings and helpless Jalzarian’s below. There’s then a sudden gust of wind that brushes against him, along with all of the crap that happened to be caught up in it, some of it going in his eye and mouth which causes him to rub it in and cough slightly, slightly irritated that dirt and dust of all things were what caused him the most trouble at the present time. 

“Hey.” 

The regretter rubs his right eye as he turns around to look at the pretender who floats there once more, his cape swaying behind him.

“Those titans giving you trouble?” 

The regretter’s shoulders slacken slightly as his hand drops to his side and looks around. 

“No…” he replies quietly. “I thought they would but they weren’t all that tough.”

The pretender agrees as he dusts himself down again once more, small fragments of glass and rubble coming loose from the red and white suit as they fall to the surface below, clearing his throat he floats closer to the regretter.

“Size is misleading more often than not… Even so, it’s pretty remarkable that the Jalzarian’s are this advanced in this dimension,” he comments, extending his hand out and offering it to him. “Something to think about later though, right now we need to get this done so we can help with the subjugation of the prime city. Come on, I’ll give you a boost.” 

The regretter looks down at the outstretched red glove, his vision fuzzying for a moment as it shifts between the here and now, and the then and there. An honest red glove blurring with a bloodied and tormenting one as his past and present morph into one. His breath gets up slightly as he looks away, rubbing his eyes despite the fact that all the dust in them had long since been removed.

“Why… are you like this?” he asks softly. “You’re supposed to be like dad.” 

The pretender stays silent for a moment before gently resting a hand on the shoulder of the regretter, feeling the tremble of the variant underneath his grip. 

“I am like our father… I’m sorry that the Nolan Grayson of your dimension wasn’t anything like the man I represent,” he states, keeping one hand on his shoulder and placing the other on his other shoulder. “Mark…”

‘Mark.’ 

He immediately zones back into the situation. 

‘You should be grateful, the other viltrumites would have been far less patient with you than I’ve been.’ 

“I’ll protect you, alright? I don’t expect you to trust or believe me, but I hope you’ll come to see that what I’m doing reflects my intentions.” 

He feels his breathing start to grow softer, the trembles that quaked through his body starting to still as for one unlikely moment, he feels a sense of calm. 

“I’m sorry to keep brushing it aside, but we need to get this done, so for efficiency’s sake-” he begins, only for a huge explosion in the distance to cause them to look towards it. 

A great pitch black mushroom cloud began to form on the horizon, the shockwave enough to rattle the pair of them as it fired passed. Small bolts of purple energy zapped off of it like a pseudo-lightning storm as the cloud rose higher and higher into the air, unmissable to anyone on this part of the planet. 

“... was that the power grid..?” the regretter asks quietly. 

The pretender squints his eyes as he takes a closer look, seeing a yellow and black dot tear through the sky in the distance until it was out of sight. He sighs before shaking his head.

“I don’t think so,” he replies, removing his hands from his shoulders. “That’s why we need to hurry. I’ve had enough surprises recently. Follow my lead, then when I call it, split off and we’ll level this place in no time.” 

The pretender begins to hover slowly away from the regretter, the latter staying in place for a moment before he too hovers in the same direction after him. He slowly begins to pick up speed and the regretter does the same and before they know it, they’re both flying considerably faster above the currently untouched area of the industrial area. 

The regretter wasn’t sure what made him follow after this variant of himself, whether it was the lingering footprint of compliance his father instilled in him, the fact that whatever surprise the pretender had seen was out there or even whether it was that he was actually willing to listen to someone like this- he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he had a job to do, one that might allow him to run into someone stronger than him at long last, one that could allow that masked version of himself to get home.

Maybe he was no different than he was before he arrived in this dimension, following the orders of someone draped in red and white; yet this time… it felt different. 

“Okay… NOW!” the pretender shouts. 

With that, he immediately banks left and towards the ground, his fists forward as he begins to smash and crash through the industrial facilities in his path. The sounds of chaos and bloodshed pass by his senses as he bulldozes what he can, though a thought does pop into his head as he continues on this destructive mission. It was him internally circling back to his estimation of strength, though he wasn’t thinking about his own level of power… it was just how powerful those around him could be to cause events like this without even breaking a sweat. 

—---------------------------

“So uh… you ever taken down a powergrid before?” the prisoner asks, trying to make conversation as he flew alongside the enslaver. “Given you volunteered us for it, I’m guessing you’ve got some kind of idea?” 

The enslaver however remains quiet as they come up on some kind of facility in the distance. It was almost like a castle of some kind. Copper cooling towers that rose up in the sky to the same height that they flew, generators that were littered all around the base of it, not to mention the various control buildings and pipes that snaked along the ground. 

“Oh hey, we’re here-”

“No we’re not. Keep flying,” the enslaver interrupts. 

“Uhhh… fine?” the prisoner responds. 

The pair of them fly towards and then in between the towers; the prisoner looking back over his shoulder as they leave what appeared to be the central structure responsible for the planet’s power production in the distance as they keep on pressing forward. 

“... I’m guessing you can’t read Jalzarian, eh baldy?” the enslaver eventually says after a couple of minutes of awkward silence and noticeable confused glances from the prisoner. 

“No? Why the hell would I know that?” 

“Hah. Thought so. None of you can, even that viltrumite version of us can’t read it perfectly, not like I can anyway,” he smirks as he keeps his eyes deadset on the horizon. “God, sometimes people just walk themselves into the grave, it’s hilarious.” 

The prisoner looks over at him again, coughing slightly at the exertion in his body from flying for such a long period of time. 

“What’re you getting at?” 

“You think that shitheel dressed like my old man scared me? No. I’m still patiently waiting for a chance to get the rest of them grovelling at my feet… and on that map I found it, baldy,” he chuckles. “That’s why I said we’d head this way, not like any of them were gonna shotgun a place to go to.” 

The prisoner wipes his mouth with one of his hands as in the distance, a black structure starts to come into view, it almost looked like an oversized bottle cap with the notches on the side and the bizarre flatness at the top. It was a structure that reminded him of the prison he’d spent a torturous period of his life within, yet it wasn’t like that, it was something… different. 

“What is that place?” the prisoner inquires as he shakes his hand off from wiping his mouth. 

“Well… the direct translation from Jalzarian to Terran is Beast Farm but if this dimension’s Jalzarians are anything remotely close to the ones from my empire? There’s only one creature in the universe they refer to as Beasts.” 

The prisoner feels his stomach start to churn as he starts to come to the same realization, sure he’d only heard it in passing and in brief fleeting moments. But from his time in prison, there was one thing that was always referred to as a ‘Beast’. He turns his head to face the enslaver who was now looking straight at him with an honest to god smile on his face. 

“Chin up, Baldy. We’re gonna go meet some Rognarrs.”