Having the entire summer to relax and enjoy myself was the best. As Mark, I could do whatever I wanted with my civilian identity, like spend time with Sarah and her mother, and I worked for the Global Defense Agency as I introduced all the tech for spy gadgets I had created. The lab guys loved all of my ideas and they had a ball playing with it all, as did the GDA agents.

As Atlas, I could patrol when I wanted and I visited certain people when they needed me, like Debbie, Monster Woman in both of her forms, and Atom Eve. It kept them occupied and in a great mood, so none of them were depressed or did anything stupid. Debbie never drank more than two glasses of wine and Atom Eve's confidence rose as Atlas coached her on how and when to use her powers.

I even spent some time inside the Shadowverse and used one of my elemental attacks, Holy Light, to wipe out hundreds of thousands of the darkness creatures. It earned me millions of Karma Points to clear out large swathes of them and I used it as a way to farm Karma and to remove an existential threat to all life, since I was sure the Shadowverse touched upon more than a single dimension. I couldn't earn so much karma, otherwise.

I also worked on the side for the GDA as I kept The Giant busy and he still had a lot of fun as we harvested asteroids and made a fortune. We even chased after a small comet when it flew through the solar system, because the science guys wanted a few core samples. So, we took a break from work and we rode that bitch past Neptune before we had to hop off and let it go on its merry way out into space.

After a few long talks with my mom and Cecil, I decided Mark would stay on with the GDA as a part-time consultant. The more relaxed lifestyle I lived during the summer had been the best and I didn't want to give that up. Everything was great and everyone I knew was happy. Why would I ever ask for anything more?

*

I was halfway through my patrol as Atlas when felt several dimensional rifts form back in my hometown and my Danger Sense tingled. I sighed at the intrusion upon my perfect life and came to a stop, then stepped from there to an old warehouse. Inside was a huge machine and there were a hundred nearly identical black men coming through the portal and they approached the machine covered in seats.

As the black men strapped themselves into the machine on multiple levels, I saw two large Mauler Twins, one male and one female for some reason, and they were extending a large hose-like thing up towards the portal in the ceiling.

“This doesn't look evil at all.” I commented and everyone froze and turned to look at me, even the two twins.

“Who the hell are you?” The female Mauler asked.

“My GDA ID states I'm Atlas.” I said, half jokingly, and my X-Ray Vision checked the entire machine over. A few judicial uses fried the circuit boards and the microchips needed for the thing to initiate and to transfer energy to that pipe thing. “I have to ask you to cease and desist your currently illegal activities.”

The twins gave each other looks, nodded, and jumped down from the top of the machine to where I stood. The two of them slapped their hands together, as if preparing for a fight, and aimed their large fists at me.

“Make us.” The male one said and they both grinned evilly.

“Done.” I said and blurred as my fist crushed his face and pulped his brain instantly. His head exploded and splashed all over his female twin, who looked horrified.

“Wai-” She tried to say and her head disappeared with another splash of gore as my other fist ended her.

I turned and looked at the bunch of black men that were mostly secured. “Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?”

One of the braver ones on the bottom level unstrapped and walked over to me. “I'm not sure you'll believe it.”

I looked down at my costume and tapped a finger on the golden Earth symbol. “Try me.”

That was when I learned about the insane plan to copy thousands of memories from dimensional clones into the primary Angstrum Levy, whom had the portal ability. The funny thing was, it was only him that had the power and all the other ones were just normal people that had been saved from their dimension's Invincible.

“Huh, this isn't the main timeline.” I said and glanced down at the female Mauler Twin.

“How do you know that?” Angstrum asked me.

“I stripped the intelligence from the Mauler Twins that exist here. Since this is one of the safe universes of the nine you've found, these two must have been sent here to build the machine in their place.” I explained.

It did make me wonder how Angstrum managed that without me noticing, since I should have felt any disturbance that crossed into the dimension I was currently existing in, then I realized I had been out of contact with this dimension a bunch of times over the last month while in the Shadowverse and could have missed any number of portals into and out of this dimension.

“So, he saved you from your home dimension?” I asked instead of continuing my thoughts.

“Yes, he pulled me away from being killed by Invincible...” Angstrum said and started to explain about the resistance and how the world had gone to hell when Invincible agreed with his father to conquer the lesser beings.

“He only saved you?” I interrupted him when he started to rant about the injustice.

“Wh-what?” Angstrum asked.

“Just you? He only pulled you out? Not your entire resistance cell? Or Eve? Or even Robot, whom could have helped him build more than a machine to collect thoughts.”

Angstrum looked at me as if I had told him the Dodo was no longer extinct.

“You do realize it's been months since he save you, right? All of your friends could be dead and there's nothing left there to save.” I told him and he looked shocked. I turned and looked at all of the other Angstrums that were still in the machine that no longer worked. “All of you are in the same situation. You grasped onto the saving part of his plan and ignored the needing it right now part.”

Now they all looked horrified.

“He could have brought everyone with you to another Earth with his power instead of promising to save yours after he saved his own.” I continued and they all exchanged worried looks. “It's not your fault for being desperate and forgetting the importance of time after you were saved.”

All of them slumped and tears came to their eyes.

I turned back to the Angstrum near me and put a hand on his shoulder. I used his dimensional signature to use my Clairvoyance power and looked into his Earth. All of the normal cities were wrecked and a few futuristic buildings were being built by slave labour. I used his own memories of the members of the resistance and I saw they had been left in a large unmarked grave.

The only one still alive was Atom Eve and she was paralyzed as she was being taken care of by willing slaves. I was surprised they were Will, Amber, Debbie, and Olga. They almost looked happy as they worked and took care of the place they lived with Mark and cared for their hurt friend, even of Eve's thoughts about them were anger and hatred, not that she could ever tell them that.

I waited until her current attendant left to go to the bathroom to pull Eve out of the hospital bed and she appeared at our feet. I cast a cushioning charm on the floor for her, even if she couldn't feel the difference right now.

“EVE!” Angstrum gasped and dropped to his knees.

“She's paralyzed.” I said and knelt on one knee and put a gentle hand on Eve's face. “Samantha? It's okay. You're safe and in a different world now, just like your friend here.”

Eve's eyes moved to Angstrum and the tears came.

“I-I-I'm sorry, Eve. I didn't realize... I didn't think...” Angstrum muttered and tears appeared in his own eyes.

“The rest of them are gone.” I whispered and they both cried.

After a few minutes of letting them grieve, I moved my thumb on her cheek and she sucked in a sharp breath. I didn't say anything as I moved my hand down her neck to her shoulder and her eyes followed my hand. I avoided her chest and slid it down to her belly, then I poked her belly button, the one place she was ticklish.

Eve jerked and giggled as her hands grabbed my hand to stop me, then both she and Angstrum gasped. “I felt that!”

I lifted my hand and she held on, her eyes full of wonder. “You'll need a bit of time to get used to being able to move again.”

Eve didn't not or anything. She just held on to my hand and stared at her working hands. There were a lot of scrambling sounds and I didn't feel my Danger Sense go off, so I ignored it as I used my other hand to pet Eve's red hair that had grown out while she was incapacitated. Even made a wanton sound and I could hear her thoughts screaming at me to never ever stop letting her feel what that felt like.

A few black hands patted Angstrum's shoulders and I glanced up to see that the machine was now empty of occupants and they had all gathered around us.

“I need a few more minutes to comfort Eve before I can check your dimensions for your friends and family, too.” I told them.

“We've waited for months already for the prime to do it, so a few more minutes won't make much difference.” A wise one of them said.

“I wonder how long the portal will stay open?” One of them asked as he looked up.

“Until the other machines are ready in the other dimensions.” Another said. “We're supposed to connect to the tenth one and then all thousand of our memories will become one inside the prime.”

“Your prime is an idiot.” I said as Eve lowered my hand and my fingertip poked her belly button and she giggled again and lifted my hand. “Being smart alone can't handle the influx of memories. You have to be prepared for it, or it can mess you up.”

“You speak from experience?” The wise Angstrum asked.

“You have no idea.” I said with a chuckle as Eve couldn't resist letting my hand drop and I tickled her belly button again to make herself laugh. “I had a bunch of memories slammed in my head several times, usually years of them at a time, and it took me a long time to get used to it and not let them affect my thoughts too much.”

All of the Angstrums exchanged worried looks at that qualifier.

“It mostly works; but, depending on the strength of the memories, and the emotions they contain, it definitely changed how I thought and felt about things.” I explained and now they looked really worried. “Eve? Can I have my hand back for a few minutes? I have to go save a few hundred universes.”

Eve frowned and looked at my face. “Do you promise to come right back to keep helping me?”

I had to smile at that. “I promise to make you feel as much as possible.”

Eve needed a second to understand what I meant and she blushed, then she scowled. “I'm not that easy!”

I leaned down and gave her a soft and tender kiss, which made her moan with pleasure. I broke the kiss and gave her my best award winning smile. “What was that?”

Eve's face couldn't get any redder if she tried. “Never mind.”

I chuckled and she let my hand go, so I leaned back down and gave her another kiss. “Stay right there and I'll be back before you know it.”

Eve nodded and I stood up, gave the Angstrums around us a look, then I flew up into the air and through the portal. For some reason, I came out and flew down into an identical space and there was another huge machine there covered in seats that were full of more Angstrums.

Since there were ten machines total and each held a hundred of them, that meant there were a thousand men from a thousand different dimensions where the prime Angstrum only saved them and none of their friends or family.

“You are a huge asshole, Angstrum.” I said loudly and everyone turned to look at me, including the prime Angstrum and another set of Mauler Twins, both male this time.

“Who the hell are you?” One of the Mauler Twins asked.

“Your death.” I said and two beams of heat vision sliced through the heads of both twins.

“NO!” Angstrum gasped and reached for them, only for the bodies to be too heavy and they fell to the floor, dead. “Why? WHY?” He yelled and turned to me as I landed beside him.

“Because you're an idiot. You saved your dimensional self across a thousand universes and not once saved any of the people they cared about, like their wives and children.” I said and a hundred gasps came from all the other Angstrums. I put a hand on his shoulder and he swatted it away.

“You have no idea what I'm trying to achieve here!” Angstrum shouted.

“You're trying to transcend a mortal mind's capacity by using similar minds to create solutions for all the problems a world has.” I said and he looked shocked. “What you're not doing, is actually saving the people. Your only goal is information and that's a fool's errand if you have no clue how to use it to help anyone.”

“But I will! That's the point!” Angstrum shouted and waved his hand to do something, only he didn't notice that nothing happened. “Once I have all that knowledge, I'll come up with solutions to everything! Cancer! World hunger! Environmental disasters! I'll solve it all!”

“At the cost of all the lives from a thousand other Earths?” I asked and more gasps came from the Angstrums, whom were freeing themselves from the machine. I did the liberal applications of short heat vision blasts using my X-Ray Vision to disable the machine, just in case.

“No! I'm trying to help them all!” Angstrum argued.

“By helping yours first, right? You'll fix all the wrongs in your own home dimension and then you'll go help the others.” I countered.

“Yes! Once my home is a utopia, I can spread out to help everyone else!” Angstrum said, his voice almost manic. He waved his hand again and nothing happened.

“How long is that going to take? A year? Ten years? How long are you going to let everyone else suffer for your own selfishness?” I asked him.

“WHAT? No, no that... that's not...” Angstrum waved his hand again and again. “What's going on? Why can't I bring the other Maulers here?”

“Because you don't have your powers anymore.” I said and poked him in the head as I used my Clairvoyance power and stepped him back to his home dimension.

I watched him scream at the devastation he saw in his world and then an old fit woman wearing a grey and white costume smashed her fist through his head and splattered him across the ruined ground. She looked around with anger on her face and didn't see anyone else around, and flew up into the air and rejoined the six other Viltrumites laying waste to everything.

“Huh. He waited too long to enact his plans.” I said and the other Angstrums stared at me. “His world was conquered while he was playing librarian.”

“Then...” One of them started, paused and swallowed, then continued. “...is it too late for our worlds, too?”

“I don't know.” I said and held a hand out for him to shake. “Let's find out.”

He clasped my hand without hesitation and his eyes widened as he saw along with me what his world was like. His thoughts went right to his wife and she was in chains as she built a monument to the Viltrumite Empire. I made everyone around her ignore her and pulled her to us.

She gasped when she appeared and was no longer in chains. “ANG?!?”

“Tisha!” He let my hand go and lunged at her to hug her rail thinness.

I reached over and poked her to heal her using Panacea's power. That's when the shouting began and I held up my hands and they all quieted. “Let's gather up all your dimensional brothers first, then we can get to the serious business.”

“Agreed.” The other 99 Angstrums said and I opened a portal back to my dimension.

I kept Angstrum's power going to hold the portals that existed open and flew into the next one in the air. Again, it was focused downwards, which meant he could keep the orientation of the portal's face no matter where it was, so that made things easier.

I killed the cybernetically enhanced Mauler Twins and then explained what happened to the 100 Angstrums. They all agreed instantly, just as the rest did, and I opened a portal back to my dimension. I repeat this in the other 8 dimensions and they all agreed, with no one dissenting, and I closed the other portals and stepped back to the warehouse in my dimension.

“You're back.” Eve said, her voice full of relief.

“I promised, didn't I?” I said and knelt beside her as I took her hand, which she gripped tightly. “I have more work to do, as you can see by the thousand Angstrums packed in here like sardines.”

Eve chuckled and her Angstrum smiled.

I dissolved my boot and stood up. “Go ahead and grab on, so you know I'm right here as I help everyone.”

Eve smiled and her hand slid around my ankle and she let out a little sigh.

“Do you want to come along for the mental ride?” I asked and she looked at her Angstrum, whom looked conflicted.

“Will it be bad?” Eve asked.

“The last one I helped only had a wife left, but she's fine now.” I pointed at the happily kissing couple. “I won't know who's left until I look.”

“We need a lot more space if you start bringing more people here.” One of the Angstrums said.

“Right, just a second.” I said and pulled out the right materials from my inventory, engraved them with transfiguration, and stepped them into the corners of the room. I then charged them up with magic and the entire warehouse expanded to a hundred times its size. “How's that?”

“It'll do!” Someone shouted from far away and the rest of them spread out to make room and then seemed to organize themselves into an organized line without being asked.

I nodded at that and turned to the closest one. “Let's see who we can rescue from your family and friends first and then we can worry about the rest of your worlds after I gain the right dimensional coordinates to open full portals.”

“You're going to save the other slaves back on our world?” Tisha asked, shocked.

“If they want to be.” I said, knowing full well that some of them would choose to stay in the forced utopia that the Viltrumites had. Seeing his mother happy being a slave to her husband had been a shock, because it meant she had accepted being his pet and that she never stopped loving him.

The Angstrum near me grasped my hand and my work saving their families and friends began in earnest.