บท 3566: Chapter 2696: Hollywood Rhapsody (19)
As it turned out, ordinary people are all hypocritical, and Shiller was no exception.
He hated rebooting the cosmos because it meant erasing the significance of the living beings within it, rendering their efforts to survive meaningless.
But when it came to himself, he felt that nullifying his and his friends' efforts slightly was acceptable, because if he didn't, they would have to put forth even more meaningless effort to clean up the mess caused by the current situation.
Of course, Shiller wasn't insane enough to reboot directly. His actual idea was to have Barry take him through time to remind his past self who wanted to vacation like ordinary people not to be too optimistic and that it was better to stay in the sanatorium, slacking off without going out.
Since Shiller wasn't very confident he could persuade himself, he needed some evidence to prove that if he went on vacation, it would trigger a series of chaos afterward, and the best evidence was the documentary filmed by Eddie.
The timeline Shiller was now in was after he had become famous, and the documentary had been released. So, he copied the film footage and some more crucial analysis clips, as well as many rumors spread by marketing accounts, and returned to the day before he had set out for the West Coast.
He left these materials on Shiller's desk, and when Shiller saw Barry, he understood what was going on. After glancing at the footage, well, turns out the internet celebrity was himself.
Frankly speaking, no version of Shiller wanted to be plagued by such trouble, and the Shiller who hadn't yet departed had more free time to contemplate what this chaos could lead to.
Truth be told, as many have analyzed, working for law enforcement isn't something disgraceful, and as a professional, it's quite hard to avoid.
At least many of Shiller's teachers and classmates, both in his previous and current life, had such experiences, inevitably cooperating with some official organizations and even participating in several secret projects.
But as the saying goes, you know your own business best. The biggest problem now was that he didn't realize his backstory was copied from his previous life and another one had been added, namely, that he was an immortal from the Soviet Union.
He could partake in the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an American, or even as a Chinese-American, but he couldn't do so as an immortal who had survived since the Soviet Union's establishment.
Then the FBI and S.H.I.E.L.D. would inevitably ask, what do you want to do? What have you done? After you've done what you did, why are you covering everything up so that we can't find anything?
This is similar to the fact that what is scarier than a cockroach appearing in front of you is that cockroach disappearing after just a second.
Shiller could completely understand Nick and the FBI Director's fear; if he had known about this additional backstory, he wouldn't have fabricated the latter.
But Superego and Arrogant, two petty characters, dug such a big hole for revenge because of his past memory deletion, and he had been following the script for this Soviet's origin for a long time before he even knew what this body's backstory was all about.
It would be alright if it were just a simple clash of background stories. After all, Shiller had never personally stated his past, everything was conjectured by others. If there were any contradictions, he could just flat-out deny it.
But these two backstories were well combined.
Nick couldn't figure out why Shiller initially agreed to work for law enforcement—there had to be some reason, just like in his previous life, as Shiller didn't look like someone who'd like to interact with law enforcement.
Doesn't Nick know his own colleagues? The jobs they could provide were typically low-paying, high-demand, and far from home. All of these conditions were ones Shiller would avoid. How could he be so kind to take on such work?
Therefore, there must have been something disreputable, akin to the unwilling experts often recruited by the FBI, who must have had some motivation to work for them willingly.
But Nick just couldn't find out what it was.
This was actually because Marvel is a comic world, where everything not focused on is presented with comic logic.
In comics, there is a concept called a storyboard, which can be understood as a film shot. If the camera points here, the story unfolds; if not pointed here, there is nothing.
The narration of a story is divided into many storyboards, and the time jump between them can be quite significant. For example, one storyboard may show him as a child, and the next he's already an adolescent.
So how do you present those intervening ten or so years? Often it's through characters' dialogue, like when he becomes a youth and reflects on his childhood, telling what he did as a child.
Common sense would tell you that a good comic won't use thousands of storyboards to show every detail of a character's life from childhood to adolescence to youth—the logical framework of the comic world doesn't support it.
Therefore, the backstory written by Superego that fits the world's logic was also presented in the form of comics, meaning the whole story was only comprised of a few storyboards.
They probably consisted of attending university, praying in church, going to high-class parties, drug addiction, and working for law enforcement.
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Don't be fooled by the small number of storyboard scenes; the main draw of Marvel Comics is the sheer volume of content. With so many characters, many of them only get one or two scenes during major events. Characters who have their own origin stories are pretty exceptional; for many, it takes decades to accumulate a nearly complete origin story.
Shiller's origin story, fabricated by the Superego, is already quite comprehensive. However, inevitably, there are many details missing, such as why Shiller initially decided to work for law enforcement.
Some might think that if Nick were to look into someone else's background, he would definitely find something because the plot requires it, but that's only if the character is an original from Marvel.
As a character created by Marvel, Nick has plot requirements, and naturally, when necessary, the universe administrators and editors will fabricate background stories for others to help him push the plot forward.
The problem is that Shiller is not a Marvel character; his backstory was written by the Superego, and Marvel's universe administrators wouldn't take the time to add details to his backstory—and since the Superego didn't write it, Nick obviously couldn't find anything.
So, this matter will become a perfect misunderstanding.
Shiller might be a long-lived Soviet, somebody who, before he had met any superheroes, had dealings with law enforcement for some mysterious reason that couldn't be investigated.
It was this very résumé that allowed him to join S.H.I.E.L.D. and become a psychological consultant for superheroes, and even during the Superhero Registration Act, he managed to completely turn the situation around solely through his deterrence.
Doesn't it sound like a very complete conspiracy?
In fact, it is a complete conspiracy, but not one born of Greed, but of Superego's pettiness and arrogance.
If it were before, Greed would surely have to argue with them about their pettiness; if you're going to fabricate, at least give me access to the memories so I can be prepared.
But when it comes to deleting memories, he himself is also at fault, so he had to accept it and take some rather double-standard actions to prevent the event from happening beforehand.
But as it turned out, the cartoon world simply doesn't allow for time travel to prevent tragedies.
Before setting off, Shiller decided to stay in Arkham Sanatorium. First, a bunch of people tediously invited him out, just hoping he'd take a vacation and relax.
Shiller tried to get rid of them by claiming he was too busy with work, but everyone thought he was too overworked and that this was bad for his mental state, and insisted on dragging him to go on holiday.
Knowing he couldn't go, Shiller pretended to have mental health issues which only made everyone more worried. After much discussion, Stark decided not to go.
Eventually, Shiller had Helen and the Guardians of the Galaxy play along, causing some chaos in the cosmos that required Shiller's intervention, which finally allowed him to escape and not get involved in the shooting.
As a result, without Shiller mediating and persuading Steve and Peter to each support one side to balance the relationship between Stark and Strange, their animosity became ridiculously intense and finally erupted on the beach.
Stark, unable to attract attention with his surfing skills, was already fuming; Strange made sarcastic remarks on the side, and Steve and Peter, busy greeting the New Warriors Team, didn't even notice when the two were about to come to blows.
At the time, Stark wasn't wearing his Battle Armor, but he was at least physically fit. Strange didn't need to wear anything to use Magic, but with so many witnesses around, he couldn't really escalate the fight—so the two ended up in a draw.
As they were fighting, Sandman arrived, and Strange and Stark were thrown into the air.
Strange instinctively used Magic to protect himself, which interfered with Stark summoning his Battle Armor. The Battle Armor ended up crashing into a nearby beach bar, causing a major commotion.
The incident made the news that very day, and both men's reputations were thoroughly ruined. To make matters worse, an anxious Stark steadfastly refused to admit fault, leading to a public opinion backlash that accelerated downward.
Unsurprisingly, the trouble fell onto Pepper's shoulders. Pepper tried to convince Stark to apologize publicly, but Stark flatly refused, and they had a huge argument which left Pepper so enraged that she had to be hospitalized.
When the news broke, Shiller knew it wasn't good. With everyone together in this state, trouble was inevitable. After thinking about it, he felt he still needed to go.
So, he had Barry take him back to the past, bringing all media and news reports from the first timeline, where Shiller became famous, and the second timeline, where Stark and Strange made headlines together, to the third timeline's Shiller.
Upon reviewing the situation, Timeline 3's Shiller knew that he had to go to the shooting because, aside from him, no one else would be able to handle an agitated Stark, and the situation would inevitably turn chaotic.
So he chose to still accompany the group to Hollywood for vacation, but this time his strategy was to stay as silent as possible, not to show his professional skills, to be an unnoticed nobody, which should allow him to keep safe and not cause any trouble.
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