PROLOGUE

Was that his name?



The syllables making it up didn't come to mind, they were like void, something insubstantial, forever out of reach, what little he could make out didn't seem like it fit, it was like words in a language he'd never learned, with a phonetic alphabet so very foreign to him.

Or maybe that was exactly what was happening. Maybe he wasn't.

He didn't, couldn't, something about this situation -him waking up he hadn't been asleep on a sofa in a strange house, in a foreign space, in a-, a different life he realized, but it slipped away the more he tried to grasp, to understand it.

He was seventy-five 2000-something years old.

He was a conqueror, a Viltimite, a soldier, a warrior, a- an engineer?

He was on Earth-Viltrum-New York-Chicago.

He was, he'd been in-

The numbers, the calendar meant something, didn't it?

Or was it just noise, fragments of a dream of a life dissolving in waking confusion?

His head pounded, yet did not, ached yet felt far away, contradictions not bearing any weight, the impossible weight of being no one and everyone at once, one and two, 75 and 2000, of having lived and not lived, of existing in a way that made no sense at all.

He'd gone to sleep, gone to sleep… on February 20th something, 2078. He remembered that clearly. The date only added to his list of things that didn't fit.

But now he was here, in this body, younger, stronger, alien, it's not me with memories -so much blood, how will I ever be clean, should I jump in a bath of acid? That would clean dissolve my skin, no?

Memories, memories, memories-

He punches his cheek, oh it ached, sweet sweet burn tapering into a dull sharp thing.

He cupped his cheek, index passing over his upper-lip-

"A moustache ?" he murmured voice full of wonder.

His hearing was the second thing he'd noticed.

The first had been that it was night, that he was in a stranger's home, that he was too many horrible -oh sweet mama Jesus- things to ever accept being.

He wasn't was a soldier

Hearing. Too sensitive. Too overwhelming.

He'd come to awareness to the sound of breathing, two sets -and so many so far away but why were they less important? why was his hearing so-, deep and regular, coming from somewhere else in the house. Not in this room. The living room he'd played so many board games with his family in, he'd later understand. Debbie and Mark, the photos would tell him.

But before the photos, before the names, there were the other memories.

Years of war played in his mind like a corrupted mp4 file, glitching and making buzz, buzz in a way that captured his attention like a moth to a light.

Campaigns across worlds he'd never imagined never thought he see with eyes that were ,had been?, human.

Human. He was supposed to be human.

Service to a holy empire, to the Viltrum Empire, to a cause he felt in his bones was righteous, had been though brainwashed trained to believe in make a part of his very self. He remembered believing in Viltrumite might with a fervour that terrified him.

He'd been a soldier. A warrior. An alien.

He was learning- a part of him never belonged anywhere, was only there to hurt.

But no- oh he cared, cared and was cared for but he couldn't, couldn't-

Except he also remembered being human. Being a failure, being alone.

Being old.

He blinked, though of his life, thought of his youth, that girl Greta something voice echoing in his mind, 'You stole my dreams'.

And they had been hadn't they? In both lives.

Why was he so alone? No children to call on holidays. No grandchildren sending crayon drawings. Just him and the TV in a one-bedroom apartment where the thermostat was always set too high because his joints ached in the cold. The kind of solitude that came with outliving your friends, with never quite connecting, with the fluorescent lights of a grocery store at 3 PM on a Tuesday being your main source of human interaction.

The cashiers knew his face but not his name. Knew his quirks yet wouldn't care if he just-

He shook his head like a dog, banishing the thought. He couldn't wouldn't allow himself the opportunity to-

Re-centering.

His youth, the end of his childhood tapering off during-

COVID-19.

The world stopping.

The stress of choosing a career path when all seemed hopeless, dark grey, worthless, dim, distant like a half-remembered dream. It was-

Witnessing the bulk of the twenty-first century unfold, had been something he'd taken pride in, not giving up, like so many had in his situation. Living through that mess. Growing old in it.

Two sets of memories, two lives -one that wasn't really a life, one where he was never thought to be anything more than a weapon despite what had once felt like freedom, occupying the same brain.

Neither felt more real than the other.

What a lie he told himself.

His face went blank, the image of the cartoon dog sipping tea in a burning house, a chipper "Everything is fine." in a speech bubble.

I got isekai'd into an alien body and now I have two different sets of trauma competing for space in my head, spawned in his mind.

"That could be a bad fanfic or light novel title," he grumbled as he stood up with too much ease.

With ease that was inhuman.

He wasn't fucking human.

He walked towards the kitchen, a half-conscious glance at the fridge's blank surface, he imagined an insta meme he must have stumbled on too many times to count, before AI made the platform unusable. An image of a cat bundled in a fluffy blanket, holding a coffee cup with existential dread crazed in it's eyes, a sharp unable to be ignored "COFFEE: Because questioning your entire existence is easier with caffeine." under it.

He'd found the paper calendar just under where he'd been looking after a blink, small notes dotted it's squares. Mark's vacation started in two days, one note reminded him, reminding this Nolan? -was he Nolan? Was his name Nolan? That's such a shit name, at least it's better than that Musk kid with a weird ass name, poor guy changed his name the moment he acquired emancipation- not to forget, even if he didn't care to remember school holidays, hadn't even when he'd been a kid.

The handwriting was feminine, well he assumed it was with how rounded and applied even the shortest note was, Debbie's, according to the signature under a message written on a post-it.

The next day, because a god wanted him to appear and have an existential crisis before midnight, he'd spent hours with the family photos. There were boxes of them, and frames on every surface. A baby held by a man with a moustache, a man he slowly, reluctantly acknowledged was him, because why the fuck not?, or rather, as the body he now inhabited. A note on the back, in that same feminine handwriting 'The first time Nolan hugged Mark - July 21st, 2001'.

Mark. The boy was Mark. Born in 2001. Which made him seventeen now, if his maths was right, which it was, because damn it quick mental maths had been a big part of his carrier, it did not mean he was too lazy to type it on a calculator damn it, Debbie.

Oh fuck…

He couldn't use that name like that anymore, his wife -shit he had a wife- was called Debbie.

And seventeen years old.

The boy was seventeen years old.

Seventeen, still a goddamned child.

His child apparently.

He'd ruin the child-

What will he say ? 'Oh, hi! Btw, I'm still a piece of garbage' despite acquiring a retired human's memories?

Which meant he'd been here -Nolan had been living here, in this where had he- oh Chicago. Why Chicago of all places? - for over a decade. Living this life. Being a father. Being a husband.

Over a decade, nearly two, of memories that should exist but didn't, or rather existed, but only as imprints in the dirt, like half-formed impressions of someone running away from a hunter, blurring all marks despite leaving an easy trail to follow, this, whatever it was, felt more like an educated guess than actual memories.

He set down the photo where he'd pulled it out of the photo album, his eyes didn't leave the picture, tracing the still image of Mark at maybe -toddler age ? no a tad too big for that- , gap-toothed and grinning, held aloft on Nolan's shoulders, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

The pressure helped.

Briefly.

It didn't do shit.

I don't know them, he thought and damn it did the admission made something twist painfully in his chest. I should know them. I'm supposed to know them. But I don't.

It was like trying to debug code written by someone else, no comments, no documentation, just spaghetti logic and undefined variables everywhere.

Error 404: Family.exe not found in memory banks.

He should be Nolan, had clearly been, a part of him was.

A shitty traumatized part that masked like his existence depended on it. A part that worked like running a system with two conflicting operating systems simultaneously, both throwing critical errors, both demanding priority access to the same fucking hardware when you had only run one.

Os : 'Lonely_Old_Man_v75.0' and Os : 'Alien_War_Criminal_v2000.legacy' not compatible with the current runtime environment of 'Suburban_Dad.exe'.

What the fuck was his life? A DLC expansion pack no one wanted yet came preinstalled, a shitty thing called 'trauma and emotional unavailability' that automatically unlocked the Marriage, Have a child and Become a suburban dad achievements?

Status: Critical system failure.

Kernel panic imminent, BIOS fuckin' corrupted, be fucking proud chum you just bricked a perfectly working computer. No backup fucking available. Please contact your system administrator- oh wait ! There isn't one, he thought cheerily, because apparently whoever designed this clusterfuck of an existence never bothered to include failsafes.

Two lifetime's worth of psychological damage, now available in one convenient meat suit! Buy one existential crisis, get the second free.

The fridge hummed, low and constant until the compressor started its cycle.

He also noticed he'd been standing still for forty-seven seconds, had been counting each tic of the analogue clock in the neighbour's house.

He needed coffee.

The thought arrived with the clarity of a system alert, Caffeine levels critically low. Performance degradation imminent.

He moved to the kitchen, his feet silent on the tile floor despite his size. The cabinets yielded coffee grounds easily enough, but when he looked for the espresso machine his muscle memory seemed to expect, he found only a standard drip coffee maker.

Filter coffee. Basic. Pedestrian.

Well, it will do, he thought, measuring out grounds with hands that moved too precisely, too efficiently. The Viltrumite part of him didn't care about coffee quality, the body, it, his body barely registered the need for caffeine at all. But the old man's memories craved it, that morning ritual -even if it was only starting to get dark- that had been one of the few reliable pleasures in a life of quiet isolation.

He watched the dark liquid drip into the carafe, counting drops because he couldn't help it, because his brain was processing everything at a speed that made waiting feel like punishment.

Forty-seven seconds until the pot was full enough to pour.

He poured himself a mug, black, no sugar, because both sets of memories agreed on that much at least, and took a sip.

It was terrible.

Weak. Watery. The kind of coffee you made when you bought the cheapest grounds at the grocery store and didn't particularly care about the result.

These weren't cheap grounds, he just wasn't human enough to register the taste-

He took another sip anyway.

This is fine, he told himself, channelling that stupid dog meme again, because apparently that was all he could muster at the moment. Everything is fine.

The coffee was bad, he didn't know his own family, he'd nearly punched a hole in the wall earlier when he realised the dosage needed to be upped, and he was having an existential crisis in a body that could probably definitely bench-press a car.

But the coffee was warm, and it was something to hold, and for now, that would have to be enough.

It wasn't the worst, far from it-

A ringing sounded, it came from his pocket. Nolan pulled the object out, it was an odd gold bracelet with an ugly red disc.

He reacted before he could think.

One moment he was standing in the kitchen, mug halfway to his lips, the next he was moving, a blur of motion that should have been impossible but felt as natural as breathing.

Upstairs.

The bedroom he shared with Debbie. His hands were already pulling open the closet, slowly, soundlessly, a glance was shot her way on instinct, as if he was afraid to wake her. Hand reaching for something that should have been there, that was there-

A suit.

Red and white, sleek and form-fitting, with a design that screamed comic book superhero in a way that made him cringe.

This wasn't an instinct from either set of memories, not the elderly man who'd spent his twilight years alone, not the Viltrumite warrior whose recollections were all violence and conquest.

This was, this was something else.

Something from the years Nolan had spent on Earth, the decade-plus of life that existed only as impressions and half-formed shadows in his mind.

Was he a superhero?

The question was tinged with a strange sense of detachment, like a disquieting realisation that was behind a veil of dissociation, like he was far away, observing someone else's revelation. But his hands were already moving, stripping off his clothes with efficient precision, pulling on the suit that fit like a second skin.

It felt right. Wrong in every conceptual way -what the hell kind of life had Nolan been living?- but physically, tactically, it felt like coming home, like a ritual, preparing for battle. It felt like before every break ended during campaign, during advances, it was the quiet moment before violence, it was when you checked your yourself over one last time and steeled yourself for what came next.

It was when you prepared yourself to have your blood pumping in your veins, adrenaline sharpening every sense, the weight of expectation settling over you like armor. It was the moment before the doors opened, before you stepped into whatever chaos waited on the other side, and you had to be ready. In every way that mattered.

Because if you didn't, because if you faltered… You didn't have your place amongst the Viltrumite anymore.

The bracelet on his wrist, the red pulsing with light, began vibrating more insistently. He moved to the corridor, softly closing the door behind him and touched it without thinking, and a voice crackled through, urgent and clipped.

"Omni-Man, we have a situation. Alien invasion, Shanghai. Multiple hostiles, class-four threat level. We need you there now."

Omni-Man.

The name settled over him like a weight, familiar and foreign all at once -and what the fuck Omni-man the alien conqueror guy that massacred superheros during the first episode?!

"Copy," he heard himself say, his voice steady despite the chaos in his head. "En route."

He moved to the window, opening it with hands that knew exactly what to do even as his mind scrambled to catch up. Shanghai. China. Halfway across the world.

How am I supposed to- oh, that easy?

And then he was flying, flying without having to pay any particular attention to his body, to his movements, flying with the same mindedness that it took one to just stand on his two feet, in a way it was the most familiar feeling, the most freeing thing he'd lived, done, since coming to awareness in this body not an hour ago.

He flew higher first, breaking through the cloud layer where the air thinned and resistance dropped to almost nothing. Up here, the curvature of the Earth was visible, the planet spread out below him like a map, and he could see the distance he needed to cross.

The Pacific Ocean was a dark expanse beneath him, sunlight catching on waves that looked frozen from this height and speed. He pushed harder, faster, feeling the air temperature rise around him from friction that would have incinerated anything less durable.

His body didn't care. The heat was nothing. The speed was nothing. He was built for this, it was horrifying, it was fact.

The Americas disappeared behind him.

He'd crossed the international date line without noticing, crossed into Asian airspace without clearance or concern, because who was going to stop him? What could stop him?

Minutes later, Shanghai's skyline emerged from the blue hues of the horizon ahead, but it was wrong. Smoke rose in the sky, dark clouds of dust rising in the air, stark against both city and sky.

When he came closer, close to the origin of the disturbance, he saw a giant crimson portal, a swirling vortex of alien infantry pouring through like a bleeding wound in the sky. Other superheroes were already there, clustered into what his eyes registered as two distinct groups, local heroes perhaps, -this world seemed to work with a logic close to DC comics- their costumes a mismatched collection of colours and designs that screamed that's-all-I-had-on-hand and another team that moved with more coordination, more precision and wore tailored uniforms.

Seven of them, formations practised, their movements synchronized in a way that told him they were used to working together, could anticipate the other's movements with ease.

He didn't know who they were.

Didn't recognize them as the thirty of so comic book superheroes he knew of the top of his head.

Didn't know their hero names, didn't their powers other than the most obvious ones.

He didn't know what they called themselves.

Nolan dearly hoped it wasn't some sort of Justice League variant. Really hoped this wasn't DC or Marvel.

Not that he'd know, most of his knowledge coming from fanfiction and whatnot.

He just knew that they were there, and they were fighting, and he was supposed to help.

Because he too was a hero conqueror-protector of a planet fated to Viltrum's collection.

The aliens were insectoid in appearance but did not posses a hard shell, disgusting beings that fell in their dozens, sent thew the air one by one by the heroes, their bloodied armor gleaming under the city lights as they poured through the portal in seemingly endless waves. They wielded weapons that crackled and hummed with some kind of energy he couldn't identify, couldn't classify against any technology he knew.

They moved in tight coordinated swarms, formations disciplined and deliberate in a way that reminded him of Earth's ancient Greek phalanx formations, overwhelming their opponents through sheer numbers and relentless forward advance, pressing their advantage with mechanical precision.

One of the more coordinated heroes, the green mace glanced up as he descended, her expression flashing with relief before she turned back to the fight.

"About time!" she shouted over the cacophony of battle. "We could use the help!"

Nolan didn't respond. Couldn't, really. His mind was still catching up to his body, which had already moved into action, fists connecting with alien armor with a force that sent bodies tumbling through the air like rag dolls, sending a trail of blood in their wake.

His Viltrumite side stirred, recognizing the rhythm of combat, the efficiency of violence, and for the first time since waking up in that body, he couldn't think.

Buildings crumbled. A chunk of concrete the size of a car broke free from a tower's facade. Nolan caught it mid-fall, fingers punching through rebar, and hurled it towards a large group of invaders crushing the aliens in it's wake.

"Fashionably late!" someone shouted.

Nolan barely looked at them.

An energy blast streaked past his ear.

He twisted, dodging the ray, caught the shooter by the throat, and drove them into the pavement hard enough to make it's head explode on impact.

"Could've used you five minutes ago!"

The words reached him. Didn't stick. His fist was already connecting with another target, then another, bodies tumbling through smoke-choked air, red droplets splashing him and the surrounding area.

He frowned when one fell into his eye, he didn't feel it only saw the red red red red red vision of one of his eyes, red like blood, red like conquest, red like everything he was, a bloodied warrior, telling him, showing him all his wrongs, bringing hundreds upon hundred or massacres and genocides conquests he'd committed don't think about it don't think about it, and somewhere beneath the steady rhythm of his breathing, beneath his perfect control over his Viltrumite body, a body that didn't flinch, didn't panic, didn't care, there was something screaming, something human and small and terrified clawing at the inside of his skull, but his hands kept moving kept killing kept fighting because that's what this body did, that's what it was for, red red red filling his vision like a promise like a warning like the truth he couldn't escape.

A building groaned, steel twisting as its facade began to crumble.

Nolan was there before the first chunk of concrete hit the ground, arms outstretched to catch a woman clutching a child. The impact should have shattered her ribs, his speed, his momentum would have caused their death, but he adjusted his hands, microseconds, to slow down just enough that she she'd survive, perhaps bruised.

But alive. Alive for her child.

He set them down three blocks away, on stable ground, before they'd even registered what happened, their synapses' signal transmission and their civilian reaction time not allowing them to even react, their breathing paused by the violent acceleration through the air..

Back.

Another building.

An elderly man frozen at a windowsill, hands gripping the railing, eyes bulging as the floor buckled beneath him. Nolan caught him mid-fall, cradling him like glass, like something precious that might break if he squeezed too hard. The man's heart hammered against Nolan's chest, rapid and terrified, breaths gasp like things, Nolan murmured something, something that may have been reassuring, he didn't remember the moment it left his lips.

A flash of blue in his peripheral vision.

One of the heroes, young, inexperienced, stepping directly into the path of an energy blast that would crackle with lethal intent, the light travelling faster than sound would.

Nolan moved, hand shooting out, fingers closing around their uniform, yanking them backward -he felt the cloth tear around his hold- with just enough force to clear the blast's trajectory. The beam seared past where they'd been standing, close enough that Nolan smelled burnt ozone of the blast despite all the smells around him.

"I've got you," he said, tone firm, solid, carrying a surety he would not feel the moment he stopped moving.

The young hero stared, stared for a fraction of a second, eyes wide and mouth agape, fumbling over a phrase of thanks.

Movement above attracted his gaze.

Another spandex wearer plummeting from the sky, body limp, shoulder smoking and leaking red ichor, life blood, arms windmilling uselessly as they lost control of their flight.

Blood across their face, through cracked lenses seeping in their eyes, blinding them. An arc of red painted through the air, behind them.

Nolan, tensed his muscles, shot upward, caught them before they hit the pavement, felt the crack of bone, the wrongness of their weight, the scream that spawned from their very core. He felt a too loose, too shattered, body, ribs grinding against each other in ways that made his stomach turn.

Their head lolled against his shoulder, consciousness flickering as they groaned in pain.

He touched down near the triage zone, lowering them on a free gurney with the same impossible gentleness he'd used for the humans civilians. A medic rushed forward, already shouting instructions, and Nolan's hands came away slick with blood that wasn't his.

He wiped them on his costume.

I feel like a damn clown.

Then he was back in the fray, moving, always moving, because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant confronting what he was doing, what he was, what he didn't want to to become, not again.

What he didn't want to return to.

What hadn't really been him.

"Omni-man!" A voice called making him turn his attention towards them.

Paf!

Smoke in his vision, quick to dissipate.

An energy blast had hit him, an impact to the side of the head, as if taken by long ingrained instinct, his head snapped towards the trash that had dared to shoot him, his mind blanked, his hand was on the green invader's face, holding it meters up by its cranium.

A squeeze.

The alien's limbs jerked uselessly, fingers clawing at Nolan's forearm, nails digging into his costume's fabric, legs kicking at nothing.

A sharp pop, of bone fracturing under the pressure he exerted. The skull giving way after little resistance, barely a fraction of a second where the bone buckled, fractures forming along the plates that made it, not even making the skin of Nolan's fingertips give before it collapsed inwards, blood vessels spider-webbing turning green skin a dark purple around the points of pressure as it did so.

Most of the skin stayed intact, until it wasn't, green skin turning purple in places, staying green in others, as it tore.

The grip tightened, barely, desperately.

Huh, still alive?

There had been a moment, a terrible drawn-out thing, where the alien's, the invader's eyes bulged in its sockets, the positive pressure exerted on the skull building with nowhere to go. Then the orbital bones fractured with a series of small, wet clicks, and the eyes seemed to edge forwards, advancing, escaping the collapsing cavity they occupied.

Where the twitching worsened, lost coherence, losing all purpose, merely muscle reflexes, fingers grasping at air like it would save the thing.

Then finally, as if to finish a macabre piece of art, the thing gave all at once, it's structural integrity failing under the power a Viltrumite of his calibre-

Nolan willed the thought away, banishing it, banishing this sense of superiority that seemed to want to crush the human he had been, had once been.

The eyes popped out, forced from their sockets by the building pressure within the collapsing skull, trailing stringy optic nerves that stretched and then snapped with wet, fibrous tears. The ocular organs didn't fall cleanly, they hung, hung for a moment, suspended by those last threads of tissue, before gravity and momentum sent them tumbling down the creature's face, leaving dark trails against green skin.

It caved it like a crushed can, sending warm cerebrospinal fluid coloured red by its blood, it was a sudden heat, a sudden wet spreading across his palm, between his fingers, through his skin oh my god oh my god oh my god, resulting in a misshapen, grotesque thing he promptly dropped.

He dropped it, dropped the thing's body, its arms slayed at odd angles, joints no longer tethered by what the central nervous system ordered it, its remains, the invader's falling to the ground as if dragged by a leash, trailing droplets of red and flesh behind it.

A whip like movement of the hand, chunks of tissues, red blood and viscera was sent through the air in an arc, a parody of what he would have preferred.

The trash hit the asphalt with a wet thud, crumpling on itself.

Nolan stared at it, then at his hands.

His breathing hadn't changed all throughout, heart-rate still the steady thing it had been earlier.

This really doesn't change a thing, huh?

Killing.

Somewhere, deep inside, buried by the situation at hand, something was screaming.

---

A voice cut through the unceasing sound of battle, sharp and commanding.

"Omni-Man, left flank!"

His body was already moving before the words fully registered, punching through three invaders in a blur of motion. Their carapaces cracked like eggshells.

"We need to push them back to the portal!"

He didn't acknowledge. Didn't nod. His fist connected with another alien, sending it careening into two more.

"Red Rush is exhausted! Someone help him cover his sector!"

The words floated past him, meaningless. His hands caught an energy pike mid-swing, crushed the shaft, drove his elbow into the wielder's face.

"Can you reach the ones on the buildings?"How did they even get there, Nolan thought brows twitching, the things can't even fly, "We're dealing with the ones advancing along the main street!"

He was already airborne, tearing through the swarm clinging to a collapsing tower. Bodies fell like rain.

"Omni-Man, status?"

Someone was waiting for a response. He could feel their expectation, hanging in the air between explosions and screams. His mouth didn't open. His focus didn't shift.

A green being lunged from his blind spot, energy pike crackling. His hand shot out, caught the thing mid-thrust. The metal crumpling in his grip. His other fist drove forward, punching through chitin and viscera in one smooth arc. The creature was dead before it could process what happened, sent as it was towards other beings like a ball at a coconut-shy.

"Nice shot!" someone called out, but there was an edge to it. Not quite irritation, but something close. Like he'd early stepped on their toes without meaning to.

He caught the slight tightness in the woman's voice when he'd pulled a civilian from danger she'd been moving toward.

The way the man in dark armor had to redirect his team around Nolan's movements rather than with them.

Small tensions, barely there, like static electricity.

Let's hope Nolan wasn't the hydrogen in the situation.

It reminded him of something. Something from his life on earth, his life amongst the other Viltrumites.

Children bickering over who got to sit in the front seat, petty and quickly forgotten when the destination mattered more than the friction.

He was already moving to the next target, and the next, and the next, ignoring the others as much as they were him.

Somewhere to his left, that same batman wannabe, black cape flowing, movements precise, was coordinating the others. "War Woman, high ground! Aquarus, contain that fire! Martian Man, hit them from behind!" There was a pause, barely perceptible, where Nolan knew an instruction for him should have been. It didn't come.

The names meant nothing to him. The tactics the man spouted were sound, but he wasn't a part of their formation, he noted once more, and they accounted for it.

The invading insects were retreating, Nolan shot forwards the retreating green-skinned trash scattered in all directions before scrambling trampling their fallen brethren towards the nearest portal after he impacted a few of them, asphalt cracking beneath the exploded bodies, bone shattered and fleshy innards spilling out.

One stumbled, its weapon clattering against pavement, and was immediately crushed beneath the boots of those behind it.

Nolan stared, a part of him horrified another used-trained to expect such behaviour from those who dared resist against Viltrum.

Another portal collapsed the sound it made suddenly disappearing felt like void, like absence, like relief, trapping a cluster of stragglers on this side.

The last few turned to send last potshots, before turning back, trying to escape, but War Woman's mace found them first.

The sounds of screams, grunts felt like music to his ears

Above, Martian Man phased through a squadron attempting to regroup, his intangible form disrupting their flight patterns. They scattered like startled birds, diving for the remaining portals.

Nolan hovered before one of the remaining portals, he couldn't see through its red swirling opaque center. But Nolan was certain of one thing, that beyond the gate way there were more of theme, thousands, millions, an entire planet's worth.

An entire planet, an entire world wanted to invade what was his to claim, to conquer.

Nolan didn't want Conquest to come anywhere near earth,near the family he was rediscovering.

His fists clenched.

He could do it. Could plunge through that portal and end them. Every last one. Tear through their world the way they'd tried to tear through his-

No. Not his.

Nolan tilted his head, staring at it.

No. No, that's not- that's not right. These are people. Sentient beings with lives, families, homes-

Earth was his to conquer.

His mission.

His purpose.

These insects had dared to invade what belonged to Viltrum, what he was here to claim in the Empire's name.

They're not insects. They're not. They may be aliens but they have eyes, hands, they feel pain- he fucking felt the skull collapse, give under his fingers, felt the life leave-

The rage -what even was he feeling?- that surged through him was clean, pure, right. It would be so easy. Follow them through. Show them what a real invasion looked like. What happened when you touched something that belonged to the Empire.

No, it's not right! It's not- it isn't right! Slaughtering an entire planet because they dared to exist, because they tried to invade your planet- that's what monsters do, that what some humans wished but damn it Nolan wasn't human he should be above that. He was supposed to stop them not, stop the invaders not-

His body tensed, ready to shoot forward-

Please don't. Please, he didn't want to do this, he didn't want to be this, he was not- he was never- he couldn't-

Then the portal he was aiming for collapsed, winking out of existence with a wet pop that left only smoke and the smell of ozone.

The decision was made for him.

Thank god.

Thank god thank god.

Silence fell over the battlefield, broken only by crackling fires and the groans of the wounded.

They had won.

All the portals collapsed inward, closing, one after another, the scattered few left behind were dealt with swiftly. And sooner than he realized -how long had it been? Tens of minutes? An hour? Hours?- the emergency, the battle, the incursion was dealt with. The tensions dissolved from the air, forgotten in favour of the bigger picture; they'd won, and that was what mattered, but they all knew.

This wasn't the last fight.

He returned to the group, flying through the air at a slow leisurely pace, landing, feet barely making a sound as he landed, among the heroes as they regrouped. They were battered, bloodied, several supporting injured teammates. One, that batman wannabe, had a gash across his chest that was already starting to heal, though the blood remained.

Nolan was barely winded, standing straight and untouched.

He could feel their eyes on him, assessing, perhaps grateful, perhaps something else. He didn't know these people. Didn't know if they were friends or just colleagues. Didn't know what Nolan's relationship with them had been.

"Good work," the man bearded man said, costume black blue and yellow, extending a hand. "Thank you for the help Omni-man."

Nolan looked down at his hands, something cold twisted in his chest, in his gut, in his very marrow.

The gruff gratitude in the man's voice. The relief in the others eyes, both teams eyes.

They thought he was their ally.

They thought he was their friend.

A protector of this world.

But he wasn't.

He was Nolan Grayson. A Viltrumite. Here to conquer this planet, because that was what Viltrum did. That was what he was for.

No matter what this borrowed- it's not borrowed it's yours it's ours- mind wanted to believe.

The woman with the mace stepped forward, wiping blood from her face. "You okay? You seem... off."

Questions. They were going to ask questions, and he couldn't… he couldn't-

"I'm fine," he said, the words coming out too fast, too sharp. "I have to go."

He didn't wait for a response. Didn't wait for the confusion or concern that was already forming on their faces. He just launched, shooting upward so fast the air cracked behind him, leaving them standing in the wreckage below.

Let them think what they wanted. Let them wonder. He wasn't their friend, wasn't their teammate, wasn't whatever they thought Omni-Man was supposed to be.

He was a conqueror.

And the sooner he remembered that, the- the better.

He nodded at her again, not trusting himself to say much.

His hands were steady.

His heart rate was already returning to baseline.

The other heroes around him had looked like they'd been through a war.

Because they had.

And he'd barely felt it. because he wasn't like them anymore.

---

He flew back barely paying attention to the journey.

The sky blurred past him, clouds and stars and the curve of the Earth reduced to meaningless streaks of colour, the Pacific darkening into night beneath him as he flew. His mind wasn't on the flight. Wasn't on the wind caressing his costume pulling the still wet blood along the fabric, it wasn't on his knuckles.

He was here, he was on earth-

Not protect. Not save. No, conquer.

The disjointed thought, muted, it sat in his chest like a stone, cold and immovable, and he couldn't think around it.

Couldn't process it.

Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't- couldn'tcouldn'tcouldn't-

The house was dark, quiet.

Both Debbie and Mark were asleep.

He landed in the garden, his feet hovering above the grass before he hovered above the ground as he moved through the air towards the door window.

His hand reaching for the vertical latch with a kind of mechanical precision that felt wrong, too deliberate, too different from the force he'd have had to exert in his human body, in his 75 year old body.

The lock clicked open, click too loud in the quiet house, and he slid the window up.

Cool night air rushed in, carrying with it the smell of grass and distant rain. He breathed it in, letting it fill his lungs, grounding himself in the sensation of it.

The sounds from outside grew sharper now, unfiltered. That dog still barking. A car passing on the main road. Somewhere, wind chimes.

He stood there, one hand braced against the window frame, and stared out into the darkness of the suburban night.

Before he knew, he stripped the suit off in the bathroom, peeling the bloodied fabric away from his skin with shaking hands.

The suit fell to the floor in a heap, red and white now stained with dark ichor that smelled of copper and something else, something wrong. He left it there, couldn't bear to look at it anymore.

Couldn't bear to look at the blood covering the thing that had felt like second-skin.

He washed his hands for what felt like an eternity, hands under the spray of water, unmoving as his gaze met his reflection's.

He studied his face in the mirror.

His moustache, his nose, his blue eyes, features he was learning to recognize as his own.

The reflection was familiar, and yet he was still expecting an old wrinkled face, his old human self's face, piece by piece, quicker than he expected, like furniture in a new house that gradually it, his face, stops feeling odd.

His eyes darted to a small scar at his hairline, a barely visible thing unless you knew to look for it.

The moment he noticed it, the moment he traced it with a wet finger, the memory surged to the fore of his mind, sharp, immediate.

A battlefield.

An assassination attempt from a weak Viltrumite.

A thousand years ago. 195 years after his parents died.

His scalp had been nearly torn off, peeled back by a fellow recruit's hand. The pain had been excruciating and the scar that remained was a testament to how close he'd come to-

To what? Death? No, Viltrumites didn't die that easily.

But to be written off as weak, to be scorned by his peers, to lose what little favour being a full-blooded Viltrumite brought him… what a fate it would have been.

Failing to prove your strength.

Being seen as a sinner. A shame.

Being wrong.

Meant being fodder.

An Nolan? He was anything but weak.

Every test, he had passed.

He had beaten every challenge.

Hadn't shown weakness nor hesitation, not before, not before-

Earth.

His lips parted, the memory came in a blinding flash, synapses firing all at once, a 'strength assessment', a culling of the weak, Nolan had survived him, proving his strength, had proved he had a right to exist.

A thousand years of scars and battles, the remnants of which could not be seen on his skin anymore, that were as much a part -one he felt he could deny- of him as the face staring back from the mirror.

He traced the scar with his fingertip once more, feeling the faint ridge of tissue that had healed centuries ago. This body had a history, his history.

This is mine, he thought, meeting his own eyes in the mirror. This is who I am.

Nolan ignored the hand trembling under the water faucet.

---

He walked to the bedroom, their bedroom, his and Debbie's, on autopilot. His feet made no sound on the carpet. His hands were still trembling.

Debbie was asleep, curled on her side, her breathing slow and even. The covers were pulled up to her shoulder, her hair spilling across the pillow.

He slid into bed beside her, careful not to wake her, and curled around her like she was an anchor. Like she could keep him from drifting apart.

His lips pressed together so hard they ached. His fists clenched in the sheets, knuckles white, trembling despite how hard he tried to still them.

She stirred, making a soft questioning sound that resembled his name, half-awake.

"Alien invasion in Shanghai," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

She hummed, turning around in his arms, facing him, a hand moving up, cupping his cheek. A gesture of comfort, automatic and unthinking.

She pressed her lips against his, falling back asleep in his arms.

He curled around her, his body trembling despite how tightly he held himself together. His lips pressed into a thin line, his fists clenched in the sheets until his knuckles went white.

This was the time, alone in the dark, with only Debbie's sleeping form for company.

If he was going to break, it should be now.

There would be no consequences for falling to baser needs here.

Not with Debbie.

Not on earth.

He didn't want to hurt anyone, the thought screamed through his mind, desperate and raw, desperate and raw because whist he had chosen, had decided- He still needed to grieve. He was not human. Why was he not human? Why was he isekai-ed into Omni-Man? Why was it so hard to accept what he had to do?Why did he miss the uncomplicated life he had as an old lonely man? Why could he just not feel? Nolan didn't want to-

The questions spiralled, each one cutting deeper than the last, and he trembled even as he held Debbie's soft body in his arms, trying to not hug her closer, fearing to lose control, fearing to hurt his wife. Her pyjamas did nothing to shield him from the warmth of her against his naked chest, against his bare legs.

The intimacy of it felt wrong, like he was violating something sacred by being here, by existing in this space that belonged to someone else, that belonged to him.

He wanted to cry. Needed to cry. But tears didn't fall.

Because he was Viltrumite.

Viltrumites didn't cry.

No release, no catharsis, just this building pressure behind his eyes that had nowhere to go.

What came instead was a sound, a high-pitched keen that started low in his chest and clawed its way up his throat. He tried to smother it, pressing his face into Debbie's hair, his hand clamping over his mouth.

Tears fell.

Oh did that make him feel weak, make him hate what he was.

Hated that part of him, that human part, that needed to express-

But the whine escaped anyway, thin and broken, the sound of something dying.

His wife, Debbie stirred against him, her body tensing slightly, and he froze, terrified that he'd woken her, that she'd see him like this, this weak, falling apart in the dark like the human child he'd never been allowed could not remember being to be.

But she only mumbled something incoherent, her hand sliding up to rest against his chest, a soft questioning sound that made him hold her closer, and settled back into sleep, in his arms.

He held, another of that broken sound still caught in his throat, and wondered how long he could keep it together.

Nolan closed his eyes, breathed in the smell of rose scented shampoo.

And before he knew it-

Sleep came like a shutdown, mechanical and inevitable.

His last conscious thought was of Debbie's warmth against him, the steady rhythm of her breathing, and the terrible knowledge that he didn't deserve this comfort.

That he was lying to her just by being here.

Then darkness swallowed him whole.

___

A/N:
If this story tickled your brain, you're welcome to leave a comment (I'd love if it's some type of constructive critisism) that challenges my persepctive on what I wrote /(°w°)/!!!