AN: Credit for Invincible goes to Robert Kirkman. Author and creator of The Walking Dead.
For so many years, Nolan Grayson was a hero. A protector even. The symbol of strength and virtue that Earth had come to revere. His name was spoken with admiration, his presence an unshakable force against the dangers that have threatened humanity. He had saved lives, fought alongside other heroes such as the former Guardians of the Globe, and carried the weight of the world on his shoulders with no hesitation. He was more than just a warrior. He was a friend, a mentor, a father, and a guardian.
Everyone looked at him as a beacon of hope and sparked idealism in the minds of younger generations who desired to become heroes like him. His strength was a gift to the world he cherished. There were always people who would chant his name and he would come to the rescue at a moment's notice. That love was there no matter what. It didn't matter how much he wanted to doubt himself about his abilities, his unbreakable love for human life was ceaseless.
What a load of bullshit.
Formerly known by his "superhero" alias Omni-Man, he drifts through the vacuum of space. The glow of distance starts washing over him, their light indifferent to the storm raging inside him. He had flown away from Earth in a blind, desperate escape. Leaving behind everything he had built for so many years, everything he had sworn to uphold. And now, for the first time in his centuries of existence, he felt truly lost.
Mark's face haunted him, his son who lives on as his polar opposite, Invincible. The horror, the betrayal, the pain had etched into his son's eyes as he hovered, broken and bloodied, above Chicago. The city had been their battlefield, the world their witness, and yet it was not Earth's judgment that gnawed at Nolan's soul. It was Mark's. It was the unbearable realization that, in his son's eyes: He was not a father, not a protector, not even a conqueror.
He was a monster. A terrorist. Imbued with the sociopathic mind of Darwinism that fuels his heartlessness to no end. It was something that the Viltrumites had taught him for thousands of years in his lifespan.
"You could have been one of us."
The words rang hollow. His son had not yielded, had not submitted. Instead, Mark/Invincible had stood against him, had refused to abandon his people, and had clung to the fragile, fleeting humanity that Nolan had dismissed as meaningless. And yet, in that final moment, it was not the Viltrumite empire that had held his heart captive - it was the memories.
Debbie, his "wife" or pet, heard her laughter in the kitchen. The smell of her cooking. The weight of Mark, so small once, rested against his chest as he read to him at night. The way Mark used to look at him, full of admiration, wanting things more than to be just like his father.
Lies, all of it. Fabricated illusions and distractions form the mission. That was what a true Viltrumite would tell himself. But as Nolan clenched his fists, he found no solace in those words.
He had fled. He. Had. Fled.
Coward. Traitor. Fucking Bastard. He had disgraced his bloodline, his people, his very purpose of existence. Now self-isolated and an enemy from both worlds that were once his home. He hesitated, faltered, had let his emotions poison his very own judgment like that. Just to let the apprehension of all his rogue actions on Earth sink in. Rage ablaze within him like a roaring gale, a seething tempest of fury and shame. He had shattered his deception, had torn apart his home, and for what? He had one job. He was supposed to conquer, dominate, and bring Earth into the fold of the Viltrum Empire. Instead, he had chosen to abandon it, he had abandoned everything. He could feel the burden for the first time pressing down, suffocating him in the silence of space.
What would they say about him? What would the empire do when they learned that one of their greatest warriors who was hailed a hero to them had turned his back on his duty? There would be no forgiveness and mercy will not be on the table. As the empire did not tolerate weakness. He had made a choice, and now he was untethered, adrift in both body and spirit, cursed to wander in self-imposed exile. Watching thousands of stars spanning wherever he went illustrates the mortal lives that were lost in his onslaught.
He roars into the void, a soundless scream lost among the stars of time. His body trembled, and his mind spiraled. He wanted to fly back, undo it all, to force Mark to see... to understand. But it was already too late. The dried blood on his hands, on his uniform, will never be washed away. He was drowning in it, suffocating under the weight of his sins.
This will be his elegy.
Was he weak? Or had he, for the first time in his existence, been strong?
He did not know anymore. As he didn't care for an answer.
And that terrified him.
The stars blur past him as Nolan drifts toward his final destination. The black hole loomed ahead, a void darker than any nightmare, pulling light, time, and existence into its infinite maw. It called to him in the way only absolute oblivion could, whispering a promise of silence, of an end. He could feel its pull, its hunger, its patience. It did not judge, did not condemn, did not care. It simply was.
And soon, he would be part of it.
He closed his eyes, allowing himself to surrender for the first time in his life. Not in battle, not in defeat, but to the weight of his conscience. The voices in his mind, the ghosts of the past, they no longer tormented him. They simply lingered, like echoes of a son that had long since ended, yet refused to fade. The streams of space torrent against his body as the abyss draws near.
He had been everything a Viltrumite was meant to be. A warrior. A conqueror. An enforcement of his people's will and ideology. But now, in the cold abyss of space, he was something else entirely. A man with nothing left but regret, the former cold-hearted steely unfeeling veil that he carried, from the assassination of the Original Guardians of the Globe to the onslaught in Chicago. A father who had also shattered the love of his only son. A husband who had turned his wife's devotion into despair. A protector who had become the greatest threat to the world he once swore to defend. The realization of what he had done was an iron weight upon his soul, dragging him deeper into his self-imposed exile. He had once called human emotions weak, fleeting, meaningless, and inconsequential.
And yet, it was those very emotions that had undone him.
"You were a god. A warrior. A conqueror." Those words were laced in his thoughts. "Weak."
"No." Nolan muttered under his cold breath, shaking his head. "I made a choice."
"And what did that choice bring you? Look at you now. Running. Hiding. From them. From us. From yourself." His inner critic floods remorseful thoughts of frustration in his unempathetic mind.
"Debbie. Mark. They trusted you. And yet, you lied. To them. To yourself."
He slams his fist into the rock of a barren moon, sending debris scattering in all directions. It was never supposed to be like this. He was raised to be better. Trained to be stronger.
A Viltrumite did not feel pain. A Viltrumite did not regret.
And yet, it festered inside him. The anguish. The rage. The unbearable sense of loss. All hallucinates the figures of the Original Guardians of the Globe that he brutally slain. They stare down at Nolan as a splatter of blood is on their chests.
It was too much for Nolan to see.
Mark had stood against him, not out of defiance, but out of love. For his mother, for his friends, for the fragile, imperfect world he called home. Nolan had beaten his son to within an inch of his life, yet even through the blood and the agony, Mark had never yielded his heart no matter how outclassed he was.
"You Dad... I'd still have you."
The words would never leave him as an epiphany came in. They had cracked something inside him, something he had spent centuries fortifying. And when he had looked down at his son, his only son, helpless and broken in the snow. All the strength, all the training, and all the purpose that had defined him for so long had become meaningless.
The Viltrumites, no matter how savage they were, would never understand. They would never accept what he had done. He had not just failed his mission. He had betrayed his empire, his people, and his very nature. They would come for Earth eventually. They would come for Mark. And he would not be there to stop them.
Perhaps that was for the best. Mark deserved to forge his path, unshackled by the shadow of his father's sins.
The black hole loomed closer now, its event horizon stretching before him like the gaping maw of a god. There would be no survival. No escape. Even he, with all his power, could not withstand the force that lay ahead. This was his penance. His reckoning. The end of Omni-Man. The end of Nolan Grayson.
"Debbie... Mark..."
He spoke their names aloud, though no sound could carry in the void. His last words, his final elegy. He had no right to ask for their forgiveness. He would never know if they had found peace if Mark had grown into the hero Earth needed him to be. But perhaps, in the collapse of all things, he could finally let go.
Nolan closed his eyes as the pull became irresistible. His body stretched, his vision dimmed, and for the first time in centuries, he felt something close to peace.
Then, he was gone.
Light-years away, abroad on a Viltruimite warship, a group of scouts monitored the fading traces of Nolan's energy signature. The data was compiled, analyzed, and transmitted back to Viltrum. Clasping their arms behind their backs, they made their way to the room where they passed through many other Viltrumites working on their respective duties. They enter the room where General Kregg is watching the destruction of a planetary civilization unfold callously.
One of the scouts raised their voice. "We've confirmed Nolan's last known location. He was heading toward some kind of black hole but the radar went off. He's somewhere else now."
"Oh?" General Kregg turns his head slightly to face them while frowning, his voice cold with an unfeeling and merciless tone. "Do tell me."
"Our sensors have detected a familiar Viltrumite energy signature." She explains with a voice devoid of expression. "It's coming from a confirmed signal in Thraxia. It's him. He survived."
"Order our fleets on standby toward Thraxia." General Kregg looks back at the planetary carnage in front of him. "I want him arrested and sent to Viltrum to be executed. Leave no survivors."
"Affirmative." One of the scouts nodded as they turned to leave.
"Wait." General Kregg calls. They turn their heads to face him.
"Should we encounter his offspring, do not execute him." General Kregg commanded. "We need him for Earth's occupation."
"You got it, General." They nodded and they left as the door behind him shut with a final, decisive click.
The Viltrumites were prepared to do whatever it took against the Coalition of Planets.
Once they got to him in Thraxia, there was no going back.
They will show him no mercy.