The Observer Effect

by MeepMeep7913

Viltrumites had believed in strength for so long that the few scientists among them were respected just for that. Vigil is on Earth for why events took such a turn - why Nolan had departed, the contradictions of Mark Grayson and why Earth was proving to be anomalous. Before Thragg burnt it all away, but in his observation of Mark Grayson, he was no longer sure it would be Thragg.

4. Ch4 - A First Kill is Never Easy

The internet had exploded.

Vigil had spent half an hour at the scene of the prior battle after Invincible had departed, watching over the gathering crowd that had continued to grow in size as the police attended to the scene. Plenty of onlookers were gawking at the damage and blood, hurdled behind barriers that had had to be brought in as civilians flocked to see the sight of where Invincible had killed Brutalon. Even if the villain's body had been the first thing to be quickly hauled away after a quick documentation, it was as if many there thought they could size up the gravity of the situation from the scene itself.

Vigil supposed that was true to an extent, given that it was big even for the Viltrumites - it had been Mark Grayson's first kill.

The thirty minutes he had spent watching those proceedings paled in the interest he had during the fight, and now to the online reactions to the utter millions of people who had watched the battle. The significance of the event to many could not be understated, given that reputation was a vast part of a superhero's character - and Invincible had been known to be the hero. The man who had fought off many a villain, helped to kick Omni-man off Earth after Chicago had taken a major hit; and had appeared much more in the spotlight than other heroes.

It was the sheer shift in that dynamic, the literal violent swing in the quick timing of reappearing on-world and executing someone so abruptly that scared so many people online. Debates raged over many of the platforms available online, with reactions to Invincible's battle being immediate, polarizing and widespread. Deliberations devolved into heated arguments as emotional responses cropped up second after second if you refreshed the platform as everyone had something to say.

Viral videos of the battle were equally as rampant, images and screenshots snagged from all points of it appearing between it all as it was pushed by news corporations that feasted on the global highlight, or individual posters. The public reaction was as divided as it was intense with many people being rattled and asking questions, but some had settled into opposing camps of being staunch defenders of this rare action from an official hero - with those equally appalled and had drawn a line. The worst Brutalon had technically done was kill a single bank guard who'd refused to surrender, with continuous examples of humans in prison having done worse to deserve that sort of fury - but the difference was who had killed him.

Invincible was not an ordinary superhero. He stood in the limelight, held by many as a defender of Earth with the power of him and Omni-man displayed fully in the battle of Chicago which had flattened entire streets and killed thousands. It was factual that he held more power than any other superhero on Earth now, with his failings more down to his inexperience and holding back for most of his battles outside that like with Nolan.

- HeroWatcher92: 'Did Invincible really kill Brutalon just to save lives and stop him, or was it to prove how powerful he's becoming?'

- Stacey Hart: 'Some of you are acting like Invincible was supposed to continuously pamper and show mercy to every villain he comes across. He's a warrior, stop acting shocked. We've seen worse.'

- RexSplodeFan: 'What happened to the guy who never killed? He always saved everyone, including bad guys! What'd I miss?'

- CaptainReality4: 'What I don't get is just how easily he killed the guy. Didn't even hesitate, just ended him like it was a regular fight. I get that Brutalon looked raving mad in that, but Invincible has always been different. Just why?'

- Superslice22: 'Invincible has always been a symbol of hope, the guy who saved lives. But if this is some new road he's taking, we can't ignore that. We all saw Chicago...'

- Kevin Lee: 'Need I remind everyone just how many lives he's saved? Invincible's actions has always benefitted those who didn't choose to make other people miserable, and we owe him for that. So what if one or two bad guys die now? The guy will still save millions more than any other hero.'

- ExiledCarrotSt1ck:'Look, we all saw Brutalon being an actual nightmare gone mad, and I say Invincible was right to stop him. Why coddle the villains? People like him have it coming.'

- VictorAnon, in response to ExiledCarrotSt1ck: 'We literally saw him smile as he beat the crap out of the so-called villain, dipshit. He crossed a line and is now acting as judge, jury and executioner. If he's treating bank robbers as scum who need to die, then how long before his standards lower again? There's a reason why this kind of power can't go unchecked amongst all the supers.'

Comment after comment surged across many different platforms, and Vigil had spent the past three hours going through it all with an analytical regard. It was a unique opportunity to gather data upon an event that shocked the world so, but first and foremost it did help his mission - the profile of Mark Grayson in his mind and report was growing by the day. Foregoing the actual events of the battle and his psyche, the reputation of the Viltrumite hybrid on his home planet was an interesting observation to make that would reveal not only just how well received he was; but also the collected facts of millions of people instead of just his own observations now. Past transgressions, events that would defend him, his general upstanding and perceived morality, all would be brought to light time and again each time controversy would arise on an individual.

But as for his mission, it was both good and bad. Viltrumites didn't hesitate to kill, with many of the enforcers taking a delight in it, but this had been different. There had been enjoyment, yes, and alignments were visible with the general mindset of the Viltrum empire, but the nature of it had differed. That had been a hunter dispatching its prey, a person who had deliberately allowed the enemy to get close and had prolonged the battle that could have been ended in a second. Enforcers liked to kill, but their enjoyment mainly layinthe killing, as the general mindset of a Viltrumite was that other species were so far beneath them that even interacting with them was to be as short as possible.

Mark had not fought, or thought, as a Viltrumite.

The shift in personality, indicated in an array of records such as those from his education files to the massed reactions online, was happening quicker than Vigil would have anticipated if he would have guessed so. And the portion of his mission where he examined Mark on whether he was a threat or ally to the Viltrumite empire had just got harder because of that fact.

LAKE MICHIGAN, 1000 METRES UP

Mark Grayson was thinking.

So far, he had remained where he was for over fifty minutes, the cape he wore that normally slung across his back now gently drifting in the continuous breeze that was a bit stronger at the altitude he was hovering at. The mostly still wet blood from his fight had mostly been stripped from his suit in the turbulence of the flight to his destination, and what had remained to drip form his boots and the hem of his cape had long since encrusted itself upon the clothing. But still, despite the late hour of the night, he remained.

Below him lay the waters of one of America's Great Lakes, which still within the lower altitudes completely swallowed upon the horizon before Mark in a vast expanse of twinkling, darkened blue from the moon and starlight that scattered off its surface. Invincible looked over it all, eyes that stayed fixated on certain areas at a time as they only slowly rotated and blinked more often manually from the reminder they were drying up than automatically. He was so far trying to just express something, to think, but he was... struggling.

That had been his first kill. He should be feeling something, it wasmeantto be something, something significant; and yet he could not find it. Even during the fight, the disappointingly short burst of adrenaline had faded quickly as he had focused more on that disappointment than anything else, unmoved by the sight of the blood he'd wiped from his gloves. Now that he had come deliberately far enough to think and clear his head did it still fail to materialise, with the only thing he had so far succeeded at being that his head was muted and stagnant with only the low buzz of background thoughts.

So far, Mark had spent more time thinking on what he should be doing or expecting, rather than caring - and that looped back to the conundrum of what he should be feeling. Slowly, with each drifting glance in a new direction, with each loop in his head of how it went from still clarifying he felt so little to how it should be more; did it confirm to him that he cared so little. Even the thoughts that reached back to the smirk that had emerged to his face in the heat of the moment, when the idea had struck to play with the villain so far beneath him in power, arose not much.

What did stir, was the creditability in his action - like a coiling feeling that stirred within the pits of his torso that he allowed to stew but did not seize upon.

Mark felt detached from it all. He knew it had been going for years now, but it had risen its head with vehemence since the battle with his father, and he no longer knew what to do on it. Logic dictated it wasn't right, but as proven over the course of the last fifty minutes, logic wasn't applying to him. It seemed to be accelerating even if the despicable man who had helped birth him fucked off since then and was never heard from since. The visibility of it could be traced back to Nolan Grayson and his teachings, his fists that had struck him time and again, but deep down he knew it had really started with him.

What had stayed clear for the past while had now become incessant with noise again, and Mark felt both wound up still and slightly glad that the empty feeling had receded again when his thoughts crept to his father. It would be back, but for now, he took it as his cue to leave.

The sonic boom that occurred after his disappearance from the area was powerful enough that ripples would patter out along the water below.

THE GRAYSON RESIDENCE

"What do you want me to say, Cecil?! That I saw this coming? That IknewMark would just up and decide to bludgeon someone's throat?!" Debbie yelled at the man in her living room, before letting out a loud, choked exhalation that sounded almost like a sob to match the tears trickling down her face. Almost collapsing into the sofa as she lowered onto it, her legs shaking slightly from the weight of emotions she was feeling - unable to comprehend both that and the yet-undeniable reality before her eyes.

The television screen caught in her eye as that thought occurred, causing her breath to once more catch in her own throat as she saw it again. For that moment, she was frozen solid, ice casting down the very inside of her bones and spine as it rushed down in a tempestuous flow of freezing currents made very real to her body. Debbie saw her son, Invincible standing over the corpse of Brutalon as the news droned on inaudibly in the background, the very image burning into her retinas as she saw it all - the flashes of yellow, mixed with red blood in the dark of the night. The casual cruelty had horrified her with the video that repeated on loop in her mind, the way it had been done with no hesitation, norestraint.

What terrified her most was the fact that she didn't recognise her son in that photo.

Despite the thoughts racing through her head that drowned the world out for a few moments, the 'click' of the television screen fading to black snapped her back to reality as she now saw a scarred visage within it. Snapping her head to the man, Cecil Stedman looked back to her with a mixture of seriousness and pity in his eyes as he held the gaze for a moment. Seemingly pausing as he thought up what to say.

"No, Debbie, I didn't expect you to see this coming in the same way I don't expect you to know what to do now." He then spoke out with a tone of sincerity, firm enough that he kept Debbie's undivided attention in her emotional state but still soft to convey the relatability. "I only asked earlier for if there were signs you may recognise now that it's slapped us all in the face, in the same way I'm going to have to ask you now to keep an eye out for me now. To tell me of literally anything in future in relation to Mark's powers, any changes and especially his emotional and mental state." Cecil sighed as Debbie's face turned away at that, obviously not wanting to hear of spying on her son in this time. "I know it's a lot to ask especially right now, but you have to understand Debbie."

Taking a perched seat on the seat opposite the sofa Debbie was more flopped on, he continued in the same soft tone. "We've wanted to help Mark for a while now, and as his mother we know you want the best for your son. We just never knew how to give it to him for a while, given our need for him out there as well as his own activities and... stubborn pride." Cecil remarked as he continued to gaze at Debbie, wishing to impress upon her his seriousness. "But what you have to understand is that our hand was just forced tonight. We at the GDA can help him, Debbie. You've seen the top-quality doctors we have, the specialists who can help Mark in getting his head back straight. But we need help Debbie,yourhelp, to make that happen to make your son better, starting with helping to convince him to accept our help and telling us of any changes."

Debbie sniffed as she tried to dry her tears with one hand, before just giving a small nod in the slumped sitting position she was in. "Fine... but just go for now, Cecil." She muttered. "Leave me in peace."

The GDA director said nothing to that particularly, jaw setting straight as his thoughts brought forward the providence over the situation that had never stopped playing out in his head even as he spoke to Debbie; instead just nodding to her. "I'm afraid you won't be in peace right now, Mrs Grayson." He announced in a more normalised tone then, as he stood up with the end of their conversation. "Just, don't piss him off."

A distortion of cyan blue erupted in her vision then, making the woman blink at the split instant of a blinding flash only two metres across from her as Cecil disappeared into thin air with his act of teleportation. She had no time to think upon what he meant, as the front door clicked open then, making her spin round in her agitated state to see who it was even if the answer was instantly known in her mind. Sure enough, her son walked through the door then.

Silence passed for a few moments, as both mother and son stared at one another - trembling brown eyes staring into deadened black lenses that blocked the sight of her son. The tension ramped up as Mark stayed there before her, unmoving as he just continued to gaze seemingly apathetically at her with his mouth set thin; the absolute only indication Debbie had of her son, of an otherwise disguised man who had replaced him. She too looked back, with a gasp that refused to sound and breathing that had gone silent, only the quivering of her eyes and slight contortions in her mouth and cheek muscles being the only movements that betrayed her.

Just as quickly as the paralysis had set in the tension between them, was it broken as Mark turned away. Softly closing the front door behind him in absolute defiance to the storm he'd whipped up from his actions, he did not look to his mother again as he instead walked to the stairs. Putting his foot on the first step, Mark Grayson would have just gone to bed and slept that night if it wasn't for Debbie snapping out of it then in a delayed manner.

"Mark!" She called out, the name passing through her mouth hastily as she saw him literally going to leave, even if her voice faltered in the second syllable and trailed off quickly once the name had been uttered. But it worked, as the movements that would have quickened and broken into a stride to take him upstairs in seconds instead paused its posture. Turning his head at a speed that seemed to be treating this normally, the goggled lenses looked back to Debbie as Mark silently regarded his mother for a second time.

"...why?" Was all she could say. There were many emotions she was feeling in that moment, but disbelief was perhaps the most prevalent. It wasn't even the fact that somebody had been murdered, or so much the fear - it was that this wasn't the son she'd raised.

Silence continued for a moment, before his jaw clenched for a brief moment before Mark opened it to sigh. "Because people like this don't stop." He spoke then, words coming out in a flowing manner as if he himself had to think of why he did it. "Time and again,people have been hurt because of how the villains keep running rampant! Using their powers for their own, small, selfish goals, a stream of unending situations where so many people end up worse off when it just keeps happening." He spat out that last sentence, as if it was finally a burning ember in his chest he could get out. "I did the right thing in a system that proves every day how it doesn't work."

Debbie flinched like he'd struck her, eyes widening as if it took the words coming from the source to finally fully believe it. "The right thing?" She questioned in a raised voice, as if the disbelief was now evaporating as shock in her tone. "Since when is the right thing killing those who could be redeemed, those who may not be able to get better and need to do it?! What happened to giving people a fair chance - to help everyone like you used to?!"

"Redeemed? Fair?" The words came out like it was Mark's turn for disbelief, spoken with a questioning tone that sharpened to a knife-point. "How about the fact that they don't give me a choice?!" Mark snapped, his voice rising to almost a shout as if the act of justifying himself had finally sparked up a swirl of feelings he'd almost wanted to experience over the course of close to an hour. "I don't get to help everyone when its crisis after crisis! People accuse me of failure when the villains keep coming back, when the streets litter with bodies and blood and then people turn to me and shout for why I wasn't there?!" His chest quivered as his frustration boiled over then, teeth baring from the emotions pouring out between them. "When the Mauler twins burst out of prison next or the Lizard League keep getting away, apparently that's my fault! When they keep hurting people, and I had the chance to end it, to keep them locked up or away from them!" He leaned over the banister then, looking his mother fully in the eyes. "HOW'S THAT FAIR TO ME?!"

A small exhalation came from his nose then as his anger had been let out, before he collected himself and stood back up properly. "I ended it." He spoke in a much quieter tone. "It's done."

His mother had been shocked into stunned silence at the fury sent her way, but she had not been the husband to Omni-man for nothing as she stood her ground. She knew it was unfair, knew that his stress levels had become unmanageable ever since the fateful battle through the streets of Chicago, but he was also wrong. Debbie had to slap her son out of this frightening madness and make him see that it was wrong.

"And what about next time?" Her own voice was sharper now, rising to match the acidity that had been in Mark's own voice. "What happens when someone else makes you mad, or doesn't do what you want and meekly surrender? Does every person who fights you rather than give up deserve to die too?"

Mark's face slackened momentarily at those words, before a quick snarl bared over his lips as the only part of his face exposed. "That'snotwhat this is about, and you know it." He spoke forcefully then, a curled fist thumping softly into the banister as he had to deliberately mind how he touched the wooden surface.

Debbie's face softened a bit, sighing as she now urged to her son after having caused him to see an alternative side to it. The fact that he rejected it gave her the confidence to press on. "Then can't you see it's wrong, Mark?!" She called out in an appeal to him, her voice choking up audibly. "You can't just judge people like that, as if the power you have can just be used to solve every problem. The line will blur!" She looked at him fully, a tear shedding down her cheek as her own voice lowered then. "Please Mark, don't do this. Don't become something you're not."

Gloves entered his vision briefly as his head tilted down, looking to where his mother's eyes had trailed at the blood staining his suit. "And how do you know I shouldn't use my power like that?" He questioned softly then, looking back up as his hand fell back onto the banister limply then instead of in a fist. "How can you possibly understand? I have these powers no one else does, and yet I'm supposed to just keep flying off to every crisis to watch more people die, for the bad guys to get away a lot of the time. Like I'm supposed to just keep repeating this without actually curing the problem for good?"

"This isn't about cures or problems, Mark, but about lives! Irreplaceable, human lives that you can't just think of as merethingsto throw away!" Debbie stated with as convincing a tone as she could manage in her tone. Imploring as hard as she could to reach her son. "It's one thing to accidentally kill in self-defence, or when you are given no choice, but surely you can tell the difference to what you did tonight with somebody you played around with; who'd only robbed a bank! That wasn't just killing with a reason, that was..." She trailed off as the word lodged in her throat, knowing that calling her son anything like a murderer would be the wrong thing to do. The way her son was acting, it was as if she was taking it much harder than him."It was too much like your father." She croaked out as her voice became hoarse, looking away as she could no longer think of what to say.

It clicked in him. The way his mother had been looking at him all throughout the discussion, the ever-present fear in her eyes even when her stubborn bravery made her stand up to the strongest being on the planet. What she based her understanding off of, using her experience with someone else to compare it to him as if he were that same person. Seeing, watching -lookingat him as it all made sense in his mind now.

Looking at him as if he werehim.

"NO!" He screamed out then, his hand clenching in rage from where it had previously been slacking on the stair banister - pulverising it to a cloud of wooden shards and sawdust in a temper-driven display of loss of control. "That's what this is about?!" His voice cracked even as he shouted in the absolute fury that had arisen from the depths of his being, for touching the topic that shouldn't have been poked. "That you thought I was like HIM?"

Debbie visibly flinched then, looking back up in horror as Mark took it completely the wrong way, flying into an absolute rage from his brain misunderstanding his mother's intention in the moment

"Don't."His voice cut her off stone-dead, freezing her as if the ice-cold tone it was spoken in actually was solid enough to permeate and flow through her veins. Mark had spoken through visibly tightened and clenched teeth to the extent that each slip of them grinded out a bit, the black lenses of his goggles somehow getting all the more darker as if he were not allowing anything else to happen. His chest shuddered as his brain fought for each breath through his constricted jaw, voice forced out with the forced exit of air by his diaphragm."Don't compare me to him."

His mother trembled briefly, a slight shake in her hand that had come out as a tremor she hadn't been able to quell in time to keep within her. The sight had Mark's attention for a moment, jaw clenching even tighter for a moment before it was slowly pried open by his own control - as Debbie contained the quivering of her lips and tried to use the brief interlude between them to right the conversation. To bring it back to where it should have gone - to bring her son back to her. She swallowed silently as she opened her mouth to first let out a small, shaky shudder of air exhaled through it before speaking, to tell him exactly what she had meant. "Mark, I-"

"He didn't do anything because he had to." Mark interrupted her again, speaking more normally as he looked away from Debbie, muttering under his breath then as his chest heaved again; drawing in more copious amounts of air into his lungs as he was evidently trying to wrestle out the fury back into himself before he did do something. "He did it because he wanted to. I do it because I have to." His muttering got louder as he rationalised it out loud. "He did it, he fought because he liked it. I don't."

But even as he said it, he felt his brain gnaw at itself, the sheer sense of how incorrect that was pervading and coiling round his brain to squeeze it just gently enough as if it was an ever-present reminder that would make him go even crazier in the long run than if it crushed his mind then and there. The scene of the fight pervaded his thoughts, bombarding all of his senses with his prior experiences of it as if to ensure he saw it all again in perfect recollection to reinforce how false that had been. The taint of copper smelling blood in his nose, eyes that roamed across the crimson and darkened colours of the ground and body before him; the buffeting feeling of air sliding across his arms as he withdrew them for another blow; the thud of each impact. The muscles he had felt most prominently was the drawback of his cheek muscles - carved and upturned into the small smirk.

His breathing had been steady. Hands that never shook once even with each impact. Mark had certainly felt something, deep within him that had fed and bled into his rational sense to drive him on. It hadn't been regret, and he knew it hadn't felt detracting. Then, or even now. It had been him. The unpleasant feeling in his chest now wasn't for that, it was for the fact that he couldn't identify what had drove him on - what had felt even slightlysatisfyingabout it. That it had not been some loss of control, some relapse in his self that allowed it.

He shoved the thoughts aside before it could settle and identify it, even as his brain continued to gnaw and his stomach to coil.

"Mark, I- he, -please."Debbie choked out then through the lump in her throat, ignoring the fear in her from the shouts, the fury and anger lobbed at her at the dead of night as she saw her son shine through in that moment, needing her more than ever. She begged to reach him as she saw just how much it had all gotten to him. The relief that flooded through her was indescribable, as the lenses gazed back to her but didn't interrupt this time, his lips pressed so harshly together in the opening showing his mouth that they were discolouring. "Just please. You're stressed, and this isn't you. Talk to me, take a break - just anything, don't go back out there for a short while. You need to step back for now, get your head straight. Stay home with me, please."

In that moment, she laid it all out in her voice. Debbie's tone was filled with the grief, fear and sadness, begging her son to listen and just come back to her. Hoping that as the only important person left in his life, she could draw him back in that moment and see him smile again like he hadn't done in weeks. She couldn't bare for him to leave her too.

Unfortunately, that moment had also allowed Mark to re-gravitate himself. That moment of forcing aside his thoughts and then listening to his mother worked against the intention to re-align himself with the accord that was rational to him.

"I made a choice." Mark spoke simply, quieter - more level. "It was the right one."

Spoke plainly, rationally. As level as he could manage. It sounded right to him then.

"Mark, please." Debbie could have sobbed at what he said then, but she didn't let herself. She couldn't do it, not when her son was in so much pain. Not when Mark needed her. "Please don't go down this path. Stay with me."

Mark's chin elevated slightly, goggled gaze regarding her. Saw how she barely holding herself upright, straining in her grief against the sofa to keep her eyes on him. The way her eyes fixated exactly on his, even through the dark shield cloaking them. Implorations of grief, begging him as the one person who he thought he regarded as important. The person who had brought him into this world.

"Very well, mum." He stated through the haze that had descended temporarily from analysing his mother's posture, his voice like a knife cutting through it to keep himself in reality; to keep himself grounded. "I won't be Invincible for a few days at least."

His tone, neutral. Flat and concise. The last thing he would say.

With that, he was done. Not allowing the situation to continue further, to look at his mother again and hear either of their voices as he had to justify himself again; or to stew in his own self, thoughts and feelings as it didn't feel as wrong as it should've. He forcibly ended it there as he turned around and headed up the stairs, and Debbie did not find it within herself to respond.

Only when her son had fully disappeared out of sight did Debbie allow the sobs to begin. To cry out loud as she poured out her feelings into the pillow her head now flopped into, the strength to keep it upright gone - the grief, sadness and absolute fear of loss staining the fabric with her tears. And, the small spark of relief for finally breaking through in the end, even if it absolutely felt like the bond between parent and child had just been frayed irreparably that night.

NEXT MORNING

The house was eerily quiet when Mark woke up. Sunlight filtered through his bedroom blinds, casting faint lines across his floor that didn't reach the bed where he lay. For those few moments, he just lay there staring at the ceiling. Eyes wide open as if replicating the fluid motion he'd opened them with when he woke up, repeating the night before when simply closing them had quickly resulted in a dreamless sleep. As if it had been as simple as closing and reopening them, eight hours gone by like that.

There had been no nightmares, no visions of Brutalon's broken body. No disturbances to his sleep. No guilt weighed in his chest - as if the resumption of brain activity had changed nothing overnight. In fact, it had all lessened, with his head ever clearer from the slight constriction it had felt last night; and only normal biological functions occurring in his torso when previously it had held a lining of feelings he didn't want to describe. Not willing to tackle the problem he knew was there.

Mark Grayson felt completely normal in that moment, even if he knew he was changing.

With a groan, he sat up and ran a hand though his hair. He could already feel the tension waiting for him downstairs, knowing his mother was going to bring it up again. Debbie Grayson may have been his mother, the worry she felt for him proving itself last night, but she was also a brave, stubborn soul who did not let things sail her by. He knew she would not, and he still did not what to say just like the prior night. It was not something he felt he could prepare for, only engage with it in the moment.

So he got up.

The smell of coffee lingered in the air of the kitchen as Mark softly treaded down the stairs, with his mother at the oven half-heartedly poking at some eggs in the frying pan. But Mark could tell she wasn't really cooking, as he could feel her thinking hard as she glanced to him entering the kitchen. Rims around her eyes spoke of the tears she had continued to shed hours later, the darkened visage under her eyelids telling of the sheer terrible sleep and night she had had compared to his.

Debbie continued to look, taking him in - the boy she had raised, son she loved with all her heart... and the man in one night she was now afraid he was becoming.

Sighing, Mark turned his back for a moment as he ignored the coffee and instead ran a glass under the tap to fill it with water, standing straighter and facing the window as he then proceeded to drink the full glass. Tapping it with a finger for a couple of seconds as he looked out the window with his own thoughts, he then set it on the side before turning back round and leaning on the counter. His mother had turned back to the counter, spatula still in hand as her slightly stooped posture gave away her nervous feelings. "Are you going to say something, or are just doing the awkward silence thing?" He then bluntly spoke.

A small exhalation came from her nose, as Debbie just reached and turned off the oven by slowly twisting the dial. "I don't know what to say, Mark." She softly responded, with her back turned and accompanying expression to her words hidden.

"Then don't." Was his short response.

"I don't have that option." She finally turned to face him fully, her voice sharper as her eyes now locked onto his with her full attention brought to bear. "I can't just pretend nothing happened."

Mark's own body language changed as he raised a bit higher against the counter he leant on, eyes narrowing minutely back as he let out a small scoff. "I never said you had to pretend." He muttered loudly, his gaze darting away but his voice did not waver. Unlike the prior night, he would keep a straight head, as it was not worth it to allow the anger to take over again. But nor would he allow his feelings to just be labelled as wrong.

"Then talk to me." The voice was quieter, but it held no less weight as he looked back to his mother to see her tightened grip on the spatula, her eyes imploring like last night but with the addition of being firm now. She wasn't scared for her, but for him now. "Really talk to me, Mark."

A moment passed as Mark stayed quiet then, slowly thinking it over but finding no difference. "I did what had to be done." He found himself repeating from last night, gently shaking his head as he did so. "I don't get why you can't see that."

"Because I know you." Debbie instantly responded, knowing then to appeal to him than his ideals. "And I know you wouldn't have done this before."

A spark of frustration set off in his torso, a small ignition that was forcibly snuffed and pushed down by himself as he refused to be dragged down and questioned. "Maybe that's the problem then, mum." He stated in a clear voice, speaking in the moment of how he felt as he knew he would. "Maybe I was too soft before! Letting people walk all over me, criminals to escape because I thought 'being good' meant giving people a chance they didn't deserve!"

"And what?" She instantly responded once more, refusing to back down and instead to make him see reason. "You think being strong means killing whoever you want?"

"No." He replied, his tone now filled with resolution as he stated clearly what he truly was beginning to feel. "I think it means not letting the wrong people walk away."

Debbie opened and closed her mouth then, hand inching up before letting it fall as she couldn't think of an instant response this time. "Then who decides who the 'wrong' people are, Mark?" She eventually spoke, her voice cracking slightly as it did so. "You?"

Mark had no answer to give that time, eyes widening where they had previously narrowed from what his mother just asked. That, he had not thought of, and so had no comeback.

Taking a slow breath, she gently applied further pressure to the avenue that had finally stumped her son, the first bit of real progress in that morning's conversation. "Please tell me you at least thought about it." She stated softly. "Before you did it."

Blinking a couple of times, Mark now felt further off guard than before, including from the previous night, as his thoughts scrambled a bit before he collected them. He felt no anger or frustration; just lost as he was called out on a line of questioning he had not anticipated or thought about. Caught up in his justifications and the events that the full details of what happened next beyond the big point was much murkier. He opened his mouth, the formation of 'yes' on the tip of his tongue to be spoken.

But like before, he remembered with perfect clarity. How it had transitioned from maiming and brutalising the villain beneath him, to ending their life in one jab of his hand upon the small recognition in the back of his mind that Brutalon had nothing else to give. Like it had been a simple reaction to that awareness, like breathing. Like instinct.

The answer did not leave his mouth, and his silence was all his mother needed.

Debbie inhaled sharply, turning away to press a hand against her forehead. Shaking her head as she discovered yet another fact of the events. "God, Mark..." She trailed off, the tone she utilised soft but shaken slightly, an edge of bitterness as the situation kept returning to the start no matter if she thought she had reached her son or not.

Crossing his arms, the reminder had brought clarity as Mark looked to his mother's turned back. His thoughts on the matter were slowly seeming clearer than ever, as if Debbie's points and the occasional ones that he did have no answer to only providing new avenues and routes to how right his choice had been. With each forced moment of thinking, and justification given to her, also building it up within himself. "I don't regret it." He declared then quietly, his tone gentle but firm.

Turning back after a moment, she looked fully to him. Her eyes shining with something raw as she had heard that. "Not even a little?" She questioned, as if a part of her was desperate to hear otherwise.

He met her gaze as fully as she had met his easier. "No." He replied, and this time the word left his mouth far easier. He paused, before looking away as Debbie only exhaled forcefully. "I don't feel bad, Mum. I don't feel-" He stopped as he breathed in sharply himself, before spitting out the confirming truth. "I don't feel anything about it." The feeling that had coiled within his torso the night before, the constriction and squeezing in his head was only faintly remembered now as he felt freer for confirming it to himself.

There was silence once more, as Debbie just looked forlornly at him with a stare that lasted a long time. Whatever she was feeling then, was deliberately hidden away from her son. "That's what scares me the most." She ultimately muttered aloud, before she too, leaned against the counter as if having to steady herself. The pause continued, as if she'd never said a word.

Mark didn't say a word. He'd said all he needed to, his feelings and thoughts. His was all out in the open. It was now Debbie who had not confided in all she had to say.

It was not long coming. "You don't want to be like your father?" Debbie announced the question in a deliberate tone, twisting the knife of the only raw emotional topic she knew of her son. The only way she could peel away the infuriating calmness that he used when discussing killing, and get to the man underneath. "Then prove it."

The control that he swore to wield in the next conversation with his mother, the resolution that he would not get angry or frustrated as he too needed to confront the truth, snapped in an instant. This time, he did not force down the simmering anger even as somethingelsetwisted inside of him, the indescribable feeling that he had refused to ruminate on. "I already have." Mark just spat out then, speaking lowly as he looked at his mother.

Debbie just shook her head, and stayed the course. Nothing else had worked. "You can tell yourself that all you want, Mark. But I see it." She said with a tone of finality, as if refusing to be corrected on it. "I see what's happening to you."

The hands gripping the worktop tightened then, cracking the worktop they held as his control deteriorated again - before his right hand blasted clean through the chunk it held. The piece of the counter he was gripping with increasing pressure in that hand peeled away as easily as a piece of fruit, disintegrating into pebble pieces and dust that stained the crushing hand that now curled its fingers against his palm. "You don't know anything." He responded, this time his tone being sharper - an edge of warning to it. More admonition than Brutalon ever got.

Debbie refused to be cowed. "I know my son." She stated, tone firm and secure in what it was saying. "At least I thought I did."

Mark's jaw had involuntarily clenched, feeling his teeth close together as the two stare at one another for a short while. Tension thick in the air from it.

Then, without another word, Mark got up that time, and walked away. He didn't stop to look back or even speak, just going through the front door and out the house as the door then rebounded back into its frame with a loud banging noise and rattling. Debbie stood in the kitchen, having watched her son leave as her hands trembled slightly.

She wondered how much longer she had left before the Mark she knew was gone completely.

CHICAGO

Mark stormed down the street, feet pounding the pavement with enough tempo that he heard it - the occasional crack left embedded in the concrete both a sign of his looser control and ignorable enough that nobody noticed. His fists were buried deep in his pockets as he squeezed his fingers against one another, his jaw tight as the conversation with his mother still echoed within his head - twisting and 'd at least remembered to put on a hoodie that morning, its hood pulled up over his head and drawn to its maximum point.

He didn't like showing his face in public, or to strangers. He again had his father to thank for that.

'You don't want to be like your father?'
His teeth grinded against one another, head lowering as his speed increased.
'Prove it.'

Then, just like that, he stopped. Having done nothing but walk and stew in his anger and the words rebounding in his head for the past ten minutes. He had achieved nothing, it seemed, when earlier he thought it had seemed so much clearer.

She didn't get it. She never would. He had done what needed to be done. He had made the right choice.

Like that, reality resumed as he forcibly snapped himself out of it. The city buzzed around him, colours everywhere as he watched - some static in the greenery of plants and the faint grey of glass all up and down the street, others shifting with the passing of yellow taxis, red buses and multitudes of other cars. Noise settled back in as cars honked their horns, people talked animatedly to one another or into their phones, city life continuing all around him. Nothing had changed for them.

But as Mark watched, slinking a bit further into the shadow of a building as he started to feel a bit uncomfortable - and the stirrings of jealousy that further added to the storm of emotion within him. It all felt unfair once more, that whilst everyone else around him continued their insignificant lives without fear of some great upheaving change, he was forced to be different. The air felt heavier than ever as he breathed it into his lungs, watching a world that seemed so hyperbolic in how clear yet mystifying it was.

A rapping sound occurred then, a fast sequence of light knocks against the glass he was leant on as he was startled once more back into the moment. Snapping his head round to see who had done that, he learnt that the shadow he had slunk into to keep out the way of the rest of the busy pavement was in fact the shading cover of the shop out front. Mark had just pressed up against the window and kept to himself, nobody else wanting to make a hiding young adult their problem - which suited him just fine as he watched the world go by for a few minutes.

Until somebody had bothered him, and frustration welled up in his gut again as he turned decisively around to see who.

The scent of freshly brewed coffee drifted through the air out of the door of the now identifiable coffee shop he'd had his back turned to, light from the illuminating lamps of the tables in the window spilling out stronger into the shaded front of the shop. Gusts of warmth impacted against him from that same door against the cold air he'd acclimatised to during his walk in a city coming out of winter, but now was reminded of. Even the interior looked cosier than it should from its seating and older-fashioned setting because of his current internal turmoil.

But none of that mattered. What mattered as he felt his patience fray further and eyes narrow imperceptibly, was the man that had bothered him. Directly at the table in the corner of the window he'd leant against, just on the other side of the glass, was a man sat alone at the table that could seat two. On the wooden table between the two small sofa seats was the recognisable black-and-white square pattern of a chessboard, one that the stranger's eyes had darted back to from looking at him to quickly roam over as if he had done it countless times now.

Deliberate movements were made by the man, playing against himself as he shifted forward a piece, only to then instantly switch over to the other colour and seize that same piece with an opposing one. The manner in which it was done was thoughtful, like he wasn't just playing against himself but practicing too. Refining his craft and training it - and something about that helped to quay a little bit of Mark's impatience as he watched for a few seconds.

He had never been big on chess, but he understood it. There was appeal to be found in its strategy, of making the right move at the right time - to control the board. As if sensing that attention, the man's eyes lifted his gaze back up to him with something in that gaze that mark couldn't place. It was then that the man's head twitched, his eyes darting to the empty seat opposite him before looking back. Not pressing, but an acknowledgement of Mark - a simple invitation.

Mark hesitated. He still felt riled up, thoughts buzzing within his skull as if he could argue a point clearly but would still make no sense of the emotions within him. But the fact that what he had just witnessed abated them for those few seconds, muted them even a bit was enough to tip him over the edge. He needed to get away from it then, truly clear his head in a way that wasn't trying to clear up his viewpoint of the world but rather just a distraction as he stepped inside.

It was warm, the air thick with the scent of expresso as the shop was fairly busy, not too full either. The shop had a rustic feel to the older-fashioned theme Mark had seen through the window, wooden furniture and tables blending with the red seating next to them to give it a softer atmosphere. Walking straight past the barista at the counter, Mark did not stop to order anything. He didn't need to.

He wasn't thirsty or hungry right now. What he wanted was to get out of his head. With that, he walked straight to the table.

The man before him was someone who looked the exception in their younger age. A man in his thirties, but with a silver complexion that looked natural to him - silver-white hair that was framed neatly in a cropped style; supported by a thin moustache to an otherwise shaved face. Cobalt-blue eyes with infusions of grey rose to see Mark, as the hands of the stranger which had earlier been playing himself was now finishing up resetting the board. He looked to the man before him, watching as he put the second-to-last piece on its according side.

"Playing against yourself?" Mark's voice asked aloud. Casual toned, devoid of the feelings that still swirled within the pit of his torso.

The man merely hummed, whether in agreement or stalling as he put the last piece back into its correct position Mark couldn't tell, but he then looked to the younger adult after doing so with a sweeping glance as if studying him for a fraction of a second. The man's hand simply rose then, to gesture to the waiting board. "Not anymore." He responded with a punctual tone, a smooth voice that didn't seem deliberately flowed by the tongue, but rather the natural voice of the man as it curled at its edge with a slight resonation.

Mark considered that, considered the man before him. Even from the first glances of the person sat before him, there seemed to be something different about him, an oddity about him that couldn't be placed. It was unusual, sure, for anyone to just invite a stranger to where they sat, but that didn't seem to be it. The very airs put off by the man spelled of some kind of curiosity, as if he were a puzzle that needed to be figured out - before he had figured you out.

The buzzing thoughts receded slightly, echoing rebounds of being compared to his father and what he should be doing diminishing in volume as curiosity slithered in to take some of the space. There was no further confirmation needed than that, for Mark to tentatively forget about his frustration that had initially been about to be aimed at the man before him, who was now apparently going to be his chess opponent for a short while. He sat down upon the seat.

Mark could tell from the man's expression, from the even-handed taut of the face and the piercing eyes that held an evident spark of interest, that the man would not speak first. As if fate had reinforced this fact, the board in front of him had the white-coloured pieces set before him. It was as the man took a small sip of the coffee, a lighter fluid seemingly of a sweeter variety, that Mark spoke up.

"Mark." He just stated, muttered almost as if just to get it started. In all honesty, whilst he mostly knew what he was doing there - a small part of him still didn't.

"Vigil." Came the instant reply from the man now apparently named Vigil, a variety of name that only bolstered the unknown quantity of the man as it was another thing that could not be placed; certainly nothing that Mark had heard of. He was given no time to though, as he man just quickly flexed his facial muscles and tilted the corners of his mouth up into a gentler expression. "Your turn."

In that moment, the lack of questions was what Mark appreciated.