[Thula's P.O.V.]
I rested my palm against the heavy, taut swell of my stomach. Suddenly, a sharp kick struck my hand from the inside. It was a firm strike, unmistakably Viltrumite in its vigor, yet harbored safely within the atmosphere of a world I once despised.
Six months.
If anyone had told me half a year ago that I, Thula of the Viltrumite Empire, would willingly ground myself on a primitive dirtball of a planet to incubate a half-breed child, I would have severed their head with my own braid and mounted their skull on the hull of my warship as a testament to their insolence.
Yet, here I remained. Sitting on a wooden porch swing, in a neighborhood that smelled of cut grass. It was a smell I've come to love, as well as watching the sun dip low while waiting for my mate to return from his mission.
My arrival on Earth had been for Viltrumite expansion. I had arrived on this planet alongside Conquest, Vidor, and the great Nolan, who had warned the Empire of Earth's sorcerers and their curses, and I came prepared to cleanse the planet or die in the pursuit of its destruction. That was the Viltrumite way.
Instead, I found him.
The memory of my first night on this planet still burned vividly in my mind.
I had waited in the Forest beneath a silver full moon. I expected an army of enhanced. Instead, I was ambushed by a circus freak show Cecil Stedman called the "Secret Guardians," along with a Kaiju.
The battle led to them triggering a thermal, but when the smoke cleared, I was holding Brit in a vice-like chokehold by his throat, sparks flying as I dragged my blade directly across his exposed neck.
But there was nothing but sparks. Not even a scratch or drop of blood. He was completely naked, his clothes vaporized in the blast, yet his skin remained entirely unblemished.
I had stared at him, my mind racing. My weapon was gone and my enemies were healing. I was bleeding heavily but more importantly, I was holding a mortal man whose 'Absolute' invulnerability mocked the entire Viltrumite Empire. We prided ourselves on being the apex of evolution, yet this human possessed a durability that rivaled the crust of a neutron star.
For a warrior of my standing, surrender was a fate worse than execution. To yield was to admit a fatal flaw in the bloodline. But as I stared up at this mortal who had absorbed my absolute worst without taking a single scratch, I felt a deeply foreign emotion rising in my chest.
Jealousy.
I initiated our mating right then and there. He possessed a genetic trait that would flawlessly strengthen the Empire's stock. I decided he was the best human male to mate with, and I would produce the most powerful warrior our galaxy had ever seen.
After that moment, it all became a blur as the force of our union levelled the territory for miles.
When I awoke the next morning in the massive crater we had created, my head was resting on his indestructible chest.
I thought I would need more time to secure a pregnancy and carry the child back to a Viltrumite outpost.
That assumption was thwarted a week later when I tracked down Nolan.
Finding the Great Nolan had been humiliating. I tracked him not to a fortress or a military stronghold, but to a farm far removed from any sign of human life.
When I finally laid eyes on him, the shock nearly stopped my heart.
The great agent of the empire had been reduced to a farmhand tending to a bovine. But the true horror was his face.
"Great Nolan," I had gasped, landing on the metal catwalk above him. "What has happened to you? Your... your face."
Nolan stopped his movements. He looked up at me, his eyes heavy with a bone-deep exhaustion. He reached up, rubbing the bare skin of his upper lip where his glorious Viltrumite mustache used to be. It stripped him of his dignity and left him looking oddly fragile, like a defanged predator.
To me, it looked as if he had completely and utterly abandoned Viltrumite honor.
I was so immensely disgusted and convinced this was a pathetic clone or a traitorous coward that I attacked him.
I dropped from the metal catwalk and drove my fist directly into his jaw. The impact echoed through the cavern like a cannon shot.
Nolan barely flinched. He didn't strike back. He simply caught my next punch, his grip like a vice, his eyes heavy and his voice defeated.
"I lost a war, Thula," Nolan stated, his voice hollow. "I was outplayed by that man."
I sneered in utter disgust. "You are a disgrace to the bloodline. I am leaving this pathetic rock. But I bring news for the Empire. I carry a child. The human who sired it possesses indestructible genetics. It is an evolutionary jackpot."
Nolan's eyes widened slightly. He , wiped his grease-stained hands on a rag. "You're pregnant?"
"Yes. I will return to a Viltrumite outpost and raise it in the fighting pits, as is proper."
"You cannot leave," Nolan said sharply, stepping directly into my path.
"You do not command me anymore, Nolan," I hissed, my silver hair whipping around me.
"I am not commanding you, I am trying to save your child!" Nolan shot back, his voice finally carrying a fraction of his old, terrifying authority. He sighed, rubbing his temples. "Listen to me, Thula. Think about the physics. A human-Viltrumite fetus is strong, yes, but it is still developing. It cannot survive the pressure of the vacuum. The radiation of interstellar flight will boil it alive in your womb, no matter how strong its biology is. If you leave the atmosphere before it is born, the child dies."
I froze as the reality of his warning finally settled.
"The Scourge Virus left us with barely fifty survivors," Nolan continued quietly, his gaze dropping to the floor grates. "Our empire is dying, Thula. This child... every child is more precious than entire star systems. You have to stay, Thula. For the child."
So, I grounded myself.
For the first three months of the pregnancy, I became a prisoner in Brit's home. The house was dingy and the ceilings were far too low. The wooden floors creaked under my heavy steps as I paced the living room like a caged predator, glaring out the windows at the humans, refusing to engage with the world outside. I viewed humanity as cattle and interacting with them felt beneath my station.
Brit let me brood and tried to 'woo?' me by buying me protein-rich meals, respected my space, and went to work at whatever tedious government job paid for the structure.
But the isolation ended abruptly the day Debbie Grayson and Brit's half-sister, Brittany, decided to intervene.
[A/N]:
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