I was sitting in the dark, glaring at the wall, when the front door swung open, flooding the room with blinding light. They bypassed the locks entirely and marched right into the living room.
I stood up, my fists clenching, fully prepared to throw them both through the nearest brick wall, but they were entirely immune to my intimidation, since Debbie brought her 'Pet' with them as their enforcer.
The massive figure of Omni-Man stepped into the doorway, standing silently and obediently behind the small human woman like a domesticated guard dog. Seeing the once-great conqueror of worlds reduced to a silent bodyguard for a human made my stomach churn with disgust, but it also made Debbie's quiet authority feel incredibly unnerving.
"Get off the couch," Brittany ordered. She was a fierce-looking woman who clearly shared her brother's lack of self-preservation. She unceremoniously tossed a thick maternity coat directly at my head. "You look like you're plotting a genocide in here. It's bad for the baby."
I caught the coat, baring my teeth. "Do not address me in that tone, human. I will snap your—"
"Oh, put a sock in it," Debbie Grayson interrupted, walking right past me as if I wasn't a lethal weapon capable of snapping her spine with two fingers. She gripped the curtains and ripped them open, letting the afternoon sunlight flood the stale room.
Debbie turned to face me, placing her hands on her hips. She was significantly smaller than me, possessing no powers whatsoever, yet she radiated an authority that made me do a double take.
"I don't care how many planets you have conquered in your lifetime, Thula," Debbie scolded, pointing a stern finger at my chest. "Sitting in the dark brooding over the Viltrumite Empire is not how you raise a healthy child. You need fresh air and sunlight to process vitamins. Now, put your shoes on."
"I am a warrior," I growled, my pride flaring hot in my chest. "I am not a house pet to be walked."
"Yeah, well, right now you're an incubator," Brittany shot back, crossing her arms. "And Brit's worried sick about you. So, shoes. Now. We're going to the park."
I should have killed them for the disrespect. I truly, logically should have.
Instead... I put my shoes on.
I began taking walks, for the baby.
At first, I stalked through the city parks with my shoulders rigid, analyzing every pedestrian, passing car, and barking dogs as a potential threat. But as the weeks turned into months, the adrenaline slowly faded. With Debbie and Brittany occasionally walking beside me, explaining the bizarre, illogical customs of their species, I began to truly observe Earth.
It was not the primitive, war-torn rock I had assumed. It was a world overflowing with useless things. Things that served absolutely no survival purpose. I saw massive, colorful art murals painted on the sides of brick buildings, heard music bleeding from open windows and watched humans obsess over keeping small, predatory animals as pampered pets.
It was inefficient. Yet, it was intoxicating.
But something shifted on a random Tuesday afternoon.
I was sitting alone on a wooden bench under the shade of an old oak tree. A few yards away, a human mother and her little daughter were sitting in the grass picking dandelions but they were not harvesting them for sustenance nor were they using them for medicine. Instead, they were weaving the fragile yellow stems together, creating a delicate but ultimately useless crown.
The mother gently placed the flower crown on the little girl's head. The girl beamed, her laughter ringing out across the park, pure and entirely unburdened by the horrors of the galaxy. The mother smiled warmly, a look of devotion on her face, and kissed her daughter's forehead.
The sight unlocked something deep and rigidly buried inside my mind. A memory surged forward, hitting me so hard I physically gasped, my hand flying to my chest as the phantom pain flared.
I remembered my adulting ceremony on Viltrum.
Weakness was a disease to be eradicated, and coming of age meant proving to the Empire that you were permanently cured of it.
The elders had placed me in the center of the arena. The massive stone doors opened, and my opponent stepped out into the light.
It was my mother.
She did not smile, nor offer me a flower crown. She cracked her knuckles, her face a mask of unforgiving coldness.
"Do not hesitate, Thula," she had commanded, raising her fists, her voice echoing in the silent arena. "Or I will kill you myself."
I remembered the brutal, hours-long fight. I remembered the sickening crunch of her spine as I finally overpowered her, breaking her over my knee. I… I remembered the feeling of her hot blood on my hands, standing over her corpse, breathing heavily as the elders nodded in silent approval.
Following the tradition of my bloodline, I was required to take her remains. Over the next week, I used immense physical pressure and Viltrum metallurgy to compress her bones, forging them into a razor-sharp blade which I wove tightly into my braid.
I wore my matricide as a weapon. It was a badge of honor I had carried for centuries across a thousand burning skies, right up until the blindfolded human had shot it from my head.
'Might makes right.' That was the only law I had ever known.
Yet, staring at the little human girl adjusting the flimsy dandelions in her hair, the foundation of my worldview was fracturing.
My culture had turned motherhood into a crucible of murder while Earth had turned it into a sanctuary.
I reached up with a trembling hand and touched the ragged ends of my severed silver hair. For the first time in months, the loss of my blade did not feel like a defeat.
[A/N]:
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