Inconceivable Ch. 25 (Invincible AU) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Uncomfortable truths time!

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The thing is, Debbie Grayson knows she’s being a tad unreasonable here. By all accounts (mostly her daughter’s) Argan was a decent, albeit intense sort of man. He’d saved Maya’s life during the last invasion by those extradimensional alien invaders after all. Plus, Debbie’s daughter had been nothing but gushing praise after their training lesson together, incredibly invigorated by whatever motivational words of encouragement Argan had had for her.

At the same time though, it’s been a trying few weeks for Debbie. Even before Nolan received orders recalling him to his home world, Debbie had been stressed out of her mind from the moment Maya first developed her powers.

Oh sure, Debbie had always been aware it was a possibility. From the moment she’d given birth, her and Nolan had prepared for the outcome where Maya came into her own and became just as powerful as her father. It was more than a little daunting to think about, but Debbie had had plenty of time to gird herself for the eventuality.

To tell the truth, Debbie had ultimately had too much time. So much in fact that she’d begun to think it would never happen and that Maya would live the rest of her life as an ordinary human being. When Maya had graduated from high school without even a hint of her father’s heritage shining through several months back, Debbie had decided it was time to focus on the future where Maya remains completely and utterly human.

That meant looking at prospective colleges and ensuring Maya had the education she needed to succeed without her father’s insane speed, massive strength, and ability to fly.

And then a few weeks ago that was all thrown out the window in a single afternoon when Maya came home and announced at dinner time that she’d finally done something superhuman. Debbie had been thrilled for her daughter, of course. In fact, she’d been more thrilled than Nolan had been in the moment, having to remind him to be excited for their daughter instead of interrogating her.

… But at the same time, Debbie had immediately began questioning her place in their family. Even without powers, Maya had always been a bit of a daddy’s girl. Especially ever since learning her father was THE Omni-Man. But Debbie had been able to bond with her daughter in her own way, through shared experiences as women as well as their mutual lack of powers.

Just as she was coming to terms with Maya having powers though, Nolan’s recall orders had come in and suddenly he was gone and Maya was being rebellious and fighting off alien invasions. Debbie… hadn’t really known what to do. What if Nolan had never come back? What if he was gone for good? How was she supposed to help Maya be the best her that she could be on her own?

Then, Nolan had returned. And Debbie had been relieved… for all of a couple of days before she’d realized something else was wrong. Something with her husband, a man who she’d honestly thought was impervious to such things. When some women referred to their men as their ‘rocks’, Debbie found it humorous… because Nolan wasn’t her rock, he was her mountain.

Implacable, immovable, untouchable.

Frankly, it was a little awkward talking with the wives and husbands of other superheroes sometimes because they often shared their worries about their spouses not coming home one day. It wasn’t until Maya that she had been able to empathize with those people. Debbie had never had that worry about Nolan though. He was impossibly strong and had never once made her fret. She fully believed there wasn’t anything on Earth that could hurt him.

Except… he’d come back and suddenly he wasn’t the only Viltrumite on Earth anymore. And reading between the lines of Maya’s gushing, it seemed like he wasn’t the most powerful Viltrumite on Earth anymore either.

Debbie didn’t know what exactly was going on between Argan and Nolan, but her woman’s intuition was saying there was something. That’s why she’d forced this encounter, desperate to get to the bottom of things. She couldn’t spend her days worrying about both Maya and Nolan… that was too much stress for one woman to handle.

And so, sitting there at the dinner table having watched Argan consume his entire plate of Korean BBQ in less time than it took her to blink, Maya stares the alien man down and waits for his answer.

In turn, Argan shifts his gaze between her, her husband, and her daughter… before looking her right in the eye.

“I am not the problem here, Debbie Grayson. You are.”

Debbie’s eyes widen at the certainty in Argan’s voice. Maya, meanwhile, lets out a gasp.

“What?! Mom’s not a problem!”

Looking surprisingly calm even in the face of Maya’s outburst, Argan turns to her.

“But she is. Or rather, her lifespan is.”

Her… lifespan? Maya is as confused as Debbie feels by that statement. Her daughter’s outrage on her behalf falters in the face of Argan’s words.

“Um… what?”

Argan next looks to Nolan… prompting Debbie to do the same. Her husband looks distinctly pained, grimacing and avoiding her gaze.

“You have not told them then.”

“… No sir.”

Told them what? What was this about lifespans?

“That seems like an oversight on your part, Nolan.”

“… Yes sir.”

Debbie grits her teeth.

“Would someone please explain what my daughter and I have not been told?”

Argan’s gaze switches back to her once more.

“Viltrumites do not age like humans do, Debbie Grayson. Your mate is over a thousand years old.”

Debbie’s eyes widen in shock, her heart skipping a beat as she immediately looks to Nolan. She’s not sure why she does… is she hoping he’ll deny it? But no, he continues to avert his gaze, staring down at the table with his facial muscles twitching and flexing.

“You humans tend to last anywhere from half a century to a century on average, yes?”

Tearing her eyes off of Nolan, looking back to Argan, Debbie swallows hard.

“I… yes.”

Argan nods.

“No Viltrumite has ever perished from old age. We do not… decay. Left to our own devices, we continue to grow indefinitely and without decline.”

They were immortal? Nolan and Maya were immortal? Debbie sits there a little floored, confronted with her own mortality. She’d long accepted that she was just a normal human woman who had somehow attracted a man with the power of a god.

But she… she hadn’t realized Nolan was a thousand years old, or that he’d continue to persist for thousands of years more so long as nothing killed him. It’s only as she looks to him now, taking in his side profile while he continues to avert his gaze, that Debbie realizes… he hasn’t aged one bit in the twenty years she’s known him.

Even as Debbie was gathering signs of aging, even as she’d started to wrinkle despite the best skin care routine superspeed could bring her, even as she’d started encountering a couple of gray hairs here and there… Nolan had remained untouched, impervious to the ravages of time.

“Nolan… were you ever going to tell me?”

Turning to look at her, Nolan grimaces.

“I… yes, of course. I just… there was never the right time.”

Debbie opens her mouth to caustically ask if the right time was supposed to be on her deathbed in forty more years… but she doesn’t get the chance.

“That, however, is not the problem here.”

All eyes return to Argan at those words. Argan, in turn, is looking at Nolan.

“The issue you have detected in your mate, Debbie Grayson, is only tangentially related to your shorter lifespan. The truth is… Nolan is waiting for me to give him orders he’s afraid will drive you away from him.”

Debbie blinks, even as Nolan tenses up beside her.

“Argan, is this really necessary?”

“Yes. I believe it is.”

Nolan’s jaw clenches, but Argan continues on unabated.

“Nolan’s original reason for coming to Earth was simple. He was not sent by the Viltrumite Empire to merely protect your planet, as you were likely told. His purpose, as your GDA has recently learned, was to test the viability of hybrid offspring with your species.”

Maya sputters while Debbie’s eyes go wide again at this bombshell. Nolan was… he had… but then was theeir marriage all a lie?! A twenty-year long deception designed to help him carry out his mission?! She would have called it ridiculous ten minutes ago, before she’d learned that twenty years was nothing but a blink in the eye to them!

“Maya inheriting her father’s powers and coming into her own was what triggered the expedition I lead to come to Earth. It is our intention to integrate with your species and create more Viltrumite-Human Hybrids in the coming years.”

That… Debbie isn’t easily embarrassed, but her face does go a bit red now. Maya is a lot redder though, her face almost the color of a tomato as the younger woman squirms in her chair.

“S-So what, you’re all here to… breed with human women?!”

Argan’s gaze slides to Debbie’s daughter and for the first time since he began talking, he actually hesitates for a moment for some reason. But finally, he nods.

“Yes, that is the primary purpose behind the expedition. Cecil Stedman knows this of course. He and the Global Defense Agency are assisting us in our mission in exchange for our help in protecting this world. It is what I believe you would call a symbiotic relationship.”

Maya’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly, no sound coming out as she stares at Argan with wide eyes and a bright red face. Argan, meanwhile, just turns his gaze back to Debbie.

“Nolan’s issue, Debbie Grayson, is that he expects me to order him to continue reproducing. He likely expects me to order him to take on a number of human women as mates in order to produce as many successes like your original daughter as possible. And he is struggling with this concept because despite his orders, he has grown attached to you and the life he’s built here these past two decades.”

At her side, Nolan finally comes out of his chair while she sits there, frozen and wide-eyed.

“Sir, that’s not-!”

But Argan simply shifts his gaze to Nolan… and Debbie gets a side view of just how intense the Viltrumite man can be as he abruptly sharpens that gaze to a razor thin edge.

“Do not attempt to lie to me, Nolan. I am not in the mood for it.”

Debbie is suddenly acutely aware of what it means to have invited someone potentially more powerful than her husband to her dining room table. She’s never felt fear while in Nolan’s company before, knowing full well that he was fast and strong enough to protect her from anyone and anything.

… But if Argan decides to attack, what will Nolan do? Fight, Debbie hopes… but can he win? Or would he… would he lose?

“Besides. You are wrong.”

Wait, what?

Debbie blinks along with Nolan as the pressure Argan is exuding suddenly dissipates. Her husband is so shocked by Argan’s words that he slumps back down into his chair, his tone baffled.

“I’m… wrong?”

Argan just nods.

“You have manufactured this crisis entirely of your own fretting, Nolan. I expected better from you… in the future, I will continue to expect better from you.”

Nolan straightens unconsciously in his chair at that.

“Still, this once… I will overlook this weakness of the mind from you. And I will set you straight. Nolan, you have succeeded where many others failed. You have managed to produce a viable hybrid offspring with the potential to one day rival our strongest warriors. If you never produce another child ever again, you will still be a hero to our people.”

Debbie blinks rapidly at that. Sheesh, just how bad were things for the Viltrumites if Nolan having Maya with her was that big of a deal?

“I do not expect you to take any other mates while your current one still lives. The expedition can afford to have you on standby for the next few centuries if you so choose.”

Right. While she still lives. Meaning once Debbie finally grows old and dies, Argan will expect Nolan to just move on and find another human woman to knock up. Then again, does Debbie have any right to expect Nolan to never take another lover once she’s gone? If he’s truly over a thousand years old, then he’s probably been with many, many women over the centuries, hasn’t he?

“Hang on… centuries?”

Debbie is so caught up in her thoughts that Maya is the one who has to point out the discrepancy in Argan’s words. Blinking, she refocuses on the Viltrumite sitting at the head of her dinner table even as he nods to her daughter.

“Yes. While it is impossible to give a human the same lifespan as a Viltrumite… we have brought numerous medical advancements and pieces of technology along with us from the Empire. Knowledge that your admittedly primitive planet can only dream of. The treatments that we can make will allow your mother to regain her youth and should keep her hale and healthy for at least the next two to three hundred years.”

Debbie’s eyes bulge out of her skull, widening for what feels like the umpteenth time that day. Three hundred years?!

Argan, meanwhile, abruptly rises from his chair, looking down at her and Nolan.

“Admittedly, I would not be unsatisfied if you two were to continue to reproducing once these treatments have been administered. Maya is an excellent example of what you are both capable of creating together and you will have hundreds of years to expand this… ‘family unit’ as you Earthlings call it.”

As the entire Grayson Family sits there, dumbfounded, Argan glances down at his plate almost mournfully.

“The ’Korean BBQ’ was unexpectedly delightful. I would not be adverse to future ‘family dinners’ if the food is always that good. For now… I must be off.”

And with that, he’s gone. Debbie doesn’t even get the chance to ask him to stay or apologize for her abrasive attitude. But perhaps it’s for the best that he’s departed… because looking to her husband, Debbie realizes that they have a lot to talk about.

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A/N: Nolan’s in the doghouse, meanwhile Argan pulls a zoidberg and gets the fuck out of there, lmao.

Throw me a comment if you can but please leave a Like if you don’t want to, it’s the main metric I use to track whether a story is doing well or not!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QvDwIsH03wSRJNAuJykvFiBL2GKqRWhLmnR1RdTR08g/edit?tab=t.0