[Debbie's POV]
You ever look at your life and think you've got it all figured out?
For twenty years, I thought I had it all. A loving husband who literally saved the world on a daily basis, a beautiful son who was growing up to be just as strong, and a stable, picture-perfect home. We had the kind of life people lie about having on Christmas cards. Or at least, I thought that we did.
That all changed when John Kaisen threw my husband into another dimension.
That all changed when John Kaisen threw Nolan into the Flaxan dimension. He was only gone a week, but the man who tore his way back wasn't my husband. He was a ragged, feral stranger, pacing our living room like a caged animal with a bomb ticking behind his panicked eyes.
When news broke of Kaisen fighting that white lion in Chicago, Nolan snapped. His booming voice cracked with manic desperation as he tried to tear the roof off the medical site to escape.
I threw myself in front of him, planting my hands against his chest to ground him. "Calm down! Talk to me!" I begged, my eyes wide with fear. "I am not losing you again!"
"Get out of my way, Debbie," he said.
His voice was completely hollow. He sounded more like a cornered beast than the disciplined soldier I loved. Stubbornly planting my feet, I grabbed his shirt as tears spilled down my cheeks. "Please, think of Mark! You can't just leave us again."
"GET OUT OF MY WAY, WOMAN!" he roared.
Blinded by unnatural fury, he unconsciously swatted me aside. It wasn't a punch; he just brushed me away like lint. But in his bloodlust, he forgot how fragile humans are. Time slowed as I was violently flung across the room, slamming into the drywall with a sickening CRACK before crumpling to the floor.
Nolan froze. The madness vanished, replaced by pure shock as he dropped to his knees. "Debbie!"
I couldn't speak. I could only gasp through the shock and pain, watching dark blood pool on the white floor. He couldn't even look at what he'd done. Panic took over, and he flew out of the facility, leaving me bleeding and clutching my shattered arm.
He was gone for two weeks.
The physical pain was nothing compared to the pit in my stomach. I wanted to fall apart, but I'm a mother first. I had to focus on Mark to keep from spiraling. Poor Mark spent two straight days tearing across the planet searching for his dad, only stopping when Cecil confirmed the GDA had lost Nolan's atmospheric signature. In his grief, Mark blindly blamed John Kaisen.
For two whole weeks, it was just me and my boy, sitting in that sterile house, praying for Nolan to walk back through the door. Our only saving grace was Eve, who visited nearly every night. Calling her Mark's "girlfriend" made them stammer about being in a "situationship"—a stupid, small moment of peace that made me feel like a normal mother again.
Then, the nightmare finally caught up to us.
Mark and I returned from a grocery run to find Nolan standing in our living room. He wasn't in his hero costume, but a cold, sterile uniform, talking to a blue hologram projected from his wrist. I heard the words clearly. He called me a 'successful breeding specimen.'
When Mark demanded answers, Nolan systematically dismantled twenty years of our lives, blurring reality and fake affection into a sickening smear of lies. But what truly shattered my soul into a million jagged pieces was when he looked at me and said the word 'pet'.
Amidst the most agonizing, suffocating pain of my life, all I could manage was a pathetic, ugly sob. My husband. The father of my child. The god I taught how to be human—and to him, I was just a damn dog.
The rest of the night slipped through my fingers like sand. When I finally came to, I was in GDA HQ with Cecil, helplessly watching a monitor as my son's face was caved in by his own father. Nolan was beating him to death.
Suddenly, a deep twang echoed through the air. A Japanese-style sliding gate opened directly beneath my feet. I fell, landing amidst the ash and rubble of Chicago, just in time to see Nolan hovering over John Kaisen, pulling his fist back to kill a boy Mark's age.
"Nolan, stop!!" I screamed, my voice desperate and shrill.
Nolan's body froze right down to his breath. I stepped directly in front of him—a total wreck covered in dust and wearing a cracked cast. "Please, I beg you to stop."
"Oh, no need to beg," John Kaisen rasped. Wiping coughed-up blood from his chin and clutching a terrifying scar on his waist, John smirked. "He's now and forever your ever-obedient servant, after all…"
"What is he talking about, Nolan?" I asked, trembling.
"No... it can't be true," Nolan muttered, staring at his paralyzed hands.
"Nolan! Look at me!" I demanded. "What is he talking about?!"
"I've been cursed to be your servant," he replied. His booming warrior voice was completely gone, replaced by a flat, robotic drone. He rattled off the terms of his enslavement like a dead-eyed parrot. "Any command you give me, I must obey absolutely, never able to cause harm to you. My life is tied to yours. If you die, I die."
The numbness shattered. Dropping to my knees in the ash, I clawed at the pulverized concrete until my knuckles bled. I hurled a fistful of sharp debris directly at his face, watching the rocks bounce harmlessly off his cheek.
"You lied to me," I gasped, my voice a ragged scrape. "Every single day for twenty years! You slept next to me! You held our son!"
Nolan stared straight ahead, his jaw locked rigid.
I scrambled forward, twisting the bloody fabric of his uniform in my fists as I shook him. "A pet," I spat. Hammering my fists against his immovable chest, I screamed, "I was your wife! I built a goddamn life with you! And you beat our son half to death!"
Yanking his collar, I pulled myself up until I was inches from his paralyzed face.
"Did you feel anything?!" I demanded, my voice cracking into a devastated shriek. "Tell me! When you were caving our son's face in... was it as easy as putting down a sick dog?!"
He couldn't answer. He just stared.
Realizing John had the power to heal, I dropped Nolan and scrambled frantically over the rubble. I clutched John's hand with terrifying grip strength. "Please! My son... that monster hurt his own son! Save my Mark!"
He gave me a sincere nod as he disappeared in a flash of blue light.
And now, it's been a week since that night.
Ever since Cecil and his people escorted me to this new subterranean safe house, I told Nolan to stand in a corner of the living room. He hasn't moved a muscle since. Not once.
I know it sounds petty, treating the former champion of the Earth like a toddler in timeout, but after days of unbroken stillness, it was actually starting to freak me out.
Mark came back to see me yesterday. Looking at his face, you wouldn't even know his skull had been caved in just a week ago. He was completely healed, a miracle I still couldn't really wrap my head around, but you could tell his heart was still shattered.
He walked into the living room and just froze. I saw the exact second his eyes landed on his father, standing in the corner like a forgotten piece of furniture.
"Dad?" Mark whispered.
Nolan didn't move. He just stared straight ahead.
Something in Mark just snapped. He didn't say another word, he just launched himself across the room.
The sound of his fist connecting with Nolan's jaw was like a cannon going off inside the house. Mark tackled his father into the drywall, raining down punches with everything he had. I could hear the sickening, wet thud of Viltrumite knuckles tearing into bone and flesh.
"Fight back!" Mark screamed, his voice cracking into a raw sob. He grabbed Nolan by the collar, slamming him against the wall again. "You were going to kill me! Why won't you fight back?!"
Nolan didn't raise a single hand to defend himself. He couldn't. He just took the beating. His head snapped back with every heavy blow, blood splattering across the floorboards, but his arms remained rigidly locked at his sides.
"Was it all a lie?!" Mark cried out, burying his fist into his dad's stomach, then his face. "Are we just pets?! Look at me!"
Mark pulled his fist back for another strike, his chest heaving and tears streaming down his face. But he froze. He finally realized he was just beating a statue. He stared at the man who wasn't fighting back, his hand visibly shaking.
"Mom..." Mark choked out, looking back at me with wide, terrified eyes. "What's wrong with him? Why isn't he moving?"
I stepped forward and gently pulled my son's bloody hand away. I guided him to the couch, my own hands shaking as I sat him down.
"He can't move, Mark," I told him quietly.
"What do you mean he can't? He's Omni-Man!" Mark wiped his eyes, leaving a streak of his father's blood across his cheek. "Did... did the GDA do something to him?"
"No," I sighed, looking over at Nolan's battered face. "It was John. When we were in Chicago... John cursed him. Your father is bound to me now. He has to obey my every word, and I told him to stand in the corner."
Mark just stared at me. He looked at Nolan, then back at me.
"Cursed? Like... magic?" Mark asked, his voice completely hollow. "You're telling me my dad, the guy who just tried to conquer the planet, is your slave now?"
"Yes."
He couldn't process it. The betrayal, the near-death beating, and now finding out the invincible Omni-Man was just a magically bound pet to his human mother... it was just too much for him. He shook his head, stood up without another word, and walked out the back door.
A second later, a sonic boom rattled the windows as he flew straight up into the sky, leaving me completely alone with Nolan and his severely bloody upper lip.
Even against all the anger, I couldn't just leave him bleeding on my floor. When I finally sighed and sat Nolan down to wash the wound on his bare lips and bandage him up, another twang rang out in the kitchen.
Nolan actually flinched.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"
Out came John Kaisen from a floating wooden gate, looking entirely too casual for a boy who had just upended the world.
"John? What are you….?" I wanted to ask, but stopped as he knelt down, looking closely at Nolan's freshly bruised face.
"Tch tch tch, look how the mighty has fallen," John said with a teasing, unapologetic smile, looking up at me and offering a polite nod.
I reluctantly ordered, "You can speak again, Nolan."
To my surprise, instead of launching into a flurry of Viltrumite curses or death threats, Nolan's voice was subdued and defeated.
"What, are you just here to mock me, Kaisen?" Nolan asked. "I didn't take you for such a sore loser."
John smiled, standing up and dusting off his knees. "Oh, I'm not here to gloat… well, a little maybe. But I promised someone a reward."
John snapped his fingers.
From the open door, a large, black-and-white farm cow casually strolled out onto the hardwood floor. She was draped in pristine, red holy garbs and pope hat, chewing her cud with an expression of serenity.
Nolan's eyes widened a little, seemingly realizing exactly who the cow was.
"This here is the Holy Cow, or as we call her, Ms. Moo," John said, gesturing to the animal. "And she saved my life on the day we first met. Remember, Nolan? How you used her body to block Aquarus's water attack? How her body was torn from bone to bone just so you wouldn't take a hit?"
"What do you really want, Kaisen?" Nolan asked again, this time with a creeping uncertainty in his voice.
"Oh, I thought the only thing I could truly reward her with was an easy life," John said, his playful tone vanishing into something cold and sharp. "An easy life from the very hands that killed her."
John turned to me, his wicked grin returning.
"Debbie, if you will. Can you order Nolan to take care of each and every whim of Ms. Moo, please?"
I stared at John, then at the holy cow standing in my kitchen. And then I looked at the man who had called me a pet.
A slow, vindictive smile crept onto my face as the realization of what John was handing me set in. For the first time in the week, I felt like I could breathe.
"Nolan," I said, my voice ringing with absolute authority. "You are to serve Ms. Moo. Whatever she needs, you will provide. You are her caretaker now."
As the magical command locked into his soul, the cow let out a long, enthusiastic "Moooo!" noise, as if relishing the reward.
"Good boy," John chuckled, turning back toward the gate. He paused, tossing a small wooden brush onto the floor next to Nolan's knees. "Don't forget to brush her coat, Omni-Man. She likes the strokes long and even."
[A/N]: Alright, to clear confusion, the chapter with the title What-If is the only non-canon chapter and the rest are canon. Hope this helps.
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