Invincible: The Lawbreaker

Lawbreaker.

A name. A title. A designation.

Something inside me whispered—this isn't a coincidence.

Father didn't speak right away. He simply watched me, his expression unreadable, his fingers lightly tapping against the desk.

I forced myself to breathe. To calm the racing thoughts in my head.

"You were watching me." My voice came out quieter than I wanted.

Father's expression didn't change. "Of course."

Of course.

Of course.

I clenched my fists, the weight of those two words settling into my chest like lead.

"You already knew," I said. It wasn't a question anymore.

He didn't confirm or deny it. Instead, he reached for the file, flipping it open. My eyes darted across the pages, trying to take in the words, the diagrams, the formulas—things that should have been incomprehensible to an eight-year-old.

But I wasn't just an eight-year-old.

And the more I read, the colder I felt.

This wasn't about me. Not entirely.

It was about something before me.

A project. An experiment. A one-in-a-quantillion chance.

I wasn't just some anomaly. I wasn't just born with this power.

I was made.

I swallowed. "What is this?"

Father didn't answer immediately. He leaned back in his chair, his sharp gaze unreadable. Then, finally—

"A miracle," he said. "An impossibility made real."

I felt my stomach twist. "Explain."

His fingers tapped against the desk again.

"Twenty years ago, this project began with a singular goal," he said, voice steady, clinical. "To defy the fundamental constraints of reality. To create something—someone—who could rewrite the laws that govern existence."

My heart pounded.

"You."

The room felt smaller. The walls felt closer.

I shook my head. "No. That doesn't make sense. You don't—you don't control genetics like that. You can't just—"

"It wasn't genetics."

I froze.

Father flipped a few pages in the file, revealing a diagram. A human figure. My DNA.

Or at least, what looked like it.

But it wasn't normal.

Lines of code. Strange symbols. Equations layered over my very existence.

"This," Father said, gesturing to the page, "is what you are."

I felt sick.

"You weren't engineered in the traditional sense," he continued. "You were… a statistical impossibility. The culmination of variables so infinitesimally small that the probability of success was—"

"One in a quantillion," I whispered.

Father gave the smallest nod. "Correct."

The air in the room felt thin. My hands shook.

I wasn't normal. I had never been normal.

I wasn't just some kid who randomly discovered his powers one day.

I was the result of something far bigger. Something deliberate.

And worst of all—

Father knew.

He had always known.

"Now Kaito, I know I've never looked out for you, now you may think I'm just coming closer to you because you have powers." his voice went low.

"It was because I was guilty. Guilty because I killed your mother for you."

...

...

...

Father sighed. Not in regret, not in sadness—just acceptance.

"As I said," he continued, "you were an impossibility. A statistical anomaly. You weren't born with your power, Kaito. You were given it."

The room felt colder.

"The serum." My voice came out hollow.

"Yes." He turned to a page in the file, tapping his finger against a section of dense, handwritten notes. "A formula designed to rewrite the very fabric of human potential. To shatter the constraints of reality before you were even born."

I stared at the words, but they didn't make sense. Not really.

Because this wasn't just a revelation—this was my existence.

"The serum worked," he said. "But the cost was—" He hesitated for the first time, just barely. "—unavoidable."

I felt like I was going to be sick.

Mother died because of me. Because of this. Because of something I never asked for, something I didn't choose.

My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms. My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

"You knew," I said, my voice shaking. "You knew it could kill her, and you still—"

"It wasn't supposed to happen." His voice was sharp now. "The calculations were perfect. The probability of failure was negligible."

"Negligible?" My voice cracked. "You gambled with her life... my mother."

Father's expression didn't change. "And you are the result."

Silence.

For a moment, I thought I might break the world again. That my rage, my grief, my sheer hatred would snap something deep within me and tear the very laws of existence apart.

But I didn't.

I just stood there, shaking, my breath ragged, my thoughts spiraling.

"Why are you telling me this now?" I forced the words out.

"I killed your mother, by my very own hands, kid. You know what that does to a man? A man who just killed the love of his life."

"I thought that I killed her just for you to not be anything special. But now, if the universe had one special thing, it's you."

The words didn't register at first.

I stared at him, at the man who raised me—or at least, the man who kept me alive. The man who taught me to be strong, to survive, to push forward without ever asking why.

And now, he was telling me this.

That my mother—my mother—was dead because of me.

Because of him.

Because I was supposed to be special.

Something inside me cracked.

I didn't even realize my breath had gone shallow until I forced myself to inhale, my chest rising like I had been underwater this entire time. The air in the room felt thin, like it wasn't enough, like I wasn't enough.

I stepped back.

His gaze didn't waver.

"You expect me to be grateful?" My voice was hoarse. "To thank you for this?"

He exhaled through his nose, slow, measured. "No."

"Then why?" I gritted my teeth. "Why now? Why tell me this now?"

He leaned forward, hands clasped together, elbows resting on the desk. "Because it's time for you to understand what you are."

"What I am?"

"You were never meant to be ordinary, Kaito. You were created to break the limits of what is possible. To transcend the very rules that bind existence itself." He gestured toward the file, toward the diagrams that outlined my existence in equations and probabilities. "You are not just a person. You are a phenomenon. A singularity."

My fingers curled into my palms, shaking.

"Do you even hear yourself?" My voice was rising now, the sharp edge of something raw and unfiltered cutting through. "You're talking like I'm some kind of concept, not your—"

I stopped myself.

Not his son.

I didn't know if I could say it anymore.

His gaze flickered, just barely.

"If the universe had one special thing," he said, "it's you."

A bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it. "That's what you tell yourself? That's what helps you sleep at night?"

He didn't answer.

"You killed her. You made me. And for what? To see if you could? To play god?"

He met my gaze evenly. "To break god."

I froze.

"So now, cooperate with the G.D.A. and you'll get what you want." He told me.

"Mom was lucky she didn't spend another eight years with you. You're a monster."

Father didn't react.

Not a twitch of his fingers. Not a change in his breathing.

Just silence.

"Yeah, I figured." He told me. Suddenly, I heard a knock at the door.

Father didn't move. He simply watched me, waiting.

For what?

For me to make a choice? To walk away? To open the door and let whoever was on the other side pull me into something bigger than this room, bigger than him, bigger than the suffocating weight of everything I had just learned?

Another knock. This time, firmer.

I swallowed hard and stepped forward.

I opened the door.

Cecil Stedman stood on the other side.

His one good eye flickered from me to Father, then back again.

"Hey, kid. I'm Cecil Stedman, you can call me Uncle Cecil." He ruffled my hair.

"I'm here to offer you a job."

A job?

I blinked up at him, still reeling from everything that had just been dumped on me. My mother. The project. The serum. The fact that I wasn't some random anomaly—I was made.

And now this old man wanted to act like we were buddies?

I stepped back, my eyes narrowing. "A job?"

Cecil nodded. "Yeah. A purpose, if you wanna be poetic about it. Something only you can do."

I looked past him. Two men in black suits stood behind him, looking like the kind of guys who had orders to kill if things didn't go according to plan.

I turned back to my father. He still hadn't moved, still hadn't reacted. Just watching. Waiting.

Like this was all going exactly as he intended.

My stomach twisted.

Cecil sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Look, kid. I know this is a lot. But you got a power that nobody else has. And whether you like it or not, that makes you important."

I clenched my fists. "Important to who? The G.D.A.? My father?" I spat the word like it was poison. "Or just you?"

Cecil's face didn't change. "To the world."

I laughed, short and bitter. "The world doesn't even know I exist."

"Not yet," Cecil admitted. "But it will. And trust me, Kaito—you wanna be the one deciding how that happens. Not somebody else."

My chest tightened.

He wasn't wrong.

I turned back to Cecil. "Fine. I'll hear you out."

His lips curled into the faintest smirk. "Smart choice, kid."

If you thought that now that I'm with a spy organization, my life is not going to be mine, you're dead wrong. I'm the Lawbreaker for a reason.

[10 years later]

I exhaled slowly, rolling my shoulders as I surveyed the battlefield.

The air was thick with tension. The kind that settled deep into your bones, the kind that warned you that something bigger was coming.

"Status report," Cecil's voice crackled through my earpiece.

I pressed a finger to my comm. "Still breathing."

"Smartass," Cecil grunted. "What's the situation?"

I glanced around. What was once a bustling city district was now a war zone. Crushed vehicles. Collapsed buildings. The aftermath of something—or someone—too powerful to be contained.

"Massive structural damage," I said. "No sign of the target. Yet."

A pause. Then: "Keep your eyes open, kid."

I clicked the comm off and flexed my fingers.

Something about this whole thing felt wrong.

I could feel it—like an itch in the back of my mind, a whisper in my bones. A shift in the very fabric of the world.

And then, as if on cue, the ground trembled beneath me.

A low, reverberating hum filled the air, vibrating through my teeth.

I turned.

And there it was.

A figure stood at the heart of the destruction, wreathed in crackling energy. Tall, broad-shouldered, eyes burning with an unnatural light.

I recognized him instantly.

Titan.

He'd grown stronger. Too strong.

His gaze locked onto mine, and for a moment, neither of us moved.

Then, with a sound like shattering glass, he lunged.

I broke the law of inertia.

Titan's charge halted mid-motion, his body snapping to a dead stop like he had crashed into an invisible wall.

His eyes widened. "What the—"

I clenched my fist. "Welcome to physics jail, asshole."

And then I moved.

In a blur, I closed the distance, driving my fist into his gut.

The shockwave split the air.

The battle had begun.

"Hey, let's get over with this bullshit and go home and for you, jail."

Titan grunted as my fist drove into his gut, the shockwave splitting the air like a thunderclap. The ground beneath us cracked, spiderweb fractures tearing through the asphalt as raw force erupted from the impact.

His body didn't move.

I narrowed my eyes.

"You're durable," I muttered. "Annoying."

Titan bared his teeth. "You think that—"

I canceled the law of durability.

CRACK.

His ribs shattered instantly, his body crumpling like wet paper. A strangled gasp tore from his throat, blood spurting from his lips as he collapsed to his knees, eyes wide in shock.

I tilted my head. "That was easy."

Titan wheezed, trying to force himself up. His hands trembled, fingers digging into the rubble beneath him.

I sighed.

"Yeah, no." I canceled the law of kinetic energy.

His struggling stopped.

Titan's muscles locked in place, his strength utterly meaningless. His body had no force, no motion—he was trapped in a frozen state, helpless as I grabbed him by the collar.

His eyes flickered with panic.

"You... you bastard—"

I yawned. "Listen, I'm not in the mood for some drawn-out superhero brawl, so let's cut the bullshit."

He tried to respond.

I canceled vibration.

Silence.

Titan's voice died in his throat. No sound. No words. Nothing.

I smirked. "Much better."

With a flick of my wrist, I tossed his limp, frozen body onto the rubble. He crashed without resistance, landing like a broken mannequin. His body could still feel pain, but without motion, he couldn't react to it. Couldn't even scream.

"Jesus, kid, I told you to join the guardians. Why are you so resistant?" Cecil spoke through the comms.

I let out a short breath, rolling my shoulders. "Because, Cecil, I work better alone."

"Alone, huh?" His voice crackled through the earpiece. "Kid, you're standing in the middle of a destroyed city block, just puttin' people in goddamn stasis like it's a video game. You think that screams solo act to me?"

I glanced down at Titan—still frozen, still helpless. His eyes darted around in silent fury, the only part of him that could move.

"You want me on a team so bad," I said, "find me one that can keep up."

Cecil sighed. "You know damn well I got people who can."

I snorted. "Yeah? Name one."

A beat of silence. Then, dryly—

"Mark."

Of course, it always came back to him. Invincible. The golden boy. The prodigy. The actual son of Omni-Man.

"Unc, you and I both know that he ain't my level."

Cecil chuckled. "Yeah, well, I'd bet he'd say the same about you."

I rolled my eyes. "Then he's an idiot."

Titan's eyes were still darting around in sheer panic. He couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't fight back. He wasn't a threat anymore—just another name to check off the list.

I canceled the law of kinetic energy.

Titan collapsed onto the ground like a ragdoll, gasping for air as his body finally registered what had happened to him. I knelt down, grabbing him by the collar.

"Listen," I said, my voice calm. "You and I both know this could've gone way worse. You're lucky I'm feeling nice today."

He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Y-you… you're a monster."

I smirked. "Nah. I just play by my own rules."

Cecil's voice crackled in my ear. "Alright, wrap it up, kid. G.D.A. agents are inbound."

I stood, dusting off my hands. "Copy that."

Titan groaned, still too weak to move. I glanced down at him one last time before turning away, stepping over the debris and shattered concrete.

"Hey, kid." Cecil's voice had that same casual drawl, but I could hear the weight behind it. "You say Mark ain't your level, huh?"

I scoffed. "That's not what I said. I said he can't keep up."

"Right, right. So humor me, then." Cecil's voice carried a smirk I couldn't see. "What happens if he does?"

"I turn off durability. What's he gonna do?"

Cecil chuckled, low and knowing. "Kid, you ever hear the phrase 'iron sharpens iron'?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You're about to say some dumb old-man wisdom about how competition makes us stronger or some crap, right?"

"Nah," Cecil said. "I'm sayin' if you keep treating Mark like he ain't a problem, one day, you're gonna wake up and realize he ain't just keepin' up—he's leaving you behind."

"Stop spouting shit, Unc."

"I'm just kidding with ya."

Cecil let out a low chuckle. "Relax, kid. Just keeping you on your toes."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You got agents coming for cleanup or what?"

"They're on their way," Cecil confirmed. "Should be there in five. Stick around."

I glanced at the destruction around me. The wreckage, the crumbling buildings, the distant sounds of sirens cutting through the air.

I sighed. "Fine."

Titan groaned behind me, barely able to move. He wouldn't be a problem anymore. At least, not today.

I cracked my knuckles, stretching my shoulders. The adrenaline was fading now, the rush of battle giving way to a familiar emptiness.

This was my life now.

Ten years with the G.D.A. Ten years of fighting battles, breaking laws—both literal and fundamental. Ten years of doing what no one else could, of standing on the edge of the impossible and shattering it with my own hands. Well, people like Omni-Man could but still.

And yet, despite all that, despite everything I had done and everything I had become...

I still felt like I was waiting for something.

For what? A challenge? A purpose? This was easy, yet I didn't find it interesting.

An answer? 

I shook my head. No point in overthinking it. Not now.

The wind carried the distant hum of approaching aircraft—the G.D.A.'s retrieval team.

I exhaled, closing my eyes for just a moment.

Then, quietly, under my breath, I muttered:

"Let's see what tomorrow breaks."