Then Death materialized ten feet away.
She looked around, ignoring their universe with no interest. "Run out of breath, little thief?" Her scythe materialized in her hand, bone and essence gleaming in the streetlight. "Guess I'll finish it quickly and claim you after all."
Jay's back hit the alley wall, trapped, exhausted and barely able to stand. But he wasn't done yet. Not while he could still talk, still stall, still buy himself seconds to implement his desperate plan.
"Why?" Jay's voice came out hoarse, rough with pain. "Why do you target me specifically? What crime did I commit for you to be hunting me with such passion?"
Lady Death tilted her head, genuinely curious about the question. She spun her scythe with casual grace, the blade humming with deadly purpose. "You are seriously not getting it?" She said with a laugh, cold and beautiful. "I have been telling you all this time. You were given a warning, and despite that, you resurrected someone again."
"So what?" Jay's frustration bled through his exhaustion. "It was just one person, and he was dead again in seconds!!"
Lady Death's expression grew almost playful, like a cat explaining to a mouse why it must die. "That did happen, yes. But the person you resurrected was Jim Jaspers, second only to Franklin Richards in the sheer scale of power you've stolen." She leaned on her scythe. "It's not about quantity, little outsider. It's about quality. You brought back a being who could have unmade your entire universe, just to steal his power. Without sanction from those who would matter, form ME."
Her voice took on an edge, something deeper than anger. "Do you know what your little arrangement with Gaea has cost me? That precious Adaptive Heroism World you convinced her would maintain the Balance?" Death's eyes blazed brighter. "Souls that should have been mine decades before their natural ends will be snatched away again and again. Heroes preventing the mass-casualty events that once filled my realm with the harvest I was due."
Jay laughed despite the pain, despite everything. "So that's it? You're just being petty? That's what this is all about?" His voice rose. "THEN WHY NOT KILL ME DIRECTLY? After all, you're Death itself! You're a multiversal abstract! I'm just a human with stolen powers! Why all this pageantry?"
Lady Death's playful expression vanished, replaced by something colder. She was silent for a long moment, considering whether explaining herself to a mortal was beneath her.
Then she spoke, and her voice carried weight that made the alley walls crack.
"It's my foundation." Each word was chosen carefully. "As powerful as we concepts are, we are still bound by order. And most importantly..." Her dark eyes fixed on Jay with laser focus. "We are bound by His will."
Jay's breath caught. "You mean..."
"The One Above All, yes." Lady Death's grip on her scythe tightened. "You outsider, have His mark. Just like they all do." Bitterness crept into her voice. "You come into this multiverse and break the natural order, play with it like it's your given birthright. And the first thing each and every one of you do is deny Me by saving your precious hero's families. You turned fixed fate into infinite possibility with your very presence."
She took a step forward, scythe raised. Death approaching with inexorable certainty.
"Since I can't claim you directly without violating His edicts without punching down at an Outsider in a way that would be synonymous with attempting to change the very nature of my world itself, I thought Jaspers would be a good tool." Her smile was razor-sharp, carrying satisfaction and disappointment in equal measure. "A reality warper consumed by hatred, given mechanical immortality and a copy of high-order adaptability, made a hundred times more intelligent, blessed with mastery that made FURY one of the most powerful villains in this entire universe."
Her expression flickered, something almost like amusement crossing her features. "Unfortunately, he was a disappointment in the end. Though watching him nearly breach the Fourth Wall was... entertaining. Inbetweener might say dangerously so."
Jay's mind raced, pieces clicking together. His Comic Nerd perk was screaming at him now, showing him the cosmic chessboard and the rules Death was dancing around.
"You're playing a dangerous game," Jay said slowly. "Creating an unsanctioned threat to the universe's functioning. The Living Tribunal put Oblivion in a coma for less."
Death's smile turned predatory. "Perhaps I've grown bored enough to dance on that line. Perhaps I want the excuse to clip an Outsider before he grows strong enough to interfere at the Top-of-Cosmic Tier." She paused, and for just a moment, something else flickered in her eyes- was it genuine challenge? Assessment? "After all, truly immortal Cosmic Entities don't remain in power by being stupid."
Jay began laughing, the sound echoing through the alley. Not nervous laughter but exhaustion-fueled understanding mixed with hysteria.
"Well," he said, still chuckling, "thanks for the talk. It really was eye-opening." His hands moved behind his back. "And as thanks, I've prepared something for you."
Death's eyes widened fractionally.
Jay took a deep breath, gathering every scrap of knowledge from his Perk.
This had to work. Because if it didn't, he was dead. Simple as that.
And then Jay spoke at the top of his voice, his words carrying power that made Lady Death's eyes widen in recognition and growing horror.
"COMPANIONSHIP PLUS UNDERSTANDING PLUS ASSURANCE PLUS JOY PLUS ALTRUISM..."
Lady Death screamed in rage as she felt her power diminishing, felt something fundamental being challenged at the conceptual level.
"STOP!" She lunged forward with her scythe, but Jay kept speaking, kept calculating, kept building the equation.
"...DIVIDED BY RESPECT..." The words came harder now. Forced through pain. "DIVIDED BY COMMENDATION..." His voice cracked but held. "DIVIDED BY SYMPATHY..."
Her pride kept her from retreating, from fleeing from a mere mortal, from an outsider who should be easy prey. But each word Jay spoke, each variable he added, her power kept diminishing, kept being pushed back by something equally fundamental.
Life itself.
The opposite of everything she represented.
"...TIMES INNOCENCE..." Jay gasped the words out. "TIMES DIGNITY..." Blood ran from his nose. "TIMES SUCCESS..." His legs gave out. He collapsed against the wall. "TIMES ACCEPTANCE..."
Lady Death's form flickered, her scythe dissolving, her essence being counter-balanced by forces she couldn't simply overwhelm.
Her absolute authority over death itself being contested by the mathematical proof that life was worth living.
"NO!" She tried to cut him off, but the equation was already building momentum, already taking on its own conceptual weight.
"...WHERE Y EQUALS DESPAIR…" Jay's vision blurred. He forced the words out anyway.
"AND N EQUALS CAUTION..."
The alley filled with light, white and pure, pushing back the darkness that clung to Death's presence.
"...LOVE EQUALS TRUTH..."
Lady Death stumbled back, her form destabilizing, genuine fear crossing her features for the first time in eons. Fear not of the equation itself, but of what using it here, in front of witnesses in an Amalgam Universe, might mean for her carefully balanced defiance of cosmic law.
"...DEATH EQUALS REBIRTH..."
Jay's wounds began to close, not through healing but through fundamental restructuring, as if the concept of his death was being rewritten at the source code level.
"...AND SELF EQUALS LIGHT!"
The equation completed.
White light exploded from Jay's body, so bright it turned the alley into day, so pure it burned away shadows that had existed since the alley's construction. His wounds sealed completely, flesh knitting together as the Life Equation restructured reality around him.
His torn clothes transformed, becoming a pristine white overcoat and pants, fabric gleaming as if freshly made. His hair turned pure white, every strand the color of fresh snow. Even his eyes shifted, irises becoming white, glowing with inner light.
[Compulsory Image Here]
Jay stood there, transformed, the living embodiment of the Life Equation, the antithesis of everything Lady Death represented.
The mathematical proof that life was worth living. That existence had meaning, and free will mattered.
Lady Death stared at him, her usual confidence shattered, genuine fear of the unknown radiating from her form. Because she'd never encountered this before. Never faced the Life Equation in the flesh. In all her eons of existence, across all the universes she'd claimed, she'd never seen a mortal wield this power.
"How?" Her voice came out barely above a whisper. "How do you know the Life Equation? That shouldn't exist in this Multiverse!"
Jay's grin was predatory, carrying relief and exhaustion and triumph in equal measure.
"Welcome," he said, his voice echoing with harmonics that resonated with Life itself, "to the Amalgam Universe."
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