The gallery had gone absolutely silent. Jay could see beings in those infinite tiers. Some watching with satisfaction, some with an indifference somehow worse, and a handful staring at the floor like guilt looked when it couldn't find its voice.
Oblivion kept going.
"I propose we dispense with the theatre over this mutt of a crossbreed that should never have drawn breath. An existential erasure, for the abomination, for his outsider father who infected this multiverse like a plague, and for the thief who calls herself his mother, would resolve this efficiently and spare everyone further embarrassment. Let us clean the board and correct the anomaly."
The sound Jay made wasn't words.
"I'm going to fucking kill you."
He said it quietly. He said it clearly. "I don't care if it takes me a thousand years. I don't care if I have to burn through every power I have and die doing it. When I get free, I'm going to kill you, you bigoted sack of sentient excrement. I'm going to unmake you. I'm going to erase you so thoroughly that the void you came from won't remember you existed. That's not a threat. That's a fucking promise."
Blood vessels burst in his eyes. Iron flooded his mouth.
He reached for the Tether. Reached for the Space Stone threaded through it, tried to punch a fold in space just big enough to send Luv home and get him out of this Kangaroo Court. The suppression field crushed the attempt before it formed.
He hit the chains with everything he had, every power in his arsenal converging on the same point, and for a moment (a moment the assembled cosmic entities would discuss later in lowered voices) the chains actually began to give. Not much. Not enough. But they gave, hairline fractures spreading through links that were not supposed to fracture.
More chains came.
He was still trying when the voice came from across the court.
"Stop this nonsense."
The voice was cultured and tired of watching the same tragedy on repeat.
The Queen of Nevers stood from her seat in the gallery's upper tiers, her eyes on Oblivion.
"Oblivion." She left his name in the air a moment. "Don't imagine we're blind to the actual objective here. We all see the Death Stone. We all understand what restoring your sister's authority would mean for the balance you claim to be protecting. Return to the arrangement that suited you before a mortal and an outsider between them disrupted it." She tilted her head. "You're not subtle."
Whispers spread through the gallery.
"I am pursuing cosmic law," Oblivion said.
"You are pursuing your agenda while wearing cosmic law as a coat," the Queen said. "There's a difference."
Infinity's voice moved through the court like a tide.
"Those who stand with Oblivion's position will speak their reasoning plainly. This court deserves that much."
A beat of silence. Then the Powers That Be rose from their seat, adjusting the layered robes that seemed to exist in several dimensions simultaneously.
"The child's potential already rivals the Harbinger's at baseline, not to mention the Mutant Shaman's powers are added in there," the Powers That Be said. "He has additionally begun drawing from magical disciplines that fall within domains that are mine to govern. He has been studying with the Sorcerer Supreme. The combination of those genetics and that training threatens my position as the singular authority on mystical force in this multiverse. He's an unchecked and unpredictable variable that should not exist."
"How fitting," said a voice like algorithmic precision given sound. The Natural Order of Things, which manifested in this court as living geometry, turned a pattern of calculating light toward the Powers That Be. "That a power which defines itself as singular (more whimsical and logicless) should panic at the emergence of competition."
"I don't panic," the Powers That Be said. "I act preventatively."
"You act protectively," the Natural Order corrected. "The distinction matters, particularly when the thing you're protecting against is a sinless child."
Several beings nearby shifted away from the Powers That Be.
Master Order turned in his seat toward Lord Chaos, opposite him. He'd been carrying this difficult partnership longer than most forces had existed and the disapproval showed.
"Explain yourself," Master Order said. "These are strangers. Outsiders even. Why would you align yourself against this court's natural interest. What is your interest in the child's survival?"
Lord Chaos, who had been rearranging his own appearance for the last several minutes in deliberate mockery of the court's formality, grinned.
"Because," she said, and the grin spread, "outsiders are my absolute favorite thing. You want to know the last time something genuinely interesting happened in this court?" He gestured broadly at Jay wrapped in his chains bleeding quietly on the floor. "This. This right here. He walks through and suddenly there are variables. Actual variables. Not the pretend ones we generate to keep things interesting, but genuine unknowns." She leaned back on her throne. "And now there's a child with those genetics who might one day do things none of us have calculated. I'm not letting you erase that."
"You would preserve an abomination for entertainment," Master Order said.
"Absafuckinglutely," Lord Chaos beamed.
"You are impossible," Master Order said.
"You're welcome," Lord Chaos replied.
Chaos did what chaos does.
It started with two voices, then four, then the entire gallery erupted. Ancient grudges that had been accumulating since before the concept of record keeping existed came boiling up through the proceedings. The Elders of the Universe, who had opinions about everything and the lifespan to have developed them thoroughly, began airing grievances from the second cosmos. The abstracts stopped speaking to each other and started speaking at each other, embodiments and primordial forces and gods and things that had no clean category all contributing to a noise that climbed and climbed.
"The child is a resource misallocation at cosmic scale," Sire Hate said, louder now.
"Oh, sit down, you party pooper," Mistress Love called from three tiers up.
"The structural precedent alone..." Master Order began.
"Is fascinating!" Lord Chaos finished, clapping once.
"This entire proceeding is a transparent grab for the Death Stone and everyone here knows it," the Queen of Nevers said.
"You would defend them," Oblivion said. "Your attachment to outsiders has always been a liability."
"And your attachment to your sister's authority has always been the actual agenda behind every position you have ever taken in this court. Shall we keep going?"
The In-Betweener said something that was simultaneously an argument for both sides and therefore satisfied no one.
The King in Black said nothing. His silence was louder than most of what was being said.
The Kings in Ivory drank their elixir, enjoying the show.
Jay caught a glance at Luv during a lull. His son had stopped listening. Just standing there, enduring.
Something in Jay broke quietly.
The Living Tribunal rose to his full height.
His gavel handle came down once.
The sound swallowed everything. When it finished there was only silence.
The gallery turned forward.
"Let us begin the Formal Vote," The Living Tribunal said. "Those in opposition to the motion for erasure."
Eternity raised his hand, galaxies spinning steadily in his chest. The Queen of Nevers followed. Infinity raised hers, her contained expanse contracting slightly. The Natural Order of Things indicated opposition through a shift in the angles of its patterns. Lord Chaos raised both hands and then one extra that materialised specifically for the occasion. Mistress Love glowed brighter. The Phoenix Force let a tongue of fire trace upward.
Seven.
Jay counted them and allowed himself one breath.
"Those in support of the motion."
Oblivion's hand rose first, unhurried. He'd counted these votes days ago.
Sire Hate followed. Slow and deliberate.
Master Order raised his with the expression of someone filing paperwork.
The Powers That Be lifted theirs.
Abraxas, from the far edge of the gallery where he'd been sitting silent as death, raised his without looking away from Luv. He'd been staring at the boy since the proceedings started.
The Goblin Force didn't exactly raise a hand. It shifted, and the shift registered as a vote.
The Griever at the End of All Things raised hers slowly.
And then, last, the Ivory Kings raised their glasses.
Jay counted them.
More hands than the other side.
By one.
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