Jay got back to his feet after several tries and a level of commitment that anyone reasonable would've called suicidal considering how much rainbow blood he'd produced getting there, but he was standing with the arena floor behind him and six Stone resonances doing what they did when the body they inhabited got damaged, keeping things running as hard as the equalization field let them.
He had one hand sealing the gaping wound on his elbow, and the other hand was somewhere behind him on the floor but he hadn't looked back because there were more immediate concerns.
One of them was The Powers That Be.
She'd manifested at the edge of his vision the way cosmic abstracts did, not there one moment and there the next, multiple arms holding artifacts that pulsed with elder magic, pregnant belly swollen with potential. The abstract entity that held dominion over everything magical and strange in the Eighth Cosmos.
She'd been waiting, Jay understood now, for exactly this moment when he was reduced and damaged and thrown across the arena by Oblivion's move while new arrivals pulled everyone's attention in different directions.
She tried to seal the magic, his magic.
But for the oblivious entity, Jay had a self-imposed curse {Drawback: No-Arcane} since he arrived in this multiverse, completely out of her dominion.
When he turned to look at her, the understanding arrived crystal clear.
She took Luv from Kamar-Taj, showed up at a place he trusted and tore it apart, hurt the Ancient One, nearly killed the woman closest to him that he considered a mother, stripped away the people protecting his son and dragged that son here to stand trial.
The six Stones had been juggling a lot simultaneously, keeping his biology functional, calibrating perception, processing the Oblivion fight, tracking Luv and Bonk across the arena.
When Jay's understanding clicked into place, all of that stopped for about one second and everything the Stones had been using processing capacity for redirected to a single point.
Not thought or strategy. Just rage.
Pure, crystallized, six-Infinity-Stone-amplified fury that'd been building since he arrived here and had finally found its target.
Across the arena, Domino felt it through whatever connection six Infinity Stones and the Death Stone created between them and she turned from the shadow that used to be Mephisto, saw Jay's expression, saw the rainbow light starting to leak from his eyes and mouth.
"No," she whispered. "Jay, don't lose your control over—"
But he was too far away to hear her, and the Stones had already decided what happened next.
The Powers That Be raised one of her arms and red magic runes started gathering as she spoke with the calm authority of something that'd governed mystical force since before the birth of this Cosmos. "Outsider. Your interference in the cosmic order ends now. Oblivion will see you flayed and—"
Jay hit her in the stomach with a right hook.
The sound of impact echoed across the arena like a gunshot in a cathedral, and she made a sound that cosmic abstracts weren't supposed to make, a wet choking gasp that cut off mid-breath.
For the first time in her existence she felt pain, actual genuine pain that made her insides twist and her vision white out at the edges.
Near the Fantastic Four's position, Reed Richards stopped mid-elongation. "Did he just... did Jay just punch The Powers That Be?"
Sue's force fields flickered, defending against an attack as she processed what she was seeing. "Reed, that's a cosmic abstract. That's like punching gravity. You can't just..."
"He's doing it anyway," Johnny said in awe.
Ben Grimm watched Jay move forward through mystical barriers like they weren't there. "Kid's lost it. Completely lost it."
The Powers That Be stumbled backward, all hands going to her belly, her face locked into expressions of shock and agony. "You... you DARE strike at the source of all mystical force? I who have governed magic since The One Above All first spoke creation into being?"
Jay didn't answer, just moved forward like someone who'd stopped being a person and become a consequence with fists.
She threw up a barrier, red and black mystical energy weaving into circles that rewrote physics in the space between them.
Jay walked through it like it wasn't there.
The X-Men had stopped fighting, drawn by the sudden shift in the arena's atmosphere.
"Scott," Jean said quietly, her telepathy picking up the edges of what Jay was feeling. "We need to... oh god, we need to stop him."
"How?" Cyclops asked, watching Jay move through mystical defenses that should've been absolute. "Jean, look at him. The Stones have him. He's not there anymore."
Storm's eyes were white with power but her voice was shaken. "This is wrong. What she did was wrong, yes, but this... this is murder of the Mystic Source."
"This is justice," a voice said from behind them.
They turned to find the Ancient One, supported by Wong and Mordo, with the three Vishanti manifested around her.
Agamotto's single eye was locked on the scene. "She came to Kamar-Taj, stripped the Ancient One of her power and took the child from her sanctuary."
"We know that," Jean's voice was sharp. "But it's not worth losing your—"
"He's not," Oshtur interrupted gently. "He's a soldier in a cosmic trial, and what you're watching is not execution. It's consequence."
Across the arena, Jay hit The Powers That Be again, this time directly in the face.
Her head snapped back and the Maiden's face flickered, red ichor leaked from where her lip had split, dripping down her chin in thick wet drops that sizzled when they hit the arena floor.
She'd never been hit before, not like this, not by something that could actually hurt her.
The panic that flashed across all three of her faces was raw and immediate and somehow deeply human despite the cosmic nature of what was happening.
"This is... impossible," she whispered, all three voices overlapping. "I am the Powers That Be. I am the Fifth Goddess. The source from which all mystical practitioners draw."
Near Luv, Domino had made her way through the chaos and she knelt beside her son, saw him watching Jay with wide blue eyes that were trying to process what his father was doing.
"Don't look, baby," Domino said, pulling Luv against her and covering his eyes with her hand. "Don't look at Daddy right now."
"But Mom, he's hurt," Luv said, his voice small. "Daddy's hurt and angry and I can feel it and it's scary."
Franklin and Nate stood on either side of them and Franklin's usual grin was gone, replaced by an expression that carried the weight of someone who'd seen his Uncle Jay in the future and knew how this moment would follow him.
"He's not himself right now," Nate said quietly. "The Stones are... they're pushing him past where he should go."
"Should we..." Franklin started.
"No." Nate's voice was firm. "This is between him and her. We interfere, we make it worse."
Domino held Luv tighter as Jay grabbed one of The Powers That Be's six arms and twisted.
The crack echoed like breaking reality, bone that wasn't quite bone shattering in ways that shouldn't be possible.
The scream that followed rippled through the mystical realms themselves and every magic user from the lowest apprentice to the masters and even Dimensional Lords felt their connection flicker because their source was screaming.
The Powers That Be was sobbing now, all three eyes streaming with tears, and the Mystical Mother was begging with desperation that made her sound like a child who'd just realized the monster under the bed was real.
"Please. Please stop. I'll give anything. I'll restore your master fully. I'll breathe life back into every connection I severed. I'll never touch your son again. I'll grant you dominion over—"
Jay grabbed her by the throat with his remaining hand and lifted her off the ground, and her feet kicked uselessly in the air while she clawed at his grip.
In the galleries, the cosmic entities watching went still.
The Elders who'd been placing bets on the outcome stopped mid-gesture. The Celestials' usually impassive forms seemed to lean forward slightly, drawn by something they'd never witnessed before, the murder of one of their own tier.
Eternity and Infinity, the twin abstracts representing all space and time, turned their attention fully to what was happening below.
"Is he actually..." Infinity's voice rippled across dimensions.
"He is," Eternity confirmed, and there was something in his tone that might've been horror or fascination or both.
The Avengers watched in silence. The X-Men stood frozen. Even the Fantastic Four couldn't look away.
"You know what the funny thing is?" Jay's voice came out distorted, rainbow light leaking from his eyes with each word. "I don't have any magic. Never did. It's a curse I chose for myself, and I can't thank ROB enough for giving me the choice."
She clawed at his hand, mystical energy sparking uselessly against his grip.
"Which means you have exactly zero authority over me. Not one bit." He smiled, and it was the smile of someone who'd found the exact right way to hurt something and was going to enjoy it. "So all that power you've been bleeding off me? Wasn't mine to begin with. And all that authority you think you have? Doesn't apply."
"No," she whispered, all three faces speaking in perfect unison now, and there was real terror in it. "No, you can't... if you do what I think you're about to do..."
The Ancient One watched from her position with the Vishanti and her face was carefully neutral but her hands were clenched tight enough that her knuckles were white.
Wong stood beside her, his usual composure cracked. "Master... is this right? What he's doing?"
"I don't know," the Ancient One admitted quietly. "But it's what she brought on herself when she violated sanctuary."
"The mystical realm needs its governing force," The Powers That Be said, her voices breaking with desperation. "Without me there's no balance, no compact with Natural Order. Magic and science will collapse into—"
Jay activated his most strange power {Duality}.
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