The declaration hit the Dimension of Manifestations like a front-page headline nobody saw coming.

  Trial by combat.

  For one full second, the gallery held its breath, then it lost its mind entirely.

  Sound erupted from every tier at once with a roar that had no single source, born from beings that had watched civilizations fold and rise and fold again across a billion years, and underneath all their cosmic titles and ancient responsibilities, they had never stopped wanting to watch two sides actually throw punches. Abstract forces and primordial entities, the oldest things in the multiverse, slammed whatever they had against the floor of infinite space and moved with the energy of a crowd that had just been told the main event was on.

  Luv pressed both hands over his ears while Bonk, recovered enough to sit upright, leaned against him and made a low sound that landed somewhere between distress and fascination, probably both.

  Jay looked at Domino, and Domino looked at Jay.

  "Huh?" Jay asked in surprise.

  "Yep," Domino said.

  Oblivion rose from his throne and let the noise build to its peak before raising one hand with the gesture of a being that had been practicing patience since before patience needed a word.

  "This," he said, "is a mockery." His voice cut through the noise with the particular ease of something that predated sound itself.

  The gallery quieted, not completely, but enough.

  "You preside over cosmic law," Oblivion continued as he turned to the Living Tribunal, "authority that derives from its legitimacy, from the principle that judgment here is measured, fair and above the appetites of the gallery, and now you propose to reduce that to a brawl." He paused and let those words sit before continuing, "Before creation was, I was. I am the Void, and you would have me watch while the nothing is judged equal to the everything? In what framework of cosmic justice does that comparison hold?"

  The Living Tribunal regarded him with all three faces looking at Oblivion at the same time, an experience very few beings in any multiverse had the constitution to sustain for long.

  Equity weighed the argument while Necessity evaluated what the situation required, and Vengeance had already formed its own view, which wasn't sympathetic.

  "It is genuinely surprising to hear such concern for the image of this proceeding from the entity that brought this motion," the Living Tribunal said with measured precision. "The Queen of Nevers has already identified on the record that it was a mechanism for personal agenda rather than cosmic law." One beat passed, precise and deliberate, before he continued, "Your concern for legitimacy would carry more weight had it arrived before you attempted to use my court to erase a child."

  Oblivion went very still.

  "The question of equal standing has an answer, and it is present in this courtroom," the Tribunal continued while his gaze swept across the assembled entities. "Neena Thurman currently governs Death, which is an abstract of equivalent standing to any entity in this gallery, and her participation in a trial is not just a courtesy but a right." He looked across the court with finality and added, "The motion stands."

  The gallery erupted again.

  Oblivion's shadow pulled tighter as his gaze moved from the Tribunal and landed on Jay with the contempt of something that had been waiting to say it since Jay cracked the containment barrier with his fist. "The outsider," he said with venom in every syllable, "parasite who remains what you have always been, a state of affairs that would please me no end if not for the fact that you continue to exist at all. Eternity's declaration changes nothing fundamental about what you are."

  "Oblivion!"

  Eternity's voice wasn't loud and didn't need to be as he descended from his position in the air, slow and enormous, while the galaxies in his chest rearranged themselves and reality adjusted around him the way the universe has always accommodated the others in it.

  "Jay and his family," Eternity said with warmth threading through every word, the specific warmth of a universe looking at something it's pleased with, "they were, they are, and they will always be under my protection, which has been true longer than this court has been in session." He looked at Oblivion, and the warmth went out of his voice to leave something clear and old and unargued as he added, "Where creation ends, I do not, and neither do those I have chosen. As my queen's and my successors, they carry the rights of our station, the same rights."

  The gallery made a sound that wasn't a roar but something more deliberate, the sound of a room full of beings recalibrating what they thought they knew.

  Even the Living Tribunal's three faces shifted, just slightly, which on anything less than a cosmic abstraction of judgment would have read as surprise.

  Jay stared at Eternity before looking at the Queen of Nevers, who was watching him from her seat with an expression that was steady and patient and carried something that might have been apology or might have been the look of someone who has chosen the right moment to show you something important and is choosing it now.

  She nodded once before speaking just to him, saying, "We chose well, love. We always knew we would."

  "That was never part of the wish," Jay said with his voice coming out considerably flatter than he intended.

  Eternity looked at him while the galaxies in his chest did something that, in a being composed of nearly the entire universe, was the equivalent of a fond smile.

  "Jay," Eternity said with the patient delivery of something that has been waiting a while to say this, "who do you think has been protecting Domino since before you arrived? Every time she jumped into danger, every improbable survival, every situation where the odds said she should not have walked away yet she walked away regardless, every bullet that missed by a margin that defied logic, every fight she should have lost and didn't, I have been protecting her from the moment your wish was made, yes, but also retroactively, back through every moment of her life that needed protecting, because that is what it means to be under my protection, and time is, after all, something I encompass."

  Domino had gone very quiet.

  Jay looked at her and saw her staring at Eternity with an expression he had never seen on her face before, not in any fight or in any crisis, not even in any of the moments they'd been through together. She looked like someone who has spent their entire life explaining away miracles as sheer luck and has just been told, with full cosmic authority, that every impossible survival, every defied death, every moment she should have died and didn't, wasn't entirely hers but borrowed, gifted actually.

  Her jaw had gone tight and her hands were shaking, those same hands that had stayed steady through every fight they'd ever been in together.

  "Your powers, all this time," Jay said slowly while trying to process what he was hearing, "the luck, all that impossible luck."

  "My luck," Domino said with her voice steady but something in it fractured around the edges, "always been mine. Earned every goddamn impossible second of it with blood and training and choices that nearly killed me, except apparently I had a cosmic co-signer and nobody thought to mention it. That's not a gift but a secret, and I don't like secrets kept from me."

  "Supplemented," Eternity said gently, "not replaced. Your skill is yours, your will is yours, even your courage is yours, and your power was never a lie. I simply ensured that courage had the opportunity to matter."

  She took one breath that didn't quite steady, then another before responding, "Right. Okay. We are absolutely going to have words about that, long words about consent, about what counts as protection and what counts as control, about the difference between keeping someone safe and keeping someone in the dark. Later though, much later, because right now I've got a fight to get through."

  "I look forward to that conversation," Eternity said, and he sounded like he genuinely meant it.

  Jay's hand found hers, though she didn't pull away, she didn't grip back either since she was somewhere else, processing something he couldn't follow her into.

  The Living Tribunal's gavel handle touched the floor, and the sound pulled the noise back to something workable.

  "Trial by combat is sanctioned," the Tribunal said with absolute authority, "though the terms require detail. The participants will be established, the scope of permitted abilities will be determined, and the gallery will maintain order until those terms are set, or I will determine the terms unilaterally, and no one in this court wants that."

  The gallery maintained order.

  Jay looked at Luv, who had stopped trying to track all the moving parts and was now watching his father specifically, waiting to take his cues from him.

  He looked at Domino.

  "As long as I get to bash that bastard's skull in, I genuinely don't care about the rest of the details," he said.

  "Hon," Domino said.

  "I'm being sincere."

  "I know, and that's why I'm saying hon."

  Oblivion turned to the wider court and spread his hands with something that almost passed for generosity while declaring, "All weapons and powers are legal for use. I think even the Tribunal's gallery can agree on that much since this is, after all, what you have all been waiting for."

  He raised one hand, and the scythe came from across dimensions, from across the void between this court and the plateau on Vormir where a battle had recently been concluded, materializing in his grip with the ease of something returning home. The gallery recognized it instantly as the weapon he had given to Thanos, the weapon that should still be on Vormir unless Thanos was no longer able to hold it.

  Oblivion looked at it briefly and noted without visible distress that Thanos had failed, though the scythe was here, and that was what mattered now.

  "We agree to call upon our allies," he continued as his voice broadened to address the full gallery, "all those willing. I imagine a great many of you have been sitting in those tiers for some time now, waiting for a reason to stop merely watching." He gestured toward the assembled cosmic forces and added, "Give the boys a chance to stretch."

  The gallery's response was immediate and very loud.

  Oblivion looked at the numbers gathering to his cause, then at Jay's side, and his mouth did what, on the void made sentient, served as a smile, though it was not a pleasant expression. There was no cruelty in it, just the comfortable assessment of someone who has already done the arithmetic.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The Living Tribunal brought his gavel down with a sound that was final and non-negotiable.

  "The terms are set, and the participants have agreed."

  What happened to the court happened fast as the infinite tiers of the gallery folded outward and then inward while the architecture rearranged itself with the efficiency of something built to serve multiple purposes. The dais and thrones rose and widened and found new configurations at the perimeter while the floor between them became something else, boundless and flat and open in a way that made the space feel simultaneously enormous and intimate, a celestial arena with enough room in the middle for civilizations to end.

  Golden light radiated from the boundaries, warm and absolute, and as it settled into everyone present, it carried the pressure of cosmic equalization. Powers weren't taken but were leveled, adjusted, brought to a common ceiling the Tribunal had set with the mathematical precision of something that had been balancing forces for longer than balance had required a word.

  Jay felt it arrive like a pressure moving through him like warm water, finding every channel of power he possessed and gently, firmly, capping it. The Tachyon Field, the Elemental Force, his reality warping, all of it still there, still his, just restrained to a common measure.

  On Oblivion's side, they assembled.

  Master Order came first, precise and inevitable, his stillness carrying the weight of every law ever written. The Powers That Be descended with all her arms and her fear of being replaced, the fear that had driven her to this vote and hadn't diminished with the arrival of a combat she hadn't initially planned for. Sire Hate moved into position with the slow deliberateness of something that had been looking forward to hurting someone for some time while the Goblin Force shifted and settled at the flank like bad weather finding its shape. Abraxas took his position without looking away from Luv, his interest unchanged from the moment the boy had arrived, and the Griever stood with the patience of something that cleared away civilizations, which this one had been marked for clearing. The Beyonders materialized from the edge of everything, cold and calculating, having voted for erasure out of curiosity about what a disrupted timeline would produce, and combat was simply the next variable to observe.

  Jay's eyes went wide when he saw them, the Beyonders, the things that had murdered the Living Tribunal in other timelines, reality-killers who existed outside multiversal law, all on Oblivion's side.

  "Fuck," he said very quietly.

  Then the Celestials arrived, not walking but simply present suddenly at the back of Oblivion's formation, their armor pulsing with power that could birth or destroy galaxies. Arishem the Judge, who had condemned the Earth, Exitar the Executioner, who had ended civilizations, and others whose names Jay didn't know but whose presence added sheer overwhelming scale to everything Oblivion had assembled.

  Jay looked at his side, then looked back at Oblivion's side.

  "We are fucked," he amended.

  Then the Elders came, dozens of them, each ancient beyond mortal reckoning. The Collector with his white eyes fixed on Luv with the specific interest of something that wants to add a specimen to a collection, the Grandmaster already grinning with the anticipation of the best game he'd been offered in eons, the Gardener, the Runner, the Contemplator, all beings who had spent their entire incomprehensible lifespans obsessing over single passions and had long since run out of new things to acquire or experience. A combat trial involving an outsider who had disrupted the multiverse's established order was, for each of them, exactly what they'd been waiting for.

  Jay stood on his side of the arena and looked at all of it for a long time before looking at his side.

  Eternity stood there, boundless and galaxy-chested, a living universe taking a side. Infinity, vast and contained, the Queen of Nevers, steady and watching him with that expression she wore when she was waiting to see what he was going to do, the Phoenix Force with fire tracing patterns along whatever surface it rested on, the Natural Order of Things, geometric and precise, Lord Chaos already vibrating with something that wasn't quite anticipation and not quite joy but held elements of both, and Mistress Love, warm in a way that pushed back against the weight of everything assembled against them.

  And Domino stood at his left, arms loose at her sides, the AK still slung across her shoulder while the Death Stone caught light from the golden equalization field and threw it back in violet. Her expression was the one she wore when she had already made her decisions and was now simply executing them, not afraid, not even particularly concerned, just ready.

  And Luv stood behind them with Bonk pressed against his leg, five years old and watching everything with those blue eyes that had cried all the tears they had and were now simply open and taking it in. The brightness was starting to come back into his face, hesitant but real, the look of a child beginning to understand that the people he loves aren't giving up.

  Jay looked at Oblivion's side again, then looked at his side.

  Oblivion was smiling and not hiding it.

  Domino put her hand on Jay's shoulder, not gripping, not pulling him back, just there.

  "Calm down, hon."

  "I am calm."

  "You're doing the jaw thing."

  "What jaw thing."

  "The jaw thing where you're calculating how hard you need to hit someone for them to feel it through whatever hole they came from."

  He breathed out through his nose before saying, "We are significantly outnumbered."

  "Yeah, but we've got incoming," she said in the way she said things when she already knew the answer and was watching him arrive at it. He looked at her, then looked up because she was looking up, and across the arena the air was changing.

  Portals opened, dozens at first, then more, then enough that the count stopped mattering and what remained was the impression of every doorway in existence deciding to deliver something at the same time.

  Wade Wilson came through sideways, immediately fell over, got up, and pointed at the assembled cosmic entities with both index fingers while in full suit with two katanas and a burrito he had apparently refused to put down for the transit, his mask already up at the nose so he could keep eating.

  "YEAH BABY!" Wade announced to the assembled gallery of cosmic entities while gesturing broadly with the burrito. "Okay, quick scan of the room. Big shadow void-guy, three-faced judge, ancient Celestials, Elders of the Universe, and what I can only describe as the abstract personification of things that should not be able to punch, which is fantastic, love it. Who gets chimichangaed first? I vote the big shadow guy since he's got the whole needs a hug, will receive violence instead energy and I volunteer to deliver. Also, if anyone's keeping score, yes, I did just come through a portal carrying a burrito, and no, I will not be explaining myself."

  Jay felt something in his chest do something complicated because Wade was here, Wade had come.

  Behind him came the Mercs for Money with Gorilla Man dropping into a combat crouch, already in motion before his portal finished closing, Hit-Monkey arriving with the specific silence of something that had identified three targets and was formulating approach angles, Machine Man's mechanical limbs extending to their full reach, and then Masacre stepping through with his machetes already drawn, looking at the assembled forces of cosmic oblivion with the calm assessment of a former priest who had concluded long ago that the world deserved punishment.

  "Esto es lo que es," Masacre said while surveying the opposition with what could only be described as professional satisfaction. "Hay mucho que necesita arreglarse aqui."

  Wade turned to Jay and translated, "He says this is exactly what it is and there's a lot here that needs fixing, though in fairness, he says that about most situations since it's kind of his whole thing."

  Jay did the count, maybe fifteen people so far while Oblivion had hundreds.

  Reed Richards stepped through with the posture of a man who had been running calculations for the last twenty minutes and was dissatisfied with the margin of error but had committed to the action anyway. Sue was half a step behind, already generating a force field that expanded to cover the immediate area, Johnny Storm came through hot with a trail of fire marking his entry, and then the floor cracked.

  Ben Grimm landed in the arena with a sound like a tenement building settling all at once before cracking his knuckles with the unhurried confidence of someone who has been waiting for the correct application of force for a very long time.

  "Whatta revoltin' development," Ben said while surveying Oblivion's assembled forces with the expression of a man who has seen worse and is not impressed. "Grey Aliens, Celestials, Elders an' some kinda foul-creature that looks like it's never been punched in its whole existence." He rolled his massive shoulders and added, "Well, there's a first time for everything. It's clobberin' time."

  "Ben," Reed said quietly.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know, Reed. Save th' big speech." Ben flexed his rocky fists and grinned under all that orange before declaring, "I been sayin' that since day two, and it ain't stopped bein' true yet."

  Thirty people, maybe forty with the Mercs, still outnumbered ten to one.

  Scott Lang came through in full Ant-Man gear, shrinking and expanding rapidly in the way that meant he was anxious but channeling it into motion while Hope was right behind him, and Hank Pym came last of the family and moved in a way that suggested a man who had been waiting for an appropriate target for a very specific kind of anger.

  The Ancient One stepped through a sling ring portal of her own making with Wong at her shoulder, and behind them came every master she had assembled at Kamar-Taj. Jay's throat went tight at the sight of the sorcerers, the people who had kept Luv safe, who had trained with him, who had taught him magic while his parents were gone, and they were furious. He could see it in how they moved, combat-ready and carrying the rage of people who have had their student taken from their protection.

  Mordo was among them and looked at Jay with the expression of a man who had complicated feelings about many things and had decided, for the next few hours, to set all of them aside.

  Sixty, maybe seventy total, though the numbers weren't moving fast enough.

  Then came the golden heroes with YagFoOad coming through already filming, because of course he was. Behind him came a schoolteacher from Tokyo with six arms she now knew how to use, a nurse from Manchester whose hands still carried warmth from healing work, a firefighter from London who had grown wings once, briefly, and had been ready since for the next time, all ordinary people from the golden light broadcasts who had accepted borrowed power in the moment of someone else's need, who had felt what it was like to be strong enough to help, and had answered the call again.

  Rachel Morrison came through in her broadcasting blazer as the woman who had helped coordinate the Titan rescue, who had seen what Jay and Domino were trying to build and decided it was worth protecting.

  Jay counted maybe a hundred and twenty now, still badly outnumbered.

  He heard a familiar sound and turned to see Bobby there with Max and the rest, looking simultaneously terrified and absolutely determined. Bobby gave Jay a look that communicated several things at once, the primary one being you didn't think we were going to sit this out, did you?

  Jay opened his mouth, then closed it while his eyes burned though he refused to let it show, but Bobby saw it anyway and nodded once, which was enough.

  More portals opened.

  "Heroes!" The call came from multiple voices at once as Reed's tactical baritone and Scott Lang's determined shout overlapped into something that sounded like a battle cry that had been waiting for the right moment.

  Captain America came through first with his shield on his arm and his jaw set in the particular way that meant he had already run the ethical calculus and arrived at a conclusion. Natasha was right behind him with Clint and Sam Wilson with his wings already spread, while Bucky Barnes looked at the Celestials with the expression of a man who had fought Nazis and decided cosmic entities weren't fundamentally different. More Avengers came, more heroes from teams Jay half-recognized and some he didn't, all spreading across his side of the arena.

  "Assemble!"

  The sound they made wasn't the roar of the cosmic gallery but something different, smaller and less abstract and considerably more deliberate, the sound of boots on impossible ground, shields settling, people who had come because they were asked to and because the thing being asked of them was worth coming for.

  Jay stood in the middle of it with maybe two hundred people total against Oblivion's thousands, and he felt something he hadn't expected, which was hope.

  Then the ground rumbled, not the combat-ready kind but the old kind, coming from deep inside things and moving upward through everything, the kind that meant something fundamental was participating.

  Green light and gold light together with the specific glow of life that predated civilization, ten thousand growing seasons compressed into one moment.

  Gaea came, not fully, not physically, not in the way that would have required negotiations about what happened when an earth goddess materially entered the Dimension of Manifestations, but her presence was there, immense and green and ancient, the kind of old that doesn't need to announce itself because it is in the ground underfoot and the air and the pulse of everything that has ever grown.

  She was with them the way she had always been with every human who had ever planted a seed or protected a child, quietly and without condition, and she had chosen this side because the boy they were defending was five years old and loved dinosaurs and had been told he didn't deserve to exist. Gaea, who had watched every human child since the first one drew breath, had opinions about that.

  Jay felt it in the soles of his feet and took a slow breath before letting it out.

  He looked at Luv and saw the brightness coming back into his son's face, hesitant but real, the specific brightness of a child who has been told through actions rather than words that he is worth this.

  He looked at Domino, and she was already looking at him.

  "Right, so Fury actually showed up," Jay said.

  "Yep."

  "Reed Richards is standing in this arena, and the Fantastic Four are here."

  "With the Avengers, yeah."

  "Even JJJ is here! I'm going to need a minute to let my brain catch up to that."

  "Later," she said, and the corner of her mouth did the thing.

  Across the arena, Oblivion regarded the assembled humans and heroes and ordinary people with the expression of something genuinely trying to determine whether it was watching courage or absurdity before landing, reluctantly, on both at the same time.

  Wade was already doing something inadvisable with his burrito.

  The Living Tribunal rose to his full height.

  The golden equalization field settled into everything and everyone in the arena with the finality of a starting gun.

  "The Trial by Combat is sanctioned," the Tribunal said while his voice reached into every consciousness present and left no room for ambiguity. "Let it be understood that the outcome binds all parties to the verdict, and what is decided here will not be subject to revision."

  He looked at both sides with all three of his faces, at both sides, simultaneously.

  "Begin."

  If you wanna hang out, join my