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Earth-55, STAR Labs Chrono-Stabilization Vault | January 8, 2010
The vault hummed with energy as Raj stood at the center of the platform, surrounded by concentric rings of prismatic light. Instruments—technological and mystical—monitored every facet of reality around them.
"How's it looking, Victor?" Raj asked, his voice steady despite the weight of their mission.
Victor Stone's mechanical eye whirred as he analyzed data streams. "Life Equation stabilizer at ninety-seven percent. Mother Box harmonics aligned with temporal coordinates."
Raj nodded, rainbow-hued light rippling beneath his skin as he accessed another fragment of his knowledge—a gift from the Multiversal Archive that had downloaded into his consciousness when he'd first crossed into this reality.
"Temporal insertion point stabilized," he said, manipulating a holographic display. "The virus's origin moment is locked."
Zatanna approached from the mystical containment wards, wisps of backwards-spoken incantations trailing from her fingers. "Magical barriers are holding. Anything that tries to follow you will hit pure binding energy."
Jonathan Kent watched with his father's intensity, his uniform carrying the unmistakable but subdued shield of Superman.
"You're sure about this?" Jonathan asked.
Raj met his gaze. "Nothing's sure when reweaving reality. But the math checks out, the metaphysics aligns." A hint of a smile crossed his face. "And I've got a decent track record with impossible situations."
Damian Wayne materialized from the shadows; Batman armor heavy but the cowl removed. "Theory and application rarely align perfectly," he said simply.
"Three minutes to jump," Victor announced.
As the countdown began, a smokey blue glow preceded Kiran Singh's entrance. Her movements were graceful, but there was something wrong—her edges flickered, parts of her phasing in and out of synchronization. Pulses of white light flowed through her form, creating an ethereal appearance.
"Kiran?" Raj stepped toward her, concern evident.
She tried to smile, but another flicker rippled through her form. "I'm—" Her words dissolved into static, her entire body briefly becoming translucent before snapping back.
"You're experiencing temporal displacement," Raj said, placing his hands on her shoulders. Rainbow light flowed from his fingers into her flickering form. "The jump preparations are affecting your already unstable connection to this timeline."
"What's happening?" Bart Allen asked, his usual speed-fueled energy subdued.
"Remember what I explained? Kiran isn't just from another Earth—she's from an earlier iteration of the multiverse. Pre-Flashpoint. Her soul architecture doesn't align with this reality's frequency."
Kiran gasped as another wave hit her. "I'm slipping," she whispered, her voice echoing strangely as if coming from multiple points in time.
"Not while I'm here," Raj replied.
Raj closed his eyes—and the world faded into his mindscape.
He stood once more in his inner Library: endless shelves of shifting knowledge beneath a sky filled with drifting stars, each one a potential power. At the center, the stone pedestal waited, twenty slots carved into its surface. A few already glowed with chosen powers. Most remained empty.
He looked up. A need—not spoken, but felt—rose within him: Kiran was slipping through time, her presence unanchored.
The stars above responded.
One descended—a soft white orb laced with gold and pale blue, warm and steady. As it neared, a label shimmered into view:
Personal Tether Weaving – Anchor a soul to your own timeline; consensual, stable, and scalable by emotional proximity.
Raj caught it gently, carried it to the pedestal, and lowered it into an empty slot. It locked in place with a resonant pulse. The power was now his.
Rainbow threads burst from Raj's chest, weaving through the air toward Kiran's flickering form. They wrapped around her, forming a tether of soul strands—not trapping, but grounding.
"I'm anchoring your soul to mine," Raj said. "You'll stay stable as long as I do."
Kiran's eyes glistened. "That's a hell of a commitment for someone you just met."
Raj's expression remained calm. "You're part of this story now. We need you."
The sixth slot on the pedestal glowed brighter—power chosen; purpose fulfilled.
Kiran steadied under his touch. "It feels... intimate."
"It is," he said quietly. "But we need you anchored for what comes next."
As the rainbow light subsided, Kiran stood straighter, her smokey blue form solid, the white light pulsing through her body in smooth patterns.
"I hadn't realized how far gone I was," she said, examining her hands.
Their moment was interrupted by Lizzie Prince, Diana's daughter standing before them with three lassos of Fate at her side.
"I'm coming with you," she stated, no room for argument in her tone.
Jonathan stepped forward. "Lizzie—"
"This isn't up for debate," she cut him off. "If there's a chance I'll be erased from existence, I want to be there. I want to know it matters."
Raj nodded. "Your choice. But there's something you should know." His expression softened. "Being unmade isn't the worst thing that can happen. What matters is facing it with purpose."
Lizzie crossed her arms.
"Easy for you to say. You've got cosmic library hacks and death herself sending you mail."
Raj blinked, then cracked a small grin.
"And you've got three lassos and an unbreakable will. Let's call it even."
Lizzie huffed—half-exasperated, half-grinning. "Just don't forget I chose this too."
"Fair enough." Raj turned to Victor. "Recalibrate for three passengers."
The three took their positions on the platform, forming a triangle around the core stabilizer. Raj accessed his mental library again, selecting a glowing orb from the Multi-Entity Synchronization.
Rainbow light encircled all three of them. "Connecting us to a fixed point in the timestream," he explained. "Binding our existences together during transition."
The vault hummed with increasing energy as the countdown reached zero.
"Jump sequence initiating in three... two... one..."
The vault filled with blinding light as reality bent around them.
The Temporal Corridor | Outside Conventional Time
They materialized in a vast, luminous corridor—its walls flowing with streams of temporal energy, each representing a different potential timeline.
"The temporal corridor," Raj confirmed, monitoring the rainbow tethers connecting them. "A conceptual space between fixed points in a timeline."
Raj manipulated the streams of light, rainbow equations forming in the air as he worked. "I need to find the exact moment the Anti-Life virus reached critical mass—where intervention will have maximum effect with minimal disruption."
Kiran watched with fascination. "You're writing a new story over the old one."
"Exactly—editing fate without destroying the structure."
The corridor suddenly shuddered—a violent contraction sending ripples through the gleaming walls. The temperature plummeted, temporal energy freezing into crystalline structures.
"Something's coming," Raj said, positioning himself protectively.
A figure coalesced at the far end—its form half-existed, like a flicker between broken frames of film.
The temperature dropped and rose at once. The air became dry and wet, as if contradicting itself.
Its voice arrived before its presence, whispering into their bones with the sound of final breaths, forgotten names, and crumbling starlight.
Kiran staggered back. "That thing… it's wrong even to perceive."
"Erebos," Raj breathed.
When it spoke, its voice was a cascade of endings—the sound of final breaths and stars going dark.
"You unmake silence," it accused. "You wake the lost. You offend the order of forgetting."
"What is that?" Kiran asked, her light flaring defensively.
"An entity born from the metaphysical disruption caused by Anti-Life," Raj explained. "When the virus severed Earth-55's connection to the cycle of death and rebirth, it created Erebos—a personification of the broken death cycle. Not quite a god, more like a metaphysical tumor growing where Death should be operating."
"So, it's what happens when death itself breaks," Kiran said.
"Exactly." Raj stepped forward. "You're just her absence having a tantrum."
Erebos rippled with fury. "I AM THE TRUTH OF ENDINGS. ALL RETURNS TO VOID."
"And yet here we are," Raj countered. "Three very stubborn lights refusing to go out."
The entity surged forward. Lizzie's lasso and Kiran's energy beam passed through it without effect.
"Conventional powers won't work on a metaphysical contradiction," Raj explained. "Time to get unconventional."
Raj's consciousness dove into his mental library. This time, he moved to shelves marked "Existential Countermeasures." His fingers traced along glowing orbs before selecting a pulsing sphere of intense rainbow energy.
The orb's label shimmered: Existence Assertion Field – Project a zone of intense reality that negates nullification effects; strengthened by conviction.
He placed it in the eighth slot on the pedestal. It locked with a deep resonant tone.
Rainbow light surged around him, building in intensity as he accessed the deeper layers of his abilities. The air bent as conceptual power manifested, creating a field of intense existence that pushed against Erebos's nihilistic aura.
The entity recoiled. "THIS REALM IS MINE. DEATH HAS FORSAKEN IT."
"Not anymore," Raj replied. He glanced back at his companions. "I need to unlock multiple slots simultaneously. Stay behind me and keep the tethers intact."
Raj's mental library transformed into a circular chamber where power orbs orbited a central nexus. He reached for a silver-blue sphere labeled Phase Variance – Exist partially out of sync with local reality; immune to direct physical manipulation.
As it locked into the ninth slot, his form shimmered, partially phasing out of alignment with local reality—becoming harder for Erebos to target.
Without pause, he selected another orb, this one a crystalline construct labeled Binding Geometry – Create multidimensional containment patterns that force conceptual entities into stable forms.
As the twelfth slot activated, his fingers traced complex patterns that solidified into gleaming geometric constructs of rainbow light. The glyphs attached to Erebos's form, forcing it into a more consistent state.
"You're sealing it," Kiran realized.
"Trying to," Raj confirmed, sweat beading on his forehead as he maintained multiple high-level abilities simultaneously.
Erebos thrashed violently. "YOU CANNOT BIND OBLIVION. I AM THE FINAL TRUTH."
"You're not truth," Raj countered. "You're just a tantrum thrown by a broken reality. And I build exits."
Raj accessed a heavily secured section marked Critical Interventions. He selected a power that pulsed with blinding intensity—a compressed singularity labeled Reality Excision – Create precise cuts in the fabric of existence; surgical breaches for targeted removal.
The twentieth slot filled with searing light as the power activated.
Reality tore open with surgical precision. A perfectly circular opening appeared, revealing the swirling emptiness of the dimensional bleed beyond.
Erebos screamed as it felt the pull of the void. It fought desperately, anchoring itself with tendrils of anti-existence.
"You're a cosmic error," Raj told it, maintaining the wound. "A reflection of what happens when fundamental forces are disrupted."
With a final gesture, he severed Erebos's remaining connections. "You're a dead end. And dead ends don't get to decide what comes next."
The entity wailed as it was pulled into the vortex. "THIS IS NOT THE END. NOTHING TRULY ENDS..."
"That's where you're wrong," Raj replied quietly. "Endings are what give meaning to existence."
He sealed the temporal wound with a gesture, collapsing it to a pinpoint of light that winked out of existence.
The Outer Bleed | Beyond Conventional Reality
In the vast expanse of the dimensional bleed, Erebos tumbled, its form unraveling without an anchor point.
Then it stopped—caught in a stillness that was neither movement nor stasis.
A figure stood before it: pale-skinned, dressed in simple black, with an ankh pendant gleaming at her throat. Death of the Endless regarded Erebos with something like pity.
"Hello," she said, her voice kind but firm. "You've been causing quite a lot of trouble."
Erebos struggled to reform. "I AM BEYOND YOUR DOMAIN. I AM WHAT REMAINS WHEN YOU FAIL."
Death of the Endless stood like a pause in a poem—beautiful, inevitable.
"You were never mine," she said softly. "But you kept trying to be. That's your tragedy."
Erebos lunged, desperate to speak, but she silenced him not with force—just presence.
"This isn't punishment," she continued. "I want you to remember—just for a moment—what it felt like to matter. To be part of the cycle."
For the briefest second, Erebos trembled—not with fury, but sorrow.
"That's enough," she whispered. "There are better endings than fear."
Then she unmade him—not violently, but gently, like closing a book.
With a tender yet final gesture, she compressed Erebos's essence into a black cocoon-like husk.
She etched a simple message into the surface: "For your mission."
With a small smile, she sent the cocoon spinning back toward the temporal corridor.
The Temporal Corridor | Outside Conventional Time
Raj was recalibrating their position when a small black object materialized before him.
"Is that—" Kiran began, tensing.
"It's okay," Raj assured her, examining the floating cocoon. A smile spread across his face as he recognized the signature energy.
"What is it?" Lizzie asked.
"A gift from Death herself," Raj replied, taking the cocoon. "What's left of Erebos. She contained it and sent it back to us."
Within his mind, Raj opened a rarely accessed alcove labeled "Contingencies." He selected a subtle dark orb labeled Dimensional Pocket – Create extradimensional spaces for secure storage; undetectable by conventional means.
The hidden thirteenth slot activated silently.
With careful movements, he opened a small dimensional pocket and placed the cocoon inside, sealing it within a space labeled: "Deathless Error: Do Not Repeat."
"A souvenir?" Lizzie asked skeptically.
"A reminder of what happens when fundamental forces are thrown out of balance," Raj said, giving no indication of his hidden plans for the husk's anti-existence properties.
Kiran stepped closer. "So what's next?"
Raj turned back to the flowing timestream. "The virus." His hands moved through complex patterns. "The interruption actually helped clarify the target point."
The corridor shifted around them, streams of potential futures realigning.
"Are we ready for this?" Kiran asked quietly.
Raj looked at them both—women from different origins, clinging to existence through sheer determination. In that moment, he knew they were exactly where they needed to be.
"Ready as anyone can be when rewriting reality," he replied honestly. Then, with a smile that matched the rainbow light in his eyes, he added, "Let's fix this broken world."
They stepped forward into the flowing timestream, their combined auras creating a beacon that cut through the darkness—heading toward the moment when everything could change.
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[A/N: WORD COUNT – 2500]
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