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"My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
- Forrest Gump (Forrest Gump)
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<(Atem POV)>
"Did you just curse at me?" she asked, tilting her head. "Tsk. Such bad manners. Then again, you are my elder sister's spawn… So, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you turned out this way."
She vanished in a wisp of mist—then reappeared directly in front of me, close enough for me to feel the chill radiating off her skeletal face. "Hmm… maybe I should give you a proper lesson in etiquette. I've got some time to spare. And I am your aunt, after all."
"...How did you—?"
"Find you? Or summon you here into my realm?" she interrupted smoothly. "A fair question." Her tone turned mocking, almost amused. "I've been looking for you forever—especially after I felt someone dabbling in the authority of life... stealing souls from right under me. Happens more often than you'd think, really. But usually? I am the one who allows it. I always collect what's owed eventually. Because cheating me comes with a price."
The mouth on her skull widened into what looked like a smile.
"But you? You've been doing it for free. Not even a courtesy call. No offering. No permission. No deal. You just took—like you owned me." She leaned in, placing a single cold finger against my armored chest. "If you weren't my nephew, I'd have turned you into a cute little undead toy already."
A chill mist seeped from her fingertip, slipping past the runic glow of my modified Destroyer armor, which lit up with a pale blue flare. My enchantments fought back, every defense I had pushing against the intrusion, but it was like trying to hold back a tsunami with a dam made for a river. The mist slithered through, brushing against my skin. "Perhaps, I still might."
I felt my body begin to shift—my flesh hardening, graying, cracking like old wood left to rot. My natural healing tried desperately to contain it, slow it down, reverse it—but fighting it was like fighting an inevitable ending. It didn't hurt... but there was an echoing emptiness building inside me, a cold spiral into a depth I knew I might never climb out of. My danger sense had already gone silent, as if it had given up completely. It probably didn't register this event as a danger, just an inevitability.
However, despite all this happening, I couldn't move. Not even an inch. Some invisible force was bleeding my strength away, drop by drop.
"You're surprisingly stubborn, my dear," she whispered with a playful glint in her hollow sockets, her sweet, seductive voice starkly different from her lifeless face. "This amount of power is usually enough to wipe out entire galaxies. But you… wrapped in your Celestial-forged armor, laced with metal from my sister's own dimension, stacked with half a dozen types of immortality, with an absurdly stupid amount of vitality and divine energy flooding your veins… It's no wonder you're still standing." She giggled softly, utterly delighted. "You with your divinities are even harder to kill than the Celestials themselves."
Then, without any dramatic flourish, she removed her finger from my chest, just as the cracks were creeping up toward my neck. Instantly, my body kicked into overdrive, flooding every cell with divine energy. I could feel my strength returning as the damage slowly reversed itself, the fractures retreating until my body was whole again.
"Pantpant. That still doesn't answer my question," I said between breaths, wiping the cold sweat from my brow. "How did you bring me here?"
"...You're bold. I'll give you that," she said with a grin, her skeletal face somehow still managing a playful expression. "To stare Death in the face and not crumble? That's rare. But then again, you are my nephew." She pinched my cheek like I was a child, which did nothing to lighten my mood.
"But you deserve the truth. Someone else might use the same trick on you again someday." She crossed her arms casually. "You see, someone or perhaps something was shielding you till now. You, for some reason, were invisible to cosmic entities like me. You might have stayed that way, too… if you hadn't used your life-giving powers in front of one of my apostles."
She smirked.
"She's a goddess of Death. And me? I'm Death herself. Her very existence is tied to me. I'm her Mistress, you might even say. Through her senses and location, I was able to track you and pull you out of your reality."
"But even then," she added with a slight shrug, "your universe's version of me didn't have the juice to summon you directly. So I stepped in. Personally."
"Wait," I said, narrowing my eyes, "you're not my universe's Lady Death?"
"Nope. I don't belong to a specific universe," she replied. "I'm the multiversal embodiment of the concept of death. Every other Death you know of? They're just my mere incarnations—each tied to their own universe. Their responsibility is to manage death in their respective universes while I keep an eye on them. Well, that and kill my other siblings once this iteration of the multiverse has reached its end..." She gave a light, unsettling chuckle. "You can call me Multi Death, if you like."
"...So the other Lady Deaths are just your puppets? Your avatars?" I asked, trying to make sense of it all.
"Not exactly." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "They're distinct entities. With every new universe, I spawn an incarnation of myself to maintain the cycle of death there. They choose avatars within their realms to enforce balance when things tip too far. Those avatars? They're like their champions—executioners when needed. As for gods and goddesses of death like Hela? They are just tools. Instruments to keep the system running smoothly."
She paused, then added with a smirk, "Your universe's version of me has an avatar, too. A rather obsessive little creature named Thanos. Seems utterly smitten with her. One might say... madly in love." She chuckled darkly. "That version of me is quite a flirt. Lucky for you, I was the one who summoned you. Otherwise, she might've already roped you into a wedding."
"Would've been better than getting lectured and threatened while being treated like a toddler," I muttered.
She tilted her head, mockingly intrigued. "Not shy about incest, are you? Spoken like a true god. But you're not wrong—that would have been a better outcome for you. I'm something of a romantic myself... but I have zero interest in marrying someone who'd wither away just from taking my virginity."
Her tone dropped a note, cool and lethal. "So, instead, I'll have to punish you for stealing from me, and although there are plenty of entertaining ways I could do that...
Her skull began to change—flesh knitting across bone, features forming with unnatural grace until a hauntingly beautiful human face stared back at me instead of Death's hollow eye sockets, a face more beautiful than anything else I have ever seen.
[{(Image 1 & 2 from Discord)}]
"... I do have a use for someone with your particular skills," she said, her voice soft and sharp like silk drawn across a blade. "So... how about we strike a little bargain? You do a little task for me, and in return, you get to keep your life and the lives of those you have saved till now." She proposed. "Not a bad deal, right?"
"...Nah. I'm not doing it. You can kill me if you want," I said flatly, my face as stoic as possible. "I don't take kindly to blackmail—and I hate working for free."
I held her gaze with a steady look in my eyes, banking everything on the idea that she needed me more than she let on. I hoped I was right. Because if I wasn't… well, then she really was about to kill me. And I'd have to drop the act and start groveling just to survive.
No shame in that. Survival comes first. Revenge can always wait its turn.
Also, if I had to cling to something while I begged? Well… her thick thighs did look soft enough to jump into.
"You're smarter than you look. And here I was thinking you'd be easy..." she sighed, almost theatrically. "Fine. In addition to sparing your life—and the lives of those you've brought back—I'll throw in a bonus. A gift only a being like me can offer. Consider it the ultimate birthday present… for all the birthdays I've missed." She leaned in slightly. "So, do you accept?"
"...I might be interested," I replied, eyes narrowing. "But what exactly do you want me to do?"
"You might not know this, but our multiverse is currently under siege," she began, tone cooling into something heavier. "Not by one race, not by one enemy—but by the Voidborne. Abominations that exist beyond our multiverse. Some are eldritch gods born from the sea of nothing between multiverses. Others are exiles—cast out from their own home universes, now seeking vengeance or simply craving some twisted entertainment for themselves."
She waved her hand casually, as if disgusted by the mere thought of such beings.
"Normally, the multiverse's creator—and the one he appointed to maintain its equilibrium—handles such invaders. But lately, cracks have begun to form. Some of the Voidborne are slipping through, infecting dimensions. Minor incursions, not enough to collapse the whole multiverse… but just enough to annoy me."
Her voice darkened, but a coy smile returned.
"Some actually started targeting my incarnations—killing them to destabilize the balance. In one universe, they even succeeded… erased my presence entirely. The very concept of Death no longer exists there."
She stepped closer, her new face framed by an unsettling warmth.
"I could end them all with nothing but a single thought—but rules bind me, rules that, despite being annoying, even I can't break. So, I can't intervene directly. That's why I need you, someone who belongs to the physical dimension. I want you to hunt down the ones responsible… and snuff them out."
Then, as if the gravity of her words meant nothing, she smirked and added with a sultry lilt: "I promise—I'll make it worth your time if you do that for me."
"Killed the concept of death in a universe?" I asked, one brow arching as images of endless, ever-hungry zombie hordes clawed at my memory. "You talking about the Hunger virus? Or maybe the zombie strain?"
"Hmm? So you know about those." She gave a mildly impressed tilt of her head. "Annoying little bio-weapons, yes—but they were just designed to irritate me, nothing more. Barely a nuisance on the multiversal scale. They are annoying, yes. But even then, I will one day claim them all. They have been able to avoid me temporarily by becoming undead, but the undead themselves fall under my dominion. They are not true immortals. I can claim them whenever I want. And no, those weren't the work of the Voidborne."
Her tone turned colder.
"No, I'm talking about a particular universe I personally call the Cancerverse—a festering wound where the Voidborne have managed to whisper their poison into the ears of that world's heroes and villains alike. They convinced them to kill my incarnation... promising them immortality and eternal life without pain."
She scoffed.
"But the moment my presence was erased, the Voidborn showed their true colors. They corrupted the local incarnations of my siblings—Eternity, Infinity, and the others as well. Twisted them. Enslaved them. Now, every living thing in that universe is a perverted, undying monstrosity, driven only by the will to spread. That reality has become a cancer in the purest sense—a self-replicating abomination infecting all it touches."
She stepped forward, her voice dipping into something dangerously sweet.
"I was thinking about intervening soon, pull a few threads and manipulate someone to erase the entire dimension like a diseased cell… but then I found you."
Her eyes glittered like dying stars.
"You, with your unique soul, your unique essence, your balance of life and destruction—you might just be what I need to reclaim that universe. So, my sweet little nephew... won't you help your desperate aunt?"
She leaned closer, "In return, I'll grant you a gift worthy of gods: the ability to impose true death on any being weaker than me. No matter their immortality, no matter how many time loops they employ or the type of resurrection magic they use, when you kill them, they will stay dead. It's not just the perfect weapon to cleanse the Cancerverse of those Voidborn filth who call themselves the Many-Angled Ones—it will also be your insurance policy, to make sure your enemies stay dead… forever."
Honestly, I was more than just interested. She was a damn good salesperson—and I had to admit, her pitch landed. I needed something permanent for my more powerful and resolute enemies, something absolute. Too many beings in this universe had a nasty habit of coming back from the grave like it was a casual weekend trip.
"Alright," I said, nodding. "I'll take the deal. But before you toss me into that hellhole of a universe, I want proof that the angels I resurrected actually came back. I just fought with Mephisto, so I am not in the mood to get tricked. I want it in writing." I pulled a magical contract from my inventory and held it out.
She raised an eyebrow and let out a light, amused sigh. "Your magic's cute, but despite its vast power, it's not strong enough to bind me—not even all the sorcery of the Fifth Cosmos could do that. There's only one vow that beings like me take seriously."
She lifted her hand to the sky."I swear, by the Multiversal Keeper of Balance—the Living Tribunal—that I will fulfill every promise I've made to you once you reclaim the Cancerverse and return it to order."
A golden flare split the black sky for a brief but unmistakable moment. A sign that the Tribunal had acknowledged her vow.
"Now, here's the gift I promised." She flicked a small sphere of green mist at me—no bigger than a marble. It hit my chest before I could even flinch and vanished into my body like it was never there.
"As for your angels," she added with a smirk, "I couldn't claim them even if I wanted to. Their souls are tethered to you ever since you... solved their little spiritual problem. So, don't worry, they are in perfect condition and fully alive."
Then, with one last mischievous smile, she wiggled her fingers in a wave as the ground opened beneath my feet.
"Good luck, my brave little nephew. Don't die or your mother might get jealous, misunderstanding that I have claimed you for myself."
And just like that, I fell into an abyss of darkness.
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(A/N:Yep, Death is a goth milf😁
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