Jay and his team were sent to another battle by a quick sentence from Onyx that caused them to scramble into a ready state to leave through an open portal. “War, and we need you.”

The portal dropped them in midair over their opponents. Darkness ate Drake’s momentum downwards, and he simply floated in midair. ‘Darkness eats, and doesn’t stop eating’ was his new motto after reading the book. Catherine’s feet were covered in sheaths of water which she used to keep herself in midair.

Crystal took to her lightning’s aspect of magnetism and tweaked it to keep herself in midair. The only ability she had with magnetism at the moment was to do this.

As for Jay, he just nullified gravity’s effect on himself, using force to keep himself stable in midair. The group stared at their enemies below, ready to fight.

“They’re here! Get them!”

The Metallic Councilors gathered up to rush at them, many rising into the air. Jay nodded at his team, and they got into position. Drake disappeared, his darkness eating his existence enough that light temporarily passed through him. He’d been told it felt like you were an insignificant bug while your existence was diminished, but it also hid you from pretty much anything.

Catherine simply raised her hammer and let it rest on her shoulder, no water currently visible. Jay knew it was there, however. Crystal laughed-it came off slightly insane to him-and raised a massive, glowing yellow fireball above her. “COME GET SOME, IDIOTS!”

Jay took his mind off her. She’d decimate half the army by the time the rest of them were done. As for him, he summoned Amon, letting her take control of his left half, while gathering up his Will, ready to use in combat. “What she said.”

The Councilors surprisingly didn’t charge them as they’d always done. Instead, they hung back, waiting. This wasn’t normal. They had to be careful. “Crystal, a fireball, if you will?”

The fireball she’d been holding up earlier was suddenly in the Councilors’ faces, killing a half dozen of them in an instant. It exploded, burning up more. Still, they didn’t move, though they launched attacks from afar, easily dodged. “They’re trying to buy time! Push through!”

They charged, cutting a hole through the Councilors, but were too late to stop what was coming. A priest stood behind their lines, forming a circle of runes and mystic lines on the ground. The ritual completed, the lines glowing white. A figure appeared inside, slowly settling into visibility. “You have summoned me. Is this to finish our agreement?”

“Yes, Lord Umium. We have brought them, just as you desired.”

Lord Umium, who they now knew as a god, looked at them. “Oh, I see. Well, here’s my part of the bargain. Make sure the Monsters know who helped them.”

Drake, Catherine and Crystal fell out of the sky. Jay grabbed them and noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see the Gemstone Council’s army. It was floundering, no more magical attacks coming from their side. A suffocation pushed down on him, attempting to cut him off from the world. “They’re trying to prevent us from using our Schools,” Jay said.

Catherine nodded, stabilizing enough for Jay to let go of her once she reached for Song again. “Yup.”

Crystal’s eyes widened in rage. “I’m going to kill that bastard.”

Will surrounded her, and she started floating. Drake smiled and disappeared in an instant cloud of darkness. The god stared up at them. “Oh. You’re strong enough I can’t crush you, apparently. Well. Kid. I wonder where you got your metal. It had to have been a divine blessing from Firis or Kagutsuchi.” More gods started popping into existence, all from the circle in front of them. “You won’t survive for long, I guarantee you that,” the god said. “The rest of us won’t let that happen.”

Crystal huffed at them. “In every book, there’s been rules set to keep the gods from interfering too much with mortals. One is that they cannot fight directly in mortal wars. You’re breaking the rules.”

Umium turned around as another god spoke to him from behind. “We’re breaking the rules? Yeah. Eternity’s not around anymore to make us stop.”

Lord Umium looked around for a moment after hearing the name resonate around the room, somehow. Within Jay, it kept resonating. ‘Eternity. Eternity. Eternity. Eternity’. “FOOLS!,” Umium roared. “Don’t speak his name unless you’re ready for death.”

The god exploded into bits of ichor and godly flesh as Umium blurred.

Inside Jay, the name almost seemed to call to something. Then Amon reached out to it and shoved it away in a dark corner of his mind. Thanks.

No problem.

Onyx popped into existence in front of them, and the gods roared in laughter. “Old man, you’re the last one we have to defeat. Your power is old, given to you by a dead man.”

Onyx smiled. “I worked for this myself. And not as dead as you might think.”

Umium shrugged. Then he suddenly had a hole through his head, Onyx behind him. “And I won’t listen to you insulting him, you trash.”

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Umium fell over in full view of the rest of the gods, dead. Onyx turned to the rest of the gods, a mask now over his face. Its color was changing at all times. Blue. Black. Green. Red. “You may have heard of me. In Eternity’s crew, they knew me as Void.”

This name echoed as well, filling the area-no, the world, with its presence, bolstered by Onyx’s presence and his being the one to speak it. Jay sensed the lack of presence compared to Eternity’s name, however.

In retribution for their dead friend, the gods rose, some going for Onyx while others went for Jay and his friends. Onyx-no, Void, reaped his enemies' lives as if they didn’t exist, but there were too many for him to come to their aid. Jay stood in front of his friends, and they started running. His healing ability would let him stall.

Instantly, a beam of light ripped through his head, leaving a smoking crater. It slowly reformed, and they hit his heart next. Jay knew he couldn’t survive this for much longer.

Metal filled his chest, an artificial heart beating, as they ripped his limbs off, one by one. They regrew, and as his eyes reappeared, he saw the gods balefully staring at him. The torture started once again. He grabbed the last morsel of his Thought, using it to regrow his brain. Then a presence flooded through him. Amon.

Our bond. It runs deeper than love, hate, vengeance. So far, we’ve been keeping each other… apart. You see it, don’t you?

Even as his body dissolved, Jay saw it. He looked through his memories. Even while he’d merged with Amon, they were still two halves of a hole, a barrier in between at all times. I see it.

Accept the bond. Stop pushing me away. Deeper than love. Deeper than hatred. Deeper than vengeance.

Together. Forever.

Jay’s body turned to steel and flowed outwards, his hair lengthening and turning to black metal. His body looked the same as before, but it was definitely different, for we made it-not out of flesh-but quicksilver, molded into a perfect form. “All right. Let’s go.”

Liquid metal ripped through his enemies as he sprung between them, weapons flowing out of his hands and back in as easily as breathing. Amon fought with him, their minds combined, as her nearly infinite combat experience was mixed with his own understanding, which he now knew was inherited from Eternity.

His body lit on fire, glowing red as it superheated, cutting through a mountain of ice summoned by a god. His quicksilver blood cut through the gods, making their own blood kill them from the inside, as his bone cut through them just as well, killing them easily.

And he used Force as if he’d had it since forever, weapons hitting him and causing no damage as the force was sucked into retribution, which, when released caused the air to fly away and form a vacuum for multiple seconds. The gods were sucked into it, which didn’t end well with Jay’s right arm turning into a sniper rifle and putting superheated bullets through their brain. He looked down at the battle, Onyx staring at him from behind his mask, his stance approving. “Good, Jay!,” Onyx called down from below. “I see you’re following in Eternity’s steps! He loved liquid metal as well! Now, we need to find his reincarnation, for they could save the world, but we have time. We’ll do that, eventually.”

He doesn’t know?

Apparently, he doesn’t. Good for us. It would be awkward if he did.

Yup.

A Shardstorm erupted out of his body, and Jay tore through the Metallic Councilors before going to where Onyx was standing. Elena had appeared at some point, and they seemed to wait for something. “What are you waiting for?”

Onyx looked up at the sky. “Fate is twisting. This is the last battle. Diamond, Platinum, Gold, and the gods with actual strength-the ones who earned their way up there-will be here soon.”

Jay nodded.

Then the world fractured.

It came back together nary a second later, but with everything frozen. Onyx was still, somehow looking surprised. Elena was sitting, smiling, unmoving. The battle was no longer happening, people frozen mid-death or mid-attack.

Jay carefully looked around. He saw nothing. Then he looked ahead of him again and saw a group of people. Diamond. Gold. A man wearing platinum, so Platinum. Multiple gods, shining among them. “I see you’re not frozen. Eternity’s influence, most likely. He did always love time.”

I’m keeping you unfrozen. I have enough insight into time to do that, but I can’t do it for anyone else.

Jay didn’t react to her message outwardly other than sending a thanks in the back of his mind before stepping forward. “So you stopped time?”

Diamond nodded. “Yes. Or, more accurately, Father did.”

Gold nodded at Diamond. “I did.”

Jay noted a scar at the base of one of Diamond’s arms. It looked like a deep wound, maybe enough to have broken the nerves that kept the arm going, for it was hanging limply. Then he looked closer. It was just sewn on, barely hanging onto Diamond’s body.

“I see you’ve lost an arm.”

Diamond snarled. “Thanks to Onyx, yes.”

Jay nodded. “So, this plan must have taken a while to set up. First, you achieved Onyx’s pity, leaving the Metallics for the Gemstone Council, ruling it. Then you actively hindered the students’ growth. After all of that, you finally started a war. That it?”

Gold chuckled. “All correct. And we also get to kill you and remove the threat of Eternity from the world for the Monsters.” He frowned. “Although I didn’t want to, for that means we’ll likely have to join the Monsters because of our strength.”

Jay shrugged. “That all depends on whether you kill me.”

Gold shook his head. “No, not really. You’re just a kid, no matter who you are. We have thousands of years of experience to fight you with.”

Jay grinned, elongating his teeth into fangs. The more weapons, the better. “Unluckily for you, Eternity has been fighting since the beginning of society, a time so long that a number for it doesn’t exist. Let’s see how well you do.”

Go get ‘em, Jay. I’ll be right here with you.