After a few cautious probes, Thea confirmed that Hell didn't care if she conquered a bit of territory. The Most High cared even less. So she threw herself gleefully into the game.
Raven was no fool—quite the opposite; the little schemer was terrifyingly sharp. The moment she caught Thea's odd expression and the pointed references to "him," she pieced together about half the picture.
"You were pulled into Hell by His decree. No one can resist that—so you were always going to end up here, one way or another. Whatever the reason, you were meant to do something down here."
Thea chose her words with surgical precision. When the kid seemed to get it, she shut up immediately.
Can't say too much. In short: a higher power decided you were coming, whether you wanted to or not. Once you arrived, the specifics were up to you—He only built the stage, then pulled up a chair to watch. Follow His script and He was pleased. Deviate a little and that was a pleasant surprise.
Thea had no idea if her theory was correct. She looked confident, but every step felt like walking on ice.
Fortunately, her experiments confirmed the script was generous. She had plenty of room to improvise.
Carefully playing out the part she'd been given, she'd been startled to discover that Hell's will was also satisfied—conveying a vague but unmistakable sense of you're doing great.
She hadn't known whether to laugh or cry. But gradually, her tentative skirmishing escalated into full-blown military campaigns.
Raven's eyes lit up with excitement as she rummaged through Nebiros's personal treasure hoard. Thea leaned back in a chair, right hand propped behind her head, long legs crossed on the table, half resting and half plotting her next move.
At some point she drifted off. Raven shook her awake.
She scrambled back into her undead-archmage disguise—hair pinned up, hood drawn over her face.
"Oh, hey. We found him." Raven clearly thought a certain someone had overslept. No one's watching. You can drop the act.
Thea shot her a withering look. This is called being thorough. Thorough. Do you understand?
Maintaining her persona, she swept into the outer chamber.
"My lady." An extraordinarily alluring she-demon dropped to one knee.
"Ah, Mecanthut. Well done—mark it as a merit. You're dismissed."
The alluring demon beamed and withdrew.
Only then did Thea push back her hood and regard the familiar figure who'd been escorted inside—the Phantom Stranger.
"Well, well. Lord Stranger. What's all this? …Been out experiencing hardship?"
The Phantom Stranger at this moment looked utterly destitute. No shirt. No shoes. A pair of fraying burlap trousers and nothing else. Whip marks crisscrossed his body in every direction, and a blow to his temple had opened a gash that still dribbled blood down the side of his face.
Getting to Thea had cost him dearly. It wasn't until he spotted Mecanthut—the same woman who'd once tried to convince him to escape, now fully transformed into a demon—that he'd finally connected with the right people. The ordeal between then and now defied description.
He didn't register Thea's teasing. He went straight to the core issue: "Can you restore my power?"
Thea regarded him with a mixture of pity and amusement. "Ha. Haha! You're giving me way too much credit. No, I can't."
A flat rejection. The power of God? I'm going to restore that? In what universe?
"The truth is, that power never left you. He's right here, by your—"
He cut her off. "—by my side? Is that what you're going to say? That one speaks in riddles—fine, I'll grant Him that. But you? You don't have the standing. I've seen beings far greater than you. You think you're a god? New Gods—you're nothing but a gang of pretenders. You're not even in the same league. Don't you dare lecture me!"
Months—maybe longer—of compressed rage finally erupted. The Stranger was half-mad with it, snatching up everything within reach and hurling it against the walls. He cursed the Most High. He cursed Thea. He cursed the miserly neighbors from the mortal life he'd shared with his family.
The whole world was laughing at him. Toying with him.
"Come on then! Whatever tricks you've got left—bring them! Either kill me or give me the answer! I'm done guessing!"
His eyes were bloodshot. Veins stood out on his forehead like cords.
"You've lost your mind!" Raven conjured a sphere of black flame—authentic Hellfire, the kind only a rare few could wield. She was ready to put this lunatic down. If the Stranger hadn't tried to trick her into entering Hell in the first place, none of this would have happened.
"Easy. It's not time yet." Thea stopped her with a hand. Raven blinked—in her experience, Thea wasn't exactly the forgiving type. A screaming rant delivered to her face? Unprecedented.
Raven huffed but complied. The two of them—one tall, one small, both perfectly poised—sat and watched the Stranger burn through his tantrum.
It didn't last long. From behind the Stranger, where his wife and children lay on the ground, came a faint, rasping sound—something between a breath and a moan.
It hit the Stranger like a bolt of lightning. He scrambled to his family's side on all fours, and the tears came instantly.
"Please. Save them. They're just ordinary people—you have to be able to do something. Right?"
Thea closed her eyes, assuming the pose of a mystic, and let five full minutes tick by. A faint smile curved her lips.
"Phantom Stranger. Or Judas. You interrupted me just now. Once again, your rashness has cost you."
He thought she was refusing. His expression went ashen—and then transformed into something close to horror as he stared at the ordinary silver coin balanced between her fingers.
"That's… my… coin?"
The shape of those thirty silver coins was branded into the deepest stratum of his soul. His hand flew to his neck—nothing. The coin had seemingly materialized in Thea's hand from thin air.
Thea very much wanted to throw her head back and laugh. One of the thirty coins. Hers now.
The coin was physically unremarkable. But the power sealed within it could restart the entire multiverse.
Not the Flash's version—a single timeline, a few days or years rewound. This was a reset to the moment of cosmic genesis, before anything had been born, when all of creation still waited in the dark for its cue.
Even without the reset function, she could use the power to create a universe of her own.
And if she wanted neither a reset nor a new cosmos, she could simply observe it—the way one might study the lingering shadow of Earth-2. Even that alone would benefit her enormously.
It was the Stranger's outburst—his reckless, sputtering tirade—that had handed her this opportunity.
So Thea was in an exceptionally good mood. "You betrayed Jesus and traded his life for silver. I came here to help you, and you twisted my goodwill into an insult. Those thirty silver coins—and the one in my hand—are all part of the price."
The Stranger had no words. He didn't know what to say.
"Don't overthink it. I understand the agreement between you and the Most High. If He hadn't approved, this coin never would have ended up with me. But someday, you will owe me a favor—payment for today's offense."
The Stranger wasn't stupid. Reading between the lines, he deduced that his power would eventually return—why else would she want a future favor from him? She certainly wasn't going to ask him to guard the front gate at Queen Consolidated.