Chapter Summaries

Susan Storm gave Lynn a sealed dossier showing that the Illuminati had used the Universal Ecological Indivisibility Act to defer a Living Tribunal inquiry. The precedent offered Lynn a way to delay his own summons, but Susan revealed that the Tribunal later sent a Rule Envoy to Earth-838.

• Lynn heard Susan Storm’s request and invited her into his office to explain the precedent she had found.
• Susan showed Lynn the Illuminati’s sealed memorandum about the Living Tribunal’s inquiry into Jean Grey’s Phoenix Force incident on Earth-838.
• Susan explained that Reed Richards had cited the Universal Ecological Indivisibility Act, arguing that his departure would threaten his universe’s stability, and the Tribunal had granted an indefinite deferral.
• Lynn praised Susan, promised to record merit for her, and planned to have Gwen Stacy draft a stronger request for deferral.
• Susan warned Lynn that the Tribunal had sent a Rule Envoy to Earth-838 three standard days after granting the deferral.

Lynn dictated a deferential reply to the Living Tribunal, asking to postpone his inquiry or conduct it off-site because his departure could destabilize the Negative Zone and contaminate neighboring dimensions. After the Golden Scroll acknowledged receipt, a vast golden rift opened over the Negative Zone, signaling that a ruling was imminent.

• Lynn told Gwen Stacy to draft a reply explaining that the S.H.I.E.L.D. Protocol upgrade could not be interrupted and that he was essential to balancing chaos and death in the Negative Zone.
• Lynn directed Gwen to warn that his departure could cause both energies to spill into neighboring dimensions, including the TVA's Flood-Discharge Special Zone.
• Lynn asked the Living Tribunal to postpone the inquiry or send an envoy for an off-site review, offering access to non-core areas.
• Gwen Stacy sent the letter through the encrypted terminal to the Golden Scroll, which dissolved into golden dust after three minutes.
• A golden rift opened across the sky above the White Bone Hall as Lynn awaited the Tribunal's ruling.

Lynn received the Supreme Court’s compromise directive: the inquiry would proceed as a seven-day inspection by a Rule Envoy in the Negative Zone. As Lynn prepared to bury the envoy in bureaucracy, the golden rift widened and the envoy arrived, bypassing the jurisdiction’s defenses and heading straight for the White Bone Hall.

• The Living Tribunal’s directive denied Lynn’s request to postpone the inquiry indefinitely but acknowledged the ecological risks of upgrading the S.H.I.E.L.D. Protocol.
• The directive ordered a Rule Envoy to inspect the Negative Zone Management Committee for seven standard days, and Lynn decided to keep the inspection on his own territory.
• Lynn ordered Gwen Stacy and the Management Committee to prepare for the inspection by sealing sensitive files, lowering experimental power, and recalling patrol fleets.
• A technician alerted Lynn that the golden rift’s energy readings were surging and the Committee’s defenses could not detect or stop the arriving figure.
• The golden Rule Envoy passed through the Negative Zone’s defenses and traveled directly toward the White Bone Hall.

Lynn ordered a formal reception for the Rule Envoy, using quarantine and administrative procedures to contain its show of force. The Envoy completed the paperwork but named the Chaos Energy Research Institute as its first destination.

• Lynn watched the Rule Envoy bypass the Management Committee’s defenses and ordered Gwen Stacy to activate the Class-A Cross-Dimension Envoy Reception Work Plan.
• Hela and Wanda greeted the Rule Envoy outside the White Bone Hall and required it to undergo energy decontamination and information registration.
• The Rule Envoy allowed the undead technicians to scan it, then accepted Wanda’s 108-page visitor form.
• The Rule Envoy filled out the form until it reached the field for intended departments and announced that it would first inspect the Chaos Energy Research Institute.

Wanda and Gwen used quarantine rules and a TVA agreement to prevent the golden-armored envoy from entering the Chaos Energy Research Institute. The envoy accepted the delay but handed Gwen a notice of assistance in an investigation, leaving the nature of its next demand unclear.

• Wanda cited the institute’s red-alert quarantine regulations to stop the golden-armored envoy from entering.
• Gwen invoked the TVA memorandum and said the inspection required the TVA’s countersigned approval.
• The envoy withdrew its pressure and did not force its way into the institute.
• The envoy handed Gwen a paper document titled Notice of assistance in an investigation.

After Gwen Stacy, Hela, and Wanda halted the Rule Envoy’s unauthorized inspection, the Envoy left an investigative assistance notice for the Living Tribunal. Lynn discovered that the Tribunal was investigating traces left by his Till Death Do Us Part simulations, and the chapter ended as Wanda reached for the notice while Hela challenged her.

• Gwen Stacy accepted the Rule Envoy’s investigative assistance notice and returned with Hela and Wanda to Lynn’s office.
• Lynn read the notice and learned that the Living Tribunal had detected unknown emotional dimension residual energy across multiple universes.
• Lynn recognized the energy as traces left by his Till Death Do Us Part simulations and saw that the listed sites were where he had died for the women in them.
• Hela offered to erase the energy, while Wanda said it felt familiar and reached for the notice.
• Hela confronted Wanda as she reached for the document, leaving the office tense.

Lynn secured a dangerous investigation notice in the Management Committee’s highest-level safe and reprimanded Wanda and Hela for confronting each other over it. After they left, Gwen warned that Wanda had recognized the significance of the coordinates, and Lynn realized the crisis had only been delayed.

• Lynn activated the Bastion protocol and sealed the investigation notice inside the Class-A Confidentiality Circuit-Breaking Mechanism.
• Lynn reprimanded Wanda and Hela for violating confidentiality discipline and letting their departmental conflict threaten the Management Committee.
• Lynn ordered Wanda and Hela to return to their departments and submit self-criticisms of at least three thousand words before the end of the workday.
• Wanda asked about the energy in the notice, but Lynn ordered her out, and she left with Hela.
• Gwen Stacy warned Lynn that the coordinates, including Sokovia and the New York Clock Tower, had planted suspicion in Wanda.
• Lynn acknowledged that the crisis was only temporarily suppressed and wondered whether his system could withstand what would emerge from the buried universes.

Lynn established an Abnormal Energy Tracing Joint Task Force to investigate the energy that had caused conflict between Wanda and Hela, assigning them separate roles under Gwen Stacy’s oversight. Wanda received sanitized data that seemed to match the energy tied to her memories of Sokovia, and she secretly probed it with Chaos Magic.

• Lynn ordered the creation of an official joint task force, appointing himself team leader and Gwen Stacy executive deputy team leader to control access and enforce procedures.
• Lynn placed Wanda in charge of the Technical Analysis Group and Hela in charge of the Perimeter Security Group, binding the department heads to cooperate while limiting their authority.
• Gwen Stacy distributed the Red-Headed Document to the Stability Maintenance Office and Technology Integration Department; Hela recognized that her role confined her to perimeter security, while Wanda saw that her investigative access would be screened.
• Gwen Stacy sent Wanda an encrypted package of sanitized energy spectra and requested a preliminary analysis within forty-eight hours.
• Wanda recognized a familiar energy curve associated with despair, protection, and deathly stillness, recalled Sokovia, and secretly used Chaos Magic to probe the data.

Wanda tried to retrieve the complete raw data needed for her investigation by forcing access to the S-1 Data Center's core servers, but Hela and the Undead Law Enforcement Unit blocked her. As Wanda and Hela faced off, an officer warned that their escalating energy readings could attract the Tribunal's envoy.

• Wanda used Chaos Magic to sense the sanitized energy data and realized she needed its complete coordinates to identify its source.
• Wanda went to the S-1 Data Center and prepared to break through the core gate's physical and procedural safeguards.
• The data center's alarm alerted Hela, who assembled the Undead Law Enforcement Unit and confronted Wanda at the gate.
• Wanda argued that her Task Force assignment and the Tribunal's scrutiny required immediate access, while Hela insisted she follow the approval process.
• Hela's unit surrounded the corridor as Wanda and Hela prepared to clash, then an officer warned that their energy levels were nearing a threshold the Tribunal's envoy could detect.

Lynn halted the confrontation between Hela and Wanda by redirecting the investigation toward a formal request for TVA records, buying the Negative Zone time. With the internal conflict contained and external pressure diverted, he prepared to craft an answer for the Living Tribunal and the heroines.

• Gwen Stacy relayed Lynn's order for Hela and Wanda to end their confrontation and return to their posts.
• Gwen Stacy announced that Wanda's team would suspend its internal search and that the Task Force would request access to TVA records on timeline pruning.
• Hela withdrew her enforcement team, and Wanda ordered the Stability Maintenance Office to remove its perimeter around the S-1 Data Center.
• Gwen Stacy sent the formal request to the TVA, whose system gave a preliminary response time of seven standard business days.
• Lynn reflected that he had secured time and began preparing an answer for the Living Tribunal and the heroines.

Lynn used a defective catalyst to create an apparent natural deposit of emotional energy in abandoned dimension D-78, intending to use it to answer the Living Tribunal’s investigation. After Lister reported the anomaly, Lynn ordered Gwen Stacy to organize a formal joint investigation, leaving the scheme awaiting scrutiny by the Tribunal’s Rule Envoy.

• Lynn chose a defective entropy growth catalyst and sent Lister with two team members to deploy it in dimension D-78 and record the results.
• After forty-eight hours, Lister reported a high-energy aggregate whose signature resembled the emotional residue in the Tribunal’s investigation notice, but appeared to have formed naturally over millions of years.
• Lynn decided the report could present the energy as a natural deposit with no one to blame and contacted Gwen Stacy.
• Lynn ordered Gwen Stacy to lead a joint investigation with the Stability Maintenance Office and the Department of Technology, and to deliver a draft report before the end of the workday.
• Lynn awaited the final test of whether the committee’s investigation could satisfy the Living Tribunal’s Rule Envoy.

Lynn convened the Negative Zone Management Committee after the Living Tribunal imposed a forty-eight-hour deadline for preliminary findings on the D-78 anomaly. He forced the committee to adopt and defend a report Wanda suspected was fabricated, and Wanda left knowing its data omitted something essential about real emotion.

• The Living Tribunal's Rule Envoy gave the TVA forty-eight hours to submit preliminary findings and assign responsibility for the anomalies.
• Lynn summoned the Standing Committee Members, and Gwen Stacy presented the investigation report on dimension D-78.
• Hela and Wanda both confirmed the report had no procedural or technical flaws, but Wanda warned that its data seemed too perfect and worked backward from the conclusion.
• Lynn declared the report the committee's sole official position and ordered everyone to defend it unconditionally.
• Lynn directed Gwen Stacy to finalize the report with every Standing Committee Member's signature and seal and send it to the Rule Envoy.
• Wanda left last, recognizing that the report's fabricated energy source lacked the genuine emotional weight she had experienced in Sokovia.

Wanda found a logical inconsistency in the Dimension D-78 report and confronted Lynn, accusing him of fabricating it. She demanded to know where the real traces of the dead man who had protected someone could be found.

• Wanda sensed that the Dimension D-78 data lacked the emotional weight she had felt in Sokovia, despite the report passing every review.
• Wanda went directly to Lynn's office instead of submitting her doubts through the usual channels.
• Wanda explained that the supposed passive emotional-waste zone had selectively responded to the Living Tribunal's investigation notice.
• Wanda accused Lynn of fabricating the report and asked whether it concealed something.
• Wanda connected the energy eruptions at Sokovia, the Clock Tower in New York, and Asgard to Lynn's experiences, then asked where the real traces of the dead man's sacrifice were.

Lynn used institutional authority and procedural rules to suppress Wanda’s challenge to the Management Committee’s position on the Living Tribunal. Wanda left under orders to rest, while Lynn saw that the internal crisis remained unresolved and the Tribunal’s final inspection was approaching.

• Lynn reminded Wanda that she had endorsed the report, making it the Management Committee’s political position in dealing with the Living Tribunal.
• Lynn suggested Wanda’s workload and mental strain were distorting her judgment, then accused her of bypassing procedure to challenge an approved resolution.
• Wanda admitted she had acted impulsively, and Lynn ordered her to clear her laboratory, halt nonessential simulations, and take twenty-four hours off.
• Wanda left Lynn’s office, and Lynn watched the countdown to the Living Tribunal Rule Envoy’s final acceptance inspection.

Lynn’s team passed the Living Tribunal’s verification, and the Tribunal provisionally closed its investigation into the anomalous emotional dimension. The external crisis ended, but an alert about an unauthorized copy of the Investigation Assistance Bulletin’s Asgard Bifrost coordinates left Lynn facing a new threat.

• Gwen Stacy submitted the joint task force’s signed closing report to the Rule Envoy as the countdown expired.
• The Rule Envoy verified the report’s data and signatures, found its logic and procedures valid, and provisionally closed the on-site verification.
• The Rule Envoy announced that the Living Tribunal would revoke its temporary observation status over the Negative Zone Management Committee and archive the investigation.
• Lynn ordered the case files classified as top secret and the physical copies sealed, while Wanda left without voicing her doubts.
• Lynn received an encrypted alert that cabinet No. 07 had recorded an unauthorized remote copy of the Investigation Assistance Bulletin’s coordinate appendix for the Asgard Bifrost.

Lynn discovered that Hela had secretly copied coordinates from a confidential file and launched her ship to investigate the Phantom’s fate in Asgard. He let her go to avoid sparking a dangerous internal conflict, while wondering what she would find.

• Lynn detected Hela’s unauthorized copying of the Asgard Bifrost coordinate appendix shortly after their meeting.
• Lynn reviewed surveillance and deployment logs and found that Hela had launched her personal warship, the Nibelung, from the Night Owl hangar.
• Lynn realized Hela was heading to seek answers about the Phantom, who had taken Gungnir’s blow for her and turned to ash in her arms.
• Lynn considered using Wanda’s data about the D-78 emotional dumping ground but locked it away rather than involving her.
• Gwen Stacy told Lynn that Hela had requested seventy-two hours of leave for technical upgrades, and Lynn accepted the report without trying to stop her.

After Hela departed without authorization, Lynn disguised her journey as a classified field survey to protect her and the Management Committee from a political crisis. The cover was in place, but Wanda requested energy reports for the Nibelung’s hangar during the exact period Hela left, threatening to expose the departure.

• Lynn recognized that he could not stop Hela without risking a clash between the Stability Maintenance Office and the Management Committee.
• Lynn ordered Gwen to classify Hela’s departure as the S-rank A-74 survey and conceal the Nibelung’s records under that mission.
• Lynn considered how he would respond when Hela returned with the truth from her survey.
• Wanda sent Lynn a formal request for the Night Owl hangar’s energy-consumption reports from the past forty-eight hours.
• Lynn realized Wanda’s request covered the time of Hela’s departure aboard the Nibelung.

Wanda confronted Gwen Stacy over a suspicious energy spike from the Nibelung, but Gwen refused to confirm whether its jump had been officially filed. Meanwhile, Hela scanned the ruins of Asgard and detected an unknown energy signature at the heart of the Bifrost.

• Wanda found a report disguising the Nibelung's high-energy jump as a routine fluctuation and went to question Gwen Stacy.
• Wanda demanded confirmation of the jump's mission filing, but Gwen cited S-Level secrecy and directed her to submit a formal risk assessment to Lynn.
• Wanda left the Liaison Office without obtaining an answer, while Gwen's composure faltered after she was alone.
• Hela ordered the Nibelung to scan the ruins of Asgard for a target from an Assistance Investigation Notice.
• The Nibelung detected a concentrated residual energy signature at the heart of the Bifrost that did not belong to any known universal law.

Hela investigated the Bifrost ruins and discovered that the death she had believed was real had been a carefully staged deception. She sent the extracted energy residue to Lynn with strict instructions requiring him to personally receive and examine it.

• Hela designated the Bifrost ruins a level-one investigation zone and ordered the area sealed.
• Hela examined the ruins with her authority of death and sensed that the remembered death was elaborate but empty.
• Hela extracted a wisp of energy that she identified as residue from a system simulation and proof of the deception.
• Hela returned to the Nibelung and ordered the sample sent to Management Committee headquarters.
• Hela required Lynn to personally handle and examine the sample, then watched the transmission confirmation.

Lynn received Hela’s sealed sample and refused to handle it privately, instead ordering Wanda to analyze it as an unknown high-risk technical sample. As Wanda scanned the sample, its energy awakened memories of Lynn’s apparent death in Sokovia.

• Lynn received Hela’s receipt agreement requiring him to personally unseal and inspect the S-01 sample.
• Lynn issued a directive transferring the sealed sample to Wanda for a recorded blind analysis and a report within twelve hours.
• Gwen delivered the sample and directive to Wanda at Laboratory Zero.
• Wanda activated the Chaos protocol and discovered an unfamiliar energy spectrum with a death-force signature.
• Wanda recognized the sample’s energy as matching the aura Lynn had when he dissipated in Sokovia.