Chapter 57: Payback Time
Family Guy World, Stewie's secret laboratory.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Look who finally decided to come back—it's Chris!"
Watching Chris disappear from the Final Destination world through the wristband feed, Stewie realized Chris had returned and immediately jumped up, shouting gleefully toward the temporal transport pod.
He hadn't forgotten Chris's words about "repaying" him. At this moment, he looked toward Chris with an eager heart, awaiting his return.
He didn't want much—just to be able to study the special metaphysical properties Chris had finally obtained.
Stewie had once detected something similar on the Grim Reaper in their own world, but unfortunately, thanks to Peter's interference, that opportunity had slipped away, leaving him with zero data.
Hearing the familiar voice, Chris pushed open the transport pod and stepped out.
Looking at Stewie's expectant expression, Chris asked with a deadly serious face, "My dear little brother, please tell me what exactly happened with my interdimensional trip this time? Can you give me a satisfactory explanation?"
Hearing Chris bring up past grievances, Stewie's expectant expression instantly froze. He waved his hand dismissively and said, "You've been through so much—you must be exhausted. I won't disturb your rest."
With that, Stewie attempted to make a hasty exit, but his stubby toddler legs were no match for Chris.
Chris didn't even move from his spot. He simply reached out, and Stewie was hoisted into the air by his overalls.
Seeing the situation turning against him, Stewie immediately deployed his most innocent puppy-dog eyes, gazing pitifully up at Chris.
And Chris seemed genuinely moved by Stewie's expression. He slowly set Stewie down, then began walking toward the exit.
Just as Stewie was mentally congratulating himself on an Oscar-worthy performance, he heard Chris say in an ominous tone, "Oh, Stewie? Better be careful. After all... Death followed me home."
With that, Chris left the secret laboratory directly, then walked out of Stewie's room entirely.
Only Stewie remained in the base, confused. He didn't understand what Chris meant by those words. Could it be that the metaphysical laws Chris obtained were related to the Grim Reaper?
While Stewie was speculating, he completely failed to notice that when Chris left, the laboratory door had opened, allowing a gust of wind to blow inside.
After the breeze entered the lab, it eerily swept along the floor, picking up Stewie's empty Doritos bag. The bag floated upward, spinning through the air before plastering itself directly onto Stewie's oversized head.
"Ah! Ahhh! What the hell is this?!"
With the sudden chip bag suffocating him, Stewie screamed in surprise, struggling frantically to tear the bag from his face.
But the smooth plastic bag was difficult to remove quickly, and it only stuck tighter with Stewie's frantic scratching. Not until the moment Stewie was on the verge of passing out from oxygen deprivation did the bag finally come loose.
"Blast it all! Chris, you insufferable bastard! This prank is going way too far!"
After that bizarre incident, combined with the anomalous energy readings on his detection instruments, Stewie instantly understood that Chris was behind it.
He stormed out of the laboratory, then prepared to go downstairs and confront Chris directly.
But as soon as he reached the top of the stairs, looking down at the steep descent, Stewie didn't dare attempt it. He could only stand at the doorway shouting, "Chris! Are you trying to murder me?! Don't you know that for an infant, suffocation is one of the greatest dangers?!"
"Then do you know that for humans, fires, explosions, lightning strikes, car accidents, meteor impacts, and so on, are all extremely fatal dangers?!"
Chris stepped out of his room, looking at Stewie with a completely blank expression, then methodically listed every near-death experience he'd endured in the Final Destination world.
"Wait—you didn't come downstairs!" Stewie heard Chris's voice coming from behind him and immediately spun around in shock.
Then Stewie realized there was a fundamental flaw in Chris's argument and immediately retorted loudly, "No! That's completely different! You're no longer an ordinary human! Those things aren't actually dangerous to you at all!"
"What about the meteor impact? You should know that if your conscience hadn't kicked in at the last second and you hadn't sent those dragon blood drinks, I would've been half-dead even if I'd survived."
"Uh..." Stewie was rendered speechless, because he genuinely hadn't expected Death's threshold for creating "accidents" to be that catastrophically high.
If he'd known, he definitely would've waited for Chris to power up significantly more before sending him in.
Or he would've chosen a more appropriate world to send him into for a proper challenge.
Watching Stewie fall into guilty silence, Chris crouched down to eye level and looked him directly in the face, saying seriously, "Can't explain yourself now, can you? So, in consideration of your conscience kicking in when it mattered, I just let you experience a similar near-death scenario. I won't test other more dangerous things on you—wouldn't want you to actually kick the bucket."
"Fine! You win this round, but I won't give up on getting my revenge."
Hearing Stewie's defiant declaration, Chris chuckled. "Immature. I'm not wasting any more energy on this."
Chris suddenly realized that Stewie was still fundamentally a toddler, and for this genius infant, everything he did was essentially just playing elaborate games.
So arguing about these moral issues with him—even if Stewie's intellect could understand the gravity—he simply wouldn't care at all.
Because this kid was just looking for someone to play games with, just looking for entertainment.
Normally it was Brian who could understand him, but now it had become Chris—who was far more capable and offered considerably more interesting gameplay.
Realizing this, Chris turned and went back into his room, no longer paying attention to Stewie, who wanted to continue making threats.
He now needed to properly examine his newly acquired abilities and discover what potential this power held.
Stewie, seeing Chris dismiss him entirely, didn't take it personally at all.
After all, with his technological capabilities, Chris would certainly still need his help eventually. Chris was completely dependent on him now.
So he just needed to wait patiently and prepare for the next opportunity to exact his revenge.
"Hehehe, hahahaha— cough cough cough! Damn it, are you still using your abilities to mess with me?!"
Stewie, who'd been cackling maniacally, suddenly choked on his own saliva, then immediately suspected Chris of supernatural interference. But this time Chris didn't acknowledge him whatsoever.
Fortunately, this time it truly was just an accident, and Stewie recovered after catching his breath.
But now he cautiously returned to his room, then descended into his laboratory. He was going to engineer a complete set of personal protective equipment immediately.
Meanwhile, Chris, in his own room, had temporarily figured out the specific applications of Death's abilities.
Unlike Death's original manifestation, the powers Chris had gained could only manifest as targeted bad luck—killing opponents by engineering fatal coincidences.
And the upper limit was significantly restricted. At most, he could create accidents like plane crashes, car wrecks, train derailments, or cruise ship disasters. He couldn't operate without some human element involved at all.
Natural disasters—like the ones Death had used against him—were completely unavailable.
It was substantially nerfed, with a massive difference in raw power.
However, Chris could understand this limitation, because when Death had deployed natural disasters against him, Chris had sensed that Death paid a significant price.
And through the concept of Fate he'd perceived after gaining the ability, Chris theorized that Death must have borrowed power from the overarching concept of American Fate to accomplish such exaggerated feats.
Viewed from this perspective, even if that Death entity controlled the concept of life and death, it was probably only a very minor aspect of it—likely only up to the level of man-made disasters and accidents.
But then Chris considered that even the main body of the Fate concept seemed to only cover the North American continental region, unable to extend its influence across the entire planet.
Realizing this, Chris couldn't help but mutter sarcastically, 'So after all that cosmic drama, it's not even planetary-level?'
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