Collins woke up and smelled burning sulfur and rotten eggs.
He looked around with his hand over his nose but didn't see his bed anywhere, or his Electro Skiffer.
He stood up from what seemed to be rotting meat, then walked through the squishy and sticky floors, calling for his Trial beast then something whizzed past him.
He looked back and yelled as some kind of being in a tattered black hood with ominous green eyes, which floated a foot above the floor, with asymmetrical bones dangling as it's legs, loosely covered in flesh and the black hood tearing and repatching itself at some other part of the garment, appeared.
He looked at it in horror then asked,"What have you been eating? Is this real? Am I in a dream? Or have I been transported here? Answer me!"
A breaking voice came from within the mask alongside the worst smell he had ever inhaled.
The voice said,"Run..."
He then saw skeletons bursting out from the ground and black, wisp like vapours pouring out from the putrid meat covered floor and swirling around, taking form.
The bones and the vapours then merged to form beings about eight feet tall on average with large weapons probably thrice their entire body weights, that either looked sharp enough to split a hair or hard enough to crush steel effortlessly.
The first thing that appeared before him yelled this time,"Run!!"
Then dispersed into a burst of flies that started swarming him as he sped off.
He jumped down a mound of garbage and sunk into the soft ground below, but dragged himself out to run away from the army of creatures chasing after him.
He had run for what seemed like hours when one popped up and smashed his leg to pieces with its melon hammer then grabbed him by the face, slowly squeezing it as he yelled in pain.
It slammed him into the ground and screeched over his face with purple saliva spluttering allover him as he yelled, then it opened its wide jaws and started tearing him into pieces and he woke up abruptly then looked around, in his bed and room, safe and sound.
He looked at the mark on his wrist, he still had forty-five minutes to spare.
He woke up his beast and carried it out of the room and down the elevation plates to the bottom floor and sprinted to the park, where he met that same man, casually swallowing a black grape.
The man looked at him and asked,"Are you ready to say yes?"
"Do I really have a choice?"
"Yes, do you want to have dreams like that and phantom pain everytime you wake up or you want to wake up on a new tropical beach every night?"
"Do you do this to all your students?"
"Only you kid."
"~sigh~fine."
The man then said,"Okay, your mark will be updated in a few hours, telling you of the date, time and venue of the next entrance ceremony, don't be late, you don't want something else to think about."
Collins really didn't like this guy.
***
Portia appeared on a small farm with potatoes and carrots in rows then looked at Uncle Cloud and asked,"Are you sure this is the place?"
He nodded then walked forward to the old lady who was using a tool they had only ever heard of in history class, a hoe.
The old lady looked at Uncle Cloud then asked,"What to truth do you seek this time, young man?"
"Actually, as you may already know madam, it is she who wishes to know the truth."
"Aaah, Portia Daniels, what truths do you seek?"
Portia looked at Ms Terratikka and Aeric, who gave her encouraging glances, then moved forward to say,"I wish to know more about my past, how I have been born more than once, what happened to my parents, what my destiny is, I need to know all of it."
The woman smiled then said,"My child, I do not tell a truth without being told one in exchange and the final two requests are questions you already have the full answers to."
Portia was silent for a second, then said,"I don't know what you're talking about."
"But you do my child, in fact, you already knew, long before now that you'd meet me, that you'd ask me this question...that Darlok would prevail."
Portia took a step back and Ms Terratikka asked,"What?"
The woman chuckled then said,"I only tell the truth, I do not lie, now for your end of the bargain, tell me a truth that no one knows but you, bring one of your deepest and darkest secrets to the light."
Portia began to stutter and held her head as the visions replayed, she began to scream as it got unbearable, then fainted into Aeric's arms.
He frowned at the woman, then told Ms Terratikka to get them out of there as the old woman giggled, then whispered to Uncle Cloud,"Beware of her, if she was able to kill all those people on her own, without mercy once, imagine what she could do under Darlok's influence."
Then she began to laugh again as the three vanished.
They appeared back at their mansion and met Alexa waiting for them, but Aeric wasn't in the mood to talk, he just took Portia upstairs.
Alexa asked what happened then Ms Terratikka said,"I don't know, some lady called the Omega of truth and selflessness said something to her."
"Another Omega?"
"Wait, they're more?"
"Yes... I've met three others before, two opposite and one probably the opposite of this one, but still I have to warn you of something."
"Could it be that Darlok is going to win?"
"Yes, but I figured maybe you could find a way to..."
"Alexa... it's over."
***
Aeric took Portia into her old room and gently lay her down on her bed.
He sat down beside her and placed a hand on hers when her eyes fluttered open and she turned to face him with tears.
He then asked,"Portia, what's going on?"
"I'm sorry...I lied."
"You lied about what?"
"She was right, I knew all of it but didn't say anything and I'm sorry..."
"Portia please speak to me, what did you know?"
"Everything, I knew Darlok's plan, I knew that I killed my parents, because...I did it intentionally."
"What?"
"Aeric, I was just so angry, and..."
"You committed genocide because of that? Portia, I get that your parents weren't the best but that didn't mean you had to kill them in every single reality, these weren't the same people, they were different, with different thoughts, emotions and decisions, some of them could have actually loved you and you just..."
"I'm sorry Aeric, it's just..."
"No! Enough of your lies! If you could throw a tantrum like this, imagine what else you'd do with that gem of your's...I can't be a part of this."
"Aeric, please I..."
"I'm not doing this anymore, wipe me out of existence if you want, because that is all you do, misuse your power then blame it on others."
He then left her crying on the bed.