And here we have chapter 91 of Chains of Reality! Now truth be told, we have five chapters left before I might take another hiatus since... stuff has been happening over on my end, mostly involving a potential return to college, so the updates might come a bit slower.

But that's something in the future. I don't want to bore you or worry you guys with my personal story.

For now, let's answer some reviews:

1) Nobody245:

** Let's be honest here, we've reached the point where there are really no good or bad options, just options.

** That really is her prototype: she was redheaded in the original version of the story.

2) Observant Guest:

* Gave a listen to both songs. Very fitting.

And now, to the chapter!

Episode 91: Lisa's Trial! The Temptation of Forbidden Knowledge!

"So, let me make sure I heard you right," Lincoln said, his tone barely hiding his disbelief. "Lola and Lana have already passed their trials?"

"Yup," Bun-Bun answered while the Biker Trio nodded in agreement. "And the rest of the sisters are heading to do their trials as we speak."

Bun-Bun handed his report to Lincoln, who grabbed it and inspected it for a few minutes while the CES watched with little smiles.

Their smiles vanished as soon as he tore the reports to pieces.

"Bun-Bun, we've discussed this before: you're not to take any bribes from my sisters, nor sugarcoat their failures in any way, shape, or form," Lincoln sternly stated. "Now, give me your actual report."

"T-That was the report," Bun-Bun said, trying not to raise his voice. "We saw their progress from a safe distance, like you ordered, and saw how they went, like you ordered!"

"You clearly didn't, because if you had, you would've seen them fail miserably the only way they know how," Lincoln narrowed his eyes. "Now tell me how they did, and how badly they failed."

Bun-Bun clenched his fist, shaking it as he answered, "They didn't fail, they passed."

"No, they didn't-"

"So the truth is right until you don't like it, then it's wrong?!" Mindy snapped, taking a step forward.

"First, speak only when spoken to, and second, don't change the subject!" Lincoln snapped. "It's clear as day that my sisters couldn't even pass a simple math quiz even if someone was holding their hands! Therefore, they'll never be able to pass the trials!"

Mindy narrowed her eyes. "Because they legitimately can't, or because you made it so they'd fail no matter what!?"

Lincoln's eyes glowed with rage as Ronnie grabbed Mindy's arm and pulled her back.

"W-We'll be on our way now."

"Yes," Lincoln glared. "You better."

And with that, the CES left the room, leaving Lincoln to lean back to his chair and rub his forehead.

"Geez, we really dodged a bullet there," Ronnie sighed as the group kept walking. "I swear my heart skipped a dozen beats."

"Why did you have to upset Sweet Feet like that?!" Cindy chided Mindy, who snapped in turn, "Because none of you would've called him out on his bullshit! Not Ronnie, not Bun-Bun, and certainly not you, Cindy!"

"Okay, whoa, calm down," Ronnie said, Bun-Bun nodding in agreement. "Let's take a few deep breaths-"

"And keep ignoring the truth, Ronnie?!" Mindy snapped. "That guy sitting over there isn't the Sweet Feet that we met four years ago! It's as clear as day that he's an entirely different person!"

Ronnie lowered her head. "I know, but what else can we do?"

"Free the real Sweet Feet."

The CES turned around, and saw Chandler and Paige standing around, giving them a serious look as the former added:

"If you want that impostor to stop hurting this reality for his own gain, come with us."

Lisa walked across the streets of Planet Akashic, with Stella walking alongside her, scanning her surroundings. She was so focused, in fact, that Lisa had to stop her from falling into several holes along the way.

Holes that revealed gears and cogs underneath.

"Hey, is Planet Akashic a machine?" Stella asked.

"Yes, but also no," Lisa said, adjusting her glasses. "The simplest explanation is that it's a mix between planet and machine, techno-organic if you will."

"I see..."

"I appreciate you insisting on following me, Stella, but I don't see why you need to come with me-"

"To a planet filled with all the knowledge in the physical plane? Given my current situation with the Silence Walkers, any info I can get about them will work."

"And what makes you think you'll find the answers here?"

"Again, it's a planet filled with all the knowledge in the physical plane!" Stella raised her arms. "If the answers aren't here, then where could they be?"

"Alright, I see your point," Lisa responded. "Still, I don't think we should spend too much time looking for answers: as soon as we figure out the trial Lincoln will put me through, we'll deal with it, pass it, and return to the ship so Darcy and David can take us back home, capiche?"

"Right..."

It was then that the duo reached the library, where Lupe was bidding farewell to Dr. Lopez.

"Lopez? Lupe?" Lisa asked with a raised eyebrow. "What's going on here?"

"I need to go help with a peculiar issue at my kingdom... empire... whatever it is right now," Lopez sighed. "While I'm off dealing with that issue, Lupe here will take my place."

Lisa eyed the Lovechild, who shrugged with a sheepish smile.

"Fine, I understand. Have a safe trip, Lopez."

The woman nodded, and promptly leapt into the sky, the force of her takeoff shaking the ground slightly.

"So," Stella blurted. "Who was that woman, and why was she here? And also, what's that about an-"

"I'm afraid we don't have time to play twenty questions," Lisa stated, putting her hand on Stella's mouth as she faced Lupe. "Lupe, just a shot in the dark here, but do you have an idea as to what's the trial Lincoln set for me here?"

"Coincidentally, I do," Lupe grimaced. "But before you go and see that, there's something else you need to see..."

Lupe took the duo to a bookshelf, where by tilting a specific book, it opened to reveal a secret passage into a another room, filled with several full bookshelves, a complete darkness...

And traumatized Chain Breakers.

"Are those..." Stella's eyes widened. "Silence Walkers?"

"Well, they're technically traumatized Chain Breakers, but I guess they're the same thing," Lupe frowned. "They tried snooping around the forbidden section, and were horrified by what they found."

Stella walked closer to the Chain Breakers, among them a girl with white hair that looked similar to Lincoln, then backed away once they flinched and whimpered.

"Okay, so, since you insisted on showing us this," Lisa remarked. "I'm guessing the trial has to do with the forbidden knowledge?"

Lupe nodded. "Now, technically speaking, knowledge can't be destroyed forever: even if you did it right now, new knowledge will always arrive, whether it's forbidden or not."

"But for clarity, this is the forbidden section?"

"Yeah..."

"And it's filled with information that would drive most people mad. Or in the case of the Silence Walkers, driven to do a vow of silence?"

Lupe nodded.

Lisa lowered her head. "Then it must be destroyed."

Stella looked back at Lisa, while Lupe's eyes widened.

"I-I just said the destruction bit as an option, not as the only thing you could-"

"I might be a scientist and researcher, Lupe, but I know far too well the consequences of learning things one wasn't meant to know. That is, after all, the price one pays for omniscience."

Lupe and Stella looked at her sympathetically, but while the scientist and Lovechild talked things out, the whitehaired female Lincoln lookalike grabbed Stella, pulled her towards her and whispered:

"Her name... is Lute..."

Stella raised an eyebrow, remaining confused as she released herself from the girl's grasp.

"Stella."

The girl faced the scientist, who adjusted her glasses as she approached her.

"Could you guide these traumatized people back to the ship? They're gonna need a lot of help recovering from whatever they saw."

"Uh... sure..."

Stella grabbed the lookalike's hand, and the Breakers stood up as she said:

"Follow me."

What came next was Stella guiding the Silence Walkers back to the massive cube that was Lisa's spaceship, and once there, she guided them inside.

All except the Lincoln lookalike, who was nowhere to be seen.

Regardless, once the Silence Walkers had entered the ship, and she had convinced Darcy and David not to freak out, Stella walked out to go look for Lisa...

A search that ended soon as she saw the scientist flying to the spaceship with her rocket boots.

"Lisa!"

Stella waved at the scientist, who returned the wave with a smile... right before her boots suddenly malfunctioned.

Actually, that wasn't quite right: they didn't malfunction so much as they exploded.

The scientist gasped as she plummeted to the ground, almost falling straight into the gears she warned Stella about earlier. Luckily, she managed to grab the edge of the hole, but she was clearly struggling to get up.

"Oh no, Lisa! Hang on, I'll-"

But a sudden arrival froze her in place. An arrival she hoped wouldn't come to pass.

Lincoln.

"Well, if it isn't Lisa," he sighed. "You know, of all the sisters, I didn't think you'd be among the ones who failed, but oh well-"

"Hey, hold it!" Lisa snapped. "Wasn't my trial to destroy the forbidden knowledge in the library?!"

"Well... yeah-"

"Then why do you say I failed!?"

"First you disappoint me, and now you force me to spell it out to you? Stella gained some of that forbidden knowledge."

Stella nearly gasped, but she covered her mouth before she was heard.

"Can we talk about this later?" Lisa replied as she struggled to stand up. "Stella and I need to go back to Earth-"

Lincoln stepped tightly on Lisa's hand.

"Stella has to return to Earth. But you? The only place you're going is the one place where you can be judged regarding your incompetence."

"What are you talking about?!" Lisa grimaced. "I destroyed the forbidden section! Doesn't that mean I passed?!"

Lincoln summoned an Orange energy blade, Lisa gulping as the boy answered:

"On the contrary, Lisa, from the very beginning... you failed."

And with that said, Lincoln sliced Lisa's hand off, the godly scientist only getting to gasp before she dropped into the gears, all while Lincoln with a disgusted expression...

Leni snapped awake, feeling Lisa's life slip away as she realized what this signified.

"Oh no, it's happening again!" she grimaced. "I was hoping he'd at least, like, wait until everybody had finished their trials before he started it!"

"Started what?"

Leni flinched and turned around, growing defensive as Carlota appeared out of the woods.

"Carlota..." Leni took a step back. "W-What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"We used to go to this spot in the forest all the time when we were younger, remember?" Carlota answered. "And don't worry, I'm not here to fight, I just wanna talk."

Leni loosened a bit. "Talk?"

"Thanks to Lori, Ronnie Anne returned home with her father's spirit," Carlota pocketed her hands and looked away. "And when he explained to us why he did the things he did... I realized he wasn't a willing collaborator, but a victim of the Progenitors' manipulations. And that's when I thought..."

Carlota faced Leni. "You're the same, aren't you, Leni?"

The robotic fashionista took a step back, and looked elsewhere, visibly conflicted.

"Listen, I can only imagine what you're going through right now, but keeping it to yourself can't be good," Carlota spoke. "Why not just give me the basics? Like, for example, what's going on?"

"Well... since everyone's memories are gonna be wiped clean, I might as well spill the beans, right?"

Carlota grew a little concerned after that statement, but paid close attention to what she said next:

"The Lincoln that rules this reality isn't the Lincoln we've been seeing: that's just some odd anomaly created from Proto-Lincoln splitting in half at the start of the new reality. He's been watching the development of this reality since the beginning, and every time he believes things have gone off the rails, he slaughters the gods, wipes everyone's memories, and resets the universe, rinse and repeat when it happens again."

Carlota hummed. "What about Neo-Lincoln?"

"He's, like, stuck in a prison in the middle of nowhere that only the sisters and another Lincoln can free him from. And this Pseudo-Lincoln promised to release him once the reality was good enough, but as you can imagine, that took much longer than Lori and I were, like, comfortable with," Leni lowered her head. "So, when we got our sisters' powers, or at least a copy of them, we tried to free him several times before: sometimes we worked on our own, sometimes we worked together, but we were still overpowered each time. And every single time, our memories are mostly wiped, with only the reminder of our failures and what'll happen when things go off the rails."

Carlota raised an eyebrow. "Why do you speak as if what you're saying is inevitable?"

"Because it might as well be given how damn, like, finicky this Pseudo-Lincoln is! Even if the reality is mostly right or a near utopia, he always finds something to use as an excuse to reset everything!"

"So he promised you that he'd free your brother once the universe was perfect..." Carlota folded her arms. "But wasn't that just a subtle way to say he was keeping him prisoner and taking over his role?"

Leni grimaced. "What?"

"Think about it: he promised you that your Lincoln would be freed once the universe was perfect, but we both know that perfection is just an imaginary concept: everything, even the most immaculate thing, is flawed one way or another. So, not only does he give you a task impossible to do, but he does it while taking over a role that doesn't even belong to him."

Leni lowered her head.

"Besides, we have to consider something obvious. Something that he clearly lacks: Proto-Lincoln probably saw you as separate from the Proto-Sisters. Neo-Lincoln can probably tell the difference. Sincoln can too, but doesn't give a crap about it. But this Lincoln... he seems to think you're one and the same."

Leni lowered her eyelids.

"He's not acting on anybody's best interest, Leni. He's only making you pay for your predecessors mistake, and resetting everything whenever it goes a way he doesn't like, further keeping Neo-Lincoln, the real god of this universe, imprisoned."

Leni took a deep breath. "If only you know how many times we had this conversation before..."

"Well, sorry, but I can't really help it," Carlota shrugged. "I mean, I can't make a more original speech if I don't even remember what the original was like."

Leni giggled, scratching her cheek as Carlota added:

"Look, all I'm saying is, if the current Lincoln is going to reset the universe, isn't it better to try free the real Lincoln rather than let him get away with it?"

"But I already told you, Lori and I, like, already tried and failed so many times before... who's to say this time's gonna be any different?"

Carlota shrugged. "I mean, at this point, if it's clear that this Lincoln will do whatever he wants regardless of what you do, does it really matter if you disobey him?"

Leni's eyes widened, especially as Carlota added:

"And besides, he's not your brother. He's a lookalike that took over his place to make you and your sisters pay for your predecessors' mistakes. That won't change unless somebody does something about it."

Leni giggled. "To think it took, like, four years for us to start talking again, and it's when the world's about to be reset..."

"Well, you're not at fault for that. I am," Carlota sighed. "But, sadly, I have to go back to the village, see if something's going on. But still, think about what I said, okay?"

Leni nodded. "Totes."

And with that said, Carlota walked away, leaving Leni to take a deep breath and think about the fashionista's words.

Thoughts that she kept thinking about as she teleported herself to Neo-Lincoln's prison dimension...

"What are you doing here?"

Stella turned around, and saw Margo standing nearby, hands pocketed with a stern expression.

"I've heard about you," Stella said as she stood up. "You're Margo Pacowski, the girl who helped keep the Progenitors at bay during the Zombie apocalypse, right?"

"First, I didn't do it alone, I had help. Second, it's been four years since that event; I figured people would move on from it by now," Margo folded her arms. "Third, you haven't answered my question."

Stella glanced at her spot, and frowned as she moved aside, saying:

"A couple things happened at Planet Akashic... and we had a pretty big loss."

Margo looked down, and her eyes widened at seeing a tombstone with Lisa's name on it, a few Lilies laying in front of it.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Margo groaned, rubbing her forehead. "First Lynn doesn't show up to her trial, which is technically a good thing but still, and now Lisa's dead again?"

"Again?" Stella repeated. "And wait, Lynn didn't show up for her trial?"

Margo shook her head. "And I mean, again, that's a good thing, but I'm not getting the closure that I've needed for years!"

"Closure?"

Margo sighed. "Let me explain..."