Guess Who Hit the Jackpot

"Anton, it looks like someone's chasing them!" Anna leaned against the window and gazed up at the sky. "I think I just saw someone riding a Flying Broomstick."

Anton shrugged indifferently and licked his lips, his eyes fixed on the scene below the well opening. "Forget about him. It's about to start."

"Start what?" Anna turned around in surprise.

"The Collective Consciousness changed the environment. Now it's starting to eat away at the individuals..." Anton drew his Wand and gently dispelled the Developing Potion drifting above the well opening. "It's like a hysterical mother-in-law turning the whole house gloomy, and the daughter-in-law who marries into the family being driven mad by the place..."

Anna listened to his bizarre analogy with a strange look. "Anton, I never thought you'd read romance novels too!"

"Haha..."

Anton chuckled. "First, I'll dispel these 'Traces of Time.' Suppressed by the time loop, they're boiling over and about to fight back. Now that the door's suddenly wide open, they've got enough Chewiness for sure!"

Curious, Anna came over and peered down into the well. "Can you tell who's going to have a Dark Magic Creature grow inside them?"

Anton slowly shook his head. "I can't be sure."

He thought for a moment, then sighed with a touch of melancholy. "Fate is a mischievous little bitch. It never plays fair; it just picks a winner at random, and that winner is often completely innocent."

Downstairs, the Dark Magic surged turbulently, yet it was so faint that neither Anna, listening to Anton's explanation, nor the Aurors below, who had already demonstrated the strength of most Wizards, could feel it.

And yet it was so vast and abundant that it began distorting everything around it.

In the room downstairs, the Aurors, the Squib Mercenaries, Spider-Man, the reporters, and their