When Allen opened his eyes, he was standing in the black void again with Andy. He looked around with a confused expression before settling on the cosmic entity of darkness and snark.

“Yeah,” Andy began, “You would normally spawn near the last intact bed you’ve slept in, or near some civilization, but I’m not quite done with you yet,” he finished with a smile.

Allen’s shoulders dropped, “What now?” he asked. “At least the slime is gone, though not from my mind,” he thought to himself.

Andy waved his hand theatrically, causing a wave of glitter to appear in an arc in front of him. “Have some sense of adventure m’boy. You still need to meet the gang and all that.”

Allen watched the glitter fall to the invisible floor where it stayed. He stared impassively back at Andy for a few seconds, the god’s bemused expression fervently unwavering. Then he sighed, “There are others?!” Allen asked, trying his best to fake a surprised reaction. It’s not that he wasn’t surprised, it’s just that he was completely out of both mental and physical energy. The latter mostly due to having his stats reset.

“Yes,” Andy chortled, “and they’ll be your new team. All of them are in the exact same situation as you are so I assume you’ll get along effortlessly.

“That’s what you say…” retorted Allen, his gaze downcast.

Andy’s eyes crinkled into a sympathetic smile as he ruffled Allen’s hair. “Aw, don’t be like that. Come on, I even have presents for the five of you.”

Allen’s face lit up at the mention of presents. “Really!?” he asked, looking up through a smile.

“That’s the spirit,” Andy said, “Now hold on, I’m going to respawn all of you near the outskirts of a small town somewhere. Be nice and get to know your new friends, maybe start strategizing your classes and such.”

Allen’s vision had already gone black as Andy continued talking into his head. He felt darkness rush past him before he felt the same incorporeal weightlessness one usually feels when respawning.

“I’ll stick around to hand out presents and to do an AMA or something. I can’t stay for too long though; I have important godly… divine, uh, stuff to do and such.”

“That’s fine,” replied Allen.

Then he clenched his teeth as the familiar and strong urge to vomit came and passed. It was the same each time, so he had gotten good at resisting it; vertigo was just a part of whatever process respawning involved.

After a few more seconds, his whole body started to tingle as the feeling of his arms and legs returned to him. Then, with a loud pop, he appeared back in his seventeen-year-old body.

Looking around, Allen found himself in a hill full of scruffy looking grass. It was greener than where he had been before, but still a little dry. Lödensburg had been in a scrubland like the Australian outback, while where he was now looked more like the American Midwest.

The sun was already rising for some reason, doubtlessly Andy’s doing. Regardless of the reason, it allowed Allen to clearly see a walled town in the valley stretching out before him and a few railroads leading away. The trains going through the town made it a much better starting location than otherwise.

“Hey kid, you there?” came the voice of someone behind him, “You’re with us, aren’t you?”

Allen spun around quickly. He had drifted off looking at the view; it wasn’t all that spectacular or unique, but Allen still liked looking out at it. When he turned around though, he was met with four new friends. All of them were humans at level one, so he figured they were part of Andy’s new group.

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The first who caught his attention was a brawny looking black man dressed in working clothes and a reflector vest. He was at least twice the size of seventeen-year-old Allen, which was a little intimidating. Then again, he had a nice older brother vibe to him.

“Yeah, I’m Allen,” he replied.

“Cool, cool. Name’s Tyrell, but homies call me Ty,” said the man in the reflector vest, nodding and pointing at himself with a thumb. “As you can see, I worked in construction before some stupid shit landed me here. My man Andy said I got knocked off a skyscraper by a crane. Pretty dope if you’re asking me.”

Allen looked around at the other three. There were two women, one in her early twenties and another around his age. That age being seventeen as opposed to twenty-seven, which was how he felt. Then there was an old, silver haired man in a… wheelchair… and dressed in business casual.

“I’m just a high school student, I guess,” Allen elaborated, “I got hit by a truck or something. I also played baseball.” He screamed internally, talking about himself after so long was excruciatingly awkward.

Ty made another exaggerated nod, pursing his lips a little. “Very cool bro, very cool,” he mumbled, turning to look at the three others. “…And what about y’all.”

The two of them seemed to zero in on the man in the wheelchair almost immediately. He had a distant and severe look, like a wise old sage that would teach them karate or something. The wheelchair only added to this effect, somehow.

“Interesting, I’m sure he’ll be an asset somehow,” Allen thought, eyes narrowing slightly.

The wheelchair man sighed at the silence that descended on the group before he cleared his throat. “My name is Christopher and I am… well I was a professor of math at Stanford University. How I died is none of your business.” The man looked down as he finished his introduction. Saying that his death was nobody’s business only made it more interesting to find out.

“Ah shit, I feel like I’m back in school already,” said the older woman with a groan, an ever so slight Latin accent coming through in her voice. “I’m Camila by the way, and fuck icebreakers, I ain’t doing that shit.”

Christopher scoffed. “I’m surprised you can remember school at this point, girl.”

Camila just smirked back at the man but didn’t say anything.

“Right, I’ll be able to get along ‘effortlessly’ with her, I’m sure,” thought Allen.

“Yo, hold up,” Ty began, pointing at Christopher. “How the hell did this mans get through the tutorial in a wheelchair?”

“With immense difficulty,” answered the professor dryly from his chair, leaving it at that.

“Man, that ain’t right. There were obstacles and shit we had to jump over!”

Allen looked over at the other girl who hadn’t given her name yet. She was standing near the edge of the group smiling dimly but not making any effort to join the conversation. If anybody actually looked normal it was her. Then again, living in Andy’s world was sure to impart at least some measure of madness into its victims.

“A’ight, Is that everybody?” Camila asked suddenly. “Tch, where’s that bitch Andy ‘cause I don’t know what the fuck we’re supposed to do here.”

Allen watched the other girl frown to herself, still, she didn’t say anything on her own. “No, wait. She hasn’t introduced herself yet,” Allen said, pointing at the girl with his best attempt at a warm smile.

“Did I ask?” Camila barked back.

“Uh… yes.”

Camila seemed confused for a split second before she grunted to herself and looked away. Ty’s chuckling only made her scowl deepen.

Allen and Christopher both turned and made eye contact with the other girl, which seemed to be enough to prompt her into giving her name on her own.

“I’m Amelia,” she said quietly, “I’m also a high school student, and my favorite subject is biology. Also, I think I died in a car crash.” She finished with a faint smile.

Allen nodded to her and got another smile in return. That got him thinking. “She’s pretty cute, but I can’t help but feel like a pedo. Is that bad? We’re like, the same age though…”

“Okay then,” Ty began, “So we have Charles fucking Xavier here, some bitch with bad manners and daddy issues, two random high school students, and then me, a construction field manager. And together, we’re supposed to—”

“—Fight to the death for my amusement,” came Andy’s voice, closely preceding a plume of black smoke bursting forth right in the middle of where the five were standing.

As the smoke dissipated, the form of Andy was left standing before them. Additionally, the wind had stopped completely, the trees and grass were frozen in place, and all the sounds of the wilderness went quiet.

“Huh?” spouted Camila.

“Fret not, bitchy one,” Andy said, “for all shall be revealed… in the next chapter.”