The cocoon slowly disintegrated into particles of blood matter. The extra parts that were not used leaked out of his body as black goo.

The voice that was in his head had subsided to a mere whisper. Still echoing for him to consume but no longer banging inside his head like hammers. Whatever just happened in that thing felt so good, his body felt like his own again. There were no extra limbs, no mismatched arms, and everything felt balanced. Well, almost everything, the third eye inside his forehead felt a bit weird. He also had a set of wings he had no idea how to control. The slits on his neck, gills? Why did he have gills?

Does this mean he could breathe underwater now? That was pretty cool.

"Who did that corpse belong to? He must have been pretty powerful to send that magic through me. It was something I had never felt before." Indeed, the magic wasn't from one of the five races. It belonged to something else entirely.

Standing up on his own two feet for the first time in what felt like forever, Newt could finally breathe. He was no longer a monster and he felt stronger even. He could return to his family without fear of rejection now.

But how was he supposed to climb back up? That freefall was nearly 2 miles, let alone the stone wall that he couldn't grab onto at all. He was in quite the pickle.

"Well, I guess the only way to go is forward. Or left, or right... Damn it, I have no idea where I am."

A shadow moved behind him while Newt was figuring out where to go.

Not just one... two, seven, nearly twenty shadows slowly surrounded him. Without realizing that he was surrounded, Newt walked forward in a random direction. The shadows did not stop him or try to attack him; they simply followed him, seeing if he was worthy.

"I swear I have passed this rock three times now. I need to find food soon, I haven't eaten in three days." Newt continued, not counting the corpse as food, even though it gave him much-needed energy.

Soon enough he found himself on the edge of a decently large clearing. Stone pillars held up the ceiling and a small amount of light reflected down into the earth. It must have been an incredibly long stream of light, coming miles and miles down from the surface.

That small amount of light had created plant life, from trees to bushes, it looked beautiful. Much different than the cold stone walls he was used to seeing. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw it, his saving grace. A bush full of blackberries was right in front of him. It looked so beautiful. He could just taste what they tasted like.

He stepped forward but stopped in shock after he looked around.

"Roaaar!"

'From above?!'

~~~

The 'Heroes' POV:

~~~

A blinding light was not the first thing that he wanted to see on his Saturday morning. Today was supposed to be a day of rest or something like that... Instead, he found himself staring at some dude with super blonde hair and pointy ears. Usually, he wakes up to a poster of the 'hang in there' cat on his ceiling, which his dad hung up during April Fools Day seven years ago. He thought it would be funny.

"Welcome to the land of Alpa, heroes. We have summoned you to help us fight against the threat of corrupt beasts, monsters who have evolved from the blood of the slain demonic emperors, the blood of the ancients."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"We will give you more information later, but for now you must be confused. We will give you access to ancient magic, known to us as a 'system'. It will help you communicate with each other and many more things as you learn different things."

He unfocused his eyes and tried looking at the small blue box that had appeared in his vision. As soon as he tried that a larger blue box opened up and read some text to him. It was basically the same thing that the weird dude had said but summarized a bit better. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked to his left.

"Well, I assume this isn't a dream Mark, if it is then this must be a pretty crazy one. I can even see your science teacher over there, Mr.Gecci, he's so old I even had him as a science teacher."

"Yeah, I thought my friends were playing a prank on me at first, with their love for comics or magic or whatever, but this seems a bit out of their budget. This seems like their dream anyway, so I doubt they would let me ruin it for them. What do you think this is James."

"Son, don't call me James. I personally think I'm either experiencing a weird episode and you are trying to stop me from going crazy, or we magically were transported through space and time to a world of magic and cool shit."

"Thank god, that means I don't have to work on going to college anymore, right?"

There was a distinct pause, then laughter from his dad.

"Nothing is stopping you from going to college, magic or apocalypse. If you try to stop I'll tell your mother." His mother was dead. Stage four lung cancer, came out of the blue like a sucker punch from the school bully. Four years ago now, one minute she was laughing at his father falling on ice, the next moment she was in a hospital bed. She never wanted them to think of her as gone, just out on a walk. They joked about it, to heal the hurt.

"If you go tell her that, I'll tell her you've been gaining too much weight. She'd kick your butt long before she kicked mine."

"Yeah, you've got a point there."

Soon enough the blonde grandpa with long ears- "Wait a minute is that an elf, IS THAT A DRAGON?!" The crowd started yelling again as four more beings landed on the platform that the dude was on. The most notable was a humongous dragon that landed on the larger section of the platform. It was unclear who was in charge of the group but most people had bets on either the dragon or the dude who was flying in the air.

"SILENCE." The dragon said half talking, half roaring.

The blonde old dude with long ears, the elf, started again. "As most of you have noted, you have been summoned to fight in a magical world from a world of no magic. We will not treat you as slaves, the previous heroes who were summoned have had great success, and we would not do that to possible heroes. We will teach you magics along with our crafts and trades so that you have a better chance at fighting those poor corrupted beings."

"You will be split into our five kingdoms, each one will be the capital of our races. The noble dragons, the unwavering gods, the gifted elves, the intuitive dwarves, and the ambitious merfolk. You can choose which kingdom you want to be sent to using the system, just select which race you would like to learn under."

And with that, the crowd began talking amongst themselves again.

"Well Mark, as your father I think it is obvious I want to stick together. Even if I am unable to protect you, you are the only thing keeping me grounded right now."

"So you are being selfish?"

"Yes, yes I am. Which race do you think we should join?"

"Hmm, I want to rule out the dragon and god races immediately. Going off of what I know from fantasy stuff that my friends love, their pride and arrogance will get us killed long before the monsters kill us. The dwarves might be a good option, focusing on more physical aspects of things rather than new magic. The elves might be a good choice too, but they are probably more focused on ranged/magic stuff or something. The merfolk live underwater probably and I don't want to have to get used to swimming and fighting. Again this seems like a really weird dream."

"Alright, I agree. So dwarves or elves, I think that the dwarves might be more accepting of us. That and the fact that you're right we can be more used to physical challenges than magical ones."

They both selected the option for the dwarven kingdom, StonePoint. A silly name but at least it was easy to remember.

Soon enough they were gathered in groups of which kingdoms people wanted to go to. There were a few stragglers that refused to join a group, just a couple thousand people, but they were told it would be picked for them If they didn't decide.

Eventually, they were all told that they would be teleported out to the kingdoms, and then everyone blacked out simultaneously.