The feeling of warm sunlight caresses Trystan's cheek as he lays with his eyes closed. The sound of battle and conflict had faded away completely, which is a little confusing, but perhaps that’s just what happens when your body loses too much blood. It’s only when he hears a familiar voice that he suddenly tries to jump up, it was a voice that he hadn’t heard in years.

“Bro, it’s breakfast! Are you coming down or do I get to eat your pancakes too?”

Comes the familiar voice of his sister, he had lost her during the 2nd floor, How could she possibly be here now. As Trystan opens his eyes and feels his feet hit the floor he realizes that he is back in his old bedroom, from before everything had happened, and yet...there was a familiar blue box hanging in front of his eyes.

%Error% Trophy Information not found

Accessing System Information… %Error%

Locating System … Not Found

Accessing Host Memories … Located

Determining %Error% Cause … Determination Made

Full Reset Required … Starting

3…

2…

1…

The blue box disappeared as it ticked down. Trystan quickly thought, ‘Status’ again to try and summon his information, but nothing appeared. He squints down to his laptop where he sees the date and time floating on his screen and blinks a few times. It really was before everything happened, before the world lost over 75% of its population, before he lost his family, before everyone’s death. He drops to his knees for a moment, overwhelmed by the emotions flooding through him.

“Honey, are you in there?” His mother calls in through the door.

Trystan scrambles to his feet, wiping the tears from his face he calls out as calmly as he could, “Yes Mom, I’m here, just give me a second I’m just about ready.”

He quickly throws on a shirt to go with his pajama bottoms and comes downstairs, preparing himself mentally as he does. The sight of his mother, Gloria, his father,John, and sister, Morgan, sitting at the table was both a welcome one and a heart wrenching one. He had thought them lost forever, but for whatever reason he had another chance now, another chance to make things right, and maybe this time, to keep his family alive.

“Morning.” He says after a moment, his father nods and goes back to reading the newspaper while his sister groans, “I guess you can have your pancakes.” His mother’s laugh’s, “There’s more than enough for everyone.” she says with a smile.

Trystan reaches out and pulls a couple of pancakes onto his plate, not quite sure what to say, just soaking in this moment, one that he was remembering now. This was a week before everything had started, before the first notifications had been received.

When the first blue box had appeared everyone had thought that it was some kind of joke when the boxes had first appeared. Maybe some sort of promotion for a new game using breaking-edge technology that was being released via the game. Who could have possibly imagined that a box asking for volunteers to defend Earth’s sovereignty in the Tower could actually be real. How wrong they were.

It was when the first of the acceptor’s vanished that people started realizing something was wrong, when the second notification came out there was panic. It noted that 90% of Earth’s forces had been destroyed and that there would be a mandatory draft if there weren’t enough volunteers. There was just a week between each notification, and while the panic had begun to rise there really wasn’t enough time between each notice and each wave of people going missing for it to truly reach a peak. At least it hadn’t before he and his family were a part of the 3rd draft. There was only one more draft afterwards, but from what he had heard from those who had come in that final draft the world had been in near chaos, over half of the world’s population had been sent by the end of the 3rd draft, and estimates had shown perhaps three quarters of the world population had been sent upon the completion of the final draft.

He reaches out and grabs the plastic woman filled with maple syrup, pouring a generous amount onto his pancakes before he starts eating.

“Mom, why is he ruining good pancakes with syrup again?” His sisters asked in a playful tone, his mother just sighed, “He’s like his father that way, they both enjoy ruining them with syrup.” His father just looks up from the paper with a grin and raises an eyebrow before going back to the paper, stating simply, “Hey, they taste better that way.”

Trystan laughs, the first real laugh he thinks he’s managed to summon in years. But they don’t know that yet. He puts a finger on his nose when his dad speaks, “What Dad said.” as he begins to shovel the panakes into his face, simply enjoying the flavor of the drowned buttery syrup pancakes.

‘What can I possibly say to convince them on what needs to be done?’ Trystan thinks as he eats. ‘Is there anything that I can do to change anything, I mean...maybe?’

Trystan starts thinking back on how the events started last time, how he learned that time passes far differently in the Tower, how the Test determined your starting points, and how some of the purchases and tracks seemed to be traps. It wasn’t until Humans had nearly reached the 50th floor that they had come to realize that learned and self-improved skills were stronger than the ones purchased directly from the system.

He quickly thinks, 'Status’ again to see if anything happens, nothing. ‘Okay, so if I want to try and help my family and friends I have to find a way to convince them on what’s going to happen, to prepare them, and to ensure that we all select yes and join the first wave of volunteers, it’s the wave that failed the hardest, but they were also the ones that had the greatest amount of chance, and points assigned.’

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He had learned later on that there seemed to be a points multiplier for that first wave, and each wave after it got less and less points. By the time he was forcibly enlisted he had only managed to get around 10,000 points, whereas people who had started off on that first wave had managed to achieve potentially up to 50,000 points, but only one person had known that for sure, and Merlin hadn’t given anyone exact number’s on what he had managed to gain.

He looks up from his plate to see his mother looking at his a little strangely, “Is everything okay dear?” she asks in a concerned tone.

“Yeah mom, everything’s fine, just trying to think some stuff out.” Trystan responds quickly.

She nods briefly, “Okay, well you know me and your father are always here for you if you want to talk, we’ve got plenty of time.”

His father glances up again at this point and set’s the paper aside, “Hey buddy, you know that even if I seem busy, I’ll always make time for you, right?”

Trystan nods and then sighs, “Really it’s nothing like that, just trying to figure some things out.”

His mother nods again, “Okay, well don’t forget you’re friend, Henry I think, is supposed to be coming over today to help get you started with your college applications.

Trystan smiles, “I’ll be ready.” He shovels a few more bites into his mouth and then jumps up. “Thanks mom.” he shouts as he puts his dish in the sink and dashes back upstairs. He had forgotten how young he had actually been when everything had started, but years passed in the Tower for every week that passed out here, so it made some sense that he felt decades older than he actually was, and that’s not even including the time travel.

“Okay, first steps, getting someone to believe me, next steps, teaching everyone what they will need to know in order to survive.” he mutters to himself as he takes his shower quickly and gets dressed. Henry may not immediately believe him, but it was very likely that he would at least give him the benefit of the doubt, and help him come up with different methods of teaching other people, at least until the first blue box appeared he wouldn’t be able to do much more than that.

The first blue box had given people almost 12 hours to select a choice, the boxes afterwards were only around for maybe 2 hours before disappearing. Maybe if he planned everything out correctly he would be able to ensure that those 12 hours of time were enough to get everyone ready, at the bare minimum he might be able to set up where they could get together and survive inside of the Tower, that was one of the biggest problems, everyone wasn’t deposited in the same place, but rather their starting positions were determined by their starting point amounts as well as how they passed that initial test.

Trystan just finishes getting dressed when a knock on the door is heard and the familiar voice of Henry is heard, “Hey man, just got here, cool to come in?”

“Sure, come on in.” Trystan says as he settles himself in front of his computer.

“How have you been?” Henry asks as he takes a seat on the bed next to the desk.

Trystan chuckles wryly, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He says with a bit of a grin.

“Try me.” Henry says simply.

Trystan shakes his head slowly and then shrugs, “Well I’d have to try some time. Okay, so first things first, there’s no need to turn in any college applications, they’re just not going to matter. In less than a week’s time, one of the things that we’d always joked about as being awesome is going to happen and it’s going to suck. People are going to start being sucked into a really messed up game, and that game is going to give people magic, martial arts, ki, psychic powers, all of the cool stuff, but it’s also going to be a fight for survival. And we’re not looking that promising in the long run.”

Henry blinks a few times before opening his mouth, closing it, and starting over again, “What? Like, really, what the hell man, whatever your on right now, we need to make sure to flush it fast, or you need to make sure to let me try it too.” He finishes, obviously thinking that Trystan started him off on a joke.

Trystan shakes his head, “No, no, this is unfortunately not a joke. I can’t exactly prove it to you until the week is up, but I have already lived through this the first time. Somehow, still trying to figure out how, I got sent back here, as I was dying, as all of us were dying. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen again this time around.”

Henry stands there stunned for a moment before he finally responds, “Okay, so let’s say that this happened, and you’ve got insight on what’s going to happen in the future. Tell me about it, and what do you think you can do to help change things?”

Trystan stands up and starts pacing, “That’s the problem. I don’t know exactly what I can do. I’ve got knowledge that people didn’t have to begin with, I’d pass that along if I could, at least to some people. I already know how other people are going to be acting, who needs to be stopped, some people who need to be helped. But, just by me being here and saying this, who knows how much of that future that I know that I will end up altering. Will the heroes from the first time through actually be the same people? Will the changes I enact cause differences, cause alterations in the chances that they had? Not that they were much help at that last level, but they did save more people than I can count before we lost.”

Henry thinks for a moment, “Okay, let’s start off by writing down at least some of what you know. If this is really something that is going to happen, then we are going to want to prepare our families as much as possible, get them the information they need to survive. If we can get a cheat sheet made for them, who knows, maybe we can even distribute it enough to make a large difference.”

Trystan shakes his head slowly, “Something for our family and friends would be good. But...there were some people who made some really bad decisions, people who found out that PvP points can exceed the Floor Point limits, people who grew to like the feeling of it. They had to be stopped and it was hard the first time. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if they actually managed to gain the knowledge I have now ahead of time.”

Trystan shudders for a moment, “I can just imagine if one of them had gained some of the Legendary pieces before everyone else, or worse yet, unlocked some of the Legendary bloodlines. They may be unstoppable.”

Henry looks to him for a moment, “But with your knowledge won’t you be able to game the system, get all of these items first?”

Trystan shakes his head, ‘No, where people end up depends on how they pass the Test. How many starting Points they get also depend on that. I’d heard rumors that there may actually be a Class leveling system that could be enacted under the right circumstances, but no one I knew ever actually managed to prove its existence. Humanity's strongest point was our flexibility, some of the other Races, like the Hikarin, they have some very specific racial powers and abilities, and limited ability to grow and gain new powers. Humans start off far weaker, but our racial power seemed to be under customization. We could literally become anything that we wanted to, with enough points to spend at least. If we give all of this knowledge to the PvP ‘players’”, as he says players he air quotes it, “Then we could be very well giving them the chance to become more powerful than they ever were in the past. And who knows if anyone will actually choose the right abilities this time around to stop them.”

Trystan sighs, “I think, I think it may be best to just focus on our friends and family, and then bring in other people that we can trust as we find them.”

Henry slowly nods, “Well that makes sense, granted, I still think you might be looney toons right now. But hey, this is crazier than anything we’ve ever come up with, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt until next week.”

Trystan grins, “Thanks for the stellar support there.” He turns to his computer and starts typing things out as he speaks, “Okay, so here is what I know and what I remember.”