It wasn't even an hour and they were bored, sitting in the middle of nothing, looking at Chris whom was reading some book he bought with his leftover points. They too could have done the same, but what could be more interesting than living the fantasy themselves, George at first even wanted to laugh at him, but considering how many points Chris had gotten and how few he had, it was evident whom was the better adventurer.

"What's he reading?"

Xiao asked George whom had went to see himself.

"That idiot bought a manga tome with his points, saying that this manga hasn't come up yet in his world"

George said, making Xiao laugh at the idea of someome reading manga at their situation, it was similar to a book character reading a book, only his book was better than yours.

"Do you think he will lend it to us once he's finished?"

She asked half-jokingly, but now that they thought about it, there was nothing to do other than going to sleep like Nick suggested. How could they however sleep?

They weren't even tired after they appeared in this space, it was mysterious and magical. Everything was foreign and exotic and they were full of expectations for their bright future, with George's movie knowledge and their combined might, they will surely survive and escape this Death game.

George begun to look through the book for almanacs of thriller and terror movies, the problem was that there were simply too many, he was sure that he wouldn't be able to remember them all, but he could collect the best encyclopedias of horror movies and do research when they are told the next mission, he even pondered why Nick hadn't done the same.

Before long however he came to a realization, in between the thousands of worlds there were thousands of iterations of the same movies, some being completely different than others, it was simply pointless to even consider it.

If so however, why did Nick ask him for the plot of the movie, it makes no sense if you think about it. Also why was the plot the same as the movie he knew, were the people he meet actors in the movie in some other universe? If so it also made sense that One's team was a man short, the guy who was supposed to die from shock as his hand was cut by the laser didn't exist at all.

The more George thought about it, the more Nick's words made no sense, why does he really need a movie Geek? Was he somehow special?

Jonas and Jason had different thoughts as they let him and Xiao struggle with the encyclopedias as they looked around the novels and stuff they looked for. Jonas looked for survival manuals and Jason looked for porn, he wanted to see how porn looked like in the future, he was however disappointed as he found non from the far future, it was probably all digitized, but digital information cost more for some reason and came in weird tablets, he wasn't spending 100 points on porn, that was for sure.

Suddenly he discovered that Jonas was talking with Xiao and George and their expressions looked livid.

-What's up?

-We might be fucked

-What do you mean?

-Do you see all these?

-What about them?

-These are the plots of the same movie in different worlds and they are not the same thing, they all have tons of differences, only the main plot is the same

-So?

-Don't you understand, we might know the plot from our world, but what if the movie we're sent into is from another world?

-Like it worked before? We spent hours planning and the first thing was us being captured and interrogated because you had to open your mouth

-It's not my fault! I just warned One about the laser system, did you want to see him turning into pieces?

-Like I cared! He was an NPC and he died anyways

Their arguements weren't invisible to Chris, but even before he just needed to know the gist of the plot, he didn't really care about their plans from the beginning, they had spent hours planning and preparing, but now it seems that the only one that gained something from all that was Nick, whom had around 200 points in Cell Vitality, everyone else gained nothing at all, Nick at the time had told them that he was evaluating their physical condition, big lie.

If there was one thing to learn from this experience, it's that they couldn't trust Nick. Who knows how many things he hasn't told them, they simply had to confront him now. The group of four approached his house and discovered that there was no door knob or keyhole to the house, it felt as if they were once more in one of those horror movies. It took George some courage to knock on the door, but only when he got irritated and knocked louder was there a response.

Nick looked Irritated as he met them completely naked, he looked at them and truthfully just wanted to close the door on their faces.

-What do you want, I told you, you can't come in

-We have discovered that...

-I don't care

-The plot of the movies is different!

-What are you talking about?

-The movies that we are going into for missions, their plot is different from world to world, I did some research and...

-So?

-What do you mean! This means that the information I have about the movie will be useless!

-Dear George, what I valued about you wasn't the plot, I don't give a shit about it, you just learn to adapt, what I cared were the monsters and NPCs, from the movies and games and the useless trivia that you spouted unceasingly, other than of course actor and producer names, I don't care about those or how they did the special effects, or how...

Nick's words made George freeze in place, it was true that he had talked about so much useless to the movie trivia because he was a big fun of the game and the movies, he had seen and played anything that had to do with the brand. What about other movies however? What about movies he didn't know well and only knew the gist of the plot?

George charged away and begun to study the ecyclopedias, Nick looked at him and then at the others whom were still there.

"Tell him that those become absolete once you spent 100 points on a digital data bank, one of us did it and we discovered that it was too bothersome, nobody wished to do all the homework only to discover that the plot had changed or that the movie wasn't in the databank of the world he got his info from, also go to sleep, we have a mission to do tomorrow!"

Nick said as he threw them an alarm clock, causing them to stagger as Jason caught it, but didn't know what to do with it, before kissing the door in a rather comical way.

"I thought he told we can't be injured!"

Jason complained as he stood up.

"He said you can't die, he didn't say anything about injuries"

Jonas corrected him, earning a glare and an angry fuck you gesture.

"So what do we do now?"

Xiao asked them as she was out of ideas, as she looked at a crazed George that was flipping books as if he was possessed by a demon.

Inside the house Nick was fast asleep after a bit of fun, but Hera and Chrysa weren't tired and couldn't fall asleep. The anxiety and the memories of what they experienced during the mission were too much for them.

They were sitting talking about their experience during the last mission, both of them had experienced some mishap. Mostly because they were women, men took advantage of their desires and both were taken advantage of, Hera sat and heard how Chrysa was drugged and sold into slavery because she heard George's advice to change to a less flashy hotel. Hera told her how she was humiliated, captured and interrogated by the government by staying at a flashy hotel and living the good life. Both agreed that they hated the NPCs!

Then they begun to talk about their plans for the future, the commotion at the front door had also not gone unnoticed. They however never trusted Nick in the first place, thus it didn't come as much of a surprise that he was withholding information from them, truth be told he had long proven to them that he wasn't a decent guy.

The two women were talking about what they would do after returning to the real world, since nobody in his right mind would call this place they were real. They had already heard George speculating about what this world might be and the most probable outcome was that this was all inside their minds.

It kind of made sense, the thing however that caused them to stremble was the possibility of death being common in this fake world and the real one, at least Nick said it was and even said that people can return to the real world with Tickets.

They had seen these tickets at the consumables, the cheapest 1 day ticket was worth 10.000 points. The 1 month ticket however was 50.000points, it was 600% cheaper than buying 30 one day tickets, meaning that it made the one day ticket seem wasteful. Then there was the 1 year ticket, which was worth 100.000points, which was 600% cheaper than the one month ticket, making the other seem obsolete as well and the one day ticket even worse as it was 12 times worse than the yearly ticket. Of course the ticket to freedom cost 1 million points, which made the other three tickets seem completely pointless.

"Do you think this gun will be of any use?"

Hera asked as she put the gun on the table, there was no magazine inside, but she knew that she had never shot a gun in her life, but she had seen people do so in the movies. She was even a bit excited to own this gun, problem was that she was no target practice at all, how would she know if she could even hit anything.

The two women had little in common, very fast they discovered that they had little to talk about other than minor differences in their main world, it was minute stuff, like some actor or famous person having cosmetic surgery or breaking up. It felt really unreal to validate that you didn't come from the same Earth as the other, but it made for a good talk topic.

Outside George and the others were brainstorming, doing their best to come up with ways to prepare for the missions to come. By analyzing the missions they were given so far, saying what they could do better, what they did wrong and how they could better themselves.

The problem was that they came to the sad realization that they were but common people, they had no martial arts training or experience with guns, or the ability to pull out insane stunts. Even Chris who tried to do so, almost ended up dying as he was even turned into a monstrosity at the end, his actions were the most profound example of what not to do, unless you want to end up dead.

"Who's he talking to?"

Suddenly Xiao asked as she noticed that Chris was talking to someone, but there was only them there. It was then that George's head begun to spin, as they had forgotten something really important, there was another person there with them, of course you could hardly call it a person.

Chris was of course talking to the Red Empress, since they finished the mission, he had kept the Secret Piece, he now had an insane A.I. that could think better than all of them put together. There was hope in his mind, until his mouth opened up.

-Chris I want to borrow your A.I.

-Not happening

-We just need to plan some stuff for the next mission

-You planned for hours for the last mission, didn't seem to be of any use to me, also don't forget to take toilet paper for the new batch

-What?

-The Red Empress predicted that there's over 50% chance that there will be new people like us coming, the least we can do is not have them go through the same shit we did

-You Idiot! If there will be new people like us coming, then it's the best chance to bolster our strength, we have to plan on what to teach them so that they will survive

-The Empress Differs, she says that 8 hours are hardly enough to prepare a person for a life or death crisis, to begin with not everyone will believe you and not everyone is able to adapt fast enough to survive, Dawn's Death should be an example of that

-You're one to talk, you were just lucky enough to earn the NPC's trust, otherwise you would have been long dead

-Like I care of what you think, last time I checked I was first place on the Hi-Scores, where are you on there?

George felt he was losing this arguement, on the score board he wasn't even in the top 5, losing to both Hera and Chrysa, whom had done more than him in that mission, of course the main reason why Hera was higher than him, was because she found the hidden Piece's entrance. Just finding it awarded a person with 1000 points and she was lucky to be the first one to notice the hatch.

As for Chrysa, she was present during the war at the entrance of the hive. She and her Ex even participated in the massacre, wasting bullets as they were rather bad at shooting, at some point they were even stripped of their guns, since they were running low on ammo.

In reality George only faced real danger once and that was to protect Xiao from the Licker on the roof, other than that he spent most of the time sheltered and protected by Nick. Who for some reason valued him very much for his movie knowledge, although now it turned out that he only cared about the trivia.

Problem was that right now Chris looked nothing like the homeless guy they used to poke fun of. George even felt a bit intimidated by him, although he couldn't tell why, Jason however could, it was because Chris was looking forwards to a fight.

Jason wouldn't mind teaching him a lesson, but he had decided to wait for George to decide on the best course of action. A big mistake on his part, since George shrunk down and told them that it was not worth it, talking with that "idiot" would just make them angry.

Chris was confused, since in his opinion what he said was rather valid advice for them, during the last mission, he didn't ever consider them as part of some team. He was alone and was saved by the people they called "NPC", in his opinion, these people were the real NPCs, they were useless and didn nothing but hide and hinder. The best plan he had for them, was just stick to a corner and hide for the whole mission and not get between his legs as he would finish the missions, one way or another.

7000 was the best score he could get for a mission, since the other 3000 points were 2000 points given for instructing and helping new players and 1000 points for finding the secret piece. Of course he didn't consider the fact that his survival was the merit of others, he did little to ensure his own survival and acted like a daredevil, truth was he was lucky to even be alive.

Luck however doesn't have a stat, it's like the toss of a coin, you either win or lose, his coins just happen to hit true and here he was acting like an ass, in a team survival game, where they could lose their very lives.

For some this was hell, but for some, this was paradise. The danger, the rush of adrenaline, the thrill of the hunt. Chris who lived a boring life with no future, had suddenly found himself with countless possibilities, death being but one of them.

George and Jason had become best buddies and they now had some experience to go with, they wouldn't do the same mistakes a second time. Even if those mistakes could potentialy save NPC lives. The only one who felt safe and sure for her survival was Xiao as she stood next to George with a smile on her face.

Bang!

It was sudden and out of nowhere, they were all alert because of the sound and the sudden light in the distance, next to the high score tablet.

A whirling blue portal opened and a person came out of it, causing them all to be confused, at least as much as he was.

"Fuck that Fool! He fuckin' went and did it, Lady's gonna be real mad"

The guy wasn't black, but he talked like an illiterate person.

"Yo!"

The weird guy probably greeted them, at least that's what they thought at first, until they were shoved aside and he approached Xiao.

"Tell me that bastard Nick didn't touch you, beautiful flower"

It was really weird, but George was appaled, because Xiao didn't even shove him aside, she looked at the stranger and smiled.

"George, this is Tian, I know from Uni and my boyfriend"

Her words were like swords to his heart, it was harsh reality hitting George, as she was a popular girl, while he was a fat nobody, years older than her.

"Must be one really boring university if all its students end up here"

Chris said to himself, but it caused quite a stir of laugher as the silence and tension caused his whisper to be heard like an insult.

"And you are?"

Tian asked as he looked at Chris, whom in the looks department overshadowed him by miles now. Of course it was to be expected since players had to use their points wisely, unlike how Nick advised them, Tian had added points in what really mattered, his stats were all around and he wasn't anything insane.

"Nobody important, just a noob"

Chris said as he looked at his own wrist device as if it was the one ring that would rule them all.