“Alright! Alright! Everyone! Shut up!” the Summoner yelled out, his voice echoing throughout the nothingness strangely enough. “We have to go through this oddity of a ‘character creation’ sequence,” he spoke, nudging at the lone human in the middle of them who was still staring at nothing with a literal absentminded state.

“The hell is this?” Malideus’ form fissured like an earthquake, sending off embers from his ghastly aura towards several directions. “Dark souls?”

“Darksouls- you could remember that game, but not my bleedin’ name?!” the Summoner exclaimed, shaking as well uncontrollably.

“In my defense, that game was more memorable than you,” Malideus retorted.

“He does have a point. I got acid reflux from that game.” The Friar interjected.

The Summoner wriggled around in the air, his non-existent mouth managed to mumble a few incoherent grumbles, but he was unable to ultimately make any intelligible sentences to be uttered from himself. “Fine,” the Summoner let out in a hushed tone. “That’s actually a valid alibi. In fact, the mental trauma from that game still is present in my recollection. Even in death, Dark Souls will always haunt me.”

“So…” Vaati muttered, looking directly at the unmoving human. “His height is a bit problematic… I’m not so used to being tall. How about we we make him shorter?”

The clean slate of a human began to shrink--in a rather comical fashion as it was as if he just deflated. The human stopped at half of his former height.

“No! What the hell!?” Audrey bellowed, “Revert it back! Revert it back! I’m not willing to be bound to a midget!”

Promptly, the unfazed human attained his former height in a similar fashion. The human now stood at an average height once more in the span of a split second.

“Yeah, you’re right. Ugh, being dead fucked up my memory more than it already was. Really wish I could reincarnate as that white haired guy from Aria of Sorrow, I think that’s the game’s name.”

Just as those words rang throughout the vicinity, it seemed as if reality itself obliged to the aura’s whim and began morphing the human accordingly. The human, engulfed in actuality’s yoke, became warped and distorted. The sight of the human being reborn was similar to that of an egg yolk being beaten into a spiral.

Just as the distortions dissipated, the human was birthed anew with a new form. The human now idly stood with a white coat complimented with a powdery snow, slightly silver hair that was both unruly and lengthy. Hanging loosely by the human’s new white fur coat was a scabbard, complete with an actual sword.

“Holy shit!” The dark purple aura continued “I was kidding when I said that, doesn’t the cosmos know sarcasm?” The aura closed in on his physical form’s successor, zipping past around his ‘character’.

“Magic is fickle. There’s a reason why I have a sword as well.”

“Nope, we’re not going to be using that body,” Ral sighed, his imaginative eyebrows squinting as he looked the figure over. The aura then courtly shrugged by bopping left to right rapidly. “He looks too gothic for my tastes. How about removing some of the make up?”

The human’s upper extremity flashed for a second, revealing a new face. Well, it was the same exact face just minus the overdone makeup. The face looked much more natural and with a much more crisp texture.

“Hm… I guess that’s a little better...” Ral grunted.

“Better!? I hate anime! Let's go with something more presentable..." Malideus trailed off, moulding the character before him into a tall, armored figure, his face concealed by a cage-like helmet, adorned with an absurdly large crest, and massive stone armor, chains dangling from the waist and wrists.

"There! Havel the God-damned Rock! Now we can actually keep ourselves from getting smoked by Senile-lestia again." The red-and-black orb declared, quite pleased with his creation.

"By all means, explain how being encased in several inches of armor would make us look more 'presentable'?" the Summoner spoke out, quivering furiously. "More importantly, how are we supposed to move?"

The Summoner blurred his wisp's image as he began circling the remarkably accurate Havel the Rock replica at an unrivaled speed. Consuming the Rock's body whole in a red mist-like shroud, the Summoner let out a few singsong hums as he threaded and fabricated a new body, fluttering in and out of the foreboding mist every few seconds of so.

“Hey, what’s wrong with a good defense!? Those are freakin’ everlasting dragon scales, for cryin’ out loud! You guys just don’t know efficient when you see it…” Malideus sighed, glaring at the Summoner with increasing intensity.

“If efficiency is to death then you’ve done a mighty fine job, you pretty much turned us into a living pressure cooker, waiting for Celestia to turn on the dial.” Ral tsked, irritation reaching his voice.

Malideus gestured dismissively by swishing around a bit. "Feh.”

"And here we go!" The Summoner declared as he vacated himself from the confounding fog of red he had just made, "Something much more deserving of our interests, eh?"

Standing motionless, swathed in a refined two-piece suit of a pitch black fabric complemented with a black tie, stood a relatively aged man with a slightly short, but appealing haircut. The man kept his arms low, sporting two identical sidearms finished with a black, glossy surface outfitted with suppressors.

"John Wick?" -input whoever this is here- spoke out, his/her face forming a pseudo-glower and grimace.

"Not only that, but I'm pretty sure I've altered his presence so that whenever we have to kill something, techno blares in the background."

"That would be both advantageous and harmful for stealth... The surprise techno could distract them long enough for us to sneak in a swift stab or two... but on the other hand, it would make our presence obvious," Ral remarked, eyeing the suit.

"Hell no. I'm not playing as some old dude, much less one with a techno battle theme." Malideus’ voice whined, the pure abhorrence clinging into his tone still lingering in the atmosphere as his form flared and shuddered unpleasantly.

“I demand we change it back! The lack of defence was what got us killed last time... I think!” Malideus finished, butting the Summoner’s orb out of the way.

“You know what? Fuck it.” Vaati irritably commented “Whatever the hell works is fine for me, I don’t care what it is. I’m not gonna give it much use anyway.”

“I concur.”

"Stuff it, you little garden gnome. Feel free to pitch in when YOU have a good idea." Malideus smugly shot back, his glare more felt than seen.

“Everybody, for the second time, shut up!” the Summoner’s words echoed at a near-deafening volume. Just as his voice evanesced, silence instilled itself once more into the vicinity. Pointing himself towards the ‘template’ the Summoner spoke out, “Undo all of the changes!”

Adhering to his whim, the unforeseen force began to tether the human in its spacial vice once more. Rending space and time, ripples of reality began to flow outwards from the human, obscuring his figure. Finally, the eclipsing mishmash of static-like blurs surrounding the human disappeared.

Once more, the human appeared in his former appearance--generic, half-naked, and looking rather pale and feebly toned .

“Let’s be sensible about this,” the Summoner spoke as he visually gestured by doing a few loops in place. “Why not we give him our natural abilities?”

The other auras simply glanced at the Summoner blankly, all of them collectively giving of an eerie silence as they continued to stare at him. The Summoner fidgeted around, a bit unnerved.

"I, for one, agree. Some intelligence would suffice, for starters. Let's start with that." Malideus started, and soon, a little bar marked 'INT' appeared over the blank slate, followed by several others marked with several other attributes; dexterity, vitality, strength, endurance, speed, size, and sex appeal.

"Now... everyone, put your numbers on these. This should help the Summoner out a bit, as well as get us back into the fight faster. Now, who's first?" Malideus asked, sneaking a smug glance at the crew before him.

“Well, my magic was a bit odd, but it definitely relied on my own vitality.” The Fat Friar said, tapping the Vitality bar.

“Sex appeal? Really?” Vaati commented disgusted.

"Hey, don't blame me; blame Saint's Row 3." Malideus replied, shrugging.

“Say- what happens if we max that stat out?” the Summoner dashed forwards towards the large ‘stats sheet’ screen. Unceremoniously, the Summoner’s aura bolted towards the side of Malideus, shoving him off. He flicked the ‘slider’ of the sex appeal stat to the utmost right with a single flourish.

Suddenly, the human became enshrouded by light, his figure being molded once more. Finally, the light dissipated, revealing the human’s newly formed physique that was too immensely astounding to be described to the point that it was emanating an illustrious golden aura.

“My eyes!” the Summoner yelped at the intensity of their player character’s aesthetics. “This was a grievous mistake!”

“You fool! Are you trying to mentally scar us!?” Malideus shouted, taken aback by the sudden marvel, yet still remaining composed enough to convey his raw ire. "Turn it back! Turn it back before I catch the Gay!!!"

“Oh. I’m mentally scarred alright… but in a good way,” Audrey’s aura spoke, a bit of a lusty drawl clinging onto her tone.

“I have no eyes, why does this burn so much?!” Vaati’s voice was heard as he wringed around in the air.

“Fascinating…” Ral muttered, feeling the urge to question his sexuality come onto him.

“Huh. Well, I do believe I’m bisexual now.” The Fat Friar gave the impression of shrugging.

“No… Just no.” The Overlord growled as his orb moved behind Ral’s, using it to shield himself from the sight. After all, that was what allies were for...

Finally, Malideus mustered up his energy, and breaking his sight with the unfathomably handsome character they just created, he flipped the Sex Appeal slider to the dead middle, ending the ordeal there.

"You..." Malideus growled to the Summoner, venom dripping from his voice, "You will not touch another stat slider for as long as you live. Got it?"

“Ha! I accept those terms,” The Summoner wiggled around ecstatically for a second. “After all, we’re not technically living at the moment and I doubt that we’re going to find any Stat Sliders after our rebirth.”

Malideus paused a second, the gears turning in his nonexistent head, then, finally, made a quick retort.

“I hate you.” Malideus curtly replied, his red aura dimming.

“Alright, alright. Obviously, we need a higher “INT” stat so that us mages,” Ral gestured to both the Summoner and Vaati, “can retain our potential.”

“Yes,” the Summoner interjected. “The procedures on how we cast our spells--they’re still quite present in our heads, though they’re a bit blurred, so don’t expect them to be too overpowered.”

“Pft.” Ricky suddenly butted himself into the conversation with a disparaging tone. “I don’t detest the use of magic, but I certainly don’t want to be dependent on it.”

“Shut up, you. If we hadn’t used even a sliver of our magic during that final boss fight against Celestia, we’d have been done for in the first few seconds of that fight,” the Summoner remarked.

“Fine, whatever, cap out the magic stat--or whatever,” Ricky retorted.

As the INT bar began surging to its zenith, the human began to ripple with magic, the atmosphere became damp and heavy with magic. Waves of reality began to flow like waves of water as the human stood with a brazened aura of magic, distorting reality itself.

Accordingly, the INT gauge displayed on the “stat screen” began to rise alarmingly, stopping at the uppermost edge. Now, the INT stat meter was quadrupled in size.

“Woah-” the Summoner recoiled back as the cascade of arcane energy struck him in the face like a banana cream-filled pie. “That’s a bit too overwhelming don’t you think?!” his words rang out a bit frantically.

“Damn straight this is too overwhelming!” Malideus yelled out, his appearance seemingly growing in size accordingly to his anger. “Look at the other stats!” Malideus, without no more than a cautioning swish, dove at the stat display screen. “Look!” he exclaimed as he pointed at the STR bar. “It’s tinier than our dignity right now!” He complained, gesturing at the STR meter displayed as a tiny speck of a line of red.

“True… We wouldn’t be able to even lift a fork with that laughably low STR stat,” the Summoner added.

“I actually used magic to enhance my strength while fighting, but only in short bursts.” Ral commented. “I feel it would be more effective if we took the cumulative of all our intelligence together, our knowledge should give us the power necessary to cast our spells.”

With a nod of agreement from the others, the INT began to recede, stopping at a leisurely height of the center, before raising again till it rested well above normal. The aura around the figure was still thick with magic, sparks jumping from his skin every now and then from the power.

“God I love storm magic.” Ral mentally grinned.

“Alright!” Malideus chirped out, jerking upwards. “Now we can raise the STR stat much higher now that INT is out of the way!” With an effervescence only known to Dark Souls players getting their own moonlight greatsword, Malideus bolted towards the human, stopping just a moderate feet away from him.

“Yo!” he shouted upwards into the blank sky at no one in particular, “Give this idiot the power to pierce the heavens! But not literally, though- Gah! You know what I mean, oh great cosmos gods!”

Suddenly, everything blinked with a red flash, causing everybody to flinch somewhat at the suddenness. Once it was done, well-toned muscles, not too large, but certainly not too small, enveloped the blank slate, and with another flick, Malideus rose the dexterity up a bit, too, just for good measure, and quickly turned to his comrades.

"Yeah, I leveled DEX. But don't tell anyone I leveled that up... fgts." Malideus said, glowering at his comrades.

“Are you a casul, or something?” the Summoner reared himself at Malideus as he spoke.

“In spite of the fact that I want to murder you--and drag you out of hell to kill you again--I shall avoid doing so since my dignity is already at a low… and the fact that we’re already dead.”

“I actually agree with increasing the stat as I am used to using my hands for complex crafting.” Ral reasoned, siding with Malideus.

“Balance is crucial for a shared body.” The Overlord added his own two cents in. “With good Strength, Magic and Dexterity we will have more options open when we finally get out of this accursed place and start to make our mark in the world anew.”

“I can agree with that reasoning…” the Summoner muttered audibly. “Anyways, now that we have adequate stats, I say that we proceed on what our ‘equipment’ is.”