Ong Yit Sin's Misc Writings.

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I was sitting on my bed contemplating how my life went to the toilet in a matter of minutes. After deciding who to blame, I attributed the fault of today's events to whoever was on the damn phone with Zach. That meant it was probably the management. And Jeff of course. So the fault lay with politics. As usual. I blame politics for all the things I can possibly assign blame to in my life. It was one of my personal rules.

My phone rang and Sammy asked me to go down to a training room. I got into the lift and pressed five. The whole floor consisted of training rooms. There are rooms for specific weaponry and the rest for practices. I entered the room specifically for unarmed combat. Sammy was sitting against a wall reading a file, probably mine.

He didn't look up when I entered, "What's your combat status?"

"Ninety-nine percent," I told him. I made it a point never to claim to be a hundred percent. Why ask for trouble when you don't need it?

He gave me a speculative look, "Your mana's full?"

Mana is a term used in games for energy or power used to perform skills. It doesn't exactly describe our power, but it hits the general idea. Like chakra for ninjas in Naruto or Gandalf's magic in Lord of the Rings. They all describe the same thing, and the loose term was adopted since most of us played online games.

I shrugged, "More or less."

"When was the last time you trained?"

I gave him a look and he sighed.

"What about exercise?"

"I exercise all the time," I said.

He grimaced and put the file down as he got to his feet. I took a step back and he grinned, "Worried?"

Me worried? No...never...so what if Sammy lifted weights everyday and the only exercise I do is in my head? I could still take him if I wanted to. Assuming he was tied down of course.

"Just tell me what's going on Sammy," I said, putting on hands on my hips, "This is about the rookie, isn't it?"

His face was neutral, "Maybe."

"You wanna elaborate on that a little?"

"I'll make a deal with you," he said, "You fight me now. If you win, I'll tell you."

It was a test and it wasn't a request. Sammy had been my mentor when I first joined. There was no way in hell I was going to beat him. There was almost no way for me to beat anyone, unless they left themselves open like the rookie had been when Dean had distracted him. My skills were severely limited by my physical shortcomings.

I gave him the one finger salute and charged it up with an ounce of my power, then flicked it at him. My power shot through the air and boinked him on the nose where I had aimed it. It didn't hurt him, it wasn't meant to.

He laughed, "That's cute, I have to remember that move."

Then, he came at me. There wasn't anything enhanced in his movement, he was fighting me without his powers. It was the way we always sparred. It didn't exactly even the fight, but it gave him a chance to train. Not that fighting me could be called training for him.

I had several options. I could fight without using power or skills and definitely lose. Or, I could charge my whole body with power, like in the fight with the rookie. Or, use a tiny bit of it to get through the next couple of minutes. It would have been a waste of unnecessary power to do the former, so I unconsciously went with the second option and called out five tiny portions of my power, because five was my limit. One portion was instantly channelled into my legs as I sidestepped from Sammy's charge. The other four hovered around my shoulders like a broken, lowered halo.

Since I used power and he didn't, I was a split second faster than he was. Unfortunately, because he had daily training and more experience, he knew what I was going to do and his next move was a split second quicker as well. He went down and swept his foot across the floor to take me down.

I fell on my ass and kicked out, but he blocked my attack with his arm and grabbed my foot. He twisted it enough to hurt and I threw two portions of power at his head, aiming for both eyes so he had to let go of my foot to block it. He did.

I got to my feet as quickly as I could, but he still managed to grab me from behind, holding my hands behind my back.

"Game over," he said.

"Damn right," I told him, trying to sound brave, "Look at your nuts."

He looked down and saw the palm of my hands facing his family jewels, each palm with a portion of my power. If he was the bad guy, I would have blown his balls off. Figuratively speaking, I think. I wouldn't know, I've never tried it.

He didn't react the way I expected him too. He held me tighter and went into spasms of laughter. I struggled not to wince, sometimes Sammy didn't know his own strength.

"Fuck," he said in between his spasms, "How the hell do you come up with this shit?"

He finally let me go and I let my power flow back into my skin.

"I don't know," I told him honestly, "It just kind of happens."

"I taught you so many moves and you didn't use a single one," He shook his head, stifling more laughter, "What the hell am I gonna do with you?"

In many ways, he was right. I had won because I was lucky. If I practiced the moves he taught me and trained my body strength, I might be able to win half my fights. Most solo fights didn't depend on how powerful a person was, just how effectively they used their power. We were all trained in standard techniques that enabled us to use our powers more effectively. But I couldn't for the life of me accomplish that. Coordination wasn't my thing. Instead, I relied on blind luck and my ulti, which in essence is the equivalent of blasting my opponent with a cannon rather than aiming properly...a waste of power and energy.

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him, "Does this mean I win?"

"I'll never hear the end of this," he muttered, back in business. He grabbed the file and headed for the door, holding it open for me. We took the stairs down to level four and walked to the door of the main briefing room.

Sammy stopped me from entering with a hand on my shoulder.

"Because you won, I'm gonna give you a heads-up," he said, "Jeff and Alpha are inside."

My heart skipped a beat and I felt weak in the knees. I braced myself against the door, "So, it really is about the rookie."

He lifted my chin so I had to look him in the eye, "This is an official discussion. You must behave."

I nodded.

"No taunting. No jokes. No talking at all, unless Barry asks you a question."

I nodded again. I was well aware of my diplomatic skills. They totalled up to a big fat zero.

He looked resigned to his fate. Most people did when dealing with Alpha in a non-combat situation, Alpha was easiest to deal with when he was fighting.

"You ready?"

My knees weren't so wobbly anymore, so I nodded. Then, Sammy opened the door and entered. I followed behind, glad to take cover behind his bigger frame.

Laughter greeted us and I bumped into Sammy because he suddenly stopped a few steps after entering the circular briefing room. I couldn't see a thing, so I tiptoed to peek from Sammy's shoulder.

"Oh my god," I exclaimed, before realizing what I did and backing up with my hands over my mouth. But it was too late, the laughter doubled.

The wall across from the door had a dozen television screens arranged in three rows of four. All twelve screens combined to show an enlarged pose of me threatening Sammy's jewels. The security camera must have been programmed to show my fight with Sammy. Probably to show how weak I was after the attack. Somehow, I'm guessing things didn't go the way they were supposed to.

There were only three people seated in the left side of the room. Barry and Alpha were laughing. After a few heartbeats, Sammy joined in. I peeked another look at Jeff and he gave me a rueful smile. This was downright embarrassing. I think my diplomatic skills just hit negative digits.

I was following Sammy's orders as I quietly followed him to the seats. He sat on Barry's right and I sat down beside him. Barry was sitting beside Alpha and Jeff was on his left side. It felt too close for comfort, being two seats from Alpha. Or maybe it was being three seats from Jeff. I couldn't really tell. In all likelihood, it was probably because of the way Alpha was looking at me, like I was some lab animal he wanted to run tests on.

Barry introduced us although he didn't really have to. It was a small world, everyone knew Alpha because he was the alpha male of the biggest faction in the game. Alpha knew me because it was in his best interest to do so.

"You don't look very injured," Alpha said, examining me with his slitted eyes, "You were attacked two days ago?"

I saw Barry incline his head slightly in my direction so I answered, "Yes."

"Is it true then?" he continued, "You're fit for combat so soon?"

"Lots of people recover in days. Some in hours." Hail to my motto...when in doubt, avoid the question.

"True, but you are very small," he grinned in a sinister way, "And you were lucky."

"Yeah, everyone tells me that."

Alpha let out a deep-throated laugh and turned to Barry, "Your girls are most interesting. I can see why Jeff chose this one."

Chose? That did not sound good. I did not like the idea that I was only one of many options Jeff had. Admittedly though, he was fine enough to attract anyone and I didn't know if he ever was my boyfriend or if he saw other girls. That might explain the disappearing acts. Although I suppose 'chose' meant that he was currently monogamous. Gotta look for the silver-lining.

I looked at Jeff and saw a slightly annoyed expression on his face. He caught me eyeing him and gave me a look that was half worried and half amused, like I've done something stupid and silly. I knew myself well enough to guess that I was either glaring daggers at him, or frowning like no tomorrow. Probably both, since that would explain the part about amusing him.

The rest of the conversation was a question and answer session on the attack. I couldn't understand why I was being interrogated when it was their member who attacked me, but I answered as best as I could anyway. When Alpha was done grilling me, Barry pointed out that I looked tired, and I knew that I was being dismissed. I excused myself and left the room. All in all, I think I didn't embarrass myself any further. Plus, I was pretty proud of myself for not making gooey eyes at Jeff during the whole meeting.

I resisted taking the lift down to the cafeteria and walked down two flights of stairs to the second floor. The cafeteria was for Cathedrians only and no one manned it. Ever. There was a mall four blocks from our building, so none of us saw the point in having one for customers. Besides, our cafeteria was pretty crummy. It consisted of mainly frozen dinners and instant noodles. Occasionally, someone would decide to cook in the small kitchen and people would magically appear for the rare meal. The only time the cafeteria is packed are days around the full moon. Those are the days when we gather en-masse to plan, celebrate and rest after battles. If the management was feeling happy, we had food catered in.

I spotted my sister and her friends when I entered the cafeteria. She gave me a mini-wave with her index finger and went back to studying.

I grabbed a can of Pepsi from the fridge and popped it open. Guild announcements flashed on a large plasma television on a wall and I read them out of habit. A couple of months ago, some genius decided that none of the televisions in the building needed regular commercials and programmed them to flash announcements instead. I thought it was pretty cool since I hardly ever bothered to read bulletin boards anyway. Zach still occasionally whined about missing lingerie ads, but I'm not complaining.

The biggest announcement was flashed in huge, red text: Five days to the next full moon. Three days to submit attendance for battle duty.

I had already submitted my attendance a week ago. Battle duty is what we live for. The very meaning of our existence. With great powa comes great responsibility...and all that. Our power comes from another place, world, dimension, plane of existence...whatever you want to call it. Taxes do not exist there, but monsters do. Some of us, like myself, choose to live in both realities. Others choose the monsters. No one can choose taxes without monsters. Once you're in, you're in. Hence, the mob reference.

On full moons, all hell breaks loose. A portal opens in the basement of our building and leads into monster-land. The good news is that we can choose whether or not to go in. The bad news is that sometimes, even when we choose not to go in, we get sucked in anyway, but that's pretty rare. The portal is a two-way thing and ever so rarely a monster or two pops out, but our security team takes care of it. About a dozen of us stay behind in the real world for security duty, while the rest do battle duty.

Battle duty is kind of fun. On the other side, we will emerge in a castle that belongs to us. Our passage is generally safe since we have members stationed permanently in the castle. Our membership numbers at slightly over a hundred, with a quarter choosing to avoid taxes permanently. On good days, we get sieged by Legions or other hostile guilds trying to conquer our castle. On bad days, we have monsters and hostile guilds. On boring days, nothing happens so if no one attacks us, we attack them. Since injuries heal faster and are harder to obtain, there are almost no deaths on full moons. Everyone has a part of them that loves to fight. Battle duty is a way to fulfil that repressed desire with little, or no, consequences in the real world...well, except for being missing one day a month.

The full moons are the main reasons for guild politics. In our city, there are five portals which are castles that can be occupied on the other side. One is within our building, Legion holds two locations, another belongs to one of our allies (most of the time) and the final one tends to change ownership between smaller guilds. Occupying castles guarantees passage between both worlds and is a symbol of power. It's also a huge responsibility as portals are an unstable thing. The occupying guild is tasked with making sure that nasties which pass through are eliminated.

Castle ownership can only be destroyed on the other side, during the beginning of a full moon until the new moon rises twenty-four hours later. If you don't own that castle, you stay the hell away from it when the moon isn't full. It's suicide to attack the castle, even without any members defending it. If you're lucky, you wont be able to enter. If you are unlucky, the castle will attack you. You go in, you don't come out. A guild can have up to four official allies. Allied guild tags and names, along with the name of the occupying guild, are carved into the keystone so allied members can enter each other's castle unharmed. Breaking the keystone is the only way to destroy ownership. The castle then recognises the guild of the person who broke the keystone and a new keystone emerges. The last guild to break the keystone before the new moon rises gets ownership until the next full moon.

Because the portals cannot be seen by civilians, they are disguised as different sorts of buildings in the real world. Ours was acquired when one of our guild's forefathers inherited enough money to buy the small building. Since then, it has been slowly upgraded. Since most of us live there and accept war as part of our lifestyles, we have defended our castle as our home. To lose our castle on the other side is equivalent to giving the enemy a key to our basement. Not good.

This is where politics comes in. Alliances and mergers are common in any sort of war. We have several alliances that ensures that they do not attack our castle and vice versa. It also means that we have to respond to each other's requests for help. Only Legion doesn't do alliances and has two castles so they can afford to lose one temporarily as they still have another portal. The rest of us have to rely on alliances to 'borrow' portals if we lose our castle. Most battles consists of whacking each other senseless, winning and losing control of a castle half a dozen times before time runs out. It's quite rare to permanently lose control of a castle as everyone takes them seriously enough to plan strategies in between wars. Losing control of a castle means that you have to wait a month for another shot at getting it back. The time is both too long to be taken for granted, and too short to be taken seriously.

Every guild has different ways of managing its members and battles. Similarly, every guild has its own way of gathering information on other guilds.

Cathedral Incorporated is the commercial front for our guild, Odin Cathedral. Our guild is run by a committee that makes decisions on both sides of the portal. As a member, I find the management to be pretty okay. We have enough freedom to do as we please, while having the support and expertise of our committee. It isn't a democracy but it's close. Then again, democracy doesn't work well with war every month anyway. Generally, the idea is that we let the management do their job, and we do ours. If we have any problems, there's Barry. So far, it's worked well enough to avoid internal conflicts.

Legion is owned by a multi-millionaire and his family. Alpha is the current heir to the Legion empire. Their guild is run like a wolf pack, those with more power exerting control over those without. Alpha is both powerful and rich and makes all final decisions regarding battles. His father handles the commercial side and only occasionally appears in battle. Their membership is close to three hundred, but most of them are peons in the grand scheme of things. There are only about two dozen Legions that are worth paying attention to, because they are scary shit. You don't get to be alpha wolves by being friendly. You get there by bashing the crap out of members who annoy you and killing those who cause internal conflicts.

Our only official ally is the guild Xeno. They do not have a commercial front. Their committee members and ours are real life friends, so we mix well together and some even work with us. The biggest difference between us and them is that their committee is smaller and more exclusive. Which means that decisions made tend to be consensus between good friends, but aren't necessarily supported by their members. They tend to have more internal conflicts, because a lot of their members behave like alphas and resent being given orders that they do not want to follow. This is due to the fact that Xeno used to be a part of Legions before breaking away. Their management is still struggling to find a stable routine. But overall, they are reliable and loyal friends, as well as allies.

We have several other allies, but they are more of a general consensus not to attack each other. Sometimes, they join us to attack Legions for some action. Sometimes, they attack Xeno, because they do not have any other alliances besides us. Occasionally, they might attack us for the heck of it. Our committee's rule is that unless they attack us first, we leave them alone. Xeno can handle them on their own. However, rules are easily forgotten in battle, so politics is a never-ending ongoing process that is used more for pacification rather than prevention.

There are many other guilds, although most of the smaller guilds do not have the quantity to go against our alliance or Legions. Every other month or so, a small guild will join Legion's ranks as peons rather than be attacked by them. Mergers between smaller guilds are less common, but possible. In fact, I had belonged to another guild which merged into Odin Cathedral. The merger had been consensual on both sides, with neither side dominating the other. It was one of the rare successful mergers that did not end in internal conflict.

Then there's the biggest question of all-how does one get into this world? Initiation into this lifestyle is a little different for everyone, but they all have one common factor-going to the other side. How you get there is another thing all together. I got there because I literally followed in my sister's footsteps. Some stumble into it by accident, but that chance is close to none, because if there's one thing everyone agrees on is being careful around civilians. In most cases, they are brought there by someone they know. It's illegal to get a civilian involved without their consent. This means that they have to have enough information to make a conscious, rational decision to step into the one way route to a totally new lifestyle. It's like the red pill and the blue pill, the only problem is that if you have enough information about the pills, then your fate is close to sealed. It takes a lot of trust to ask the pill question. Threats work pretty well too.

Some might say that having powers is worth it. But lets face it, everything has a downside. You have powers, but so does everyone else. Everyone has different strengths, weaknesses and abilities. The question is...how good do you think you are compared to your opponent? A novice would be extremely vulnerable until he figures that out. There's also a lot of knowledge and training involved as ignorance can definitely get you killed. So there really isn't much point in having powers. All it does is makes sure you get into fights more often. Winning or losing is another matter.

We can't use powers on civilians either. That's the law. The laws are vastly different and so is the moral standard. You piss off the wrong people and it's not difficult to make you disappear forever...without any evidence to incriminate anyone. That's why having a guild tag is important. It's a lot like the mob and gangs though, so having a tag may protect you, but it would also make you a target for opposing sides. Unlike rules, laws are black and white. If you break the laws, anyone is allowed to kill you. It's also a guild's responsibility to enforce these laws. Rules are more like guidelines, what is socially accepted...like not ambushing people or robbing the poor.

I suppose I'm pretty okay with being me. It wasn't horrendous or confusing at all since, from the very beginning, I've had a tag and friends who are just like me. I'm really lucky in that sense, most people get thrown into the deep end. I do have my off days when I just want to be normal, but then I wouldn't be hanging out with my bestest friends. That's what really matters in the end...the people, not the powers. To me at least. I know tons of people feel otherwise.

I finished my Pepsi and threw the can away. It took me a second to consider making myself some food and immediately reject the idea. I felt restless and frustrated, today wasn't my best day and it sure wasn't getting any better. Plus, the bad thing about holidays is that I have all the time in the world to mope. I didn't want to mope so I went with Plan B and headed back up to the training rooms. When denial fails, hit something.

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Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6