New league, new player name – same old plan. With his common South Korean teenage boy features of slanted eyes, high cheekbones, and skinny figure, it made it easy for Kwon Soonyoung to sneak his way into ID-ed VGRs since no one wanted expected him to be any younger than an 18 year old. Being tall had it's advantages, especially since it bumped him up at least a year or two from his regular age of seventeen – which he had just turned less than a few months ago. Soonyoung believed he had always been a convincing person, especially when it came to sweet talking his way past the female Lookers, or VGR bouncers if you could call them that. Slinking into a tattered couch in the very back corner of the room, Soonyoung scanned the room of gamers, sizing them up one at a time. There was a good ratio of older adults to young adults in this one. Eventually his eyes locked onto target at two men in the corner opposite him, engaged in their own game.

Let's try them on for size, Soonyoung thought to himself, the corner of his mouth lifting up into his signature grin.

The men stood there, each in their little pod like the other gamers, with illuminating neon blue discs attached to their temples and glowing wired gloves clenched high in the air. Their eyes were fixed on a certain target, not bouncing around the room like a normal human eye should be. See, the way those discs worked was that once they were connected into your brain, microscopic robots would enter and would take over your cerebrum, the part of the brain that controlled vision. Then they were followed by another army of microbots that took over the rest of the brain to take over your sense of touch, hearing and whatever else was necessary to play the game mode. Each game mode had different requirements; sometimes a certain part of the brain was not used so those microbots specialized in that would not be deployed. There was a long complicated science behind the whole process which honestly, Soonyoung didn't even try to understand, but whatever it was, it was damn awesome. Praise that genius who came up with it. Words couldn't even come close to describe the thrill of full-body simulation gaming. If you could even call it that.

The two actively moved around in their amber tinted pod as if they were actually playing the game, but what kept them from looking completely absurd was that on the four screens that were hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the four pods, you could see exactly what the player was seeing. The scary part was, or at least to most mothers, was that once inside the game, the player no longer had contact with the real world. The world he lived in now was the world he had chosen whether it be freefalling from outer space, or traveling through time to the time of World War II. Whatever you preferred really. Standing up, Soonyoung walked over to the spectator area of their small group of amber pods, or clusters if you wanted to be all technical about it. The visuals on the screen made Soonyoung rather enthused.

Their racing simulation in the streets of Tokyo blazed across the overhead screen or anyone who wanted to place bets; but no one had placed any on this particular game though. The first guy was a pretty good driver – exceptional drifting skills and one of the best slipstream riding technique Soonyoung had ever seen; if Soonyoung didn't know any better, the guy could have been an experienced gamer. The guy's friend though was painfully bad. His car's fender scrapped across the buildings he was running into, knocking carts and roadside food market stalls into massive mess piles – even the fake residents of Tokyo screamed and dodged out of the way to save their lives.

The winning racer of the four, the guy that Soonyoung was mentally praising, gave a triumphant ' yeah!' as his car smoothly pulled past the finish line. Before I forget, I'd like to tell you that in terms of mircobots controlling the left temporal lobe, they had this whole command programmed into their codes to make sure that a gamer's speech was not muted when playing. Whatever the player would say in-game could be heard by everyone else around them. That's why most players played in pods; they muffled speech just enough to tone down the raging voices of those who get really into the game. It wasn't particularly entertaining to the spectator ear either to have profanities being yelled left and right at them. Once the four players climbed out of their pods, they regrouped in the middle of their cluster, the losers mumbling under their breaths as they angrily pulled money out of their wallets.

Soonyoung smiled from his solitary position in the spectator area, Enjoy it while you can, buddy.

He timed it just right, waiting until the winner started counting up his earnings, to loiter out of the spectator area and into the man's line of sight. Soonyoung clumsily pulled out one of the canisters containing the silver discs from the wall with a loud hissing noise. The compression previously locking in the canister was always a challenge to get past as well as to recover from afterwards. Smoke would usually get up in his face once the pressure was broken, forcing him into a coughing fit. This all played well into his little act. He continued onto the next part of the show as he walked over to the bin where the wired gloves were kept. They were basically just pimped out biker gloves, the ones with the cut off fingertips, that had a whole bunch of sensory mumbo jumbo wired inside of them which gave them that bright blue glow that they were famous for. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the winner staring at him as he continued on with his stupid act.

“You like playing games kid?” the man asked him, stuffing his wallet into the back of his pocket, to which Soonyoung hesitantly nodded a simple yes. Chuckling, the man jabbed a thumb in the direction of the cluster he had just played at, “Wanna have a go next?”

With narrow eyes widening to twice their size, Soonyoung went for an innocent look that he knew made him appear to be younger than 18. Or at least, make him look way too inexperienced for his own good. Everyone loved an amateur, and by the looks of it, this man was going to completely up his act to earn himself a few easy bucks. Clearing his throat, Soonyoung quickly went back to take the gloves off his hands , pretending to struggle as if he were in a rush, “Oh um, I'm not really a great gamer. Besides, you seem like a pretty good gamer, I don't think I'll ever win against you,”

As expected, the man rushed to his side, and placed his gloved hands on Soonyoung's to stop him from taking the gloves off. He had an obviously eager look on his face that not even his mom would trust. Realizing how close he had gotten to the younger boy, the man took a few steps back and gave Soonyoung his space, “No, you don't need to do that. I'm not that great at gaming either. Why don't we play just one round? Put down a few bucks and we'll have a great race. Maybe you'll win! You never know until you try!”

“But I only have fifty on me,” Soonyoung's gaze dropped to the ground in shame, “I don't think that's even worth wasting your time for,”

“You know what? How about this?” The man really wanted to play one race, certain he would win against the scrawny boy in front of him, “If I win, I'll take the fifty. If you win, then I'll double the fifty. Sound fair enough?”

How stupid could this guy get? Soonyoung fought back the laughter rising up from his stomach at how gullible this guy actually was. In keeping up with his act, he scuffed the front of his beaten up Converse against the midnight black carpet, unsure whether or not he should take the deal. That eager look on the man's face was still there in an effort to try and look like a friendly guy. The guy must already be tasting that fifty bucks that Soonyoung didn't actually have in his back pocket. All he had really was a fife dollar bill and a mint which had probably been there since last week; or at least, whenever he last visited the doctor's office. The thought of the guy actually thinking he could easily con the younger boy made Soonyoung's skin crawl. But it was all worth the while when he saw those smiles disappear off their mouths as they spouted profanities at him once he wiped the floor with their poor skills. Looking up once again, Soonyoung started, “A-alright...if you say so,”

“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!” Soonyoung smugly counted out his afternoons earnings to no one in particular as he was alone in his bedroom, “Life is sweet when you're the great Kwon Soonyoung,”

Stuffing the crisp green bills into his piggy bank, he strained his ears to listen to the light rustling noise of the money falling onto his accumulated pile of savings. Although no one struck him the type to do so, Soonyoung had been saving up for college in the past few years. He had no intentions of moving onto college once he finished his high school education, but since everyone had a college fund set aside, then he wanted in on it to. On op of that, it shut his dad's mouth up for a while, so why not, you know? His eyes glanced over at the ratty old picture frame sitting next to his money jar, wincing at it's new position. He swore to God that that was face down when he left his room that morning, and he wasn't a believer in those ing 'Paranormal Activity' everyone in his class was so scared about. At the thought of class, Soonyoung's eyes lit up, realizing that he should probably log onto school even though he'd missed about two weeks, and it was probably seventh period by now.

Jumping onto his bed, he quickly grabbed his two discs that were underneath his pillow, and rushed onto the server his class was being conducted in. The moment he logged on, he was briefly frozen for a moment, pixels slowly piecing his avatar together. For now, he was staring at his empty desktop, immediately regretting to not bring his book codes with him while he was at it. Thank the Lord he could pull up the online version with just a quick engine search. Once his avatar finished loading, he took this opportunity to crack every bone in his muscle, grabbing the attention of his teacher – Ms. Crabapple.

Now, that doesn't even sound remotely Korean right? Well, let me just give you a quick rundown about the political statuses about foreign nations since Facebook or Twitter isn't here to give you a 140 character version of it. At this time, all foreign nations have pushed aside their differences for the sake of the world. They were no longer fighting each other, but instead, were combining their forces to defeat something greater than people of their own kind. Something much larger that was slowly approaching their beloved planet – but more on that later. Soonyoung flashed a cheeky grin up at his teacher, before glitching again. Stupid internet connection was messing up again. All of his classmates' eyes were now on him, waiting to see what Ms. Crabapple was going to say to him this time.

It was always a fun time when Ms. Crabapple would yell at him because Soonyoung often played the 'I can't speak English' card on her, even though he aced all the assessments for his English class. Well, the ones that he was present for anyway. Staring up at the board, he realized that Ms. Crabapple was discussing current events; and by 'current' he meant since three years ago. Boring. He already knew everything about it since it was always the rage in VGRs. He hung out with adults, what would you expect? Fun and games? Ms. Crabapple turned her back on him, picking up the digital pen and began writing on the blue holographic projection up on the wall, “Nice to see your face again after two weeks, Mr. Kwon,”

“Were you missing me, or Raichu?” Soonyoung snickered, remembering his first day at school.

“Moving on,” Ms. Crabapple ignored his unnecessary comment, and returned to teaching, “Now in a few minutes, we'll be watching a short documentary clip of the Kestrel Quarters. But before we do, does anyone want to tell me anything about the Kestrel Quarters?”

Ah, Kestrel Quarters. Or as Soonyoung looked at it: The Home of the Gods. Kestrel Quarters was where Soonyoung wanted to work at one day. In fact, it was the perfect backup plan because they didn't require kids to come from exceptional education backgrounds. They just needed people with skill...and he had just that to become a member of the Kestrel Combatants. Soonyoung sat up straighter in his seat as Ms. Crabapple scrolled through the video gallery to open up the video. Pretty much anything related to this subject caught his attention. But there was something else that was disrupting his focus – and it was that kid sitting right next to him.

“Um, can you stop that?” Soonyoung threw a careless glance at the girl who was fiddling around with something in her pencil case, “You're bothering me,”

“Oh I'm so sorry,” the girl sarcastically said in nearly-fluent Korean, throwing her pencil case down to the floor ped so all the contents spilled out onto the floor. The clattering of the pens irked Soonyoung, especially since she didn't seem to be the least bit sorry about it. Turning his head, Soonyoung's narrow eyes squinted at her in an effort to intimidate her. Unfortunately for him, she just stared at him back with those clear as the sea eyes which creeped him out. Looking away, he tried his best to ignore the girl whose gaze was still burning into his soul. Who the hell was she anyway? She must have transferred during those two weeks he was away.

“Can you stop that too?” Soonyoung called her out on her staring, “It's making me feel uncomfortable,”

“I'm Adrian Allen,” the younger girl introduced herself, prying her blue eyes away from Soonyoung and focusing her attention on the screen, “What's your name?”

This Adrian kid was something else. With her youthful, and acne-free skin, and shorter height than most of the Americans he had seen in the other classes, he figured she was younger. That, or her avatar was just perfect. That was the great point about having school on the Internet. No one really knew how you looked like because the avatar was customizable. Hell, this is why there were so many Angelina Jolies, and Jessica Jungs walking around the school hallways. Funny story about Soonyoung and avatars. On his first day of school with Ms. Crabapple, he had logged in as his favorite pokemon, raichu, and had gotten into a whole mess with the Dean of Student Behaviors about what's appropriate for school and what wasn't. This is why he decided to just go as the way he looked: scrawny figure, drab hair, acne-scarred skin, boring eyes, and chubby cheeks.

“This isn't how you make friends,” he pointed out, watching Ms. Crabapple turn the lights off before watching the intro play, “But anyway, I'm Kwon Soonyoung and I highly doubt that this avatar of yours is actually you,”

“Don't you know? I was naturally born looking like a celebrity,” Adrian crossed her arms, slinking into the plastic chair, “This is the real me,”

“Yeah, sure,” Soonyoung scoffed, “Keep talking,”

Their conversation died down eventually once the intro faded away into black. Soonyoung was literally sitting at the edge of his seat now, gripping the sides of his desk to keep his emotions under control. Words could not describe his intense passion and admiration for the Kestrel Combatants. They were legit the coolest people to ever walk on the planet. The piano melody of the New World Anthem started pouring through Soonyoung's headsets meaning that the video was starting to play. Eventually, the whole classroom disappeared and all he could see was the video's enlargened box. Think of it was watching the movies in a completely dark theatre room. Yeah, it was kind of like that only this time you were watching it in your head. Soonyoung's nose wrinkled when he saw the first image fade in.

Inferno 'Seungcheol' Choi – everyone knew him.

Standing there proudly in his red on black Kestrel uniform, Seungcheol's confident smile literally made the girls swoon. Soonyoung could tell because his gloves vibrated, signaling the sudden rush of positive signals coming from the classroom. His hair was a shade darker than the red on his uniform and was slicked up and to the side. How could Soonyoung not recognize that guy's hair? Literally every avatar he met on the social network was sporting a similar look, if not the same color. Soonyoung didn't really know what was so special about Seungcheol other than the fact that the guy was pretty rich since his face was plastered all over posters, and lunchboxes, and backpacks – all sorts of useless merchandise. And everytime a Weigyein was taken down in Asia, Seungcheol would strut out into the TV screen in his fancy outfit, waving and saying how the world was once again safe.

Bull.

As a human being, Seungcheol was a pretty shallow person as there were only three things about him: Me, Myself, and I. About one year ago, when Seungcheol graduated from the same high school Soonyoung was now attending, he was scouted by the Kestrel Hunters, or 'scouters' if you wanted to go back to about a decade ago. Anywho, the guy knew what he was doing. Seungcheol had always been the leader of everything: captain of the football team, captain of the basketball team, captain of the hockey team, student leader, hell he was even the captain of the chess team. What he had under his belt was strategy, and well, the Kestrels liked that kind of thing.

Soonyoung's suffering came to an end when his idol's image replaced that narcissist's – Ryder 'Doyoon' Jang. The chestnut haired boy was wearing the exact same uniform as Seungcheol was, but carried a completely different aura. His smile was a genuine, child-like grin; like a boy who was opening presents on Christmas. Doyoon and Seungcheol were batchmates, and had entered into Kestrel Academy together. Surprisingly enough, the hot-headed man and the angel-like boy were best friends. They pretty much went hand-in-hand like a wife to a husband. Doyoon was the one to keep Seungcheol in line, and was the rational thinker of the team. They connected perfectly in the Kestrel Drones too. It was their physical and mental compatibility that allowed them to pilot Drones efficiently and successfully.

“Today we have the infamous Kestrel team, Mecha Team, with us today,” the interviewer's show interrupted Soonyoung's thoughts. There they were, South Korea's answer to the world's protection sitting right there, proudly in their uniforms. Oh how he would do anything to be in their positions right now. “So tell me, how did you get the name 'Inferno'? I understand that it's the word for fire, but please, I and the millions of viewers watching right now would love to hear about the reasoning behind your name,”

“Well, King, I didn't choose the name 'Inferno' for myself. It was my academy mates that did,,” Seungcheol started to say in really poor English, which made Soonyoung switch on the Korean subtitles. The older boy's white teeth were showcased in his signature smile, which made Soonyoung feel rather uncomfortable, “They insisted that I take it because it was the perfect word to describe how intense the fighting spirit inside of me burns when I fight,”

Oh God, someone please shut that boy up. Soonyoung made a gagging noise, which made all the female avatars shush him as they all had major crushes on the red-headed boy. Although, Soonyoung had no idea who was shushing him or not because he couldn't see the class. The camera then focused on Doyoon who looked like he was just about ready to throw a punch at his partner's face. King then asked the same question to Doyoon, only this time asking about why he had chosen 'Ryder'.

“Like Inferno, I didn't pick the name for myself,” Doyoon started, looking down at his thumbs as he twiddled them around somewhat shyly. His cheeks were a slight tint of pink; was he blushing?! Soonyoung almost choked at the thought of the guy he had gone to school with for at least three years actually liking someone. He never thought Doyoon would be the guy who was interested in romance, especially since all he did back in his student years was play around on his tablet and isolate himself at one of the tables. Doyoon cleared his throat before looking back at the camera, “One of my academy mates, a very special one might I add, gave the name to me,”

“And who might that be?”

“Adrian, that's her name,” he said confidently. Soonyoung heard the females gasp in shock that their celebrity crush was possibly crushing on this 'very special academy mate'. But the only thing going through Soonyoung's mind was that Adrian girl who sat next to him. Doyoon couldn't possibly be talking about that Adrian, right? She probably didn't have enough qualifications to be a Kestrel student! There was absolutely no way! Before Soonyoung could even hear the next question, he heard a clicking noise, and the slow whirring of gears as his discs powered down. Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at the peeling ceiling of his bedroom. What was going on? Why did his network shut down like that?

“General Zhang, this is Kestrel Pilot 45, Adrian,” Adrian's voice was the first thing he heard, but he couldn't see where she was since he was lying down on his bed, “I've tracked down Kestrel Candidate 10, Kwon Soonyoung,”