(OOC: @____@ Argh, sorry for the lateness everyone!)

He was never a crazy fan of games. Fragment was actually the single exception. It had no rules, no strict ones anyway, and the players were free to follow their on volition, free to do what they wanted and not what the structure of the game permitted. That was the glory of the game, a mass multiplayer role play game without a definite storyline. You made up your own, so what did it matter? Events were all optional and you were always pleasantly rewarded in the end. So why was it that Evan suddenly felt compelled to put the game down for years?

The first time he had touched this game, that was in his junior year. Two years, nearly three now, since he had stopped playing as Rei. At first, the entire point he wanted to try the game was to escape the mounting pressures of preparing for college and especially his oppressive parents, but as time passed, he was drawn into the game like every other player that logged on.

The first root town that was opened was The Hymn of Beginnings. It was the newbies' town where all players started their own games, but also one of the places that Rei hung out because newcomers were always more amusing to party with than those of higher levels. Of course, by then, Rei wasn't that high of a level. The admin wanted the city to seem realistic, and thus made many NPCs, not only those who ran the shops. They were everywhere, providing their own sources of trade. Of course, of the three root towns that were open at the time, it was overridden with bugs and flaws.

On his last day before he quit Fragment, the NPCs suddenly became equipped with attacking skills and turned on the players. It was almost as if the NPCs' data was replaced with those of monsters on the server. They bypassed the attack and skill safety lock of the root town and relentlessly attacked every player. Rei had no chance to fight back, his weapon was locked. Many of the newbies were instantly defeated, reduced to greying figures on the ground that eventually dissipated while the sky echoed with their curses and screams of shock. The town wouldn't let anyone log out or warp to other areas. It wasn't until the admin froze the entire server's data, including all the players trapped in the root town that the situation was taken care of. All players were instantly forced out of the town, all data from that session of game instantly deleted. It may have been the first root town that opened, the prize of Fragment, but it was also the first root town to be sealed off from the gamers. From then on, the newbie's root town became the Village of Requiem. Lucky for the admin, the root town crisis was hidden from the press and the players involved were too few in number to do anything about it.

But the fact that the server and root town was cut off didn't seem to still Evan's nerves. The entire time he was trapped in the town, he was assaulted by these NPCs that resembled like the one that stood before Rei now, their expressions innocent as they charged demonically at him, high levels spell cast and monster weapons bared. The world through the FMD flickered madly, nearly strong enough to cause seizures. He was backed up into the center of the town, where a statue of angels spread their wings. It was stupidly ironic, but the message of that town seemed to Rei a living mockery of the situation:

"May Angels Give Us Salvation..."

From then on, Evan's hands couldn't stop shaking. Every time he held a controller he only remembered the terror of being attacked by murderers without the ability to attack back. How the hell did he get himself in that situation? How did he let himself be involved in something as frightening as that? Was it because he was too involved? It must've been, he wouldn't have been committed to helping out newbies if he wasn't so involved. So why was it again why Rei decided to play again?

Rei's violet eyes glared into Kioku's eyes, apparently seeing through her human expression the face of the NPCs who attacked him. Just her, he just wanted to kill one, and then he would have his revenge. But was it revenge he wanted? Or did he just want to prove his control over his own character? It didn't matter, he would do what he felt had to be done.

"Look, I'm not here to fight. I just want to know exactly what is going on."

Rei glanced at Balmung who stood poised to attack, his blade glinting Rei's own stance in its reflection. No way that he'd be able to come out of a battle with a Blademaster unscathed. Rei turned his eyes back to Kioku, but his voice still spoke rather rudely to Balmung. "Well, I'm not looking to fight you either. You're the least on my priority list, so get out of my way!" Rei dashed forward at Kioku, his thick blade lowered to the ground, almost skimming the surface even, and he charged at the AI, ready to do to her what her wound had already started.