02

Don observes all the dangerous people gathered in this enclosed hall. Everyone is shouting at the tops of their lungs, guns and blades drawn. Don’s pretty sure that muscular, half-naked weirdo with tattoos on his tattoos has brought an actual flamethrower to the rendezvous.

Don returns his gaze on the long table in front of him, then closes his eyes. He allots himself a moment to gather his thoughts.

Conflict is regular when dealing with gangs. You learn to get used to it: the explosion of firearms, robbery, arson, stalking, stabbing... Yes, there was plenty of stabbing.

″Order! Order!” Icamen shrieks from somewhere behind him. Despite how terrifying she is as an assassin, the cacophony only gets louder. Oh well. She tried. Don leans back into his seat and sighs.

But when the most powerful man in the country declares war on your organization? Well! Things are bound to get more interesting from there.

Don dwells on this, a smile creeping onto his lips. He opens his eyes.

To the left, he sees the burly leader of the Sugod gang, responsible for most of the smuggling and organized theft in the South. He and his men are fuming at the representatives of Layan, which is a group that split from the Western Liberation Front to gain control of their land back from the government in less restricted methods. The leader couldn’t come today. Wasn’t feeling well.

The red-faced Bato leader is furiously yapping about his business rates. He’s all talk, that guy, Don thinks, shaking his head slightly. Bato’s basically the entire drug industry of Carigta. Don looks for the boss of Corazon, a local mafia, but doesn’t sight him.

It’s foolish, really. Because drugs is half the industry. Crime is half the politics. And Mr. President may not realize it yet, but we are half the nation.

Don decides to put an end to the anarchy. He stands, whips out a .38 calibre revolver from the back of his jeans and shoots the cord that keeps the chandelier above their heads. It takes a few more shots, but the chandelier crashes to the table, sending shards of glass flying in all directions. The crowd steps away from the table, and come to think of it, no one was sitting there in the first place. What’s the point of a table this long?

“Silence,” Don raises his voice, but doesn’t exactly bellow. There’s a few clatters from the shattered glass, but what follows is pure, God-given silence. He feels the eyes of everyone on the room fix themselves on him. He raises his own face to meet them with a faux grin. “Don’t make me say ‘please’.”

Yes. I said ‘we’.

The atmosphere is filled with several kinds of negative emotions. Don can’t be bothered to name them. He flops back into his throne and recklessly tosses his gun around. “So,” he drawls, aiming the revolver at the Bato leader just to mess with him. The stout man takes a step back. Don lowers his weapon and smirks.

“What is going on here? I want all of your explanations. One. At. A time.” He jabs the end of the gun in the direction of the Bato leader. “If you may, Sir,” he nods.

Sir, Don repeats in his head. Even though each and every one of these thugs is acting like a petulant infant in need of a pacifier, respect is what keeps gang wars at bay. Even if it is fake.

“Well!” the stout man starts. “My problem is that the quantity demanded of drugs has plummeted these past three months! I’m running out of workers! I’m running out of customers! All thanks to Millian and his- his--”

“Purge,” a man from Layan completes in a ghost-like whisper. “The Purge of The Heathens.”

“Okay...” Don’s eyes switch between the two men uncertainly. He points the gun at the Layan representative, politely urging him to speak. “Your turn.”

The man certainly looks like a ghost. So much of him is wrapped in cloth that he resembles an Egyptian mummy. “Layan needs more weapons,” his low, haunting voice says.

“Layan always needs more weapons.” Don shrugs a shoulder. “What happened to the last batch?”

The ghost hisses. “Sidapa got rid of them,” he spits.

Don holds up a hand. “Pardon-- Sidapa?” The skull-masked fugitive thwarting police endeavors. So they are a threat. “Aren’t they just a teen? They’re even younger than me! How could she possibly break into your well-guarded headquarters and ‘get rid’ of all your weapons? Single-handedly!”

Don doesn’t have a good view at the ghost’s face, but he’s sure to be scowling. “It’s a long story,” he growls. “Layan needs more weapons.”

The revolver falls lightly onto Don’s lap. His hands clasp the armrests of his throne, and he leans forward. He glowers into the man’s eyes. The ghost almost seems frightened at this display. “Layan will get their weapons,” Don finally says. He moves on to the next leader.

“Our major setback,” the burly man in charge of Sugod begins, “Is that Millian’s been closing in on our members!”

Don notes that the man uses the term ‘our’. He hides a smile on the back of his hand. Nothing’s cuter than thieves who share. “Mm?” he urges the man to resume when the smile has gone.

“He’s got Guinto hunting us down--”

“Guinto ain’t real,” a Layan member interrupts. A series of protests from all the groups fill the room.

Guinto is the name of President Millian’s personal firing squad, for when he wants to settle matters illegally. At least that’s what the rumours say. There isn’t any solid proof of Guinto being more than a ghost story, but there are some suspicious events.

Don rubs his face then shoots the already shattered chandelier to remind them of his presence. I’ll buy a new one, he thinks.

The mob was shocked into a sudden quiet, however not as pure as the last. “Whether or not Guinto is real is a debate for another time,” Don says, feeling exhausted. One criminal organization is enough trouble to govern-- let alone five!

But the power such a position offers doesn’t leave one complaining.

“This is where I come in,” Icamen says in her default everyone-is-an-imbecile manner. She steps forwards from behind Don’s throne in her all-black assassin gear. “Notice how Corazon had the guts to skip this meeting?” she says.

“Uh. Yeah,” Don replies, accidentally sounding casual. Mutters of agreement come from the crowd.

“Well,” Icamen gestures with her hand, “they’re dead.”

Whispers and protests fill the hall once more. The look on Icamen’s face is serious, and Don knows she’s not the type to kid.

“The entire familia?” he reacts. Icamen slaps a folder onto the table in front of him. It’s thick and a tad filthy, but it holds together. He opens it lightly with his fingertips. What he sees makes his eyes widen.

Each page has no words. Just pictures. There’s one small picture-- just the face of a member. It’s attached to a bigger picture which displays a mangled corpse in greyscale, presumably of the same person. Don looks away reflexively, but forces his gaze back. Pictures continue in pairs and fill pages and pages.

Don flips through them all-- There’re tons! And at the very last page, there is only one ghastly image: The severed head of Reno-- Corazon’s boss-- staring blankly into the camera. Under it are the words:

We start with the Head.

A chill runs down Don’s spine. He trains his expression to remain neutral. He returns the folder to Icamen in a rather stiff motion. “Where did you get this?” he asks gravely.

Icamen is unfazed. “It was on our doorstep in the morning. It came with the Boss’ headless body. I had to dispose of the dead--”

“Who did it?” Don interrupts, not interested in whatever she had thought to do with the corpse. He’s not even going to bother asking why she didn’t bring this up sooner, in private.

The assassin is probably used to this by now because she doesn’t act offended. “The word was carved into his back. ‘Guinto.’”

This time, the silence isn’t forced. It is completely voluntary. So Mr. President wasn’t kidding about entering a new form of low, Don muses. It’s time to stop playing with pawns. Millian is a force to be reckoned with, but Don is a worthy adversary.

He gets on his feet. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Corazon massacre is a blatant act of war.” He trails off, staring at the remains of his chandelier. A smile plays on his lips. “Two can play at that game.”

“I think Laudo’s been enjoying its peace and security for a rather long time, don’t you?” he adds.

The hall bursts into cheers and yells of approval. From the side of his eye, Don can see Icamen looming towards him. But all he can think of right now is Reno’s chopped off head, and how easy it was to imagine it as his own.

*

“You stand out like a friggin’ cosplayer.”

Don turns sharply at Icamen’s remark, offended. The two, along with a few more members, are in the busiest place in Laudo: the City Market. Don is in gray jeans and a blue denim jacket. Icamen has taken off her assassin gear (which, in Don’s opinion, completely defeats the purpose) and is wearing a plain white shirt with faded purple shorts and slippers. The other two who accompany them are wearing similar rags.

“I’m already in casual clothing!” Don huffs.

Don stares at the back of Icamen’s head and knows she’s rolling her eyes. She whips around, her eco-bag flapping along with her hair. “You’re wearing neon sneakers, you didn’t bother to cover your hair and, Boss, this is a public market. You look like a potential target for Sugod’s next robbery.”

Don stops in his tracks at the accusation. He can’t think of a reply. He considers reminding her that he has to stand out for business matters. So people would recognize him as ‘Bakunawa’, head of the Manaul gang, as soon as they lay their eyes on him. But she already knows all that.

So he shuts his mouth and observes the surroundings. Laudo City Market looks like any other public market: Dirty. Unorganized. Stalls scattered everywhere, and no walls to block nature from entering the establishment. Just pillars. The sun is the main source of light here, forcing Don to regret sleeping late the night before; it’s only eight o’ clock in the morning.

Eight o’ clock is the peak hour of this place. Under usual circumstances, Don wouldn’t have gone, but recent events made him uncomfortable being anywhere without Icamen.

“You should leave,” Icamen says, bursting his bubble.

“What? If this is about the hair--”

Icamen moves closer to him. “Look, this toy you gave me? The time’s too short. You wouldn’t have enough time to scram when the game’s over,” she whispers.

Meaning I’m dead weight. Don tries to look nonchalant to the passers-by as he tries to refute. “I know how to use the toy, and to fix it when it’s ‘busted’--”

“But you don’t know how to play.” She fixes him with an intense stare. Her voice drops lower, and she quits the metaphors. “You’re not a field type of guy. Hell, I bet you don’t even know how to climb a tree. Leave the area, make sure you’re safe, then I’ll go buy you some ice cream when we’re all done.”

Don must have a ridiculously childish look on his face, because Icamen groans. “Don!” she says, exasperated. “You’re an indoor person!”

“I am not an--” Don’s phone dings. He glances at Icamen before taking it out of his pocket. The screen lights up, bearing the notification: General’s Conflict: Good Morning, User! Would you like to play?

Don looks up at Icamen, alarmed. She rolls her eyes. “I’ll see you later, Boss,” she says, ruffling his hair. She walks away with their other two accomplices, leaving a disgruntled Don to abscond.

He watches them, at first. Then he follows Icamen’s orders and takes off. He stops running when he’s three streets away, at a deserted park. He leans heavily onto a towering tree in the middle.

Useless alone, Don thinks bitterly, but immediately shakes off the thought. Brooding is a waste of time, he decides. And sulking only ruins reputations. He takes out his phone to open General’s Conflict when he sees the reflection of the tree above on the screen. He looks up.

″‘Can’t climb a tree’, huh?” he grins.