Photo is of the Lion Rock Mountain in Hong Kong

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Fidgeting a little, I tried to bottle up my frustrations and shove them into the very back of my mind. Despite the fact that I was now 'part' of the Balikova family, they refused to tell me the exact location of where we were going. It wasn't like I would actually know where this godforsaken place is anyway, given that I knew absolutely nothing about the geography of the surrounding area. It would just be nice to be trusted, for once, with the location of the place we were heading to.

"Don't worry, we will get there soon enough." Viktor comforted me, sensing my unease. Neither Katerina nor Saralisa had come along; they couldn't risk sending any Originals to meet the Legres in case something was to happen, especially with how tense the situation was so far. It appeared that things were worse than they had let on, and that the Legres were more and more impatient at the lack of communication from our side, despite the whole thing being outside of anyone's control.

I had also gathered snippets of information that they let loose on Louisa Balikova, the last to be in possession of the communication gene. From the way they talked about her, it seemed as though they were of the same generation, which meant that she died when she was only in her twenties. There was definitely some back story to that, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to pry it out of them.

We were now boarded on a special aircraft, which only fit about eight people plus the crew and shaped like a sprawling Vulture. Grandpa Hugo, who I had come to like a lot, explained to me that this aircraft was created for the journey to and from the prearranged meeting place, so that all Legres, even the lower class ones, would not attack it. And it was specifically stated that it was not for other use.

"Why is it shaped like an eagle?" I asked, settling down comfortably on one of the beige leather recliners. Grandpa Hugo gave me an amused smile.

"I supposed you don't know that Victoria Balikova had a close companion. A Class B Aegius." Grandpa Hugo replied and my mouth slacked in shock. That I definitely didn't know. "She was also extremely close to the Lupa alpha in the Eurasia continent." He continued, and the conversations I had with the Lupas back in the Himalaya flashed back into my mind. They had said that I reminded them of someone, but never in a million years would I had thought that it was Victoria Balikova.

"Where are we headed?" I asked again, despite knowing that I wouldn't get a straight answer.

"Somewhere far, so get some rest." Grandpa Hugo said, patting me on the shoulder before disappearing into the cockpit, where I knew was off limits for me. Sighing, I leaned back against the chair and stole a glance at Viktor, who was sprawled across his own seat in a weird angle, fast asleep. Perhaps I should take his lead.

"We are nearly there." I was shaken awake and I conspicuously wiped my mouth, pretty sure that I had drooled a little in my sleep. Peeking out the window to my right, I saw a vivid sunrise and, to my shock, the sea.

"Where are we?" I whispered, but as soon as I saw the Citybase that spread across the mountains and fill with high rise buildings, I knew. "We are at Hong Kong Citybase?"

"Yes." Grandpa Hugo answered, putting a hand on my shoulder and staring out the window behind me. "This is where we will meet the sea Legres."

My heart was pounding furiously as the reality sank in. I was as far south as I had ever been, in a citybase that was, still is, home to one of the Originals. Despite the fact that it's called Hong Kong Citybase, the island that was once the center of this metropolis was lost in the Legres Invasion, and the current Citybase was built behind the fierce mountain range that resembled a lion. It extended all the way back for kilometers, with almost every inch of surface being built on and plagued by the largest known group of the Mutated in the world.

"Landing in five minutes." The captain announced through the intercom and everyone moved swiftly to a free seat and strapped themselves in. My stomach was in a fluster as we descended onto a huge platform built atop one of the mountains.

As we neared the ground, I could make out the mansion perched next to it more clearly; it was made of glass and white panels, with a smaller second floor completed with a balcony. There were some small dots, whom I assumed to be people, standing in front of the door waiting for us.

"Hello." A woman dressed in a jade green top embroided with the Wong sigil in brown greeted us, with a young man and woman behind her.

"Right this way." Before I could muttered a greeting in respond, huddled between Viktor and Grandpa Hugo, she gestured for us to follow her and set off back into the house swiftly through a sliding glass door. Feeling oddly unease, I trailed after her, not sure what to expect at all.

It's okay. Grandpa Hugo's voice echoed in my mind, startling me. Follow them.

The woman was already heading up a flight of stairs only meters away from the door, while her younger companions stayed behind by the foot of the stairs. Heading up uncertainly, I noticed that everyone else but Viktor stayed on the ground level as well...

"Mr. Wong." The woman's voice drew me back and my heart practically skipped a beat when I spotted the lone figure standing in front of the window with his back to us. He had his hands behind his back, and there seemed to be something about this man that emitted a sense of stability, like a rock. And there was no doubt in my mind who he was.

"Thank you, Lei An." Chungkit Wong spoke, his voice betraying no sign of his age as he turned around to face us. He looked exactly the same as the boy who was captured in the portrait, although all sense of smile and laugh were gone. The man that was facing me now seemed old, and wise beyond words. Both Katerina and him possessed this feel to them that separate them from everyone else that I met, including Saralisa.

"Hi." Chungkit Wong said, cracking into a smile that made me slightly more relaxed. "You must be Abigail."

Nodding, I was marginally tempted to retort back, but held my tongue. This guy stayed alive for three hundred years to keep the sea Legres at bay, I should show him more respect.

"We don't have much time to talk." His smile turned sad and he waved for me to join him by the window. We were on top of a mountain that was at the very front of the wall that protect the Citybase from the sea, with a series of Ruins and wasteland stretching in between.

"I used to live out there." Chungkit started, and the context completely took me by surprise. He was the first Original to openly talked to me about his life prior to now, and I wondered why I had never deemed it appropriate to ask Katerina about hers. After all, she originated from Canada, not Romania.

"When you were young?" I asked, wanting to clarify. Chungkit Wong turned to me with a half-smile, and nodded.

"Life here wasn't easy. And I did everything I could to save my home. But it's not always possible." He shook his head, then tapped his right foot. "The best I could do was save this mountain. The Lion Rock Mountain. It used to be the spirit of the people from Hong Kong, at the very back of Kowloon. And now Kowloon is no more..."

It was hard to wrap my head around the place's name, but not hard to realise that Hong Kong Citybase might be named after Hong Kong the city, it's not one and the same thing. Which meant the Ruins we saw in front of us used to be part of Hong Kong.

"I think we have spent enough time reminiscing about something that was long gone." Chungkit suddenly seemed to snap out of his bubble, and the omnipresent sense to him returned. I nodded, not sure what to say and followed behind him as we headed downstairs again, sharing a bewildered look with Viktor.

Chungkit Wong quickly spoke to the woman, Lei An in a foreign language and she nodded eagerly with her two minions, dashing 序to an unknown part of the house. The Balikova entourage was exactly where I left them, and they all bowed slightly when they saw the Original. I probably should have done that.

After some nodding, hands shaking and small talks, we were ushered out a different door directly across from the one that we entered through, although this time it's an actual heavy wooden one. As soon as we stepped out I got a mini heart attack, since we were high, high above the ground. I had never been one to be really afraid of heights, but this was somehow different.

"Where are we going?" I asked, trying not to wince at the sound of myself asking the same question over and over again. No one else seemed to be hearing me though, so maybe I should be louder next time.

"To the sea." Chungkit answered, and my jaw dropped. Being near the sea had always been taught against during my time in London Citybase. The Academy never addressed the issue, but we all knew that while flying was tolerated, any form of sea-faring activities had stopped altogether since the Age of the Legres Invasion. There are simply too many of them in the sea, and the ocean goes too far, too deep for us to ever emerge. There were rumours that POEs with the abilities to breath underwater had been reported, but I had never seen nor heard of such a thing from a reliable source. There were even talks of some Mutated adapting to live in the sea, but biology doesn't work like that. We couldn't just spawn a tail in the span of three centuries.

So to say the thought of heading towards the ocean now was, really, not the most comforting idea to me. But no one else seemed to be fazed, not even Viktor, who looked like Chungkit only suggested that we went for a walk around the garden.

Descending flights after flights of stairs that meandered down the mountain, Lei An cheerfully informed me that this used to be a popular hiking trail back in the Old Age, when people of Hong Kong would often hike up and down for fun and the view. I tried to imagine a world where people would do that on a weekend, going out of the city and climbing up a mountain. Almost every moment I had spent in the wilderness had been a forced decision, and a constant battle to survive and return to a Citybase. Imagining a world where there was no Legres, no walls, no greater struggle was almost impossible. I was almost envious of that world.

"It was a world that even I didn't know." Chungkit Wong mused, having been listening to our conversation the entire time. We were now close to ground level and I could already hear the humming noises growing increasingly louder as we neared. I wasn't sure what to expect at first, but it appeared that we were going to walk through Hong Kong Citybase to get to the sea.

My first impression of Hong Kong Citybase from the ground was that it wasn't dissimilar to Pax. With all the tall buildings in glass and metal, the skyline was almost the same. But the buildings here were older, more worn, and there were almost twice, if not trice the amount of people, all screaming and shouting at one another as though there seemed to be a constant argument that I wasn't aware of. At first I was scared that we were going to stand out like a sore thumb, like in Yunan Citybase, but there were a fair few Caucasians here.

"Let's keep moving." Grandpa Hugo places his hands on my shoulder, steering me to go right behind Lei An as Chungkit led us through the crowd. I found it oddly hilarious that no one seemed to realise who was walking past them. An Original, the guy who had saved their Citybase and protected them for three hundred years. The Originals and POE had protected the world for so long without taking any claim that it made my heart ache, but this will all soon come to light. I was sure that even without my interference, the existence of POE would come out to the surface eventually. The truth never stays hidden for long.

We meandered our way through the stalls and masses of people, heading left but staying close to the mountain base. A few people smiled at us, but I wasn't sure if it was a friendly gesture or if they knew someone in the group. It felt surreal to be standing in a foreign Citybase once again, as I had expected to be dropped off in the middle of a forest.

As we continued our walk through the meandering streets of Hong Kong Citybase, passing through a myriad of stores and people I noticed that they became fewer and farther apart. The area became more rural and eventually, we came in front of a gate.

It was almost identical to the one that I saw in Yunan Citybase, except it was 100 times larger and taller. There were not two guards, but a small army of them standing guard in front. All the passer-bys ignored them as though they were a part of their daily life, which in a way, I guessed they were.

"你好。" Lei An stepped forward as Chungkit took a step back, keeping his face down. "我地要出去。＂

Blinking hard, I tried to process the strange language, but to no avail. It just sounded like gibberish to me.

"王小姐。"One of the guards addressed Lei An, nodding and smiling at her as though they were old friends. "又要出去考察啦?"

Lei An nodded, and the two of them exchanged a few more sentences. The door behind opened slowly, revealing something that I was strangely familiar with.

"Is this?" I asked, trailing off as the tunnel revealed itself in front of us. It was extremely dark, and covered by mosses and plants all along the side, but I could just make out the panels underneath and the smoothness. This wasn't natural, this was man made. And from the looks of it this had existed before the Citybase even existed.

Stepping forward gingerly, I swallowed the lump in my throat as the gate started to close behind us. Lei An and her companion turned on some torches and I nearly sighed in relief; I didn't like the confined spaces and the darkness made me felt claustrophobic.

"How long is this tunnel?" Viktor asked, and I was glad to hear that hint of fear in his voice, at least someone was normal in this group.

"It's 1.4km." One of Lei An's minion answered, stepping in front of us to light the way better. "Be careful, it's slippery."

As we continued down this dark tunnel, I couldn't help but wondered what its story was. We were definitely going under the mountain that Chungkit Wong's house was on, which meant this is the Lion Rock Tunnel.

After about 15 minutes of walking, we approached a heavy gate on the other side. This one was even more heavily guarded than the other one, but again, they greeted Lei An enthusiastically and we were waved through.

Blinking against the harsh daylight that greeted my eyes, it took a few seconds for me to adjust and I was more than shocked to find that there was a Jeep waiting for us. The Ruins immediately outside of the gate was just like any other I had seen, with no obvious sign of danger and tarmac that was still intact.

Hopping on the Jeep, my head was starting to feel dizzy by the frenzy of activities that had just happened since I got off the plan. It felt like I hadn't stopped moving for more than one second. We sped through the empty highway and veered towards the left, but not before I caught a glimpse of the broken bridge that led to nowhere on the right side. Not everything lasts forever.

We all stayed quiet during the ride. I didn't know if it was because everyone was tense, or that it just wasn't their thing to talk before. But for all I knew, they could be communicating with each other.

Not wanting to break the silence, I closed my eyes and pretend to rest. Hey, how are you hanging on? Give me a nod if you are okay. I sent a thought to Viktor, then opened my eyes again to see if he was nodding; but he wasn't.

Before I could address this, we pulled into an abrupt stop.

"We got company." Chungkit sighed, getting off the Jeep from the passenger's side with the grace of a Lupa. Sticking my head out the window, I inhaled sharply at the pack of Lupas that was standing in the way in front of us.

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Hey guys - first of all sorry for not updating last week! I had been using electronics too excessively nowadays and suffered the burnt of it worst last week, so I had to take some time off :( it's slightly better now but not really, so I actually am having to quite my job because it demands too many hours in front of the screen. My boss is also horrible so I am not complaining.

So funny thing - I am too addicted to the life on the net to give it up, but I am scaling back to only a few hours on the laptop per day and immediately not carrying on if my eyes felt rough. It's truly a first world problem and not something that I wanted to hide from you guys.

Anyway, back to the story - it feels like this chapter is my home town date! Hong Kong is my home city, and while I didn't spend enough time here, I still know it. I actually live north of the Lion Rock Mountain, photo at the top, but being so close to the sea a large part of it wouldn't survive the Legre Invasion at all. I don't know how many of you actually know Cantonese/Chinese - but if you do, you get a wee bit extra than the rest ;)

I know that Chungkit Wong's appearance isn't as dramatic or as revealing as Katerina or Saralisa - but that's just how life is. Not every moment is super exciting and enthralling, but that doesn't mean it's not meaningful. I was hoping for them to reach the sea by the end of this chapter, but words just ran away from it and before we knew we hit the end of chapter spot!

As always - let me know what you think below and don't forget to vote x

P.S. @Scikick is running a second contest, and there will be a nugget of POE info at the end so go check it out and enter!