Chapter: Epilogue: The Microscopic Villain For Ecto, New Year’s is more or less the same as Christmas. The same warm, gooey feeling. The same close-knit spirit. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned the manufacture and sale of firecrackers, the shooting of which has been a well-loved tradition for centuries and can be traced all the way back to the Spanish colonial era. The exact inventors and originators were the Chinese, who believed that noise would drive away bad luck and bad spirits. According to Mr. and Mrs. Lapuz, the Filipinos seem sadder now, having been robbed of the most thrilling and spectacular means of making noise. But according to health and safety records, hospital personnel can rest easier because the ERs wouldn’t be packed with casualties this time around. Just the New Year’s before last, it was like a war zone on the streets what of households competing for the biggest bang to welcome the new year. Many men got drunk out of their minds and then tried to light a firecracker with the non-PC name
Last Updated: 2024-04-11
Chapter: Chapter 175: Ecto's Stocking After Mass, Kate and Nate buy rice cakes at the town square. One is the awesomely purple puto bumbong and another the yellow bibingka. They also buy roasted chestnuts and bring all the treats home to Mr. and Mrs. Lapuz. On one trip to a very crowded shopping mall, Ecto sees a Santa Claus impersonator. Curiously, the Santa is Caucasian and not brown-skinned like most of the Filipinos. Of course Ecto has already figured out by himself that Santa isn’t real. To his surprise, after they get back home, Kate insists on teaching him the hooman custom of hanging a stocking. On the desktop of her computer, Kate shows him a folder that she has named “Ecto’s Stocking”. She then goes through all the trouble of changing her wallpaper to a fireplace and dragging the folder onto the 2D mantelpiece. “What for?” he asks her through her smartphone’s loudspeaker. Her smartphone is open and showing the My Dream Boyfriend app, right into the inside of Ecto’s bedroom. Ecto’s wearing a knit sweater
Last Updated: 2024-04-10
Chapter: Chapter 174: The Holidays With a little help from Terra, Kate downloads the My Dream Boyfriend App again with some customizations. Because Ecto isn’t bound by any one platform anymore, he’s capable of some manner of fission, where he splits and replicates himself while also dividing his consciousness among all his manifestations. It’s like Doctor Strange’s clones when they were fighting Thanos, but in Ecto’s case, each and every duplicate is much more than an illusion and is a sentient and perfect version of himself. This allows him to be both in Nate’s microchip implant while back in his virtual bedroom inside the My Dream Boyfriend app on Kate’s smartphone. At any time, he can also perform fusion and re-absorb his manifestations. Terra removed the boyfriend creation window because of course Kate doesn’t need it anymore. Ecto wanted his virtual bedroom exactly as it was. He could easily “slide” into his other cribs anyway, like the old orange, pink and red Provençal one on Dungeon Raydens which he was able
Last Updated: 2024-04-10
Chapter: Chapter 173: The Truth It’s already 6 pm when Nate finishes his social host obligations and comes looking for Kate. He doesn’t need to look hard though because earlier, Kate sent him a text saying she’s waiting for him in the Council office. Nate has a spring in his step and is smiling ear to ear. The scratches on his face are still stinging but, before the closing ceremony, Nurse Judy cleaned and applied Band-Aid on them. Nate can’t hide his excitement in seeing his GF again after they’ve taken care of all their responsibilities. {That kiss on the track was supernova-hot. I hope we make out too.} When he finds the office door locked, oddly enough, he knocks and calls out uncertainly: “Kate?” He hears her move inside the room and then the door swings open. The sight of her face wipes his smile off. She’s been crying in the dim. She has the look of someone who has just had herself a good cry. Her eyes look cleansed and exposed, indeed like pure windows into her soul. Her lips are tightly set in a line, as
Last Updated: 2024-04-09
Chapter: Chapter 172: The Anagram Kate is alone in the Student Council office tidying up. Nate’s off wrapping things up with his manager and the film crew and saying goodbye to everybody, including his bandmates. The trophy that STEM 12 won is now in the 12-Everest homeroom, because the bulk of tournament champions is there. Kate’s classmates are all posing with it and gushing at how shiny it is. This year’s Intrams was perfect. Kate couldn’t ask for anything more. She has once again been reminded of the importance of having balance in life; of, as cheesy as it sounds, having both a sound mind and a sound body. It felt good to do something physical, to be away from the rigors of school work and the false urgency of the Internet. But the heart of the matter is, she’s blissfully content because she has a boyfriend and she didn’t make a mistake in choosing him. In fact, she made a brilliant choice. An undertow to her joy is a silent prayer that she has finally broken the curse that she felt had hung over her ever since
Last Updated: 2024-04-09
Chapter: Chapter 171: The Cheater “OMG!” Mr. Romero says the word in everyone’s mind as they watch the pitiful scene. “Policarpio’s crawling to the baton exchange. Quick! Somebody help him! Help him!” Reggie is the first to break the spell of paralysis. He leaps over the rail and onto the track. He and Jared manage to run towards him before the alert CAT volunteers practice crowd control and stop others from joining. Reggie reaches Nate’s side. “No!” Nate screams vehemently. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! I have to do this by myself.” “But hyung,” Jared says, having stopped next to Reggie, “you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to prove anything.” “Yes… I… do,” Nate grunts as he crawls forward foot by precious foot. “Let us help you,” Reggie pleads. “You don’t have to do this alone.” “Don’t come closer!” Nate barks, spittle flying between his gritted teeth. In what feels like eternity, he reaches the changeover zone and Kate’s crouched form. Her eyes are glassy and full of pity for him. He hates that loo
Last Updated: 2024-04-08
Chapter: Epilogue: New Dawn“’Tis a sin tah suffer such a numbskull as ye live,” Captain Fang said, “but it appears we be a perfectly even match. Ye know as well as I do ’tis futile tah resort tah our mother element.” The pirate could barely stand in his exhaustion and was leaning on his sabre. Sasha was also down to his last reserves of energy. He was poised low on the ground, ever ready to strike with his shinobuken held horizontally in front of him, his left hand behind. “Were we in a trainin’ dojo where ye’ve been raised,” the captain said, “no one would claim victory… BUT HITHER IS NOT A DOJO!” Captain Fang thrust his amputated right arm and released the harpoon on the end of it. As a matter of fact, Sasha had earlier grabbed a handful of salt when he tumbled forward across a drying pan. Now he swung his left hand from behind him and flung the salt to the captain’s eyes like a sumo wrestler purifying the ring. Sasha felt a certain amount of pleasure when he heard the captain utter a pained squeal. In a s
Last Updated: 2023-12-29
Chapter: Chapter 89: The Cleanup Yuriko poked her head inside the hole in the roof. The building was a temple. Its ceiling was high above the floor and the whole place, although spacious, was empty. There were plenty of Everlite crystals to keep the temple well-lit. She regretted that she didn’t bring a grappling hook. She made the hand seal of Pyō the Great Thunderbolt to execute a Kyūbanjutsu (Suction Pad). It was one trick she inherited from her clan and had been useful during her stint as a cat burglar, till she scaled the hull of Captain Fang’s ship and became a stowaway. She channeled her ki to the soles of her feet and created partial vacuums on them so they would stick to any flat surface. The suction was enough to let her stand completely upside-down on the temple’s ceiling, her braided hair hanging down from her scalp. “Thanks for dropping in.” Yuriko gasped. Aki was across from her and also upside down. With the better lighting, she looked formidable in her white Slayer suit, at ease and back in her ele
Last Updated: 2023-12-29
Chapter: Chapter 88: Rooftop Fisticuffs Aki leapt from roof to roof. Her tabi boots touched the tiles lightly before pushing off. She was harnessing Karamijutsu (Body-lightening). Without warning, a tile she was stepping on broke and she slid straight down to the edge of the roof, only managing to grab the gutter in the nick of time. She was dangling there when Yuriko appeared on the incline, just a few feet away, crouching and fanning out a set of throwing knives. Apparently, she had launched a projectile that broke Aki’s foothold. “Fancy a prince tah rescue ye, princess?” “I’m not a princess,” Aki replied through gritted teeth. “I’m a SLAYER princess!” With a back flip, Aki brought herself upside-down with her legs spinning in a wheel kick. Yuriko held her forearms up in an X shape and the casings of her katars blocked the kicks. Aki landed right in front of her. They were soon locked in hand-to-hand combat; something rare for Stork Slayers who emphasized defense over offense, evasion over brute strength. Yuriko projec
Last Updated: 2023-12-28
Chapter: Chapter 87: The Teacher “What took you?” Koumori-shishou asked. The old man remained seated on the driftwood, his back still turned and exposed to the newcomers though all three of his students had sprung to their feet. “Cor blimey! Whar be our manners?” Captain Fang said sarcastically, drawing a water-saber that he instantaneously generated out of an empty, solid scabbard. “Apologies fer keepin’ ye waitin’.” The saber was made possible by the Undina Clan’s Mizu Funsha no Jutsu (Water Stream), which produced a very high-pressure jet of water that was as strong and sharp as regular katana. “Well,” Koumori-shishou said, “we would not be very good Slayers if we threw away fifteen minutes of head start, would we?” “Maybe you’re just stupid,” Ganzorig said. “It was precisely the light in your pipe that led us here.” “Death on a hook is food in the eyes of a fish.” “Be ye sayin’ ye lured us out here, ye treacherous cur?” Captain Fang roared. “This shall nah end well fer ye.” “As I be a soul,” Kosano said, “
Last Updated: 2023-12-28
Chapter: Chapter 86: First Class They sat around Koumori-shishou on the moonlit beach. Like real students, Aki thought excitedly. Sasha had returned to his human form and was still half-naked. Apparently, shrinking back down was relatively easier than blowing up to the fearsome scale of Dragonkist Ryūjin. The master sat on a large piece of driftwood. He took off the tunic-like uniform of the Dark Emperor and revealed his usual attire underneath: the saffron robe and pom-pommed surplice of the hermit monks, the Yamabushis. From inside his sleeve, he drew out his shakujō staff with the six rings. Like Aki’s bō staff, it could be retracted and extended. Next, from his slightly hunched back, he produced his straw conical hat and placed it on top of his head. Finally, he unclipped his one-toothed geta sandals from his belt and put them on. He was completely transformed. Aki clapped and Sasha muttered, “Wow.” Koumori-shishou bowed with a flourish. “You’re a true master of disguise, shishou,” Aki complimented. The monk
Last Updated: 2023-12-27
Chapter: Chapter 85: The Emperor of the Dark From the strong rocking movements, Aki could tell they were on a small boat. Her captors were using oars. All at once, the bag was pulled from over her head and the wind coating was removed from her mouth. “Get your stinking hands off me or I swear you’ll lose them!” Aki blinked to adjust her eyes. It was still night. Have they arrived in Dragon’s Horn already? “Spoken like a true warrior-princess,” said a familiar voice. Aki couldn’t believe it. She strained her eyes in the dark. “Temujin?” she blurted out. “That’s right. It’s me.” “But I thought…” “I had some help,” he said, gesturing to a second figure behind him. Aki let out a frightened gasp. In the pale moonlight, she could make out the Dark Emperor! “Oh, don’t be alarmed!” Temujin said. “It’s just my master, Koumori-shishou.” To Aki’s great consternation, the Dark Emperor swept back his hood and took off his iron dragon mask. An old man with slanted eyes and a long wispy beard like a mountain goat’s was beaming at her
Last Updated: 2023-12-27
The Reaper's Pet
DEATH GETS A LOVE LIFE.
"I accept," I say all at once and then lower my eyes shyly. "If you think my human body can serve as a substitute for her and fill your hunger, I'm willing to take that chance."
The feeling that I recognize in his eyes is one of shock and even fear, as though he hadn't expected at all that I'd agree.
"Let's do it," I whisper across the gap between us.
****
When metalhead Janet Buenviaje dies in a diving accident, she falls into an underworld prison where the only way out is through an eccentric reaper named Septimus Rex. As monarch of Soul City, Septimus Rex leads an army of supernatural Ravens tasked with the deportation of overstaying souls from the mortal realm.
But the fates smile on Janet because the head reaper has problems of his own. He has fallen in love with a mortal girl; an abhorrent sign of weakness that, if discovered by the Ravens, will start a power struggle in Hell. With Janet's help, Septimus must now attempt to confess his feelings to the girl of his dreams so he can go back to being devoid of human sentiment.
Janet is reincarnated as a Wampus Cat reaper and hatches an escape plan to the surface world. But she finds that things in the underworld are not what they seem and Septimus's problems run deeper, somehow even linked to her own mysterious past.
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Chapter: Epilogue: The Bureau of Transmigration Everything fades into regular, high-pitched beeping. I open my eyes to the disorienting sight of tubes snaking from my body. {Where in God’s name am I?} I sit bolt upright and tear some of the tubes off my chest. This starts a rapid alarm from the machinery next to the bed I’m lying on. {Sol’s at the park,} I remember vaguely. {No, that can’t be right. Sol’s visiting me…} {…at the beach house…} All the memories of the past week come flooding back; a literal information overload. The surrealism of my experiences strains my grip on reality and triggers an alarm on the EKG monitor. But thankfully, incredibly, my brain succeeds in reducing everything to a manageable size. Nurses rush into the room with their mouths hanging open. “I know everything,” I whisper to myself. “I know who I am now.” **** The rebellion that spilled over to the surface world shall be known forevermore as the Battle of the Bolgias. A great number of Death’s loyal guards, the Helter-Skeltals, have shed ma
Last Updated: 2023-11-13
Chapter: Chapter 39: Unholy Alliance {Special delivery, boss,} Ankou announces in his doll-like voice which always sounds like it’s coming from a phonograph record embedded in him. The only difference this time is his head with the Cheshire-cat grin has been torn off and is tucked under his arm. {Spank these foul creatures back to our hole sweet hell.} Without warning, Ankou’s voice is reduced to gurgling, as though the doll had suddenly been thrown into a fire. At Hell’s Helm, Spinstra has just sliced his throat. Ankou’s death-wagon springs out Septimus’s guitar case and the head reaper catches it in mid-air. Ankou then stomps on the accelerator to ram the Ravens’ front lines, disappearing into an uncertain fate but buying Septimus a little more time. Septimus lays the guitar case on the asphalt and opens it, revealing an orange Gretsch Chet Atkins whose front pickup has been replaced with a black Gibson P-90. He picks up the instrument and slings its strap over his shoulder, looking every bit the goth rock star m
Last Updated: 2023-11-12
Chapter: Chapter 38: The Massacre The projected Transmigration Bureau agents charge and scatter the Ravens attacking close to the ground. Kera either slashes them apart with her overgrown talons or bites them in half with her fangs. Ankou throws a barrage of acidic blood-balls just like a rapid pitching machine. And Yama Ranger, on his creepy steed Nightmare, blasts away with his two six-shooters, a lever-action carbine in his third hand and his portal-opening lasso in his fourth. A second group of rescuers arrives at the scene. A few residents from the tenements round the corner and approach with caution not because of the invisible battle taking place right on top of them but at the sight of both Chester and Rina lying on the ground, the first bathed in his own blood and the second having fainted in terror. The gang leader responsible for everything stands transfixed above the bodies. The act of killing a man with his bare hands has finally registered with him and he flounders like a stage volunteer cut off from a h
Last Updated: 2023-11-11
Chapter: Chapter 37: World's End At this point, I finally get either close enough to the scene or far enough outside Spinstra’s control. I manage to reestablish two-way psychic contact with Septimus. {Fight back,} I tell him. {Use your powers and defend yourself. You’re dying out there!} {Wampus, you came back for me...} Septimus’s voice is filled with genuine relief as though loyalty and friendship are such luxuries to him. And I’m ashamed to think his suspicions haven’t been entirely misplaced. The thought of abandoning him has in fact entered my mind. {There is nothing we can do,} Septimus sends back faintly. {The moment we crossed over to the mortal realm, we passed a point of no return. In the abattoir, everyone is bound to get eaten, even wolves in sheep’s clothing.} {Fight them! You’re the Grim Reaper for Christ’s sake. Show them who you are!} {It is over. I have already lingered too long on this side. Listen, Wampus, there is something I need to tell you before it is too late.} The leader’s on Chester
Last Updated: 2023-11-10
Chapter: Chapter 36: The Mutiny of the Ravens “Come on,” one of the muggers coos in the local language, so close to Rina’s face her senses are invaded by the sight of rotten teeth and the smell of sour milk mixed with cigarette. “Give us what we want, doll, and we’ll be outta your hair.” “Yeah,” whispers another with pupils dilated by lust and methamphetamine. “We’ll be outta here before you know it. You won’t even notice we were here.” “You have my bag, my watch, my phone,” Rina says in English through her tears. She hates herself for being this afraid. She’s just so damn afraid. “Take all of them. Just please let me go.” “You know what else we want,” the nearest one coos again and a third leers. The one who has her, apparently the leader, starts groping her. “No, please don’t…” They’re all perfectly oblivious to the swarm of weird, shape-shifting Ravens overhead, so thick now that they blot out the night sky and the top of the two rundown tenements sandwiching the half-lit and desolate street. The birds of Hell are mak
Last Updated: 2023-11-09
Chapter: Chapter 35: Master Hand {Who are you?} I ask. {Are you certain you do not know the answer to this question?} It’s true. I feel like I’ve known all along; this rumbly yet feminine voice with its many layers overlapping. Its owner is a shadow that has constantly loomed over us, moving the pieces across the board with her three pairs of hands. She was the one responsible from the start, orchestrating all the events with cold calculation. She had created the Lachesis computers in Death’s office and sent the Raven Man, none other than thinly disguised Kharon, to the young me at the children’s home. She convinced Septimus to adopt me as his tutor and gave me my second form as a Wampus Cat. She was there too on the banks of River Akheron the moment I arrived in the underworld. She probably even influenced Sol to be at the park this very night. Spinstra. The Fate Weaver. The last piece of the puzzle, the third of the Wyrd Ones. {… she will understand the implications,} Septimus continues orating on the other en
Last Updated: 2023-11-08
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