EBO: Resume - Chapter 8

October 15th, 2026

The developers had added the annual Halloween Raid event. Just like in years past, players would have to find and talk to a young girl NPC tied to the Halloween Raid. From there, the girl would point the players to a haunted house nearby and request that the players recover an item for them. From there, a standard RPG quest occurs. Players enter the haunted house and proceed to fight waves of enemies before reaching the boss to defeat for the item. Along the way, enemies will drop Halloween-themed items before the dungeon boss, and the dungeon boss has the opportunity to drop rare items for players.

Such was the basic layout of Entity Burst’s Halloween raids. The contents of the raid always varied, whether it was the enemies or the items dropped. No one ever found this to be stale or formulaic, and everyone’s enjoyed it. Being a beta tester for the game, Hunter was able to preview the Halloween raids by himself or with active beta testers. Unfortunately, this year, the active beta testers were unable to preview the raids. Thus, everyone was going in without any prior knowledge.

Hunter and Haruko were both preparing their gear for the earliest raid they could attend, which was going to start in about an hour and a half. They packed their highest-level equipment and set off to the supposed location of the raid. The ride there was only half an hour, so they were able to get to the NPC tied to the quest with about an hour left. Hunter opted to take off his helmet and hold it in his hands, wearing a black and red scarf around his neck to cover his mouth and obscure his identity slightly.

“E-excuse me…” A little girl wearing a purple and black dress spoke to Haruko and Hunter. She sniffled as tears ran down her dirt-caked cheeks. “C-can you help me find something…?”

“Sure thing, sweetie,” Haruko crouched so she was eye-to-eye with the girl. “What’s wrong?”

“I-I lost my doll… I was walking around, and then I passed by a scary looking house, then a monster grabbed my doll…! A-and... “ The girl started to cry harder as she explained what happened. “I had to let go, or else… the monster…”

“It’s ok, sweetie…” Haruko pat the girl on her head and gently rubbed as she burst into tears. “We’ll get your doll back. Right, Hunter?”

“Y-you will…?” The girl looked up at Haruko after she had calmed down enough, still sniffling. “T-thank you, miss… W-wait, Hunter? Like… the legendary Specter…?”

“You know about that…?” Hunter looked at the girl with surprise. He wasn’t expecting a little NPC girl to know about him. Then again, the developers had programmed her, so this was to be expected. “Y-yeah. I guess I’m the Legendary Specter.”

“I-I see… Then you’ll be able to get my doll, right?” The girl looked to Hunter with hopeful eyes.

“Yeah. We’ll get it back. But we need to know what it looks like, just to be sure. Can you tell us what it looks like?” Hunter crouched to meet the little girl’s eyes.

“It’s a white kitty with a pink dress! There’s a pink bow on its head and it has a necklace with a cute little bell on that and a little blush on its cheeks! I call her Belle!” The girl smiled as she described her precious doll.

“Oh? Sounds like a super cute doll,” Hunter returned her smile with his own. His scarf hid it, but the dark red of his eyes offered a reassuring look to compliment his hidden smile. “Do you have a picture, maybe?”

“N-no, sorry…” The girl twiddled her thumbs nervously.

“It’s fine. We don’t necessarily need a picture.”

“S-sir? What does ‘neces-’ uh… what does that word mean?” The girl inquired.

“Oh. It just means “surely.” Don’t mind me.” Hunter stood up and looked at the girl. “We’ll get your doll back, kiddo. What’s your name?”

“I’m Allyson.” She smiled at Hunter as Haruko and he received a notification that the quest had begun. “Thank you for going to get my doll back!”

“Sure thing, Allyson,” Haruko replied as she and Hunter opened their menus. “You take point, I’ll watch your back.”

“Gotcha.” Hunter tapped the quest for retrieving the girl’s doll, then set it at top priority. Once he had closed the menu, Hunter equipped his Cartridge Driver and began walking towards the designated checkpoint. As he walked, he got out his Binary Specter unit while Haruko brandished her two units, the two players activating them simultaneously.

“Binary Specter!”

“Designated Marksman! Shining Artemis!”

“Ready?” Hunter asked as they inserted their units into their respective drivers.

“On your mark,” was Haruko’s reply as they gripped the levers on their drivers.

“Let’s do it.” They opened their drivers simultaneously, projecting screens over them as their armors formed underneath the energy. “Level Up complete. Let’s do this.”

The two summoned their bikes and drove towards the location indicated by the quest markers. Only a few minutes had passed till they reached the location, where they readied their sidearms. The house was the epitome of a haunted house, with a large, worn-down gate surrounding the property; leaves scattered across the grounds; trees with no leaves and thin branches; fog in front of the house; a generally worn-down appearance for the mansion. As the two entered the property, the hinges of the front gate creaked loudly with neglect. Every step echoed as dead leaves crinkled beneath their feet. Silence surrounded them as they approached the tattered door to the mansion. Before entering, they looked to each other and held up their weapons; Hunter holding his Ifrit Magnum in one hand and Haruko dual-wielding her sub-machine guns.

Kicking down the door, they were greeted by a dark silence where the force of their breach could be heard echoing down the hall. The blue glow emitted from Haruko’s helmet illuminated a few feet in front of her, while Hunter’s helmet glowed dark red and offered very little light ahead of him. Instead, his mask activated a night-vision system, allowing him to see the deteriorated remains of what appeared to be a foyer. Two grand staircases draped in a weathered velvet lead to an upstairs area while a hallway straight ahead barely held onto similar velvet drapings. Suddenly, the chandelier above them ignited, lighting up the area around them.

“That’s… definitely cause for concern.” Haruko looked around her with her guns trained ahead of her.

“WAVE 1, INCOMING!!” A disembodied, menacing voice announced as arms punched through the floorboards. Hordes of zombies rose from the floor and growled at them, some running at Haruko and Hunter, some stalking towards them.

“Time to fight, yeah?!” Hunter aimed at the zombies’ heads and fired his revolver, decapitating two or three in one shot.

“Take ‘em down, Hunter!!” Haruko replied as she spun around, firing her sub-machine guns as quick as she could, creating a vortex of shadows and energy as bullets flew out of the barrels. “Do you have an estimate on how many waves we’ll have to go through?!”

“It’s gotta be at least 5 waves before another area unlocks!” He replied as he fired the last bullet in his cylinder before switching it into sword form and cutting down several more zombies. “Keep it up!”

As they fought, more and more zombies rose from the ground. Waves progressed with bloodshed and slaughter as Hunter’s sword cut through zombie torsos like a hot knife through butter. Haruko’s sub-machine guns blasted through several zombies in rapid succession. They fought their way through the floors of the mansion, splattering blood across the walls on their way to find the boss of the house and defeat it.

“Hm? So this is where they are?” Satoshi muttered as he stepped up to the front gate of the mansion Haruko and Hunter were inside of.

“Shall we steal the final attack drop from them?” Nanaha equipped her Cartridge Driver and activated her Artemis and Succubus units.

“You can do that yourself. I want to see what the Specter’s got…” Satoshi equipped his Shinigami Driver and activated Scizor Hades.

“Sure thing,” Nanaha placed her units into the slots in the Driver and flipped the lever to transform into her armored form. Satoshi inserted his unit into the Driver’s slot and transformed into his Hades armor. “You’ll take point, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’ll speed up my plans,” Satoshi marched forward, his footsteps heavy with the weight of his armor. The already-dead leaves seemed to deteriorate and reach an unnatural state of death before disintegrating entirely. Nanaha followed quietly, summoning her Enchantress rifle and aiming in front of Satoshi.

When they entered, the daunting, yet grand foyer was covered in blood. The worn velvet carpets and rapes were stained with the blood of zombies that Haruko and Hunter had slaughtered to progress further into the mansion. Satoshi simply followed the blood splatter down the halls, occasionally tearing a zombie in half in the event that he was attacked. Hearing the sounds of gunfire and zombie growls up ahead, Satoshi took out Storming Zeus and activated it, summoning the eagle-robot before inserting the cartridge into the slot holder on his belt, fusing the robot to his right arm to form additional armor and the railgun weapon.

"Hello there," Satoshi announced his arrival with those words and blast from his railgun at a zombie in front of Hunter.

"Oh, goddammit. What do you want?" Hunter turned to face him and pointed the tip of his sword at his rival.

"Just wanted to check up on you, Specter." Satoshi grinned under his mask as he advanced, blasting zombies apart with his railgun.

"Not gonna call me by my name?"

"What use is there?"

"What did you want from me?" Hunter sheathed his sword on his back, summoning his shotgun and pointing it at Satoshi.

"Fire, it'll help me out." Satoshi continued to grin before Hunter pulled the trigger, causing him to groan from the pain as the projectiles punched through him and struck the zombies behind him as well. Satoshi's gauge jumped up 10 percent.

"What do you want? You're not one to just come for me for the hell of it." Hunter chambered another round in his shotgun before

"As I already said, I wanted to check on you." Satoshi shrugged off the pain and aimed his railgun at Hunter, firing it at a zombie behind him as if repaying the favor.

"It's not that trivial. There's more to it than just that." Hunter kicked Satoshi out of the way as he fired at another crowd of zombies. "What's the deal?"

"A simple progress check can't be done here?" Satoshi replied as he charged lightning around his fist and punched a zombie, sending lightning through the reanimated corpse and arcing the electricity to several surrounding zombies. The lightning fried their bodies and rendered the already-dead entities dead once more.

"Not with you. There's always a reason for whatever you do. You've always been a manipulative and cunning bastard," Hunter swapped his shotgun for a pair of his Sylph Reaper sub-machine guns, firing bullets of lightning into the zombie hordes and frying them to death as the electricity arced off of them, mirroring Satoshi's punch. "So what's your angle?"

"As I said twice before, this is a simple progress check. I want to see how well my counterpart is faring in my personal paradise." Satoshi brought out his Seismic Poseidon unit, activated it, and slid the unit into his belt's slot holder as the robot summoned transformed into armor and attached itself to his left arm, providing him with a trident to wield.

"Paradise? This is fucking hell!" Hunter screamed as he cut down more zombies and fired lightning to fry them back to death.

"I thought you of all people would enjoy this. Don't you have a high-level position in this game?" Satoshi retorted calmly as he summoned water vapor and condensed it into liquid form, manipulating the stream as a long-distance blade to extend his range and cut through zombies far away from him.

"I'm not a psychopath like you, Kuroto. I have a body outside of this game too." Hunter threw his sub-machine guns at the hordes like a pair of bladed boomerangs, using them to cleave through the zombies ahead of him before summoning his shotgun once more and blasting the rest away.

"A shame. Only one of us will enjoy this game to its fullest, it seems." Satoshi conducted the water blade to return to him, charging it with electricity to give it more power before sending it back out to cut down even more zombies.

"Where's that damn boss?!" Haruko interjected, having been too busy slaying the undead to communicate with either of them.

"THE NECROMANCER ARRIVES!!" The disembodied voice boomed. "PREPARE FOR THE FINAL WAVE!!!"

As the voice spoke, stage lights activated and pointed at a stage. Velvet curtains rolled away to reveal a black mass of energy that shaped itself into a humanoid with no other detailing. It simply stared at the four players in front of it before raising its hands and summoning more undead. The quartet of players readied themselves for another brutal fight, but were faced with the zombies merging together to create a larger zombie. The disembodied voice spoke once more, though it no longer shouted.

“So you are the fools who trespassed on my property. To have survived this long as well… You must be eliminated quickly.”

Hunter and Satoshi ran for the zombie’s legs while Haruko and Nanaha began climbing up the walls to get to vantage points for sniping. As the girls fired their rifles at the massive zombie, Hunter and Satoshi worked together to cripple its legs. Hunter’s sword cleaved through its Achilles tendon while Satoshi railgun blasted through the zombie’s knee cap. At some point, another player wearing a half-red and half-blue armor arrived and joined the fight.

“Specter! Take out its knees!” Satoshi called out to Hunter as he continued to blast the monster’s knee with his railgun, using his electrified water blade to assist in cutting through the undead flesh.

“Whatever it takes!” Hunter yelled back as he jumped upwards, summoning one of his sub-machine guns and using it as a climbing hook to get closer towards the targeted joint before stabbing it with his sword.

“I’ll sever its foot then!!” The red-blue player yelled out to no one in particular, brandishing a hatchet and sliding towards the foot that Hunter had cut. The uber-zombie roared in pain and began shaking the targeted leg. “Urgh, sit still!!”

“Hey, aim for its arms!” Haruko shouted to Nanaha. “We’ll pick apart its arms so the boys won’t have to worry about it!”

“On it!” Nanaha shouldered the Enchantress rifle and aimed for the zombie’s deltoids, firing bullets that whizzed by with a low-pitched hum before punching into the zombie’s arm and erasing bullet-sized holes in its body. Haruko’s bullets punctured the same area, piercing through the rotting flesh with a shadowy aura before exploding inside the zombie’s body and severing the limb.

“Whoa! Explosive rounds? Thank you, Hunter…” Haruko whispered to herself as she continued to fire.

“You’re welcome,” Hunter smiled at her from under his mask as he saved some changes on a holographic interface in front of him. He swiped the interface away and returned to cutting the zombie’s knee, slicing into it enough for the zombie to wobble and fall to the ground.

“NO!!” The black mass that was the Necromancer howled in frustration.

“Yes!” The red-blue player finally severed the zombie’s foot from its shin, turning around to see Satoshi approaching the other leg and blasting through the knee with his railgun. “An interesting weapon, indeed...”

“You’re through, Necromancer,” Satoshi told the black mass as he tapped the “A” button on his driver twice.

“CRITICAL ENDER!!” The belt growled as black and white energy swirled around Satoshi’s trident. He stabbed the giant zombie’s thigh and dispersed the energy as an explosion that blew apart the monster’s leg.

“What he said,” Hunter replied as he closed, opened, and closed his Driver in rapid succession. Energy gathered around his sword before Hunter opened it again and ran towards the black mass.

“Binary Specter Critical Strike!!” His belt announced triumphantly as Hunter jumped and slashed at the black energy. Hunter’s attack traveled forward in a crescent shape and clashed with the mass, struggling to break it at first.

“H-How can you weaklings defeat me?!?!” The voice fluctuated between deep and evil and feminine as Hunter’s Critical Strike continued to slowly cut into the black mass. Soon enough, the attack broke through and consumed the darkness before dissipating and leaving an explosion. The words “RAID CLEAR!!” appeared in front of all the players currently gathered as the explosion turned to confetti and smoke raining down.

“That’s that.” Hunter panted and sheathed his sword, stepping towards the smoke and looking around. “Where’s the doll…?”

“Up there!” Haruko pointed as a white doll with a pink dress and feline features floated downwards. Hunter looked up, walked under it, then jumped up and caught it. The item immediately transferred into his inventory and was identified as “Belle, doll of Allyson” in his inventory.

“Got it! We can clear the quest now!” Hunter smiled in satisfaction and dusted his hands. Satoshi ran and jumped upwards as if trying to catch something, only for the red and blue player player to catch a falling object.

“Dammit!” Satoshi cursed as he landed on his knees, getting back up and looking at the player, finally seeing their name. “Anomaly?”

“What’s this?” The player named Anomaly inspected the treasure that fell into his hands. It was a black cartridge unit with a dark chrome dial and a noticeably thicker body, as if it were designed to fit into both slots of a Cartridge Driver. On one side of the unit was a red, flame-like label that read “Fighting Fists” with stylized letters. On the other side was a blue label with a background made of falling puzzle pieces that featured “Puzzling Predictions” in rounded, stylized letters. “‘Fighting Fists’ and ‘Puzzling Predictions’? Interesting. It looks like a hybrid unit.”

“A hybrid unit?!” Satoshi stared in disbelief. “Hand that over, I need it more than you.”

“No way! I caught it, it’s mine now!” Anomaly backed away from Satoshi, still inspecting the unit. “How does this work…?”

“Hand that over, damn you!” Satoshi ran at Anomaly, only to be stabbed in the back. “Urgh! What?!”

“Leave the kid alone,” Hunter coldly replied, his sword through Satoshi’s heart. “He got the unit, it’s his.”

“You don’t understand how valuable that unit will be to me!!” Satoshi stumbled forward, slowly removing himself from the sword as his gauge slowly rose from the damage.

“Maybe if…” Anomaly removed the pendant from his wrist-mounted End Driver and returned to his unarmored form. An adolescent male wearing a black and white-pixelated shirt with a blue left sleeve, a red right sleeve, and thumbholes in the sleeves; a black coat without sleeves, two tapered coattails and a high collar; black pants with gold details running down the shins; and high-top sneakers that are colored the same as his sleeves: blue on the left and red on the right.

“Perhaps if I start from blank,” Anomaly spoke and inspected the unit once more. He turned the dial so that the blue “Puzzling Predictions” label on it was downwards. The unit itself announced the name of the downwards side and began playing an upbeat techno music as a standby. “Now I can transform.”

He pressed on the black button by the screens on the same side as the dial, causing the unit to announce “Change up!” A screen projected itself in front of him, showing a figure of similar design to Anomaly himself with blue symmetry and more armor. It had bulky shoulder armor and a gold collar under its ski goggle-like visor. The unit itself played a tune similar to its standby music before the screen passed over Anomaly and materialized the suit over him. A slot holder similar to Satoshi’s was situated on the belt, which he used to holster the unit.

“I see… So this is the Puzzle Predictor… Level 50?!?” He was shocked by the unit’s level, which was displayed on his HUD in the upper right corner.

“Level 50… already?” Hunter and Haruko spoke simultaneously. Satoshi stalked towards the Level 50 player with a low growl, clearly angry at having someone at a higher level than him.

“Hand over your unit, imbecile!” He pounced at Anomaly, only to be blocked by an energy shield shaped similarly to puzzle pieces combined together. Again he growled at Anomaly, infuriated at the attack.

“I’m not handing this over! This is awesome!” Anomaly spun around in a circle flamboyantly before waving his hand and disappearing in a veil of puzzle pieces. “Bye now!”

“Bastard…” Satoshi cursed as he stood upright and looked for an exit. “I’ll be back for you later, Specter…”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Hunter finally asked, summoning a revolver to his hand and cocking the hammer.

“That’s what you are. Your true name has no meaning to me unless it is the name of your unit.” Satoshi coldly replied as he found the door and kicked it open, storming out of the building and disappearing in an ominous mist.

“He’s pretty stuck up, don’t mind him.” Nanaha beamed before running out the same exit and riding off on her Hellcat X132 Speed Demon.

“H-help… me…” A feminine voice weakly cried out. Hunter and Haruko turned their attention to finding the source of the voice, discovering a voluptuous female dressed in a black witch outfit, complete with a pointed hat and black cloak. “P-please… I need energy…”

“And why should we help you? You tried to kill us,” Hunter indifferently answered, aiming his revolver at the witch’s head.

“I-I’m sorry… I didn’t know you were so powerful… You’re the legendary Specter, right…?” The witch looked at them, pain evident in her expression.

“I am. Give us a good reason not to kill you here and now.” He kept the revolver pointed at her face as Haruko aimed her rifle at the same area.

“I-I can help you. I-I’ll atone for my crimes. P-please, spare me. I don’t want to die! The dead will tear me apart for resurrecting them and twisting them to do my bidding! Please, anything but death!!” She pleaded with tears running down her eyes.

“Do you know a little girl named Allyson?” Haruko asked the desperate witch.

“W-why?” She spoke in between sobs.

“One of your monsters happened to take her doll. Why is that?”

“I-I don’t know… some zombies seek out their living loved ones and take something from them. Perhaps it was the girl’s parent…” Her cries had devolved into sniffles.

“I see… You still haven’t provided any reason for us to spare you, so…” Hunter checked his revolver to make sure it was fully loaded before chambering another round.

“I-I’ll help you find other witches! I’m part of a covenant specializing in alchemy and necromancy. I can give you their locations, help you hunt them down! Please, spare me…”

“You think it’s worth it, Haruko?”

“Eh, I don’t see why not. We’ll get more loot from them to use.”

“Give us their information, then we’ll let you go.” Hunter demanded, keeping his gun trained on the witch as he motioned for her to stand up. She complied and wrote a list of locations and names for him before handing it to him. With that in hand, Hunter and Haruko left the mansion and headed back to their base for a break.

“That was… interesting. Coffee?” Haruko sat down on the couch in the main room as Hunter sat down at his desk.

“I thought you drank tea.”

“I know. I figured you’d want a cup of coffee though.”

“Eh, sure.” Hunter took a deep breath before plugging the Binary Specter unit into a terminal and setting to work on his Level 20 form. Haruko got up and headed to the kitchen to brew some coffee while Hunter coded.

October 31st, 2026

The next few weeks were spent hunting down the witch covenant that Hunter and Haruko had retrieved information about. On the final day of the month, they were rewarded for completing the questline first and were given a mass amount of resources that they put to good use creating weapons to fight Satoshi. The boy named Anomaly occasionally showed up during the raids, making use of his Level 50 form to achieve incredible performance wherever he appeared. But this wouldn’t be the last Hunter and Haruko saw of him...