EBO: Resume - Chapter 7

September 30th, 2026

Just over one week had passed since Hunter rediscovered his safehouse. At this point in time, the double cartridge had been set up in a prototype phase. Hunter and the three Military Police members he had been assigned to work with had gone to an abandoned warehouse to test out Hunter’s prototype unit. Once they had arrived, they checked the area to make sure was unoccupied and set up targets for practice.

“Alright, let’s get started…” Hunter took out the grayscale unit, then activated it. It announced “Binary Specter!” before he inserted it into the two slots of his Cartridge driver. “Henshin.”

“Was that really necessary…?” Haruko asked as Hunter opened the driver, bringing up a circular array of spinning icons. He chose one of the blank icons, which transformed into an icon depicting a silver skull with orange and cyan eyes, and red zigzag lines much similar to a heart beat monitor.

“Not really. Force of habit,” He replied as orange and cyan energy engulfed him.

A silver energy projection of the Dual Specter inside of the unit appeared in front of him and passed over him, thus solidifying the energy into armor. His shoulders and upper arms were silver, with dark red gauntlets and shin guards. His mask had changed slightly, gaining a silver overlay that resembled a skull, as well as gaining a dark red glow to the eyes. His chest armor covered more area, retaining the HP Gauge as with all units. Even his silver knee pads had gained more bulk to them. However, his boots were asymmetrical, being orange on the right and cyan on the left; their designs mirrored each other, with the right boot featuring cyan straps keeping a dark red armor plate attached to the lace area and the left boot being an inversion while maintaining the dark red armor.

“Binary Specter Level 10, accessed. Level up success,” Hunter opened up a holo-keyboard and began coding again, looking through some of the weapons his Level 3 Augment units provided. “And now we look for some weapons...:”

“Wasn’t this supposed to be Level 20…?” Haruko questioned.

“Another Level for another time. Need to make sure Level 10 works before Level 20.” Hunter returned as he modified the weapons, taking the melee weapons each unit provided and combining them with the firearms they supplied.

“I see…” Hideo equipped his Cartridge Driver and went into his Level 10 armor, preparing for combat just in case.

“If you three could keep an eye out for anything that might try to kill me, that would be greatly appreciated.” Hunter told them as he began physically interacting with holograms, combining the Ifrit unit’s sword with the revolver and increasing the weapon’s size to compensate for the changes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Haruko replied. She and Kyoka armored up into Level 10 and held their rifles.

“I suppose for now…” He finish the weapon integrations and tested it out by summoning the revolver-sword hybrid. It appeared to be larger than the original, with the addition of a bayonet-like attachment underneath the barrel. “Level 10 will have to do for the time being.”

He aimed the revolver in front of him and pulled the trigger. A concentrated burst of fire left the barrel, creating a loud sound as a result. The recoil was just slightly heavier than the usual for a revolver. Hunter was able to quickly line up another shot and consecutively fire the remaining five bullets in the cylinder. In terms of accuracy, Hunter was able to hit his target with three of the remaining five shots.

“Ah, hip firing may be a bit more accurate…” Hunter held his hand over the weapon and began fine-tuning it. After some recoding, he held the gun back up and reloaded, ejecting the empty cylinder and replacing it with a fully-loaded one via the break-action loading style. “Let’s try this.”

Just as he was about to pull the trigger, he heard a barrel fall over. His instincts sensed danger and turned to where the sound came from, then fired three shots with the gun. All three hit the barrel, which didn’t explode.

“Shit!” Someone dived out of the way of the bullets.

“What are you doing here?” Hunter aimed the revolver directly at the mystery person. The name “Esoterror” was displayed over the person.

“That’s my line! This is my hideout! Piss off!” A feminine voice rang out from the well-armored individual. An End Driver was strapped to her wrist, which she was now tapping on as if typing. Once done, she held out her hands and grabbed onto an assault rifle before aiming back at Hunter.

“Didn’t mean to intrude, but...” Hunter held out his other hand and summoned an SMG, the one used by the Sylph unit. It had been unmodified from its originating unit, since Hunter had only reconfigured one unit’s weapons. “We checked this place earlier for any residents. Couldn’t find traces of anyone living here.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I pack and hide all of my stuff carefully. I can’t take any chances with people snooping around…” Esoterror maintained her aim on Hunter, while the three Military Police members aimed their rifles at her.

“Why hide here?” Haruko asked her.

“It’s an abandoned warehouse, nothing else quite like it. I prefer an area like this, close enough to get to the city and a nice ocean view.” She replied, keeping her sights up on Hunter.

“That’s not the real reason,” Hunter calmly spoke. “You can get that literally anywhere else. There’s something else hidden here or nearby.”

“Ugh… Just leave me alone!” She shouted at them, throwing her arms down and growling in frustration at the four intruders.

“Did you take out any of the targets?” Hunter asked.

“What?”

“Never mind. We’ll be on our way shortly.” Hunter lowered his weapons and holstered the revolver behind his waist, then dropped the SMG which dissolved into data. The other three holstered their weapons and moved out to take the targets they had set up and left.

“Tch. Jerks…” Esoterror looked around the entire warehouse several times to make sure that the four had left before reaching into one of the crates in the building and taking out a large backpack. “They better not have touched my stuff…”

As they left the warehouse, they heard a distant cry. It was the cry of a monster. Hunter turned his attention to where he heard the cry.

“Um… What was that?” Hideo asked, aiming his rifle.

“There shouldn’t be monsters this close to the city or docks…” Hunter replied, quickly fashioning together more of his weapons into a single form. The SMG from earlier gained a scythe-like addition in front of it, similar to a handguard of sorts. He added an under-barrel bayonet to a sniper rifle to function as a spear if needed. Quickly, he called for his shotgun, now a full-length pump-action shotgun with an axe-head at the front. “Get ready, everyone.”

“On it!” Haruko shouldered her rifle as Kyoka aimed her pistols.

“Hey, Hunter. Think you can make these into machine-pistols? Not now, of course, unless you want to…” Kyoka looked at the pistols, which were then enveloped in a wave of data before reappearing in a manner closer to machine-pistols with a pseudo-stock on its back. “Well, that was fast.”

“I can freely manipulate your units as needed whenever. Perks of creating your equipment.” Hunter replied as he loaded some shells into his shotgun. He was able to load in 8 shells before chambering a shot and loading in one more. “So 8 and 1 in the chamber…”

The cry rang out again, this time closer. The quartet prepared for combat before Esoterror ran out of the warehouse with weapons strapped to her body. A revolver on her thigh, a sub-machine gun on the other, a hunting rifle in hand, a shotgun and assault rifle on her back, and a pair of pistols behind her waist.

“Urgh… I shouldn’t have aggravated it earlier…!” Esoterror muttered to herself as she ran past the four and towards the cry.

“Solo hunting…?” Hunter watched as she ran towards the source of the cry. “The monsters here are pretty dangerous… And she’s been solo hunting? Pretty brave of her. I’m going after her.”

“Hunter, wait!” Haruko’s plea fell on deaf ears as Hunter ran off after her. He ran off after her without another thought, summoning the shotgun-axe hybrid to his hands, a sub-machine gun on his left thigh, and a revolver on his right thigh. Soon enough, Hunter had caught up to the female player.

“So, miss Esoterror. What are you hunting?” Hunter casually conversed.

“The hell?!?” Esoterror was obvious very shocked that Hunter had caught up to her. “How did you catch up?!”

“I’m testing a Level 10 prototype. Still working out the unit’s parameters.” Hunter kept talking as he ran, checking his revolver to make sure it was loaded.

“That’s insane…” Esoterror remarked before hearing a roar in front of her. She turned her attention forward and dived towards a downed tree for cover. “Dammit… Can you read its Level?”

“Uh…” Hunter dived towards another tree and peeked over it. “It looks like a Level… 20…?”

“20…? This’ll be difficult…” Esoterror checked her rifle’s ammo, then chambered a round. “Okay, incendiary ammo loaded. Let’s do this…”

Hunter ran out of cover and fanned the hammer of his revolver, firing all six of his bullets at the monster to aggravate it. Immediately, the monster towards him, a crow-like being with a humanoid body and dark, feathery wings. It used its wings to disperse the projectiles Hunter fired.

“Damn…” He ejected the empty cylinder and loaded in a fresh one before pulling back the hammer, holding the trigger down, and lifting the revolver’s barrel and cylinder upwards in one swift movement. “I’ll test out the switch mechanism then…” The blade of the bayonet extended over the barrel, followed by the barrel itself locking into an upwards position. Flames surrounded the weapon before Hunter slashed downwards to expel the flames and reveal a single-edged longsword with the hilt and portion close to the guard resembling the revolver it was based off of. He assumed a battle stance with the sword.

“Huh… This might be easier with this guy around…” Esoterror observed Hunter’s weapon transformation, then shook her head and aimed her rifle at the Corvian abomination. “You distract it, I’ll shoot.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Hunter ran at it at full speed, almost disappearing from sight and reappearing in front of it with his sword slashing upwards at an angle. The crow was barely able to avoid the slash by flapping its wings to propel itself out of the way. Despite that, Hunter was still able to cut along the trajectory and make a scratch. “Gotcha. Get back here!”

The corvian screeched at Hunter as it flew upwards, away from the range of his sword.

“Heh… I thought being modeled off a crow would transfer some of that avian intelligence, but I guess not…” Hunter switched his weapon back to its revolver mode, using the hammer and trigger to unlock the blade and rotate it back to its gun formation. From there, flames surrounded and dispelled around his arm to reveal the revolver from before. “This might be out of your range, but try your best, Ifrit!”

He fired at the crow monster with his revolver, aiming with the iron sights on the weapon. The crow flapped its wings and flew out of the projectile’s trajectory. Hunter sighed as he reloaded and holstered the weapon before switching to his shotgun and aiming. A hologram appeared, tracking the monster with a circular reticle.

“Distract it better!” Esoterror yelled to him as she began aiming for the monster’s wings, firing a little bit ahead of the target to compensate for movement on the crow’s behalf. “Or you can deal damage and I’ll distract it!”

“We’ll go with that!” Hunter yelled back to her, jumping upwards and using a burst of wind to boost his jump further, getting up close to the crow in the air and blasting it with his shotgun. “Take that!”

The corvian screeched in pain as it grabbed Hunter and began clawing at him. He grunted in pain from being clawed, though he was able to chamber another round and shoot the monster. It screeched out again and dropped him from the pain, distracted from the agony of the shotgun blast.

“Shoot it!” Hunter commanded Esoterror. She shot at its wings with her assault rifle to tear off its wings. It shrieked in anguish, falling to the ground with Hunter. “Get over here!”

Hunter pushed the grip of the shotgun into the weapon’s body and pulled the trigger, which changed it into a battle axe with a handguard. From there, he used another wind boost to level himself with the crow, slashing upwards at it as he flew upward. Esoterror had switched to her hunting rifle, shooting it from afar. After slashing, Hunter grabbed onto the monster, switched back to the shotgun, and fired the remaining eight shells into it before using the corvian to take the majority of the fall damage for him. When they landed, Hunter jumped and kicked it towards Esoterror, who had switched to her own shotgun and was now unloading shells into the beast, Hunter threw his shotgun aside and brought out a new one, fully loaded, before firing at it as well. The two continued to empty their weapons into the monster before Hunter closed his driver. Instead of preparing to cancel the transformation, the belt began to charge energy around it; it was charging its Burst Strike.

“This finishes it.” Hunter spoke as he threw his firearms to the side and opened the driver again. His belt announced “Binary Specter Critical Strike!” as he rushed up from behind and punched it in the back as hard as he could once before following that up with a high-speed barrage of punches before jumping up and side-kicking the monster towards Esoterror.

“I’ll be the one to finish this!” Esoterror pressed a button on the side of her End Driver once, then on the Central Node to activate her own Burst Strike. The energy channeled itself into her shotgun, which she used to blast the crow monster with and utterly destroy it. “Phew… It’’s all over now.”

“You’ve been solo hunting for how long now?” Hunter turned to her, saving all the data he got from the fight and calibrated it.

“None of your business,” Esoterror replied as she collected the loot from the monster and saved it to his inventory. Hunter gained an item from fighting too. “I want all the drops from this monster, so hand over whatever you got.”

“Sure,” Hunter looked over the item he acquired, then summoned it to his hand and tossed it to her. “Won’t be anything valuable to me.”

“... I expected a little bit of resistance. Who the hell are you?” She caught the item, inspected it, then stored it in her inventory.

“Just a passing-through Kamen Ri- I mean, Beta Tester.” Hunter replied as he saved all his changes to the Binary Specter unit and brought out his vehicle. “I got quite a lot of useful data out of that...”

“Data…? What the hell are you looking for?”

“I told you I was testing a Level 10 prototype, didn’t I?” Hunter casually replied. “I can give you a ride back, if you want.”

“No. I can find my way back on my own. I know this area like the back of my hand!” She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest triumphantly.

“Right… Good evening, then.” Hunter waved to her, then got on his bike and drove off. Esoterror sighed, then began jogging back to her warehouse base. When he returned, he saw the other three had already left. “Ah… I took too long…”

It took him some time, but Hunter arrived at his office. He entered it without a word and made a bee-line for his computers, removing his armor on the way there and plugging in his Mach Lighter unit. Soon enough, he had copied the unit and was now modifying while simultaneously working on the Binary Specter unit. Night arrived quickly, the Military Police members went to sleep without him as Hunter worked hard on his units. The copy of the Mach Lighter was changed entirely from the LS-218 the original contained to a Honda CBR1000RR. Its colors remained predominantly red with black and white highlights. All the performance upgrades from the previous bike were transferred over, as well as its compatibility with the Jettison Kabuto unit to allow it to become a hover bike. The entire night was spent updating the new vehicle, christened the Mach Corvus after the crow-like monster he had fought the day before. His Binary Specter unit had its Level 10 parameters completed, now working on the Level 20.

October 1st, 2026

As clouds continued to cover up the night sky, Hunter rubbed his eyes from lack of sleep. The whole night, as previously stated, was spent working on his Mach Corvus and finalizing the BInary Specter’s Level 10 form. His data collected from the revolver and shotgun were implemented and set in place, though he still needed some data for his sniper rifle and sub-machine gun. Sighing from exhaustion, Hunter got up and went into the kitchen, making himself a pot of coffee before reaching into the fridge to grab a can of condensed milk. The clouds appeared to be storm clouds from what he saw through the kitchen window. He tucked the milk away in his pocket after grabbing a mug and taking the pitcher of coffee with him to his desk out in front, where he had been working the whole night. What he saw when he got there surprised him. A young girl no older than 16 sat on one of the couches patiently. Her username… “Esoterror.”

“Ah… you found me…” Hunter nonchalantly muttered, obviously not expecting someone to visit him, and at this hour. He checked the clock on his computer, which flashed “5:55 AM” under all the data and 3D models on screen.

“It wasn’t that hard after I looked into you. You’re that ‘passing-through Beta Tester’ from yesterday, aren’t you? Hunter, I think…” She turned to look at him. His current clothing was a simple pair of dark sweatpants, a t-shirt that extended past his waistline a couple of centimeters with a dark red hood, and a set of slippers.

“That’s me.” He poured his cup half-full with coffee, then opened the condensed milk and poured some in. “Ah, I forgot the spoon…”

“I’d like a cup too, please.” Esoterror requested. Hunter sleepily shuffled into the kitchen, grabbing a small spoon and another mug. He set down the extra mug in front of his desk, pouring it three-quarters full before adding a few spoonfuls of condensed milk. “I’ll have mine extra sweet, if you could…”

Hunter sighed as he poured more coffee and milk into his own mug until it was full. He carefully lifted the cup to his mouth and drank half of it in one gulp.

“Jeez…” Esoterror sat down in front of him and poured in as much milk as she wanted, which seemed to fill up the rest of the cup, before she mixed it up and took a sip. “Ow, hot… This is really good coffee though…”

“I brew it myself. French-press method. Simple and efficient.” Hunter replied as he picked up the can of condensed milk, feeling about half of the can’s original weight in his hands. He sighed before putting it down and rubbing his eyes again. “Anyways, why are you here? Contract? Personal complaint? Reserving me for something else?”

“I, uh… I wanted to thank you for the assist yesterday. It probably would’ve been more of a hassle if you hadn’t helped me out with that thing…” Esoterror shyly voiced her gratitude to him quietly.

“I see…” Hunter took another sip of coffee, then closed his eyes.

“Hunter…?” She poked his cheek once, then once again to wake him up. It took several more pokes before he snapped awake and almost spilled his coffee, quickly grabbing the mug and lifting it upwards to avoid spill.

“Hm?” He glanced around his surroundings with dreary eyes, darting back and forth before finally focusing on Esoterror. “Ah, right. You’re welcome, I suppose. I guess we both got lucky yesterday…”

It was at this moment that Haruko decided to walk out into the main room, overhearing the last sentence Hunter spoke and immediately waking up.

“What was that, Hunter…?” Hunter’s eyes shot wide open as he turned around slowly to see Haruko, clearly very angry with him.

“I had to kill that monster thing that was coming towards the warehouse, and I just so happened to end up helping her with killing that monster. And with that, I got a valuable amount of data from the fight, so I spent all night condensing and finalizing the Level 10 form. Then I went to get coffee, and here we are…” As Hunter spoke at rapid speed, his gaze slowly dropped to the floor along with his voice trailing off into a murmur.

“Is that so…?” Haruko got out through gritted teeth, still visibly angry.

“H-he’s right… we both happened to end up in a win-win situation yesterday…” Esoterror sheepishly added.

“And what happened right after the battle…?”

“I… Good question… I don’t remember…” Hunter rested his head on his arm, taking a sip of his coffee.

“He left right afterwards, I swear.” Esoterror spoke with more confidence this time, though still intimidated by Haruko.

“You have to be kidding…” Haruko sighed before turning around and heading into the kitchen. “I’m going to make breakfast.”

“Sure…” Hunter replied as he turned back to Esoterror. “So, aside from expressing gratitude, is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Very business-forward, huh…” She whispered to herself before taking a sip of coffee.

“Pardon me?”

“Ah, nothing. That’s really all I wanted to say. Thanks for the coffee…” She set down her cup, half-finished, then got up, bowed, and left.

“Hm…” Hunter turned back to his computers, seeing his screensavers of various Tokusatsu heroes fading from one to another. He tapped the monitors to wake them up, bringing up his units. He tapped on the Mach Corvus and saved its current configuration to the cartridge it was being stored in, waiting for confirmation on a successful save before removing it from the terminal it was being held in.

“So, how do you like your eggs?” Haruko asked from the doorway of the hall leading to the main office.

“Think we can bake some eggs in hash browns?” Hunter stood up, finishing off Esoterror’s unfinished coffee before finishing his.

“Didn’t a chef with anger management issues make that in the past…?” Haruko replied, whisking eggs in a bowl.

“Beats me…” Hunter picked up the coffee pitcher and walked into the kitchen with it, helping Haruko with making the hash browns and eggs. They cooked bacon in a miso glaze and toasted several slices of bread. The morning was spent in silence, breakfast passed without anything important happening.

The day went on quietly as well, a storm seemingly brewing in the clouds above. Nothing happened, aside from a girl asking Hunter to investigate something about a dangerous zombie of something of the sort. Hunter arrived at the location he was told about, his Level 10 unit in a pocket despite him activating his Level 2 Mighty Specter. Putting away the Mach Corvus unit he had just developed as he transformed into Level 2, he looked around and saw no signs of a zombie breakout.

“A false tip? Or bad info…? Who would lie about zombies? Then again, zombies aren’t that hard to come across in EBO…” Hunter murmured all to himself as he walked and looked around him.

“It’s been so long, hasn’t it?” A familiar, yet sinister voice called out to him. The sound of a Driver clicking into position, followed by the activation of another unit. “Scizor Hades X…!”

“You…” Hunter turned around and faced the source of the sound. As he did, a screen projected in the air was punched through before being torn apart and revealing a mechanical zombie-like player. Its name… “Genm.”

“My assistant did her job then.” Satoshi glared at Hunter menacingly, which Hunter met with a silent, yet angry stare. Rain began to fall from the sky in small droplets. “I’ll have the pleasure of making you the first death in the system. And still at Level 2, I see. Perhaps your so-called genius is nothing more than an illusion.”

“Shut it!” Hunter charged at him impulsively, attacking him despite a significant level gap. He ran at Satoshi at top speed, punching and kicking as hard as he could.

“Idiot! You think your petty little Level 2 will stand up against my Level 10?!” Satoshi blocked his attacks with ease, anticipating Hunter’s next moves after enough time analyzing his fighting style. The rain increased in intensity as they continued to fight.

Hunter growled in anger as he charged a Burst Strike then and there, performing a flying side kick towards Satoshi. The latter let the kick connect and boost the gauge on his chest, leaving it at three-fourths of the way filled as Hunter rolled backwards and caught his breath.

“You truly are a delusional fool!” Satoshi shouted at Hunter in a haughty tone, briefly chuckling arrogantly after. “You’re just making your death swifter!!”

“That’s what you think…” Hunter mumbled to himself, reaching into his coat pocket and producing his Binary Specter unit. “Level 10 Tactics…”

“Hm?” Satoshi witnessed for the first time as Hunter transformed into his own Level 10 form. “Binary Specter?”

“Immortality is a state of eternal life… so I’ll make you feel the pain of death over and over!!” Hunter charged at him with a pair of SMGs with scythe blades integrated into them as handguards, using them for melee attacks and shooting lightning-based bullets at Satoshi for whenever the blades couldn’t get to him.

“Words are meaningless unless you have the strength to back them up!!” Satoshi continually dodged the scythe blades, only allowing the lightning bullets to hit him since he couldn’t dodge their velocity in time.

“Then stop dodging and start fighting!!” Hunter replied, tossing the pair aside and bringing out the shotgun, dashing forward and blasting Satoshi’s heart with pellets of ultra-sharp rocks at point-blank range. The attack sent the zombie-like player flying backwards a few feet, hitting a tree and going limp.

“2 down, three left…” Satoshi uttered in raspy voice as he stood back up, acting much more like a zombie now. His gauge remained three-quarters full, but two of the five orbs underneath it were colored in a bony white in contrast to the blood-red background of the gauge that appeared to mimic one’s muscles. “For once, I thank your disillusionment and idiocy…”

With that, Satoshi began to dissolve into mist. As he did so, Hunter tossed his shotgun aside and summoned his rifle, shooting Satoshi in the same spot as he did earlier as many times as possible before he fully faded away. Since Satoshi began dissolving feet first, the damage was dealt, and the gauge filled up completely before resetting and reaching about a third full as another orb lit up white. Satoshi chuckled menacingly, his voice could be heard briefly after he disappeared into mist.

“Think what you will, Genm. There’s a method to this madness of mine…” Hunter reloaded his rifle and holstered it on his back. Walking away, he brought out the CBR1000RR of his Mach Corvus and started the engine, holstering the cartridge in the Burst Slot Holder on the side of the belt. With that, he left and returned to his office and the seat he started the day in.

“Well? How’d it go?” Haruko asked, drinking a cup of cold tea.

“Genm,” Hunter replied.

“Genm?! Was that girl who reported the contract related to him somehow then?!”

“I’m too fucking tired for this…”

“I need answers first!”

“Too tired…” Hunter blinked slower and slower as he let his head hang downwards slowly.

“Answer me, dammit!” Haruko’s yelling snapped him awake, though briefly.

“He said something about his assistant luring me, but…” Hunter fell asleep again.

Haruko set down her tea and threw her arms in exasperation and silently raged at Hunter’s sleepiness before scoffing and leaving the room, taking her tea with her. Hunter snapped awake again, remembering from the back of his mind that he needed to finalize the data on his Binary Specter’s weapons. He began to code in the data needed to stabilize everything before saving his changes and tucking the units away in his inventory and heading to his bed, passing out onto it despite it being only 3:30 in the afternoon. He slept well past dinner, waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Checking the time on his nightstand, Hunter found the time to be 1:15 AM. The storm from his earlier battle was still going, and had seemingly evolved into a thunderstorm. As he got up to use the bathroom, thunder clapped in the sky above as he wrapped up his trip to the restroom and went to the kitchen to make a late-night snack. Leftovers from dinner earlier with his name on it were found, so he heated those up again and ate those as he worked on his Level 20 unit. He would spend several more hours on it, working all the way into breakfast.

October 15th, 2026

The next two weeks went by without anything notable, moving quickly into October. Halloween would be arriving soon, and the prisoners of EBO would celebrate the final day of October one way or another.