Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 14-17.1: Blood of the Forefathers

Yuriko’s confident smirk disappeared almost as quickly, because as soon as the gunmen said those words, something else happened. Her Mien’s grasp over their minds remained—at least, she thoug...

CoESC Book 14-16.3: Corruption

To say it took the rest of the day for the gangsters to reach their hideout wasn’t quite true, Yuriko decided. They headed towards the mountain, but really, pick any direction to go and technical...

CoESC Book 14-16.2: Corruption

Warm water flowed down Emmanuel Silva’s hairy back, his body hair the same shade of navy blue as his head’s. Unlike his other Durandir kin, however, he didn’t like sporting a beard. He wasn�...

CoESC Book 14-16.1: Corruption

Yuriko ducked underneath a ganger’s swing. The truncheon whooshed above her head, but the rotter also had the same speed boost as the one from before, and far better control of his momentum. The ...

CoESC Book 14-15.3: Empty Steads

With the bullets flying through the air, it wasn’t as if Yuriko could simply sit down and eat. Besides, Fluffers would also need his nutritious, if bland tasting, burrito, too. Some stray bullets...

CoESC Book 14-15.2: Empty Steads

There were, in fact, neo-petrol stations in the badlands. More to the point, it wasn’t the desolate landscape that Yuriko had expected. When everyone called the city’s outskirts the badlands, s...

CoESC Book 14-15.1: Empty Steads

A couple of days had passed since Yuriko’s bar hopping. After Kansaki, she’d gone to a couple more bounty hunter bars, each one practically a mirror to the other. They were separated by hundred...

CoESC Book 14-14.3: Boots on the Ground

Wearing a blue sweater and grey tights, along with a pair of sneakers, Yuriko certainly didn’t paint a picture of a mercenary. She had a backpack on and was finally using her Autovisor after Elsi...

CoESC Book 14-14.2: Boots on the Ground

The wind flowed through Yuriko’s hair as she drove her Bladedancer across the highways. She’d just left her tower but didn’t really have a destination in mind. She was currently on the same l...

CoESC Book 14-14.1: Boots on the Ground

It had been about a week since Yuriko met and sparred with Tiger Lao for the first time. The days somewhat blurred together after the first two, turning into an amalgamation of concrete, bright, ne...

CoESC Book 14-13.3: Looking for Answers

Yuriko didn’t hesitate as she flew. Her Animakinesis dug into the asphalt and propelled her across the street. Her tendrils dug into the walls, simultaneously hooking, pushing, and pulling so tha...

CoESC Book 14-13.2: Looking for Answers

Elsie’s eyes could barely follow what happened next. Oh, she could replay the video recording, one that she remembered to activate just a bit too late to catch the start of the spar, but even so,...

CoESC Book 14-13.1: Looking for Answers

Tiger Lao shook his head, “Lady Davar, I cannot answer your question. Not because I don’t want to, but because I do not know the answer. I know not where the passages to enter the lower floors ...

CoESC Book 14-12.3: Mystic Arts and Where to Find Them

This time, Elsie kept her motorcycle running at a low speed, barely faster than someone could run. With good reason too, Yuriko supposed, since the path they took went through narrow alleys littere...

CoESC Book 14-12.2: Mystic Arts and Where to Find Them

She did not, of course, take Fluffington with her. Not because she didn’t want to, but the lazy mutt took over the newly delivered bed and mattress and refused to leave. While she could have forc...

CoESC Book 14-12.1: Mystic Arts and Where to Find Them

By the time Yuriko and Elsie finished their errands, it was well into the afternoon. Elsie led her to a building in the Shopping District where they could deposit the bag of bones. It was near the ...

CoESC Book 14-11.3: Incursion

Yuriko pursed her lips at Elsie’s words. Her Mien was connected to the half-metal woman, of course, and the other’s emotions flowed into her mind as soon as they were created. The connection ha...

CoESC Book 14-11.2: Incursion

Wild thoughts rampaged across Elsie’s brain, bouncing off the sides of her skull and slowly, but surely, overheating her mind. She had followed Blondie all the way down to the tenth floor, perilo...

CoESC Book 14-11.1: Incursion

“The blade destroyed the flesh but the bone resisted it,” Yuriko muttered. “Is still resisting it…” she amended when she saw its skull slowly turning red hot.

The creature howled i...

CoESC Book 14-10.3: Red Zone

‘She’s going into the Yellow Zone?’ Elsie thought with a bit of dismay. She’d been following the gorgeous blonde for half the morning already—part of Wild Fang’s directive to figure out...

CoESC Book 14-10.2: Red Zone

The store was clearly different from Blacklight Threads, Yuriko decided. It was more like those she’d experienced back in Bresia and Herrera City, though it still had its idiosyncrasies anyway. F...

CoESC Book 14-10.1: Red Zone

The morning found Yuriko back in the lift lobby closest to their apartments. The evening and the night had been spent sharing what knowledge they’d gleaned from the REI-space through the Autotabs...

CoESC Book 14-9.3: Intratower Politics

The screen opened in front of Elsie’s eyes as her call to the Big Boss, Wild Fang, connected. The screen showed the boss’ face, though it was still and was really just a picture rather than a v...

CoESC Book 14-9.2: Intratower Politics

The thug’s fierce jabs proved no detriment to Heron’s defence. His mastery of the Ennoia of Winds allowed him to track each and every minute deviance to the punches’ trajectories, making it t...

CoESC Book 14-9.1: Intratower Politics

When Heron stepped up, the thugs’ grins widened. Yuriko huffed in annoyance, though she noted that at least half of them changed their focus towards Heron rather than keeping it on the rest of th...

CoESC Book 14-8.3: Green Zone Troubles

It took an hour for the metro to reach the L5 station. It was only twenty-five longstrides as a straight line, and Yuriko certainly knew that the monorail train she and the others took had a speed ...

CoESC Book 14-8.2: Green Zone Troubles

The lift floor indicator read 456 just before the doors opened. Yuriko and the others piled inside, and they practically filled the entire space. But that was fine. The entire wall was filled with ...

CoESC Book 14-8.1: Green Zone Troubles

“Well, this is interesting,” Yuriko muttered, “and annoying.”

Across her vision, with the visor on her face, she had been looking around the immigration lobby. But after a couple of ...

CoESC Book 14-7.3: Dragon Fall

The first few fields to fill were simple enough, simply her name, age, sex, country of origin, and others of a similar vein. There was also a fill for associated organisations, and one of the examp...

CoESC Book 14-7.2: Dragon Fall

“...so what did you come to Dragon Fall City for?” Mathias eventually asked after a few minutes of small talk that included anecdotes from his home country. Not much of what he spoke of about t...