#philippine stock exchange

[onenettvchannel]

THIS JUST IN OVERNIGHT: Nickel Asia Corps set to replace UnionBank, following to delist UBP in the stock exchange main index by October 4th

(via ABS-CBN News / with reports from Salve Duplito)

PASIG, NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION -- In a significant serious developments, the Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSEi) officially announced that the Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC) is poised to replace Unionbank of the Philippines (UBP) on the PSEi main index on Wednesday (October 4th, 2023 -- Manila local time).

(SCREENGRAB DOCUFILE PHOTO COURTESY: PSEi via pse.com.ph)

This decision, recently outlined in Memorandum Circular #2023-0047 from PSEi, signifies a strategic shift in the composition of the prestigious stock index.

NAC is a major contributor to the role of the Philippine mining industry in global and local supply chains, operating nickelous mining, exploration and processing. The company earned its reputation for being an industry leader, because of practicing sustainable and responsible mines development practices.

The Union Bank of the Philippines is a commercial banking and financial economic institution, which primarily based in Pasig City, National Capital Region (NCR). With a wide variety of services, along with traditional & digital banking, and other financial solutions including a savings account, loans, credit & debit cards; UBP performs an important position within the banking sector character. Its presence extends into retail & industrial banking, and online financial services (regardless of depositing money on savings, E-Wallet and Bank Transfers), making it a key player in the nation's financial landscape.

And finally, The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSEi) serves as a primary stock exchange in the home country. It maintains and operates the aforementioned stock exchange company, which represents the country's top-performed business companies, and reflecting the overall health of its national Filipino stock market. Inclusion within the PSEi is a prestigious accolade, signifying a company's stability and significance inside the Philippine economy.

The decision to delist UBP from the PSEi main index has added several questions among investors and consumers. One theory that emerges pertains to the impact on UBP retail banking operations and its online banking consumers, per reports from ABS-CBN News. As UBP loses its place on the prestigious index, it may face heightened scrutiny from investors, potentially affecting its stock price and market perception.

(SCREENGRAB FILE PHOTO COURTESY: Google Maps)

For savings account holders and online banking consumers in the Philippines, including right here in Dumaguete City and Negros Island Region, this upcoming transition could lead to a period of uncertainty. Filipino and foreign investors might closely monitor the bank's performance and financial stability, which could in turn, influence their trust in their services of the said commercial banking company. However, it's important to note that UBP's core banking operations remain intact, and it'll continue to serve its customers diligently.

It is no big secret that the Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSEi) is going through a potential change as Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC) takes the center stage on the main index. As this ongoing business banking development unfolds, investors and consumers alike are watching closely. But questions still linger about the implications for its commercial banking company of UBP.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Unionbank of the Philippines is an affiliated banking organization firm for the benefit of ONC Foundation in Negros Oriental, part of our broadcasting management of ONC Holdings Inc. for OneNETtv Channel and OneNETnews.

SCREENGRAB COURTESY: Google Maps BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna

SOURCE: *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNyu5JTmYsY [Referenced News Item via ABS-CBN News] *https://documents.pse.com.ph/CircularOPSPDF/CN-2023-0047.pdf [Referenced Memorandon Notice via Philippine Stock Exchange] *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unionbank_(Philippines) *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_Asia_Corporation *https://nickelasia.com/about-us and *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Stock_Exchange

-- OneNETnews Team

[mariacallous]

Fugitive Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek wasn’t just responsible for Germany’s largest financial fraud in history. He was also a decade-long Russian spy.

In the city of Lipetsk, 300 miles south of Moscow, stands a yellow chapel. Somewhat out of place next to a modern mirrored-window building, situated on the lip of a roundabout, the 200 year-old Church of Holy Transfiguration caters to the faithful of a large mining town that dates back to the era of Peter the Great. Inside, Father Konstantin Baiazov performs the customary rites and rituals for his flock. Dark and bearded, with a short, military-style buzz cut, the church’s archpriest’s routine is standard – services twice a day. Father Konstantin inherited the job — and the calling — from his own father, a revered Orthodox priest who, as local legend goes, had challenged the authority of the formidable KGB during Soviet times.

Konstantin, the father of three, used to travel abroad. He liked visiting Europe, and was particularly fond of Rome. However, he has not left Russia since September 2020. Since the fifth of that month, Father Baiazov’s official passport, numbered 763391844, has not belonged to a man of God. Rather, it belongs to someone who wears a different kind of white collar, looks a lot like him, and is the most wanted man in Europe.

For more than four years, Jan Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of the disgraced German financial services company Wirecard, has been living in Russia under this assumed identity, a year-long investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel, ZDF, and Der Standard has uncovered. Wirecard, the German equivalent to PayPal was once a DAX-30 listed company, one of the wealthiest traded entities on the German stock exchange, with a valuation of $28 billion. Then came June 2020, when, in the midst of an audit, Wirecard could not locate €1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being held somewhere in the world – Russia, the United Arab Emirates or the Philippines. In fact, the money didn’t exist. Wirecard’s worth was predicated on commissions supposedly earned from three companies, Al Alam, Senjo and PayEasy, based in Dubai, Singapore and Manila, respectively. Wirecard money flowed into all three but the only documented flows in reverse existed in the German conglomerate’s imagination. Or, as the now imprisoned former CEO Markus Braun claims, it had been funneled away to a complex web of offshore accounts controlled by his then number two, Jan Marsalek.

Marsalek, the man responsible for overseeing the forging of company records, money-laundering, and extensive espionage and harassment campaigns against the journalists and speculators who exposed the enormity of Wirecard’s graft, fled in a sinuous route from Germany to Austria to Belarus to Moscow on June 19, 2020, at a moment when COVID-19 lockdowns made movement across borders more difficult than usual for ordinary citizens. But Marsalek is not only an internationally accused swindler. He is also an agent of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, and he has been for the last decade. More recently, since his defection to Russia, he has also done jobs for the FSB.

The Insider’s investigation is based mainly on confidential documents, emails, and chat transcripts, as well mobile phone and travel data. Research into Marsalek’s past also included interviews conducted by our consortium partners with people close to the accused. Among these are his mother and his longtime recruiter-handler, whom Der Spiegel met up with in February at a five-star hotel in Dubai.

The never-before-told story of how the Austrian-born “whiz kid” was recruited to Russia’s largest and most notorious spy agency, the GRU, bears all the hallmarks of a genre-bending ham thriller. Sacha Baron Cohen as Bernie Madoff the Bond villain. It is a saga replete with honey traps, MiG fighter jets, erotic models, sinister ex-spooks, even more sinister mercenaries, counterfeit passports, fake priests taking Syphilis tests, and cheap disguises. More ominously, the story also involves surveillance and kidnapping plots, including surveillance targeting a member of the team that investigated Marsalek’s case, Christo Grozev.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.27 (after 1940)

1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14. 1942 – World War II: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies. 1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men. 1943 – The Holocaust: In Berlin, the Gestapo arrest 1,800 Jewish men with German wives, leading to the Rosenstrasse protest. 1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified. 1961 – The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated. 1962 – Vietnam War: Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm. 1963 – The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo. 1964 – The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over. 1971 – Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (the Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start performing artificially-induced abortions. 1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government. 1976 – The former Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. 1988 – Sumgait pogrom: The Armenian community in Sumgait, Azerbaijan is targeted in a violent pogrom. 1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated". 2001 – Loganair Flight 670A crashes while attempting to make a water landing in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. 2002 – Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport causing minor injuries. 2002 – Godhra train burning: A Muslim mob torches a train returning from Ayodhya, killing 59 Hindu pilgrims. 2004 – A bombing of a SuperFerry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack kills more than 100 passengers. 2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. 2007 – Chinese stock bubble of 2007: The Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest daily fall in ten years, following speculation about a crackdown on illegal share offerings and trading, and fears about accelerating inflation. 2008 – Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari escapes from a detention center in Singapore, hiding in Johor, Malaysia until he was recaptured over a year later. 2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggers a tsunami which strikes Hawaii shortly after. 2013 – A shooting takes place at a factory in Menznau, Switzerland, in which five people (including the perpetrator) are killed and five others injured. 2015 – Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow while out walking with his girlfriend. 2019 – Pakistan Air Force JF-17 Thunder downs Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman's Mig-21 in an aerial dogfight and captures him after conducting airstrikes in Jammu and Kashmir.

[gabriel-gabdiel]

Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 4: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Florante is having trouble telling reality from fantasy at this point. Does he even want to be involved with Jenny’s angel and demon nonsense? 

Which side should he choose? You’d think the angels’ side is the right path, but he has enough darkness in him to go demon too.

You can also find more chapters of my original fiction here. Please enjoy.

First | Previous | Next

Dismissal time came and went.

The friendless, listless Florante Galang shuffled towards his school service—a public utility jeepney (PUJ) turned private vehicle—in order to repeat the Groundhog's Day loop of him going home from class, waking up again to return to the same class, and having no one to talk to as he ended up scoring mediocre grades on his quizzes and quarterly exams.

Oh joy. It was like he was stuck in Groundhog's Day. The same day repeating over and over.

But the same could be said of every other student in Fatima School of Mandaluyong. He couldn't really complain.

He was neither the first nor last kid to be bored of the repetitiveness of school. Socially awkward kids were born every day.

Also, it wasn't as if the Philippines had its own version of the Groundhog's Day holiday either. Florante just liked that particular Bill Murray movie enough to reference it in his mind monologue; it was his closest point of comparison.

The only other metaphor he could think of was the eternal afterlife punishment of the Grecian mythological figure Sisyphus endlessly rolling a rock up a hill only for it to roll back down by the end of the day so he had to roll it back up again the next day. Forever.

He looked up. The ominous skies were in a dark mood, with the gloomy clouds looking particular dense and opaque. However, at least it hadn't wept out a dreary downpour.

He felt his spine tingle as he walked inside a parking lot that, just yesterday, served as a battleground against an indescribable floating monstrosity. The stuff that nightmares were made of.

He reassured himself that it didn't really happen anyway. It was all just a dream. Like him killing his bullies with special powers and whatnot.

Florante Galang pushed his idle musings of his friendless existence to the back of his mind as he skipped going to his school service and decided to ride the UV Express Toyota Tamaraw FX (a metered taxi) from Mandaluyong to Makati instead.

His body moving on its own.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

How far will Florante's delusions take him this time?

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 4: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

***

As the Philippines' financial center, Makati served as the city with the highest concentration of local and multinational companies in the nation. It was filled to the brim with banks, department stores, malls, and corporate offices as well as foreign embassies galore.

In particular, Makati's Ayala  Avenue contained the Philippine Stock Exchange's biggest trading floor. The city also ended up becoming Metro Manila's major entertainment and cultural hub for good measure.

As far as Florante Galang knew, Makati was the city of rich kids, business people, and trust-fund babies. Their biggest problem there was finding parking for their cars, since most of its residents owned their own car and rarely used public transportation (mostly taxis and buses).

Galang exited the FX and ended up wandering around the streets of Makati, with only one particular destination in mind.

His own gut feelings or instincts guided him through the unfamiliar labyrinth of an urban jungle.

Dully, with his body on autopilot, he asked around for the street where Jennifer Tolentino or the Tolentino Family lived. Remembering the first time he met her, with her telling him she lived in Makati.

He talked to tricycle drivers, passersby, and security guards in private subdivisions, asking where Jenny's address was (as indicated by a Post-It note he found in his bag), stopping to eat at the local 7-Eleven as a light squall of rain made the pavement glisten from neon lights.

Before Florante knew what had happened, he ended up in front of Jennifer's apartment in Makati again.

Like he sleepwalked over there. Or rather, commuted there instead of went straight back to his home.

Wait, again? Was he there before…? How did he even know it was Jenny's apartment?

Jeez. What was wrong with him?

***

Florante's blurry eyes cleared, only for him to see an apparition of the glasses-wearing girl in the horizon, her hair blowing from an unseen wind.

"Flor," she beckoned him after reaching him, holding a plastic bag containing what he presumed was her dinner.

"It's Florante," he said without thinking.

"I don't care," she answered back with a pout before smirking. "You look like a 'Flor' to me. Be mad. I'm still gonna call you Flor from now on."

"O-Okay." He felt his cheeks grow warm in spite of himself. Yeah, she did kind look cute in this light, didn't she?

He pushed back such nonsensical thoughts, with him trying to remember why he went there in the first place.

"So what brings you here? How'd you know my address? Or my phone number? Did you ask one of our classmates for it?" she asked, which made him become defensive.

Oh right. He called her first before going there. Right? Did he or didn't he…?

"No, no! It's not what it looks like! I mean, I…!" he stammered before blurting out how he found out about the address, not knowing how else to broach the subject of him seeing her name and face on all those older yearbooks in the library.

He became a stuttering mess. Their meeting didn't pan out as smoothly as it would've on T.V. and the movies, with them coming to a mutual understanding of what had happened after the jig was up.

She didn't even bring up how he told her that he remembered their fight with the spaghetti monster. This further convinced him that his fever dream of murdering his classmates was actually just that. A dream.

A bad dream. A nightmare. A power fantasy. That was just him blowing off steam from being bullied by using his own imagination.

His real self could never do such a thing. Right?

Oh wait, why'd he go there at Jenny's place in the first place? He had to explain himself!

He unzipped his bag then produced the photocopies of the yearbooks he got a hold of. One was her graduating in the 1960s. Another was her address from the yellow pages. Another, a Post-It note of her same address.

"I didn't believe the dreams I had were just dreams until I saw this," he said, finding the courage to speak and confront Jenny about his recent discovery, his mind a white haze.

Jennifer palmed her face. "I sure hope you realize just how bad this looks, right? You got my address and phone number from the yellow pages without me knowing then you went to my apartment unannounced."

"…I-I'm sooo sorry," he apologized profusely.

"…You just won't leave things well enough alone, can you?" Jenny said with a resigned sigh. "Come with me, then. Let's talk."

***

She led him to her apartment. They took the stairs instead of the elevator to get there since it was just located on the third floor.

He panted from the effort of climbing stairs but put up a brave front.

He kept his asthmatic wheezing to a minimum after realizing something that sent shockwaves to his whole body.

Florante's heart skipped a beat. This was his first time going to a girl's home.

Or even a classmate's home, to be honest. He didn't have any friends to speak of back in Fatima High, after all.

Florante entered the small rental apartment Jennifer Tolentino lived in, thinking it was about twice the size or more of his bedroom.

He excused himself as he stepped within the threshold of the apartment, looking around for Jenny's parents. However, they weren't there.

'Where are her parents?' he wondered. Were they away on a business trip? Was she sent to live in Makati to get her closer to school? Or maybe she was living with an aunt and uncle? A guardian?

Did her family live in the province? Did she live alone? Were they alone right now…?!

Florante gulped hard before he became aware of his wheezy breathing again. He took out the asthma inhaler inside his bag and took a puff. He then started breathing manually to calm himself down.

'Relax,' he told himself.

Oh boy. What'd he gotten himself into? At the back of his mind, he vaguely wondered if any of what was happening was normal. Wasn't he stalking her by doing this? She mentioned that was the impression he gave.

He then remembered he didn't really call her. That was also a daydream. Why did she somehow expect him to get there…?

Déjà vu filled him inside to the brim. Did he somehow end up here in her apartment because he went there before or something?

"Gabriel," she called out, which awoke him from his stupor.

Gabriel? Oh, right! That was what she called him back in his dream. Or was it a dream? Or was he dreaming right now?

Like he did when he wrote her address on a Post-It note and jumped on the roofs of houses and buildings from Pasig to Makati like he was Spider-Man? Wait, did that even happen?

He struggled to speak and stumbled upon his words.

"Gabriel? As in the Archangel Gabriel?" he asked her without thinking. "Why are you calling me by that name? Isn't he a legendary angel?"

Had he asked the same question before?

Jenny shook her head and patiently smiled, motioning for Florante to sit on the couch of her living room while she made some tea. "You're so picky with names. You don't want to be called Flor or Gabriel. But you're the same guy, in the end."

It was easier to hold a conversation with her in his imagination because in reality he was usually alone and barely talked to anyone.

He went straight to the point, saying things that would've embarrassed him in real life.

"I saw you in my dreams lately."

An awkward pause passed between them, making him regret saying anything.

"Oh. Is that so?" she asked, her lips as flat as a line as she blinked at him several times. Or she was batting her eyelashes at him?

He presumed she had just teased him with a nice dollop of sarcasm. Damn his inability to read social cues!

"Um, I didn't mean it like that," he clarified, feeling his cheeks grow warmer by the minute. "I mean, uh... I'm having déjà vu all over again. I've seen this dream before. We've talked inside your apartment before."

"Really now," she said, taking a sip of the tea she had laid out for the two of them on the table, her hazelnut eyes penetrating through him like the concentrated beam of sunlight from her magnifying lenses for glasses.

Florante turned away, his hand covering his mouth. His face on seeming fire.

A few weeks or months ago, he'd think his capricious feelings for Jenny was a betrayal of his crush on Laura Reyes, the prettiest girl in their class. However, that ship had long ago sailed.

Perhaps him moving on from Laura to Jenny was why he "saved" Jenny from his wrath in his other dream/nightmare where he murdered all his bullies with magical/supernatural powers?

Or maybe he should stop being so shallow? Honestly, falling in love with any pretty girl that treated him nice was pathetic. Ah, who knew? He should get his head out of the gutter. What was he doing there anyway?

More importantly, did they really just fight a gigantic spaghetti monster using elemental superpowers and, uh, super-fast germinating moss?

"Why'd you visit me from out of the blue, Flor?" Jenny asked, with her using that irksome nickname again. However, Florante ignored it.

"…Y-You're much older than you look, right?" he blurted out.

She raised an eyebrow at that statement. "Pardon me? What do you mean?" she asked, adding, "Don't you know it's rude to ask a girl her real age?"

'Only if you're talking to a middle-aged woman,' he thought to himself. However, he could feel the onset of a wheeze in his asthmatic breathing.

"It's true, isn't it? You're not a real teenager."

She dwelled on his words. "What if I'm not?" she asked gently, her voice barely above a whisper. Her dulcet tones sent tingles down his spine.

"So how old are you really? Was that really you in the 1960s yearbook? Are you an immortal? Am I an immortal too?"

"You could say that," she said, to his surprise. "Yes, that is a picture of me. I'm amazed I was able to get away with enrolling in the same school too, but the registrar never bothered checking who the other Jenny Tolentino is."

He shivered in spite of himself.

"They must've thought it's just a funny coincidence. Or that she was a relative of mine with the same name. Or they simply don't remember," Jenny explained.

Florante then asked, "Am I like you? Since you called me an Ophanim back then. I knew that wasn't a dream! You really did pretend to be a high school teen! We're both…!"

He gasped then let out a long exhale to prevent himself from hyperventilating.

"Did what happen the other day… yesterday… whenever it happened, really happen? You remember it too, right? The spaghetti monster?" he dared ask.

She must've known. She just said she received his call, even though he could've sworn he only called her in his dreams. He didn't have the courage to call her for real! Or visit her apartment for real. But here he was now.

Unless this wasn't real either.

Florante racked his brain of vague, forgotten memories of his past dreams, unsure of he was inside yet another dream, only this time more lucid. How lucid was he anyway?

Him mentioning the spaghetti monster incident made her snap back into attention, which jolted him backwards and made him murmur an apology by reflex.Was it something he said?

"So you remember me calling you an Ophanim, huh?" she asked.

He nodded slowly, with him not quite looking at her while he recalled their last significant interaction with one another.

"What's an Ophanim again? A wingless angel, was it? Is it that monster I transformed into where I could see everywhere because I had a hundred eyes or something? Just like that spaghetti monster we fought?"

He tugged at his collar, squirming in his seat at the intense gaze Jennifer gave him. Like fawn shrinking back at the headlights of a speeding truck.

Was he not supposed to carry on their conversation from last time? Did he do something wrong?

She softened her stare, the glint from her glasses disappearing, revealing her almond eyes. "That's right. You and the monster we fought are both Ophanim, Gabriel."

"There you go again," he said. "My name isn't Gabriel. Or Flor. It's Florante. And who are you supposed to be? Michael? Uriel? Or maybe…?"

"I'm Raphael," she said, confirming his suspicions.

"The ninja turtle?" he joked, but he then bowed his head and looked away when he saw her deadpan poker face, murmnring an apology for his lame joke.

"Well, that's… cute," she said of the joke, then asked, "What do you want, Gabriel?"

"…What do you mean?" he asked, inching away from her.

Instead of answering his question, she took another sip of her tea. "Fine. What else do you remember, Florante?"

Her using his full name caught his attention. He answered her question after a deep breath, sensing that she was testing him somehow.

So he told her everything.

***

Florante told Jennifer that he remembered his fever dream of murdering his whole class and destroying most of the school before facing off against Laura Reyes, who also somehow also got her own angelic powers.

This made him idly wonder if she were a wingless angel too. Wait, she had wings, right? She might even be a winged angel instead. He also recalled that Geronimo "Gerry" Jacinto faced off against him with his own superpowers too.

Gerry couldn't be an angel. He was more of a devil. A monster. A demon. His bully and daily tormentor being a holy being of light and goodness just didn't sit well with Florante.

Wait, didn't Jenny refer to the spaghetti creature as a demon instead of an angel…?

Then he talked about how he and Jenny ended up fighting against the tentacled monster from out of nowhere at the school parking lot, with her killing it with enchanted(?) moldy bread with mold that spread across its body like gangrene.

He then finished with him dreaming about going to her place before he ended up doing so anyway at the spur of the moment, resulting in déjà vu.

He left off the part where he wasn't sure if what he saw right then was itself a lucid dream or reality. Maybe because he feared this would result in the dream ending like before, so he kept that last bit to himself.

Let him dream this particular dream of him talking to a girl and being alone with her in her apartment for a little while longer.

"Well…?" he asked. She'd been listening in silence the entire time, with only occasional nods and sips of tea to break his long monologue. "What do you think? Did what happen the other day… yesterday… whenever, really happen? You remember it too, right?"

She then told him, "I'll be honest. I'm not sure if you're Gabriel just yet."

What she just said made Florante even more confused than before; like he was talking some sort of oral exam and happened upon a trick question.

"Pardon me? What do you mean?"

"I suspected you're Gabriel but I'm not yet sure because you're just an Ophanim right now."

He pondered her words. "Meaning?"

With steepled hands, she said, "You're a newborn angel. We call newborn angels Ophanim or Thrones. Your multi-eyed self is your true form for now."

"What do you mean true form? Stop joking! Am I Gabriel or not?"

"Newborn angels don't necessarily have famous identities. However, the truly exceptional ones might graduate to Cherubim or Seraphim level. Based on what you've accomplished before, I suspected you've become the newest avatar of Archangel Gabriel."

Her answer gave him a headache. "So you think I'm Gabriel but you're not sure?"

She shrugged. "You may or may not be the Archangel Gabriel. Right now, you're just a wingless Ophanim who could use your angelic powers while in human form. An egg but not quite the chicken."

"…And you're not an Ophanim yourself?" he asked.

"I've already gotten my wings," she answered with a shrug and a wink. "You still need to earn yours."

"…So what are we exactly?" he dared ask. "What are angels supposed to be?"

Jenny took her time sipping her tea. Since she was about to proverbially spill it.

"Angels. Demons. Devils. Monsters. Deities. Demiurges. Higher beings. Celestials. Different cultures call us different names. We might even be considered gods. Or superheroes."

"Really? Superheroes?"

"…Nah."

"Oh."

Jenny took another sip of her tea with a small smile. She murmured something under her breath that Florante couldn’t quite catch.

"What was that, Jenny?" he asked.

"So did you really intend to kill your classmates back then?" The bespectacled girl asked, the hair on her head starting to dance and twirl from an unseen gust of wind. Weird. "Even if it was a dream, no person normally dreams of something so grisly."

"This again? It's not my fault! It was the dream me that killed Laura! And the rest of our classmates! I would never do that in real life! Stop blaming me for something I subconsciously did!"

"Is that so?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I swear if I knew my dreams had real consequences, I wouldn't even imagine doing that to anyone," he said. "Look at me. I'm pathetic. I wouldn't even hurt a fly or a cockroach."

She sighed and let the awkward silence linger between them for five minutes that felt like eternity.

Not that the squirming, gulping Galang counted the seconds or anything.

"Fine. Screw it. It's my turn to tell you everything. Florante Galang, you're a candidate to becoming the Archangel Gabriel. Congratulations."

***

From a distance, Florante heard the rumble of thunder. He shuddered, but it felt like the rest of the room shuddered with him, which made him wonder if he had just felt an earthquake as well… or was it just him? He couldn't tell.

Did the drizzle outside become a downpour? Oh my. He should've brought an umbrella with him.

"A candidate?" Galang repeated. "Like a presidential candidate? I could be Gabriel or not?"

"Or you could be Schrodinger's Gabriel," Jenny said, giggling. "You're Gabriel and not Gabriel at the same time!"

"Shredder… what?" he asked, unfamiliar with the reference.

She cleared her throat. "Never mind."

"N-No. Tell me what you meant!" he insisted.

"I mean, just read about Schrodinger's Cat from a trivia book, man," she said. "Anyway, we're getting off-topic. Yes, you're a candidate. An avatar. You could become Gabriel. Or some other famous angel. And Ophanim like you can become Gabriel too."

Florante clasped his hands in front of him, seemingly deep in thought. "In my dreams, several of my classmates manifested powers of their own. Are they also angels? Or Ophanims?"

"Very good, Florante," she said, which made him frown at her condescension. "Yes, they're also wingless angels. They're also candidates to becoming Gabriel. If they develop their powers correctly, they could end up awakening as Gabriel themselves, if not other angels, gods, or deities of history."

"Wait, wait, wait. Aside from Gabriel, they… we could become famous angels like Michael, Raphael, or Uriel? Also, by gods and goddesses, do you mean Greek or Roman ones? An Ophanim could become Zeus or Jupiter? How about the Norse All-Father Odin?" Florante queried.

"More or less," came "Raphael's" unhelpful answer.

"And what makes you so sure I'm a Gabriel candidate?"

Jenny shrugged. "I can tell. Or at least the Raphael within me can recognize him from inside you. Whether or not you're worthy to bear his name shall be seen later on."  

The thunderous rumblings arouind them grew louder and harsher, producing a droning sound. However, for some reason, the two both ignored the rampaging elephant in the room.

"Wait," Florante said, his mind going a mile a minute but his mouth still stuck at the starting line. "What must I do to win the, uh, candidacy?"

"Evolve from an Ophanim to a Cherubim and then a Seraphim," Jenny replied. "You must evolve the right way to, or else…"

"…Or else the other candidates will end up winning? Is that it?" he finished her sentence for her. "So how do I evolve to become Gabriel?"

As he said the words, he wondered if he even wanted to become the avatar of an ancient archangel in the first place.

To himself, he wondered, 'Do I even want to be Gabriel?'

It sounded like so much responsibility to live up to the Archangel Gabriel.

Another thing occurred to him. He asked, "And that spaghetti monster you called a demon. Can he become a candidate for Gabriel too? Or is he supposed to be the avatar for Satan, Lucifer, or whoever instead?"

"Ah. You figured that one out too, huh?" she said with a sage nod. "You're quick on the uptake, kid."

"So…?" Florante urged.

Jenny said, "W-ell, in the case of that spaghetti monster, he might've been an Ophanim at one point, but because he let his powers control him instead of the other way around, he ended up becoming demonic instead. A Minion instead of a Throne."

"Minion?" Florante repeated. He didn't like the sound of that. "What the hell are minions? Wait, don't tell me. They're like Ophanims. They're baby demons!"

"That's exactly what they are," confirmed Jenny, who got up from her seat in excitement. "Good call. So there you go. You have the potential to become either a demon or an angel. An Ophanim or a Minion."

Galang then asked, "How can you even tell when, um, someone is an Ophanim or Minion? A demon or angel? They're both monstruous, to be honest."

He also got up from his seat, which made him stumble and grab hold of the nearest furniture to steady himself. Was it vertigo or did the room spun on its own?

He didn't know what was going on.

To be quite frank, his head throbbed with the information overload. So he was an angel that could also be a devil? What? Or rather, the avatar of biblical angels who somehow ended up here in the Philippines? Really?

"I guess that's the point?" Jenny said with a shrug. "A demon is just a fallen angel, after all. Whether they have bird wings or bat wings. Halos or ox horns."

"…Monsters by any other name, am I right?" they heard someone say, like it had access to the P.A. system in their minds.

The two shuddered, feeling a chill deep down their spine. They looked at each other, realizing they both felt and heard the same thing.

"Did you hear that?" asked Jenny.

"Yeah," acknowledged Florante. "What was that?"

Jennifer looked him straight in the eyes. "A demon."

They felt the presence of another. Another one of them. Or perhaps more than one? They couldn't tell.

Unbeckoned, they stood up and headed out of the room, following that dreadful feeling from its source.

***

Just like in Florante Galang's nightmare of decimating Fatima High School and killing all of his bullies—or fellow Gabriel candidates (which included collateral damage like Laura Reyes)—the skies grew dark once more.

As the cliché went, it was a dark and stormy night.

The rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it got checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the streets—rattling along the apartments, condos, and housetops, and fiercely agitating the fluorescent bulbs of the lamps that struggled against the ominous darkness, its fuses ready to burst.

The two angel avatars also heard rumblings from the epicenter from which people on foot and inside vehicles as well as vermin like mice and roaches avoided, resulting in a chaotic mess of a traffic jam and a fleeing crowd on the verge of a stampede.

"Let's go," said Jennifer Tolentino, who took hold of Florante Galang's hand to accompany him towards the horrible something that had caught their attention.

The demonic presence that acted like the source or fault line of an earthquake that shook the world itself right at its core.

Rather than get repelled by the negative vibrations that reverberated into their very bones the closer they got to them like the rest of the living things in flight mode that surrounded them like a sea of humanity or an ocean of life, the two angelic avatars felt somehow magnetized by the dark presence, their heads glowing with an aura unseen by others like ultraviolet light.

An inner brightness spilling over their heads and spreading out from the center like the nuclear fusion of a star, thus making their heads glow with a spherical aura. The corona of the sun. A literal angel halo.

Jennifer's halo glowed a greenish blue hue while Florante's glowed a fluorescent white and sky blue color instead.

This inexplicable aura was what allowed them to part the living sea of mice and men, with people unconsciously or subconsciously avoiding them. This allowed them to make their way to the demonic presence they felt and heard.

To the voice that talked to them right inside their heads.

They ran towards oblivion and uncertainly in an adrenalin rush, but somehow, the virgin Florante couldn't he happier.After all, he was running hand-in-hand with a cute girl. What was there to complain about?

Jenny, whose first impression on Florante was that of a timid mouse, perhaps a talkative gerbil, had always made his heart flutter but in a way that one would find a kitten or puppy adorable.

He wasn't sure what he felt for her now was necessarily a crush.

However, she somehow looked different to him now, with her heaving bosom, glistening face, and reddened cheeks as she brushed her slightly damp hair to the side while running with him.

Like she suddenly transformed into a hot librarian right before his eyes.

In the middle of their sprint, an out-of-breath Florante said from out of the blue, "Thank you."

"…Huh? For what?" Jennifer asked.

"For humoring me and listening to what I have to say," he said in candid honesty. "I appreciate it."

She smiled. "No problem. We're both angel avatars, right? We might as well stick together."

"You bet! I like a girl who understands me but I can confide to as well," he blurted out without thinking, only for him to realize what he just said a little too late. Not knowing how to take it back.

"How am I supposed to respond to that?" asked the sheepish Jenny, who looked away and hid her eyes with the glint of her glasses.

She then stopped running hand-in-hand with him and let go of his hand, which startled him.

However, before he could apologize (again), she beckoned him to keep following her before she began running again, which he did.

He kept trailing her from behind as he resisted the urge to keep looking at her behind.

Soon, they realized there were no longer any people around them. Or any signs of life. No birds. No bugs. No signs of life. Nothing.

The stalls and stores were empty. Completely evacuated. No one dared remain in the exact direction they went: A pulsating pitch blackness.

"Do you feel that?" asked Jenny. "The heat from your face? Your head?"

"Y-Yeah," said Florante, but he had another type of hotness in mind, his eyes avoiding the jiggle of her heaving bosom as she ran towards the black maelstrom.

He had a feeling she had just changed the subject from what they were talking about earlier.

"That's your halo. Your spiritual energy. Your aura. That's where your powers come from as an avatar of Gabriel," she explained. "You weren't able to detect it before, but you can feel it now, right?"

"Yeah, I think I can," he said with a wheeze and a gulp that turned into a coughing fit, unable to meet Jenny's curious gaze.

"It's because you're getting used to your powers now… Wait. We're here."

He then looked up after she stopped from her run. They'd reached their destination: A church.

"Where are we? What church is this?" Florante asked.

"Guadalupe Church," Jenny answered.

The Guadalupe Church or Parish, also known as the Nuestra Señora de Gracia Church, was a Baroque Roman Catholic church located in Makati City, Philippines.

Florante would later learn that the building was once occupied by both the Filipino revolutionaries of the 1890s and American forces of the 1900s during the Philippine-American War. In World War II, it served as the garrison for the Japanese invaders.

It now currently stood as one of Makati's premier tourist attractions as well as one of Metro Manila's most popular wedding destinations. Had Florante learned of this earlier, it would've made his head spin. He certainly envisioned marrying Jenny in the middle of their run.

However, something more noticeable than the church itself caught the pair's attention.

A tornado of blackness, ash, and what could be best described as tendrils of sentient smoke moved between them and the church ruins.

A crawling chaos. A grotesque mockery of reality beyond comprehension.

Again, like before with his confrontation with Laura Reyes or the parking lot spaghetti monster, Florante was at a loss for words describing what was before him.

This new creature was another indescribable eldritch abomination straight out a child's nightmares. Or even man's primal fears.

The formless, mindless disaster then coalesced into what looked like a tall, lean man made of shadow. He, if it were a he, had neither beard nor hair. He was instead an ebony cesspool. The Black Death personified. A humanoid typhoon.

His own tarry aura melted into a shapeless robe made of a heavy dark fabric. Like his aura had become his own clothes that converged unto him into the singularity made from a dying star.

His dense living black hole seemed to drown out and absorb what little light surrounded them, like waves of the Dead Sea or nimbus clouds blocking sunlight or moonlight. This made the comparatively faint halos of "Raphael" and "Gabriel" stand out more.

Although he was as horrible in appearance as an Ophanim, Florante couldn't even begin to imagine describing the shadowy tendril man as anything other than demonic. A Minion.

"H-Hey, you wouldn't happen to have one of those moldy pieces of bread with you by any chance, right?" Florante half-joked, half-expecting himself to need to transform into a Throne to match the power of this Minion before them.

The disembodied voice from before then spoke, but both Jenny and Florante realized somehow that it didn't enamate from the creature before them. Rather, it came from some other source.

"Pardon me, but I can't stand to look at this farce anymore," said a sharp-dressed foreign man—a Caucasian person with a sharp nose, even sharper spectacles,  and auburn hair—in English.

"Who are you?" Florante called out, surprising himself with his own bravery when talking to the scary foreign stranger.

The man in the business suit—formalwear known to Filipinos as an Americana—ignored him, though. This businessperson that looked like a Makati expatriate or even a visiting company CEO addressed Jennifer instead.

"Are you honestly indulging the boy's delusions until now, Raphael? How cruel of you. You know he's no angel. He's actual more of a demon, to be honest. With destructive power like his, he should be on our side."

"Mammon," said Jennifer, naming the demon before them. "Stay out of this. He's mine."

This made Florante jerk his head and stare at Jenny by reflex, his cheeks burning at her bold proclamation. 'I-I'm hers?!' he thought.

Aloud, Galang asked her, "You know him? Wait, his name is mamon (Filipino sponge cake)? Seriously?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not mamon. Mammon. The demon Mammon."

"Tell him the truth about himself already or I will," Mammon threatened with a smirk. "I'm getting impatient."

Thusly, Florante shot a Thunderbolt at Mammon.

A pinprick or lasebeam of light producing a vaccuum of emptiness around it, rendering the surroundings into rubble with a loud sonic boom.

The businessman cackled and stopped the supersonic assault with one hand, transforming to a huge-headed goblin with a long nose, ram horns, and a stogie for the briefest of instances before returning to his avatar's human form.

"Flor!" exclaimed Jenny in spite of herself. "What are you doing? You're no match for him right now!"

"Well now. I see you've convinced the young lad to side with you using your avatar's… feminine charm, Raphael! Bravo. You're quite the devilish temptress, if I do say so myself. Like Jezebel. You'd make a fine demoness yourself.."

Despite being fully clothed, Jennifer covered herself with her hands by reflex and shame after hearing Mammon's remark. "You're such a pig."

"Well of course, I am!" said Mammon with a smug grin. "I'm a demon."

The halo of the Archangel Gabriel's avatar flared like a ring of fire or a celestial ball of gas and plasma, his bright corona traveling all over his body and enveloping him in a white and blue light while he crackled with arcs of electrity.

Finally, the demon Mammon addressed Florante. "I don't blame you for siding with her, kid. Raphael's avatar is a pretty little thing, not going to lie. However, you were born ten thousand years too early to take on the likes of me. I've forgotten more than you can even remember."

With his arms crossed, Mammon floated away. Barely baring his fangs at Florante's best shot. None the worse for wear.

No wait, he hadn't hit him with his absolute best shot yet.

Galang then summoned a bolt of lightning at himself to reenergize his body with millions of volts of electricity while increasing the potency of his offense. Remenbering how to control his powers from his dream of destroying his bullies and taking on a flying spaghetti monster that was apparently an Ophanim/Minion like himself.

A wingless angel or a hornless devil. Good or evil. Those were the two choices for a Throne such as him.

Just then, as suddenly as him shooting a Thunderbolt at Mammon like an arrow, the hornless devil in the form of a personified maelstrom of pulsating darkness diverted its full attention towards Florante and unleashed its irresistable might unto him like an endless deluge.

Unlike Mammon, this shadow man came at him in full force.

'…Oh boy. Here we go.'

He was making the correct choice siding with Jennifer Tolentino, right?

She was an angel. One of the good guys. And the demons were the bad guys every time since the beginnning of time.

Right?

***

The lean, mean shadow man with gangly spider limbs and a pulsating aura that emanated from his head to toe like smog or smoke made strange clicking noises as he shifted positions with his strange jittery dash.

The crawling chaos didn't speak and bore no trace of an expression on his dark face. This belied the whirlpool of bone-crushing force he brought with him as his mere dash forward sent the Gabriel avatar buckling and reeling.

Fortunately, Galang's halo of blue-white light created a dome-shaped wind shield composed of gyroscoping jetstreams and slipstreams that absorbed the brunt of the Minion's force. Vacuum tornadoes ripped apart the church along with blockbuster ligtning strikes.

This tall man whom Florante bore no ill will towards. This Minion of the Archdemon he truly wanted to blast to Kingdom Come, Mammon. This Ophanim. This Minion. This was a fellow… angel/demon avatar. Just like him.

Who was to say he wouldn't end up like him? A mindless beast to be hunted down by angels. A fallen angel. A demon. A devil.

Was this really his war to wage anyway? Did it even matter if he chose the side of the angels or the demons? Was this what he asked for after esentially committing social suicide? Wasn't he biting off more than he could chew, foolishly facing off against devils and demons?

Florante charged bolts of high-voltage lightning on one hand and bolts of thunder-inducing energy bullets on the other hand then hurled them one after another at the tentacled ebony monster.

Biting his lower lip at the frustration of not being able to shoot that manipulative bastard Mammon instead.

Why were they fighting again? To become avatars to millennia-old angels and demons? To become pawns on a chess game they didn't ask to be a  part of?

They were practically just the same pawns, right? It was implied that this crawling chaos was also human before, like him.

If his dream of killing his bullies wasn't a dream—if none of these fantastic events were dreams—then his wish to be helpless no more just came with a heavy caveat. A Monkey's Paw wish, if you would.

Unlike the flying spaghetti monster that could regenerate itself endlessly, the crawling chaos before them and its black pulsating mass of tendrils responded quite differently to Florante's typhoon onslaught.

Even though he showcased denseness as black and bottomless as the ocean depths, his great mass or "halo" of tidal waves that densely compacted themselves into humanoid form remained unmoved by Galang's cyclone winds and plasma blasts.

No wonder Jenny didn't use quick-growing mold spores or an acorn to attack this Minion. How could any of those weaponized plants stand a chance against this force of nature?

Maybe this time, Florante had no choice but to revert to his true Ophanim form and face off against the Minion as force of nature against force of nature. Monster against monster.

"No, Florante! Don't…!" said Raphael's avatar to Gabriel's avatar, her body seemingly pinned to the wall. "Don't change into your Ophanim form and lose yourself! Or you might become a Minion yourself! A mindless beast controlled by your own powers! That's what Mammon wants!"

The bespectacled young (or young-looking) girl's hair ended up toussled by unseen winds or some sort of force of nature like gravity that blew everyone else away like a hurricane.

And indeed, before Florante noticed it, he had started to transform, his human form disappearing and reforming into a gyroscope filled with rings adorned with flaming eyes once more.

"Since Eden, no more could man have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he walked," said Mammon telepathically to both Jenny and Florante.

The two looked heavenwards at the smug demon watching over them from high above his proverbial pedestal. Right now, he lived in their heads rent-free and they loathed having him invade their thoughts like that.

"However, this man has discovered the path to recovering his lost wings. Will he rise to paradise or be another fallen angel, his feathered bird wings turned into leathery bat wings? His halo turned into horns?"

God dammit. How was Florante supposed to fight against this monster any other way than become a monster himself?

On that note, why shouldn't he be a monster? What was wrong with becoming a Minion over an Ophanim anyway? What was the difference between one monster over another?

Nevertheless, because Jennifer told him not to transform into his Ophanim form, he didn't.

The shadow creature then came upon Galang's dithering, fluctuating form that went from human to Throne and back agaain like a flickering light with his own crashing black waves of dense aura, threatening to swallow Florante under its immense mass compacted within a lean form of a tall humanoid tentacle being.

Galang resisted the irresistable, turning his sky-blue halo into a country-sized pacific storm that made the crawling chaos' oceanic depths roil, churn, and bubble. Like the desperate cyclone howling back at the black sea, which only made its angry waters angrier.

Florante didn't ask for this. He wanted to stop being socially awkward, make friends, and for his bullies to leave him alone, not get new supernatural enemies to fight and deal with the burden of waging someone else's war!

Meanwhile, Mammon again spoke to their minds. Toying with them.

"Asking a woman if she lives nearby is often a predatory tactic. That info can expose so much. If you're around the area a lot, especially alone. Or if you're isolated and from out of town and vulnerable."

Both Florante and Jenny said, "What?" at the same time, their heads turning to look at Mammon again.

"LIGHT ARRAY!"

The embarrassment Florante Galang felt from being called out by the devil himself fueled his halo enough to finally release the much-delayed pinpoint bursts of concentrated pure energy he'd been gathering all that time.

The energy projectiles shot out like explosive bullets from his five fingertips, which finally decimated the humanoid maelstrom off of him.

Unlike with the regenerating spaghetti monster, his Light Array shots actually obliterated the maelstrom of shadows, turning them into stains on the pavement from the purifying brightness of his holy light.

That was Florante's best shot. The special technique he created from scratch to shoot at all his bullies at the same time with a wave of his hands and fingers.

At least now he could use his powers in a less shameful way: To defeat a monster that threatened to destroy the city instead of petty yet deadly revenge against his meanest classmates.

***

Florante screamed to the heavens and the unseen Mammon, "I didn't stalk her! O-Or I didn't mean to! I was following a lead on why I've been dreaming the nightmares I've been dreaming, okay!? Seeing her face on an old yearbook was suspicious! I had no malicious intentions!"

They both couldn't see Mammon at that point—the coward made himself scarce—but they could hear the smirk in his voice. "But I didn't specifically say you stalked Raphael, Ophanim. You came up with that conclusion. Methinks the lady doth protest a bit too much."

Galang's head almost twisted off of his neck like a bottle cap as he shot a glance at an out-of-breath Jenny, her hair a mess and her clothes disheveled. Meanwhile, his own stomach was in knots.

He gulped and muttered, "I meant no harm, Jenny! I didn't want to kill our classmates, believe me. I-I didn't intend to stalk you either! I-It just… came off that way. B-Because I wanted to know more about what's going on with me, and you're the only other person I know who's like me…!"

Mammon then added, "Literally you cannot risk divulging such information to him, Raphael. A man is a threat. A man approaching you alone is a threat. You should've known better. This is a woman's constant reality."

After a deep breath, Jenny adjusted her glasses, which magnified her hazel eyes. She then smiled at Florante and said, "Don't worry, Flor. I understand. You didn't mean any harm, right? It was all a harmless dream to you."

That smile. That damn smile. Florante wanted to protect that smile.

Mammon's disembodied voice then snarled at the pair.

"…You actually believe his lies, Raphael? He thought it was all a dream, so that makes it okay? By now, he should've figured out that it was more than a dream. That it wasn't manslaughter, it was murder with intent. A massacre. He's also a stalker for good measure. Stop excusing his crimes."

"I've just about had enough of you, man! SHUT UP!" said Florante, his fingertips again burning with blue and fluorescent white electric light.

"Stop lying to yourself first, kid. You wanted to kill your classmates. You reveled in every death. Even the ones who weren't your bullies. If you weren't sick in the head, you would've just humiliated them as revenge for them humiliating you. That's why you dreamed that dream. It was the first time in your pathetic life that you felt in control. Give in to that desire and set yourself free!"

"Show yourself, demon!" Just one shot (or five or ten shots) of the Light Array was all he needed. He just wanted to land just one right on Mammon's smug, beak-nosed face.

"Look at you go. You feel brave now, don't you? Like you're Raphael's personal Knight in Shining Armor. Or her lost puppy. But she knows the truth about you. How dangerous you are. So she's telling you everything you want to hear for now."

"Stop being such a pathetic coward and fight!" Florante said. Not really listening to a word Mammon said while he continued to gather energy from his fingertips in concentrated pinpoints of light.

"Kid, you've got it bad for her, don't you? But she's just using you. She'll learn soon enough that you can't have sympathy for the devil. That what you did is unforgivable. Don't you know, kid? We live in a society—" Mammon started.

"No, you live in a society! I live in my meticulously crafted daydream universe that I've been using as a coping mechanism since childhood!" said Florante.

Mammon chuckled. "No. You're a back-of-the-class loser who has gone on a power trip and became mad with power."

Alas, the demon's plan of buying the crawling chaos time to recuperate worked. The shadow man returned in full force. Or rather, the shadow men cometh.

The tall, dark, and devilishly bleak Minion manifested himself into multiple avatars of all shapes and sizes.

When he got aethered by Gabriel's embarrassment-fueled Light Array, he regrouped his atomized particles and spread them across Makati towards the nearest of its fleeing denizens, turning them into his own avatars.

What the crawling chaos lacked in healing powers, he more than made up for his ability to take over the bodies of others like some sort of black lung virus. The black plague made flesh and bone.

Florante willed himself to shoot at the numerous avatars, even though when they got blown apart, they didn't atomize into tendrils but instead burst like sacks of blood and guts.

The Light Array made short work of most of them, but that technique took too long to recharge, so he had to settle for Lightning Strikes, Lightning Bolts, and supersonic Thunderbolts for the rest of the avatar army.

He soon realized he wasn't killing the crawling chaos but innocent people.

These new avatars of the crawling chaos were collateral damage. Men, women, the elderly, and children—entire families—running for their lives up until the humanoid typhoon took over their bodies and turned them into shadow people like him.

They'd been morphed into blackened homunculus or zombies puppeteered by the crawling chaos himself.

At first, dealing with the "infected" avatars of the crawling chaos felt like shooting fish in a barrel, but then they displayed bizarre attributes.

Some flew with hand glider wings. Others crawled into corners like roaches. There were those that merged to form a super muscular shadow avatar that tanked Florante's Light Array, Thunderbolts, and Lightning Bolts.

From there, Florante understood.

This man-shaped maelstrom. This walking void containing the vast cosmos unto himself who could affect mystic energies, both demonic and cosmic, on an undefined level.

As World War II veteran and American civil rights activist Medgar Evers said,  "You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea."

This Minion was as unkillable as an idea. And just as dangerous.

"When a man possesses this much power, he does not seek redemption," said Mammon of the crawling chaos before Florante.

***

"Susmaryosep!"

Florante had just told Mammon he wasn't an intentional murderer (or stalker), but now here he was again, forced to murder innocents to keep this shadowy humanoid typhoon in check.

He clung to the vague hope that like with the flying spaghetti monster incident, everything would go back to normal after the crawling chaos's defeat. That everything could be undone. Like waking from a bad dream. Like all of this wasn't really real.

If he beat the Minion, he could revert everything back to their original state, like it didn't actually happen, and save the people he'd just killed to get to the humanoid typhoon. Or the walking typhoid fever.

However, that was all one big "if".

"Change into your Ophanim form. As you are now, you're no match against the Minion," teased the coward Mammon. "Unleash your full power like he has. I dare you, Gabriel."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You dumb bastard," cursed Florante. "You can't fool me! I bet you convinced this poor Ophanim to turn himself into a Minion the exact same way!"

"So?" said the brazen Mammon. "What if I did? The results speak for themselves. You can't even touch him. Face him with your full power or never wake up from this nightmare."

After deftly avoiding hit after hit from the shadow avatars, Galang got clipped by a five-clawed strike. That was all it took. It went downhill from there.

The distraction made him miss several of his shots, which allowed a number of the shape-shifting zombies of darkness to evade his suppressive fire so as to claw, stab, and bite at him.

Desperately, he wielded a lightning bolt like a sword whip, slicing and dicing the nearest of the undead horde of the crawling chaos's hive-minded avatars.

He pushed them back with his halo's electric vacuum shield, only to buckle under the pressure of an outright stampede of shadow creatures. The weight of hundreds felt like the weight of millions due to the densely packed particles of the Minion's cosmic selves.

His panicked wheezes became a full-blown asthma attack as he drowned in black avatars that clawed, grabbed, bit, slashed, stabbed, and lacerated him to helpless shreds.

At this point, even if he willed himself to turn into his "Be Not Afraid, Child!" form of a frightful multi-eyed Ophanim, it'd be too late.

Then, just as Florante was about to get swallowed by the oily tidal wave of inhumanity that the Minion of Maelstrom mind-controlled like individual puppets, a mango tree suddenly grew and blocked their upsurge in a landslide of broken branches, splinters, leaves, and mango fruits.  

Once again, Raphael's human avatar Jennifer Tolentino saved Florante's life.

She jumped and slid across the unbroken branches of the giant mango tree that served as her wooden barrier between them and the Minion's horde of mind-controlled minions (ironic) that he turned into clones of his wriggly dark self.

"Are you okay, Flor?"

"Y-Yeah, th-thanks for saving me. Again."

How shameful. He was supposed to be her Knight in Shining Armor, and here he was serving as her Damsel in Distress instead.

He didn't even have the energy to correct her nickname of him. He might as well be a "Flor". He might as well have that girly name.

She turned towards him, her green halo and her hazel eyes shining like gems full of light, and unfurled two green-feathered bird wings from her back. The thing that caught Florante's eyes though was her smile.

A sad smile that could break anyone's heart in two.

"Flor, don't be a hero. You don't have to force yourself just to make people acknowledge you," she said.

"W-What…?" he trailed off. "B-But I thought that's what I'm supposed to do as an angel! An Ophanim! I'm one of you, right? Why can't I be a hero?"

She shook her head. "When you do that, you end up blaming yourself, blaming other people, and feeling jealous of everyone. But still, it doesn't have to be like that. Even if people don't acknowledge you, you just need to be someone that you can be proud of!"

"I don't understand," he said.

She silenced him with a quick peck on the forehead.

"You don't have to fight. This isn't your war. You have no quarrel with this Minion, don't you? Even with Mammon, you're only picking a fight against him for my sake. Just be a good boy, okay? Maybe this time, when you wake you up from this dream, you'll decide to forget about all this nonsense and move on with your life."

"…." He could only stare at her cherubic, angelic form, dumbfounded into silence. He later realized that her kiss had healed all the wounds he'd sustained from battle and reenergized him at the same time.

Like man-sized termites, the shape-shifting avatars of the crawling chaos scratched, gnawed, masticated, ripped, tore, and outright drilled right into the gigantic mango tree trunk they'd crashed into, turning it into sawdust in their wake.

She then fell like a hatchling from her nest, her green feathers flying everywhere as she let the horde tear her apart in Florante's stead. Cannibalizing her, to his horror.

"NOOOOOOOO!" Galang screamed himself raspy, his eyes flooded with tears, his fingertips glowing with rivulets of bright-blue energy, his halo shining with multiple arcs of electrical power so elaborate they looked like ancient root systems.

***

Florante Galang realized early on that he really was no hero, much less a superhero.

The first chance he got superpowers, he used it for petty revenge against his bullies, his mindless massacre resulting in his high school crush becoming collateral damage.

He really shouldn't be entrusted with destructive abilities like the Light Array, really.

The realization horrified him, but he honestly wouldn't get any real satisfaction from beating a stronger foe like the crawling chaos or the flying spaghetti monster like he did when he killed his bullies in a fever dream.

He was a coward who used his powers against bullies who couldn't fight back as vengeance to how they bullied him into submission when he couldn't fight back either.

He was no better than the bullies who picked on him.

When faced with the prospect of sacrificing life and limb against a monster that threatened the lives of the whole city of Makati, he came up short.

He had no personal stakes on the matter, so he wasn't as motivated to becoming a hero.

This dark creature didn't bully him so he had no quarrel against him. He had no driving force to beat him. They were actually the same—an Ophanim and a Minion thrust into a fight they had no dog in.

Even when the Minion began using innocent bystanders against Florante, this merely horrified the young Ophanim instead of build his heroic resolve.

Ultimately, Galang was a selfish person who only cared about himself. He was an even bigger coward than Mammon, who became a disembodied voice in their heads that mocked them all the while.

Jenny was right. He didn't have to fight. He had no personal stakes here.

However, there was something she said before she did her own heroic sacrifice that stuck with him.

"Even if people don't acknowledge you, you just need to be someone that you can be proud of!"

Someone he could be proud of, huh? How could he do that? How could he become someone he could be proud of even without the acknowledgement of others? Should he become a martyr?

Florante looked down from his perch atop the gigantic "rotting" mango tree that Jenny had used her life and healing factor on to induce its gigantic growth. Saw the avatars eat Jenny so that not even her bones were left.

There it was. There was his personal stakes. With tears in his eyes, his powers began to grow anew. He knew what he must do.

Like a dying typhoon turning into a low pressure area, only to get a second wind and become a super typhoon as it moved into the moisture-rich tropics that enhanced its shower and thunderstorm activity.

He then saw that the avatars that consumed Raphael's avatar had the dark presence of the crawling chaos leave them. Evicted or otherwise exorcised out of them. Her green aura spread across them all, healing them of the Black Plague that infected them.

This maelstrom of darkness then converged into a singular man. The original avatar that served as a candidate for whoever demon wanted to take control of him.  

Before this living, walking shadow creature could get his hands on more avatars, Florante struck at the unkillable thing as immortal as a concept.

How did one kill an idea or a movement before it could spread across the populace like wildfire?

Practical application. A dose of reality.

Ideas never panned out without a hitch in real life. Let it naturally progress and die in absurdity when applied to reality.

"Light Array!"

Thusly, Florante and Jennifer killed the idea of this Minion by not letting its dark influence spread across anymore innocent bystanders and victims then isolating him inside his one avatar, feeding it with energy until it burst.

Like letting a fire burn itself out before it could spread and raze everything in its path.

"Light ARRAY! LIGHT ARRAY! LIIIIIGHT ARRAAAAY!!!"

The blasts of energy chipped away at the concentrated density of the indefinable cosmic mass densely packed into the shape and sentience of a tall, lean man.

The glowing, electrified Florante then pierced through the layers and layers of negative energy in order to scream at the maelstrom, "Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Do you really want to hurt all these people? Did Mammon put you up to this?"

The pacific storm that was Florante blasted the nimbus man with lightning and thunder, converging around him like he was the low pressure area about to become a typhoon himself.

"Did you think the same thing I had when we started fighting? Did you also wonder why we're fighting and if it's worth doing this in the first place?"

After blowing through layer upon layer of darkness and density, like a self-contained black hole made flesh, Galang then went face-to-face with… a kid. Just another kid like him. A tall kid, but a kid nonetheless.

They floated there in the eye of the storm that was Hurricane Galang.

A Minion facing an Ophanim, with both of them wondering what exactly was the difference between them.

Florante grinned at the stranger and said, "Let's stop this nightmare, okay? Maybe it's about time you woke up."

The darkness that surrounded them then shattered like glass, revealing an untouched city and a perfectly intact Guadalupe Church. Just like what had happened with the defeat of the spaghetti creature.

…Become a person he could be proud of, huh? Maybe he could try becoming that after all.  

***

Flor awoke outside the village or street where Jenny's apartment was located. He hadn't met up with her yet or gone to her apartment. Everything that had happened so far was just a fantasy.

Dammit. So even that was just a dream? A daydream, this time.

He then remembered the "last time" they ended up in her apartment and what they were talking about before they were cut off.

Oh, did he have one of those lucid dreams again? The ones you could control consciously? Or was he even awake now?

He'd been having all sorts of dreams lately, probably to escape the hell that was his teenage life as a bullied boy.

The dreams were happening more and more often. It was harder and harder to tell what was real and what wasn't until he did so in hindsight.

"Wait. What the hell am I doing?" he said to himself aloud, shook his head, and left without going to Jennifer Tolentino's apartment.

"Susmaryosep," he murmured under his breath, feeling like he'd somehow dodged a bullet for some reason.

***

The next day went on easier than the last, but only because Florante Galang knew what to expect of today this time around.

His classmates would either avoid him like the plague or talk behind his back as he went about his friendless existence in First Year Section St. Francis of Assisi at Fatima High School.

Oh well. At least his fantasies and fever dreams were interesting enough to jut down in a dream journal, right? Even though his reality was as banal as it could be.

Jennifer Tolentino and Laura Reyes used to sit near him in class, but they now sat elsewhere once their homeroom teacher and class advisor rearranged their seats.

He ended up with some dude who never talked to him sitting in front of him.

During recess, he went to the library instead of the cafeteria today because he usually sat in his lonesome these days.

His usual friends… acquaintances perhaps… well, the people he sat with every lunch, the Dead Kids… were off doing their own things separately. Weirdoes being weirdoes.

He should speak though. He went to the library during lunch. He was a weirdo himself.

He also tended to avoid bumping into the group consisting of Laura and her friends or, much worse, Gerry Jacinto and his barkada (gang).

He was used to classmates and the student body at large looking through him as though he weren't there, like he were a ghost.

However, for some reason, he felt like he had eyes all around him today, but whenever he stared back at people instead of the floor or his feet as usual, they ended up looking elsewhere. As if averting his gaze.

Was there something on his face or uniform? He hoped he didn't do anything embarrassing again. However, such concerns left his mind after his trip at the library.

He had one thing in mind. One person. Jenny Tolentino.

Granted, Florante still had his photocopies of the phone book page full of "Tolentinos" and other "T" names as well as the yearbook page featuring a look-alike Jennifer Narcissa Tolentino.

…Man, he was acting really creepy again, wasn't he?

How shallow was his crush on Laura Reyes that he ended up pining for Jenny Tolentino instead? Ah, whatever.

Crushes were supposed to be shallow attraction, right? You needed to really know someone to develop deeper feelings for them. Or so he heard. He didn't believe in love at first sight, although he had his share of, uh, infatuation at first sight.

Florante simply found Jenny cute because he knew her and they shared something in common. Also, she had puppy dog eyes behind those wide-rimmed glasses.

Why hadn't he looked at her that way before? Must be because of Laura. And because she might be a fellow angel.

Or at least his imagination viewed her as such.

Maybe this was him finally giving up on Laura in favor of Jenny. Maybe.

***

To Be Continued…

Florante starts having issues in being able to tell what's real and what's fantasy as he continues to dream up plot scenarios for his comic book and uses it to retreat from how miserable his real life has gotten.

Farewell, Abdiel

[meetmitsui]

One for the books. Thank you so much for the warm invite, ICOC Albay. Introduction written by ICOC: 

MARIE SACHIE MITSUI TURIANO

CEO, Founder and President of Fortem AuctrixFounder & CEO of Global Markets EruditionCo-Owner at Fort & TaillerThe Co-operators at Filipino Composers Development CooperativeA highly accomplished professional, Mitsui made significant contributions to the industry. Her expertise in Forex trading has led her to found Global Markets Eruditio, a successful Forex trading academy. In addition to this, Ms. Turiano is also the Owner, President and CEO of Fortem Auctrix, Inc., a BPO firm that has recently expanded here in Legazpi City, and the co-owner and Corporate Secretary of Fort and Tailler, a clothing company specializing in suits. 

Ms. Turiano is a graduate of AB Economics from Bicol University and has worked at the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Aside from her professional achievements, Ms. Turiano is also an artist at heart. She is a musician, songwriter, and singer, and co-operates the Filipino Composers Development Cooperative (FILCOMDEC). Ms. Turiano is also a co-author and contributor to the book "Pinay Lady Boss," a book about success and zero-to-hero stories of 55 Pinay Lady Bosses that aims to inspire more women entrepreneurs and businesswomen. Ms. Turiano's passion for work, people, art, music, and her family is evident in all that she does. 

She is truly a woman of impact who has made a positive difference in her industry and beyond. Catch Mitsui @ the Women of Impact Forum by ICOC Albay on March 25, 2PM at the 2nd Floor of Alba's Building Washington Drive Legazpi City.

*Link of Original Post HERE

[paulinchua14]

My Personal Idea of Perception on Globalization

This is my personal blog of perception on Globalization

OBSERVATION

Globalization has been in the world for a century already globalization won't end, rather it will keep growing and growing, because of how people in the new era are innovative, and more advancements Forths go on, it also revolves around the markets, trades, and the stocks of other countries, the cultural exchange of countries. It wasn't like before the start of globalization, where exchanges in different countries were hard, unlike in the present, where social media can easily make us track the news of other countries, the use of technology made a big impact in the world our lives were made easier by the advancement of technology.

INSIGHTS

My insights however in the Philippines is not that nice. I see the Philippines is more dependent on other countries it is not a bad thing Afterall because of how advanced the bigger countries are compared to the Philippines it still can help the Philippines grow the economic growth of the country.

It makes me a bit worried that the jobs here in the Philippines won't grow because of how low the salaries of the workers many Filipinos tend to work abroad for a higher salary to support their own family.

Inequality in the Philippines or more to the world, but the Philippines is more like survival of the fittest, the normal or lower class can have a hard time surviving comfortably because of how low the salary in the Philippines. I see it not fair because of how common poverty in the Philippines, but Philippines is still a growing country Afterall.

LEARNINGS

My learnings from this are the inevitability of Globalization since Globalization is a continuous process since everyone in the world keeps innovating and more technology becoming more advanced

This is peak form of evolution in the human nature.

[sasan-00]

Typhoon Yagi: The Storm That Shattered Records

Typhoon Yagi, also known as Severe Tropical Storm Enteng in the Philippines, emerged as one of the most powerful and destructive tropical cyclones in recent memory. Striking various countries in early September 2024, Yagi not only set records but also left a significant mark across the region.

Origins and Development:

The genesis of Typhoon Yagi can be traced back to August 30, 2024, when a low-pressure area began to form approximately 540 km (330 miles) northwest of Palau. By September 1, the system had developed into a tropical storm, receiving the name Yagi from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). Initially, Yagi made landfall in Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines on September 2. As it moved inland, it encountered the rugged terrain of Luzon, which led to a weakening of its intensity. However, once it emerged over the South China Sea, Yagi rapidly intensified, fueled by warm sea surface temperatures and favorable atmospheric conditions.

On September 5, Yagi reached its peak intensity, with the JMA reporting ten-minute sustained winds of 195 km/h (120 mph) and a central pressure of 915 hPa (27.02 inHg). The storm’s intensity was further confirmed by the United States Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), which classified it as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon, with one-minute sustained winds reaching 260 km/h (160 mph). This made Yagi one of only four Category 5 super typhoons ever recorded in the South China Sea, joining the ranks of Pamela (1954), Rammasun (2014), and Rai (2021).

Impact Across Regions:

Yagi's impact was widespread and severe. In the Philippines, the storm caused significant flooding and power outages, particularly in Luzon. The Hong Kong Observatory issued a Gale or Storm No. 8 warning as Yagi approached, leading to numerous flight cancellations and disruptions in daily life. In Hainan, China, the storm caused extensive damage, with power outages and infrastructure impacts being reported. The typhoon continued its destructive path into Vietnam, where it uprooted structures and led to power outages.

Overall, Typhoon Yagi resulted in at least 186 deaths, 901 injuries, and 171 people reported missing. The financial impact was staggering, with damages estimated at $9.33 billion across eight affected countries. The storm was particularly devastating in Northern Vietnam, where it became one of the most intense typhoons ever recorded in the region.

Meteorological Analysis:

Yagi’s rapid intensification was a notable feature of its development. Starting as a tropical depression on August 31, the system quickly escalated to a tropical storm by September 1. By September 5, it was classified as a super typhoon, demonstrating a well-defined eye and a significant band of strong convection. After its peak intensity, Yagi underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, which temporarily weakened it. Despite this, the storm regained strength before making landfall in Hainan and later Vietnam.

Preparations and Responses:

In the Philippines, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issued Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal No. 1 and No. 2 in anticipation of Yagi’s arrival. This led to widespread school closures, flight cancellations, and emergency preparations. Evacuations were conducted in high-risk areas, and the government implemented measures to assist affected individuals. In Hong Kong, warnings were escalated to Gale or Storm No. 8, resulting in significant disruptions to transportation and financial markets. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange halted trading, and the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge was closed to traffic.

Typhoon Yagi’s legacy underscores the immense power of tropical cyclones and the critical importance of preparedness and response efforts. Its impact on multiple countries highlights the need for continued vigilance and resilience in the face of such formidable natural disasters.

[head-post]

China, Philippines accuse each other of ramming ships in South China Sea

The Philippines and China on Saturday exchanged accusations of deliberately ramming coast guard vessels in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

The encounter off Sabine Bank was their fifth maritime confrontation in a month in a long-running rivalry in a series of escalating clashes on the vital waterway. Both sides have made accusations against each other.

The Chinese Coast Guard said the Philippine vessel, which ran aground illegally off Sabina Shoal, unmoored and deliberately rammed the Chinese vessel. Chinese Coast Guard spokesperson Liu Dejun in the statement urged the Philippines to leave the shoal immediately and said the Chinese Coast Guard would take all necessary measures.

The Philippine Coast Guard said in turn that the Chinese vessel deliberately rammed one of Manila’s vessels, but Manila would not recall its vessel. Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said the Chinese Coast Guard ignored collision avoidance rules and made dangerous manoeuvres, resulting in damage, but no injuries reported.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Sections of the waterway, where $3 trillion worth of trade takes place annually, are believed to be rich in oil and natural gas deposits, as well as fish stocks.

Read more HERE

[usa-town-talks]

Taiwan Grounds Flights as Typhoon Gaemi Approaches

Taiwan is on high alert as Typhoon Gaemi, the season's first major storm, nears the island's northeast coast. The powerful typhoon, with winds reaching up to 240 km/h (150 mph)—comparable to a high-category 4 hurricane—is causing significant disruptions.

Authorities have grounded almost all domestic flights and more than 200 international flights, according to the transport ministry. The government has declared Wednesday a typhoon day, suspending work and classes across Taiwan, except for the Kinmen Islands. Despite the widespread disruption, TSMC, a major chip manufacturer, has announced it will continue normal operations.

Typhoon Gaemi is expected to make landfall tonight, crossing northern Taiwan, including the capital, Taipei. It will move into the Taiwan Strait on Thursday before hitting Fujian province in southeastern China. The Central Weather Administration has issued a land warning, predicting severe wind and rain, with the worst conditions expected on Wednesday and Thursday.

Officials are particularly concerned about the storm’s heavy rainfall. More than one meter (3.3 feet) of rain is forecasted for the central and southern mountains, areas recently weakened by a significant earthquake. This poses a heightened risk of landslides and flash flooding.

In Taipei, residents have been stockpiling supplies, leaving supermarket shelves empty. The threat of Typhoon Gaemi has also led to the cancellation of parts of Taiwan's largest annual military drills, the Hang Kuang exercises, which were intended to be the most realistic ever.

In addition to Taiwan, Typhoon Gaemi and a southwest monsoon have caused heavy rains in the Philippine capital region and northern provinces, leading to halted work and classes and suspended stock and foreign exchange trading.

[jeaninthephilippines]

America's economy is really dying

Never have I walked into a mall and expressed astonishment at the ridiculous amount of employees and customer service that was occurring here in Calamba City at the mall.

There's someone in the parking lot greeting you and walks around between slots.

The security guard waves a scanner with a Good Morning.

Every kiosk, every department section has a rep waiting to help.

Every store is fully staffed and when you just look inside from the outside they greet you.

Even if you're even a bit curious they come in to say hello.

The security guards (also women) come around just to check in on the retailers to see if they're ok or need anything.

And the mall is literally full of people! Lines hustling and bustling.

When I think about life in Vegas, they're running a skeleton crew and you'd be lucky if you were even greeted from an off the strip store. And the people don't look tired here in the Philippines. They take their jobs very seriously by dressing exactly in their uniform which looks like they've pressed their clothes and put on some stockings. It's so humid but they're wearing a vest or long sleeves?!?! Filipinos waste nothing too. When you purchase a shirt, the rep puts it back into a plastic from when it was probably shipped to them. They do this so it's presentable when you bring it to the register. In the US, we unbox and remove bags after taking the product out just to toss it into the trash.

I had an amazing day with my mom. It was nice to find some retro dresses in the women's section that fit because I know I am not your average sized Filipina. After a while the sales rep's kept throwing more dresses at my mom and they must know she's gracious because she entertained them by giving me more dresses in the dressing room. And the American in me set some boundaries, like ok ok, leave my mom alone we're going to pay now.

And while I was in the fitting room, they asked my mom all types of questions about my personal life and my mom was a willing participant. No she doesn't have kids. No she's my only child. Yes she's married. Yes she's not from here.

Ok time to go mom... Hahaha.

We walked the mall and I was so disappointed in the bookstores. I was happy to find 2 books: a YA romance and a pinoy photography journal. When I was here 21 years ago, there were so many books it was beautiful. Looks like less people are interested or value books. To me, that's concerning but I also know that's a privileged outlook. People are living to eat, and reading is regarded leisure.

We made it home and my mom bought her mom some sweet snacks which she came back scolded for purchasing them. I have to watch my volume sometimes because when I reach a certain notch even in defense of my mom's affection for her mother in that act, my mom shuts down and tunes me out. Basically, after bringing those snacks to her mom's (my Lola), my Lola reminded her not to do that or she'll be fat. I told my mom I wish she didn't look at the past and was disgusted by it but to perhaps see it as a time that she didn't know better and have self-compassion. She's like no I was fat and my mom is right. I close the conversation by growing softer stating, " I know but as your daughter, I see you were trying to be kind and generous to your mom right now and she reacted negatively." My mom, every loyal to her mom (programmed by her years of living here), walked off in disagreement.

This journaling is so important to me after this exchange. How will we undo the patterns of our lives with self-compassion that punitive approaches?

I am determined to be the change. I am already on my way.

[shadowtechteller]

Decoding Cryptocurrency: The Digital Treasure of the Future

Welcome to the vibrant and often mysterious world of cryptocurrency, a digital gold rush that's reshaping the financial landscape right before our eyes. Let's embark on a journey to decode this phenomenon, making it as easy to understand as shopping with your favorite cashback credit card.

The Birth of Cryptocurrency

Imagine you're playing an online game, and you earn gold coins that you can use to buy gear for your character within that virtual realm. Now, picture if those virtual coins could be used to buy actual things in the real world, like a coffee or a car. That's the essence of cryptocurrency — a form of money that exists entirely online.

It all began with Bitcoin in 2009. Created by an enigmatic figure known as Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin introduced us to a revolutionary idea: money that can be sent directly between people, without passing through a bank.

Blockchain - The Wizard Behind the Curtain

Cryptocurrencies are powered by a magical ledger called 'blockchain.' Imagine a book recording every single transaction you make, viewable by anyone but impossible to erase or change once written. This book is stored not just in one place, but across thousands of computers around the world. This is the blockchain, the foundation upon which the realm of cryptocurrency rests.

Benefits - More Than Just Internet Money

Cryptocurrencies offer several benefits:

Security: Transactions are secured through cryptographic techniques — think of these as unbreakable secret codes.

Speed and Cost: Sending cryptocurrencies often works out faster and cheaper than traditional bank transfers, especially across borders.

Exclusive Ownership: When you own cryptocurrency, it's like having a safe deposit box only you can access. There's no need for banks or third parties to validate your ownership.

Privacy: They offer more privacy than conventional bank transactions (though they're not completely anonymous).

Inflation Resistance: There's often a cap on the number of coins that will exist, potentially protecting them from devaluation through inflation.

Practical Use Cases - Not Just for Tech Wizards

Now, let’s talk about using cryptocurrency. Joe buys a coffee token on a cryptocurrency platform and sends it to his local coffee shop's digital wallet—an online space to hold digital money. This transaction is recorded on the blockchain, validating Joe's purchase without revealing his personal info.

Cryptocurrency is also making a splash in the remittance market. Maria in Canada wants to send money to her family in the Philippines. Traditionally, this involves fees and waiting periods due to currency exchange and bank processing times. With cryptocurrency, Maria can send her hard-earned money almost instantaneously and for a fraction of the cost, directly into her family’s digital wallet. The blockchain records the transaction securely, and Maria's family can exchange the digital currency for local currency through a local crypto exchange or spend it directly at businesses that accept it.

The Future – Sky's the Limit

Picture a world where buying a house, getting paid for your job, or even casting a vote in national elections could be done securely and instantly through cryptocurrency. The possibilities are vast. Financial inclusion for the unbanked, transparent and secure voting systems, smart contracts that execute automatically when conditions are met—the future is as bright and unknown as the early days of the Internet.

Developments in this sphere are leading to concepts like "Decentralized Finance" or DeFi, a system where financial products are available on a public decentralized blockchain network. This makes them open to anyone to use, not just customers of banks or particular institutions. It's like having a stock market, loans, and insurance policies running globally, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, and no middleman taking a cut.

User Impact - What Does It All Mean?

What does cryptocurrency mean for you, the reader? It could change the way you think about money. Imagine carrying your bank in your wallet — not just access to your funds, but the bank itself. You have the power to transact, invest, and manage your finances without ever stepping into a physical bank.

However, remember to exercise caution. Cryptocurrency markets can be volatile; prices may wildly fluctuate. It's like the stock market on steroids, so it's prudent to invest wisely. Also, be aware of regulations as they vary by country and are still being developed in many places.

Concluding Thoughts - Embracing Digital Currencies

Cryptocurrency isn't a trend; it's a technological leap akin to the birth of the internet. Like any frontier, it holds boundless opportunities alongside new challenges. As we witness this digital currency’s evolution, staying informed will be crucial. Whether cryptocurrencies become the standard in our digital lives, or a niche product for certain types of transactions, they've already altered the way we think about and use money.

In sum mary, it's not just an alternative form of money; it's a financial revolution offering empowerment by decentralizing the control of transactions and reducing dependency on traditional banking systems.

So, as we sail towards a digital future, consider this: cryptocurrencies might be the roots of a new kind of global financial ecosystem. One that is borderless, inclusive, and open to all.

And rest assured, whether you're a tech enthusiast diving into mining (the process of creating new coins) or a casual observer keeping an eye on the rise of digital wallets, there's a place for you in this unfolding chapter of the digital age.

So, will you stand by the sidelines, or are you ready to dive into the world of cryptocurrencies? Remember, knowledge is power, and in the fast-evolving realm of digital currencies, staying informed is the key to unlocking the treasure trove of possibilities.

Keep track of this exciting journey through digital landscapes, and harness the potential that lies in the pixelated heart of cryptocurrency. It may just be the most thrilling ride of our lifetime.

Curious about making your first crypto transaction or understanding what blockchain is all about? Visit [Your Blog or Website] for more insights and take the first step on your personal crypto voyage. Happy exploring, and welcome to the future of finance!

[puzzlevision]

excuse me what the fuck

[lovenojudgement]

February 26, 2024 8:12AM

“I was thinking about it for a couple of days. Even finding ways like indirectly mentioning investing in stock exchange. What I wanted to pertain was I am hoping that you would alot more time with things that are more fruitful, beneficial.

You were the one who told me that you want to go back to the Philippines once our savings is enough. That owning a business would sustain our needs in time. I know no two people are the same. We may love each other, we may agree but we won’t think a like most of the time. I have been looking for a decent business even just a small one for months already. Now, I have been studying on how to invest on stocks.

I indirectly asked if you might want to do something else other than what you’re used to. Honestly, it’s because I see so much time wasted. You waking up late is nothing that I question because sometimes it because of our time difference. Although you were really used to sleeping late and waking up late. Upon waking up during your free days, you would watch all day. Wait for me to wake up, take a bath, eat, watch again then sleep. Now, you went back to gaming. What I was hoping for was for you to give some time for our future. Just a little of your time to do research or study what we can do for our little savings to grow so that we can go back as soon as we are able. To start a passive income while you can still monitor it there and then you can leave it growing when you decide to move here with me.

What I meant with the effect of your cousins who are younger, is the way you seem to be so chill. They’re still in school and you’re not. They might be planning for they’re jobs after graduation and you should be planning for your life—building your own family how you envision it to be.

I’m not in a hurry. I just don’t hear any of your plans at all. Maybe you’ve tried to research, but only you knew about it.

It just makes me feel like what you tell me is not in parallel with what you’re doing now. We are not getting any younger is one of your favorite phrases. But it does not make me feel like you’re getting older either. You see yourself having your own family just because your aging every year. But it does not feel like you’re getting ready for it.

I might be wrong. I might not be.

I just don’t want to hit your pride again and make a fight over this anymore that’s why I chose to write my thoughts here again.

Like what I said before, it’s not a man who is stable that I want in life. It’s a man who dreams and tries to work on it.”

DGPS

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 8.16 (after 1920)

1920 – Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit on the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees. Next day, Chapman will become the second player to die from injuries sustained in a Major League Baseball game. 1920 – The congress of the Communist Party of Bukhara opens. The congress would call for armed revolution. 1920 – Polish–Soviet War: The Battle of Radzymin concludes; the Soviet Red Army is forced to turn away from Warsaw. 1923 – The United Kingdom gives the name "Ross Dependency" to part of its claimed Antarctic territory and makes the Governor-General of the Dominion of New Zealand its administrator. 1927 – The Dole Air Race begins from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, during which six out of the eight participating planes crash or disappear. 1929 – The 1929 Palestine riots break out in Mandatory Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Jews and continue until the end of the month. In total, 133 Jews and 116 Arabs are killed. 1930 – The first color sound cartoon, Fiddlesticks, is released by Ub Iwerks. 1930 – The first British Empire Games are opened in Hamilton, Ontario, by the Governor General of Canada, the Viscount Willingdon. 1933 – Christie Pits riot takes place in Toronto, Ontario. 1942 – World War II: US Navy L-class blimp L-8 drifts in from the Pacific and eventually crashes in Daly City, California. The two-man crew cannot be found. 1944 – First flight of a jet with forward-swept wings, the Junkers Ju 287. 1945 – The National Representatives' Congress, the precursor of the current National Assembly of Vietnam, convenes in Sơn Dương. 1946 – Mass riots in Kolkata begin; more than 4,000 people would be killed in 72 hours. 1946 – The All Hyderabad Trade Union Congress is founded in Secunderabad. 1954 – The first issue of Sports Illustrated is published. 1960 – Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom. 1960 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico, United States, at 102,800 feet (31,300 m), setting three records that held until 2012: High-altitude jump, free fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft. 1964 – Vietnam War: A coup d'état replaces Dương Văn Minh with General Nguyễn Khánh as President of South Vietnam. A new constitution is established with aid from the U.S. Embassy. 1966 – Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong. The committee intends to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 people are arrested. 1972 – In an unsuccessful coup d'état attempt, the Royal Moroccan Air Force fires upon Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he is traveling back to Rabat. 1975 – Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically hands over land to the Gurindji people after the eight-year Wave Hill walk-off, a landmark event in the history of Indigenous land rights in Australia, commemorated in a 1991 song by Paul Kelly and an annual celebration. 1987 – Northwest Airlines Flight 255, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes after takeoff in Detroit, Michigan, killing 154 of the 155 on board, plus two people on the ground. 1989 – A solar particle event affects computers at the Toronto Stock Exchange, forcing a halt to trading. 1991 – Indian Airlines Flight 257, a Boeing 737-200, crashes during approach to Imphal Airport, killing all 69 people on board. 2005 – West Caribbean Airways Flight 708, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes in Machiques, Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board. 2008 – The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1,389 feet (423 m), at the time becoming the world's highest residence above ground-level. 2013 – The ferry St. Thomas Aquinas collides with a cargo ship and sinks at Cebu, Philippines, killing 61 people with 59 others missing. 2020 – The August Complex fire in California burns more than one million acres of land.

[gabriel-gabdiel]

【Draft】 Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 4: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

A Manic Pixie Dream Girl is truly a girl of your dreams. But does she only exist in your dreams?

You can also find more chapters of my original fiction here. Please enjoy.

Dismissal time came and went.

The friendless, listless Florante Galang then shuffled towards his school service—a jeepney—in order to repeat the Groundhog's Day loop of him going home from class, waking up again to return to the same class, and having no one to talk to as he ended up scoring mediocre grades on his quizzes and quarterly exams.

Oh joy.

But the same could be said of every other student in Fatima School of Mandaluyong. He couldn't complain.

Also, it wasn't like the Philippines had the Groundhog's Day holiday too, mind you. He just liked that Bill Murray movie enough to reference it and it was the closest point of comparison.

The only other metaphor he could think of was the eternal afterlife punishment of Sisyphus endlessly rolling a rock up a hill only for it to roll back down by the end of the day so he had to roll it back up again the next day. Forever.

The ominous skies were in a dark mood, with the gloomy clouds looking dense and opaque. However, at least it hadn't wept yet in the form of a dreary downpour.

He felt his spine tingle as he walked inside a parking lot that, just yesterday, served as a battleground against an indescribable floating monstrosity. The stuff that nightmares were made of.

He reassured himself that it didn't really happen anyway. It was all just a dream. Like him killing his bullies with special powers and whatnot.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

How far will Florante's delusions take him this time?

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 4: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

***

Florante Galang moved his idle musings of his friendless existence at the back of his mind as he skipped going to his school service and decided to ride the UV Express Toyota Tamaraw FX (a metered taxi) from Mandaluyong to Makati instead, his body moving on its own.

As the Philippines' financial center, Makati served as the city with the highest concentration of local and multinational companies in the nation. It got filled to the brim with banks, department stores, malls, and corporate offices as well as foreign embassies galore.

Makati's Ayala  Avenue contained the Philippine Stock Exchange's biggest trading floor. The city also ended up becoming Metro Manila's major entertainment and cultural hub for good measure.

As far as Florante knew, Makati was the city of rich kids, business people, and trust-fund babies. Their biggest problem there was finding parking for their cars, since most of its residents owned their own car instead of use public transportation.

Galang exited the bus and ended up wandering around the streets of Makati, with no particular destination in mind.

His own gut feelings or instincts guided him through the unfamiliar labyrinth of the urban jungle.

Dully, with his body on autopilot, he asked around for the street where Jennifer Tolentino was supposed to live. Remembering the first time he met her, with her telling him she lived in Makati.

He talked to tricycle drivers, passersby, and security guards in private subdivisions where this street or that part of Makati was, stopping to eat at the local 7-Eleven as a light squall of rain made the pavement glisten in neon lights.

Before Florante knew what had happened, he ended up in front of Jennifer's apartment in Makati again.

Like he sleepwalked over there. Or rather, commuted there instead of went straight back to his home.

Wait, again? Was he there before…? How did he even know it was Jenny's apartment?

Jeez. What was wrong with him?

***

Florante's blurry eyes cleared, only for him to see an apparition of the glasses-wearing girl in the horizon, her hair blowing from an unseen wind.

"Flor," she beckoned him after she reached him, holding a plastic bag containing what he presumed was her dinner.

"It's Florante," he said without thinking.

"I don't care," she answered back with a pout before smiling and winking. "You look like a 'Flor' to me. Be mad. I'm still gonna call you Flor from now on."

He felt his cheeks grow warm in spite of himself. Yeah, she did kind look cute, didn't she?

He pushed back such nonsensical thoughts, remembering why he went there in the first place, his body seemingly moving on its own.

"So what brings you here? How'd you know my address? Or my phone number? Did you ask one of our classmates for it?" she asked, which made him become defensive.

"No, no! It's not what it looks like! I mean, I…!" he stammered before blurting out how he found out about the address, not knowing how else to broach the subject of him seeing her name and face on all those older yearbooks in the library.

He became a stuttering mess. This didn't pan out like it would've on T.V. and the movies, with them coming to a mutual understanding of what they were after the jig was up.

She didn't even bring up him telling her that he remembered their fight with the spaghetti monster.

This further convinced him that his fever dream of murdering his classmates was actually just that. A dream.

A bad dream. A nightmare. A power fantasy. That was just him blowing off steam from being bullied by using his own imagination.

His real self could never do such a thing. Right?

Oh wait, why'd he go there at Jenny's place in the first place? He had to explain himself!

He unzipped his bag then produced the photocopies of the yearbooks he got a hold of. One was her graduating in the 1960s. Another was her address from the yellow pages.

"I didn't believe the dreams I had were just dreams until I saw this," he said, finding the courage to speak and confront Jenny about his recent discovery, his mind a white haze.

Jennifer palmed her face. "I sure hope you know just how bad this looks, right? You got my address and phone number from the yellow pages without my permission then you went to my apartment unannounced."

"…I-I'm sorry," he apologized profusely.

"…You just won't leave things well enough alone, can you?" Jenny said with a resigned sigh. "Come with me, then. Let's talk."

***

She led him to her apartment. They took the stairs instead of the elevator to get there as soon as possible.

He panted from the effort of climbing stairs but put up a brave front.

He kept his asthmatic wheezing to a minimum after realizing something that sent shockwaves to his whole body.

Florante's heart skipped a beat. This was his first time going to a girl's home.

Or even a classmate's home, to be honest. He didn't have any friends to speak of back in Fatima High, after all.

Florante entered the small rental apartment Jennifer Tolentino lived in, thinking it was about twice the size or more of his bedroom.

He excused himself in the threshold of the apartment, looking around for Jenny's parents. However, they weren't there.

'Where are her parents?' he wondered. Were they away on a business trip? Was she sent to live in Makati to get her closer to school?

Did her family live in the province? Did she live alone? Were they alone right now…?!

Florante gulped hard before he became aware of his wheezy breathing. He excused himself, took out the asthma inhaler inside his bag, and took a puff.

He then started breathing manually to calm himself down.

'Relax,' he told himself.

Oh boy. What'd he gotten himself into? At the back of his mind, he vaguely wondered if any of this was normal. Wasn't he stalking her?

He then remembered he didn't really call her, that was also a daydream. Why did she somehow expect him to get there?

Déjà vu filled him inside to the brim. Did he somehow end up here in her apartment because he went there before or something?

"Gabriel," she called out, which awoke him from his stupor.

Gabriel? Oh, right! That was what she called him back in his dream. Or was it a dream? Or was he dreaming right now?

Like he did when he wrote on a Post-It note her address and jumped on the roofs of houses and buildings from Pasig to Makati like he was Spider-Man?

He struggled to speak and stumbled upon his words.

"Gabriel? As in the Archangel Gabriel?" he asked her. "Why are you calling me by that name? Isn't he a legendary angel?"

Jenny shook her head and smiled, motioning for Florante to sit on the couch while she made some tea. "You're so picky with names. You don't want to be called Flor or Gabriel. But you're the same guy, in the end."

In his imagination, it was easier to hold a conversation with her, but in reality he usually was alone and barely talked to anyone.

He went straight to the point, saying things that would've embarrassed him in real life.

"I saw you in my dreams lately."

An awkward pause passed between them.

"Oh. Is that so?" she asked with a smirk as she batted her eyelashes at him. He presumed she had just teased him with a nice dollop of sarcasm.

Damn his inability to read social cues!

"Um, I didn't mean it like that," he clarified, feeling his cheeks grow warmer by the minute. He continued. "I mean, uh... I'm having déjà vu all over again. I've seen this dream before. We've talked inside your apartment before."

"Really now," she said, taking a sip of the tea she had laid out for the two of them, her hazelnut eyes penetrating through him like the concentrated beam of sunlight from her magnifying lenses for glasses.

Florante turned away, his hand covering his mouth. His face on seeming fire.

A few weeks or months ago, he'd think his capricious feelings for Jenny was a betrayal of his crush on Laura Reyes, the prettiest girl in their class. However, that ship had long ago sailed.

Perhaps him moving on from Laura to Jenny was why he "saved" Jenny from his wrath in his other dream/nightmare where he murdered all his bullies with magical/supernatural powers?

Or maybe he should stop being so shallow? Honestly, falling in love with any pretty girl that treated him nice was pathetic.

Ah, who knew? He should get his head out of the gutter. What was he doing there anyway?

More importantly, did they really fight a gigantic spaghetti monster using elemental superpowers and, uh, super-fast germinating moss?

"Why'd you visit me from out of the blue, Flor?" Jenny asked, with her using that irksome nickname again. However, Florante ignored it.

"…Y-You're much older than you look, right?" he blurted out.

She raised an eyebrow at that statement.

"What do you mean?" she asked, adding, "Don't you know it's rude to ask a girl her real age?"

He could feel the onset of a wheeze in his asthmatic breathing. "It's true, isn't it? You're not a real teenager."

She dwelled on his words. "What if I'm not?" she asked gently, her voice barely above a whisper.

Her dulcet tones sent tingles right down his spine.

"So how old are you really? Was that really you in the 1960s yearbook? Are you an immortal? Am I an immortal too?"

"You could say that," she said. "Yes, that is a picture of me. I'm amazed I was able to get away with enrolling too, but the registrar never bothered checking who the other Jenny Tolentino is."

He shivered in spite of himself.

"They must've thought it's just a funny coincidence. Or she was a relative of mine with the same name. Or they simply don't remember," Jenny said.

Florante asked, "Am I like you? Since you called me an Ophanim and all! I knew that wasn't a dream! You really did pretend to be a high school teen back then! We're both…!"

He gasped then let out a long exhale to prevent himself from hyperventilating.

"Did what happen the other day… yesterday… whenever it happened, really happen? You remember it too, right? The spaghetti monster?" he dared ask.

She must've known. She just said she received his call, even though he could've sworn he only called her in his dreams. He didn't have the courage to call her for real!

Or visit her apartment for real. But here he was now. Unless this wasn't real either.

Florante racked his brain of his past dreams, unsure of he was in another dream, only this time more lucid. How lucid was he anyway?

Him mentioning the spaghetti monster incident made her snap back into attention, which jolted him backwards and made him murmur an apology by reflex.

Was it something he said?

"So you remember me calling you an Ophanim, huh?" she said.

He nodded slowly, with him not quite looking at her while he recalled their last significant interaction with one another.

"What's an Ophanim again? A wingless angel, was it? Is it that monster form I has where I could see everywhere or something? Just like that spaghetti monster we fought."

He tugged at his collar, squirming in his seat at the intense gaze Jennifer gave him. Like fawn shrinking back at the headlights of a speeding truck.

Was he not supposed to carry on their conversation from last time? Did he do something wrong?

She softened her stare, the glint from her glasses disappearing, revealing her almond eyes. "That's right. You and the monster we fought are both Ophanim, Gabriel."

"There you go again," he said. "My name isn't Gabriel. It's Florante. And who are you supposed to be? Michael? Uriel? Or maybe…?"

"I'm Raphael," she said, confirming his suspicions.

"The ninja turtle?" he joked, but he then bowed his head and looked away when he saw her deadpan face, murmnring an apology for his lame joke.

"Well, that's… cute," she said of the joke, then asked, "What do you want, Gabriel?"

"…What do you mean?" he asked, inching away from her.

Instead of answering his question, she took another sip of her tea. "Fine. What else do you remember, Florante?"

Her using his full name caught his attention. He answered her question with a deep breath, sensing that she was testing him somehow.

So he told her everything.

***

Florante told Jennifer that he remembered his fever dream of murdering his whole class and destroying the school before facing off with Laura Reyes, who also somehow also got her own powers.

This made him idly wonder if she were a wingless angel too. He also recalled that Geronimo Jacinto faced off against him with superpowers too.

Gerry couldn't be an angel. He was more of a devil. A monster. A demon. His bully being a holy being just didn't sit right with him.

Wait, didn't Jenny refer to the spaghetti creature as a demon instead of an angel…?

Then he talked about how he and Jenny ended up fighting against the tentacled monster from out of nowhere, with her killing it with enchanted(?) moldy bread that spread across its body like gangrene.

He then finished with him dreaming about going to her place before he ended up doing so anyway at the moment, resulting in déjà vu.

He left off the part where he wasn't sure if what he saw right then was itself a lucid dream or reality. Maybe because he feared this would result in the dream ending like before, so he kept that last bit to himself.

Let him dream this dream of him talking to a girl and being alone with her in her apartment for a little while longer.

"Well…?" he asked. She'd been listening in silence the entire time, with only occasional nods and sips of tea to break his long monologue. "What do you think? Did what happen the other day… yesterday… whenever, really happen? You remember it too, right?"

She then told him, "I'll be honest. I'm not sure if you're Gabriel just yet."

What she just said made Florante even more confused than before, making him feel like he was talking some sort of oral exam.

"Pardon me? What do you mean?"

"I suspected you'd be Gabriel but I'm not yet sure because you're just an Ophanim."

He pondered her words. "Meaning?"

With steepled hands, she said, "You're a newborn angel. We call newborn angels Ophanim or Thrones. Your multi-eyed self is your true form for now."

"I don't follow."

"Newly born angels don't necessarily have famous identities. However, the truly exceptional ones might graduate to Cherubim or Seraphim level. Based on what you've done before, I suspected you've become the newest avatar of Archangel Gabriel."

Her answer gave him a headache. "So you think I'm Gabriel but you're not sure?"

She shrugged. "You may or may not be the Archangel Gabriel. Right now, you're just a wingless Ophanim who could use your angelic powers in human form. An egg but not quite the chicken."

"…And you're not an Ophanim yourself?" he asked.

"I've already gotten my wings," she answered with a shrug and a smile. "You still need to earn yours."

"…So what are we exactly?" he dared ask. "What are angels supposed to be?"

Jenny took her time sipping her tea. Since she was about to proverbially spill it.

"Angels. Demons. Devils. Monsters. Deities. Demiurges. Different cultures call us different names. We might even be considered gods. Or superheroes."

"Really?"

"…Nah."

"Oh."

Jenny took another sip of her tea with a small smile. She murmured something under her breath that Florante couldn’t quite catch.

"What was that, Jenny?" he asked.

"So did you really intend to kill your classmates back then?" The bespectacled girl asked, the hair on her head starting to dance and twirl from an unseen gust of wind. "Even if it was a dream, no one normally dreams of doing that."

"This again? It's not my fault! The dream me killed Laura! I'd never do that in real life! Stop blaming me for something I subconsciously did!"

"Is that so?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I swear if I knew my dreams had real consequences, I wouldn't even imagine doing that to them," he said. "Look at me. I'm pathetic. I wouldn't even hurt a fly or a cockroach."

She sighed and let the awkward silence hang between them for five minutes that felt like forever.

Not that Galang counted the seconds or anything.

"Fine. Screw it. I'll tell you everything. Florante Galang, you're a candidate to becoming the Archangel Gabriel. Congratulations."

***

From a distance, Florante heard the rumble of thunder. He shuddered, which made him wonder if he had just felt an earthquake as well… or was it just him? He couldn't tell.

Huh. Weird.

Did the drizzle outside become a downpour? Oh my. He should've brought an umbrella with him.

"A candidate?" Galang repeated. "Like a presidential candidate? I could be Gabriel or not?"

"Or you could be Schrodinger's Gabriel," Jenny said, giggling. "Your Gabriel and not Gabriel at the same time!"

"Shredder… what?" he asked.

She cleared her throat. "Never mind."

"N-No. Tell me what you meant!" he insisted.

"I mean, just read about Schrodinger's Cat in the library, man," she said. "Anyway, we're getting off-topic. Yes, you're a candidate. An avatar. You could become Gabriel. Or some other famous angel. And angels like you can become Gabriel too."

Florante clasped his hands in front of him, seemingly deep in thought. "In my dreams, several of my classmates manifested powers of their own. Are they also angels? Or Ophanims?"

"Very good, Florante," she said, which made him frown at her condescension. "Yes, they're also wingless angels. They're also candidates to becoming Gabriel. If they develop their powers correctly, they could end up awakening as Gabriel themselves, if not other angels, gods, or deities of history."

"Wait, wait, wait. Aside from Gabriel, they… we could become famous angels like Michael, Raphael, or Uriel? Also, by gods and goddesses, do you mean Greek or Roman ones? An Ophanim could become Zeus or Jupiter? How about the Norse All-Father Odin?" Florante queried.

"More or less," came "Raphael's" unhelpful answer.

"And what makes you so sure I'm a Gabriel candidate?"

Jenny shrugged. "I can tell. Or at least the Raphael within me can recognize him from inside you. Whether or not you're worthy to bear his name shall be seen later on."  

The thunderous rumblings arouind grew louder, producing a droning sound. However, for some reason, the two both ignored the rampaging elephant in the room.

"Wait," Florante said, his mind going a mile a minute but his mouth still stuck at the starting line. "What must I do to win the candidacy?"

"Evolve from an Ophanim to a Cherubim then a Seraphim," Jenny replied. "You must evolve the right way to, or else…"

"…Or else the other candidates will end up winning? Is that it?" he finished her sentence for her. "So how do I evolve to become Gabriel?"

As he said the words, he wondered if he even wanted to become the avatar of an ancient archangel in the first place. It sounded like so much responsibility to live up to the Archangel Gabriel.

Another thing occurred to him.

He then asked, "And that spaghetti monster you called a demon. Can he become a candidate for Gabriel too? Or is he supposed to be the avatar for Satan instead?"

"Ah. You figured that out, huh?" she said.

"W-ell, in the case of that spaghetti monster, he might be an Ophanim at one point, but because he let his powers control him instead of controlling his powers, he ended up becoming demonic instead. A Minion instead of a Throne."

"Minion?" Florante repeated. He didn't like the sound of that. "What are minions? Wait, don't tell me. They're like Ophanims. They're baby demons!"

"That's exactly what they are," confirmed Jenny. "Good call. So there you go. You have the potential to become either a demon or an angel. An Ophanim or a Minion."

Galang then asked, "How can you even tell when, um, something is an Ophanim or Minion? A demon or angel? They're both monstruous."

He also got up from his seat, which made him stumble and grab hold of the nearest furniture to steady himself. Was it vertigo or did the room spun on its own?

He didn't know what was going on.

To be quite frank, his head throbbed with information overload. So he was an angel that could also be a devil? What? Or rather, the avatar of biblical angels who somehow ended up here in the Philippines? Really?

"I guess that's the point?" Jenny said with a shrug. "A demon is just a fallen angel, after all. Whether they have bird wings or ox horns."

"…Monsters by any other name, am I right?" they heard someone say, like it had access to the P.A. system in their minds.

The two shuddered, feeling a chill deep down their spine. They looked at each other, realizing they both felt the same thing.

"Did you hear that?" asked Jenny.

"Yeah," acknowledged Florante. "What was that?"

Jennifer looked him straight in the eyes. "A demon."

They felt the presence of another. Another one of them. Or perhaps more? They couldn't tell.

Unbeckoned, they stood up and headed out of the room, following that dreadful feeling from its source.

***

Just like in Florante Galang's nightmare of decimating Fatima High School and killing all of his bullies (which included collateral damage like Laura Reyes), the skies grew dark once more.

As the cliché went, it was a dark and stormy night.

The rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it got checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the streets—rattling along the apartments, condos, and housetops, and fiercely agitating the fluorescent bulbs of the lamps that struggled against the darkness, its fuses ready to burst.

The two also heard rumbling from the distance from which people on foot and inside vehicles as well as vermin like mice and roaches avoided, resulting in a chaotic mess of a traffic jam and fleeing crowd on the verge of a riot.

"Let's go," said Jennifer Tolentino, who took hold of Florante's hand in order to run towards the horrible something that caught their attention.

The demonic presence that acted like the epicenter of an earthquake that shook the world itself right at its core.

Rather than get repelled by the demonic vibrations that reverberated right into their very bones the closer they got to it like the rest of the living things in flight mode that surrounded them like a sea of humanity or an ocean of life, the two angelic avatars felt somehow magnetized by the dark presence, their heads glowing with an unseen aura.

An inner light spilling over their heads and spreading out from the center like the nuclear reaction of a star, thus making their heads glow with a spherical aura. The corona of the sun. A literal angel halo.

Jennifer's halo glowed a greenish blue hue while Florante's instead glowed a fluorescent white and sky blue color.

This inexplicable aura was what allowed them to part the living sea of mice and men, with people unconsciously or subconsciously avoiding them, which allowed them to make their way to the demon they felt. To the voice that talked to them right inside their heads.

They ran towards oblivion and uncertainly in an adrenalin rush, but somehow, the virgin Florante couldn't he happier.

After all, he was running hand-in-hand with a cute girl. What was there to complain about?

Jenny, who usually reminded Florante of a mouse, perhaps a gerbil, did make his heart twinge but in a way that one would to a kitten or puppy. He wasn't sure if it was necessarily a crush.

However, she somehow looked different to her now, with her heaving bosom, glistening face, and reddened cheeks as she brushed her slightly damp hair to the side.

Like she suddenly transformed into a hot librarian right before him.

"Thank you," Florante said from out of the blue.

"…Huh? Thanks for what?" Jennifer asked.

"For humoring me and listening to what I have to say," he said in candid honesty. "I appreciate it."

She smiled. "No problem. We're both angel avatars, right? We might as well stick together."

"Thanks a lot. I like a girl who understands me but I can confide to as well," he blurted out without thinking, only for him to realize what he just said a little too late. Not knowing how to take it back.

"How am I supposed to respond to that?" asked Jenny, who looked away and hid her eyes with the glint of her glasses.

She stopped running hand-in-hand with him and let go of his hand, which startled him.

However, before he could apologize, she beckoned him to keep following her before she started running again, which he did.

He kept following her from behind as he resisted the urge to keep looking at her derriere.

Soon, as they kept running, they realized there were no longer any people around them. Or any signs of life. No birds. No bugs. Nothing.

The stalls and stores were empty. Completely evacuated. No one dared remain in the exact direction they were going.

"Do you feel that?" asked Jenny. "The heat from your face? Your head?"

"Y-Yeah," said Florante, but he had another type of hotness in his mind, his eyes avoiding the jiggle of her heaving bosom as she ran towards the black maelstrom while glistening with sweat, her own face flushed.

He had a feeling she was changing the subject from what they were talking about earlier.

"That's your halo. Your spiritual energy. Your aura. That's where your powers come from as an avatar of Gabriel," she explained. "You weren't able to detect it before, but you can feel it now, right?"

"I sure can," he said with a wheeze and a gulp that turned into a coughing fit, unable to meet Jenny's curious gaze.

"It's because you're getting used to your powers now… Wait. We're here."

He then looked up after she stopped from her run. They'd reached their destination. A church.

"Where are we? What church is this?" Florante asked.

"The Guadalupe Church," Jenny answered.

The Guadalupe Church or Parish, also known as the Nuestra Señora de Gracia Church, was a Baroque Roman Catholic church in Makati City, Philippines.

Jenny brought up that the building was occupied by both the Filipino revolutionaries of the 1890s and American forces of the 1900s during the Philippine-American War. In World War II, it served as the garrison by the Japanese.

It now currently served as one of Makati's premier tourist attractions and one of Metro Manila's most popular wedding destinations.

However, something more noticeable than church caught the pair's attention.

A moving tornado blackness and ash of what could be best described as tendrils of humanoid smoke moved between them and the church ruins. A crawling chaos spawned by eldritch abominations.

Again, like before with his confrontation with Laura or the spaghetti monster, he was at a loss for words describing what was before him. This new creature was another indescribable monster straight out a child's nightmares. Or even man's primal fears.

The formless, mindless creature then coalesced into what looked like a tall, lean man made of shadow. He, if it were a he, had neither beard nor hair. He was instead an ebony cesspool. The Black Death personified.

His own tarry aura melted into a shapeless robe made of a heavy dark fabric. Like his aura had become his own clothes that converged unto him like the singularity of a black hole made from a dying star.

His dense living black hole seemed to drown out and absorb what little light surrounded them, like waves of the Dead Sea. This made the comparatively faint halos of "Raphael" and "Gabriel" stand out more.

Although he was as horrible in appearance as an Ophanim, Florante couldn't imagine describing the shadowy tendril man as anything other than demonic. A Minion.

"H-Hey, you wouldn't happen to have one of those moldy pieces of bread with you by any chance, right?" Florante half-joked, half-expecting himself to need to transform into a Throne or Ophanim in order to match the power of this Minion before them.

The disembodied voice from before then spoke, but both Jenny and Florante realize that it didn't enamate from the creature before them. Rather, it came from someone else.

"Pardon me, but I can't stand to look at this farce anymore," said a sharp-dressed foreign man—a Caucasian man with a sharp nose, even sharper spectacles,  and auburn hair—in English.

"Who are you?" Florante called out, surprising himself with his own bravery in talking to that scary foreign stranger.

The man in the business suit—formalwear known to Filipinos as an Americana—ignored him, though. This businessperson that looked like a Makati expatriate or visiting company CEO addressed Jennifer instead.

"Are you honestly indulging the boy's delusions by this much, Raphael? How cruel. You know he's no angel. He's actual more of a demon. With destructive power like his, he should be on our side."

"Mammon," said Jennifer. "Stay out of this. He's mine."

This made Florante jerk his head and stare at Jenny by reflex, his cheeks burning at her bold proclamation. 'I-I'm hers?!' he thought.

Aloud, he asked her, "You know him? Wait, his name is mamon (Filipino sponge cake)? Seriously?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not mamon. Mammon. The demon Mammon."

"Tell him the truth about himself already or I will," Mammon threatened with a smirk. "I'm getting impatient."

Thusly, Florante shot a Thunderbolt at Mammon. A pinprick or lasebeam of light producing a vaccuum tornado around it, rendering the surroundings into rubble.

The businessman cackled and stopped the supersonic assault with one hand, transforming to a huge-headed goblin with a long nose, ram horns, and a stogie for the briefest of instances before returning to his avatar's human or businessman form.

"Flor!" exclaimed Jenny in spite of herself. "What are you doing? You're no match for him right now!"

"Well now. I see you've convinced the young lad to side with you using your avatar's feminine charm, Raphael! Bravo. You're quite the devilish temptress. You'd make a fine demoness yourself."

Despite being fully clothed, Jennifer covered herself with her hands by reflex. "You're such a pig, Mammon."

"Well of course, I am!" said Mammon with a smug grin. "I'm a demon."

The Archangel Gabriel avatar's halo flared like a ring or ball of gas and plasma, his bright aura traveling all over his body and enveloping him in a white and blue light as well as crackling arcs of electrity.

Finally, the demon addressed Florante. "I don't blame you, kid. Raphael's avatar is pretty cute, not going to lie. However, you were born ten thousand years too early to take on the likes of me. I've forgotten more than you can even remember."

With his arms crossed, Mammon floated away. Barely baring his fangs at Florante's best shot. None the worse for wear.

No wait, he hadn't hit him with his best shot yet.

Galang then summoned a Lightning Bolt at himself to reenergize his body with millions of volts of electricity while increasing the potency of his offense. Remenbering how to control his powers from his dream of destroying his bullies and taken on a flying spaghetti monster that was apparently an Ophanim/Minion like him.

A wingless angel or a hornless devil. Good or evil. Those were the two choices for a Throne such as him.

Just then, as suddenly as him shooting a Thunderbolt to Mammon, the hornless devil in the form of a personified malestrom diverted its full attention towards Florante and unleashed its irresistable might unto him like an endless deluge.

'Oh boy. Here we go.'

Was this really his fight anyway? Did it even matter if he chose the side of the angels or the demons? Was this what he asked for after esentially committing social suicide? Wasn't he biting off more than he could chew?

He was making the correct choice siding with Jennifer Tolentino, right?

She was an angel. One of the good guys. And the demons were the bad guys every time since the beginnning of time.

Right?

***

The lean, mean shadow man with gangly spider limbs and a pulsating aura that emanated from his head like smog or smoke made strange clicking noises as he shifted positions with his strange jittery dash.

The crawling chaos didn't speak and bore no trace of an expression on his face. This belied the maelstrom of bone-crushing force he brought with him as his mere dash forward sent the Gabriel avatar reeling.

Fortunately, Galang's halo of blue-white light created a dome-shaped wind shield composed of gyroscoping jetstreams and slipstreams that absorbed the brunt of the Minion's force. Vacuum tornadoes ripped apart the church along with blockbuster ligtning strikes.

This tall man whom Florante bore no ill will towards. This Minion of the Archdemon he truly wanted to blast to Kingdom Come, Mammon.

This Ophanim. This Minion. This was a fellow… angel/demon avatar. Just like him.

Who was to say he wouldn't end up like him? A mindless beast to be hunted down by angels. A fallen angel. A demon. A devil.

Florante charged bolts of lightning on one hand and bolts of thunder on the other hand then hurled them one after another at the tentacled ebony monster.

Biting his lower lip at the frustration of not being able to shoot that manipulative bastard Mammon instead.

Why were they fighting again? To become avatars to millennia-old angels and demons? To become pawns on a chess game he didn't ask to be a  part of?

They were practically just the same pawns, right? This crawling chaos was also human before, like him.

If his dream of killing his bullies wasn't a dream—if none of these fantastic events were dreams—then his wish to be helpless no more just came with a heavy caveat.

Unlike the flying spaghetti monster that could regenerate itself endlessly, the crawling chaos before them and its black pulsating mass of tendrils responded quite differently to Florante's typhoon onslaught.

Even though he showcased denseness as black and bottomless as the ocean depths, his great mass of tidal waves densely compacted into humanoid form remained unmoved by Galang's cyclone winds and plasma blasts.

No wonder Jenny didn't use quick-growing mold spores or an acorn to attack this Minion. How could any of those stand a chance against this force of nature?

Maybe this time, Florante had no choice but to revert to his true Ophanim form and face off against the Minion as force of nature against force of nature. Monster against monster.

"No, Florante! Don't…!" said Raphael's avatar to Gabriel's avatar, her body seemingly pinned to the wall. "Don't change into your Ophanim form and lose yourself! Or you might become a Minion yourself! That's what Mammon wants!"

The bespectacled young (or young-looking) girl's hair got toussled by unseen winds or some sort of force of nature like gravity that blew everyone else away like a hurricane.

And indeed, before Florante noticed it, he had started to transform, his human form disappearing and reappearing as a gyroscope of flaming eyes once more.

God dammit. How was he supposed to fight against this monster any other way than become a monster himself?

Why shouldn't he be a monster? What was wrong with becoming a Minion over an Ophanim anyway? What was the difference between one monster over another?

However, because Jennifer told him not to transform into his Ophanim form, he didn't.

The shadow creature then came upon Galang's dithering, fluctuating form that went from human to Throne and back agaain like a flickering light, with crashing black waves of his dense aura, threatening to swallow him under its immense mass compacted within a lean form of a tall humanoid tentacle being.

Galang resisted the irresistable, turning his sky-blue halo into a country-sized pacific storm that made the crawling chaos' oceanic depths roil, churn, and bubble. Like the desperate cyclone howling back at the black sea, which only made its angry waters angrier.

Florante didn't ask for this. He wanted to stop being socially awkward, make friends, and for his bullies to leave him alone, not get enemies and the burden of fighting someone else's war!

Meanwhile, Mammon again spoke to their minds.

"Asking a woman if she lives nearby is often a predatory tactic. That info can expose so much. If you're around the area a lot, especially alone. Or if you're isolated and from out of town and vulnerable."

Both Florante and Jenny said, "What?" at the same time, their heads turning to see where Mammon was right then. Right now, he lived in their heads rent-free and they didn't like him invading their thoughts like that.

"LIGHT ARRAY!"

The embarrassment Florante Galang felt fueled his halo enough for him to finally release the much-delayed pinpoint bursts of concentrated pure energy he'd been gathering that shot out like explosive bullets from his five fingertips, which finally decimated the humanoid maelstrom off of him.

Unlike with the spaghetti monster, his Light Array shots obliterated the maelstrom of shadows, turning them into stains unto the pavement from the purifying brightness of his holy light.

That was Florante's best shot. The special technique he created from scratch to shoot at all his bullies at the same time with a wave of his hands.

At least now he could use his powers in a less shameful way. To defeat a monster that threatened to destroy the city instead of petty yet deadly revenge against his meanest classmates.

***

Florante screamed to the heavens and the unseen Mammon, "I didn't stalk her! O-Or I didn't mean to! I was following a lead on why I've been dreaming the nightmares I've been dreaming, okay! Seeing her face on an old yearbook was suspicious! I had no malicious intentions!"

They both couldn't see Mammon, but they could hear the smirk in his voice. "But I didn't specifically say you stalked Raphael, Ophanim. You came up with that conclusion. Methinks the lady doth protest a bit too much."

Galang's head almost twisted as he shot a glance at an out-of-breath Jenny, her hair a mess and her clothes disheveled. Meanwhile, his own stomach was in knots.

He gulped and muttered, "I meant no harm, Jenny. I didn't want to kill our classmates. I didn't intend to stalk you either! I-It just… came off that way. B-Because I wanted to know more about what's going on with me, and you're the only other person I know who's like me…!"

Mammon then added, "Literally you cannot risk divulging such information, Raphael. A man is a threat. A man approaching you alone is a threat. You should've known better. This is a woman's constant reality."

After a deep breath, Jenny adjusted her glasses, which magnified her hazel eyes. She then smiled at Florante and said, "Don't worry, Flor. I understand. You didn't mean any harm, right? It was all a harmless dream to you."

That smile. That damn smile. Florante wanted to protect that smile.

Mammon's disembodied then snarled at the pair, "…You actually believe his lies? He thought it was all a dream, so that makes it okay? By now, he would've figured out that it was more than a dream. That it wasn't manslaughter, it was murder with intent. A massacre. Stop excusing his crimes."

"I've just about had enough of you, man! Shut up!" said Florante, his fingertips burning with blue and fluorescent white electric light.

"Stop lying to yourself first, kid. You wanted to kill your classmates. You reveled in every death. If you weren't sick in the head, you would've just humiliated them as revenge for them humiliating you. That's why you dreamed that dream. It was the first time in your pathetic life that you felt in control. Give in to that desire and set yourself free!"

"Show yourself, demon!" Just one shot (or five or ten shots) of the Light Array. He just wanted to land just one right on Mammon's smug, beak-nosed face.

"Look at you go. You feel brave now, don't you? Like you're Raphael's personal Knight in Shining Armor. Or her lost puppy. But she knows the truth about you. How dangerous you are. So she's telling you everything you want to hear for now."

"Stop being such a pathetic coward and fight!" Florante said. Not really listening to a word Mammon said while he continued to gather energy from his fingertips in concentrated pinpoints of light.

"Kid, you've got it bad for her, don't you? But she's just using you. She'll learn soon enough that you can't have sympathy for the devil. That what you did was unforgivable. Don't you know, kid? We live in a society—" Mammon started.

"No, you live in a society! I live in my meticulously crafted daydream universe that I've been using as a coping mechanism since childhood!" said Florante.

Mammon chuckled. "No. You're a back-of-the-class loser who has gone on a power trip and became mad with power."

The demon's plan of buying the crawling chaos time to recuperate worked. The shadow man returned in full force. Or rather, the shadow men cometh.

The tall, dark, and devilishly bleak Minion manifested himself into multiple avatars of all shapes and sizes.

When he got aethered by Gabriel's embarrassment-fueled Light Array, he regrouped his atomized particles and spread across Makati towards the nearest of its fleeing denizens, turning them into his own avatars.

What the crawling chaos lacked in healing powers he more than made up for his ability to take over the bodies of others like some sort of black lung virus. The black plague made flesh and bone.

Florante willed himself to shoot at the numerous avatars, even though when they got blown apart, they didn't atomize into tendrils but instead burst like sacks of blood and guts.

The Light Array made short work of most of them, but that took too long to charge, so he had to settle for Lightning Strikes, Lightning Bolts, and supersonic Thunderbolts for the rest.

These new avatars of the crawling chaos were collateral damage. Men, women, the elderly, and children—entire families—running for their lives up until the crawling chaos took over their bodies and turned them into shadow people like him.

They'd been turned into blackened homunculus or zombies puppeteered by the crawling chaos himself.

At first, dealing with the "infected" avatars of the crawling chaos felt like shooting fish in a barrel, but then they displayed bizarre attributes.

Some flew with hand glider wings. Others crawled into corners like roaches. There were those that merged to form a super muscular shadow avatar that tanked Florante's Light Array, Thunderbolts, and Lightning Bolts.

From there, Florante understood.

This man-shaped maestrom. This walking void containing the vast cosmos unto itself who could affect mystic energies, both demonic and cosmic, on an undefined level.

As World War II veteran and American civil rights activist Medgar Evers said,  "You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea."

This Minion was as unkillable as an idea. And just as dangerous.

"When a man possesses this much power, he does not seek redemption," said Mammon of the crawling chaos before Florante.

***

"Susmaryosep!"

Florante had just told Mammon he wasn't an intentional murderer (or a stalker), but now here he was again, forced to murder innocents in order to keep this shadowy humanoid typhoon in check.

He clung to the vague hope that like with the flying spaghetti monster incident, everything would go back to normal. That everything would be undone. Like a dream. Like all of this wasn't really real.

If he beat the Minion, he could revert everything back to normal, like it didn't actually happen, and save the people he just killed to get to the humanoid typhoon. Or the walking typhoid fever.

However, that was one big "if".

"Change into your Ophanim form. As you are now, you're no match against the Minion," teased the coward Mammon. "Unleash your full power like he has. I dare you, Gabriel."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You dumb bastard," cursed Florante. "You can't fool me! I bet you convinced this poor Ophanim to turn himself into a Minion the exact same way!"

"So?" said the brazen Mammon. "What if I did? The results speak for themselves. You can't even touch him. Face him with your full power or never wake up from this nightmare."

After deftly avoiding hit after hit, Galang got clipped by a five-clawed strike. That was all it took. It went downhill from there.

The distraction made him miss several of his shots, which allowed several avatars get passed his suppressive fire to claw, stab, and bite at him.

Desperately, he wielded a lightning bolt like a sword whip, slicing and dicing the nearest of the zombie horde of the crawling chaos's avatars.

He pushed back with his halo's aura, only to buckle under the pressure of an outright stampede of shape-shifting shadow creatures. The weight of hundreds felt like the weight of millions due to the densely packed particles of the Minion's cosmic self.

His panicked wheezes became a full-blown asthma attack as he drowned in black avatars that clawed, grabbed, bit, slashed, stabbed, and lacerated him to helpless shreds.

At this point, even if he willed himself to turn into his "Be Not Afraid, Child!" form of a frightful multi-eyed Ophanim, it'd be too late.

Then, just as Florante was about to get swallowed by the oily tidal wave of inhumanity that the maelstrom Minion mind-controlled like individual puppets, a mango tree suddenly grew and blocked their upsurge in a landslide of broken branches, splinters, leaves, and mango fruits.  

Once again, Raphael's human avatar Jennifer Tolentino saved his life. She jumped and slid across the unbroken branches of the mango tree that served as a wooden barrier between them and the Minion's horde of mind-controlled minions (ironic) that he turned into clones of his wriggly dark self.

"Are you okay, Flor?"

"Y-Yeah, th-thanks for saving me."

How embarrassing. He was supposed to be her Knight in Shining Armor, and here he was serving as her Damsel in Distress instead.

He didn't even have the energy to correct her nickname of him. He might as well be a "Flor". He might as well have that girly name.

She turned towards him, her halo and her eyes shining like emeralds, and unfurled two green-feathered bird wings from her back. The thing that caught Florante's eyes though was her smile.

A sad smile that could break anyone's heart in two.

"Flor, don't be a hero. You don't have to force yourself just to make people acknowledge you," she said.

"W-What…?" he trailed off. "B-But I thought that's what I'm supposed to do as an angel! An Ophanim! I'm one of you, right? Why can't I be the hero?"

She shook her head. "When you do that, you end up blaming yourself, blaming other people, and feeling jealous of everyone. But still, it doesn't have to be like that. Even if people don't acknowledge you, you just need to be someone that you can be proud of!"

"I don't understand," he said.

She silenced him with a quick peck on the forehead.

"You don't have to fight. This isn't your war. You have no quarrel with this Minion, don't you? Just be good, okay? Maybe this time, when you wake you up from this dream, you'll decide to forget about all this and move on with your life."

"…." He could only stare at her cherubic, angelic form, dumbfounded into silence. He later realized that her kiss had healed all the wounds he'd sustained from battle and reenergized him at the same time.

Like man-sized termites, the shape-shifting avatars of the crawling chaos clawed, gnawed, scratched, ripped, tore, and outright drilled right into the gigantic mango tree they'd crashed into, turning it into sawdust in their wake.

She then fell like a hatchling from her nest, her green feathers flying everywhere as she let the horde tear her apart in Florante's stead. Cannibalizing her, to his horror.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Galang screamed himself raspy, his eyes flooded with tears, his fingertips glowing with rivulets of bright-blue energy, his halo shining with arcs of electrical power.

***

Florante Galang realized early on that really was no hero, much less a superhero.

The first opportunity that he got his superpowers, he used it for petty revenge against his bullies, his mindless massacre resulting in his high school crush becoming collateral damage.

He really shouldn't be entrusted with destructive abilities like the Light Array, really.

The realization horrified him, but he honestly wouldn't get any real satisfaction of beating a stronger foe like the crawling chaos or the flying spaghetti monster like he did when he killed his bullies in a fever dream.

He was a coward who used his powers against bullies who couldn't fight back, in revenge to how they bullied him into submission and he couldn't fight back either.

He was no better than the bullies who picked on him.

When faced with the prospect of sacrificing life and limb against a monster that threatened the lives of the whole city of Makati, he came up short.

This creature didn't bully him so he had no quarrel against him. He had no motivation to beat him. They were actually the same—an Ophanim and a Minion thrust in a fight they had no dog in.

Even when the Minion began using innocent bystanders against Florante, this merely horrified the young Ophanim instead of build his heroic resolve.

For ultimately, Galang was a selfish person who only cared about himself. He was an even bigger coward than Mammon, who became a disembodied voice in their heads that mocked them all the while.

Jenny was right. He didn't have to fight. He had no personal stakes here.

However, there was something she said before she did her heroic sacrifice that stuck with him.

"Even if people don't acknowledge you, you just need to be someone that you can be proud of!"

Someone he could be proud of, huh? How could he do that? How could he becomes someone he could be proud of even without the acknowledgement of his peers?

Like a dying typhoon becoming a low pressure area, only to get a second wind and become a super typhoon as its winds moved into the moisture-rich tropics that enhanced its shower and thunderstorm activity.

Florante looked down from his perch atop the gigantic rotting mango tree that Jenny had used her life and healing factor to induce gigantic growth.

He saw that the avatars that consumed Raphael's avatar had the dark presence of the crawling chaos leave them. Evicted or otherwise exorcised out of them. Her green aura spread across them all, healing them of the Black Plague that infected them.

This maelstrom of darkness then converged into a singular man. The original avatar that served as a candidate for whoever demon wanted to take control of him.  

Before this living, walking shadow creature could get his hands on more avatars, Florante struck at this unkillable thing as immortal as a concept.

How did one kill an idea or a movement before it could spread across the populace like wildfire?

Practical application. A dose of reality.

Ideas never pan out without a hitch in real life. Let it naturally progress and die in absurdity when applied to reality.

"Light Array!"

Thusly, Florante and Jennifer killed this idea of a Minion by not letting its dark influence spread across anymore innocent bystanders and victims then isolating him inside his one avatar, feeding it with energy until it burned out.

Like letting a fire burn itself out before it could spread and raze everything in its path.

"Light ARRAY! LIGHT ARRAY! LIIIIIGHT ARRAAAAY!!!"

The blasts of energy chipped away at the concentrated density of the indefinable cosmic mass densely packed into the shape and sentience of a tall, lean man.

The glowing, electrified Florante then pierced through the layers and layers of negative energy in order to scream at the maelstrom, "Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Do you really want to hurt all these people? Did Mammon put you up to this?"

The pacific storm that was Florante blasted the nimbus man with lightning and thunder, converging around him like he was the low pressure area about to become a typhoon himself.

"Did you think the same thing I had when we started fighting? Did you also wonder why we're fighting and if it's worth doing this in the first place?"

After blowing through layer upon layer of darkness and density, like a self-contained black hole made flesh, Galang then went face-to-face with… a kid. Just another kid like him. A tall kid, but a kid nonetheless.

They floated there in the eye of the storm that was Hurricane Galang.

A Minion facing an Ophanim, with both of them wondering what exactly was the difference between them.

Florante grinned at the stranger and said, "Let's stop this nightmare, okay Maybe it's about time you woke up."

The darkness that surrounded them then shattered like glass, revealing an untouched city and a perfectly intact Guadalupe Church. Just like what had happened with the spaghetti creature.

…Become a person he could be proud of, huh? Maybe he could try becoming that after all.  

***

Flor awoke outside the village or street where Jenny's apartment was located. He hadn't met up with her yet or gone to her apartment. Everything that had happened so far was just a daydream.

Dammit. So even that was just a dream? A daydream, this time.

He then remembered the "last time" they ended up in her apartment and what they were talking about before they were cut off by him waking up.

Oh, did he have one of those lucid dreams again? The ones you could control consciously? Or was he even awake now?

He'd been having all sorts of dreams lately, probably to escape the hell that was his teenage life as a bullied boy.

The dreams were happening more and more often. It was harder and harder to tell what was real and what wasn't until in hindsight.

"Wait. What the hell am I doing?" he said to himself aloud, shook his head, and left without going to Jennifer Tolentino's apartment.

"Susmaryosep," he murmured under his breath, feeling like he'd somehow dodged a bullet for some reason.

***

The next day went on easier than the last, but only because Florante Galang knew what to expect of today this time around.

His classmates would either avoid him like the plague or talk behind his back as he went about his friendless existence in First Year Section St. Francis of Assisi of Fatima High.

Oh well. At least his fantasies and fever dreams were interesting, right? Even though his reality was as banal as could be.

Jennifer Tolentino and Laura Reyes used to sit near him in class, but now they sat elsewhere once their homeroom teacher and class advisor rearranged their seats.

He ended up with some dude who never talked to him sat in front of him.

He went to the library instead of the cafeteria today because he usually sat in his lonesome every recess and lunch these days.

His usual friends… acquaintances perhaps… well, the people he sat with every lunch, the Dead Kids… were off doing their own things separately. Weirdoes being weirdoes.

He should speak though. He went to the library during lunch.

He also tended to avoid bumping into the group consisting of Laura and her friends or, much worse, Gerry Jacinto and his barkada (gang).

He was used to classmates and the student body at large looking through him as though he weren't there or as if he were a ghost.

However, for some reason, he felt like he had eyes all around him, but whenever he stared back at people instead of the floor or his feet as usual, they ended up looking elsewhere. As if averting his gaze.

Was there something on his face or uniform? He hoped he didn't do anything embarrassing again. However, such concerns left his mind after his trip at the library.

He had one thing in mind. One person. Jenny Tolentino.

Granted, Florante still had his photocopies of the phone book page full of "Tolentinos" and other "T" names as well as the yearbook page featuring a look-alike Jennifer Narcissa Tolentino.

Man, he was acting really creepy now, wasn't he?

How shallow was his crush on Laura Reyes that he ended up pining for Jenny Tolentino instead? Ah, whatever.

Crushes were supposed to be shallow attraction, right? You needed to really know someone to develop worthwhile feelings for them. Or so he heard. He didn't believe in love at first sight, although he had his share of, uh, lust at first sight.

Florante found Jenny cute because he knew her they shared something in common. Also, she had puppy dog eyes behind those wide-rimmed glasses.

Why hadn't he looked at her that way before? Must be because of Laura. And because she might be a fellow angel.

Or at least his imagination viewed her as such.

Maybe this was him finally giving up on Laura in favor of Jenny. Maybe.

***

To Be Continued…

Florante starts having issues in being able to tell what's real and what's fantasy as he continues to dream up plot scenarios for his comic book and uses it to retreat from how miserable his real life has gotten.

Farewell, Abdiel

[supremojohndee]

Article 71: Family Code of the Philippines

ARTICLE 71. The management of the household shall be the right and the duty of both spouses. The expenses for such management shall be paid in accordance with the provisions of Article 70.

Support from the management shall be taken from the following:

a) form the absolute community of property or conjugal partnership;

b) from the income or fruits of the separate properties of each spouse;

c) from the separate properties of the spouses

Case from Article 72: Tenchavez Vs. Escaño

Facts:

Missing her late-afternoon classes on 24 February 1948 in the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, where she was then enrolled as a second year student of commerce, Vicenta Escaño, 27 years of age, exchanged marriage vows with Pastor Tenchavez, 32 years of age, an engineer, ex-army officer and of undistinguished stock, without the knowledge of her parents, before a Catholic chaplain, Lt. Moises Lavares, in the house of one Juan Alburo in the said city. The marriage was the culmination of previous love affair and was duly registered with the local civil registrar.

Although planned for the midnight following their marriage, the elopement did not, however, materialize because when Vicenta went back to her classes after the marriage, her mother, who got wind of the intended nuptials, was already waiting for her at the college. Vicenta was... taken home where she admitted that she had already married Pastor. Mamerto and Mena Escaño were surprised, because Pastor never asked for the hand of Vicenta, and were disgusted because of the great scandal that the clandestine marriage would provoke.

The following morning, the Escaño spouses sought priestly advice. Father Reynes suggested a recelebration to validate what he believed to be an invalid marriage, from the standpoint of the Church, due to the lack of authority from the Archbishop or the parish priest... for the officiating chaplain to celebrate the marriage.

The recelebration did not take place

Ittiere, a lawyer filed for her & petition, drafted by then Senator

Emmanuel Pelaez, to annul her marriage. She did not sign the petition. The case was dismissed without prejudice because of her non-appearance at the hearing.

On 24 June 1950, without informing her husband, she applied for a passport, indicating in her application that she was single, that her purpose was to study, that she was domiciled in Cebu City , and that she intended to return after two years. The application was approved, and she left for the United States. On 22 August 1950, she filed a verified complaint for divorce against the herein plaintiff in the Second Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada in and for the County of Washoe on the ground of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in character". On 21 October 1950, a decree of divorce, "final and absolute", was issued in open court by the said tribunal.

On 10 September 1954, Vicenta sought papal dispensation of her marriage

On 13 September 1954, Vicenta married an American, Russel Leo Moran, in Nevada. She now lives with him in California, and, by him, has begotten children. She acquired American citizenship on 8 August 1958.

But on 30 July 1955, Tenchavez had initiated the proceedings at bar by a complaint in the Court of First Instance of Cebu, and amended on 31 May 1956, aprainst Vicenta F. Escaño; her parents, Mamerto and Mena Escaño, whom he charged, with having dissuaded and discouraged Vicenta from joining her husband, and alienating her affections, and against the Roman Catholic Church, for having, through its Diocesan Tribunal, decreed the annulment of the marriage, and asked for legal separation and one million pesos in damages.

The appealed judgment did not decree a legal separation, but freed the plaintiff from supporting his wife and to acquire property to the exclusion of his wife.

Issues:

Direct appeal, on factual and legal questions, from the judgment of the Court of First Instance of Cebu, in its Civil Case No. R-4177, denying the claim of the plaintiff-appellant, Pastor B. Tenchavez, for legal separation and one million pesos in damages... against his wife and parents-in-law, the defendants-appellees, Vicenta, Mamerto and Mena all surnamed "Escaño" respectively.

Ruling:

It is equally clear from the record that the valid marriage between Pastor Tenchavez and Vicenta Escaño remained subsisting and undissolved under Philippine Law, notwithstanding the decree of absolute divorce that the wife sought and obtained on 21 October 1950 from the Second

Judicial District Court of Washoe County, State of Nevada, on grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in character". At the time the divorce decree was issued, Vicenta Escaño, like her husband, was still a Filipino citizen. She was then subject to

Philippine law, and Article 15 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, already in force at the time, expressly provided:

"Laws relating to family rights and duties or to the status, condition and legal capacity of person are binding upon the citizens of the Philippines, even though living abroad."