Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #29 (Patreon)

The Statement Of Jaselle Alhambra, Part 6

For all his faults, Uncle Carlos was punctual. When he'd said he'd arrive to pick her up in twenty minutes, he actually arrived in fifteen, and Jas was just finished the third waffle sandwich—a third! This was definitely indulgent—that Ate Sanny had offered her when she saw his flashy American-made pickup truck heading towards them.

"My uncle is here," Jas said, pointing out the car.

Ate Sanny followed her finger, aFor all his faults, Uncle Carlos was punctual. When he'd said he'd arrive to pick her up in twenty minutes, he actually arrived in fifteen, and Jas was just finished the third waffle sandwich—a third! This was definitely indulgent—that Ate Sanny had offered her when she saw his flashy American-made pickup truck heading towards them.

"My uncle is here," Jas said, pointing out the car.

Ate Sanny followed her finger, and nodded when she saw the car. "Well, I'll leave you then. I have to get back home myself. Take care, Jas. I'll contact you on the app if we have anything."

Jas nodded. The computer her uncle had given her as a gift when she'd first come to live with him to go to college had turned out surprisingly useful, but she supposed that was part of the degenerate temptation her grandmother had warned her about. Still, as long as she used it surprisingly, it was useful in her studies, and it allowed her to communicate with her fellow… fellow Nightmærangers, she supposed.

Her uncle's pickup truck stopped as Ate Sanny left, and one of the doors at the back opened.

"Hey, Jaselle," Judy, one of the women her uncle lived in sin with or at least committed sin together with, greeted her, waving her into the car. Lila, her schoolmate who actually did live with them, sat behind her uncle, and 'Auntie Ronda' sat at the front seat, doing something on the phone.

Jas nodded to her politely. "Miss Judy," she said. Just because they lived sinful lives was no reason to be rude. It wasn't her place to judge, and besides, they had all been nothing but pleasant and helpful to her. They were actually very nice people, lives steeped in sins of the flesh with her uncle aside. "Hello Miss Lila. Miss Ronda. Hellow Uncle Carlos. Thank you for picking me up." She sat down and closed the door, her bag on her lap.

"Well, of course. Anything for my favorite niece," her uncle smiled as the pick-up truck began to pull away from the curb. Jas watched out the window as they passed by Ate Sanny, who'd broken out into a run. Did she intend to run all the way back home?

"I'm the only one of your nieces you've ever met," Jas pointed out, leaving the 'because grandmother said you were no longer welcome at home and she never wanted to see you again' unsaid.

"Yes. So if I ever meet any of your sisters you might have competition for the top spot. But currently you're my favorite niece, so you get special treatment!" her uncle said cheerfully. "So, did you have fun with your friends?"

Friends? Well, she supposed they were becoming friends. They had been nothing but kind and nice to her, and they had been very understanding…

"It was all right," she said noncommittally.

"Who was that cutie you were talking to?" Lila asked. Jas had been warned about women like her…

"That's Ate Sanny. She was just keeping me company since she didn't want me to wait alone."

"Is she looking for a sugar daddy? Or an FB?" Lila asked.

"I… wouldn't know," Jas said. "I don't know what any of those things are." Sugar daddy? Was that some kind of candy?

"Lila, leave Jas alone," Uncle Carlos said. "Leave her friend alone, for that matter."

"Aw… but she was a tall blonde gyaru! That's, like, rare!" Still, Lila dropped the subject.

"Do you want to stop by anywhere for food, Jas?" Uncle Carlos asked. "We can go through a drive-thru. The traffic is a bit heavy, so it might be late by the time we get home."

Jas hesitated, but the allure of fast food was tantalizing. "All right," she said.

Uncle Carlos turned on the radio as Jas settled into her seat, closing her eyes and trying to ignore Lila and Judy with the heads together, whispering, giggling and probably more. "—state of emergency as the military secure the area," the bland voice of an old man said over the radio. As soon as he stopped talking, loud, repetitive, tuneless music began to play, only to cut off as he started speaking again. "Well, no more Gagambuhala, listeners and lisetnettes. Maybe that means that we'll be able to go shopping in Makati again."

Filler music. "But they still haven't explained what that beam of light was," his cohost said, a feminine voice. "Does it have anything to do with that light over the city during the Tagaytay eruption?"

Jas tried to tune out the radio and the two women next to her as she closed her eyes, the vibrations of the car lulling her to sleep…

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Jas spent the next day reading and studying ahead for her classes. Her parents said she needed top, perfect grades to be able to qualify for a scholarship so that the government would pay for her education, and so she had to study. Uncle Carlos said he was fine with paying her tuition fees, but her parents didn't want her to be dependent on him. Since such grades was what was expected of her anyway, Jas expected it would only be a matter of time before she qualified for those scholarships. Granted, her grades weren't that high yet, but as soon as she got used to the pacing of her college lessons she was sure she'd be able to do it.

The fire within her burned, impatience and urges to move, to burn, to do something filling her, but she had learned the night before. Her uncle had a plethora of junkfood and snack of both the salty and sweet varieties in his pantry—another indulgence, a room just for food instead of just a cabinet in the kitchen—and she grabbed some of the sweet candies, putting them in her mouth and sucking on them slowly. The taste seemed to pacify the fire in much the way the waffle sandwiches had, all the urges turning into glee. It was dangerous, since her grandmother had warned her having more than two candies a day would give her diabetes, but to keep the fire suppressed she was willing to risk it… and maybe Ate Sanny could cure diabetes?

The laptop her uncle had said was a gift when she'd arrived was open on her desk next to her books, and she would occasionally look up to check if her professors had posted anything for them to do or had replied to her requests for extra credit work. She also checked her messages from the other…Nightmærangers… but there was nothing she needed to reply to. Tammy had sent a message praising everyone for their contributions the day before—there as still no mention of Jas's loss of control—while Ate Sanny left short messages that had seemed obtuse at first, until Jas realized they were about the consequences of their actions yesterday.

Traffic apparently wasn't getting better yet, since the military still hadn't left the area of Makati, but that was supposedly expected. A few people had gotten distant pictures and video of Tammy turning into a giant thorny bush, and it was already being passed around online as a new monster, which she apparently found 'distressing but understandable'. As Ate Sanny had said yesterday, the military were concerned that her plasma beam had been the result of something the Gagambuhala had built, and they were digging through the fallen nest to find it. Of course, no such device existed, but they had found dozens of robot spiders, which had been taken for study. There was also talk about the military sweeping through Pasay to look for the dog monster that was somehow hypnotizing and eating people.

Tammy wanted to go after that next, but Ate Sanny was having trouble keeping track of it. Her drones were apparently vulnerable to whatever it was doing and were either getting eaten or simply coming unconnected from her. Given that, she didn't want to go looking for it in her own body, and definitely not alone. However, Ate Sanny had other monsters she was tracking, and whose location she was more sure of. Tammy and Ate Sanny—or Green and Yellow, as they were listed on the messaging app—sporadically discussed about which one they should go after next.

The list that Ate Sanny included in an attachment was horrifying in her ignorance of it. A giant rooster that glittered in prismatic colors sounded like a joke, until Ate Sanny had added a note that a giant bird essentially has the same physiology as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and were omnivores who would eat anything. It was apparently loose somewhere in Sta. Rosa, and Ate Sanny had only recently heard of it. Others on the list included the giant hand—presumably with something equally giant attached on the other end of the hand—that took people and even cars from along the Baywalk, a giant cat that was attacking and eating people, a giant dragonfly that seemed to vanish into fog over Laguna Lake—which was not known for fog at any time of the year—a giant moth that only seemed to appear at night that was visible only in the light of the moon and buzzed around skyscrapers, a giant pig that had escaped from a piggery in Cavite was was apparently running wild in the woods, a… tree that moved?

According to the more detailed section, there was a tree in Manila North Cemetary that people had seen moving. It had been attributed to ghosts until recently, where people had begun to suspect it was some kind of monster. Authorities had tried cutting it down, and it had responded by growing explosively. It sounded so much like Tammy it was probably something they should investigate.

Other things on the list had been marked as 'lost track', such as something about a snake, an unknown thing that had caused explosive geysers of hot water along Katiupunan Avenue, something that had caused a rash of violence at a squatter's area that had left those affected babbling nonsense and apparently insane (they'd been talking about not selling their votes in the next election and actually voting for the best candidate), and the dog that affected people's mind, which Ate Sanny had apparently stopped following closely. Another note read that while some monsters exhibited blatant 'powers', others were merely unnaturally large members of their species.

Jas only read their conversation, not knowing enough about places and their priorities to be able to contribute. She noticed that Willy and Kuya Kim were equally silent, though that could just be out of habit. Ate Sanny and Tammy were fairly unintelligible when they were speaking to each other. It was practically a foreign language. Well, technically it was, since they tended to lapse into English eventually, but while Jas, like most people, was perfectly fluent in the language, what they said still made no sense.

On Tuesday, however, she received a message about an emergency, asking her to meet everyone at Kuya Kim's house. The message was to her cellphone rather than over the messaging app, which was a sign of how important of us, since she had told them her phone was for emergencies only. Jas was able to take a jeepney to Kuya Kim's house, to find Ate Sanny already there, leaning back on the gate with her arms crossed and clearly waiting for people to arrive. She was wearing only a pair of shorts and a plain white t-shirt, her feet bare on the rough cement sidewalk, toes curled.

"Hey," Ate Sanny greeted. "Sorry for having Tammy contact you on your phone, but it was important. We're afraid something might have happened to Kim."

"What happened?" Jas asked, adjusting her backpack with her school materials.

"Tammy exchanged phone numbers with Kim's brother, and he texted her that her brother hasn't come out of his room since he came home that night he was with us," Ate Sanny said. "When they tried to go in today, his door wouldn't open. They got concerned, so they got a ladder to his window, and… well, apparently his room is too big for them to see him, so Kim's brother texted Tammy. They're coming straight here from school, though given traffic that could be thirty minutes to an hour from now."

Jas looked towards the house, but of course there was nothing to see. The high walls and gate blocked all view from the road, giving the property privacy, and there was just the slight hint of pink—magenta?—rocks along the top of the wall, which probably did something. "Maybe we should knock? They should be expecting us, shouldn't they?"

"They should…" Ate Sanny sighed. "But I don't have my phone and I don't have their number." She gestured down at herself. "I sort of just grabbed the lightest clothes I could carry and still fly. They said emergency, after all."

Jas gave the older woman a bemused look, wondering if this was one of her strange jokes, but she looked completely serious. Shaking her head, Jas made a fist and knocked the metal gate with her knuckles, making a deep, metallic ring. "Hello?" she called out, letting the family know they had visitors. "Anybody home? It's Jas, I'm a friend of Kuya Kim's?"

Ate Sanny had jerked away from the gate when Jas had started knocking, staring at her incredulously as if she'd done something incredibly rube, before suddenly shaking her head ruefully. "Oh, right," she muttered. "Can you, uh, not tell anyone I forgot something as obvious as knocking? Please?"

She… forgot she could knock. That was embarrassing. "I promise," Jas said.

Ate Sanny sighed. "Thanks." She looked down at herself. "I'm severely underdressed for this," she muttered, shaking her head.

From the other side of the gate, Jas heard footsteps, followed by the ringing of solid metal knocking into each other and grinding as the pedestrian gate was opened. Kuya Kim's girlfriend Ate Katherine stood there, looking upset, though she raised an eyebrow when she saw Ate Sanny.

"They said it was an emergency and these were the only clothes light enough for me to fly in," Ate Sanny said. "I can get changed once we're inside, if that makes you feel any better?"

"That would be appreciated," Ate Katherine said. Then she pursed her lips and added, "Thank you for coming so fast."

Ate Sanny waved a dismissive hand. "No problem. Kim's part of the team. We've got to stick together."

"Well, thanks anyway," Ate Katherine said. A frown was starting to wrinkle her brow. "Did you… get shorter?"

Jas blinked and turned to look at Ate Sanny, reallylook, and realized that the usually towering woman was only about a head taller than her.

Ate Sanny shrugged. "I was told it was an emergency, and smaller flies faster. Besides, if I were my usual size, these clothes wouldn't fit so well."

Ate Katherine gave the other woman a piercing look, inspecting her, and Jas had to wonder how much of Ate Sanny's physical features were real. "Well, come in. You can get changed in the bathroom, I'll ask auntie if there are any clothes you can borrow."

"I appreciate it," Ate Sanny said, now looking amused.

The reason for her amusement became obvious as she and Jas stepped inside and Ate Katherine closed the gate behind them. As the gate clanged shut and the metal bolt slammed into place to lock it. Ate Sanny did as she said as she would and started to change. Her sun-darkened skin started to turn a jaundiced yellow before becoming smooth and hard shell, gaining a sheen. Ate Katherine turned back from closing the gate and started back in surprise as she saw Ate Sanny becoming taller, her limbs and torso elongating as she approached her normal height, her face becoming covered in smooth shell as dark compound eyes appeared on her face..

"Ah, that's better," Ate Sanny—Yellow—said through a slit that had been hidden behind a piece of shell on her face. Her arms and torso moved with disturbing fluidity, and she shimmied out of the shirt she was wearing, which had risen up so far it would have bared her belly button. The shots had become even shorter, reaching only halfway down her thighs. Those were also removed and Yellow bundled them up with casual carelessness behind putting them at the small of her back. The shell there cracked, and white-speckled yellow tentacles reach out and grabbed the clothes, bundling them up smaller before wrapping around them, holding them tight to Yellow's back.

"…" Ate Katherine stared. "Kim said you liked weird jokes. I should have figured."

"Hey, just because he doesn't have the good taste to understand what I say isn't my fault," Yellow said with a shrug. "So, where's Kim's room?"

Jas awkwardly followed the two women into the house and up the dark wood stairs to the second floor. Kuya Kim's parents, grandfather and siblings were all crowded around a door. His father was kneeling down, trying to dismantle the doorknob, while his sister stood nearby with the toolbox.

"Auntie, babe's friends are here," Ate Katherine said.

Kuya Kim's mother looked up and let out a scream, making her husband look up and curse, pulling his wife and his daughter behind him. Kuya Kim's brother stared.

"Hello Mr. Bunhong, Mrs. Bunhong," Yellow said in a perfectly normal voice, raising one hand in a lazy wave. "I heard you're having an emergency with Kim?"

The three stared at her as Kim's grandfather adjusted his glasses, squinting at Yellow up and down, then turned his squint towards Jas. "What are you wearing?" he asked the taller woman.

"Nothing," Yellow said.

"You need to go see a doctor then, something's wrong with you, you shouldn't be that color."

"I know," Yellow said.

Kim's grandfather nodded curtly, and walked away.

"He just doesn't care, does he?" Yellow said, shaking her head. "So, this is Kim's room?"

"Yeah," Kim's brother Ryan said, grinning. "We can't get the door open. It might have a rock in front of it or something."

"And you've already tried the window, if I remember right…" Yellow said, looking up thoughtfully. She tilted her head. "Do you have some sort of access hatch to the space between the roof and the ceiling? I tried looking under the door to be sure, but I can't see anything."

"Let me try," Jas said, and blinked when she heard Yellow say the same thing.

Yellow made a gesture. "Go ahead," she said.

Hesitantly, Jas walked up to the door, Kim's family stepping back to make space for her. She knelt down and held out her hand towards the crack between the door and the floor. She concentrated, her turning black and angular as it became volcanic glass. The fire within her burned, enthusiasm filling her, but also curiosity. Jas grew a thing chip off glass like a nail on the end of her finger and snapped it off. Then she laid ti down flat on the floor and flicked it under the door. She closed her eyes and concentrated on what her shard could see. "There's definitely rock blocking the door," she said. "I can't tell how thick it is though."

"Well, definitely no getting in that way," Yellow mused, tilting her head as she looked up thoughtfully. "Hmm… do you have an access hatch for the space between the ceiling and the roof?"

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Fifteen minutes later, a disheveled-looking Kuya Kim was alternately being hugged and scolded by his family, pink sand all over his clothes and hair. Ate Sanny had been provided with one of Kuya Kim' sports jersey and sweatpants, the latter only came part of the way down her calves, but it was apparently better than her idea of getting changed.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking extremely embarrassed. "I was trying something and I… lost track of time…"

"You lost track of time so much you forgot to eat?" his mother said. "You missed church." Jas winced on Kuya Kim's behalf.

"I, uh, didn't get hungry," Kuya Kim said, looking aside.

"Rock mode?" Ate Sanny said.

"Yeah…"

Kuya Kim's father shook his head. "Well, at least you're all right. What were you doing?"

"Well, the briefcase I made didn't work very well… and it was a bit too big… I tried to make something smaller, but I didn't have anything, so I used some of my rock as material… then one thing led to another and… um, I made… things. They're upstairs..."

"Ryan, go with your bother, make sure he doesn't get distracted," Kuya Kim's father said.

"Yeah… I, uh, might have destroyed my phone…"

"Well, then you'll have to buy a new one," his father said

Kuya Kim winced, and the two brothers headed upstairs, and leaving her and Ate Sanny with their parents.

"Thank you for coming to help so promptly," Kuya Kim's father said. "I'm sorry for how I reacted, but you took me by surprise."

"Completely understandable," Ate Sanny said, as if it wasn't her idea to come inside the house as an eight-foot tall monster-woman. "I suppose I should probably find a way to tell the other two they don't need to come here now, but—"

There was a metallic ringing as someone knocked on the gate outside. "Hello?" Tammy's voice called distantly. "Anybody home?"

"Too late, I suppose," Ate Sanny said.nd nodded when she saw the car. "Well, I'll leave you then. I have to get back home myself. Take care, Jas. I'll contact you on the app if we have anything."

Jas nodded. The computer her uncle had given her as a gift when she'd first come to live with him to go to college had turned out surprisingly useful, but she supposed that was part of the degenerate temptation her grandmother had warned her about. Still, as long as she used it surprisingly, it was useful in her studies, and it allowed her to communicate with her fellow… fellow Nightmærangers, she supposed.

Her uncle's pickup truck stopped as Ate Sanny left, and one of the doors at the back opened.

"Hey, Jaselle," Judy, one of the women her uncle lived in sin with or at least committed sin together with, greeted her, waving her into the car. Lila, her schoolmate who actually did live with them, sat behind her uncle, and 'Auntie Ronda' sat at the front seat, doing something on the phone.

Jas nodded to her politely. "Miss Judy," she said. Just because they lived sinful lives was no reason to be rude. It wasn't her place to judge, and besides, they had all been nothing but pleasant and helpful to her. They were actually very nice people, lives steeped in sins of the flesh with her uncle aside. "Hello Miss Lila. Miss Ronda. Hellow Uncle Carlos. Thank you for picking me up." She sat down and closed the door, her bag on her lap.

"Well, of course. Anything for my favorite niece," her uncle smiled as the pick-up truck began to pull away from the curb. Jas watched out the window as they passed by Ate Sanny, who'd broken out into a run. Did she intend to run all the way back home?

"I'm the only one of your nieces you've ever met," Jas pointed out, leaving the 'because grandmother said you were no longer welcome at home and she never wanted to see you again' unsaid.

"Yes. So if I ever meet any of your sisters you might have competition for the top spot. But currently you're my favorite niece, so you get special treatment!" her uncle said cheerfully. "So, did you have fun with your friends?"

Friends? Well, she supposed they were becoming friends. They had been nothing but kind and nice to her, and they had been very understanding…

"It was all right," she said noncommittally.

"Who was that cutie you were talking to?" Lila asked. Jas had been warned about women like her…

"That's Ate Sanny. She was just keeping me company since she didn't want me to wait alone."

"Is she looking for a sugar daddy? Or an FB?" Lila asked.

"I… wouldn't know," Jas said. "I don't know what any of those things are." Sugar daddy? Was that some kind of candy?

"Lila, leave Jas alone," Uncle Carlos said. "Leave her friend alone, for that matter."

"Aw… but she was a tall blonde gyaru! That's, like, rare!" Still, Lila dropped the subject.

"Do you want to stop by anywhere for food, Jas?" Uncle Carlos asked. "We can go through a drive-thru. The traffic is a bit heavy, so it might be late by the time we get home."

Jas hesitated, but the allure of fast food was tantalizing. "All right," she said.

Uncle Carlos turned on the radio as Jas settled into her seat, closing her eyes and trying to ignore Lila and Judy with the heads together, whispering, giggling and probably more. "—state of emergency as the military secure the area," the bland voice of an old man said over the radio. As soon as he stopped talking, loud, repetitive, tuneless music began to play, only to cut off as he started speaking again. "Well, no more Gagambuhala, listeners and lisetnettes. Maybe that means that we'll be able to go shopping in Makati again."

Filler music. "But they still haven't explained what that beam of light was," his cohost said, a feminine voice. "Does it have anything to do with that light over the city during the Tagaytay eruption?"

Jas tried to tune out the radio and the two women next to her as she closed her eyes, the vibrations of the car lulling her to sleep…

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Jas spent the next day reading and studying ahead for her classes. Her parents said she needed top, perfect grades to be able to qualify for a scholarship so that the government would pay for her education, and so she had to study. Uncle Carlos said he was fine with paying her tuition fees, but her parents didn't want her to be dependent on him. Since such grades was what was expected of her anyway, Jas expected it would only be a matter of time before she qualified for those scholarships. Granted, her grades weren't that high yet, but as soon as she got used to the pacing of her college lessons she was sure she'd be able to do it.

The fire within her burned, impatience and urges to move, to burn, to do something filling her, but she had learned the night before. Her uncle had a plethora of junkfood and snack of both the salty and sweet varieties in his pantry—another indulgence, a room just for food instead of just a cabinet in the kitchen—and she grabbed some of the sweet candies, putting them in her mouth and sucking on them slowly. The taste seemed to pacify the fire in much the way the waffle sandwiches had, all the urges turning into glee. It was dangerous, since her grandmother had warned her having more than two candies a day would give her diabetes, but to keep the fire suppressed she was willing to risk it… and maybe Ate Sanny could cure diabetes?

The laptop her uncle had said was a gift when she'd arrived was open on her desk next to her books, and she would occasionally look up to check if her professors had posted anything for them to do or had replied to her requests for extra credit work. She also checked her messages from the other…Nightmærangers… but there was nothing she needed to reply to. Tammy had sent a message praising everyone for their contributions the day before—there as still no mention of Jas's loss of control—while Ate Sanny left short messages that had seemed obtuse at first, until Jas realized they were about the consequences of their actions yesterday.

Traffic apparently wasn't getting better yet, since the military still hadn't left the area of Makati, but that was supposedly expected. A few people had gotten distant pictures and video of Tammy turning into a giant thorny bush, and it was already being passed around online as a new monster, which she apparently found 'distressing but understandable'. As Ate Sanny had said yesterday, the military were concerned that her plasma beam had been the result of something the Gagambuhala had built, and they were digging through the fallen nest to find it. Of course, no such device existed, but they had found dozens of robot spiders, which had been taken for study. There was also talk about the military sweeping through Pasay to look for the dog monster that was somehow hypnotizing and eating people.

Tammy wanted to go after that next, but Ate Sanny was having trouble keeping track of it. Her drones were apparently vulnerable to whatever it was doing and were either getting eaten or simply coming unconnected from her. Given that, she didn't want to go looking for it in her own body, and definitely not alone. However, Ate Sanny had other monsters she was tracking, and whose location she was more sure of. Tammy and Ate Sanny—or Green and Yellow, as they were listed on the messaging app—sporadically discussed about which one they should go after next.

The list that Ate Sanny included in an attachment was horrifying in her ignorance of it. A giant rooster that glittered in prismatic colors sounded like a joke, until Ate Sanny had added a note that a giant bird essentially has the same physiology as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and were omnivores who would eat anything. It was apparently loose somewhere in Sta. Rosa, and Ate Sanny had only recently heard of it. Others on the list included the giant hand—presumably with something equally giant attached on the other end of the hand—that took people and even cars from along the Baywalk, a giant cat that was attacking and eating people, a giant dragonfly that seemed to vanish into fog over Laguna Lake—which was not known for fog at any time of the year—a giant moth that only seemed to appear at night that was visible only in the light of the moon and buzzed around skyscrapers, a giant pig that had escaped from a piggery in Cavite was was apparently running wild in the woods, a… tree that moved?

According to the more detailed section, there was a tree in Manila North Cemetary that people had seen moving. It had been attributed to ghosts until recently, where people had begun to suspect it was some kind of monster. Authorities had tried cutting it down, and it had responded by growing explosively. It sounded so much like Tammy it was probably something they should investigate.

Other things on the list had been marked as 'lost track', such as something about a snake, an unknown thing that had caused explosive geysers of hot water along Katiupunan Avenue, something that had caused a rash of violence at a squatter's area that had left those affected babbling nonsense and apparently insane (they'd been talking about not selling their votes in the next election and actually voting for the best candidate), and the dog that affected people's mind, which Ate Sanny had apparently stopped following closely. Another note read that while some monsters exhibited blatant 'powers', others were merely unnaturally large members of their species.

Jas only read their conversation, not knowing enough about places and their priorities to be able to contribute. She noticed that Willy and Kuya Kim were equally silent, though that could just be out of habit. Ate Sanny and Tammy were fairly unintelligible when they were speaking to each other. It was practically a foreign language. Well, technically it was, since they tended to lapse into English eventually, but while Jas, like most people, was perfectly fluent in the language, what they said still made no sense.

On Tuesday, however, she received a message about an emergency, asking her to meet everyone at Kuya Kim's house. The message was to her cellphone rather than over the messaging app, which was a sign of how important of us, since she had told them her phone was for emergencies only. Jas was able to take a jeepney to Kuya Kim's house, to find Ate Sanny already there, leaning back on the gate with her arms crossed and clearly waiting for people to arrive. She was wearing only a pair of shorts and a plain white t-shirt, her feet bare on the rough cement sidewalk, toes curled.

"Hey," Ate Sanny greeted. "Sorry for having Tammy contact you on your phone, but it was important. We're afraid something might have happened to Kim."

"What happened?" Jas asked, adjusting her backpack with her school materials.

"Tammy exchanged phone numbers with Kim's brother, and he texted her that her brother hasn't come out of his room since he came home that night he was with us," Ate Sanny said. "When they tried to go in today, his door wouldn't open. They got concerned, so they got a ladder to his window, and… well, apparently his room is too big for them to see him, so Kim's brother texted Tammy. They're coming straight here from school, though given traffic that could be thirty minutes to an hour from now."

Jas looked towards the house, but of course there was nothing to see. The high walls and gate blocked all view from the road, giving the property privacy, and there was just the slight hint of pink—magenta?—rocks along the top of the wall, which probably did something. "Maybe we should knock? They should be expecting us, shouldn't they?"

"They should…" Ate Sanny sighed. "But I don't have my phone and I don't have their number." She gestured down at herself. "I sort of just grabbed the lightest clothes I could carry and still fly. They said emergency, after all."

Jas gave the older woman a bemused look, wondering if this was one of her strange jokes, but she looked completely serious. Shaking her head, Jas made a fist and knocked the metal gate with her knuckles, making a deep, metallic ring. "Hello?" she called out, letting the family know they had visitors. "Anybody home? It's Jas, I'm a friend of Kuya Kim's?"

Ate Sanny had jerked away from the gate when Jas had started knocking, staring at her incredulously as if she'd done something incredibly rube, before suddenly shaking her head ruefully. "Oh, right," she muttered. "Can you, uh, not tell anyone I forgot something as obvious as knocking? Please?"

She… forgot she could knock. That was embarrassing. "I promise," Jas said.

Ate Sanny sighed. "Thanks." She looked down at herself. "I'm severely underdressed for this," she muttered, shaking her head.

From the other side of the gate, Jas heard footsteps, followed by the ringing of solid metal knocking into each other and grinding as the pedestrian gate was opened. Kuya Kim's girlfriend Ate Katherine stood there, looking upset, though she raised an eyebrow when she saw Ate Sanny.

"They said it was an emergency and these were the only clothes light enough for me to fly in," Ate Sanny said. "I can get changed once we're inside, if that makes you feel any better?"

"That would be appreciated," Ate Katherine said. Then she pursed her lips and added, "Thank you for coming so fast."

Ate Sanny waved a dismissive hand. "No problem. Kim's part of the team. We've got to stick together."

"Well, thanks anyway," Ate Katherine said. A frown was starting to wrinkle her brow. "Did you… get shorter?"

Jas blinked and turned to look at Ate Sanny, reallylook, and realized that the usually towering woman was only about a head taller than her.

Ate Sanny shrugged. "I was told it was an emergency, and smaller flies faster. Besides, if I were my usual size, these clothes wouldn't fit so well."

Ate Katherine gave the other woman a piercing look, inspecting her, and Jas had to wonder how much of Ate Sanny's physical features were real. "Well, come in. You can get changed in the bathroom, I'll ask auntie if there are any clothes you can borrow."

"I appreciate it," Ate Sanny said, now looking amused.

The reason for her amusement became obvious as she and Jas stepped inside and Ate Katherine closed the gate behind them. As the gate clanged shut and the metal bolt slammed into place to lock it. Ate Sanny did as she said as she would and started to change. Her sun-darkened skin started to turn a jaundiced yellow before becoming smooth and hard shell, gaining a sheen. Ate Katherine turned back from closing the gate and started back in surprise as she saw Ate Sanny becoming taller, her limbs and torso elongating as she approached her normal height, her face becoming covered in smooth shell as dark compound eyes appeared on her face..

"Ah, that's better," Ate Sanny—Yellow—said through a slit that had been hidden behind a piece of shell on her face. Her arms and torso moved with disturbing fluidity, and she shimmied out of the shirt she was wearing, which had risen up so far it would have bared her belly button. The shots had become even shorter, reaching only halfway down her thighs. Those were also removed and Yellow bundled them up with casual carelessness behind putting them at the small of her back. The shell there cracked, and white-speckled yellow tentacles reach out and grabbed the clothes, bundling them up smaller before wrapping around them, holding them tight to Yellow's back.

"…" Ate Katherine stared. "Kim said you liked weird jokes. I should have figured."

"Hey, just because he doesn't have the good taste to understand what I say isn't my fault," Yellow said with a shrug. "So, where's Kim's room?"

Jas awkwardly followed the two women into the house and up the dark wood stairs to the second floor. Kuya Kim's parents, grandfather and siblings were all crowded around a door. His father was kneeling down, trying to dismantle the doorknob, while his sister stood nearby with the toolbox.

"Auntie, babe's friends are here," Ate Katherine said.

Kuya Kim's mother looked up and let out a scream, making her husband look up and curse, pulling his wife and his daughter behind him. Kuya Kim's brother stared.

"Hello Mr. Bunhong, Mrs. Bunhong," Yellow said in a perfectly normal voice, raising one hand in a lazy wave. "I heard you're having an emergency with Kim?"

The three stared at her as Kim's grandfather adjusted his glasses, squinting at Yellow up and down, then turned his squint towards Jas. "What are you wearing?" he asked the taller woman.

"Nothing," Yellow said.

"You need to go see a doctor then, something's wrong with you, you shouldn't be that color."

"I know," Yellow said.

Kim's grandfather nodded curtly, and walked away.

"He just doesn't care, does he?" Yellow said, shaking her head. "So, this is Kim's room?"

"Yeah," Kim's brother Ryan said, grinning. "We can't get the door open. It might have a rock in front of it or something."

"And you've already tried the window, if I remember right…" Yellow said, looking up thoughtfully. She tilted her head. "Do you have some sort of access hatch to the space between the roof and the ceiling? I tried looking under the door to be sure, but I can't see anything."

"Let me try," Jas said, and blinked when she heard Yellow say the same thing.

Yellow made a gesture. "Go ahead," she said.

Hesitantly, Jas walked up to the door, Kim's family stepping back to make space for her. She knelt down and held out her hand towards the crack between the door and the floor. She concentrated, her hand turning black and angular as it became volcanic glass. The fire within her burned, enthusiasm filling her, but also curiosity. Jas grew a thin chip off glass like a nail on the end of her finger and snapped it off. Then she laid it down flat on the floor and flicked it under the door. She closed her eyes and concentrated on what her shard could see. "There's definitely rock blocking the door," she said. "I can't tell how thick it is though."

"Well, definitely no getting in that way," Yellow mused, tilting her head as she looked up thoughtfully. "Hmm… do you have an access hatch for the space between the ceiling and the roof?"

––––––––––––––––––

Fifteen minutes later, a disheveled-looking Kuya Kim was alternately being hugged and scolded by his family, pink sand all over his clothes and hair. Ate Sanny had been provided with one of Kuya Kim's sports jerseys and sweatpants, the latter of which only came part of the way down her calves, but it was apparently better than her idea of getting changed.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking extremely embarrassed. "I was trying something and I… lost track of time…"

"You lost track of time so much you forgot to eat?" his mother said. "You missed church." Jas winced on Kuya Kim's behalf.

"I, uh, didn't get hungry," Kuya Kim said, looking aside.

"Rock mode?" Ate Sanny said.

"Yeah…"

Kuya Kim's father shook his head. "Well, at least you're all right. What were you doing?"

"Well, the briefcase I made didn't work very well… and it was a bit too big… I tried to make something smaller, but I didn't have anything, so I used some of my rock as material… then one thing led to another and… um, I made… things. They're upstairs..."

"Ryan, go with your bother, make sure he doesn't get distracted," Kuya Kim's father said.

"Yeah… I, uh, might have destroyed my phone…"

"Well, then you'll have to buy a new one," his father said

Kuya Kim winced, and the two brothers headed upstairs, leaving her and Ate Sanny with their parents.

"Thank you for coming to help so promptly," Kuya Kim's father said. "I'm sorry for how I reacted, but you took me by surprise."

"Completely understandable," Ate Sanny said, as if it wasn't her idea to come inside the house as an eight-foot tall monster-woman. "I suppose I should probably find a way to tell the other two they don't need to come here now, but—"

There was a metallic ringing as someone knocked on the gate outside. "Hello?" Tammy's voice called distantly. "Anybody home?"

"Too late, I suppose," Ate Sanny said.