Limbo

Death is only just the beginning.

{ played by @Jon }

NAME: Ethan Holloway
AGE: 29 (no longer ages)
SPECIES: Human (deceased)
HAIR: Blond
EYES: White (completely dead)
BIRTHPLACE: Olympia, Washington OCCUPATION(S):

1. Owner & Manager of the Limbo Lodge
2. Full-Time Hero
3. Free Spirit

AFFILIATION(S):

1. Member of The Vanquishers
   
2. Founder of Undead Rights Nation (U.R.N.)
3. Member of the Odd Squad
4. Ally of The Neverenders
   

POWERS:

1. IMMORTALITY:
   Perhaps immortality isn't the best word for it; he's both alive and dead at the same time, which makes him virtually impossible to kill. He will exist forever because his spirit is incapable of passing on.
2. LIFE FORCE:
   He can tap into a limitless source of pure life force for a number of purposes, including healing, energizing, animation, and more.
3. DEATH FORCE:
   He can also control the shadowy forces of death, which naturally consumes life force, causing corruption, chaos, and of course, death itself.
4. SPIRITUAL NATURE:
   Ethan's soul is fused with his physical body, allowing him to experience the world much like a ghost would. In addition to seeing, communicating with, and empowering spirits, he can also turn into one himself, giving him intangibility, invisibility, and flight.

Not everyone gets to be someone important. For a lot of people, life is pretty mundane -- they wake up, they go to some boring, soulless job, and they come home to rest before they do it all again the next day. It's easy to get lost in the blandness of mediocrity, and that was certainly true of the completely uninteresting Ethan Holloway. Never one for ambition, he perfected the art of coasting by through life just well enough to get by without ever really needing to put in the effort to stand out. For pretty much his entire adult life, he worked nights as a cashier at a bodega near where he lived, and he never dared to seek anything more for himself. Aside from the bizarre creatures who wander into his shop in the middle of the night, he always found himself feeling out of place out around most people. Did that make him a bizarre creature of the night, too? Ethan himself always considered it to be real possibility.

Ethan generally kept to himself and didn't keep a lot of close relationships. He moved to Paragon City right after high school on a whim, leaving his only relative - his single mother - back home in Olympia. They text occasionally, but for the most part, Ethan remained completely isolated from family since he moved. By most social standards, Ethan was a loser. At the very least, he was completely forgettable to virtually everyone he met. In a way, it allowed him to be free; on the fringes of society, unnoticed by most, he was liberated from many things that hold normal people back, like shame, or fear of failure. Where most would get dragged down by negativity, Ethan somehow thrived. Still, a part of him always regretted doing absolutely nothing meaningful with his life, though he typically tried to not dwell on that feeling.



Ethan's death came on a night like any other. He had just finished working a shift, and geared up for the middle-of-the-night walk home down the quiet, empty streets, hhappy for a chance to listen to some music and tune the world out for a bit on his way back to his apartment. Unfortunately, he tuned the world out a little too well, and was too distracted to notice a vehicle speeding towards him as he jaywalked across an intersection, too impatient to wait for the pedestrian crossing light to signal for his safety. In that single instant moment when the car made impact, Ethan Holloway ceased to exist; to Ethan, however, that moment stretched out into eternity while his life flashed by in his mind's eye. As he watched, that familiar feeling returned. He wished he could have done more. And then he died.

After Ethan's death, the world went on as normal. His job hired a replacement as soon as they found out what happened. His belongings were all auctioned off, and his apartment was rented out to a new tenant. His mother, though distraught about her only child's death, was unable to come to Paragon City and properly handle all of Ethan's affairs, or even pay for a proper burial. For a time, Ethan's body sat in a Paragon City morgue waiting to be cremated and disposed of. It never did make it to the cremation chamber; Ethan's body was flagged as a potential candidate for a medical research program, and was subsequently shipped off to the laboratory of Dr. Benedict McCobb, a Paragon City University professor whose experimental research aimed to cure death itself.



Dr. McCobb had only experienced moderate success in his resurrection trials prior to acquiring Ethan's body. Though he was able to concoct the right chemical formula to reanimate dead tissue, he had a hard time counteracting the natural decay of corpses without the heavy use of preservatives, which had devastating effects to brain function post-reanimation. With Ethan, however, Dr. McCobb was determined to get it right. Once he was able to craft a new version of his reanimation serum to pump through Ethan that passed all of his simulations, he put it to the real test. Upon injecting it directly into Ethan's cold, dead heart, his body began to regenerate at a remarkable pace. After a moment of anticipation, Ethan awoke on the lab table, gasping for air as every cell in his body was jolted alive. Dr. McCobb was elated -- it seemed that he had finally accomplished his goal of curing death, once and for all!

It took a while for Ethan to fully process what happened to him. The last thing that he remembered was walking home from work. He remembered his life stretching out before him, and then... noting. That is, until waking up in a strange lab with a weird, bald scientist he'd never met before. Once his mental faculties returned enough for him to properly communicate with Dr. McCobb, Ethan finally learned the truth about his death. Having also learned that the world had unsurprisingly moved on without him, Ethan agreed to stay in Dr. McCobb's laboratory for him to continue to study. As time went on, however, Ethan grew exhausted with his existence as a human lab rat. He wanted nothing more than to die once more, wishing to return to the peaceful nothingness he felt in death before being forced back to life. He even attempted suicide on more than one occasion, only to find it to be physically impossible for him to do, despite all logic and reason. Not only that, but Ethan's body seemed to be immune to the effects of aging. By all metrics, Dr. McCobb's cure for death was not only successful, but permanent.

Just as Dr. McCobb anticipated, there was massive interest in Ethan's unprecedented condition. Buzz about Ethan spread around academia like wildfire, as people obsessed over the prospect of a potential cure for every ailment facing mankind. Though people's understanding of what Ethan could actually do was incredibly limited at the time, he became an incredibly coveted scientific asset almost overnight. It's no surprise that he became targeted by Crey Industries, who wanted to use Ethan to unlock the secrets of immortality for Countess Crey. They kidnapped him from the university to experiment on him for themselves, effectively ruining both Dr. McCobb's big debut, and his career in the process. It was while in the custody of Crey that Ethan was rescued by Ace, who needed his unique capabilities to help with a dangerous rescue mission. Inspired by his rescuers, he joined them as the vigilante Limbo to form The Vanquishers, a group of powerful heroes who work together to make the world a better place, giving him a second chance to be something great.



Generally speaking, the realm of the dead and the realm of the living stay separated by a supernatural barrier colloquially called the veil. Thanks to having one foot in both realms at all times, Limbo is one of very few beings capable of moving freely through this veil from one side to the other. The realm of death is a vast, infinite place that exists in-between the many afterlives that houses the souls of the dead into eternity. This underworld is a wild place full of dark magic where time does not exist. It houses an endless horde of monstrous, soul-eating demons who feed off of the wayward spirits of those who get lost on the way to their final resting places.

Ethan's first trip beyond the veil attracted the attention of Haros, a god living in the underworld with the power to see the path of a soul's destiny. Haros is one of very few underworld residences with some semblance of a moral code; he uses his power to help he lost find their homes, like a shepherd of souls. Haros could see Ethan's fate was somehow critically intertwined with that of countless others; an unprecedented phenomenon that he found quite alarming. Not wanting to leave those fates in the hands of a complete idiot, Haros took it upon himself to train Limbo, helping him unlock the full potential of his powers, and establishing an unlikely companionship between them along the way. The two now work as partners to help souls across both realms.



The realm beyond the veil is intrinsically connected to the realm of life. Neither can exist without its opposite. In the same vein, what happens in one realm has a direct effect on what is happening in the other. Sometimes, the veil between the realms can be worn thin, typically as a result of a large number of deaths occurring at that location in the living world. These are dangerous, haunted places where the dead and the living can naturally intermingle. They attract powerful forces that, if left unchecked, can be very problematic for both realms.

One of these places, an abandoned motel on the outskirts of Paragon City infamous for the high body count it claimed in its heyday, has recently been inhabited by a new demon in its infancy. The walls of the motel serve as the demon's bones; in all practical sense, the motel and everything inside it is alive. Ethan and Haros befriended the motel, which Ethan simply calls the Limbo Lodge (or just 'the Lodge'), and it now serves as their central base of operations, housing ghosts with nowhere to go while Ethan can figure out how to help them find rest. It is a beacon of hope for all the dead trapped in the world of the living, and a bastion of safety for lost souls trying to escape the numerous threats from beyond the veil of death.

There are many eclectic residents at the Limbo Lodge, including:

1. The Gnomies (A crew of gnome ghosts)
2. Dr. Wesley Carp (Ethan's dead therapist)
3. Harambe (Has a part-time room for when he is in town for political reasons dealing with U.R.N.)
4. The Headless Twins (Two fully headless siblings who are completely incapable of speaking)
5. Davey & Little Lewis (Father & Son ghost combo. Little Lewis possesses a raggedy stuffed bear)
6. Brewski the Bloody Barista (runs a poorly received coffee shop that serves blood as coffee)
7. Gory Gloria (Working part-time as the Limbo Lodge's receptionist)
8. The Plaid Poltergeist (A hipster who frequently haunts flannel shirts)
9. Captain Deadbeard (sails the Screaming Siren, a sunken pirate ship that occasionally hovers above the lodge during Deadbeard's stays)

And many more!

Relatively early in his career as a hero, before Haros ever formally decided to train him, Limbo started noticing an uptick in ghosts being unable to cross over into the afterlife. Seeking to figure out why it was happening, he went to ask his fellow Vanquisher and God of the Underworld Osiris if he had any idea what was up... only to find that Osiris had taken a trip to the Duat, the realm in the afterlife he oversees on behalf of his pantheon. It turned out that Osiris was changing the rules of admission to the Duat, accidentally throwing the entire underworld out of balance in the process. Souls were no longer able to get where they were meant to go when they died, causing problems that were spilling out into the mortal world.

The answer to this problem, according to another fellow Vanquisher, the Occultist, was to use Limbo as a spiritual tether to help the team travel into the underworld and get Osiris to stop changing things before the world is overrun by the dead. The catch? To actually jump into the realm of the dead, the team still had to die to make it happen. Occultist concocted a special tea with a poison that would essentially bring them to the brink of death, allowing Limbo to grab a hold of their souls before they could drift off and get lost. When it actually happened, Ethan could feel each individual death as though it happened to him directly. He fought hard to mask his trauma from his peers and power through the mission.

The journey into the underworld to enter the Duat proved to be immensely validating for him as a hero, as the way to get there involved having your entire life evaluated for worthiness. Despite his doubts beforehand, his life was evaluated well. After helping the team bring Osiris back and stop him from unwittingly wreaking havoc on reality, Limbo was able to bring the souls of his allies back to their bodies, restoring them to life in a process that was just as cathartic for him as their deaths were traumatic. In the end, he was left with a newfound appreciation for himself, and a deeper understanding of his abilities. Prior to bringing his friends there, he didn't know he could freely venture into the underworld on his own without finding a natural gateway. In time, he'd even figure out how to bring mortals in without needing to kill them first.



Both Limbo and the Occultist were drawn to Camp Hardwood, a weight loss camp for overweight teens that was mere weeks from opening its doors for the first time, because of an intense cloud of death hanging over it that popped up seemingly overnight. Wanting to prevent any supernatural catastrophe from happening, they brought the Vanquishers with them to stop whatever was creating it. Little did they know, the campground was being haunted by the malevolent spirit of Mason Pflueger, a notorious serial killer from decades past called the Slasher.

Hoping to connect with the spirit before it got violent, Limbo naively made first contact with Slasher only to be met with pure aggression. Slasher grabbed Ethan by the hair and, using a machete in his hand, cut off Ethan's head, setting the stage for a night full of murder as the ghost hunted down the other Vanquishers one by one, trapping each of their souls inside his Satanically-enchanted blade as he killed them. A loophole in the magic of the machete's enchantment allowed everyone's souls to be freed come sunrise, at which point the freshly revived Occultist magically sealed away the campground so that nobody else could fall victim to the Slasher's insatiable bloodlust. Despite getting murdered himself (which, before this, he believed to be impossible to do), Limbo couldn't help but wish there was a way for him to break through to Slasher and help him find peace. That wish would go unfulfilled, though, as the Slasher wants one thing only: the power to kill.



An unfortunate figure from Ethan's recent past, a former security guard turned disembodied spirit named Glenn Garrett, eventually came back to quite literally haunt Ethan for ripping his soul from his body. Their first encounter was at Ethan's first visit with what was supposed to be his therapist. Unknown to Ethan at the time, his therapist had conveniently died in a tragic auto-erotic asphyxiation accident, and Glenn had taken up residence inside the therapist's freshly deceased corpse. Glenn, now calling himself the Stand-In, would surprise attack him this way several more times, each while wearing a different body as his own. His goal was to steal Ethan's body, as if that would be some sort of karmic retribution for Ethan's role in Glenn's death. It got to the point where Ethan couldn't go anywhere at all without wondering if there'd be another ambush.

Ethan was heavily in denial about the ordeal, downplaying the events of Glenn's death to his allies in the Vanquishers when they started pressuring him for info about why the Stand-In was after him. In his eyes, the fact that he was able to find a new body for Glenn in the first place meant that Glenn had no real justification for his actions; he had no idea that Glenn's family refused to accept his new body, instead deciding to accept that he died and move on without him. Ethan basically ruined Glenn's life, and for a while it seemed like he was refusing to admit it. It wasn't until the Vanquishers tracked the Stand-In to his Body Garage, a garage retrofitted with refrigeration technology to store a massive collection of corpses for him to possess, that Ethan was able to fully wrap his head around just how bad he screwed Garrett up. Fortunately, the heroes were able to subdue him, and Osiris agreed to imprison the Stand-In in the Duat so that he could not do such an attack again. Much like with the Slasher, Ethan couldn't help but feel like there was a way to reach through to Stand-In that he was missing, but that would have to wait for another day.



Things in the Duat wouldn't stay peaceful for very long with the Stand-In down there stirring up chaos among the dead. It seemed his leash was being held a little too loosely by Osiris once the Stand-In started a movement against the God-King's rule of the realm. There was substantial unrest, and the social energy against Osiris threatened to destabilize the realm after just getting it back under control. Everything escalated when the Stand-In managed to complete a summoning ritual to pull a new soul through the Duat's Soul Hole to assist him in overthrowing Osiris: none other than the extremely violent Slasher himself. Grateful to be pulled out of Camp Hardwood where he was sealed away by the Occultist, Slasher wasted no time in hunting down Osiris' supporters in the Duat and trapping their souls in his Satanic blade. Fear was spreading throughout the afterlife, exacerbated by a rift the dissidents created allowing spirits to escape into the living world, and Osiris was losing support faster than ever before.

Feeling somewhat responsible for it all because of Stand-In being at the center, Limbo ventured down to the Duat with his fellow Vanquishers to wrestle control of the afterlife's population back from Stand-In. It was a grueling battle, but they were able to fight back against those standing in opposition to Osiris and trap the main offenders inside small crystalline structures courtesy of magi-tech equipment built by the Occultist and Interface beforehand. Seeking a more secure solution as to what to do with the Stand-In and the Slasher, Osiris took them to a prison in the divine realm where only gods could reach. It was a victory by all means, but to Limbo, letting them rot in ghost jail still felt like a failure on his part to bring his restless enemies the eternal peace he knows they really need.



The death of the Spell-Slinger at the hands of Incrediman traumatized the entire hero community. To help his friends through their mourning, Limbo agreed to go with Osiris and the Occultist down into the underworld to make sure that Chester's soul ended up somewhere peaceful. After drudging through some bureaucratic red tape, they learned that Chester's soul was being held to be given away as the prize in the upcoming Hellgames, an elaborate tournament where factions from all across the underworld (and even some from places far beyond) compete against each other for a soul of great power. There was suddenly a chance to bring the Spell-Slinger back to life; all the heroes had to do was compete in the Hellgames and win his soul.

Haros seemed to throw a bit of a wrench in that plan when he showed up to fight for his pantheon against the heroes, and he didn't even tell Limbo beforehand that he was doing that. Unknown to Ethan, though, Haros had a secret plan to throw his match and knock the Greek pantheon out of the competition. Ethan's faith in his friendship with Haros was initially very shaken, but upon seeing Haros' plan unfold in the arena, he felt nothing but pride. Still, Haros' scheming made him realize that there were things about him even he didn't know, and thinking about it too much made him uneasy.

Not too uneasy to win his own match in the Hellgames against a horrific, otherworldly golem of hands named Fingers. To defeat Fingers, Limbo connected to the spirit of the Hellgames arena itself, awakening a sleeping demon from the structure that would devour Fingers and go on a demon-eating rampage large enough to eventually shut down the Hellgames as an event for good. Still, the heroes did receive their victory for winning the Hellgames, and with Limbo's help, they were able to transplant the Chester's soul in a brand new copy of his body he'd already prepared. The idea that he was actually able to help bring someone properly back was bittersweet to Ethan of course, but it felt good to have Chester back in the flesh.



After being uncomfortably confronted by the trauma of his past in a time-travelling adventure that sent him back to the moment of his resurrection in Dr. McCobb’s nauseating laboratory, Ethan decided (at the suggestion of his therapist) to track him down for the first time since escaping his custody. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if he found him. Maybe he just wanted closure. Regardless, when he wandered into Dead Inside, the morgue where his body was held when he died, Ethan was relieved to find out that the doctor no longer worked there. He could stop searching for closure and avoid dealing with those emotions to his heart’s content.

Word eventually got back to the doctor that Limbo of the Vanquishers was looking into him thanks to the more employee informing the morgue's owner, the prolific Determinant. It turned out that, following Ethan's escape, Dr. McCobb lost all respect from his peers professionally and personally, and only the Determinant was willing to secretly continue funding his research into a cure for death. He's been working nonstop as the Reanimator trying to recreate his resurrection formula and acting as a secret doctor for criminals in his spare time. It was simple for him to deduce that Limbo was the experiment that got away. Against the Determinant's request, Dr. McCobb immediately began scheming up a way to recapture Ethan and figure out how to recreate his successful resurrection.

Gathering together a collection of undead abominations born out of his botched experiments, the Reanimator sent one after each of the Vanquishers hoping to isolate Limbo and make him easier to capture. Fortunately, the Vanquishers are some of the world's most capable combatants, and all of them (sans Sharkfin, who was inaccurately calling himself a Vanquisher to the public at the time, much to Limbo's annoyance) were able to fight back the zombies that attacked them. It all led to the Vanquishers tracking Reanimator down and, after a violent confrontation against every failed zombie experiment in his possession at once, sending him to prison for his crimes... but not before confirming to Ethan that even he, the man who created him, couldn't undo what was done. Ethan got the catharsis of Reanimator going to jail, yes, but any possibility of him ever getting put back to rest was gone. It didn't feel good. Even worse, Sharkfin was missing after Reanimator's attack, making whatever happened to him Ethan's fault. Fortunately, they were able to track him down and make sure he survived, allowing Ethan to finally move on from the horrors of his past for good.



Not long after the return of Reanimator, all magic in the multiverse started to drain away into an ancient artifact called the Book of All Things in an event called the Phenomenon, courtesy of a witch seeking revenge against the goddess Hecate. Ethan's friend Blister found herself at the center of it all as Hecate's chosen vessel. She disappeared on a quest to unbind herself from her goddess, taking Haros with her to teach her the dark magic she needed to do so. Ethan spent much of this period searching for Haros, unsure of why he disappeared without a word. Eventually, he stumbled upon Blister, whose soul was already tainted by demonic influence at that point; Ethan could sense it straight away, and he could *also* detect Haros's influence on her. The idea that he might be responsible for hurting her was one that Ethan struggled with. How much did he really know Haros? Was he stupid for trusting him?

Still, when Blister asked Ethan to watch over her body so she could go on a soul journey with his best homie Haros, he didn't hesitate to help. It may have been frustrating that Haros didn't want Ethan to help him in his selfish scheme to get back at his pantheon through Blister, but Ethan hoped Haros was able to give her the help she needed like he got from Haros himself after dying. Eventually, the Vanquishers were able to restore magic to the world, and Haros returned to the Lodge to help Ethan again as if nothing happened. Ethan was happy to put it all behind them.

1. Repossessed
   Shortly after re-joining the real world as the vigilante Limbo, Ethan returns to his old apartment to track down some of his old belongings from before his untimely death. When he learns that Crey took ownership of his stuff after they kidnapped him, he tries to get it back.

1. Haros
   The ancient Greek god who carried souls into Hades back in his prime. He is capable of sensing the destiny of any given soul, which is what drew him to Ethan upon his resurrection; he could see the strands of fate connected to Ethan in a unique way unlike anything seen before, and now sees himself as Ethan's protector and mentor. The two have a partnership unlike any other that has been forged by immeasurable time together beyond the veil.
2. The Vanquishers
   Ethan owes everything he has to the Vanquishers. If it weren't for them rescuing him from Crey, he'd still be sitting around in some lab getting poked and prodded for some mad science nonsense somewhere. This team of heroes gave him the opportunity take his mess of a life and inject it with purpose, and as such he devotes himself fully to the team. Its members have become his closest friends and allies, and he'll do anything in his power to help them out whenever they need it. He is easily the least experienced member, but also one of the most powerful.
3. Ace
   If it weren't for Ace, Limbo may have never had a chance to join the Vanquishers, which means Limbo would follow Ace to the end of the world if he had to. Ace is, to Limbo, a shining example of what a hero should strive to be; although he teases and trolls Ace from time to time, he always has a ton of respect for him and never wants to let him down.
4. Blindsider
   Raul is a battle-hardened badass who probably would have intimidated Limbo back in the days before his death; now that he's gotten more comfortable with danger, Blindsider is always good for a guaranteed, life-threatening thrill. He's more willing to engage Limbo's death wish than most of the other Vanquishers, which Limbo appreciates more than most living people really understand.
5. Interface
   For a long time, the identity of the Interface network's Creator was kept secret from Limbo and the rest of the Vanquishers to protect her identity. In fact, Limbo was almost convinced that the Creator wasn't even a real person before she unveiled herself to the team as an engineer named Ruth. Now that he knows where to find her, Limbo enjoys spending time haunting her home base of operations to keep her company… most likely much more frequently than she'd prefer.
6. Occultist
   Limbo has been haunting the Occultist ever since getting permission to temporarily crash on the sofa in his Sanctum after their first meeting. Much to Ollie's annoyance, Ethan ended up staying long-term; despite Ollie's resistance to Ethan's absurd antics and extreme lack of boundaries, the two have become close friends and roommates.
7. Osiris
   Limbo and the current reincarnation of the ancient god Osiris, who also lives at the Sanctum, have become remarkably good friends. The two of them together are an unstoppable force of chaos; their friendship revolves around them egging each other on in the most outrageously destructive ways possible. To Limbo, Osiris is a source of endless entertainment in the form of life-threatening thrills. They both also frequently find themselves coming together to deal with issues relating to the dead.
8. Signal
   She’s been Limbo’s ride or die ever since she moved into the Sanctum. Signal is someone Limbo loves to blow off steam with, and she's also one of the only people he knows who truly understands the trauma of death on a massive scale, similar to what he feels on his own thanks to his abilities. They may seem like they come from completely different worlds, but they get each other like no one else does.
9. Spyhunter
   Limbo's ability to perceive a person's soul makes it easy for him to get a good sense of what kind of person they are underneath the surface. James Wilson, the international Spyhunter, is one of very few people Limbo gets no discernable read from whatsoever. Luckily, their work in the Vanquishers together has proven him to be an invaluable ally, one who is never too far away when he's really needed.
10. Reanimator
    After losing his career following Ethan's abduction from his laboratory, Dr. Benedict McCobb vowed to continue his experimentation independently to recreate the same serum that brought Ethan back to life. Unfortunately, he's had to start back from square one, as he lacks the resources his previous job as a medical researcher gave him access to. When Ethan started digging into the doctor looking for closure, he put a target on his back. Reanimator tried to kill the other Vanquishers and capture him, but he failed and they threw him in prison for his crimes. Knowing he's locked up and not hurting anyone else is as much peace as Ethan feels like he can get from the whole situation.
11. Slasher
    A malevolent spirit who has been magically empowered by Satan himself. Ethan was drawn to the cloud of death that hung over Camp Hardwood where the ghost of the infamous murderer resides, and was shocked to discover that the spirit was powerful enough to actually kill Ethan, something that nothing else has ever been able to do. After getting brought back to life by a loophole in the rules of the magic that keeps Slasher bound to the campgrounds, the spirit was magically sealed away by the Occultist to prevent anyone else from being murdered. Slasher later reappeared in the spirit uprising of the Duat - an afterlife realm ruled by Osiris - and was locked away by the Egyptian pantheon in a place far beyond the realm of the dead until an unprecedented magical Phenomenon helped him escape. Whenever he shows up again, Ethan plans to be ready to stop him before anyone gets hurt.
12. Stand-In
    A man who once died after an unfortunate encounter with Limbo early in his career. Though Ethan tried to save the man's life by transferring his disembodied soul into a new body, inadvertently teaching him how to possess new bodies in the process. In doing so, he did not consider the consequences... such as the loss of the man's family, who moved on after they presumed him to be dead. Stand-In blames Ethan for this, and vows to get revenge by stealing Ethan's body for himself. After a failed attempt at doing so, he was taken to live in the Duat under Osiris' rule, but he quickly started an uprising among the local spirits that destabilized the very fabric of reality in the real world. He was taken alongside Slasher to a prison in the home realm of the Egyptian pantheon, but he's since escaped. Ethan hopes that one day the two of them can work things out between them.
13. Vexx Vandal
    As a Christmas present to Ethan, Ace hired an expert assassin to periodically show up and try to kill him. Obviously, Vexx Vandal never succeeds; despite this, his attempts are always the highlight of Ethan's entire week when they happen. To Vexx Vandal's frustration, Ethan has come to regard him as some sort of close friend, despite their relationship consisting of nothing but attempts against Ethan's life. Ethan just really appreciates the gesture.
14. Elysian
    Raziel is native to the afterlife realm of Elysium, which is accessible through the realm of Limbo, and is where he and Ethan first met upon Ethan's return of one of Elysium's lost souls. The two of them have a very playful friendship together, although a lot of Ethan's sarcasm and angst goes over Raziel's overwhelmingly optimistic head.
15. Mystery
    Limbo's relationship with investigative journalist Mateo Ortega has been integral in his efforts to help the spirits of the dead trapped on Earth. Often, these spirits require assistance in solving their murders in order to find peace, in which case Mystery's ability to illuminate hidden truths and connect dots is practically crucial. The two work together frequently to solve cases in the living world.
16. Fritz
    Probably one of Ethan's most unlikely friendships, which is significant considering how many horrific monsters he's friends with. Billionaire tech celebrity Dustin Holmes became acquainted with Ethan through the Vanquishers. He absolutely loathes Ethan, and wears those emotions on his sleeve, but Limbo's ghost-hunting antics make for fantastic footage on his YouTube channel, which is the entire basis of their friendship. Fritz helps design equipment to measure and analyze supernatural elements for Limbo's allies to use in exchange for full camera access to all of Limbo's adventures. It's made Limbo a bit of a celebrity online.
17. Spell-Slinger
    Chester is the Occultist's apprentice, which means he's always around the Sanctum. Limbo once helped remove a magical tumor monster from Chester's head alongside the Occultist, an experience which undeniably bonded the three of them more than any of them intended going into it. Nowadays, Chester even helps Limbo out with URN on occasion, a gesture which he always appreciates. Limbo regularly tries to rope Chester into his own suicide schemes.
18. Blister
    Isabelle has always been around as the Occultist's neighbor & ally to the Vanquishers. Although Ethan initially disturbed her, they get along very well. Recently Ethan's struggled with her developing a close personal relationship with Haros. He worries that she may be replacing him as Haros's number one homie.
19. Vestige
    Lydia's one of the only people who has any real understanding of what Ethan experiences as a dead person, and as such the two of them have a unique comradery that defies their polar opposite personalities. Ethan's learned to listen to her advice; she can usually see more to things than he can.
20. Sharkfin
    Ethan can't explain why but... there's something fishy about Sharkfin that makes him one of the only people Ethan refuses to get along with. Ethan is someone who befriends even the worst of his villains, but for some reason Sharkfin is just too far. It's not that Sharkfin's a bad person, it's that he's a bland person. Being near him is soul-killing, and as a being made entirely of soul, the effect is amplified on Ethan.
21. Nick O. Thyme
    The brother of Ace, his fellow Vanquisher, Nick originally started out as one of the team's most frustrating enemies. In time, Nick would help them take down Incrediman, proving himself as, well, at least someone who doesn't totally suck. It turned out that he and Ethan get along remarkably well. They each bring out the worst in each other, though, and the two of them together is almost always insufferable for anyone else in their vicinity.