The underground chamber of Legacy Operations Command buzzed with quiet, clinical tension. Monitors flickered across the steel-paneled walls—displaying anomalous energy readings, encrypted profiles, and satellite feeds of a fractured nation.
Five teenagers stood in a loose semi-circle.
Strangers.
No conversation. Just calculating stares. Suspicion. Uncertainty.
Then—
HISS.
The heavy blast door slid open with hydraulic force.
A man in a dark green officer's uniform stepped into the room. Every bootstep echoed like a gunshot. His jaw was square, his eyes tired but sharp—used to war, not mystery. A scar cut down his right temple like a fault line in stone.
Colonel Reyes.
He stopped in front of them, hands behind his back. The silence stretched. Then his voice cut through like a blade.
"Stand straight. You're not civilians anymore. You're... anomalies. Strategic assets."
He glanced at a datapad, swiping through glowing profiles filled with half-complete DNA records and unexplained shard readings.
"We don't know where this power comes from. Or why you have it. But our analysts say it's tied to something old—buried before even our own records begin."
A pause.
"Whatever the source, it's military now. So—"
He stepped forward.
"Introduce yourselves."
The air seemed to buzz. A faint flicker of red light sparked from one of the teens.
A young man stepped forward. Fierce eyes. Street-scarred fists. A red shard pulsing faintly from beneath his collarbone like a slow-burning flame.
"Andro Bonifacio," he said. "I don't follow blind orders. I fight for the people who never get a voice."
Reyes looked at him with mild interest. Swiped to the next file. "Next."
From the back, a girl walked forward with smooth calculation. A tablet hovered beside her shoulder, projecting data in midair. Her glasses gleamed, and her pendant glowed faint blue.
"Ika Rizal," she said. "I decrypt myths and expose systems. The truth is my weapon."
Reyes frowned. "Whatever that means, keep it functional. Next."
A gust of wind swept in from above as boots landed on the upper catwalk. A sleek cadet in a flight suit dropped lightly to the floor and saluted—though the smirk under her goggles said she didn't care much for protocol.
"Kai Aguinaldo. Sky Vanguard. I've got eyes in the clouds and storms at my back."
Reyes nodded slightly. "At least one of you speaks military."
A spark of static jolted across the floor as another figure stepped forward. Hoodie up, one hand crackling with yellow current. His voice was calm, but sharp.
"Sani Dulag. Electricity bends. I don't."
The colonel raised a brow. "Terse. Good. Next?"
The doors flew open—again—this time not by clearance, but by ego.
In strolled a tall teen in beach gear and shades, holding a bag of dried mango like a holy relic. He walked like the base owed him rent.
"Ladies and generals," he grinned, arms wide. "Basti Lapu-Lapu, at your service. Guardian of waves. Destroyer of boredom. Breaker of snacks."
Reyes didn't blink. "You're late."
Basti shrugged. "Time is an ocean, sir. I just ride the tide."
Colonel Reyes turned back to the display. Five glowing profiles. Five teens. Five unstable mysteries.
Two files remained dark.
Colonel Reyes tapped the holoscreen, frowning.
"Only one remains unaccounted for—Ilan Lakandula. Last known location: the Cordillera region. He cut contact three weeks ago. Possibly intentional. Spiritual type, apparently."
He paused.
Then glanced at the second dark profile—blank. No photo. No name. No data. Just static.
Reyes narrowed his eyes.
"As for this... I don't have a name. No record. Just a fragment of a signal—an unidentified resonance picked up by our shard sensors a few months ago. It was powerful. Then it vanished."
"Could've been a ghost reading. Could've been a sixth descendant. Or something worse."
Ika Rizal stepped forward, eyes sharp.
"Are you saying someone else out there might be like us—and you don't even know who?"
Reyes clenched his jaw.
"If they exist... they've covered their tracks better than anyone we've seen. We've scoured every government record. Civilian. Military. Even black site logs. Nothing."
He turned away from the screen.
"Until they show themselves—we focus on the five of you."
But behind the flicker of static on the unnamed profile...
Reyes tapped the screen. "All of you. You were flagged when your bodies reacted to shard exposure. We don't know why it's you. We don't know what ties you together. But it makes you dangerous—and valuable."
He stepped closer, voice quieter but heavier.
"I don't care about your ancestors. I care about what you can do. Your only legacy that matters... is what you do under fire."
Silence followed.
But within that silence... something stirred in the group. Not loyalty. Not pride.
A challenge.
They didn't know the full truth.
Yet.
But they could feel it—like thunder in the distance.
A power older than Reyes could understand. A bloodline more sacred than any file could explain.
They were more than test subjects.
More than soldiers.
They were heirs to forgotten fire.
Colonel Reyes gave one final look over the group, then turned on his heel.
"Report to the sparring deck in one hour. Get used to each other. Or don't. Just be ready."
The blast doors closed behind him with a cold hiss.
Silence.
Again.
Until Basti clapped his hands dramatically.
"Whew! Okay. That guy definitely irons his socks, right? Like, military starch levels of uptight."
Kai rolled her eyes. "He's our CO. Maybe don't mock him in front of the walls. They've probably got ears."
"Let 'em listen," Basti said, tossing a mango strip into his mouth. "I'm snackin', not attackin'. Yet."
Andro crossed his arms. "We're not here for snacks. Or jokes."
Basti smirked. "You must be fun at parties, Red Flame."
Andro's eyes narrowed. "Don't call me that."
"What? It fits. Look at you—Mr. Revolution."
Before things could escalate, Ika stepped between them, calm but firm.
"Enough. We're not enemies. Yet. But if we start treating each other like threats, we'll never survive whatever's coming."
Sani spoke up quietly from the side, eyes still half-hidden by his hoodie.
"She's right. We don't know why we're here... or even why we're like this."
He lifted his hand, letting small arcs of electricity dance between his fingers.
"This? It doesn't come with a manual."
Kai nodded. "Same. The first time I flew without gear, I blacked out mid-air. Nearly fell into a storm cell. Woke up floating miles above Mindoro."
Ika looked at her, surprised. "You're serious?"
Kai smirked, tapping her goggles. "Dead serious. Wind doesn't like being tamed. You just learn to ride it."
A pause.
Then Basti raised a hand.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"Hi. Basti. Water guy. Grew up surfing, punching sea monsters, and charming lifeguards. My powers showed up when I got swallowed by a rogue tidal wave and came out... glowing."
Andro raised a brow. "Seriously?"
Basti winked. "Seriously charming."
Ika sighed but smirked despite herself. "This is going to be chaotic, isn't it?"
Sani gave a rare half-smile. "It already is."
Their laughter was awkward. Unpolished. But real.
A flicker of something new moved between them—uncertain, but shared.
Until—
Ika's tablet beeped.
She opened a file discreetly. Her eyes scanned a flash of encrypted sensor data—the same static signal Colonel Reyes dismissed earlier.
It pulsed again.
And deep in the corner of the data... the ghost of a name tried to surface.
"Luna..." she whispered.
"What was that?" Kai asked.
"Nothing," Ika said quickly, closing the file. "Just a glitch. I'll look into it later."
But she felt it.
Something—someone—was missing.
And somehow, they were the key to everything.
Location: Sparring Deck, Legacy Operations Command – Neo-Maynila
The sparring deck was enormous. It looked less like a gym and more like a battlefield disguised as a machine. The walls were lined with kinetic dampeners, drone launch bays, elemental containment fields, and reactive tiles that shimmered faintly with energy.
The Legacy Descendants stepped onto the platform, still processing their earlier encounter.
Then they stopped.
Someone was already there—waiting.
At the center of the deck stood a tall man, built like a soldier forged in fire and history. His uniform was sleek but worn at the shoulders, the insignia of the Republic emblazoned across his chest like a living banner. He stood with his hands behind his back, posture solid, presence immovable.
President Severino Malvaron.
His voice cut through the air like a command that didn't need volume to be obeyed.
"So... these are the ones."
His eyes scanned them—one by one. Not with suspicion. Not with awe. But with the kind of calculating weight reserved for those expected to change the course of the nation.
"Descendants of a forgotten fight. The ghosts of a history this country has tried far too long to silence."
He stepped forward. The room seemed to follow.
"I didn't come here today to hand out medals or make speeches. I've buried friends on every island in this archipelago. I've seen what happens when people wait too long for heroes."
He stopped just short of them.
"And now... the past has caught up with the present. Through you."
Silence fell over the deck. Even the machines seemed to still.
"You didn't ask for this. None of us did. But that doesn't change what you are."
"You carry bloodlines written in resistance. In revolution. In rebellion."
He looked at Andro, standing tall with a storm burning behind his eyes.
"You are not your ancestor's shadow. You are their continuation."
He turned to Kai, the wind-chosen, her jaw set with focus.
"You were not born to fly. You learned. That matters more."
To Ika, who held the weight of truth behind quiet eyes.
"They buried the past in ink. You'll unearth it with fire."
To Sani, the quiet one sparking silently at the edges of the group.
"Even silence has power—when it chooses to speak."
And to Basti, who raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his lips—but listened all the same.
"The sea does not ask permission to crash. Neither should you."
President Malvaron stepped back now, his voice rising—not in volume, but in gravity.
"We're not asking you to save the country."
"We're asking you to fight for its soul."
"Make mistakes. Learn hard. Bleed if you must. But stand. Because if this nation is to rise again, it won't be because of symbols on a flag..."
"...it'll be because you made the Legacy more than a name."
He turned, gesturing to the combat grid. The floor lit up. Training modules whirred to life. Drones activated. Simulated enemies loaded.
"Let's see what that legacy looks like... when it moves."
He nodded once.
"Show me."
And with that, he stepped aside.
The test had begun.
The metallic clang of doors closing echoed through the chamber as President Severino Malvaron and Colonel Reyes stepped aside, making space at the center of the vast combat arena.
Reyes' voice was calm—but carried weight.
"Before you begin formal training, you'll meet your combat overseer. He's not a descendant. He's not a soldier. He's a shadow—built for war, trained to win, and assigned to make sure you survive."
"Codename: Project X."
A moment of stillness.
Then the lights flickered.
The air shimmered.
From the far corner of the room, space itself seemed to warp—shadows coiling inward, bending like liquid as a silhouette emerged from them.
Project X materialized, stepping forward with controlled precision. He wore dark, angular combat armor laced with glowing silver nodes. A sleek Saber Blade was clipped magnetically to his back, the hilt pulsating with cold energy. His visor, a glowing line of red over his eyes, hummed faintly as if scanning everything in the room.
The descendants braced instinctively. He was unlike anyone they had met.
Without warning, he moved.
Lightning-fast. But not brute-force.
One second he was across the room—then gone.
Flicker.
He reappeared in the center of the arena, holding his Saber Blade in a reversed grip. It ignited with a beam of pure white light, edged with refracted silver arcs. Then, in a blur of movement, he spun it in one hand—slicing through three incoming training drones mid-air with surgical strikes.
BOOM.
Another wave of drones emerged, this time reinforced with shielding.
Project X didn't flinch.
"Observation: Multiple threats. Probability of descendant failure: 67%."
His visor pulsed.
And then, the lights shut off.
Gasps filled the room—but Ika's eyes widened.
"He hacked the whole grid—without a console."
The chamber turned pitch black—until a hundred flickers of light began to swirl, disorienting the drones and warping their sensors.
Light and shadow danced, as Project X split into three shifting silhouettes, each moving in separate directions. One drone fired at a false copy—only for its own system to glitch out. Another was impaled through the core from above—Project X had leapt silently from the rafters.
Holographic misdirection. Shadow cloaking. Precision kills.
Colonel Reyes raised a hand, signaling the technicians above.
"Activate Simulation Room – Shadowborn Army. Full intensity. No handicaps."
Warning lights flared across the chamber as steel walls shifted, rearranging into a digital warzone. Buildings rose like bones from concrete. A city in ruin. Smoke hissed. The lights dimmed, replaced by the eerie glow of the Shadowborn Realm—that strange blend of corrupted tech and ancient darkness.
"This," Reyes announced, "is a real-time war sim pulled from Mindoro—one of the first provinces overrun by Malvado's elite."
Suddenly—
The simulation came alive.
Dozens of Shadowborn troopers burst from the smoke—twisted, armor-clad humanoids with glowing veins and curved weapons forged from obsidian and corrupted metal. They snarled like beasts but moved with inhuman coordination. Several towered over the others—elite variants with phasing tech and plasma scythes.
The descendants instinctively stepped back.
"This is what you'll face," Reyes said. "Now watch how to survive it."
From the far end of the ruined street, Project X stepped forward.
His Saber Blade activated—a beam of gleaming white light with silver arcs of energy. His visor pulsed with red as his mind processed the battlefield faster than any machine.
"Scanning... Forty-seven hostiles. Ten elites. Three lieutenants. Weak points detected. Engaging."
Then he moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
He vanished in a blink—reappearing behind the first Shadowborn, cutting clean through its back with a precise saber strike. Before its body even hit the ground, he hacked into a streetlight's tech node, rerouting power into a blinding flare of light—
Disorienting the next wave.
"Refracting shadows... deploying illusions."
Three versions of Project X splintered from his body, each attacking from different angles. Shadowborn soldiers fired at phantoms, only for the real Project X to drop from a rooftop, twisting midair and delivering a flash-strike across five targets in a single sweeping arc.
An elite lieutenant charged him with a plasma scythe.
Too slow.
Project X slid beneath it—used the impact crater the scythe left to vault upward using parkour—and sliced the enemy's weapon in half in midair.
He landed behind it and whispered:
"Error."
One stab. One takedown.
Then came the heavy units—massive Shadowborn juggernauts with rail cannons built into their arms.
"Initiating Technomancy override."
His eyes pulsed silver.
The cannons jammed. Then—turned against their own troops, blasting through the crowd in friendly fire chaos.
The Legacy Descendants watched, stunned.
"He's fighting like he's... everywhere at once," Ika whispered.
"No. He's thinking ahead," said Andro, voice low. "He's playing chess while they're throwing punches."
The last wave surged forward—but it was too late.
Project X cloaked himself in shifting light, vanished—
Then appeared at the very heart of the Shadowborn swarm.
BOOM.
An eruption of pure energy flared from his Saber Blade—a vortex of radiant light and collapsing shadow, disintegrating the remaining enemies in a single, calculated strike.
The simulation fizzled out.
Silence.
Only the soft hum of the deck rebooting echoed in the aftermath.
Project X stood at the center of the scorched virtual battlefield. Not a scratch on him.
He looked toward the stunned descendants, visor glowing red.
"That was a simulation. In the real world, they hit harder... and don't reset."
Then he turned and walked off the field without another word.
The team stared after him.
No one said it.
But they all felt it.
Whoever Project X was...
He wasn't just a soldier.
He was a weapon.
Lights flickered back on. The room was silent.
The Saber Blade hissed shut and returned to his back.
His voice was calm, synthetic—but carried a human edge beneath the modulation.
"I am not here to inspire you. I am here to ensure you live."
He turned slowly to face the five descendants, visor scanning.
"I see every angle. I calculate every threat. And if you hesitate... I will leave you behind."
Kai narrowed her eyes. "What are you?"
Project X tilted his head, unfazed.
"A ghost. A weapon. A guide."
Sani whispered to Basti, "His moves... They remind me of someone."
Basti blinked. "Yeah. Like someone who's... fighting himself."
Ika, always sharper than she let on, narrowed her eyes, calculating.
"His powers aren't military-grade... They're shard-based."
Colonel Reyes stepped in, firm. "That's enough. Project X is a prototype from a separate program. He's not one of you. But he will command your strike operations."
Andro clenched his fists. "Then he better not get in our way."
Project X didn't react. His visor dimmed. He turned and walked away, his shadow seeming to stretch unnaturally behind him.
Author's Note:
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