”The deeper the scar, the louder it pulses in the silence.”
The Basilan Spirit Breach — 2013 Flashback
Flames writhed along the crater’s edge, illuminating a maelstrom of chaos. Unsettling chants resonated through the night, a desperate hymn against a tide of encroaching darkness. Above, a military drone captured a chaotic tapestry of Baybayin runes—flickering pleas from a realm beyond our own. The breach was a gaping wound in reality, hemorrhaging “echoes”—twisted spirits born from the agony of grief and the venom of rage.
At the heart of the storm stood Gregorio Aguilar. The Kamay ni Bathala bracers on his wrists pulsed with brilliant purple light. He didn’t just punch; he unleashed a divine wrath that sent a shockwave across the battlefield, reducing echoes to spiritual dust. He slammed a fist to the ground, and the very earth erupted in violet light, erasing everything in its wake.
Nearby, Marian Dela Fuente whispered to her Sundang ni Makiling. In a blink, she became a chilling mist that silently enveloped the area. Every entity she touched was shredded and consumed by the goddess’s blade, leaving nothing behind. On the far flank, a fiery spirit blade tore through their ranks. Agosto Santos hefted the Kampilan ni Lam-ang, a vortex of raw fire swirling along its edge. With a thunderous sweep, he cleaved through flesh and spirit alike.
A fresh swarm of echoes lunged for Agosto. Before they could connect, Renato Ramirez dropped from above, slamming his Kalasag ni Bernardo Carpio into the ground. A shockwave of blue arcane energy radiated outward, dissolving the attackers in a ripple of divine force.
Still, the breach roared louder, feeding on their exhaustion. The protective barrier they had erected finally cracked, revealing the maw of shadow at its heart. It was then Maximo Imperial stepped forward, raising the Sumpit ni Dumalapdap to his lips. He blew a haunting, ethereal melody that echoed across dimensions. The notes became whispers, then intricate, swirling patterns that coalesced into a sealing gust, strangling the breach like a python. But the maw began to act like a vacuum, pulling everything toward it. Maximo held his ground, his symphony a final, desperate prayer. For a fleeting moment, a ghostly image of Maximo appeared at the edge of the breach, his lips forming a silent, heartbreaking plea: “Forgive me.” A soft flute melody, half-remembered, and then a blinding flash of light.
Teknos BPO, Clark Freeport Zone — Present Day
A dull buzz roused Gregorio from the corridors of the past. Beneath his shirt, the relic pulsed—a familiar rhythm that sent faint purple spirals across his phone’s lock screen with each incoming call. “You okay, Goyo?” His team lead peered over the cubicle wall. “You look like you saw a ghost. Don’t tell me you’re dozing off before we even hit our targets.”
Gregorio forced a smile. “Just bad reception.”
”I swear, the network’s been glitching all week,” muttered Jomar, a fellow agent two cubicles down, fiddling with his crackling headset. The Baybayin glyphs on his own screen flickered like a distressed Morse code. He glanced at Gregorio, who seemed too calm. “You ever feel like something’s watching us through these runes?”
Gregorio didn’t answer. But the way his fingers hovered over the glyphs was a quiet preparation for a fight Jomar couldn’t see.
At 7 PM, Gregorio clocked out, driven by a heavy compulsion to be alone. In the washroom, he splashed cold water on his face and changed into a hoodie and jeans. His team lead gave him a knowing nod on the way out. “Enjoy the vacation leave, Goyo.”
”I’ll try,” Gregorio replied, the warmth of the smile not reaching his eyes. “My instincts say something’s on the horizon.”
His team lead chuckled. “Hope it’s not a better offer from another company!”
Gregorio laughed and stepped into the crisp evening air. Instead of heading home, he took a detour to the Clark Shrine, a small, unassuming place where he sometimes found clarity.
Clark Shrine
For thirty years, Lola Sabel kept the Clark Shrine, her days marked by the ebb of visitors and the drip of melting wax. The shrine did not grant wishes—it held a ward against what stirred beyond the veil. She knew her visitors by intent: hope, grief, or the grim resolve of war.
That night, the air was still. Gregorio arrived with the streetlights, hood low, ignoring the murmurs of others. From the basket, he chose a black candle—sorrow’s color. His scarred hand hovered; a snap of his fingers birthed a purple spark.
“Kamay ni Bathala,” she whispered, clutching her beads. Shadows writhed around him, held back by the flame. The air chilled, sharp with ozone. His gaze stayed on the pooling wax. The flame cast long, dancing shadows that twisted across the concrete. In their movement, the shadows seemed to coalesce into a familiar, translucent face, its lips forming a single, heartbreaking plea: ‘Forgive me.’
”I promised him peace,” Gregorio murmured. “I will finish what we started.”
The wind carried whispers of battles fought and friendships forged. The Sandata unit had been more than a team; they were a family, and their loss was a wound that never healed. The world teetered on a delicate balance between myth and reality, and his instincts warned of an impending shift. With renewed purpose, he extinguished the candle. The shadows seemed to part, revealing a sliver of moonlight to illuminate his path.
Return Route — Clark Highway
The road was an empty ribbon of asphalt, but Gregorio sensed an unseen presence. The streetlamps pulsed in sync with his relic. His body moved on instinct, sinking into the Kisap Mata stance as his bracers flared with violet light and shimmering glyphs.
A figure emerged from the mist beside a traffic cone, solidifying with an almost audible pop. It was Marian, her Sundang ni Makiling held loosely in her hand.
“Relax, Goyo,” she said, a wry smile on her face. “Good to know you haven’t gone soft.”
He lowered his guard, though the violet pulse at his wrists remained. They stood in the charged silence, their relics humming, a shared, intuitive understanding passing between them. The wind swept through the concrete arteries of the highway, rustling leaves etched with dying glyphs. Against Gregorio’s chest, the relic pulsed with a restless energy. Faint violet spirals shimmered across his wrists before vanishing as Marian approached, her Sundang ni Makiling held low, its energy dim but alert.
She lowered her voice. “They’re still watching, Kamay. Every satellite, every sigil snare—they’re listening.”
“I know,” Gregorio murmured, the word a near-silent incantation.
Marian scanned the shadows where the streetlights couldn’t reach. “I breached the forbidden layer of the central archives. It wasn’t just redacted intelligence. I saw what they buried beneath the wards and quantum encryption.”
Unease coiled in Gregorio’s gut. “And?”
“There’s a convergence rite,” she whispered, the words hanging heavy in the humid air. “It requires your Kamay ni Bathala and the other two pieces. The ritual… it doesn’t just manipulate time or space. It unwrites reality.”
He scowled. “The search was discontinued. No one is meant to unite them. I have no intention of trying.”
“That’s the problem,” Marian’s expression hardened. “I wasn’t the first one in the archives. Someone else got there first, their digital footprints masked with chaos glyphs.”
A cold dread settled over Gregorio. “Then I’m a target.”
“And a lure,” Marian confirmed. “They won’t wait for you to find the other pieces; they’ll hunt you down for the one you have. I’m getting you out. You’re heading back to the Orphanage.”
Gregorio’s gaze drifted toward the mountains, toward the sprawling training facility hidden beneath Bataan’s spine. “Agosto and Renato?”
“Already embedded. You were the last piece of the puzzle. Stealth was never their style.” A faint smirk touched her lips.
He exhaled, watching a moth flutter suicidally against a hot streetlight. “So this is it. The façades are crumbling.”
Before Marian could reply, a jarring hiss tore through the night. A chemical flare exploded overhead, painting the highway in a sickly green glow. The air ripped apart as rounds imbued with arcane fire spiraled toward them. Instinctively, they broke apart, the bullets chewing up the asphalt where they’d just stood.
They emerged from the darkness like echoes made flesh. Their tactical gear shimmered, a hybrid of ballistic weaves and mystical filaments. Gregorio dove behind a fractured concrete divider, the bracelets on his wrists unfolding into the full bracers of the Kamay ni Bathala. A low hum vibrated up his arms. Marian was already taking cover behind an abandoned jeepney, her Sundang now glowing with a soft, ethereal mist.
“They’re not amateurs,” she growled over the din of gunfire. “Military training and arcane knowledge.”
“Then we answer in kind,” Gregorio replied. He rose from his cover, his body sinking into the fluid, lethal grace of the Kisap Mata stance. Instantly, the world seemed to slow. Power, ancient and immense, surged from the bracers, and his mind raced to control it—a martial science designed for this single purpose. Light warped around his fists as glyphs sprang to life across the bracers. The first attacker raised his rifle, but Gregorio was already moving.
He and Marian exploded from cover in a blur of motion. It was a dance of impenetrable defense, blade and bracer a shield against bullets and fire. They left shimmering afterimages in their wake, closing the distance to their assailants with terrifying speed. With a single glance, they knew the plan.
The hum in Gregorio’s arms crescendoed into a clear, resonant tone. The glyphs on his bracers burned with the light of a new star. Power, raw and divine, settled over him not as a weapon, but as an extension of his own being. The sync was complete.
