The night air was cool against Elijah's skin as he stood alone at the edge of the rebel encampment. Moonlight filtered through the canopy, casting silver light across the jungle's shadows. The embers of the campfire behind him still glowed, but his heart and mind were far from the warmth of his comrades. He had reached a crossroads—and it wasn't just about tactics or war anymore.
He thought of the machines. The figure in the shadows. Eli-Ah.
She had known. Perhaps not everything, but enough to stay quiet for too long.
A part of him wanted to confront her immediately. Demand answers. Press her until the truth spilled out like smoke from a broken barrel. But the other part—the part that had come to trust her, to rely on her—knew the truth had to come willingly, or not at all.
So instead, Elijah turned his gaze to the eastern horizon, where dawn would soon creep over the waters and the coming American assault waited just beyond the hills. They had days—at most. Time was slipping like sand through his fingers.
"Still awake?" a quiet voice called behind him.
Elijah turned. Eli-Ah stepped into view, her silhouette outlined in the moonlight. Her hair was tied back, her cloak pulled tightly around her. Her expression, however, was unreadable—distant, but calm.
"I couldn't sleep," Elijah said.
"Neither could I," she replied softly, stepping beside him.
There was silence between them, but not an uncomfortable one. A thousand words passed unsaid in the silence.
Finally, Elijah spoke. "I need to make a choice. I've seen what's coming—felt it. And now I have to decide where to go next."
Eli-Ah didn't respond immediately. She watched him, eyes narrowed slightly in thought. "You want to fight on two fronts. Against the Americans, and against the machines."
"Yes," he answered. "But I need something more. Something they can't ignore."
He turned to face her. "A symbol."
Eli-Ah raised an eyebrow. "A symbol?"
"If we want to win—not just battles, but belief—we need something greater than firepower or tactics. We need a story that outlives us. We need a legend."
She frowned slightly. "You sound like someone trying to become a myth."
"I don't care about being a myth," Elijah said. "I care about surviving long enough for others to pick up where we fall. If the people believe the fight is winnable, they'll keep going—even if I don't."
Eli-Ah studied him for a moment longer, then slowly nodded. "There might be something."
Elijah's gaze sharpened. "You've seen it, haven't you?"
"There's a place," she said at last. "A ruin… or perhaps a vault. Raines' earliest prototype lab. Not the one you searched last time. This one is buried beneath Mount Isarog. He called it Project Loro. It was meant to seed technology in case of a full collapse of the future. He said it was… legacy insurance."
"Legacy insurance?"
"Blueprints. Armaments. AI fragments—some still dormant. He meant it to restart civilization if the war ever wiped us all out. If it's intact, we could find weapons, knowledge—maybe even something to disrupt their core networks."
Elijah's heart pounded faster. "And you know how to find it?"
Eli-Ah nodded. "I memorized the coordinates years ago. Before I came back."
He turned to her fully. "Then that's my next step. We find it. And whatever's inside—we use it to tip the war."
She hesitated, looking away. "It won't be easy. The jungle around Isarog is dangerous. The Spanish once said it was cursed. And… I think they're already looking for it."
"Who?" Elijah asked.
"The ones from the future," she said grimly. "I think they know you're moving. I think they're watching every step you take."
He swallowed hard. "Then we have to move before they do."
The Journey Begins
By dawn, Elijah had assembled a small task force: Isa, Eli-Ah, two scouts from Aguinaldo's loyalists, and a grizzled old guide named Tio Vicente who claimed to have survived a skirmish with American troops by pretending to be dead for three days.
They set out east, away from the main revolutionary lines, traveling under heavy cover and through paths known only to locals and smugglers. Elijah left Isa in partial command of the southern defenses, with instructions to delay any incoming American assault without revealing too much of the truth.
As the group moved deeper into the wilds of Camarines Sur, Elijah couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching them. The trees grew denser, and the land sloped higher with every step. Locals they passed avoided their eyes and whispered prayers under their breath.
After days of travel, they arrived at a mountain valley cloaked in mist and silence. Tio Vicente stopped them at the base of a rocky trail and spat into the dirt.
"No farther," he said. "I've seen what's up there. Lights that don't burn like fire. Voices with no mouths. You want to go up, go. But I won't climb that mountain again."
Elijah nodded grimly. "We'll take it from here."
The Vault Beneath Isarog
As they climbed higher, the landscape grew eerie. Trees bent in unnatural shapes, and the mist seemed to hum softly, like static in Elijah's ears. Finally, after another hour, they found it—a smooth metallic hatch buried in a stone outcrop, half-covered in vines.
Eli-Ah knelt beside it and ran her hand over the old interface. With a whispered code, a faint blue light pulsed and the hatch began to unlock.
As the heavy door groaned open, Elijah drew his weapon. Inside, the air was cold and sterile, a stark contrast to the humid world above. Lights flickered to life along the walls, illuminating long-forgotten technology, banks of servers, armories of sleek, otherworldly weapons, and a central console that pulsed with dormant energy.
Eli-Ah stepped inside, her voice quiet with awe. "This is it. Raines' legacy."
Elijah stared at the center console. A name flickered on its cracked screen:
PROJECT LORO: INITIATING CORE ACCESS
And beneath it, in flashing red:
WARNING: SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED — EXTERNAL AI SIGNATURE LOCATED NEARBY
Elijah's blood ran cold.
"They found us," he said.
Eli-Ah's eyes met his, tension rising between them. But even as danger crept closer, Elijah felt something shift—not in the room, but between them.
Not yet love. Not yet even trust.
But something more than just alliance.
A connection forged by shared truth, shared survival—and the growing hope that they might not only win this war, but change the course of history.