Reincarnation of the Magicless pinoy
From Zero to hero: Nuisances Of Fates
Volume 4
Encounter 10: Bandages and Atonement!
Training didn't ease in gently. It hit like the Manila heat—relentless, draining, and impossible to outrun. Rolant started him slow in the backyard at first, the same patch of grass where they'd once tossed a ball around. Basic footwork under the late afternoon sun, sweat stinging his eyes, muscles burning from drills that seemed simple until you did them for hours. "Breathe through it," Rolant would say, voice steady as he corrected Rowan's stance. "Rage is fuel, but it'll get you killed if you let it drive."
Amée watched from the kitchen window some days, worry lines around her eyes, but she brought cold water and quiet encouragement. She understood this was the path her son needed, even if it terrified her.
The unit pulled him in deeper after a few months. A modest training facility on the outskirts—nothing flashy, just concrete walls, tactical rooms that smelled of gun oil and old sweat, and men and women who carried the same haunted look Rowan recognized in the mirror. His teammates came from their own broken corners of the world. There was Marco, stocky and quick with a grin that hid sharp eyes, a former street kid himself who'd lost a cousin to traffickers. Lina, lean and precise, ex-intel with a mind like a blade and a habit of humming old songs during downtime. And Reyes, the big silent type who could clear a room with one look but taught Rowan how to move quiet through tight spaces.
They ran simulations first—mock raids on warehouse setups, clearing rooms move by move. Rowan's small size became an advantage; he slipped through gaps others couldn't, heart hammering as he practiced breaching doors with controlled bursts. Real missions came slower, vetted carefully by Rolant.
The first one stuck with him. A tip on a small trafficking ring operating out of a rundown port area. Night air thick with salt and diesel, waves lapping against concrete pilings. Rolant led from the rear, trusting but close. Rowan moved with Marco on point, breath shallow, the weight of his vest and the pistol at his side feeling both foreign and right. They hit the warehouse quiet—Lina's intel pinpointing the guards. Rowan took the side entry, sliding through a loose panel like he'd practiced. Inside, the smell of fear and unwashed bodies hit hard. Kids. A handful of them, wide-eyed in the dim light, chained just enough to break spirits.
A guard turned. Rowan moved without thinking—ducked low, drove his shoulder into the man's knee like that orphanage day years ago, then followed with a precise elbow to the temple. The guy dropped heavy. Marco covered him, voice low in the comms: "Nice one, kid." They got the children out clean. One little girl, no older than Lira had been, clutched his arm the whole way to the safe van, whispering thank-yous that cracked something open in Rowan's chest.
More missions followed in the blur of the dream. A raid on a safehouse in the city slums where rain pounded the tin roofs and turned alleys to mud. Lina's hacking got them past the locks; Reyes handled the heavy lifting when things got loud. Rowan took a graze to the arm in the scramble—burning pain, blood warm down his sleeve—but he kept moving, pulling a terrified boy from under a table while Rolant covered the exit. The adrenaline crash afterward, sitting in the debrief room with his team, sharing instant coffee and tired jokes, felt like the orphanage family but sharper. Real purpose.
Rolant never let him forget the cost. Late nights back home, stitching wounds or going over footage, he'd drill the lessons. "You save them by staying alive. By being smarter than the monsters." Amée would patch him up too, her hands gentle but voice firm: "Come back to us every time, anak. That's the real fight."
Through it all, the old guilt didn't vanish—it transformed. Every kid they pulled from the dark felt like a piece of Lira and his mom he could still protect. The atonement wasn't loud or flashy. It was sore muscles, quiet nods from teammates, and the slow realization that he wasn't that helpless eight-year-old anymore.
One night, after a mission that went smoother than most—another ring dismantled, more lives pulled from the edge—Rowan stood on the rooftop of the safehouse with Rolant. City lights spread below like scattered stars, the humid breeze carrying distant traffic noise. "I get it now," Rowan said quietly. "The way you pulled me out. Becoming better… it's not just words. It's choosing every day."
Rolant clapped a hand on his shoulder, grip solid. "You're making me proud, son. But remember—three years or thirty, you live it right."
The words hung odd for a moment, like an echo from somewhere else. The dream edges frayed again. Blue crystal light bleeding in. Bandages. The sword's curse still tugging at his lifespan like invisible teeth. Rolien's body stirred in the healing bed, the weight of borrowed time pressing closer. But the fire in him felt tempered now—sharper, clearer. The kid who couldn't save his family had become the man who would burn himself out trying to save others.
Time in the dream kept moving, six or seven years slipping by in a haze of sweat, smoke, and hard-won lessons. Rowan was twenty now, lean and sharp-eyed, the street kid long gone but the fire still burning steady. The unit had become his life—Rolant's careful guidance mixed with the rough camaraderie of his teammates. Marco, Lina, and Reyes felt like the siblings he never got to keep. They'd grown together through smaller ops, but the real weight started landing harder as the threats scaled up.
Their first big assignment came on a humid night in the city outskirts. Intel pointed to a bombing plot targeting a crowded market during festival season. The team moved in under cover of darkness, vans parked blocks away, vests heavy against their chests. Rowan took point with Lina on overwatch, slipping through narrow alleys that smelled of street food grease and coming rain. "Eyes open," Rolant's voice crackled low in the comms from the command post. "These bastards don't care who gets hurt."
The bomber's safehouse was a rundown apartment block. They breached quiet—Rowan kicking in a side door with practiced force, shoulder absorbing the jolt. Inside, two hostiles scrambled. Rowan closed fast on the first: ducked a wild swing, drove a knee into the gut to double him over, then locked an arm around the neck for a controlled takedown. Marco handled the second with a precise strike. They found the explosives in the back room—crude but deadly, timers already counting down. Lina disarmed it with seconds to spare, her hands steady while sweat beaded on her forehead. The relief in the team's eyes afterward, back at base sharing lukewarm coffee, hit different. Another piece of the old debt paid.
Not every mission went that clean. Months later, a hostage crisis at a corporate building downtown turned ugly fast. Terrorists linked to a larger network had taken over the tenth floor—office workers as shields, demands blaring over hacked speakers. The team went in with SWAT support. Heat, stale air thick with fear-sweat and gunpowder. Rowan moved room to room with Reyes, clearing corners move by move. A terrorist popped out from behind a desk, rifle raised. Rowan reacted on instinct—sidestepped the first burst, closed the distance low and fast, grabbed the barrel to redirect it upward while slamming an elbow into the jaw. Bone crunched. The man dropped, but not before grazing Reyes in the leg.
They got most of the hostages out. One woman, shaking as Rowan cut her zip ties, whispered "Thank you" in a voice that sounded too much like his mom's old lullabies. But two civilians didn't make it. The guilt chewed at him that night, back home with Amée quietly bandaging a cut on his cheek. She didn't say much, just held his hand a little longer. Rolant later sat with him on the porch, city lights flickering below. "You can't save everyone, son. But you saved more than would've been without you. That's the job."
The biggest test came on a joint operation against a terrorist group's main base—a fortified compound hidden in the hills outside the city, thick jungle canopy and razor wire. Months of planning. Rowan led one of the entry teams alongside Marco. Night insertion via helo drop, boots hitting soft earth, the air alive with insect hum and distant thunder. They moved like ghosts through the underbrush, then hit the perimeter hard but controlled.
Gunfire erupted quick. Rowan's team pushed into the main building—flashbangs cracking bright, shouts echoing off concrete. He took a narrow hallway, heart steady despite the chaos. First hostile: exchanged shots, Rowan's round finding center mass while he used the wall for cover. Second one charged with a knife—Rowan parried the slash, wrist twisting hard, then drove the man face-first into the doorframe with a knee to the back. Dynamic, brutal, no wasted motion. Marco covered his six, Lina feeding updates from the ridge.
Deeper in, they found the command center and evidence of bigger connections—trafficking routes, bomb-making materials, names that chilled the blood. The fight intensified near the exit. A squad of reinforcements pinned them. Rowan took a hit to the shoulder—hot burn, blood slicking his vest—but kept firing, calling targets. They extracted with the intel, blowing the base behind them in a controlled demolition that lit the night sky orange. Back at base, the team clapped shoulders and shared exhausted grins, but Rowan felt the toll in his bones. Every success reminded him of Lira's small hand, cold on that mat.
That same operation brought the first brush with something new. During the exfil, as the team regrouped in the treeline, a lone figure watched from the ridgeline—tall, cloaked in dark tactical gear that seemed to drink in the moonlight. Hunter Solomon. Rowan didn't know the name yet, but the man's presence cut through the adrenaline haze. Cold eyes, a crossbow-like weapon slung across his back that hummed with unnatural energy, and a stare that felt too knowing. Their gazes locked for a split second across the distance. Solomon didn't engage, just melted back into the shadows like he'd seen enough.
Rolant debriefed them later, voice tight. "That wasn't one of ours. Watch your backs. Hunters like him play a different game."
The dream flickered harder now, edges blurring as the healing room pulled stronger. Rowan—no, Rolien—felt the shift in his chest. Years of atonement had tempered the boy's rage into something purposeful, but the sword's curse still whispered in his blood, stealing time he didn't have. Three years left. The encounter with Solomon lingered like a warning from another world bleeding through.
Rolien's eyelids fluttered in the blue-lit room. A low groan escaped his bandaged form. The past had given him steel. Now the present waited with its own monsters.
To be continued...