Eddie had just turned off his work laptop.
The rain begun to fall. He checked the time in his mobile phone and it says, 5:15 PM. Just in time he thought, 15 minutes pass 5:00 PM. Beyond the glass window in front of his office cubicle, streak of rain chased each other down the pane.
The rhythmic patter echoing faintly against the hum of the office.
The glow of the video wall monitor where the actual loading of the Generating Power Plants is displayed painted soft blues and greens across his tired face. Another eight-hour shift—hours spent juggling power forecasts, reports, studies, and analysis.
Eddie makes sure to keep an eye out of Luzon's grid through forecasts, simulations and studies. His wrist ached from typing, his mind from numbers that never seemed to end.
"Good work, Engr. Cruz," his manager said as he passed by, a hint of warmth in his tone. "Weekend na rin bukas. You deserve a rest."
Eddie managed a faint smile. "Yeah… rest." But the word felt empty, like a promise he could never keep.
Good thing that he rented a condo unit a few walks away from their office. He got home soon after stopping by a convenient store to buy a seafood flavored cup noodles and a canned mackerel. He feels lazy to cook a proper meal and resorted to instant foods.
The rain had grown heavier by the time he reached his condo unit, drumming steadily on the window inside of his condo. As Eddie enters, he flicked the switch near the door—fluorescent light buzzed to life, illuminating a room that felt both familiar and distant. His ID landed on the table with a dull thud.
Beside his monitor, a thin layer of dust covered the VR visor, untouched for a long time, yet waiting, almost calling.
He sank into his chair. The click-clack of the keyboard and the low hum of the air conditioner filled the silence—steady, mechanical sounds in an otherwise restless night.
Call of Duty: VR — Neural Integration Beta (Legacy Compatible).
The notification had been sitting in Eddie's inbox for weeks, its bold subject line like a quiet dare he'd refused to accept—until tonight.
He hovered the cursor over it for a moment, rain still tapping gently against the window. His reflection stared back from the dark monitor screen—eyebags, stubble, and eyes that once burned with competitive fire now dulled by routine.
Erica would've laughed at him for hesitating.
She used to lean over his shoulder during late-night matches, her voice teasing but soft.
"You can track heat flow faster than headshots, Engr. Cruz. Maybe you chose the wrong career."
He could almost hear her chuckle, feel the brush of her hair as she leaned in to watch his plays. That was before Singapore—before the NeuralGrid project pulled her away for a year.
Before the late replies… and eventually, her disappearance.
Eddie opened the email. The invitation pulsed faintly on the screen, syncing to his system like it had been waiting for him all along.
He reached for the neural visor resting beside the monitor. Dust swirled off its surface as his fingers brushed it. He hesitated—then smiled faintly, as if answering a ghost.
"Alright, Drumstickkk," he murmured, using the old gamer tag that he uses in video games. "Let's see if this old man still remembers how to play."
He slipped on the visor. A soft chime echoed in his ears, followed by the familiar vibration of the neural sync initializing. The world around him dissolved into a wash of light and static, reality melting into pixels and memory.
The last thing he saw before everything blurred… was the rain outside—falling harder, as if the world itself refused to let him go.
Initializing neural sync…Welcome, Operator: Drumstickkk.Legacy Account Detected.Rank: Retired Vanguard (Season 12, Classic).Do you wish to proceed?
He almost laughed. Retired.
Even the system hadn't forgotten what he was trying to.
Proceed.
The void bled into form.
Lines of code unraveled like threads of light, weaving themselves into streets, towers, clouds. Neon veins pulsed through glass skyscrapers as the city came alive around him—Neo Manila, the Philippines hub, a virtual twin of his own world but sharper, louder, eternal.
A drizzle of light rain fell from a pixel sky, refracting colors from holo-billboards that towered overhead. Vendors flickered in and out of sync—AI stall owners looping their idle animations, trying to sell energy drinks no one would ever buy.
The place used to buzz—before the migration. Back when players gathered here to warm up before tournaments, when laughter filled comms and her voice—Erica's laugh, soft but sharp as static—would cut through the noise.
Now there were only NPCs.
He crossed the street. The puddles rippled beneath his boots, reflecting flickers of long-gone avatars. On a building-sized holo-screen, an eSports match blazed—a Tokyo region game. Fast reflexes, neural enhancements, auto-corrected recoil. A new generation.
He didn't recognize a single name.
"Everything's changed," he muttered. "Except me."
Eddie adjusted his gear strap, the motion practiced, grounding. The synthetic leather flexed just like the real thing—a tactile illusion that still fooled the nerves. He followed the cracked pavement toward the edge of the map, where the lights dimmed and the server geometry began to thin.
There, behind a locked gate marked with a faded banner, stood the Tactical Zone – Vanguard Drills.
The old training ground.
Wind carried the faint static of neglected sound files—gunfire loops half-loaded, wind FX missing a beat. The sand crunched beneath his boots as he stepped inside, the echo ringing like he'd disturbed a memory best left asleep.
A few players trained in the far lanes—barely silhouettes—each too busy grinding to notice the lone veteran in black armor. His armor.
Matte plating scarred and dented, visor dark, and a chest plate.
For a moment, Drumstickkk reached up and unlatched his helmet.
The visor lifted, revealing a face that mirrored his own from the real world—sharp, youthful features framed by neat black hair, a calm composure beneath tired eyes that hinted at long nights of both coding and reflection. His expression was reserved, but there was a gentleness in his gaze, a trace of warmth that didn't belong to a soldier.
This was their design—his and Erica's. She had insisted the avatar's face should look exactly like him. "If we're going to dive in the game," she once said with a teasing grin, "at least let me see the man I fell for."
He remembered that night vividly—the soft glow of her monitor, her laughter as she adjusted the facial mesh and symmetry sliders, the way she leaned over his shoulder to fix a strand of digital hair that didn't sit right.
Now, seeing that face reflected on his HUD, it felt like seeing a memory brought to life.
Eddie exhaled, lowering the visor to his side.
"Still the same old face, Erica," he murmured. "Guess some things don't need updates."
He knelt and opened his interface. The familiar HUD blinked to life in front of him.
Loadout: M4 - Black Gold Royal
Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, OWC Ranger, Red Dot, Underbarrel Launcher, 50-Round Extended Mag
Perks: Restock, Skulker, Hardwired, Dead Silence
He ignored the flickering prompts offering neural assists.No stabilization. No auto-tracking. No comfort.
Only him.
The rifle was heavier than he remembered.
The first burst scattered across the rusted crates—wild, uneven. Recoil punched his shoulder, a reminder of what years away had dulled.
He steadied his breath. Tap. Burst. Breathe. Drag down. Reset.
By the tenth mag, the shots began to find center.
By the twentieth, his body remembered before his mind did.
Then, for old time's sake, he toggled the underbarrel launcher.
The grenade arced into the air, trailing blue sparks before blooming into a muted orange explosion. The light washed across the range, flickering against the edges of the virtual horizon.
Eddie grinned.
"Still got it."
He lowered his rifle and looked up. The skyline of Neo Manila shimmered in the distance—neon rivers flowing through a city that no longer needed him, yet still existed because of ghosts like him.
Rain fell, pixel by pixel, and he let it.
For a moment, beneath the hum of circuits and memory, he felt her there—the echo of Erica's voice, the trace of warmth that even time and code couldn't erase.
Drumstickkk queued for a match.
Ranked. Solo. Classic Mode.
A quiet hum filled his ears as the system initialized.
Searching for opponent… Match found.
Opponent: "Jin." Rank: Elite (Neural Assisted)
Eddie's lips curled into a small, knowing grin.
"Neural assisted, huh? Figures."
The screen blinked white, and the map materialized around him.
Crossfire — Daytime.
Dust motes floated in the sunlight filtering through a cracked skybox. The familiar streets stretched before him—warped textures and chipped walls, rendered sharper than memory.
Abandoned cars lay tilted in the same corners they always had. The sniper balcony stood like an old monument, bullet holes from countless duels still etched into its pillars.
Everything felt the same, and yet—time hummed beneath the surface, like a forgotten song replaying in higher fidelity.
Eddie loaded his rifle.
Click. Metal on metal.
The sound alone steadied him.
He moved through the narrow streets—cautious, silent. Boots pressed against fractured pavement, the low hum of holographic billboards flickering in the periphery. Every corner told a story he already knew. Every shadow reminded him of how it once felt to dominate this map when it was alive with voices and laughter.
Then a voice crackled through proximity chat—young, confident, and layered with synth distortion.
"Yo… you're using the M4 Black Gold Royal? What is this, Season 12?"
Eddie said nothing. He adjusted his aim and checked the minimap.
"Old man, that meta's dead. Neural sync outplays that setup easy."
The kid's tone had that sharp edge of someone who'd never known defeat without an algorithm to cushion it.Eddie smirked faintly. The kind of smirk that came from years of experience and muscle memory older than most neural coders' careers.
Footsteps. Left alley.
He exhaled—slow, measured.
One beat. Two. Move.
He strafed out, sighted, and fired once.
The sound of the rifle cracked through the still air.
[Drumstickkk > Jin]
The kill feed pulsed crimson.
A pause. Then disbelief.
"No way… You're not even using assist, are you?"
Eddie ejected the mag, letting the empty casing clatter against the ground.
"Nah," he said, voice calm as steel. "I prefer the old meta, young blood."
The next round began.
Sunlight glared off shattered glass, throwing shifting reflections across the street.Jin rushed forward—his movements unnaturally smooth, every pivot and slide enhanced by neural calibration. The system predicted recoil for him, optimized breathing, and bent milliseconds to his will.
Eddie, by contrast, moved with deliberate imperfection—every step chosen, every pause felt.He read the angles. He listened to the wind.
Old instincts whispered beneath the surface.
Jin fired first—three bursts, all wide. Eddie ducked behind a rusted truck, strafed right, popped up, and returned a single shot through the side mirror.
[Drumstickkk > Jin]
Round two.
By the fifth duel, it was no longer just a game.It was a battle between eras—neural precision versus human intuition.The rookie relied on systems; Eddie trusted the rhythm of his pulse.
Jin wall-jumped, slide-canceled, fired a volley. Eddie broke line of sight, baited a reload click, and punished it with a clean tap to the visor.
[Drumstickkk > Jin]
By round ten, the match had lost its tension—only clarity remained.No theatrics. No commentary. Just skill.
Victory: Drumstickkk — 10 / 6.
Silence followed.
Then a voice, small and unsteady.
"Who… are you?"
Eddie let the question hang in the static.
He slung his rifle, gazed up at the virtual sun flickering through the code-thinned sky, and smiled faintly.
"Just someone who remembers how it used to be."
The match results burned on Jin's memory. He already logged off but it still flashes in his head.
Defeat: 6 – 10.
Opponent: Drumstickkk.
For a moment, he just sat there—heartbeat thudding in his ears.
How?
He had never lost a ranked duel since joining Owl Esports PH.
"I am the undefeated Rookie! How did this happen?!"
He removed his VR visor off, the foam padding dragging against sweat-damp hair.The sterile light of the training room hit him like a slap—white, harsh, and cold.
Dozens of VR pods lined the space in perfect symmetry, glowing faint blue.Most were empty now; the others housed teammates deep in sim drills. The faint hum of ventilation filled the silence, punctuated by the rhythmic beeps of performance monitors.
Jin sat upright, gripping the visor tight in both hands.
His reflection stared back from its curved surface—young, confident, now shaken.That guy, Drumstickkk… moved like no one he'd fought before. No neural assist. No predictive AI. Just… raw control.
"Old meta my ass…" he muttered, slamming the visor onto the desk.
Compared to the old seasons, the new season gives the opportunity for the players to assess opponent's VR setup and in game loadouts.
Profile: Drumstickkk (Legacy Account)
VR Setup: VR Visor Sync Protocol Detected.
Loadout: M4 - Black Gold Royal
Jin frowned. "Outdated Device? That tech's been discontinued since…"He trailed off.
Meanwhile, Eddie logged out from the game.
The world dissolved back into the quiet of his room.Rain tapped gently against the real window—steady, grounding.
But before he could remove the visor, a soft chime echoed from his HUD.
A small notification blinked beneath the victory screen.
Legacy Partner Detected: Meihua.
Status: Offline… Data Activity Detected in Singapore Core Grid.
Eddie froze.
The name pulsed once—like a heartbeat.
Then vanished.
He leaned back in his chair, breath unsteady, heart suddenly alive with something he hadn't felt in years.
"Erica…?" he whispered.
Outside, thunder rolled across EDSA's sky.
And for the first time in a long while—Eddie didn't feel tired.
He felt awake.