Tae shot awake with a gasp. It wasn't from a nightmare, but from the sudden, jarring feeling of something else. The cold, unvarnished wooden floor pressed against his bare feet as he swung them out of bed. The oppressive silence was what was most unsettling—the usual morning chaos of the orphanage, a comforting cacophony of clattering breakfast plates and children's chatter, had been muted. An odd, almost metallic tang hung in the air, a scent that didn't belong here.
Sister Patricia's voice, sharper than usual, sliced through the quiet. "Tae, wake up! Don't dawdle today."
He dragged himself out of bed, putting on a shirt before lumbering toward the bathroom. "Fine," he mumbled, the word punctuated by a cavernous yawn. "What do you want, Sister Patricia?"
"Go wash the dishes, now. The little ones are already eating."
"Fine, but I'm using the restroom first," he grumbled, the words laced with a defiance he rarely acted on. He shuffled down the hall, the silence pricking at the back of his neck like static electricity.
He entered the washroom, the strange feeling intensifying. The mundane room—a row of sinks, a couple of stalls—felt charged, like a storm was brewing just for him. His eyes, usually a placid brown, felt unnaturally warm, a deep thrumming pressure building behind them. He glanced at the two other boys already in there. He'd seen them around the orphanage before, but never interacted with them. They were like two other planets in his solar system, orbiting the same sun but never colliding. The one with unruly black hair and an almost perpetual sneer, Kendaris, was hunched over a sink, scrubbing his hands with an obsessive, almost ritualistic focus. The other boy, Joseph, was standing still, simply observing the light hitting the mirror, his quiet presence a puzzle Tae had never bothered to solve.
Tae's steps slowed to a halt. "Hey," he said, the word a soft probe into the charged silence.
Kd glanced up, his crimson-flecked eyes narrowing with a look of pure, unadulterated annoyance. "What?"
Tae simply looked at Joseph, who returned his gaze with an unnervingly calm, assessing stare. Joseph didn't speak, but his intelligence was a tangible thing, a quiet weight in the air. He was a puzzle, and Tae realized he was the lock.
"Just seeing new faces," Tae said, ignoring Kd and turning his full attention to Joseph. "Though you've been here a while. You two are hard to miss."
Joseph's gaze held for a moment before he offered a slow, deliberate nod. "We have. And we've seen you. Tae, right? Your chaos is a good distraction."
Kd snorted, scrubbing his hands with renewed vigor. "A distraction from what? Your own hair?"
"And here I thought your intelligence was a good distraction from your personality," Joseph replied smoothly, his tone even and calm. He finally looked at Kd, and the sheer dismissal in his eyes felt colder than any outright insult. "Apparently, I was wrong on both counts."
Before Tae could untangle the meaning of Joseph's words, a bloodcurdling scream tore through the silence, echoing from the dining hall. It was pure, excruciating terror. The three boys, their strange, burgeoning conversation forgotten, froze. The shared, primal fear propelled them out of the bathroom and into the doorway of the dining hall.
The room's familiar warmth was replaced by a chilling stillness. The air was heavy, charged, and the source of the dread was instantly obvious. A spectral claw, formed of swirling vaporous energy, was wrapped around Sister Patricia's throat, lifting her feet inches off the ground. The creature was a vague, reptilian shape, its scales flickering with a ghostly luminescence.
"Hey, ugly, put her down!" Tae yelled, the words fueled by a sudden, protective rage.
The dragon spirit's head swiveled toward them, its form solidifying slightly. A cold, resonant voice that seemed to speak inside their minds filled the room. "Yes. Three treats are better than one."
Joseph's eyes widened, a frantic look darting between his friends and the monstrous being. "Three?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
Tae's mind, usually a chaotic mess, suddenly cleared. An instinct, ancient and undeniable, took over. "Sister Patricia, go! Get all the nuns and take the kids to the classroom. Lock the door. If we don't respond in thirty minutes, evacuate and don't look back!"
Fear contorted Sister Patricia's face. "No! We have to find somewhere safe together!"
"We'll be fine," Tae said, the lie tasting like ash. "Just go! We'll keep it busy so you can escape."
Joseph and Kd, acting on the same bizarre instinct, nodded in agreement. "Yeah, go before it targets you again!"
The trio watched her go, a deafening silence settling over the room.
"We're just kids," Joseph finally said, his voice trembling. "What are we supposed to do?"
"He's right, for once," Kd muttered, his usual bravado replaced by an unnerving seriousness.
Tae could still feel that strange resonance, that preternatural connection to the two boys beside him. "The feeling... I know it. We're connected somehow. Just... fight. Or everyone dies."
With a roar that shook the very foundations of the orphanage, the spirit launched its assault. Joseph lunged forward with a desperate kick, only to have his foot bounce off the creature's scales with a hollow thud. Kd followed with a haymaker that met the same resistance.
"Well, what do you suggest we do now?" Kd said, shaking his stinging hand. "From the looks of it, our physical abilities aren't going to scratch it, let alone defeat it."
Joseph, observing the spirit's shimmering form, furrowed his brow. "Oh, really? I didn't notice at all, Joseph said with obvious sarcasm. I've been running through scenarios in my head, but none end with our victory."
"So we're dead, then?" Kd asked, his voice flat. "Observing, Tae? Did you come up with something?"
Tae shook his head. "Nothing I can think of leads to victory. I guess we fight to the death."
Just then, the dragon spirit let out a final, deafening roar, its spectral maw opening wide to gather a terrifying surge of energy.
"Well, I guess he's not going to wait for us to just stand here and chat," Joseph said, a grim resolve hardening his features. "Hopefully, that feeling we had earlier is something that can help us."
"Right!" Kd and Tae echoed in unison.
The boys charged forward, a desperate, last-ditch effort. They delivered a flurry of kicks and punches, but the attacks were utterly useless. The spirit, as if bored, simply swiped its colossal tail. The fragile bodies of the three boys were sent flying, crashing against the dining hall wall.
Blood trickled from a gash on Tae's forehead. Kd lay gasping, his vision swimming, and Joseph felt a searing pain shoot through his leg. Their battered bodies ached with exhaustion, but the sight of the dragon spirit preparing its final, destructive blast galvanized them. A wave of white-hot heat radiated from its mouth, its spectral fire gathering in a blinding torrent.
A unified thought passed between them. If only I could have seen Sister Patricia one last time.
And then, the light, pure and all-consuming, enveloped them.
The moment the fire dissipated, the dragon spirit recoiled, bewildered. Before it stood the three boys, but they were no longer the frightened children they had been moments before. Their wounds were gone, replaced by a radiant light.
Kd glowed with an aura of chaotic, volcanic red, a crimson light like a blood moon beamed in his eyes. Tae shimmered with a blissful, golden aura, his eyes reflecting the brilliant radiance of the heavens. Joseph, for his part, was enveloped in a raging but calm aura of deep blue, his eyes a correlation to a vast and dangerous ocean.
Tae spoke, his voice no longer childish but resonant with a strange power. "Do you two feel different?"
Kd clenched his fists, feeling a new, explosive power course through his veins. "Yeah. I feel stronger, and it feels like techniques are engraved in my very soul."
"Same here," Joseph said, a cool confidence settling over his face. "Let's put this dragon to rest."
The dragon spirit, in its ancient wisdom, finally understood. "Wait… gold, blue, red... you're the three prodigies of fate. I can't allow this to happen! You must be annihilated!"
The spirit unleashed its most powerful attack: Dragon Style: Spirit Fire, a torrent of scorching white flames.
"Divine Counter!" Tae called out, raising a golden-hued hand. The dragon's fire met an invisible barrier and was redirected back at its creator.
"Hell Flame!" Kd roared, a spray of raven-black flames erupting from his fist, burning the spectral dragon spirit and eliciting a shriek of pure anguish.
"Energy Slash!" Joseph shouted, his hand carving a wave of mystical, divine energy that tore across the dragon's body.
The spirit roared once more, not yet defeated.
"Guys, let's end this," Tae said, the words a command. Kd and Joseph nodded, and the three stood in a perfect triangle.
"Omni Beam!" Tae yelled, unleashing a concentrated beam of pure, brilliant light.
"Hell Flame Devastation!" Kd roared, his black flames spiraling into a vortex of destruction.
"Energy Cataclysm!" Joseph finished, a pulse of raw, divine energy joining the assault.
The three powers merged, a blinding vortex of color and light that became a single, overwhelming attack.
"Combined attack: Universal Oblivion Nova!" they shouted in unison.
The light consumed the dragon spirit, not just disintegrating its body but erasing its essence from existence. When the light faded, only silence remained.
"That was crazy," Tae said, his voice returning to its normal pitch. He stared at the dissipating motes of light where the dragon spirit had been, his golden eyes dimming back to brown. He stumbled to his knees, his body screaming with the sudden depletion of power.
"Crazy doesn't even cover it," Kendaris gasped, wiping black soot from his red-flecked face. The raw power vanished, replaced by a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. His scarlet eyes dimmed. "I feel like I just ran a marathon... and then got hit by a bus."
Joseph: Joseph collapsed, leaning against the cold brick of the orphanage. His blue eyes faded last, his breaths coming in short, panicked bursts. "And we did that... with no training?" he muttered, looking from Tae to Kd with a mix of awe and terror. "We could have died."
The trio looked at each other, the reality of what they'd just done sinking in. They were kids. Orphans. And they had just faced down a demonic dragon spirit, unleashing powers they hadn't known they possessed. The "Universal Oblivion Nova" felt less like a cool move and more like a terrifying, irreversible step into an unknown world.
A small sound made them turn. The door to the main orphanage building creaked open. Sister Patricia, her face pale but her eyes wide with relief, stepped out. "Boys? Are you all right?"
They scrambled to their feet, trying to appear nonchalant, as if they hadn't just saved everyone from a cosmic threat.
Tae: "Yeah, we're fine, Sister. Just... a little playground scuffle," Tae said, forcing a weary smile.
Kd: "The dragon... it ran away," Kd added, his lie sounding hollow even to his own ears.
Sister Patricia: "I... I see," she stuttered, her gaze lingering on the scorch marks on the ground and the strange shimmer in the air. She didn't press. Instead, she just hugged them tightly, one after the other. "God works in mysterious ways," she whispered, her voice trembling.
Later that night, long after the other children were asleep, the three boys met in the dimly lit attic. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken questions.
Joseph: "So... what now?" Joseph asked, finally breaking the quiet. "The dragon called us the 'three prodigies of fate.' What does that even mean?"
Kd: Kd ran a hand through his hair, his red eyes glowing softly in the dark. "It means we're not just some random kids who got powers. It means this is just the beginning. The dragon probably wasn't the only one after us."
Tae: Tae looked out the small attic window at the moon, his golden eyes reflecting the silver light. "Fate... That's a lot to put on three kids in an orphanage. It means we're tied together, whether we like it or not. We have to learn to control this. All of it."
He looked at Joseph then at Kd. "We saved Sister Patricia and everyone else today. But what happens tomorrow? What happens when something bigger comes? We have to be ready. We have to train."
Joseph: "But how?" Joseph asked. "We don't know anything about this stuff."
Tae: "I don't know," Tae said, a new resolve hardening in his voice. "But when I was fighting that thing, when our powers linked... It felt like we were supposed to do that. It felt... right. We'll figure it out. Together."
Kd and Joseph nodded, a silent pact made in the quiet attic. They had been strangers, but fate had woven their destinies together with threads of gold, red, and blue. Their childhood of innocence was over. The combined attack that saved them was not the end of their story, but the explosive beginning of a journey that would force them to ascend to their true potential, and uncover the truth behind the powerful—and dangerous—destiny that now bound them as brothers.