Location: The Deep Circuit – Level Zero of the Oba ComplexRobin's body hit something cold. But it wasn’t earth or turf or concrete. It was… memory.The surface he landed on rippled beneath him, like solid thought. Neon glyphs scrolled beneath his boots, images and code and decisions he barely remembered making.When he stood, he realized he wasn’t alone. The clones stood around him, silent. Some bewildered. Some still burning with fight.And the one who brought them here, the hooded figure, stood at the center of it all. The air shimmered as gravity bent subtly around him. His presence pulled focus like a black hole.Robin faced him. “You said you were the dream before me. What does that mean?”The figure lifted his arms. And the world changed. In an instant, the Arena Below All Arenas revealed itself. A colossal coliseum of thought and code.Crowds of pure data roared from the stands, spectral entities watching like gods. At the center: a pitch that reshaped itself every second, sto

Location: Oba Research Vault – Deep Subsurface Level Time: Three Hours After Ashwood Protocol CompletionThe world celebrated. But beneath its noisy joy, something older stirred. In a sealed chamber under the ruins of the Oba Arena, three incubation units pulsed softly with light, unnoticed, unmapped, untouched since the earliest days of the Arena’s blacksite operations.The first flickered red. The second glowed electric blue. The third? Silent. Black as void. Inside each: a child, suspended in growth fluid. Humanoid. Sleeping. But they weren’t human. Not quite.They were Seedlings, genetic echoes of Robin Ashwood, engineered to exceed not just him… but possibility itself. A low hum filled the chamber. Then a screen blinked to life.Seedling Units Alpha, Sigma, and Null – Awakening Protocol Initiated. The children began to open their eyes.Meanwhile, Robin stood before a sea of journalists in Munich, where he had just signed with one of Europe’s top clubs: FC Veritas. The world buzze

Location: Zurich, Switzerland – UEFA Charity Invitational Time: One Week After Sigma’s EmergenceThe UEFA Charity Invitational was supposed to be a quiet event. A feel-good match designed to spotlight youth programs and rebuild trust in global football.The guest list was heavy with legends, retired icons and golden-age stars from across Europe. And headlining it all? Robin Ashwood.After a week of relentless whispers, ghost sightings, mysterious match clips, glitched replays, he needed a public performance to reset the narrative.The media called it Ashwood's Night of Light. But in the shadows of the stadium tunnels, another plan was unfolding. Layla sat inside a darkened tactical van two kilometers from the stadium.Multiple screens surrounded her. On one: Robin’s biometric feed, heartbeat steady, oxygen balanced, On another: thermal scans of the crowd. Normal.Except for one figure in the west bleachers, cold-blooded. Unreadable. She zoomed in. Sigma. He was here. But not as a spec

Location: Zurich Rooftops – Seconds After the Signal PulseRobin staggered to the hospital window, his breath fogging the glass. On the rooftop across the street, Alpha stood with arms folded, wind tousling her hair.The device she had activated now hung limp from her hand, its task complete. He slammed his hand against the window. “Alpha! What did you do?!”She didn't answer. Instead, she turned… and disappeared into a passing shadow. Behind him, Layla burst through the door.“Tell me that wasn’t what I think it was,” she panted, her voice low, clipped, trembling with urgency.Robin looked down at his shaking hands. “She triggered the network. She just turned on every one of them.”Within minutes, strange reports flooded in from across the globe:In Lagos, a youth football match was interrupted when three identical players performed a perfectly synchronized bicycle kick, each wearing a blank jersey marked only with the number 0.In Tokyo, footage emerged of a teenager dribbling faste

Location: Blacksite Theta – Unknown CoordinatesTime: 24 Hours After The London MatchThe air inside Blacksite Theta was colder than logic. Deep beneath the earth, shielded by layers of quantum encryption, Alpha stood at the center of the hall, a vast chamber glowing with soft blue lights and high-frequency neural pulses.Before her stood rows of figures. All the same height. Same walk. Same face. Each one was Robin Ashwood. But not exactly.Some were leaner. Some bulkier. One had no eyebrows. Another’s eyes were pitch black. They were experiments in identity divergence. And tonight, they would be activated.Back in Zurich, Layla cracked the encryption on the drone Alpha had sent after the London match. Inside were coordinates. Video. And a chilling phrase: “The prototype has proven his resolve. Now let’s see how he handles despair.”She spun her screen to Robin, still icing his ankle after the brutal match. He looked up. Eyes sharp. Voice steady. “So… she’s built a full team.”Layla