Legacy Protocol

To Inherit the Flame

CHAPTER FIFTEEN – To Inherit the Flame
“What do you do with a legacy made of ghosts? You carry it. Or it burns you.”

The silence after the truth was louder than any siren.

Jay sat slumped against a cracked console, the flickering afterglow of SYNAPSE dancing across his face like the dying light of a star that should’ve gone nova long ago. Romeo’s voice still echoed in his mind—raw, wired, defiant. A father’s confession soldered to code. A love letter smuggled inside a war cry.

Across the room, Mimosa huddled near a broken pillar, her arms wrapped tight around her knees. Her eyes were glassy, leaking in stunned silence. Ria stood alone, unmoving, eyes locked on the dormant screen. Her shadow stretched long across the fractured floor, cast by the dying core of a system built to protect a dream—and corrupted to enforce a lie.

"Jay. Niko. I love you. You weren’t an accident. You were the reason."

Jay clenched his fists until he felt his nails bite into skin. His heartbeat stuttered, the Legacy Drive under his ribs pulsing with something hot and terrible. Niko, for once, said nothing. Not even a snide remark. Not even static.

Just silence.

And that silence said everything.

“You understand now,” Ria said at last, her voice like broken porcelain. “Why I kept the truth from you.”

Jay didn’t answer. His thoughts were oil and fire, too slick to hold, too volatile to shape into anything coherent. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream or collapse or throw something heavy at the nearest wall and hope it shattered the grief away.

“I thought I was just…” He swallowed hard. “Just some leftover. A bug in their perfect little system. But Romeo—he knew. He planned it. He planned me.”

Ria turned then, the fragile grief in her expression burned away, replaced by something solid. Stern. Absolute.

“You are the last clean build,” she said.

Jay blinked. “The what?”

She walked toward him, her steps measured like someone who'd already buried a thousand regrets. “Not just of SYNAPSE. Of Romeo. Of the real project. Before A.E.G.I.S. twisted it. Before they started handing out behavioral patches like leashes.”

Jay let out a short, humorless laugh. “You want me to carry that? All of it?”

“I want you to understand it,” Ria snapped. “You think Romeo wired an AI into your skull, bonded you to a tactical engine with a name, and embedded a legacy code in your spine by accident? No, Jay. He made you to rewrite the system.”

Jay looked down at his shaking hands. “I can’t even keep my mind quiet. Niko’s in here. My memories don’t even feel like mine anymore.”

“That’s why you’ll train,” she said.

That made him look up.

“I’m not going to treat you like a soldier. Not like they did. This won’t be about obedience or tactics. This is going to be a rebuild—from code to soul.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with a sharp glare.

“You’ll learn how to channel the Drive. How to shape emotional feedback into tactical response. You’ll learn how to think without the noise. How to feel without losing control. And then, when you’re ready—” She gestured toward the edge of the room.

A soft mechanical hum rose from the darkness. Something under a tarp shifted, and then a panel slid back on its own.

Jay stood slowly.

A sleek black machine waited in the shadows, matte armored plating catching the flicker of SYNAPSE’s dying light. A low electric thrum buzzed through the lab as its systems booted up.

Then a voice broke through the stillness—clean, crisp, and unbothered:

> “Welcome, Jay Andalya. I have been waiting. Would you like to initialize Protocol Inheritance?”

Jay took a shaky step forward. “What… what the hell is that?”

Ria actually smiled. Just a little.

“That,” she said, folding her arms, “is your ride. His name’s P.E.T.E. And he doesn’t like backseat drivers.”

The lights around the lab brightened as P.E.T.E.’s chassis came fully online. Something clicked inside Jay—like a puzzle piece finding its place. Like a memory that had been waiting for permission to exist.

He wasn’t just a reluctant survivor anymore.

He was legacy-born.

A son of fire and defiance. A brother to a ghost. A weapon carved from love and unfinished blueprints.

The revolution hadn’t ended.

It had rebooted.

And this time, he wasn’t running from it.

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To be continued...

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📎 Author’s Note:

> This one cracked me open a bit.

Romeo wasn’t a perfect man, but he left behind the blueprint of a better world—flawed, unfinished, but full of fire. Jay's finally stepping into the space his father left, not as a replacement… but as a rewrite.

I hope this chapter hit you right in the chest. Let me know what lines stuck with you, or if P.E.T.E. made you smirk. 👀

The war for the future is no longer silent.

– Rhox

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🤖 P.E.T.E. Glossary Update:

🧠 Protocol Inheritance – The locked subsystem encoded within Jay’s Legacy Drive. Activates when emotional sync with SYNAPSE exceeds 80%. Grants access to Romeo’s final clean build. Not available to Rachel’s A.E.G.I.S. protocols.

🚘 P.E.T.E. – “Predictive Engagement Tactical Engine” – a smart mobility unit with embedded defense-grade AI, sarcasm module, and a serious distaste for backseat driving. Built by the original MISAGH cell and entrusted to Jay through Romeo’s will.

🗡️ Legacy Drive – Organic/digital hybrid node embedded in Jay’s nervous system. Powered by memory, shaped by emotion. Originally part of SYNAPSE's empathy-as-interface project. Side effects may include ghosts, glitches, and grief.

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💾 CALL TO ALL ENCODERS:

If you’re decoding this story one pulse at a time—drop your thoughts in the comments.
➡️ Favorite quote?
➡️ Wild theory?
➡️ Was PETE giving Knight Rider with an attitude problem or nah?

Your engagement fuels this glitchpunk ride, and I read every single one. 💛

Also: tag this story #LegacyProtocol if you're sharing your edits, art, or spiraling theories. Some of y’all are terrifyingly good at spotting foreshadowing. 👁️

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⚡ Teaser for Chapter Sixteen – “Brutal Algorithms, Beautiful Lies”

> Jay thought training would be hard.

He didn’t realize Ms. Ria teaches with pain, PETE trains with speed, and Niko?
Niko wants to hijack the lesson plan.

The battlefield is virtual, the stakes are real, and failure has a kill switch.

Coming Soon...