The Pacific churned like a cauldron cast from the hands of the gods. It was not just water—it was a memory of creation, roiling and rebelling. The sky thickened with bruised clouds, each one trembling with the weight of unspoken ruin. Lightning stitched the heavens, bright and jagged, as if someone were tearing open the veil between realms.
And in that tearing came the voice.
Not spoken. Not breathed. Exhaled.
A sound scraped from the first chaos of the world.
"I am Tag-Hangin," it whispered in a tone that made even the waves recoil.
"I claim this land."
The ocean bowed, the winds bent, and the typhoon took form—an engine of fury, a god born not of balance but of imbalance. His body was the full spiral of the storm, vast enough to swallow islands. His torso twisted like a cyclone funnel, his limbs stretching into walls of wind. Lightning flickered where his heart should be. His mouth was the eye of the storm, a circle of eerie calm surrounded by death.
He surged toward Luzon, each step a smashing wave, each breath a howl that bent the tips of mountains miles away.
Ilaya trembled.
The trees bowed.
The rivers shrank back in fear.
Only one did not move.
Sierra Madre lifted her chin.
Her hair was the forest canopy, her arms were the ridges of stone and soil, her feet rooted deep into the bones of the earth. Her voice rolled low, almost like a lullaby.
"Halika," she murmured as the wind curled around her shoulders.
"Subukan mo ako."
Tag-Hangin did not hesitate.
He never had.
The first strike was not a blow. It was a continent of wind—razor-sharp, screaming with broken branches and sand lifted from distant shores. It slammed into Sierra Madre with enough force to crack mountains.
Her trees bowed to the ground, some torn free from their roots.
The soil trembled.
The sky wailed.
But Sierra Madre—ancient, patient, stubborn—did not yield.
She braced her back against the continent, letting the storm crash into her spine. She bent, never broke. She caught the wind in her valleys, folded it, slowed it, turned it aside like a warrior turning a blade with a shield.
Tag-Hangin roared.
A roar that shook distant islands into fear.
The typhoon escalated.
Rain fell—not drops but spears, each one a shard of the heavens. They struck Sierra Madre's slopes like arrows in a battlefield, tearing bark, shredding leaves, carving scars into stone.
She gritted her teeth.
Wind battered her.
Rain punished her.
But she stood.
Her heart cracked only when she heard him.
Cordillera.
From the northern horizon rose a glow—lightning dancing on his peaks, reflecting like fire on ancient stone. His silhouette walked across the spine of Luzon, tall and proud, each step rumbling like a thunderstrike.
"Ngayon ko narinig ang galit mo," he said, voice like rolling magma.
"Hindi ka nag-iisa."
He raised his arms, becoming a wall of ridges and cliffs. When Tag-Hangin hurled another avalanche of rain, Cordillera caught it, carving channels for the water to run safely into the lowlands. Rivers burst alive under his guidance, twisting like serpents and leaping down rock faces, redirecting destruction into life.
Still—the storm was growing.
Caraballo felt it.
His slopes, gentle and green, quivered. The earth beneath him cracked as Tag-Hangin's pressure grew, warping the air.
He pressed both palms to the ground, whispering softly.
A healing hum spread outward.
The fractures sealed.
The land steadied.
Roots strengthened.
Stone hardened.
He poured his lifeforce into his siblings, a steady river of breath and courage.
Together—three guardians who had once stood apart—now formed a living barrier no storm had ever encountered.
Sierra Madre broke the wind.
Cordillera held the flood.
Caraballo bound them with life.
Tag-Hangin hurled his fury, spinning faster, louder, hotter. Lightning hissed from his fingers. Waves clawed up the coastline. The sky turned the color of iron.
But no matter how he roared, he could not pass.
"You cannot keep me out forever!" Tag-Hangin shrieked, the whole storm convulsing with rage.
"I will return!"
He vanished into the sea—dissolving into mist, swearing vengeance.
And he did.
Storm after storm.
Typhoon after typhoon.
Season after season.
Each time, the guardians prevailed.
But the storms grew stronger, and each battle carved memories into the mountains themselves-ravines born from past rains, cliffs shaped by ancient winds, valleys pressed by the weight of floodwaters.
The land remembered.
And so did the guardians.
Centuries passed.
Typhoon after typhoon slammed against Luzon like a punishment.
The guardians fought back, their bodies changing, scarred by every battle.
A cliff here—carved by a storm's fury.
A valley there—shaped by rains.
Ravines deepened, ridges sharpened, forests thinned.
The land became a chronicle of war.
But the guardians always stand tall and strong.