Location: Undisclosed - Crestwood City / VidFlash Livestream
Time: Night - Going Viral
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The camera was shaky at first. A dim room. A single desk lamp. And a figure in a dark hood, seated with their hands folded, their face barely visible—only the faint suggestion of a jawline, the glint of eyes that seemed to dig deeper than any lens should allow.
VidFlash @ The_Waker
The voice that came through was low, calm, and sarcastic—the voice of someone who had practiced a thousand times and finally stopped caring whether anyone listened.
"Oh, so gracious is the land. That's what they taught us, isn't it? Follow the law. To the letter. And you will be rewarded."
A pause. The hood tilted slightly.
"But if the law is the iron claw to be followed—then ask yourself this. Does it exist to serve us? Or does it exist to serve itself? Because I know one thing for sure: we've been getting played around like kindergarten kids. By the law. By the people who wrote the law. By the people who profit from the law."
A new window appeared on the stream. A photograph—sharp, official, unmistakable.
Caleb Saye.
"Just ask Crestwood's very own self-proclaimed goody-two-shoes. Or, more accurately, the rotten apple that poisons the whole barrel."
The image switched. Pills. Rows and rows of Effexaine pills, neatly stacked.
"Ask about these. Illegal toxins—sold at a premium, at the expense of our teenage children. He made a couple of bucks. Just a couple, right?"
Another image. Slate, the former chief of the Crestwood PD. And beneath it, footage—grainy, handheld. A patrol car parked at the edge of Ashwick. A short figure bent over—tying a shoe. A bundle of rolled notes, dropped at the car's wheel. A beat. A cop's hand—casual—scooping it up.
"If you ask me, they should be forming a band together. The cops and the thugs. Call them the Two Stooges. Because lately, I don't get why the Crestwood PD keeps preaching justice while they're busy looting the streets."
A beat. The voice shifted—lighter, tighter, more precise.
"And then, just when you thought the cops were the worst of it—here's a shocker that'll knock you off your seats."
The frame cut to the academy. The bases. The trainees.
"Our very own on-paper city military academy. The one so many of you dream of joining for the good of the nation. Turns out the applicants—the future—are livestock. Farmed. Butchered. Like a flock of cattle."
A clip. Evan Torrent. Mid-explosion. Rewound, replayed, reversed—the way online memes turn a horror into a joke so people can survive watching it.
"That guy wasn't just an operative special cadet. He was part of the Torrent family—a military family handling one of the many bases in Crestwood. And if someone like him isn't safe from these—"
An image of an aethernova suit flickered across the screen.
"—then no one is."
The frame cut again. Footage. Bodies in the hall. The shrunken, dried frames of the Pyre cadets. The mechanical, unnatural movements of Vaela and Rhen.
"Just what am I looking at here? This looks like some kind of epilepsy-induced reaction, if you ask me."
The camera pulled back to the hooded figure.
"And folks—these are secret clips. Acquired from a trusted source. Someone who works within the bases. The wild part? All of them are connected. And the pattern that holds them all together..."
A family portrait filled the screen. An old man, seated—sixty, hard-faced, unmistakably powerful. At his right: a mustache man, forty. At his left: a young man in his thirties—sloppy, smirking. At the young man's left: a thirteen-year-old boy. At the mustache man's right: a ten-year-old girl.
"The Halverns themselves."
The voice went quieter.
"A family with so many scandals I can't keep count. Including the infamous one—the one that ties them to Otis Freeman. The most wanted criminal in the country. Who used to be the chauffeur of the former family head—Theodore Halvern. Who, to this day, is still missing. Dead? On permanent vacation in the Bahamas? Who knows. Who wouldn't run, with that family's drama?"
The frame clicked again.
"Effexaine. The pattern came from them. County government contracts—them. And the military's secret crown jewel—the biggest, most shadow-covered operative agency in the world—the Mysterium clan? Them. And they aren't alone. The other two 'profile' families in this city—Saiyan and Wycliffe—were in cahoots the whole time. And with all that proof of their corruption..." A pause. "Nothing's been done. People go missing every day. In this city. In this country. And the drugs still sell in droves."
The hood tilted forward.
"So here's the question, dear viewers. What's the point? Every day we live. Every day we work. Hard. For a system that maybe—just maybe—was designed not only to fail us, but to be against us. So is this really today worth fighting for?"
Silence.
"I think something needs to be done about this. Someone already did. Azaqor. Because if we ignore the fact that he murdered people—and look at which people—the rotten bunch. Otis Freeman. The ones knee-deep in the Effexaine scandal."
The frame flickered. A masked figure—a three-eyed triangle, teardrops at each eye—edited into a deliberate, gangster pose.
"If we do away with the fact that system failure caused the suffering of hundreds—if not thousands—then this man is a hero. He deserves a statue. He lifted the veil. And it's with unity that all of us can band together."
The voice rose—passionate now. Alive.
"So this is the message I'm carrying tonight. Elijah Marcus Isley. They claim he's an AI automation engineer for the Halverns. They claim he's Azaqor. Come on—how stupid do they think we are? Couldn't they find another sucker in their own streets to dupe us with?"
He leaned forward.
"And even if he is—so what? Sources tell me he's out here fending for himself. The entire CPD on his tail. The Office of Special Investigations on his tail. The national intelligence agency. And he's choosing to stand. He's forming a band. Call them misfits. Call them lunatics. But they're standing against the thing that eats us from the inside every day. And his message?" A pause. "Use what they've been using against us."
The comments flooded in.
@MemeLord: "bro is cooking 🔥🔥🔥"
@Team_Elijah: "FINALLY someone says it. we been waiting for this"
@HorrifiedViewer: "wait is this real? is any of this real?"
@ChaosEnjoyer: "lmaooo he called them the Two Stooges. i'm dead 💀"
@MindBlown: "so the bases are literally livestock farms?? and we all just… joined?"
@FanBoy2026: "if he's really elite-trained then it makes sense why they can't catch him. that's insane"
@StillSkeptical: "you guys are watching too much sci-fi garbage. this is fantasy junk. stop daydreaming."
@MemeLord: "@StillSkeptical don't be such a downer lmao"
@ChaosEnjoyer: "@StillSkeptical maybe he works for the government or something. would explain his negativity."
The hooded figure nodded slightly, as if reading along.
"Luckily for us—he's actually elite-trained. He wields tech the Mysterium clan has kept hidden. He hasn't been caught. And he's asking. Humbly. For you. The public. To help him in his mission. For what he calls—not what we hoped for. Not what we thought we needed. But what needs to be done."
He raised one hand.
"He is the Upheavler of Tyranny."
The comments spiked.
@FanBoy2026: "I LIKE IT"
@Team_Elijah: "yeah sounds kinda his style ngl"
@MemeLord: "if the rumors are true that he's elite operative that explains why they haven't caught him 💀"
@StillSkeptical: "you guys are insane. he's going against the state government, the OSI, AND a shadow government. that's completely bonkers."
@HorrifiedViewer: "but if he's united… think he can make a difference?"
@ChaosEnjoyer: "me too. let's see what happens."
---
The Shadowed Office
The stream cut off.
Somewhere else—somewhere with no windows and no light—a room existed that didn't appear on any map.
A figure sat in a chair that looked carved from shadow itself. The face was blurred—not by technology, not by distance, but by something else. Something that refused to be seen.
Before the chair, a woman knelt. Her head was bowed. Her uniform was crisp. Her name was Sarah—Chief of the Investigate and Capture Taskforce.
The blurred figure's grin was the only clear thing in the room.
"This is going beyond our control. Elijah Marcus has gone too far. Bringing us into his vendetta. Our classified secrets are beginning to unravel. Too openly."
A pause.
"I and the council do not like this."
Sarah didn't lift her head.
"I want a city-wide lockdown. And a manhunt. Right now. For Elijah Marcus Isley—and any of his core conspirators."
Sarah's voice was steady. "Understood. Where do you want us to start?"
The blurred smile widened.
"Everywhere."
---
Cinematic Finality
The stream had ended. But the video was already everywhere.
On phones. On screens. In bars. On subway platforms. In the eyes of everyone who had ever wondered why nothing ever changed.
And in a basement in Crestwood, in a room full of screens, a geeky kid with glasses smiled.
"Well," Timo Moriah said. "That should do it."
Outside, the night was very, very quiet.