1:13 A.M.
Karkana Eastern Base
Eighton City, Caras Province, Victriona
“That's definitely Kelt in the video,” Barry stated, cursing loudly. His computer monitor was zoomed in on a still frame of a bloody blonde man in the middle of some random field.
“Well, the doctor’s going to be stoked when he finds out his pill was used,” his colleague, Keihl, chuckled. “Besides, you should be more excited about the other man on video.”
“I would if the clip actually focused on him,” Barry grimaced. “He shows up like twice, the rest is Kelt’s transformation. If the boss hadn’t personally verified who it was, I think everyone would have written this off as some random lightning user.”
Keihl let out a whistle. “Damn, so this is the real deal then. Who would have thought? Makes sense though. Pretty sure we can count on one hand who could take out a Titrik-enhanced Zero Tier Soldier that easily.”
“Yup, cut through him like butter.”
“Man, even this short edit is like a goldmine,” Kheil said. “It's been years since I’ve been on desk duty but it gets my swordhand itchy just watching. They’ll probably use the analysis and breakdown of the full video in the elite training modules once the higher-ups have done whatever they can to finally crack the King’s code.”
“Totally,” Barry agreed. “However, that leaves one burning question.” Barry tilted his head back and looked at Kheil. “Who recorded the video?”
A brief silence filled the room. “Poor sod,” Kheil murmured. “Did they already send a retrieval team?”
Barry nodded. “Krohn’s team was dispatched thirty minutes ago. Tried to send my guys so they would at least get rid of the sod humanely but… what can you do.”
Kheil nodded and sighed before getting back to his own work.
—
1:30 A.M.
Red Spiral Blackzone, 5 KM from the southern warning boundary
Nation of Faracht
A muscular man the size of a bear sat on a rock with a phone in his hand, constantly replaying the same ten-second clip. He was dressed in reddish-brown robes and wore a headdress fashioned of some strange canine skull with four more sockets than it should.
A few feet away from the man stood an anxious young girl in a t-shirt and jeans who looked no more than 14, brown hair flying around as she bounced from one foot to another.
“Is it really him?” she asked eagerly. “Come on, tell me!”
The man tossed the phone aside and grunted.
The girl rushed over to the phone, wiping the dust off and muttering about uncivilized savages. “Man, I knew it! I knew it was him! Oh man, this is so exciting!” The girl laughed and jumped up and down.
The man watched her from the corner of his eye but did not respond. He picked up a large satchel and began moving north.
The girl turned to his behemoth back and waved. “I’m leaving,” she shouted before a shiver ran through her. “Even being at the edge of this zone freaks me out, man,” she whispered.
The man spoke without turning around or stopping, but the girl still heard him as if he was right in front of her. “Myrla, tell Hooksword that I want to see the rest of this recording.”
The girl started to say something but caught herself, instead just nodding and beginning her trek south.
—
3:00 A.M.
Quail Tower, Nightlight Headquarters
Nightclaw City, Renia Province, Victriona
Kana gazed out her office window with distracted eyes. She took a deep breath before turning back to the lady in front of her. “Has it been confirmed?” she asked for the fifth time
The lady nodded. “Sir Fereth verified it himself.”
Kana shook her head and sighed. “Have we narrowed down the location?”
“Not yet,” the lady responded. “All clairvoyant agents are currently on assignments and have not been able to assist yet.”
Kana gritted her teeth. “All currently on assignment my ass,” she muttered. “Their factions are trying to just find it themselves and don't want to play fair.” She took some deep breaths before continuing. “Where is Syc?”
“He will arrive by sunrise.”
“Alright,” Kana waved for the lady to leave. “Bring him to me as soon as he steps into the city boundary and keep me updated overall. Karkana has probably already tracked whoever took this video and sent a team. We can't let them make use of their head start. Oh, and get on scrubbing this from the internet, I want it gone within the hour. It has already spread too far.”
The lady frowned. “Of course, Miss Ralas. However, these were uploaded to ordinary servers, not Krian platforms. It will take longer to… get through the hurdles.”
“Just get it done by noon,” Kana sighed. “Does that work?”
Her subordinate nodded before swiftly leaving the office. Kana mulled over how terrible her hours had become before playing the clip again. She felt her aura flare as she imagined actually facing the Sword King’s technique. However, her excitement chilled as she thought of whoever was unlucky enough to have taken this video. Only a normal human would have uploaded the clip so openly and painted a target on their back.
“Poor sod,” she murmured.
—
11:00 A.M.
Cleary’s Apartment
Nightclaw City, Renia Province, Victriona
Cleary woke up in his living room halfway through his SmartMart shift. Any other day, he would have panicked and called his manager, came up with a story on how his seventh grandparent had died, and prayed he would not get fired. Today, however, he woke up slowly, made his way to the kitchen, and calmly made himself a hot cup of coffee. He sipped it gently as he swiped away the missed calls and message notifications from work before putting his phone away.
A giddiness filled his body despite his exhausted appearance. He couldn't hold back any longer, grabbing his phone again to check how the clip had done. A couple hundred impressions with some tens of comments, reshares, or other interactions. It was mainly people complimenting the creator’s editing skills, which caused Cleary to frown.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Positivity was nice, but it did not usually lead to virality. Controversy led to virality. Arguments led to virality. He switched accounts and started leaving some scattered comments about how the video was clearly faked. He then switched accounts again, arguing with his previous comments and saying it was totally real, reposting it here and there. He repeated the exercise a couple more times with various accounts - bots weren’t cheap, so he had to make do, especially since his manager would likely use his absence today as an excuse to mess with his hours.
Cleary had a good feeling about this start. As long as he facilitated some more arguing, it would definitely pick up. Checking the time, he decided to have a quick meal before sitting in front of his computer and pulling up the video he recorded the night before.
He watched through it again and again, slowing down the video to actually see how the fighters were, well, fighting. The fancy camera let him do so, and Cleary patted himself on the back for splurging on a quality camera before remembering what had happened with it. He held back tears, trying to focus on how much money he would make after uploading the full fight.
Even slowed, his brain hurt trying to track the moves going on. He successfully zoomed in and motion-tracking software allowed him to follow their movement but the slowest he could go without turning it into a pixelated mess was still head-spinningly quick. Chalking it up to being tired, he paused the video and decided to watch some new trailers, trying to determine which movie set he had stumbled onto.
Cleary couldn’t find any plot that fit exactly what he had witnessed- a samurai warrior fighting a blonde Special Ops with a medieval sword didn't seem to be a trending plotline nowadays. There were some which might have worked, a couple of superhero movies, but it seemed like a stretch. Still, they would find him when they saw the video anyway so it was useless trying to find them first.
Cleary spent another thirty minutes watching the video, mesmerized by the idea of what it would bring him. He went back and forth on some ideas as to how to go about editing the full release.
It took hours for him to break from his trance. Cleary stood up with a groan before deciding that it was time for his daily visit to Jerry.
—
2:00 P.M.
Goodison Central Park
Nightclaw City, Renia Province, Victriona
Jerry was resting on a park bench having lunch when Cleary rocked up and sat down beside him. Jerry wore an expression of pleasant surprise as he greeted Cleary. “What up dawg?” he asked as he chewed on his sandwich. “You look happy. Good shift at work?”
Cleary felt some guilt as he avoided Jerry’s gaze and dodged the question. “I was out last night working,” Cleary started, anticipating Jerry’s groan. “I finally got my big break.”
Jerry rolled his eyes. “What, you got into a fight on camera and figured out how to clickbait the shit out of it?”
“Not quite,” Cleary grinned. His smile was so wide even Jerry began getting curious.
“Alright, just show me then,” Jerry urged.
Cleary laughed and began typing on his phone. “Here, I sent you the Chirper link.”
Jerry nodded as he pulled his own phone out. He tapped a few times before frowning. “Dead link dawg, I think you sent the wrong thing.”
Cleary’s heart dropped as he grabbed Jerry’s phone. The screen showed a frowny face emoji with a line about how ‘the post you are trying to reach does not exist.’ He pulled out his own phone and tried accessing the link to no avail. “Um, let- let me try from another account,” he said, worried. He was accounting for a potential copyright strike but he was hoping there would be a bit more time to build up to it. But every account and every platform had wiped it. Two of his accounts had even been deleted. Not banned, but deleted from existence.
What worried him more was that there was no notice. If it was a copyright strike, that should have been the reason given for the unavailability when anyone tried to access the link. But instead of that, it was as if he had never uploaded the clip in the first place.
Cleary did his best to stop his chest from tightening as he abruptly stood and began walking to the bus stop. “Hey, where you going, dawg?” Jerry called, but Cleary kept walking. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he shouted as Cleary broke into a run.
—
Everything was a blur until he got back home and sat in front of his computer, trying to find a warning or notification email. After all, without any actual proof of a copyright strike, he couldn’t do his whole ploy about being a small creator against a big movie studio that was abusing copyright for their own benefit.
He tried to re-upload the clip on the accounts that remained. However, it just wouldn't work. An error message came up every time he hit upload, and eventually, he even got a warning for attempted spam out of the blue. The entire ordeal was just confusing him.
He held the memory chip in his hands, rubbing it as if afraid that it would also disappear. Then, to make things worse, his computer froze. Cleary’s mind jumped to a virus as the cursor began jumping around the screen before it went straight to black. The CPU stopped whirring and Cleary sat in silence, trying to process what had happened. As he sat there, he heard a loud rapping at his door.
He put the chip in his pocket and walked over to unlock the door, answering it with a weak grunt. In front of him stood a man about a foot and a half shorter than Cleary who looked up at him with a wide smile that almost completely hid his green eyes. “Is this the residence of realghosthunta2293? That is ‘hunta’ with an ‘a’.”
Cleary’s mind cleared up upon hearing one of his Buutube channel handles. His mind immediately went to ‘cease and desist’ but the man was dressed in a brown t-shirt and green cargo pants, not the expected suit and tie. “Um, yeah, I guess,” Cleary said, rubbing his head. “Um, who are-”
“Haha, nice to meet you Mr. Hunta,” the man clapped his hands happily and pushed Cleary aside to walk in.
“Yo, what? Hey, you can't walk into someone else's house man! Who the f-” Cleary was panicking as he rushed to his phone to call the police. However, before he could reach it, he heard the short man click his tongue as he grabbed Cleary’s collar, pulling him off the ground and tossing him into the TV stand. Cleary fell with a groan as his back cracked against the metal corner of the old television.
Cleary stared at the man in fear as he crawled towards the wall, trying to distance himself from the man, who ignored Cleary and meandered around the apartment as he went towards Cleary’s office. “So, Mr. Hunta, you can call me Krohn,” the man said as he walked into the room and out of Cleary’s eyesight. “I’m here because we are fans of your filmography.”
Cleary frowned, breathing heavily. “Wha-We? look, it was taken down, okay? What kind of violent cease and desist is this?” he shouted, hoping he was wrong about there being no other residents and someone would hear.
“Haha, no, no, Mr. Hunta I am here for the opposite of a cease and desist,” Krohn laughed from the office. Cleary rushed to the phone. He tried calling 911 but all he heard was a long dial tone. He desperately tapped away as Krohn came back outside. “Squad, take all this tech back with us and- oh, come on Mr. Hunta, did you not learn your lesson?” Krohn sighed, seeming genuinely disappointed.
Cleary’s eyes widened. He looked down at his phone in terror and switched apps as he thought of a final resort. Before he could do anything, Krohn appeared in front of him with a flash, slamming his palm into Cleary’s chest, causing him to fly back into the wall, crumpling like a ragdoll before falling to the ground. “This won't do,” Krohn shook his head. “I can't find a memory chip anywhere.”
Krohn began walking towards Cleary, who shakily stood up and pointed his phone camera at Krohn. “S-stop! Stop!” he yelled out. “I- I have you on camera! I’ve taken a photo and uploaded it to my cloud! I- And I’m recording you now! So if you don't leave right now you’ll be giving more evidence! T-The police will find you!” Cleary’s sentences were barely coherent and even he could hear the flaws in his logic as he spoke. If the man was not wearing a mask, he was never really planning on letting him go.
Krohn paused and stared at Cleary before bursting into laughter. “Oh man, what a strategy,” he wheezed through his laughter. “Hahaha, that’s the best you could think of? Think we wouldn’t shut off the internet before we got here? You're not uploading anything to anywhere, man, I’m sorry.”
Cleary felt his vision blur with tears as the final nail in the coffin was placed in his plans. He squeaked some weak warning, pointing his still-recording phone at Krohn like some kind of shield as he stepped back from the approaching attacker, who just smiled wider.
Stopping a foot away from Cleary, Krohn raised his hand. “I just need you alive,” he chuckled. “If you can breathe, you can tell me where that chip is.” He chopped his hand down, aiming at Cleary’s neck.
Cleary’s mind froze as the attack came. In a desperate attempt to do something, anything, to live, he folded his body down in a crouch. He felt the air above him woosh as the attack missed, hitting nothing. Cleary looked up anxiously before jumping back and running to the door to escape. Dazed and watching his victim flee, for the first time since he met Cleary, Krohn’s smile faltered.