You don't kill a god with a bullet. You kill them with footage. With files. With timestamps. With proof the world can't look away from.
Scene: Underground Relay Hub – 00:47 a.m.
The room buzzed like a powerline with no ground.
Thirty stolen servers. Four cracked Concord satellites. One living AI, still glitching with residual emotional lag.
At the center of it all: Rook.
And beside him — Tessa, fingers shaking slightly as she locked in the trigger sequence.
Across from her, Ava's body floated inside a sync-tank, wires fed directly into her spinal jack. No mask. No projection.
Just code and choice.
"Mirror Protocol online," said Aya.
"All links tested. Dead man chain established. If we fall, the files still go public in twenty-six mirrored zones."
Rook stared at the screen.
Last chance.
Last gate.
Tessa didn't ask "Are you sure?"
She just said:
"Let's make them remember what they built."
And pressed send.
Scene: Across the World – Public Broadcast Override
The world was sleeping.
Then it wasn't.
Feed: "PROJECT HERO – MASTER INDEX UNSEALED"
Training room footage: children, crying in corners while drones shouted "Strike or starve."
Audio logs: Zodiac trainers mocking defectors. "He's not loyal. Just scared enough to pass."
Blacksite mission logs: Villain profiles marked "simulated." Holo-generated crimes.
Interviews with real villains, saying: "I was hired. Asked to play the monster. They paid me."
Lists of hero candidates who disappeared mid-program.
The names of 417 families given settlement cheques. All labeled:
"Loss during Live Broadcast Operation. Keep quiet = 50,000 C."
And the closing footage?
A boy, 9 years old, watching a screen.
Not crying.
Just listening.
"Your son tested positive for mimic-risk trauma. He's remembering things we never taught him. Prepare for extraction."
The name on the report?
HERNAN VALE.
Scene: Hero Tower – Executive Room
Zodiac Aries stood at the head of the table.
He hadn't spoken on record in three years.
Now he looked at the cracked Zodiac crest behind him, then at the council.
His voice was calm.
Measured.
Dead.
"They think they're historians."
A pause.
"They think we'll fall to narrative."
Another pause.
"Kill them all."
Scene: Safehouse 9 — Four Minutes Later
Rook felt the shift.
A subtle pressure in the air.Not just surveillance.Targeting.
He stood.
Aya looked up. "New pings. Thermal. Six inbound."
Tessa armed the pulse-net.
Ava opened her eyes inside the tank.
No words.
Just one phrase in her digital thread:
Mirror Protocol: Phase Two — Reaction Logging Active
She smiled.
Scene: Civilian Streets — Simultaneous
The protests grew teeth.
But this time, no one threw rocks.
They threw proof.
Giant screens rolled through cities.
Children read files aloud on livestreams.
Retired heroes returned and apologized on camera.
Not because they were told.
But because they knew now.
And across all of them… one phrase echoed:
"We remember."
Final Scene: Dorm 103 — Empty Room
Rook stood in his old room.
Empty.
Stripped.
The place he once thought was where he hid.
Now?
It was a shrine to a system that failed to kill what it feared.
He looked down at the floor.
At the line he once carved under his desk.
Words he'd scratched as a kid.
He knelt and ran his fingers over it:
"They can't erase me if I never stop remembering."
He smiled once.
Then left the room behind.