The fallout from the Harkon incident spread faster than fire.
Within hours, international news networks had seized on the carnage—grainy footage of Zero dashing through flames, bodies piled in shattered streets, children crying for help. The broadcasts were doctored. Angles shifted. Explosions were looped. The voiceovers carried one message:
"Zero is no longer a symbol of hope. He is the ghost of destruction."
Inside AGILA's safehouse bunker, silence reigned. The entire team had gathered in the briefing room—barely lit, the screen at the center frozen on a still image of the burning district. Mira sat furthest from the screen, her knees hugged to her chest. She hadn't spoken since Sanctum-13 collapsed behind them.
Kael stood with his hands on the console, jaw locked tight.
"They mirrored us," he muttered. "Same insignia. Same armor. Even the goddamn stride is mimicked. Someone trained them to look like you."\n\nEnzo didn't respond right away. He was staring at the cracked mask of one of the mercs they'd managed to recover from the site. On the inside, etched into the lining, were three letters: DGN—Drago's personal mark.
"Drago's not just playing politics," Enzo finally said. "He's rewriting the battlefield. With a lie."
Mira glanced up. Her eyes were still glassy, distant. "How many died because of it?"
"Forty-two," Kael answered. "Seventeen were children."
The silence that followed wasn't quiet. It was oppressive. Heavy.
"We respond," Enzo said. "But not with vengeance. With truth."
Kael looked up sharply. "You want to leak footage? We barely escaped that facility with one drone intact. They'll just call it more fake news."
"Not footage," Enzo replied. "Proof. We expose who made those masks. Who funded that squad. We show the machine behind the lie."
Kael rubbed his face. "You're talking about pulling intel from inside a core Descovinio node. That's suicide."
"Not if we're smart," Enzo said. "And not if we're fast."
---
Hours later, inside a dimmed corridor deep beneath the AGILA compound, Enzo found Mira alone in the training chamber. She stood before a rusted dummy target, Cain in her hands. The blade sputtered to life—not with its usual confident glow, but an erratic flicker, like a flame fighting suffocation.
She thrust forward—and missed the mark entirely.
Again.
Again.
Again.
"You're pushing it too hard," Enzo said quietly.
She didn't look at him. "I saw myself… inside the lab. Not me. Her. Solace. I don't know where I end and she begins anymore."
"You're still Mira."
"Then why do I remember being born in a vat?" she whispered. "Why do I remember watching myself cry, from the other side of the glass?"
Enzo walked up beside her and rested Cain against the rack.
"Because the people who made you never thought of you as a person. Just a vessel. But you're more than that now."
She didn't reply. But for the first time, her hands stopped trembling.
Enzo turned back toward the exit. "Get some rest. You'll need your focus for what's next."
---
That night, Enzo climbed to the surface, where the wind howled through the abandoned ruins of the old rail yard. Cain pulsed faintly at his side, sensing the tension coiling inside him.
He pulled his mask off and stared at the city lights in the far distance.
"They've turned me into a monster," he muttered. "And now I'll make them see the real one they should fear."
Behind him, Kael's voice broke the silence.
"I've isolated a location," he said, holding out a datapad. "There's a private server hub beneath the Core Bank Tower. Not just financial data—personal transmissions, security contracts, mask shipments."
Enzo's eyes narrowed. "Does it lead back to Drago?"
Kael nodded. "And someone else. Your mother. She signed the export licenses."
Enzo stared at the datapad. He didn't flinch. Didn't breathe.
"Then we bring them both into the light."
---
Two nights later, Zero stood atop a ventilation shaft above the Core Bank Tower, overlooking the neon bones of the city. He wasn't alone. Beside him, a small infiltration unit of AGILA agents—including a few fresh recruits—prepared for descent.
Enzo held Cain in one hand, the wind tugging at his coat. His mask glinted under the moonlight.
"This is not vengeance," he reminded them. "This is justice. For Harkon. For the truth."
With a silent nod, they dropped into the shaft.
The city had already burned once for a lie.
This time, it would burn for the truth.