1,400 hits. Respectable, but hardly anything to set him apart from the other wannabe world-changers out there with mutant powers. Video-sharing sites were cracking down on all the channels responsible for meeting the requirements for domestic uncertainties. Land of the Free, what a joke.

He tried the most popular ones earlier that week, and got banned each and every time. They hid behind a copyright claim they would never answer his rebuttal to. He scratched his neck impatiently. Forums and online blogs were impossible to access with this kind of stuff too. Ever since the first ones went viral, intelligence collection agencies were firing left and right trying to shut it all behind locked doors. Keep the family safe. Keep the integrity of the country intact. His bloodshot eyes scanned constantly for new avenues he could travel through. He had been doing this for far too long.

Then he remembered.

There were always... deeper parts of the Internet. Parts of the spider's web where pigs can't go.

He opened several dozen proxy servers, and dug as far as he could until he struck gold.

Without saying a word, he went into a chatroom and posted an invitation for jobs to come his way, the only payment being that the person looking to hire would spread his video all over the place. Hours passed, mostly negotiations, and he finally came to an agreement with someone he thought he could trust with this trading of personal qualities.

"I'll kill anyone. I don't care who. Don't be like the 'kill yourself and film it' perverts. Anyone in the world you want gone, and all I want is for you to post this video as much as you can everywhere you can think of. Deal?"

Of course, anyone with an inkling of animosity in this world would never turn down such a generous offer.

"For the love of God - NOO!"

Carelessly, like idly swatting a fly, the natural action of removing the bonding agents between the man's skin and flesh almost seemed a reflex at this point. He had already accomplished it so many times already. Carl Wagner, a wealthy philanthropist, somehow caught the attention of the wrong person. Now his skull yawned so openly as to reveal to his killer the contents inside, a sickening display of quivering frontal lobe. Blood did not stain carpet, as it all dissolved into base elements upon contact with the burn. Like fire, without smoke.

Without a second glance, the young man responsible opened a few video browsers on his phone. Within the span of a few weeks the video he asked of the anonymous bounty poster had been one of the most persistent mysteries on social media. When it appeared, it would garner almost a million hits before being taken down again. Posters from different IP addresses from around the world were uploading it constantly, changing audio and video to keep up with the falsified copyright claims against it.

Even reaction videos and vloggers trying to unravel the scheme behind it were taken down.

But the message was clear.

"My name is Fourteen. Something bad is going to happen somewhere. People will die. People have already died. It's not a surprise without a bang, though. You're going to be waiting, and watching for something to happen. But you're wrong. Maybe it's already happened. Who knows? Do you think I just want to be famous? That's not how a surprise works. You do something that no one else has done. You make it shock value. You make a lasting impression. There have been wars, sociopathic genocides, tyrannical uprisings, invasions of national and foreign affairs. It's all predictable at this point. I'll try something different. From now on, I'll kill heroes. Just heroes. Anyone wanting to be a hero. They have to learn that this world isn't for them. It belongs to something more powerful than Thee Champion, something they can't just erase like student loan debt. It's definitely not me, though. At this point it's personal satisfaction to see the hope in a person's eyes dwindle into nothing. I might be constantly changing... but that never gets old."