The city hadn't changed, not really. It just rearranged its mask. Dre stood at the edge of the Third Mainland Bridge at dawn, eyes tracing the still waters of the lagoon beneath him. Lagos never stopped moving, but today there was a silence. A fragile stillness before the chaos woke up again. His hoodie was soaked with sweat and the blood from the last battle. Elric was gone. Buried under the weight of his own empire. But freedom had never felt so incomplete. Because the system that birthed Elric, that turned him into a beast and Dre into a ghost—it was still alive.
And Dre wasn't done.
He walked through the slums of Ajegunle where his story started, where kids still played barefoot and mothers hawked dreams in small nylon wraps. The street remembered him. Some looked away. Others nodded in silence. One old man whispered, "He's back," like Dre was a prophecy come full circle. Zion met him outside an abandoned pharmacy turned safe house. He had a black eye and a stitched-up lip, but he grinned.
"Elric's gone," Zion said. "You should be resting."
"I'll rest when this place breathes clean," Dre muttered.
They went inside. Kemi was waiting with maps sprawled across the floor, photos of men still untouched by the war. The real lords. The silent ones. Bankers. Ex-generals. Smiling faces on billboards who bled the streets dry with polished hands.
"You ready for this?" she asked.
Dre nodded. "Elric was the sword. Now we go after the hand that held him."
"We'll need more than just guns," Malik said from behind a curtain. "These ones have lawyers, satellites, and presidents on speed dial."
"Then we turn the streets into our army," Dre replied. "We give the people names, proof, reasons. They've suffered long enough. They just need direction."
For the next week, Dre and his team moved like phantoms. Not attacking—but exposing. They hacked files, intercepted phone calls, and recorded confessions. Every night they released a new drop. #FaceTheFire began trending on every platform. People in bars and bus stops began to whisper about corruption. Students began marching. Graffiti artists covered walls with the names of the fallen and the names of the corrupt.
The elite panicked.
Bank accounts froze mysteriously. One senator was caught fleeing through a private terminal in Abuja. Dre didn't have to kill anyone. Not yet. He simply made their truth louder than their lies.
But the system doesn't break without a scream.
And it screamed through the life of Zion.
It was a Friday night. Dre had just left a meet with young tech activists in Yaba when his phone rang. Zion's number. But the voice wasn't his.
"You want the rest to stop breathing? Then stop digging."
Click.
Dre ran. No car. Just legs and fury. He reached the hideout too late. Smoke. A cracked door. Blood. Zion was on the floor, still breathing but barely.
Kemi cried out, pressing cloth against his wound. Malik flipped furniture over, looking for the shooter. But they were long gone.
Dre dropped to his knees. "Zion. Stay with me."
Zion coughed blood. "Don't... stop, bro. Make it hurt. Make the city scream."
Dre grabbed his hand. "You're not dying on me."
But Zion's grip weakened.
"You freed me," Zion whispered. "Now free them."
His eyes closed.
Something inside Dre snapped.
That night, the sky over Lagos lit up—not with fireworks, but with the fire of a system cracking. Dre led a raid against one of the biggest underground trafficking hubs in the state. Cameras captured everything. No masks. No hiding. Just truth. Raw and ugly.
He walked into the building like a ghost made of vengeance, alone. The guards panicked. Some ran. Some pulled weapons. Dre moved like wind and blade, striking with precision. No wasted movement. No unnecessary mercy. He was done asking.
When he emerged, blood on his clothes and evidence in hand, he handed it to a journalist waiting at the edge of the alley.
"Tell the truth," he said. "And if they come for you, tell them I'm not hiding."
The news exploded. Channels scrambled to reframe. Influencers stayed silent. But the people roared.
Protests grew. Police divided. Some joined the movement. Some turned more brutal. Dre wasn't just a face anymore. He was a symbol. They called him Omo Iná—child of fire.
But inside, he was still that boy from the gutter. The one who watched his mother cry while shadows knocked on their door. The one who thought survival meant silence.
He was wrong.
At Zion's burial, Dre didn't speak. He couldn't. But he stood with thousands who came wearing red. Not for mourning. For war. For love. For change.
Kemi leaned on his shoulder. "He was your brother."
"He still is," Dre said. "In every fight I take."
She reached into her bag and handed him a folded cloth. He opened it slowly. Zion's old flag. The one he always carried during protests. Black with red flames.
Dre tied it around his wrist.
Then he turned to the cameras waiting behind the crowd.
"This city was built on blood," he said. "But from today, it will bleed truth. If they want to stop me, they better bring more than bullets."
And with that, he walked off the hill, back into the fire.
Because Born of Vengeance was no longer just his name.
It was a revolution.