The Raid

You voted, and HOLD won. Hermes keeps his appeal: in six days, on Thursday, his video comes down with a copyright strike, unless Apollo backs down. Olympus cheers his nerve. At 7 a.m., in his red-lit game room, Ares repeats his offer: Apollo lets go by Halloween, my army makes sure, you know my price. Leave my back door open, Hermes laughs. Deal. It's a door.

At noon, Ares goes live in his arena. Over the stage hangs a giant flag with Hermes's winged cap. Report every video Apollo has, Ares roars. Flood his comments. For my brother! By 1 p.m., there are eighty thousand reports, and Hermes sends one too. Eighty thousand flags, he laughs. Nobody survives that. But can any number of reports take down one video?

At 3 p.m., every one of Apollo's videos is still up, and sympathy pours in. Here is the trap: on YouTube, reported content is not automatically taken down. If the review team finds no violation, no amount of reporting changes that. And encouraging a crowd to go after an identifiable person, or sending users to leave abusive comments in another creator's comment section, is harassment.

Ares gets a warning. Hermes gets the blame: Olympus turns its back on him, and two thousand followers leave. Thank you, little brother, Apollo says. Now I'm the victim. Thursday, your video falls.

Now the choice: open his mother's back door tomorrow night, and Ares is paid. Lock it, and Ares holds a grudge. Then, at 11 p.m., Aphrodite makes a call. Ares, darling? I have a little video for you.