That evening, Dante sat cross-legged in the Echo Room, which the Echo Division considered sacred ground for internal clarity. No tech. No screens. No interface lenses. Just him and his senses. The room itself was a dome of silence—soundproofed from wall to ceiling, with a dim, amber light above like a quiet sun in a world without storms. No noise. No stimulation. Nothing but the hum of his breath and the thrum of borrowed memory.
It wasn't just energy Dante was learning to recall anymore.
It was a movement.
Speech patterns.
The subtle shift in tone before a lie.
The invisible weight behind a punch.
Even emotion—how it bled into body language and breath control.
Everything left a mark. Some impressions were faint, like footprints in snow. Others burned like brands in his muscles, in his bones. Dante didn't just remember—he registered. His body, his mind, and his instincts—they all processed the world like an archive on fast-forward.
Across from him sat Pulse, ribs bandaged tightly beneath his compression shirt. He sipped quietly from a protein shake, the straw making soft gurgles in the silence.
"You pulled the punch," he said eventually, voice flat but not accusing.
Dante nodded, eyes still closed. "Didn't want to knock out your lungs."
Pulse smirked, despite the stiffness in his jaw. "Appreciated. Probably wouldn't have been able to finish this shake otherwise."
Another pause settled between them. Not awkward—just still. Like both of them were listening to something beneath the surface of the moment.
Then he spoke again, quieter this time. "Do you ever wonder what happens if you copy something you shouldn't?"
Dante opened his eyes and looked at him. "Like what?"
He tapped two fingers against his temple. "People like us—we don't just carry power. We carry experience. Pain. Trauma. Everything leaves residue. What if you mirror that too?"
Dante was quiet. Not because he didn't understand, but because he did.
He thought of the way his chest clenched every time he copied fear—how his breath stuttered even when it wasn't his fear. The way rage sometimes coiled in his fists after a fight, not because he was angry, but because someone else had been.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe we already do."
Pulse nodded slowly. "Just... don't lose yourself in the reflections, alright?"
Dante gave a half-smile. "Same to you."
Later that night, back in his quarters, the silence clung to Dante like a second skin.
The room was simple—standard Echo Division layout. Reinforced steel walls, a cot, a table with mission logs, and the panel wall across from his bed. That wall had become his practice ground, littered with dents, burns, and slash marks. Training echoes. A physical timeline of how far he'd come... and how many times he'd nearly broken the room.
Dante approached it slowly, raised his hand, and reached inward.
Electricity surged to his fingertips with a flicker of blue-white light. No hesitation. No strain. It was instinct now, like flexing a muscle he'd always had but only recently remembered how to use.
He fired it forward into a worn-out dummy. The impact cracked across the room with a sharp pop and a hiss of scorched air. The dummy sizzled, smoking at the chest.
Clean. Precise. Controlled.
It didn't just feel copied. He felt it now.
And that wasn't all. As Dante stood in that charged silence, more impressions surfaced—threads of other skills woven through his mind:
Pulse's kinetic rhythm, the dance of footwork and breath
The disarm technique from the lab guard, executed with wrist-perfect precision
The erratic evasive patterns of the training drones he'd sparred with just yesterday
They were there. Accessible. As if his body had filed them away in perfect order, waiting for recall.
But something else was stirring now.
He focused deeper—focused. Past the combat data. Past the clear-cut manoeuvres and tactics.
He began to feel pulls—strange tugs on his awareness.
Not powers. Not skills.
Echoes.
The tranquil rhythm of distant birdsong he'd heard near the outer gates.
The subtle heat differences from hallway sensors.
Even the ever-present static buzz from the facility's emergency lights—patterns he'd never consciously paid attention to.
Dante realized with a sudden, quiet certainty:
He wasn't just adapting anymore.
He was archiving.
Not just actions. Not just energy. He was an absorbing presence—environmental imprints, biological frequencies, and neural echoes.
Somewhere in the process of copying, his system had begun cataloguing.
He didn't just reflect the world.
He was becoming a mirror with memory.
Knock, knock.
A sharp rap at the door pulled Dante out of his trance. He blinked, grounding himself in the present.
Hartman stepped in, tablet in hand, expression tight.
"We've got a situation," he said without preamble.
Dante raised an eyebrow. "More drones?"
Hartman shook his head. "No. Rogue enhanced. Off-grid. Someone we've tracked for months originates from the Ex-Banner program."
Dante's spine straightened at that. "As in... Hulk?"
Hartman grimaced. "Not him. But someone who survived gamma experimentation. A derivative experiment. Failed containment protocols."
"What's the power?"
Hartman handed Dante the tablet. A photo filled the screen—a scarred man with sunken eyes and skin that glowed faintly green at the edges, as if something inside him never stopped burning.
"Corrosive touch", Hartman said. "Anything he maintains skin contact with begins to melt down on a cellular level. Flesh. Metal. Doesn't matter."
Dante scanned the file. There were reports of violent mutations and unstable neural readings. Multiple containment failures.
But then something caught his eye.
"Wait. These logs—his burn rate is decreasing?"
Hartman nodded grimly. "Yeah. That's the twist. He's not just losing control anymore. He's learning to stabilize."
Dante stared at the data.
His touch wasn't random now—it was selective. Controlled.
His movement patterns were more refined.
Reaction time? Improving.
A chill bloomed at the base of Dante's skull.
"He's adapting."
Hartman met his eyes. "Like you."
A beat passed. The air felt thicker now, as if the room understood the gravity of what had just been said.
Dante set the tablet down and stood slowly. Muscles coiled beneath his skin, alert and sharp.
"Where is he now?"
"Brooklyn. Industrial district. He went quiet thirty minutes ago. But that's where the last spike was."
Dante nodded, already slipping into his Echo gear. Reinforced gloves. Adaptive vest. Mask clipped at his hip.
"I've copied a lot of things," he said quietly. "Moves. Voices. Power signatures."
He glanced back at Hartman, eyes sharp.
"But now I want to see what happens... when someone else does the same."
Hartman gave a single nod. "Let's find out who adapts better."
Dante didn't respond. He just stepped out of the room, into the flickering corridor lights—an echo of himself now, walking forward into a confrontation that could redefine everything.
And somewhere, deep in his core, the archive stirred.
Ready to learn.
Or fight to survive.