The air around Ethan shimmered like heatwaves on asphalt, bending light as the city's underbelly trembled. The residual echo of his last strike still rippled through the warehouse — a haunting silence that came after violence too fast for the human eye to follow.
His breathing was steady now, trained and measured, but inside, his pulse hammered like war drums. Across from him, the last of the rogue Cyphers lay crushed against a metal pillar, circuits sparking faint blue arcs. Its humanoid body twitched once, then went still.
Ethan's hand trembled slightly. Not from exhaustion — he'd long surpassed that limit — but from awareness. Every movement around him, from a rat scurrying under a crate to a drip of water hitting the floor, pulsed in his mind like sonar.
The resonance within him had evolved again.
"Status?" Nova's voice came through his earpiece, sharp and low.
Ethan pressed a finger to his comm. "All targets neutralized."
"Vitals are spiking," she replied. "I can feel it from here, Vale. You're pushing too hard."
He closed his eyes, exhaling. "It's not me pushing. It's… responding."
He looked down at his hands — faint streaks of light glowed under his veins, running up his wrist like living circuitry. Every time his power grew, it became harder to tell where the human ended and the machine began.
The doors behind him burst open. Digital Saints — his team — rushed in: Kael, the stoic swordsman; Lira, their tech specialist; and Bishop, the gruff brawler with arms like reinforced steel.
"Damn," Bishop muttered, eyeing the wreckage. "You didn't even leave scrap this time."
Kael's eyes, sharp and analytical, lingered on Ethan. "His output's increasing faster than projected. You'll burn out if you keep syncing at that rate."
"I know," Ethan said. "But they're adapting faster too."
Lira was already kneeling beside one of the fallen Cyphers, scanning it with a handheld device. "They're running an unfamiliar core pattern," she said, eyes darting over holographic readouts. "I've seen fragments of this code before… in Project Genesis."
At that word, the air turned heavier.
Project Genesis — the name that haunted every conversation in their war against the Syndicate. The secret experiment that had created the hybrid tech within Ethan's own body.
Bishop broke the silence. "You saying they're cloning him?"
Lira hesitated. "Not clones. Mirrors. Copies of the core code, optimized for destruction."
Kael sheathed his blade, expression unreadable. "Then they're trying to mass-produce perfection."
Ethan's jaw clenched. "They'll fail."
He turned away from the team, stepping outside the warehouse into the rain. The city lights blurred against the downpour, neon bleeding into the puddles beneath his boots. In the distance, the skyline of Netherscape flickered like a dying circuit — a world choking under its own technology.
Nova's voice came again. "Ethan. Come back to base. We'll analyze the data and stabilize your resonance field before it destabilizes."
He started walking down the alley, his reflection trailing like a ghost beside him. "No. Not yet."
"Ethan—"
"They knew where I'd be. Someone fed them my pattern. Someone close."
Silence on the comm. Then Nova, quieter: "You think there's a leak?"
"I know there is."
His tone left no room for doubt. The last few missions had been too precise, too perfectly ambushed. The Syndicate wasn't guessing anymore — they were following him like a shadow.
He reached the edge of the street, where the neon signs faded into darkness. His head buzzed — the resonance flaring again. He could feel digital frequencies around him, the hum of data streams running through the city grid. Somewhere within that noise, a signal pulsed — irregular, invasive.
A foreign pattern inside his link.
"Someone's tracking me through the network," Ethan said, his voice low. "I can feel it in the pulse."
He closed his eyes and let the resonance flow. The world slowed. Raindrops froze mid-air. Sound faded into pure vibration. Within the data fog, a thread of red light shimmered, connecting to his neural implant.
He reached out mentally — and pulled.
The thread snapped. A feedback burst slammed into his mind like thunder. His knees hit the pavement, eyes glowing white.
Through the static, a distorted voice echoed:
> "Ethan Vale… Genesis 01 was never your beginning. It was your continuation."
Then silence. The rain returned.
He gasped, forcing himself upright, every muscle trembling from the overload. He felt Nova's panic through the comms, but her words were distant, drowned out by the echo in his head.
Continuation…?
He stumbled to a nearby wall, gripping it. Fragments of memory flashed — images of sterile labs, people in masks, a small boy floating in a tank filled with light. His reflection stared back at him — and for a second, it wasn't his face he saw.
It was another version of him.
Kael's voice came through, calm but edged. "Ethan, report."
He took a long breath. "I'm fine. Just… saw something."
"We're on our way," Kael said. "Hold position."
But Ethan wasn't listening. He looked up at the skyline again, the same red thread flickering faintly somewhere above — leading toward the old Genesis Tower.
His fists clenched.
That was where it all began.
And maybe, where it would all end.
---
By the time the team regrouped, Ethan had already started moving toward the outskirts. Lira tried to intercept him, but he overrode her drones effortlessly — the resonance flowing through the signal itself, bending machines to his will.
Nova finally appeared in person, her coat soaked by rain, her violet eyes burning with anger. "You think I'm going to let you walk into Genesis Tower alone?"
Ethan turned slightly, eyes glowing faintly blue. "You don't have to let me."
"Ethan…" she said, voice breaking slightly. "Every time you use it, that thing inside you takes more control."
He smiled faintly — not out of arrogance, but conviction. "Then I'll make sure it remembers who's in control."
Behind them, Kael and Bishop stood silently. Lira looked between them, her voice shaking. "If he's right — if Genesis 01 wasn't his beginning — then what was?"
No one answered.
Lightning split the sky, illuminating the towering silhouette of Genesis Tower in the distance. Its spire reached into the clouds like a blade, pulsing with faint red light.
Ethan raised his hood. "Let's find out."
The Digital Saints followed him wordlessly into the storm.
Each step echoed like a countdown.
Each heartbeat resonated like a war drum.
Because this time, Ethan Vale wasn't just fighting the Syndicate.
He was fighting the ghost of what created him.