Chapter 6 — Fate's Feedback Loop
A mafia courier went missing in Namimori's industrial maze. He never saw the trap—Derrick's Hell's Grips lashed out, pinning him to a wall with a chain-blade spike. Ferrule, spectral and efficient, sniffed out the courier's payload: stolen flame schematics.
Dontrell studied the blueprints, lips pursed.
"Every family chases more control. What we want is what can't be predicted."
Cera's system pinged. She tried a new function—Instinct Wheel: Echo Draw. A simple request, but for the first time, her Gacha let her "borrow" a move from Derrick's cache: a precision lock-blow, muscle memory loaded in on demand.
Her eyes widened. It felt alien, but exhilarating.
"I can use it," she breathed.
"And so will anyone who follows."
A new system node quietly registered in the Sanctum's dataflow. Their network was learning from itself.
Chapter 7 — System Breach
The Echo Link's power couldn't stay hidden.
A rival mafia group, bristling with subpar box-tech, cornered the trio at an abandoned trainyard. Cera's Spineframe snapped into defensive configuration. Derrick's tonfas rang with anti-system energy. Dontrell's scythe hummed, warping hostile flame.
But the enemies adapted—one unleashed a cloaked "breaker hound" that bit at Ferrule, another targeted their comms with a drone.
Dontrell's eyes flashed. The Absolute Scythe split into twin echo-blades, creating a slicing glyph that disabled the drone's signal. Derrick echoed a move from Cera's wheel—quickstep dodge. For a moment, their powers blurred. Each used the other's specialty as if it was their own.
Together, they routed the attackers so decisively that none saw how outnumbered they really were.
The message spread: the Dixon anomaly copied abilities. No bottleneck. No safe gap.
Chapter 8 — Dissonant Invitation
High above Namimori, Zephyra played with the city's reality. Her Symphony Slicer baton summoned a rain of phantom piano keys, making underworld scouts dance to her tempo as she pilfered data undetected.
Dontrell watched from afar, holding back. He would let her come to him, knowing anyone who could warp perception so cleanly would need to choose sovereignty herself before being offered a place.
But Zephyra noticed her echo node ping—faint, but present. Somewhere across the city, her melody reached out… and a strange resonance vibrated across the network.
In the Sanctum, an "Unknown" signature blinked. Derrick and Cera noticed too. The system was evolving—sensing and harmonizing with an outside entity before any offer had been made.
Chapter 9 — Crossed Wires
Allies and enemies alike hunted the anomaly. Varia agents returned, this time with code-breakers meant for anti-system skirmishes. Dontrell lured them into an underpass full of misdirection glyphs—his scythe swept through not their bodies, but their memories, erasing the plan from their minds.
Cera utilized a hybrid Gacha-pull, deploying a move she'd only seen Derrick use: stun chain throw. Derrick, meanwhile, "borrowed" Cera's compartmentalized defense, layering a second shield over his knuckles.
For the first time, the two spoke through the Echo System, "hearing" each other's intent inside their heads.
"This'll only get stronger," Derrick mused.
"So will our enemies," Cera replied.
Deep below, the network pulse brightened. Their bond was no longer theory.
Chapter 10 — Resonance Rising
That night, Zephyra walked into the Sanctum uninvited, symphonies of mirage and silence announcing her arrival. Legato, the Nocturne Lynx, slipped in ahead.
"You've been trying to find me," she said, all song and certainty.
Dontrell simply nodded.
"You hear echoes. Want to join the origin?"
Zephyra took the offered node ring. At that instant, her Symphony Slicer and orchestra array began syncing with the network, the first reverberations of a new system—and a new harmony—flooded the chamber.
Cera and Derrick experienced it as a wave of new possible moves, defense harmonics, and illusion overlays—Zephyra's mastery becoming, in small part, theirs.
"Let's see who can keep up," she smiled, baton spinning in the air, sound and power crackling.
The Dixon Family was one link stronger. The storm in the Mafia world, one echo louder.