“Hey” 

“Hey Quinn” 

“Quinn!”

Ethan slowly opened his eyes to see a blurry figure standing next to his bed. “Huh? Who’s… oh, it’s you, dad.” 

“Come on now, get up. You know what time it is,” said Ethan’s dad.

“Can’t I sleep in for the morning, my body feels terrible?” asked Ethan

“Of course not, starting the day early with exercising boosts your productivity for the day causing your body to feel great. So get your bottom out of bed and get ready. We leave in 15 minutes,” said Ethan’s dad as he left the room.

Ethan groaned as he dragged himself out of bed and into his bathroom to do his business. After getting ready, Ethan walked out the front door and saw his dad stretching. “You should force Alyssa to join us sometime,” said Ethan with a smirk.

His dad chuckled, “She would just slow us down and I’d rather keep this between us. It’s like bonding time for us.”

“Of course, it is,” as Ethan started stretching as well. 

“What? You don’t like spending time with your old man.”

“There are many ways to spend time together, so why does it have to be so early in the morning, we can barely see Solaris,” said Ethan as their star was peeking over the horizon.

“You’ll understand one day why your mother and I do the things we do with you rascals, but for now just enjoy them with us.”

They both took a deep breath and began running around the Belric district in the cold morning air. Solaris’s light was still dawning so the city was still bright with neon colours as the two admired the scenery on the route of their run. When they arrived back home, Solaris was almost over the horizon and they sat on the patio to rest. “Phew… now that was a good run. Your pace is improving with every run Quinn, keep it up,” said Ethan’s dad. 

“Thanks, I try.”

“That’s good, you’ve embodied the philosophy of kaizen. By the time you reach my age, you will have already reached the best version of yourself.”

“Have you reached the best version of yourself?” asked Ethan.

“I’d like to believe that I have, as your father it is my duty to be the best version of myself so that I can be a good role model for you and inspire you to be the best version of yourself. One that is better than me.”

“Does being the best version of yourself mean that you can save everyone?”

“Save everyone? No, saving everyone by yourself is impossible. When it comes to the best version of one’s self, to each their own, meaning that the best version of one’s self is up to you. So if you’re thinking of saving everyone, don’t do that to yourself. Just make yourself into someone that everyone can rely on when needed, that people sigh in relief when they see you or hear you.”

Ethan sat there in silence processing his thoughts, “I know that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, but that’s something the best version of yourself should be able to handle don’t you think?” asked Ethan’s dad.

......

“Yeah… you’re right, to each their own. Thanks Dad, I needed this chat, especially after everything that has happened.”

“I’m glad I could help son... and dont be too hard on yourself Quinn, I know how you can be with yourself, so dont put it all on you,” said Ethan’s dad.

Ethan sighed, “That... I can't promise, but I will try Dad... I should leave before that thing shows up and ruins this dream.”

“What thing?” asked Ethan’s dad.  

"Dont worry about it," said Ethan as he laid on the ground and closed his eyes. 

“Ok, then make sure to mediate before going to school,” said Ethan's dad.

“Ha, sure.”

Ethan embraced the abyss and awakened from his slumber as he opened his eyes to find himself in a room. “Where am I” he scanned the dark room and saw an infusion pump, “So I’m in a hospital room. Gah.. damn it, it still hurts… At least I’m still alive though.” Ethan was still in his clothes as he painfully pulled a black cube and momentarily warped into the black cube. 

Shwoop

In his laboratory, he struggled to make his way to his medicine fridge. He took out a neon green syringe from the fridge and looked at it then quickly shook it and looked at it again. 

“Perfect,” thought Ethan as he injected himself with neon green liquid.

As the neon green liquid flowed through his veins, Ethan’s pain slowly vanished and his body healed. A few moments later, he stretched his body, “Feels good to be good as new.”

He took off his jacket and placed it on a coat rack then left the laboratory. Back in the hospital room, he gazed out the window to see a dark landscape praying for the light of hope creeping over the horizon declaring its presence as night slowly vanished. Ethan opened the window, jumped out, and hovered high above the HQ. “Hmm… this HQ is bigger than I expected, even though half of it is destroyed… but it should be an easy workout.”

Ethan dropped down and cushioned his landing with a quick burst of energy from his hover shoes. He started stretching his all muscles for a while then began jogging around the vicinity of the HQ while enjoying the beauty of the landscape, but he arrived at the south region of the HQ and saw the ruins of it. “It’s too bad that I wasn’t able to finish the cannon before this happened. There’s no way this HQ will recover before the next attack… so the best thing to do is to take the fight to Mavis.”

He continued to run around the HQ until he had completed a full lap of the HQ. He hovered up onto the roof of the HQ to rest and gaze upon the rising star as dawn was meeting its end. Ethan gestured his hand that his special contact lense recognised and unlocked a AR graphical user interface. He opened his library and scrolled through it until he came across a lofi playlist. After clicking on the playlist, music started playing in his high-tech ear implant and he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly releasing all stress from his body as he basked in the radiation of the star. A few minutes went by and Ethan had reached maximum tranquillity within himself as he sighed, “I haven’t done all of this in a while, no wonder it feels so comforting… I wish I could relax here all day to the sound of music... but I’ve got work to do... Since everyone is still sleeping or slowly waking up, this is the best time to get things done.”

Ethan stood up and stretched his back out. Jumping off the roof, he hovered into his hospital room and warped into his laboratory. He went to the elevator and descended to the lower floors, there were two floors under the laboratory. The floor directly beneath the laboratory was basically a studio apartment where Ethan could cook, rest and freshen himself up. The floor beneath the studio apartment was the training room where Ethan does his simulation, strength, agility and endurance training. Ethan came off at the training floor as he did quick sets of strength and simulation training. Once he was done with his training, he elevated to the living floor, where he ate breakfast then showered.  

After showering and a change of clothes, Ethan left his laboratory and put Laboratoria back in his jacket. He pulled out a wristband from his jacket and wore it then activated it. The wristband began consuming Ethan leaving no trace of his presence, Ethan looked at the window to his reflection but he saw nothing but the outside world. “Perfect,” thought Ethan. He snuck out of his hospital room and made his way to the IT department, “This is probably not a good idea after what happened last time, but I need to buy us some time so that I can create those weapons. I could try to take them out now in the VCR…no no…in my current state, I couldn’t take down all of them without killing myself in the process. So for now the best course of action is to buy us enough time to take the fight to them.”

Upon arriving at the IT department, Ethan pulled out two black cubes and placed one on a monitor while the other he kept in his hand as he activated both. Frigoré opened a portal on the monitor to the Virtual Cyber Realm while Corruptión engulfed Ethan then momentarily separated from his body and went into the portal. 

Once in the Virtual Cyber Realm, Ethan took a moment to get used to his cyber body then began traversing the cyberscape towards the Mavis Empire. He entered a network jetstream that swiftly took him to the network system of the Mavis Empire. “I see they haven’t replaced the firewall I destroyed. Well, this makes my job easier. Okay if I do what I did last time, I should get through the rest of their firewalls but that’s not the hard part. Not drawing attention is key, the last thing I need is getting into a cyber battle with all of the Governors and Mavis.”

Ethan crouched down and touched the ground. Two wells of corruption formed on the ground as corrupted data accumulated, forming two Corruptión clones of Ethan’s Corruptión body. “Perfect.”

“Alright boys, let’s make some chaos.”