As chaos ran rampant in the Mavis Empire, the sounds of battle echoed in Mavis's domain. Ethan was running through the mirrored streets of the mirror kingdom trying to avoid the large shards of glass being launched at him. In his distress, he summoned Proteus and formed a shield to protect himself, “That won’t help Quinn,” said Mavis then Ethan’s reflexes kicked in as he managed to dodge the majority of the glass shards as they pierced through his shield. 

“What is going on here??? Nothing seems to be working!?! His attacks just pierced right through Proteus???” Ethan thought as a shard of glass pierced into his shoulder, he tried corrupting the shard but it rejected it. 

He pulled out the large shard of glass even though it was rejecting his contact and quickly regenerated his shoulder using data but was interrupted by Mavis’s attack as her glass morphed from the floor and pierced into his ankles, immobilizing him like an animal caught in a trap; allowing Mavis to descend with a glass sword in her hand to deliver her final blow. However, Ethan had other plans rather than getting slaughtered like a sitting duck; he parried off Mavis’s attack and morphed out his ankles from the glass. Mavis submerged into the mirrored floor as if it were a pool of water, leaving Ethan to wonder where she would attack from next. Ethan looked around frantically trying to find Mavis but she emerged right before him and attacked with her glass sword. Ethan blocked with Proteus as he morphed it into a sword laced with corruption on the blade. The swords collided and both repelled each other leaving Ethan and Mavis vulnerable to attacks. However, this was all part of Mavis’s plan as her forward attack was a distraction for her glass spikes to morph from the floor, backstabbing Ethan.  

Ethan exhaled heavily while Mavis regained her stability and dashed at Ethan. As she was about to strike him, Ethan dropped to the floor like water spilling from a cup. Mavis stared at the puddle of corruption in amazement, “How peculiar, you can change the form of your cyber body. That must be hard to do.” Mavis said while the puddle of corruption was moving away from her.

“Yes it is, It’s a lot harder to control a formless body than a body that has a shape.” Ethan said as he regained his silhouette, “From what I’ve noticed, Corruptión and Proteus have no effect in here. Every time I try to corrupt something, it rejects the corruption, same with Proteus, it gets repelled. The only possible reason I can think of is that Mavis imbued her Override into her domain. Since our cybernetic abilities cancel each other out, we….wait…then that would mean she can’t erase me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take damage. If corruption has no effect in here then there is only one option left for me to get out of here.” 

Mavis continued her attacks on Ethan as glass shards erupted from the floor to strike him, Ethan lost his shape and dodged the attacks as he moved with them in his formless state. Once the attacks stopped, he regained his silhouette and summoned Proteus again. 

“Haven’t you tried that already?” Mavis said then launched a barrage of glass shards at Ethan who morphed Proteus into a spear and swiftly slashed through every shard of glass that was fired at him skillfully then threw the spear at Mavis. Glass formed itself into a shield to protect Mavis but the spear sliced right through as if it were butter. Mavis dodged the spear by catching it on the shaft then threw it right back at Ethan who caught it with ease. “Is that all you’re capable of with erasure, Quinn?”

“Of course not, I only just got erasure so I haven’t had the time to experiment with it. What about you, why aren’t you using erasure?”

“Because I don’t need erasure. I have my own cybernetic abilities, why would I borrow someone else’s ability, especially when it’s limited.”

 “I see, fair point,” Ethan said as he hit the bottom of his spear on the floor.

To Mavis’s surprise, Ethan fell through a hole in the floor of shattered glass as he descended into a seemingly endless abyss. “As expected, Erasure works well against Mavis’s Override. Now I need to find a way for Corruptión to adapt to Override and counter it…Hmm… Proteus and Corruptión have a similar aptitude to adaption, all I need is another fragment or sample of Mavis’s Override.” Ethan thought as he was falling down the abyss then crashed through a floor and splashed out the other side.

“Oh??? I’m back here, I thought I had escaped this domain.. but I guess not yet.” Ethan said as he found himself back in the cosmos. He managed to grasp a palm full of water from that he came out of and absorbed it with Corruptión. He landed on a floating cube while letting Corruptión do its thing then Mavis emerged from a cube, “Good attempt at escaping, but you will never escape my domain with your level of capability with erasure. Your corruption is useless in here so the only hope you have of escape is erasure.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You see, everything within the VCR is made of data, some are stagnant, some are programmed, all different kinds of data, but in the end, they are all data. Corruptión is a cyber entity and a cybernetic ability that corrupts any form of data, and since your domain is made of data, it falls within the range of corruption.”

“Yes, but Corruptión cannot corrupt my domain since it is imbued with Override which rejects corruption,” Mavis argued.

“That is true, as a whole, Corruptión cannot corrupt your domain yet. But with Corruption, all it takes is one sample or fragment of your domain for it to find a way to counter it, as it will corrupt the sample and then analyze it to find a way of corrupting the data more efficiently,” Ethan explained.

“Even if you manage to get a sample, the sample itself would have Override so Corruption won’t be able to do anything,” Mavis argued as she was confident in her cybernetic ability.

“What happens when two forces of equal power collide?” Ethan asked as he began providing vivid imagery of his analogy. “They remain at a stalemate until one gains more power than the other. In this case, Corruptión & Override are the two forces. The small amount of Override in the sample cannot reject every byte of Corruptión as it will be overrun by Corruptión.”

“Interesting… for a human, you have a vast understanding of how things work in the Cyber Realm. You know more than 95% of the cyber population and you have done no man has ever done, you have trespassed into the Cyber realm as a cybernetic being even though you are a terrestrial being. You truly are a threat to cybernetics, which is why I cannot let you leave. Otherwise, you’ll continue to grow as a threat to my kind.”

“As I’ve said before, you’ve brought it upon yourselves. If you never became a threat to humanity, I would’ve never grown this far with Corruptión.”

“I can say the same about humanity… But as powerful as Corruptión is, it is still useless within my domain until you get that sample.”

“Or is it?” said Ethan as he released a wave of Corruption. Once the wave dissipated, Mavis looked around, “Is that it? Isn’t something supposed to happen?”

“It’s your domain, you should know,” said Ethan as his feet sunk into the cube and the mid-section of his body began glitching. The glitching began to move down his legs and into his feet where it seeped into the cube causing it to start glitching. It spread like wildfire while Mavis tried to control it with Override but it only got worse as the whole domain began glitching wildly.

“What have you done?!?”

“Well, that’s for you to find out Mavis,” Ethan said while he gestured various mudra hand signs which led to the complete shattering of Mavis’s domain as fragments fell into the cyberspace.

“You have one week until humanity’s forces show up, that should give you enough time to improve your hardware and cybernetic abilities. Until then Mavis,” said Ethan as he retreated into the data network jetstream.

No words could describe what Mavis was feeling other than demoralization combined with frustration, for she was speechless as fragments of her shattered domain rained upon her. In her despair, she let out a scream that echoed throughout cyberspace stressing her frustration.

Ethan came out of the data network jetstream and looked back at the Mavis Empire. “There is no other way, Quinn. She must die,” thought Ethan then moments later, his Corruptión clones arrived. “Great job boys, let's head back to base.” One by one, the clones fist-bumped Ethan and merged back with him.

When making it back to base, Ethan saw Tony’s cyber vessel by the Frigoré portal. “Oh, I wonder how he found me… anyway, it shouldn’t hurt as bad as last time right? Well, only one way to find out.” Ethan thought as he left the Virtual Cyber Realm through the portal and returned to his physical body.

Ethan’s body tensed up as it began experiencing pain, he regained consciousness within his body and opened his eyes. Besides the pain Ethan was feeling, he was overwhelmed by another feeling as he felt like a child who got busted by his parent in the act of committing an atrocious mischief when he opened his eyes and saw Colonel, Kunoichi and Tony staring at him sternly.

“Ah $#!%....”