One drama led to another for Ethan, as paramedics were checking his health. “Seriously guys I’m fine,” Ethan said as a mini flashlight was lit into his eyes.

“No you’re not, your eyes are shot with blood, your nose is bleeding, your pulse is erratic and you have no equilibrium, so you are far from okay, Mister,” said a paramedic.

“Just give me 5 minutes and my body will have been healed by then.”

“All your symptoms could lead to a bigger injury.”

“If you say you’re okay then what happened the last time you did this because your condition back then was worse than this?” asked Colonel.

Ethan sighed, “I was careless the last time I did this, I underestimated my opponents and that was the consequence of doing so. But if you really want to know why then you might wanna sit down for this.”

“We don’t have time for this, if he thinks he’s okay and you believe him Colonel then we’ll take our leave,” the paramedic said.

“You sure you don't need medical assistance Cyber?” Colonel asked.

“Yes I’m sure, I’ll be fine, this is nothing compared to last time.”

“Ok then, I’ll take your word for it. You may leave medics,” Colonel said then the paramedics packed their things and left the IT department. “OK Cyber, explain to us why things turned out the way they did last time you did this.”

“Well, in order to know, you need to understand how Corruptión works. You see, Corruptión is a cybernetic entity that has multiple functions such as giving me virtual access to the VCR. By allowing Corruptión to engulf my body, it transfers my brain’s functions or rather my consciousness into its own Cyber vessel like a data transfer between two computers via USB. Once the transfer is complete, Corruptión & I are one and I can move about in VCR. There are two drawbacks to doing this, one being that there is a time limit to how long I can use the Corruptión body. If I use Corruptión for longer than an hour, it will then start corrupting my consciousness byte per byte until there is nothing left to corrupt.”

“What happens when your consciousness becomes corrupted?” Kunoichi asked with a curious gleam in her eyes.

“Well, depending on how much of your consciousness is corrupted, one may experience severe side effects such as brain glitching, stuttering, brain lag, etc. If your consciousness is fully corrupted then you’re as good as brain dead, your brain will be in a vegetated state and you will soon die.”

“Is the second drawback as bad as the first?” Kunoichi asked worriedly.

“Yeah, it may even be worse. The first one I can manage fine but this second drawback is not something that I can fully manage since there are unknown dangers in VCR. Any damage I take while being in my Corruptión body stockpiles like memory and when I return to my physical body, my consciousness is transferred back along with the stockpiled damage. No actual damage is done to my physical body, it is just my pain receptors are being given false signals of pain and my body believes it, causing me to experience the pain I should’ve experienced in my Corruptión body. For example, if I got stabbed while I was in the VCR then I returned to my physical body, I would experience the pain of being stabbed without actually being stabbed.”

“If the accumulated damage is like memory data, can’t you simply delete it,” Tony asked.

“Good question, but no, I can't. Reason being is that the accumulated damage is now a part of me, if I delete that part then I will have deleted a part of my consciousness meaning that I may not be the same person once I delete that accumulated damage.”  

“Wait, how would you know this? It’s not like there is a textbook for this and you’re the one who created this so?” Tony asked as he frowned at the thought.

“Some of my knowledge on Corruptión is gained from mental simulations of possible outcomes from possible circumstances deriving from Corruptión. Then the rest of my knowledge on Corruptión is gained from trial & error.”

“Trial & error??? Is that how you know you can’t delete accumulated damage, did you lose a part of your consciousness from learning about this???” Tony asked as if he already knew the answer but was hoping that Ethan would say otherwise to relieve him.

“I’d rather not say.”

“Why not?”

“Just leave it alone Tony.”

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because you don’t need to know. Honestly, you may already know, but I will not affirm nor deny your truth… does everyone know how Corruptión works now?”

“… Yes, we get the gist of it,” Colonel said in the awkward atmosphere.

“Is it possible for you to die from accumulating too much damage?” Kunoichi asked like a concerned mother.

“Yes, even though I don’t suffer any actual damage, the overstimulation of pain on the brain can cause brain damage, and depending on the accumulated damage, my brain can short circuit or get a stroke causing me to die or be in a vegetated state leading to death.”

“And yet you still do this without fear…If that’s the case then how come you’re fine after what happened last time you did this?” Kunoichi asked.

“Well back in my world, my aunt and I invented this healing element that is liquid energy. It is used in every hospital in Techtonia and is sold at pharmaceuticals at a hefty price, luckily I have a lifetime supply since I know how to make it.”

“Liquid energy??? Is that not lethal to humans?” Colonel asked.

“Normally yes, but this liquid energy is made from elements that are not harmful to humans or at least humans from my world.”

“Have you noticed any difference between you and us?” Kunoichi asked.

“So far no, but quick question, are the humans in this world able to channel?

“Channel? What do you mean by that?” Colonel asked.

“Maybe you use a different word for it, so are you guys able to conduct external sources of energy through your body with control?”

“Uh, technically yes, we can conduct electricity but we can’t control it and if we conduct a high voltage we die," Colonel answered.

“I see… from what she said, I doubt they can channel any form of external energy through their bodies. But I could test it out on someone just to be sure… If you are not able to channel then it may change things for me. Anyways that liquid energy is why I’m ok right now and is why you shouldn’t worry about me since it’s still in my system.”

“Even if you’re ok now, you shouldn’t do something that has such high risks especially if things are not in your control.”

“What were you even doing in VCR?” Colonel asked.

“I was buying us some time Colonel, Mavis had planned to attack us tomorrow but I paid her a visit and delayed her plans for at least a week.”

“Wait really??? That’s great, it’ll give us some time to prepare something at least,” Colonel said as her tone of hope returned in her voice.

“How long would it take for your entire crusade to get to the Mavis Empire Colonel?”

“Our air forces could get there in less than a day while our ground forces would take more or less 5 days. Why do you ask?” Colonel asked 

“Because we’re taking the fight to Mavis.”

“Huh???”

“Take the fight to-, are you mad? We do not have the capacity nor the capabilities to be fighting a head-on battle with those robots,” Colonel said.

“Yes, we will, on our way to that Empire I will create the weapons needed. Not only that, we’ll also have one of their seven governors on our side.”

“The governors, how though?” Colonel asked as she raised her eyebrows.

“Tony could you go fetch Governor Codey’s corpse for me.”

“Uh sure,” Tony said as he left the room. 

“I will reprogram that body to fight for us, he will be an important asset for us in battle," Ethan said with a smirk.

"Oh, that is genius. Using the enemy's weapon against them," Colonel said as her face lit up.

"Exactly, this will help level the playing field more in our favour. And another thing that will help is-... Where’s Chemic? I need her to get this to the engineering department so that they can replicate it.” Ethan said as he pulled out his special contact lenses. 

“You can give it to her at the meeting we’ll be having soon,” Colonel said.

“Meeting? No, I won’t be able to attend the meeting, I need to start on these weapons as soon as possible so please give these to her and tell her to take them to the engineering department for replication so that our whole crusade can have one.”

Colonel took the contact lenses and analyzed them, “What do these things do?”

“They’re augmented reality lenses, they let you see things you can’t see with the naked eye such as potential energy. With these contact lenses, the troops will have foresight in battle allowing them to survive more situations in battle.”

“Wow, that’s convenient. I’ll get this to the engineering department as soon as possible.”

“Excellent, make the necessary arrangements needed so that we can leave as soon as possible. Our forces need to be at the Mavis Empire in less than 7 days, so I will leave that to you, Colonel.”

“Sure, we will discuss it in the meeting.”

“Ok… Kunoichi?”

“Huh, yes?”

“Can I trust you to keep Laboratoriá with you at all times while I’m working?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Also can you bring that physics guy that was helping me with the cannon?”

“Oh, Zac?”

“Yes Zac, please bring him to my lab. I will need his assistance in some of my concepts for these weapons.”

“Sure, I’ll bring him.”

“Thank you. Alright then, I better get to work,” Ethan said as he pulled out Laboratoria from his jacket and gave it to Kunoichi.

“Uh, how does this work exactly? Like how do I not accidentally get warped inside?” Kunoichi asked.

Ethan took Laboratoria from Kunoichi and put it on a table, “Now, the cube has sensors on it that allow it to detect what’s touching it. It’ll only warp you in if you touch it with one finger if you touch it with more than one finger then it won’t warp you in,” Ethan explained while demonstrating the process as he warped in and out the black cube. 

Oh, that's simple. Thank you,” Kunoichi said then Ethan nodded his head and touched Laboratoria. Once Ethan warped in, Kunoichi picked up the black cube, “When is the meeting Colonel?”

“In an hour, I need to do some things first so it allows the boys to wake up and get ready. Go wake them up for me Chi, and tell them about the meeting,” Colonel said as she left the room.

Kunoichi stared at the black cube that sat in her hands, “Don’t overwork yourself, Ethan. Good luck in your endeavor... Let’s go find Zac. Although I don’t know where he is… I’m sure Chemic will know.”

While Kunoichi began her quest to find Zac, back in Laboratoria, Ethan was looking at his schematics for the weapons on his hologram table. “Out of all the weapons here, Ninja’s weapon may take the longest to make, but Colonel and Bradley’s weapons will be the hardest to construct... So I should start with Ninja’s weapon then during the wait periods, I'll start with Bradley & Colonel’s weapons. Flash’s weapon will be the easiest so, I can save that for last to start.” 

Ethan looked to the ceiling, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly then stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles, “This will be challenging, and taxing to my body…but even so, I will enjoy this.”