Disclaimer: Megaman doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Capcom.
Note: Wondered why Match genuinely became a good person by BN6, and then remembered his little scenario from BN4 with the hot dog stand lady. The ship set sail.
Timeline: Starts after the Den City Tournament in BN4 and ends post-BN6.
Light Those Flames
The Officials couldn't keep him in prison if they couldn't catch him, and other than his charges for working with the WWW? He had a relatively clean record.
The first thing Mr. Match had done after miraculously getting out of Alpha thanks to the Officials was rescue FlameMan. Sure, he wasn't the usual person, having three different Navis of his own, but each one of them had a burning passion for battle that suited him.
He was bored, though, and he needed to cause a little bit of mischief just to keep everyone on their toes.
DenDome seemed like the perfect place to do just that. Events were always held here, and a few bombs would cause a good scare. Sure, it probably wouldn't do enough damage to destroy it completely, but the damage would be done and there would be mayhem.
The Den City Tournament coming up was the perfect opportunity. He slid right through the preliminaries, was guaranteed a spot, and decided to go scope out the place several weeks before it started.
While scoping it out, he decided that he was hungry, and his eyes focused on the hot dog stand that was located just a block away from the dome itself.
When he first saw her, it felt like his heart was burning with passion - not for battle, but... something else that he wasn't sure about. Not just for her looks, but for her warm personality, her cheery outlook, and... just everything.
But he didn't deserve someone like her, not to mention that it would come off as creepy, so he wouldn't make any effort. It wouldn't hurt, though, to at least be kind to her.
It was the least that he could do.
Her name was Leda. When he'd gotten there, her fryer had broken down, and he was happy to fix it up for her. An idea had come to Match, and he even powered up her fryer with a rather tame Fire-type virus so that it would make even tastier ones.
When the tournament started, he dropped by everyday - there were a lot of people participating - and was happy to purchase hot dogs. Her business was booming and Leda was very happy about it.
The two of them chatted a lot, with Match being attentive and kinder than he had ever been in his life, but he refused to tell her about his participation in the tournament.
He had had his minions plant the bombs in DenDome, of course. If she was there, the chance of her getting hurt was much higher than if she was safe in her shop. No, he wouldn't risk Leda like that.
His semi-final match concluded, Match smirked, and went to see just who his final opponent was going to be.
"Lan Hikari..."
Perfect. He'd been planning to set the igniters off during the Finals, anyways.
His entire world had turned topsy-turvy. His own men had turned on him, Lan had agreed to let him go, and Leda had proposed to him.
She. Had. Proposed.
His heart had leapt with joy, but despite that, he had turned her down. It wasn't because he didn't love her - oh, how he loved her, how he made the fire in his heart flare up - but he knew that he didn't deserve someone as wonderful as her.
Once out of DenDome, Match stared at his feet. What was he doing? He loved fire, and that would never change, but... he now understood how it felt, when someone that he loved was in danger.
He didn't like it.
When was the last time that he had ever cared about somebody, other than his NetNavis? He didn't know, but he knew that he loved Leda. For her sake, he would try to be a better man.
Perhaps one day, he would be worthy of marrying her. But that time wasn't right now. No, he had to better himself first, and then he would.
His Navis had been puzzled at his sudden change of heart, but they'd been willing to support him, HeatMan most of all.
If he wanted to be worthy of her, the first thing that he had to do was get a proper job, something that he would be proud to say to people that he did. An ex-WWW member wasn't something that he wanted to introduce himself with.
Oddly enough, Lan came to mind, that annoying, insufferable, wonderful brat.
...He still had that elementary school teaching certification that he had earned when he was younger, before he had fallen prey to the WWW. Surely it was still valid?
It couldn't hurt to check.
After dealing with an irritating brat named Atsuki, his Navi BurnerMan, and watching smugly as Lan soundly thrashed him in the Eaglehawk Tournament, Match had decided what he was going to do.
Applying in either of Den City's elementary schools had been impossible. Kotobuki Elementary was still being rebuilt, ACDC Elementary had been very prone to WWW attacks and would never take him on, and Den Town already had a teacher for the WWW working there.
How Yuriko had ended up there, he would never know. But he wasn't sure that he wanted to face a reminder of his past in the WWW; it would make it too tempting to go back. And if he was tempted to go back again... he would never be good enough for Leda.
So he'd moved to the next city, Cyber City - the elementary school in Central Town had had some people leave recently, and was still looking to fill teaching positions, so he'd applied there instead. Currently, it appeared that while there was at least one teacher per grade, while a few had two, far more would be preferable.
Sure, he had applied halfway through the school year; he'd figured that they'd hold onto his application and have him officially become a teacher next year. But Mayor Cain - the principal of the school to boot - had been very happy to see him for some reason, and had offered him the job on the spot.
"It says here that you work best with older kids," Mayor Cain told him upon reviewing his paperwork. "Currently at the moment, we have one 5th Grade teacher who is struggling with a class of 40 children. If, after winter break, you can take on half of the class, then it would be a huge boon to us."
Well, that was a lot sooner than he had expected! He wouldn't have to wait until the following school year, and it still gave him time to plan out how he was going to teach them. "Sure thing, I can do that."
"Until then," Mayor Cain had mused, "would you be willing to teach an extracurricular class?"
Why the heck not?
But first, he had to get an eye exam. He could have sworn that things looked blurrier than before, and he needed to be able to read the board and the screen...
Loosening up was hard.
Match wanted to complain several times that he just couldn't handle it, and had found himself fidgeting with his new glasses when he was alone. But he had never backed down from a challenge, and by the Master, he wasn't going to back down from this one. So he did his best. He joked with the children he encountered. He was firm with discipline but not cruel. He sat down with other teachers during lunch break.
He was even civil to Lan when the other had signed up for his extracurricular class - apparently the kid had transferred here sometime before he'd been hired and had already saved the school once. Heh. That was Lan, alright.
At least he wouldn't have him in his class come the end of winter break. He would be teaching 5th grade, and Lan was in 6th grade, with Joe Mach as his teacher.
For once, he and Lan hadn't started off hostile towards each other, but had treated each other with a mutual respect. He'd relinquished control of HeatMan to Lan for the class, and Lan had passed with flying colors.
Then again, he shouldn't have been surprised. A kid whose heart didn't burn as bright as Lan's did would never have been able to defeat him once, let alone five times, or control such a red-hot Navi like HeatMan. Perhaps it was fate that he had met Lan?
Bit by bit, other students, too, came up to take his class, including two of Lan's classmates, a troublemaker named Mick Fahran and a quiet but well-meaning boy named Tab Aster. The most surprising member of his extracurricular class was a 5th Grade girl named Iris Caskett, who was probably the shyest child he had ever met.
Still, she controlled HeatMan almost too well, possibly the best out of anyone other than Lan. Perhaps she burned with more passion than she let on.
The winter break had ended, and he was teaching 5th Grade with about 20 students. Iris was included in his class, and he noted that she came and always focused on whatever he said with rapt attention, possibly better than the rest of them.
Still, Match wasn't sure whether he wanted to scream or laugh.
With the WWW attacks out of the blue, he was starting to wonder whether the WWW had gotten back together and had started to follow him and Lan. With all of the attacks that had been happening in Cyber City lately, the theft of their fabled Cybeasts, Lan asking him and HeatMan for help in saving MegaMan, and Joe Mach disappearing one day, he wouldn't have been surprised.
The icing on the cake had been Mayor Cain's arrest due to being involved with the WWW.
No wonder the man had been so eager to have him around! He had recognized an ex-WWW Member, and had probably been hoping either to call him back with temptation, or keep a close eye on him! It was just as well that Match had never known.
Because hot damn, he had been looking forward to going to the Expo. He'd invited Leda to come with him, and she had sounded overjoyed and had said yes!
Judging from the disappointed mutters he'd heard from his students the following morning - the school had still opened, with the vice-principal temporarily taking over - they had all been, too.
The disappointed mutters didn't last, however, as the day after that, he heard the exact opposite.
"Did you hear? The Expo is opening, after all!" he heard one of his students shout. He'd just dismissed them, and they were milling about the classroom, cleaning up and preparing to leave. He raised his eyebrows as he looked over at the boy.
"Really, Kyuta?" Another boy, Mameo, had asked.
"Yeah, they announced it earlier today, and get this - one of the boys from 6-1 was randomly selected to attend the preopening!"
"No way!"
A boy from 6-1... he wouldn't be surprised if it was Lan. A little concerned, Match noted that fact down, and decided that maybe, just maybe, he should go to the school that day. It was right next to the Expo site, so maybe Lan could use a little backup.
The sound was faint that Match almost missed it, but years of being in the WWW had honed his senses far more than normal, and he looked up, immediately spotting what it had been.
Iris was already gone.
Match had a very bad feeling about this.
He stared at his PET. Normally, he wouldn't ask for help, but he really had been trying hard to go straight, and there were a few teachers that he trusted more than others... opening up his emails, he began to compose an email, and sent it off to Shuuko Kido, Dark Kirisaki, Moliarty, and Joe Mach.
Shuuko, one of the 4th Grade teachers, was an acquaintance of Lan's if he remembered right, Moliarty, the 3rd Grade teacher, had a heart of gold, and Dark Kirisaki, the other 4th Grade teacher, would do anything if offered enough money.
He didn't expect Joe, Lan's teacher, to respond to his email, but the man was very passionate about his students. Surely he wouldn't stay away?
Central Town had been evacuated, and he was probably going to be out of a job tomorrow thanks to his former organization blowing up the school. Wonderful. The one time in his life he tried to go straight, and it was starting to crash down on him.
To make matters worse, Seaside Town was full of water. The Navis in Copybots at the very least were well-prepared to guard them, even if they weren't too happy as well.
Shuuko had looked quite in her element, Moliarty had run off to greet an old friend of his that worked at the Seaside Aquarium, he didn't know where Joe had run off to, and Kirisaki had never showed up. At least Fyrefox was a proper pyromaniac, even if he had met the man for the first time today. The troublemaker Mick was here, which made him keep an eye out for any students of his, as well as Dr. Froid's son Tory (whom he recognized from when Maddy had kidnapped him the previous year), a quiet grey-haired boy he remembered joining the Battle Chip Challenge, Lan's redhaired girlfriend, and...
Was that Lan's mother? Nope, he wasn't going near her, she would probably recognize him as the man that set her oven on fire.
Match wasn't in the best mood as he went towards the strip mall to see if he could find some food. The smell of fried fish caught his nose, and he went towards it, noting a sign advertising fish sticks; it was no hot dog, but at a time where nothing was going right, he would take fish sticks.
Of course, he then saw Leda, and nearly tripped over his feet.
"...Leda? Why are you here?"
She turned around from where she'd been speaking with the owner, an older woman, and smiled at him. "Visiting, of course! This is my mom! Mom, this is Kenneth Match~."
"My!" the older woman smiled. "So you're the young man that Leda has been talking about. You can call me Irene, dear. So what do you do? I don't think that Leda has mentioned it..."
That was because he'd never told Leda what his occupation was, just that he was between jobs and trying to find something that suited him. But now, he could tell the truth.
"I'm a 5th Grade teacher, at Cyber Academy in Central Town," Match said. "Well... I was, at least. I'm not sure what will happen now that all of this is going down..."
"My, that's an admirable career path, to be shaping young minds for the future. And perhaps another school," Irene suggested as she started cooking some fish sticks. "The students will all need somewhere to go, and people to teach them. I doubt any teacher can handle so many displaced children."
Poor students. He was going to hope that they all managed to get out of this unscathed.
The smell of the fish sticks became stronger, and his stomach growled, causing Leda to giggle. "Mom, can you give me and Ken some of those fish sticks? I think we're both hungry."
Match tried not to blush. If anyone he knew saw him...! "Ah, ahem, I'll gladly pay for them, of course."
"Shush," Irene said, finishing frying them and setting two plates of fish sticks and chips in front of them. "It's on me this time. I hope you both enjoy."
As Match settled down with his fish sticks, he glanced over at the crowd of people. Seaside Town was safe, at least, and he just had to count on Lan to stop the Cybeasts.
Irene had been right; with Central Town mostly destroyed, other schools had offered to take on all of the displaced students and their teachers so that some sense of normalcy would be going.
That was how Mr. Match found himself co-teaching 5th Grade at ACDC Elementary. Oh, the irony. Still, it wasn't that bad; no one had appeared to recognize him as the one that had blown up their ovens.
"Hey!" One of the ACDC 5th Grade students had said, a young boy with black hair. "Heeey, I think I know you!" Uh oh. Match blanched, preparing for something extremely awkward as the boy thought about it. "Where was it... oh yeah! You were in the Battle Chip Challenge and in the Den City Tournament, weren't you?"
Oh. Phew. Mr. Match grinned at the kid. "Yep, I sure was! What's your name, kid?"
"Kai!" the boy grinned back widely. "It's nice to meet you again!" He waved at Match once before darting off to talk with some of his friends.
Match looked at where his entire class of 19 students was seated in the room. They had brought in chairs and extra desks, and some people were sharing, but his eyes kept looking for the one person in his class that was still missing.
Iris Caskett.
He'd heard the news from an extremely upset Lan when he'd asked him, after Match had explained how he had known her. Iris was dead. She had apparently sacrificed herself to destroy the Cybeasts.
That poor, poor girl.
Match had always enjoyed causing mayhem and explosions, but even when he'd been a part of the WWW and had attacked SciLab, he'd never wanted anyone dead, least of all a child like Iris.
And when it was time to congratulate the student's, both his class and the class of the teacher he was sharing with, for moving onto 6th Grade, it was bittersweet, knowing that not all of his students had survived to move on in life.
Life was precious.
He should have never treated it so casually or taken it for granted.
Match critically eyed the ring that he had bought. It was made of rose gold, with several small black and white stones bordering it, and the main stone in the center was a bright red fire opal, shaped like a flame.
After being a teacher for two years, he was finally stable. To make matters even better, his former companions at the WWW were also stable. Yahoot, who had never been implicated in the WWW and had avoided arrest, now owned a popular curry restaurant in Den Town, where Maddy also worked as a waitress. Zap had been the only one of the four that had been arrested, and after release, was now working as a manager at Jomon Electronics; while still wealthy, that had been part of the terms of his release.
Match went to #1 Curry often to eat and to catch up with them, and had gone today along with Zap to calm his nerves. Maddy had greeted them warmly, and after teasing Match for becoming a teacher, she had spotted the ring in his pocket and had grabbed it to take a look. "Oho! Match! Who's the lucky girl?"
He snatched the ring back from her, clearing his throat. "Her name's Leda. We met over two years ago, and she was interested in me... I didn't think I was good enough for her then, but I think this time, I'm ready."
Perhaps not completely, but if Leda was still interested enough to accept his proposal when he had rejected her two years ago, then he would take that and run with it.
"Do it, Kenny!" Zap, who had been enjoying a meal in the restaurant, grinned at him. "You always talk about the fire burning in your heart. Is it burning?"
"More intense than any fire I've ever had burn," Match admitted.
Maddy swept the dishes off of their tables. "I say you'd better sweep her off her feet before anything happens. When are you proposing?"
"...I hadn't decided on the exact day, but soon," Match told them.
The door jingle chimed, and Maddy turned away from her two friends to greet the new customer. "Hi, welcome to #1 Curry! Dine-in or take-out?"
"Dine-in for one, please- oh! Kenneth?"
Match stiffened, ignoring the huge grin that Zap was giving him after the other had suddenly moved to a different table. "L...Leda?" After a moment, as Maddy began to lead her to a table suspiciously closeby, he quickly blurted out, "Leda, you can join me if you want!"
Leda smiled at him, causing his stomach to twist and threaten to reintroduce him to the curry that he had eaten. "I'd love to," she said, sitting down beside him. "I didn't know that you came here!"
"I, ah, the owner's an old friend of mine," Match managed to get out, trying not to fidget. "Do you come here often?"
"No, this is my first time, a friend commended this place to me," Leda said, sitting down.
Dinner proceeded relatively normally, with the two of them making light talk to each other despite Match's nervousness. Once the two of them were done, Leda excused herself to head to the restroom. Match took a deep breath, pulling the ring out of his pocket as Zap and Maddy sidled closer to him.
"You should propose!" Maddy insisted, grinning.
"Go, Ken!" Zap was grinning widely. "Best chance you have!"
Match drummed his fingers on the table a little anxiously as he noted Leda coming back to their table, and Maddy and Zap slipped away to leave the two of them alone. "Ah... Leda," he got out, once she had sat back down.
"Hm?" Leda smiled back at him. "What is it?"
"L-Look, despite what happened a few years ago, I was wondering..." He pulled the box with the ring out of his pocket, opened it, and slid it towards her. "Leda, will you marry me?"
Maddy, Zap, and even Yahoot (who had come out to watch the commotion) sat there, eagerly anticipating the response and silently cheering Match on. Master, he hoped that she would say yes. Let her say yes, let her say yes...
A huge smile crossed Leda's face, and she reached out to grasp his hands. "Yes! Yes, I would!"
As Match slipped the ring on her finger and she held it up, admiring it, as his former WWW colleagues whooped and clapped, he felt like the luckiest man alive.
Pretty sure I dropped enough clues, but...
Leda is the hot dog stand lady outside of DenDome in BN4. Her name literally means "lady". This might amuse a few people (you all know who you are), but I almost named her Leto. Irene is the fish stick stand lady in Seaside Town in BN6. Her name was taken from one of the Navigators of the cancelled Rockman Online. Match's first name, Kenneth, was decided upon with me wanting to keep "Ken" in his name that his Japanese name (Hino Kenichi, or Hinoken) had.
I decided to have Kai, Mameo, and Kyuuta cameo. Kai was established to be younger than Lan in ACDC Elementary. He doesn't look quite Yai's age, so I put him a year younger than Lan. Mameo and Kyuuta are named child characters from the EXE anime. In the anime, they were the operator of Asteroid-PlantMan and LeagueMan respectively.
I just mashed the names of the tournaments from the two versions of Battle Network 4 (Den and City, Eagle and Hawk) tournament together into something that made sense (Den City is the name of the city, and an Eaglehawk is a real animal). If you're curious as to which one I used for Lan's final tournament for this verse, it was Red Sun purely because it was the one that I played first. The tourneys themselves also lasted longer, with there being enough rounds for Lan to face every possible opponent in both versions of BN4.
As always, please read and review. Reviews seriously encourage me to keep writing because it lets me know at least someone is reading.