Megaman Battle Network Omega
Chapter 1: The Gamma Designation
Lan stared hard at the computer screen. He had to concentrate now; failure was not an option, not with all the time he had invested. He concentrated intensely, trying desperately to determine the answer...he was so close...
"You can do it, Lan!" Megaman encouraged. "Just focus! You can finish this!"
Lan nodded; he could do this, he had to do it...he just needed a little more time...
"Eureka!" He grinned a victory grin and typed in his answer: 13. The homework program gave a small fanfare to acknowledge that he was done, then closed itself. Lan leaned back in his chair. "Piece of cake!"
"And all it took you was an hour and a half," Megaman remarked sarcastically, but he wasn't too upset. Anytime Lan actually did his homework was no time to be critical.
Lan leaped up from his chair and sped down the stairs, waving bye to his mother before grabbing his shoes and running out the door. "Let's go see the big surprise that Dad has at his office!" he exclaimed, as he pulled the wheels out of his shoes and began to skate his way to SciLab.
----------
Lan had learned that his dad had a surprise for him earlier in the day. He had been practically snoozing off during a particularly boring class when his PET notified him of e-mail. Looking at it secretly under his desk, he saw his father had a surprise he was going to unveil later in the day, at his office; Lan, however, had to have finished his homework before coming to see it. After a quick detention for doing e-mail during class, he had rushed home to get it done, and thus he found himself speeding toward SciLab later that day.
"What do you think your dad has at his office?" Megaman wondered excitedly. "Maybe it's some awesome new BattleChip!"
"Nah." Lan shook his head. "I bet it's an awesome new PET! With more storage and features and stuff..." Lan wondered in his mind as he sped down the street, and eventually walked through the doors to SciLab.
People were everywhere; business suits were filling rooms and corridors in all directions. This is bigger than I thought, Lan figured as he wove his way around bigwigs to try and get to his dad's office. Eventually he made it to the elevator, going up and running through the door to his dad's office.
"Dad!" Lan called out, looking around the office. At first glance, he was nowhere to be found. "Dad!" Lan called again, checking in the more discreet areas of the office, but he was indeed nowhere. Lan slumped into his dad's office chair, and spotted a note left on his desk, addressed to Lan. He picked it up and read it aloud for Megaman's benefit:
"Lan - I'm in the presentation hall, getting ready to unveil my big surprise. The presentation starts at 5; come on down and take a look! - Dad"
"Well, let's get down there!" Megaman said. "That's in ten minutes, we should go see!"
Lan nodded and got up with a bit less enthusiasm, upon knowing that this special thing wasn't a gift for him. He headed back down the elevator, and made his way through a maze of blue suits until he got to the presentation hall. This was an even fuller area than before, and Lan had to look about for a good while before finding a good seat.
"Look at all these people," Megaman remarked. "With this many businessmen here, it must be a big SciLabs project that's going to be affecting a lot of businesses and computers. You may want to pay attention, Lan!"
Lan nodded impatiently; he was less concerned with what exactly was going to be seen, but was still a little interested. Nonetheless, he was in no way one to sit still for a long while, and he was anxious to get this over with. Soon, the lights dimmed, and the presentation area up front was lit up. The red curtain was soon blocked by a large white screen, for a projector, and Dr. Hikari walked onstage waving, to moderate applause; Lan perked up and listened in more closely.
Dr. Hikari tapped the microphone a couple of times with his finger before beginning to speak. "I'd like to thank you all for coming to this presentation. I promise you all you won't be disappointed, and if any of you are, I'll ask you to make a donation so we can do better next time." The crowd laughed gently, and Hikari paused to adjust his glasses before continuing.
"I'll just go right into it...we here at SciLab, through algorithm investigation, compression techniques, and other boring technobabble, have produced a newer, stronger encoding mechanism for security systems and NetNavis, with the help of our development partner, Thinking Big Industries. Following in the footsteps of Alpha and Beta, we are currently calling this the Gamma designation." He pressed a button in front of him, and a projector in the back of the room fired up, projecting "GAMMA" onto the screen in large, stylish letters. Dr. Hikari continued, pressing another button to bring up a more technical screen.
"Unlike Alpha and Beta, Gamma is leaps and bounds above its predecessors in terms of strength and effectiveness. The key point of interest, however, is that Gamma is the first such enhancement that can principally be applied to security systems." Another press, and the screen switched to a tough computer boxing with a tough Navi, and winning. The audience chuckled, and Lan listened in closer, eager to hear about the NetNavis.
"Gamma is primarily geared toward defense, so while it can be applied to NetNavis also, a Gamma-enhanced Navi won't be able to get into a Gamma-enhanced system. Nevertheless, both will have been strengthened greatly." The screen changed to a large computer tower protected by Navis with a gamma symbol on their chests. "This could allow for an additional security measure, as you can see here." At this, the lights went back up, and the projector turned off. Everyone looked around briefly, confused, before Lan's father went on.
"Instead of showing you a bunch of slides to try and convince you, we're going to give a live demonstration." The curtain parted, and behind it was a large supercomputer, with an equally large video screen next to it. "Here, we have a regularly secured supercomputer." He turned on the video screen, to show several official Navis ready to take on the security system. "Let's see how it stands up to a squad of official Navis."
The entire audience leaned in to see as the Navis began to make their way through security with ease; Lan, stuck in the back row, resorted to standing on his chair. Before too long, the security of the system had been compromised, and the Navis did a miniature victory dance before the screen was turned off. Dr. Hikari walked over to the computer and installed a disk into it, and began to type on a nearby keyboard.
"Now, I am reprogramming this computer with the new Gamma system. I will be changing nothing else about the security or the Navi team." Soon he was finished, and the screen turned back on, where the Navis were ready for round 2. This time, try as they could, they were unable to get past the system's very tough defenses, and one by one the expert Navi team was taken down. The audience applauded politely once again, and the curtain closed.
"Instead of boring you with more of a presentation, outside of this presentation hall there are some more hands-on exhibits for you to examine at your leisure. You can also talk to any of our representatives about purchasing this system for your own use if you are so inclined." Suddenly a timer appeared on the screen, powered by the projector; Hikari gestured to it. "As soon as this timer finishes, in about ten minutes time, the entire SciLab system will be converted to this new Gamma designation, and thus significantly more impossible to access. It's a show of good faith, and of our confidence in this newfound system, over everything that protected SciLab that came beore it."
Dr. Hikari adjusted his glasses once again. "On behalf of SciLab, I'd like to thank you all for coming to see this presentation, and I urge you to explore the uses of our system outside. Thank you, and have a good day."
----------
Lan walked out with the other suits, his hands in his pockets, not horribly impressed. Megaman piped up.
"Lan, what did you think of the presentation? This could mean a lot for computer safety on the Internet, I'm really interested!"
Lan shrugged in response. "I know it's important, but it just wasn't...cool. I still wish he had made some awesone new BattleChip, something I can really use in battle..." His eyebrows raised. "Hey, Megaman, you wouldn't be interested in getting an upgra-"
"Don't even think about it," Megaman interrupted. "I am quite fine with how I am now, thank you."
Lan rolled his eyes, and spied an exhibition booth that caught his interest, which he raced toward. It was entitled "Gamma Enhanced NetNavis", and it had a small computer nearby with a video screen featuring a gamma-branded Navi; this screen also had the countdown appear on it.
"Now here's something I can be interested in! Want to battle with a Gamma-enhanced Navi, Megaman?" Lan pulled out his PET and got it at the ready, as the booth attendant started typing in preparations for a quick match.
"Sure," Megaman consented. "It'll be fun to see how strong one of these Navis really is."
Lan grinned and set his PET up for battle. "You can kick any Navi's butt any day of the week, Megaman," he said, before quickly jacking in to the system, ready for battle. Megaman found himself on a large fighting arena, with the stock-built, yellow-and-black Gamma Navi on the opposite side, its dukes up. Megaman grinned, and took a fighting stance, as a counter went from 3, to 2, to 1, and then the battle began. Megaman rushed forward and started blasting with his buster, shots that the opponent easily dodged, much to Lan's surprise. The Gamma Navi then activated twin swords, one on each hand, and ran forward with amazing speed toward Megaman, slicing away; he just barely managed to dodge.
Lan, somewhat enjoying the challenge, somewhat concerned with the strength of this enemy, sent Megaman his own sword, which he tried to slice at the Gamma Navi with; it was easily parried, and a very fast-moving swordfight began. The Gamma Navi's two swords were equally matched to one from Megaman, but his advantage was growing. After another successful parry, the Gamma Navi jutted out its elbow, and managed to knock Megaman down on his back, taken by surprise. The Gamma Navi jumped, ready to strike victoriously, when the battle arena suddenly disappeared, along with any other backdrop this setting offered; the Gamma Navi fizzled and disappeared, lost with the system.
Outside of the computer, the lights all went off simultaneously in the exhibition area, and were replaced with red emergenvy lights, as well as panicked voices urging people over the loudspeaker to remain calm. All the bureaucrats were muttering nervously to one another, discussing a power outage, or a concealed attack, that may have been going on. Lan, more curious and alarmed, instantly jacked Megaman out and started running for a SciLab port.
"Lan! What's going on?" Megaman called out. "Was there a power outage or something?"
"I'm not sure!" Lan yelled back, finding a jack-in point for Megaman. "We're going to find out right now!" He whipped out his PET and aimed it for the port, instantly transporting Megaman to the cyberworld.
----------
One look around was all that was needed to know that this was no power outage; half-completed Gamma symbols dotted tall, square security structures that were partially destroyed, left and right, while viruses were tearing up the ground, and red and black covered the sky. Someone had hijacked the system in the middle of the installation, when the system was weaker. Megaman rushed forward, looking for the source of the trouble and blasting away the surprisingly weak viruses that dotted the area.
"This place is practically totaled!" he reported back to Lan. "Structures destroyed, viruses everywhere...whoever did this must destruction in this little time must be-"
Megaman didn't get to finish his thought. Something impacted him very heavily from the side, sending him flying into a half-demolished pillar. He rubbed his head as he climbed out of the rubble, looking around for his assailant. He found him quickly; a red and gold Navi marked with a V at the top of his head. He held a glowing green item in his hand, not unlike a file.
"Quickman? What are you doing here? I deleted you during the rise of Forte!"
Quickman laughed. "Yes, you did...I was salvaged by a more merciful Dr. Wily, who saw use for me in the WWW...many of my colleagues saw similar mercy." Quickman walked forward slowly, still bearing the file. "And I am not unappreciative...I will do Dr. Wily's bidding." He touched the object in his hand, and it teleported away into the cyberworld.
"What did you just do?" Megaman took a defensive stance. Quickman cackled once again.
"That was the hard copy of the Gamma program that was to be installed on this server. I have claimed it for the WWW...Dr. Wily will have great use for this. Soon, his grandest project will be complete!"
Megaman raised his eyebrows at this. "What project?"
Quickman grinned an evil grin. "It's not my place to say...it's merely my place to delete you!" As he finished speaking, three overlarge, unnatural claws sprung from his right hand, a sight that disturbed Megaman significantly. They were covered in a tattoo similar to that of Bugstyle, and commanded attention. Just as soon as they were finished extending, Quickman dashed toward Megaman and took a mighty swipe. Megaman just barely managed to dodge with a backbend; he didn't know what those claws were for, but he had no intention of being touched by them. Lan gave Megaman a much needed Crossgun as Quickman took off again, and the widespread fire caught Quickman several times. He got up, though, and dashed at Megaman once again, claws extended and ready to take a big chunk out of Megaman.
"Lan!" Megaman called out. "I need something to counter his speed with!" Megaman dove out of the way as Quickman hit his brakes and sliced, skidding to a hard stop. Megaman watched him skid like this, and got an idea. "I need an Area Steal and a Long Sword at the ready!"
"Coming right up!" Lan reported as he inserted an Area Steal and a Long Sword into his PET. Megaman didn't use either right away, instead watching and firing at Quickman as he circled around again. Quickman soon came back for one more swipe. "Now!" Megaman yelled, and he used his Area Steal to disappear just as Quickman swiped. Confused, he skidded to a hard stop right past where Megaman had been; immediately, Megaman appeared right where he had been, with Quickman in front of him, equipping his Long Sword and turning to chop Quickman clean in half.
"Yes!" Lan thrust his fist into the air with victory, as Megaman put away his sword and the two halves of Quickman fell to the ground. His breathing was staggered.
"So, this is how my service ends for now..." He laughed slowly. "It is well...I have already delivered the Gamma program to Master Wily, and soon our other source will fall right into our hands...perhaps you will see me again someday, Megaman!" He coughed, and then lay still as his body dissolved and was deleted. Megaman sighed, then warped out, back into his PET, the battle over.
----------
Ten minutes later, the system had been repaired, and all the potential customers reassured that this was not a failing of the Gamma system. As demonstrations tensely continued and the Gamma program was installed into SciLab once again, Lan found his father and reported the battle he had had with Quickman. Dr. Hikari listened intently, taking it in, growing more concerned with each word.
"Those claws...the tattoo you described is definitely not natural. I think I've heard of it before...I'll have to look into what it means." Hikari looked into Lan's PET, where Megaman was listening. "If you ever see those claws again, on another Navi, I want you to stay a good distance away from them." Megaman nodded in agreement, and Lan's father sighed.
"In any case, Wily now has the Gamma program...what havoc he could now wreak on the Net, who can say for sure." He looked at Lan as he stood up. "You and Megaman need to be extra careful when on the Net. You've foiled Wily enough times that he's going to have it out for you. I don't want you looking into things unnecessarily, do you understand?" He gave Lan a stern look, and Lan quickly nodded, thinking of how he can explore this without his father knowing. His father continued.
"You've defeated him in the past, but with this new weapon in his possession, he now has unknown power available to him...you should not be testing your strengths against him." He started for the door. "I need to go supervise the reinstallation of Gamma. You should probably go home to your mother, she's worried by now." And with that, he was gone.
Lan stretched and got up, walking toward the elevator. He and Megaman were thinking alike; Wily would have known Lan and Megaman would be present at such an event, and sending Quickman...he was trying to attack them directly after all.
"Megaman."
"Lan?"
"We're going to have to probably take care of this ourselves, you know." Lan's face was resolute.
"Probably," answered Megaman with the same resoluteness. "Do you think we can defeat him if he's powered by Gamma?"
Lan grinned his characteristic, optimistic grin. "Never know until we try, right?" And with that, he walked out of his door, back home.
Wait for MMBN: New Origins.