Day 1 - Graduation Notices
Clothes were littered all over the ground. He hadn't had time to clean them up last night after the whole running around to get ready for the big day. Ignoring the chiming of his PET, a brunette teen lay asleep on his bed.
"Lan! Lan! Come on, get up! You don't want to miss your own graduation do you?!" Megaman yelled. Even after all these years, his brother still couldn't get up on time. The blue navi was still amazed that he had even gotten on the honor roll. The blue navi sighed as he put a hand on his helmet. He had been yelling for ten whole minutes; he had even woken up early to make sure that Lan wasn't going to oversleep. But yet, here they were replaying the same scene that they had been their whole life. He wondered if Roll ever had to put up with this. Wait, Roll! An idea came to Megaman as he thought of his pink friend and he immediately started dialing the number for Mayl's PET.
"Lan! I've got your favorite! Shrimp curry with fried rice! Just the way you like it!" a female voice yelled.
The boy shuffled in his sleep but still didn't seem to be in the mood to wake up. Megaman looked back nervously at the teen. He was fresh out of ideas. He had even told him that he was going to release his baby pictures on the school network and still nothing had worked.
Her brown eyes sparkled deviously as she thought of a new tactic, "Lan! If you don't get up, I'm going to the beach without you!" Lan said, bolting out of his bed, "I'm up! I'm up!" He glanced around the room quickly before realizing that he had been asleep. A dream then? When he looked over to the computer screen he realized that the voice was none other than Mayl's. His brother, Hub Hikari (also known as Megaman . EXE), was trying his best not to laugh at his brother's wake up call. He walked up to his desk and picked up his PET.
"Mayl, why are you calling me? It's 10:00 in the morning." As Lan checked the time, his eyes bulged, "10:00! Why didn't you wake me up earlier, Megaman?!" Lan said as he ran into his bathroom.
"Believe me, I tried!" Megaman responded as Lan closed his door. It was a good thing that Lan had actually listened to him and left his gown out to not only get rid of the wrinkles but so that this wouldn't be even more of a rush.
Megaman turned towards call screen, "Thanks Mayl! I swear I'm leaving up to you to break him. I've think I've done my time. Tell Roll I said hi!"
"Will do. See ya whenever Lan gets here." Mayl laughed and ended the call.
Within twenty minutes, Lan had told his parents goodbye and that he would see them at the graduation. All the ACDC High School students had to report an hour early and so it made no sense for his parents to come with him now. Of course, his mother made him stay an extra ten minutes in order to take photos which would go in her album.
As Lan's train rolled into Den Dome station, he immediately skated off the train and towards the building that he had fought the Den City tournament in all those years ago. The dome was large enough to host a graduation, so ACDC High had decided to hold the ceremony there.
As he entered into the building, Lan quickly ran into the bathroom and changed into his cap and gown. How he had managed to get the thing on without wrinkling or destroying it only heaven knew. After a couple minutes, he came out wearing his blue robe with Megaman's symbol on it. The famous emblem of his navi was placed right above his heart. Each graduating operator had his or her navi emblem placed on their gown. It was a nice special touch honoring their partners for all the help over the years.
Now that he was there, Lan decided to try and find his friends. They were probably all together talking, but the crowd was huge! Lan sighed as he made his way through the crowd, "This is going to take a minute." He groaned.
"You know, if you had just gotten up earlier you could've been here already," Megaman chimed, smirking.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He responded as he noticed that Yai, Dex, and Mayl were in the corner talking amongst themselves.
Yai had actually grown several feet, shooting up to the wonderful height of five foot one, a generous height seeing as she had always been the short stop of the group. Despite her still small size, she was still the rich girl that she was always. Although she was in her cap and gown now, she normally wore a red blouse with dress slacks as opposed to her old red dress she used to wear. She had decided somewhere in between middle school and high school that she needed to look as beautifully professional as she could at all times of the day. She had also decided to wear her hair down rather than in the long two pigtails. Of course, she was much less bratty now, but if someone got her talking about her money…well be prepared for a long conversation.
Dex had actually trimmed down a bit from his early pudgy years, despite still applying way too much gel on that weird point he called his hair. Now, his bulk came more from his muscles than it did from fat; he had done some of the sports teams during high school but never really dedicated himself to any of them in particular. This allowed him to move down a couple shirt sizes and actually fit into a large-sized t- shirt. It was still yellow and bore Gutsman's emblem on the right side of it, but he had taken to wearing jeans now instead of shorts. Occasionally, he could be seen wearing a black jacket. His net battling skills had gotten a lot better; but he wasn't so arrogant about them anymore. In fact, he was a lot better in giving the title of "Number 1 Net Battler of ACDC" to Lan now more than he was in younger years. Of course, that was after Megaman had kicked Gutsman's butt in a Netbattle for the umpteenth time.
Mayl retained much of her cuteness from her elementary school years. Now though, she had added maturity and had become a beautiful young woman. She had lost her vest style and had adopted wearing a pink t-shirt and blue jeans. Her red hair was now at mid back length and she dropped the hairpin from her style as well. Instead, she often wore a bandanna around her head that had Roll's navi mark on them. Lan had dropped the style in favor of tying his around his arm, though some said he was just being considerate of his girlfriend and didn't want her to be labeled as a copycat.
Yes, during sophomore year Lan finally had muddled his way through his denseness and asked out the teen who had had a crush on him since the 5th grade. Of course, Megaman and Roll had had a convenient involvement with the couple's second ever date. But soon enough, only two and a half weeks after Lan and Mayl had gotten together, Roll and Megaman also joined their NetOps in becoming a couple, despite their confrontation being more heated than their human friends and family. Like NetOp, like navi.
Lan crept up close behind them and gave Mayl a hug.
"Nice of you to wake up." Mayl laughed as she turned around and repeated the gesture, "Though really? That got you up?" She asked as the teen blushed. It wasn't his fault that he thought his girlfriend was the most beautiful person he had ever seen in his life. Boy...had he been hit hard by Cupid, who he had a somewhat suspicion was Roll in some kind of disguise.
"Yeah, for a second there we thought you weren't going to show." Dex commentated, offer his hand for a shake.
"Even after all these years, you still can't wake up. Unbelievable. Mayl, how do you deal with him?" Yai shook her head.
"You've just got to give him some kind of incentive. Like refusing to take him on a certain date." Mayl smirked.
"You're evil, you know that?" Lan said, releasing Mayl from the hug.
"Me? Evil? Lan, I have no idea what you're talking about!" Mayl smiled coyly, feigning innocence.
The group laughed at the couple's antics. How old were they now, eighteen? Oh how time flies.
"No. Not now." someone right behind Lan said, tearing the brunette's attention away from the scene at hand. The group turned their attention to the distressed voice. It was a service man. He was dressed in a green dress shirt and slacks for the occasion, but his name tag and green cap gave away his occupation. He seemed kind of nervous about something.
"Are you okay sir?" Lan asked.
"No, I'm not. I just got a report from the tech guys in the sound booth. Apparently, there's been a virus outbreak in the system. But my navi is busy doing some errands for me; so I can't go and delete them. Oh, this is going to be a disaster if we can't get rid of them. The ceremony begins in a few minutes!"
"Well, what if I delete them for you?" Lan offered.
"Really you would? Thank you! Oh, thank you! Come on, follow me. I can show you where the system is."
"Jack in, Megaman, Execute!" Lan said as he sent Megaman into the cyber world.
When Megaman touched down, he looked around the area to find the cause of the confusion. Sure enough, three Mettaurs were running around and swinging their pickaxes in the air. The nervous Mr. Programs had backed themselves up to the edge of the world as various shock waves came towards them. Megaman never really knew what to think about the viruses. Sure later versions of them were deadly, but the first forms of them just seemed to adorable to actually cause trouble. Then again, he had raised a couple of them that one time. Maybe they had left an impression?
"Help! Please Help Us! I Don't Want To Die!" one of the programs yelled.
"Lan!" Megaman called, throwing away his own opinion. Cute or not, the viruses had to go.
"Already ahead of you. Cannon! Download!"
A green cannon appeared in the place of Megaman's hand and he fired. The blast not only destroyed the first Mettaur, but caused the others to turn to him as well. They weren't too happy about him killing their friends.
"MET!" one of the cutely capped virus struck the ground and fired a shock wave at him. Megaman dived out the way as Lan downloaded another set of chips.
"Area Steal! Cyber Sword! Download!"
Just as one Mettaur sent a shockwave at Megaman, the blue navi disappeared and surged forward. The cannon changed into a blue sword and the navi slashed the second Mettaur. At that moment, he felt Lan's presence around him. His body began to glow faintly. They had just entered Full Synchro.
"Shotgun! Download!" Lan yelled. The blade transformed into Megaman's default weapon, the Megabuster, and he fired. Normally, the attack would have been too weak to outright delete a Mettaur. But due to the power of Full Synchro, the Shotgun had more than enough power to do the job. The last Mettaur was destroyed before it even got a chance to say "Met?"
With the viruses gone, the system returned back to normal and the graduation was able to commence without any problems. After they had all received their diplomas and the ceremony was completed, the families returned back to Yai's mansion for a party.
In the cyber world, the navis just sat around and talked with one another. After a few hours, the families started to shuffle out and bid their good nights to one another. By 10:00, everyone had left to return home. Lan and Mayl, however, had split from his parents and took a more scenic route to their houses. It was a pretty commonly known that Mayl's father wasn't around nearly as much as he should be.
"So, what are you going to do now that school's over?" Lan asked. Mayl seemed to be in more than an upbeat mood, apparently not trying to take her father's disappearance to heart.
"Maybe I'll just enjoy this summer for once. Every other summer I was always doing homework and this is my last summer before college." Mayl responded.
"I wish I could take it easy like you."
"You always wish that you could take it easy. So what are you doing now, Mr. Busy Body."
"Well, if you must ask, Dad wants me helping him at SciLab. If I do well enough, maybe I could get some kind of internship later on down the line. I'm starting tomorrow."
"That's great, Lan! How come you didn't tell me until today?"
"Uh…it skipped my mind?"
"Well, I'm proud of you. I know you're going to do great. Maybe I will take you on that beach trip after all."
"I hope so. On both topics." Lan chuckled before Mayl grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss.
"So you guys are going to be working SciLab, huh?" Roll asked, her eyes filled with curiosity.
"Yeah, I just hope we won't get too busy," Megaman replied back.
"Afraid you won't get to see me enough?"
"Na, I'm afraid I won't have enough time to sleep at night."
Roll laughed and gently punched the navi in his chest, "Sure you are."
The two navis just sat in Megaman's PET homepage just being close to each other. Sometimes, that was all they needed. Roll was just happy that she could appreciate such a relationship. Being the first Soul navi, she was as human as any navi could get. This allowed her to truly understand emotions, which in turn allowed her to have a human-like romantic relationship with Mega. She understood what love truly meant and at the end of the day, that was all they cared about.
"Hub?"
"Yeah, Roll?"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
And sometimes, that's all the conversation they ever needed.
Mayl smiled at Lan as they reached her door, "See you tomorrow when you get back okay?"
"Got it." Lan said as his girlfriend gave him a hug and was about to enter her house.
"Good night, Lan."
"Good night, Mayl."
After Mayl left, Lan went back to his own home and collapsed into his bed. The whole day had been exhausting and he needed to get some sleep before tomorrow's big day.
"Night, Megaman." Lan mumbled.
"Night, Lan." Megaman said as the two brothers both fell to sleep.
I like this chapter. :3 - Gavzilla
Really, I thought you had something against it. I mean, tutorial Mettuars were just killed… - Ghost
Well... I got over it. - Gavzilla
Hurrah! Alright folks, in terms of this chapter...it was overall trying to bring people back into the game feel of things. Also, it helps with knowing how Full Synchro is being handled from here on out. - Ghost
At first (As I was BETA reading this) I didn't know that he was trying to make it a GAME feel. So... I kinda said that this story sucks and all that good stuff an angry BETA reader tells the author. - Gavzilla
Yeah, I'll excuse you all from seeing the almost Rage Quit of later chapters featured by our dinosaur navi friend… - Ghost
Yea... - Gavzilla
Oh...so before this story gets any further I'm going to cause Gavzilla to become angry. *Ahem.* Originally, in You're Not Alone, Roll was supposed to be a human name Aiko Itumi. However, that idea was later scrapped and now she's a Soul Navi. Take it away Gavzilla! - Ghost
OMG! THAT WAS THE STUPIDEST IDEA EVER! I didn't read You're Not Alone before I read DN; so, it was just out of nowhere when Ghost said that Roll was a human! I sent a very long message to Ghost that day... - Gavzilla
That was actually his only nitpick about this chapter...and also the Mettaurs… - Ghost
Should we tell them about I'm Tired? - Gavzilla
You mean the story that doesn't exist anymore? Um...no… I'd rather not invoke a paradox. I think that thing is still in my trash can…. - Ghost
Yea... I sent also an equally long message that day to Ghost... - Gavzilla
You've probably written three chapters worth of material in those messages...but let's face it. People don't want to hear about this. They want to know what's going on with Amnesia. - Ghost
*cough* *cough* Is it just cold in here? Or is it just me? *Gavzilla runs out of the message* - Gavilla
Well, since he left...see you all next Friday on Day 2! - Ghost
Edit 5/19/14: Edit to wake-up scene. Added description of Dex, Mayl, and Yai. Since the Cyber World never really changed, navis don't really change their appearance. No changes made to tutorial battle. Small changes made to dialogue all around.