New Megaman Battle Network
A complete reimagining of the universe and stories of Megaman Battle Network.
Story 4: Gaussian Process
Chapter 3: A Pleasure to Burn
"Lan, you should really watch where you're going."
Lan kept his eyes down, on his PET, as he walked quickly through the busy streets of downtown. "It's fine, I can see. I'm not going to hit anybody."
"Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?" Megaman inquired. "The arcade isn't going anywhere."
"Just want to get in as much time as possible." Lan quickly stopped himself from walking through a busy crosswalk into oncoming traffic. "Mayl's coming over later to study for the test this week, so I need to make the most of the time I have."
"Seems to me like today isn't the best day to practice, then," Megaman offered. "Why not a day when you aren't pressed for time? You could go tomorrow, when Mayl's busy with her piano recital you aren't going to."
Lan rolled his eyes. "Come on, don't you start with me again, too." He crossed the street quickly as the crosswalk changed, as his Navi smirked at him.
"Wait a minute." Realization flashed across Megaman's face. "This isn't about yesterday, is it? Please tell me this isn't because you got a 98 instead of a 99."
"I mean…" Lan faltered, not expecting to be caught out. "Not entirely…"
"You can't be serious," Megaman sighed. "We literally have the highest known rating out of anyone. It's nearly impossible to do better."
"But it's not impossible." Lan started weaving back and forth through people. "I need to be as good as I can be. If I can keep anyone else from getting hurt, then it's worth it."
"Lan…" His Navi sighed again, looking down for a moment, contemplative. He looked back up to speak again, but instead of his operator, Megaman only saw the sky. He cocked his head, confused. "Lan? You there?"
In the real world, Lan was sitting up and rubbing his face, having been knocked to the ground by a collision with another pedestrian. "Ow…" He looked forward at the other person he had collided with, apologizing, when he suddenly paused, recognizing the other boy he had knocked down, with his brown hair and yellow sweater. "Tory! Are you alright?"
The other boy sat up a bit, holding his head. "Lan?" His brown eyes managed to find his accidental assailant, smiling a bit despite the situation. This was Tory Froid, another student at Lan's school; they didn't have homeroom together, but they had lunch together every so often, and they were friendly whenever their paths crossed, physically in this case.
"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Lan stood up, offering Tory his hand. "I wasn't looking where I was going… my fault…"
"It's alright, I'm not hurt." Tory took the hand offered to him, standing up. "You must really be in a hurry, huh? Where are you going?"
"Well, um…" Lan looked away, suddenly embarrassed about the situation. "The arcade… sort of…"
His friend's eyes lit up, and he grinned. "Really? I'm going there, too. We should head there together!"
Lan grinned and nodded, thankful that Tory hadn't called him out for racing dangerously through downtown for such a reason. "Sure! We can practice Netbattling against each other."
Tory laughed. "You really want me to fight against Megaman? I'm going to get crushed against you two."
"Oh, don't say that. You're fine as a Netbattler. It'll be fun!" They grinned and chatted with each other as they made their way to the arcade, now at a more reasonable pace.
Thirty minutes later, Lan and Tory were standing at opposite sides of a Netbattle cabinet, their two Navis battling inside its Cyberworld. Lan watched as Megaman jumped through the air, dodging giant ice blocks being hurled in his direction, getting knocked away by the last one. He skidded to a stop on the ground, quickly getting back to his feet, grinning and complimenting his opponent on a well-placed shot.
"That won't be the only one!" his opponent squeaked, rushing forward. Tory's Navi, Iceman, was a humanoid Navi of short stature, covered head-to-toe in winter gear, including a large parka that obscured most of his head. He leaped into the air, swiping his arm through the air several times, each one sending an ice blade in his opponent's direction. Megaman dodged each one, taking a Minibomb and rolling it right into Iceman's path; the smaller Navi panicked, trying to change direction somehow, but the explosion sent him flying.
Tory groaned a bit, still enjoying himself, but now struggling to think of ways to win the fight. He wiped some sweat from his brow, surprised at how much the battle had worked him up. "Come on, Iceman! We'll find Megaman's weak point somehow!"
Lan grinned, similarly wiping sweat from his forehead. "You can try!" He looked down into his PET. "Megaman! Let's turn up the heat!"
His Navi smirked back at him, seeing his flushed face, the sweat forming on his forehead. "Looks like someone already has." He turned his attention back to Iceman, receiving a Long Sword and dashing forward, taking multiple swipes at his opponent. Iceman took several large leaps back, putting out his hands to summon several ice blocks to get in Megaman's way; his eyes widened in surprise when he saw them appear, less than half of the size they should have been.
"Wh… what happened?" He looked down at his hands. "Why couldn't I summon more ice?" Megaman stopped short and lowered his sword, sensing something was wrong, as Iceman tried to summon an icicle barrage, which only came out as toothpicks.
"Iceman, what's happening? Are you alright?" Tory looked into his PET with concern, wiping more sweat from his forehead, realizing for the first time just how hot it was in the arcade. Lan noticed too, looking around to see if anyone else in the arcade was overheating, and it looked like just about everyone was. He was just about to say something when his thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang.
Several people cried out in surprise, jumping and turning toward the source of the sound, which was one of the heating units in the back corner of the arcade. The device quickly started issuing smoke in no small amounts, and many started to panic, running out of the building, almost leaving their PETs behind.
"The heating unit's on fire!" Lan exclaimed, turning toward Tory. "We need to get out of here!" He grabbed his PET cable and quickly jacked Megaman out, preparing to leave, but he was stopped by Tory grabbing his sleeve.
"Lan, I don't think that's it!"
"Huh?" Lan paused, stopping, wiping sweat from his eyes. "What do you mean? It's smoking!"
"But the Net is hot too!" He gestured toward his PET, where Iceman was still having trouble summoning any sort of ice. "This could be some sort of fire virus!"
"Maybe, but so what? This is still dangerous!"
"Well, we could do something about it!" Tory jacked out his Navi. "You're a hero, right? We could save this arcade if we delete the virus!"
Lan started to open his mouth to respond, before the weight of Tory's statement made an impact on him. He paused for a moment, never having thought that he would be an inspiration to someone in this way. Looking back into Tory's eyes, he couldn't find the strength to say no.
"Alright, but let's be careful. If it starts getting too hot, we have to get out of here." Tory nodded in response, and the two headed further back into the arcade, finding the heating unit and jacking into it, thankful that it had more than one maintenance port. Megaman and Iceman appeared inside the Cyberworld moments later, finding fires burning all around them.
"Definitely Net based…" Megaman muttered, as the two Navis started looking around for viruses. They paused upon hearing a sound not unlike a flamethrower, and as they started running toward it, they found not a collection of viruses, but a bright red-and-black Navi, shooting fire everywhere he could see.
Megaman readied his buster, aiming it at the Navi. "Hold it! Stop what you're doing!" The Navi chuckled, turning around to face the two, who were able to get a better look at him. His frame was mainly black, but the armor on his chest, arms and legs was red, with yellow stripes. Jets of blue-hot flame issues from his helmet, as well as his arms.
"Isn't it beautiful?" He gestured around to the flames all around, burning up the Cyberworld. "The dance of the flames as they lick the air, reducing everything around them to ash… everything eventually burns down to the same thing." He started walking toward the other two Navis. "It's poetic, really."
Megaman raised an eyebrow. "Is that why you're setting fires all over? You just like to burn things?"
The enemy Navi advanced. "I thought that was made pretty clear, Megaman."
The blue Navi's eyes narrowed, no longer surprised when random Navis recognized him, though it was no less worrying. "Well I'm not going to let you burn the entire Net down. Get ready, Iceman!" Beside him, Iceman adopted a fighter stance that betrayed his confidence; he still wasn't sure that he would be able to summon any ice if he needed to.
The enemy let out a derisive laugh. "There isn't a Navi alive that can stand up to the heat of Burnerman… you two won't be the first." He put his hands out in front of him, and a massive fire blast forced the two other Navis to dive out of the way, in opposite directions. Megaman summoned a Long Sword and an Energy Bomb, hurling the bomb at his foe, then pursuing with the sword when Burnerman jumped out of the way. He swiped away at his foe, but Burnerman was proving to be faster than Megaman anticipated, dodging the slices easily.
As those two fought, Iceman was trying his best to summon an ice attack, holding out his hands and trying to summon ice blocks, icicles, anything. No matter what he tried, only steam would issue forth from his hands, as if all of the water he could use had boiled away in the intense heat.
"Tory! I need some Battlechips!" His operator nodded, breathing hard as the intense heat started to wear on him, as he sent Iceman a handful of Cannons. The Navi felt them forming on his arms, and he took careful aim before firing. As Burnerman was busy sparring with Megaman, he felt himself knocked to the side by a blast to the head, disorienting him briefly; he was barely able to dodge the next sword swipe, but Megaman followed it up with a strong punch to the head, sending him flying.
Lan grinned a bit, wiping sweat from his forehead and eyes, now drenched and eager to see this battle reach a hasty conclusion. "Keep it up, you two! He can't fight both of you off!" The Navis nodded in agreement, each of them unleashing on Burnerman with a barrage of Battleship attacks, forcing the Navi to be on the constant defensive. He started wildly firing flame blasts around, but his aim wasn't good enough to stop the onslaught, and he soon found himself with several Minibombs exploding in his face, blasting him away and knocking him to the ground.
"Grr…" He got to his feet, watching his two foes advance on him. "You think you two know what heat is? You have no idea!" He clenched his fists and focused, the flames shooting out of his helmet turning white-hot, and both Megaman and Iceman noticed the air around them getting substantially hotter. The air immediately around Burnerman was starting to glow, due to the sheer levels of heat that were being summoned.
Megaman had to stop and steel himself for a moment, bracing himself from the high temperatures; he watched Burnerman advance, the air around him appearing to shimmer. He could tell that getting any closer was going to be a death sentence.
"Lan! Do you have any water chips that I could use?"
Lan started fumbling through his chip folder, trying to find something that his Navi could use; the arcade was only getting hotter, the heating unit starting to emit flames, and his vision was starting to swim. He managed to track down an Aqua Blade and an Aqua Tower, and he slotted both of them in after a couple of tries.
"Here, Mega…" He was audibly out of breath as he spoke. "These should help…"
Megaman gritted his teeth, able to hear the toll that the heat was taking on Lan, and resolving to end this battle as quickly as possible. He activated the Aqua Tower and slammed his hands into the ground, watching towers of water shooting up in front of him, traveling toward his opponent. As they approached, though, they started to fizzle away, and by the time they touched Burnerman, they had turned to nothing but steam.
"What…" He started walking backwards, firing buster shots and Cannons in his enemy's direction, but they exploded several feet in front of Burnerman, detonated by the high temperatures around the Navi. "What are we supposed to do now?"
Burnerman grinned wide. "I don't know." He stuck his hand out, firing a number of blue fire blasts in Megaman's direction; he dodged as many as he could, but a couple of them still connected, and he flew backward toward Iceman, who jumped and kneeled next to the fallen blue Navi.
"Megaman! Are you alright?"
"I've been better…" He got to one knee. "Any luck with the ice?"
Iceman shook his head. "I can't draw any water out of the air! He's evaporating all of it! I'm sorry…"
"Huh… so you need water?" He got to his feet, getting an idea and looking upward. "Lan! Activate AquaCustom style!"
Lan nodded, breathing hard and wiping more sweat out of his eyes, which were now stinging. He was now fighting to keep himself from blacking out, as Tory slumped against the wall next to him; his fingers fumbled through menus for a few seconds, before finally accessing the style menu. He tapped on AquaCustom style before slumping and falling into a sitting position.
"There… s'all you now, Mega…"
Iceman looked upward, wondering what was happening, then jumping in surprise as Megaman transformed, his armor turning a lighter blue as his Custom pack appeared on his back. He reached down and grabbed Iceman, who yelped as he was tossed onto Megaman's back.
"Alright, Iceman, here's your water! I shoot, you freeze, got it?"
Iceman nodded, and the two of them looked toward their advancing foe, who grinned a curious grin upon seeing one of the Navis riding piggyback on the other.
"Playtime, is it?" He chuckled, shooting a flamethrower blast at the pair, who quickly dodged to the side. Megaman charged up a buster shot and fired it at Burnerman, watching as it turned into a glob of water upon leaving his gun. Iceman reacted quickly, freezing the air around Megaman's buster, turning it into an ice projectile. Burnerman's eyes widened a bit as he saw the ice flying toward him; it started melting as it approached, but not enough, and the blast managed to knock the Navi off his feet for a minute.
"That's the way!" Megaman grinned, glancing back at Iceman. "Let's teach this pyromaniac a lesson!" The smaller Navi nodded, energized, and the two of them started making their advance. They fired off ice blast after ice blast at their foe, who found himself pelted by a number of them; he wasn't able to move quickly while summoning his heat barrier, and in the face of all these fast attacks, he was more or less a sitting duck. He tried to retaliate with fire blasts, but his opponents were way too fast, and they just left him wide open.
"You… you two are getting on my last nerve!" He growled, having little choice of what to do now, and clenched his fists again, the fiery aura around him starting to dissipate. As the air started to return to normal, he dashed forward as fast as he could, hoping to catch them off guard with a flamethrower blast to the face. Megaman was ready, however, and bent backward to dodge out of the way; as he came back up, he summoned the Aqua Blade on his hand, and drove it deep into Burnerman's shoulder.
"Gyah!" Burnerman screamed in pain, furious, as Megaman swung the blade upward, nearly separating Burnerman's arm from the rest of him, The red-and-black Navi staggered back, holding his wound, as the Navi pair stood tall in front of him, ready to finish the job.
"You two… you're ruining everything… you're ruining my perfect Net!" Megaman watched him as he raged, studying his eyes; his eyebrows raised when he noticed a strange purple aura swimming through Burnerman's eyes. He was certain he had seen that somewhere before.
"I can't win like this…" Burnerman stepped back. "You two got lucky… if we ever meet again, things are going to be very different…" Megaman and Iceman watched as he turned into a beam of light and flew up into the sky of the Cyberworld, jacking out of the heating unit and returning to the broader Net.
Megaman sighed in relief, as Iceman hopped off of his back. "Thank goodness that's over…" He looked around at the flames that still raged all around, and started using his AquaCustom attacks to put them out. "Lan! Are you alright out there?" He waited for a response, starting to panic when none arrived; he summoned a screen to see out of his PET, but saw only the ceiling of the arcade. He realized that the PET had been dropped again, and he started hurrying to put out the remaining fires along with Iceman, worrying about what had happened to his brother.
"Lan? Lan! Are you alright?"
A few minutes later, Lan found himself being shook awake. He blinked, not realizing that he had passed out, his vision taking a minute to return to him. He looked up at the figure currently shaking his shoulder, finding a sweat-drenched Tory looking down at him.
Tory sighed in relief. "Thank goodness… I was really starting to worry. Are you okay?"
"I feel kind of sick… and I'm really thirsty…" Lan took some deep breaths, the air no longer feeling like it was burning in his throat. "But I think I'm okay."
Tory nodded, handing Lan a water bottle full of water, which was marked with a firefighters' logo; behind him, a handful of firefighters were jacking into various devices, making sure everything was in working order. "You scared me when you passed out like that."
Lan drank down the entire bottle of water before answering. "Told you it was dangerous… but I'm glad that we won." He started getting to his feet, his legs shaky at first, but strength starting to return to them.
"I'm sorry that happened," Tory offered. "I guess saving the day isn't all it's cracked up to be."
"Don't worry about it." He bent down to pick up his PET, glancing down to make sure Megaman was okay, which he was. "Let's just get some fresh air…" Tory nodded, and the two walked outside, Lan following Tory back toward the suburbs.
"Ugh…" Tory looked down at himself, drenched in sweat and rather uncomfortable. "I need a shower, now. Maybe two."
Lan smirked a bit, nodding in agreement as his strength continued to return to him. He'd have to get himself well and truly cleaned up before Mayl showed up, not wanting her to have any idea that anything was wrong.
"No, Lan, you know that's not the answer."
Lan sighed, lying back on his bed, holding a notebook; he had gotten himself a meal and a shower since returning home, and was now taking it easy. Mayl was seated nearby in his computer chair, holding a textbook. "You don't need to say it like that…"
"Well, we've been over this three times already!" She turned toward him, studying his face. "You seem really out of it tonight. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Lan said initially, before thinking better of the idea. "Well… I mean, I guess I'm fine…"
"You look sick." She put the textbook aside, sitting up and walking over to Lan, putting the back of her hand against his forehead.
"Hey, what are you, my mom?" He brushed her hand away, sitting up, as she sighed.
"Well, sick or not, I don't think this is helping anymore. You're totally out of it."
He sat up more, his legs hanging off the edge of his bed. "Sorry… it's been kind of a day…"
She shook her head. "Well, we can try again Wednesday, or Thursday. There's plenty of time before the test still." She walked back over to the computer, grabbing the textbook and putting it into her backpack.
"Alright, let's do that." He hopped off the bed, heading into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Mayl continued packing up, sliding her own notebook into her backpack, when an alert sound from Lan's computer caused her eyes to dart over toward his monitor; a new email had popped up on the screen, body and all. She ignored it at first, but then looked again, surprised to see the sender: Princess Angelica Pride. She blinked, eyes glancing over the subject line, which seemed unusually conversational. Her eyes drifted down to the email body automatically, unable to stop herself from reading.
A minute later, Lan walked out of the bathroom, back toward his room. "I'll see you…" He stopped dead, eyes widening and the remaining color draining from his face as he saw the email on his screen, Mayl's eyes fixed on it.
"What are you doing?!" Mayl jumped and practically flew away from the computer, as Lan raced over to it, hiding the email as quickly as he could. "Why were you reading that?!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Her face was completely red, not just from embarrassment at being caught, but from the contents of the email itself. "It just popped up, and I… I couldn't stop myself…"
"How much of this did you read?!" He quickly scanned the email contents, his stomach dropping as he realized just how revealing it was.
"Um… enough…" Mayl looked down, face still red.
"Great…" Lan held his face in his hands, elbows on his desk. "So you know." She nodded quietly, and the two of them sat in mortified silence for a minute.
Lan finally spoke up. "Please, don't tell anyone about this…"
Mayl glanced up. "How come?"
"Because it's embarrassing!"
"What? Why?" She cocked her head, confused. "What's embarrassing about a long-distance girlfriend? Especially one who's an actual princess?"
"It…" Lan tried to find an explanation to justify the embarrassment he was feeling, coming up short. "It just is! Please, you can't tell anyone!"
"Alright, alright!" Mayl held up her hands, not about to work her way through Lan's social neuroses. "I won't tell anyone, I promise." She paused for a moment, a devious grin spreading across her face. "…On one condition."
Lan froze, eyes locked on her, not expecting that response. "Wh… what condition?"
She grinned wide, leaning in, hands clasped behind her back. "Oh, I think you know." She grabbed her backpack and slid it onto her back, walking out of Lan's room. "See you tomorrow night."
Lan watched her go, dumbfounded. He tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened, before deciding that the day had just been too much. He stood up and walked back over to his bed, collapsing onto it face down, waiting for sleep to overtake him.
