-Mega Man Battle Network
--Shadows of the Past
---Chapter 3: Investigations
"Dark... This is mortifying!"
I woke up instantly as I heard someone speak. I looked toward my new alarm clock to see the time, three in the morning, and Shadow Man was still recharging... Well, maybe he wasn't as I looked up. I could see he was leaning back with his head down. It reminded me of the day he thought he found something familiar. He showed all the signs of being asleep but soon spoke up.
"You have e-mail." He told me suddenly.
"What?" I asked getting up slowly.
He nodded and brought the message up. It was addressed from World Wide Watchers Inc., who ever they were, but that wasn't the strangest part. The e-mail continued a request, a request to delete someone. My mouth dropped open upon reading further when it gave out a name, Lan Hikari. I was partially relived to find that the message was not addressed to me personally, but was sent out to a bunch of people. The end of the message read mysteriously "all active units report" as it's finale.
"Would you like to reply?" Shadow Man asked.
"Yeah, ask them who the hell they are." I replied groggily, this was way to early.
He gave a bow and went off with the reply message as I got out of my bed and pulled a chair up to the computer. I began to search "World Wide Watchers Inc.", but I found nothing. Must have been an alias, it had to be.
"Rio, this address is no longer in service." He reported.
"How is that possible? I just got e-mail from that address!"
It was an unanswerable question which I knew, and Shadow Man knew too simply shrugging his shoulders. But who ever Lan was, he was in danger.
"Hey Shadow Man, do you know anyone named Lan?"
I watched him go into his thought routine and I tried to think of someone named Lan too. Hell, I went so far as to think back to my old town. It was a long shot, but I had to warn this guy. He was marked. Eventually he looked up and shrugged again.
"It sounds vaguely familiar... But I don't know anyone with that name."
Great, I had accidentally received an e-mail asking to kill someone, but I couldn't even warn the guy who was targeted. At the time, there was an ungodly amount of things I could have done at this point when I received that e-mail, but the whole situation blinded me from thinking about anything else.
"What if we check history records, or the news. Perhaps he is an important figure?"
That was a plan, and I would check it out during study hall after lunch when I went back to school tomorrow. But right now, I had to get back to sleep. I said good night and got back in bed, but I was still wondering about that e-mail until I fell back asleep. Not to mention what woke me up in the first place. Too bad I recalled it when I was drifting back into dream land. I would remember exactly squat when I woke up for school.
In the morning when I was heading out the door, Shadow Man notified me of four new e-mails. I asked him to open them hurriedly thinking it was from World Wide Watchers Inc again, but it wasn't to my disappointment. This time the e-mail was from that group that met me after school. One was from Dex, he said he wanted to talk to me again and he had to run home to watch the house. That was kinda lame, I think it's because Shadow Man wiped the floor with his Guts Man. One was from Yai, oh, I mean MISS Yai. She said she wanted to see me after school again as well, her excuse was that she was late for a diamond show or something. Diamond show?
The other two e-mails I didn't recognize when I opened them. Not right away really. One was from that cute girl at school, her name was Mayl. It was basically the same story as before, still with a weak excuse for running off. The last one however, was much more interesting. It was the guy with the bandana, he wanted to talk to me about Shadow Man and my PET. You should have seen my eyes when I caught his name at the bottom of the message. Lan... Lan... Could it be him?
I wanted to run up and tell him everything, to get down and watch your back and everything! My mind was running a million miles an hour and luckily before I did something stupid, Shadow Man talked me down.
"Rio! Stop! He's your age! Why would someone want to kill an elementary student? It's so dishonorable..."
I began to slow my sprint and thought about it. That was true... It was probably an coincidence that he had the first name of Lan. But no way! I thought again. It's TOO coincidental! I had to warn him. I told Shadow Man that too, but he still continued on with his reasoning.
"Should I repeat myself? Rio, he is YOUR age. What could he have possibly done to gain a warrant for his death? What? Tell me and I'll support you fully."
"Well, err... Uh... he could have... Hm... I guess I see your point. But still! Shouldn't we get his last name before we drop this? It could be a matter of life or death!"
That was my big selling point for Shadow Man. Still... What if... What if... I could see it drove him crazy. I think he hated those words or something.
"It is my personal experience to never live on uncertainty..." His words trailed off into nothing.
I stopped in the middle of the street and looked down at the screen. What personal experience? Was he remembering? Did the reformatting miss some data that still linked him to his past in there? It was like amnesia, but not, because you knew you didn't remember for a reason... This was crazy, I wish I could have pretended I never heard that.
"Uh..." He sounded unsure of himself now. "We could always watch him, just in case."
"All right, now that's a good compromise."
"We'll meet him after school and sort this whole mess out." Shadow Man declared with more confidence than before. "I'll help you on the spying part. Certain areas of my programming specialize in shadowing someone."
"Hence, Shadow Man!" I laughed at my cheesy joke.
At that point, I think I needed every cheesy joke in the world to drag my mind away from what he said before. Personal experience... Then the gates of the school filled me with more confidence. I thought back to the four e-mails. I was gonna make some more friends today! Yeah! That reminded me, as soon as I figured out how they send regular mail in this town, I was gonna send letters to my friends back at my old town.
In class, I listened to Shadow Man. God, he had a lot to say. Don't stare, glance periodically. Always think of an excuse if your caught. Down look down when you tell them, they know your lying. Smile if they look up at you when you take a glance. Create distractions or reasons for looking at them. Eventually I told him thanks for the info, but I would try on my own thank you very much. Lan in front of me only gave a wave when I entered but never took another glance. With all this shadowing stuff going on, I almost forgot about researching the possibility of the real Lan Hikari.
I went to work right after lunch checking out all sorts of "Lan" people all across the world. There was a lot, you wouldn't think so, but I guess it was as popular as Smith, or Jones. Half way through my search, making Shadow Man run from point A to point B, I looked up to find Lan was gone! Holy frick! I had totally forgotten about him.
"Shadow Man! I lost sight of him!"
He gave a frustrated mutter and an agonized glance at me. I guess I deserved that, I didn't really show I appreciated his help before. I got up only to be stopped by Ms. Mari who asked where I thought I was going.
"Oh, I know Ms. Mari. I'm going to the bathroom."
Score one for me in lying point blank to people! She totally bought it. Err... at least I think so, I didn't really spend much time trying to tell as I went out into the halls and began to causally roll by classrooms trying to find out where he went.
"Rio, stop walking. Start thinking!" Shadow Man urged me.
"What do you mean by that? I am thinking! Where could he have gone?"
"The library, where else could he have gone?"
Hm... Minus one for the home team. I never really thought about the places he could have gone. Looking in other classrooms was a waste of time I guess. Lucky for me, I had an airtight excuse. New to the school, didn't know where everything was. Ha ha! Anyway, I went on over to the library and peeked through the crack in the door spotting Lan sitting there with Mayl. Your probably wondering if this bothered me seeing them together, not really. I uh... had a thing for someone else at that point.
"Well, found em'. Looks pretty safe to me." I whispered to Shadow Man.
"Good, now get back to class."
"Hold on just a second Mr. Sneaky. How bout I go ask him about his last name now?"
He didn't have anything against that, he just told me to hurry it up so my bathroom story worked out in the end. I pressed on the door, and it didn't budge. I'm glad you didn't see me for yourself, cause I went smack right into it. For his sake, Shadow Man didn't say anything as I stumbled back and looked up and down the halls to check if anyone noticed my idiotic behavior. Good, my dignity was in tact. After that rather embarrassing moment, I moseyed on down to the second door and tried it.
This time, I pushed with my hand instead of my body. Now it was time to worry, it was locked too. Next thing I knew, I heard a crackling sound and a bunch of people inside scream weakly. Weakly because the doors were shut tight, keeping any type of really loud noise getting out. I stepped back and kicked the door. That wasn't very smart. I'm not doing that again on a door shut so tight. My leg was throbbing as smoke began to seep out of the cracks, but too weak to attract much attention.
"Uh... Shadow Man... It looks like there's something going on here. Smoke from the door and a crackling sound..."
He interrupted me immediately.
"Fire! And they can't get out! Rio, find a fire alarm and pull it!"
I moved as fast as my throbbing leg could carry me to a square panel and smashed the glass. With a big tug I yanked the thing down, but nothing happened. I pushed it up and pulled again, still nothing.
"Uh. Shadow Man, the alarm systems aren't working!" I reported urgently.
"What about the smoke has it stopped yet?"
I glanced over, nope, still more smoke pouring from the cracks. That means the sprinklers weren't working either! They were gonna be smothered! Then I got my, why-didn't-you-do-it-before idea. Jack in! That way Shadow Man can fix this broken piece of crap.
"Shadow Man, I'm jacking you in! You have to do... something!"
"I'll reset the systems." He finished.
Instantly he was inside and I could see the fire alarm network. It was messed up. In the background there was flame decorations rising up and down. This was a text book virus attack. Everything was warped out of it's original programming. Shadow Man dashed long the winding system corridors searching for the corrupted program. Man, there was a bunch of those little virus suckers from before. Crawling all over the place. We decided on busting some of them, maybe they were the cause? But no, it was something more.
As he continued through the network, I looked back to the library doors. More smoke, they could be dead by the time the fire department would show up. Maybe my jack in idea wasn't too good after all. There was so many of those virus suckers appearing that Shadow Man had to move on further into the network. Then I got an idea.
"Shadow Man! Try to find the sprinkler program. It won't get rid of the smoke, but it will buy us some time!"
"Right."
He took a detour and moved along until I could notice some crank wheels. They were all jammed by a funky vice grip looking things. When he tried to remove it, viruses showed up all over the place. I knew it now, this was organized. This was the Lan they wanted to kill! But why? Shadow Man asked me before, what could he have possibly done... Luckily with his skills he took care of them quickly and turned the wheels. I moved over to the library door and pressed my ear up against the door hearing a soft swish sound. Soon water began to seep through the bottom crack out into the hall.
"All right!" I yelled out and went back to the alarm system.
"Um... Now, what about the alarm?" I asked him.
"Working on it."
Before he could take another step, a huge wall of flames just whizzed past his head. In reflex, I guess, he leapt backwards and drew his sword while looking for the source of the flames. This red looking Navi stepped out from behind a big block and moved toward Shadow Man slowly. You could tell in an instant, this guy was all about fire, and all about business. Plenty of flames were all ready pouring out of his arms and the top of his head and he paused upon seeing Shadow Man standing there with his sword drawn.
"Shadow Man? What are you doing here? You've come to steal our assignment haven't you?"
Uh oh... This guy recognized Shadow Man. Definitely not good. Maybe he worked with this guy before? Crap...
"Hm... I suppose your trying to delete Lan Hikari?"
"Of course I am! Why would I be caught dead in an elementary fire alarm system in the first place?"
"Then your going to be awfully disappointed with the outcome of your plan."
"I knew it!" Fire Man lashed out. "Your operator is always taking all the good jobs! Well, not this time! If I don't pull through, I'll be deleted for good! I'll be history."
"You would have to be known before becoming history." Shadow Man continued in a deadly serious tone.
Suddenly another voice broke our conversation. The other guy's operator I could only assume. He had an awfully persuasive voice, it sounded like he could talk you into believing just about anything.
"Fire Man! What's going on? Why haven't you restarted the electrical fires yet? And will your turn off that damn sprinkler system!"
"Sorry Mr. Match. It's just that Mr. Dark and Shadow Man are here trying to take credit for all our hard work!"
Mr. Dark? Was that Shadow Man's previous operator? Why did it seem like I heard that name before... I looked at Shadow Man trying to tell if Fire Man's words were ringing any bells that should have stayed quiet. But I couldn't tell anything. Fire Man's fiery arms flared up and began to burn bigger than before and he took another step toward Shadow Man.
"Well, too bad! Delete Shadow Man and tell Mr. Dark we got here first!" Mr. Match ordered smoothly before going silent again.
Without saying another word, Fire Man kneeled down and suddenly launched a firestorm toward Shadow Man. That fire was huge, I was pretty glad it was all virtual. He stopped launching his flames when Shadow Man darted to the side and began to run toward him. He leapt up into the air and brought his sword down slicing off Fire Man's right arm causing it to melt into deleted data. I heard a click and looked over toward the library doors, people came running out coughing and gasping for fresh air. Smoke poured out as well, then I saw Lan and Mayl run out with their jackets over their mouths.
Once I could tell they came out all right I turned back to my PET. Even with one arm missing, Fire Man could still easily conger up a dangerous amount of flames. He spread them all over the place as Shadow Man darted from here to there. Soon Shadow Man was doing a dead sprint toward Fire Man with his sword drawn. Just as I expected, Fire Man pointed his remaining arm and let loose another firestorm. But he missed as the agile Shadow Man leapt over him.
But as he did, he was right over Fire Man's head and I should have seen it coming. Fire Man's head exploded into a fury sending a tower of flames upward frying him in mid air. Then I knew we had bitten off more than we could chew as Shadow Man went tumbling to a halt with burns all over his body and his sword sliding across the ground away from him. I gripped my PET watching Shadow Man attempt to get up but he was too weak. Fire Man then began to stomp on him while he was down.
"You like that? You like that you cocky little freak!" Fire Man yelled out.
"Hold on! I'll get you out!" I cried out.
I pressed the jack out button frantically, but nothing happened. There must have been something Mr. Match did to make sure I couldn't get him out before he was deleted. Damn! I was dying watching him get hit like that unable to do anything back, but it was Shadow Man who was really dying. Suddenly I could see two Navis appear in the network, the blue navi and the pink one belonging to Lan and Mayl. I looked up to see that they had jacked in as well.
"Don't worry," Lan began. "Mega Man and Roll will help you out."
Mega Man huh? That was the blue guy... and Roll was the pink one. Easy enough. I nodded and looked back at the screen. Mega Man wasted no time firing on Fire Man and getting him away from Shadow Man who couldn't move he had been damaged so much. While Mega Man was making a distraction, Roll went over and did something to heal him enough that he could move. Now with that all solved, I could watch Mega Man's virus busing action. And I thought Shadow Man was good, Lan's Navi was unstoppable.
"What the hell are you doing here! Oh no! The doors..." Fire Man realized. "Suck flames and get deleted!"
Lan had pulled one of those battle thingies that Dex used and put it in his PET. Instantly Mega Man's arm changed shape into a huge cannon. He opened fire and blasted Fire Man square in the chest. The blast sent him flying backwards and rolling across the ground like a barrel. When he got up it was easy to see that he was going to jack-out, but I suddenly got an idea.
"Shadow Man, hit him before he gets out!"
Wearily, Shadow Man managed to get a Shadow Blade or two ready and tossed them at Fire Man's back. The end result was instant deletion as the fiery Navi burst into explosion and bled away into nothing. Now that I was content, I went to jacking Shadow Man out and soon turned to see a whole bunch of people moving toward the exits. The alarms were finally going off and I noticed Lan and Mayl giving me suspicious glances.
"Why did Shadow Man save us?" Lan asked before I could say anything.
"Why shouldn't he?" I fired back.
Then I remembered, he had almost turned their whole country upside down.
