Cool, lots of good reviews. That'll help with motivation most definitely . Also, if you haven't already figured it out, this story's timeline is based on that of the games. I've never seen the show, so don't ask me about it. Also, I elected to use the English names unless where an English name isn't given (such as Lan's mom Haruka) since those are the ones I'm most familiar with.

Also, I apologize for the formatting errors in my previous chapters. There were supposed to be line breaks that indicate a change of setting, but apparantly didn't like the ones I used. Chapter 1 should be modified by now

To address some reviews:

Fanfic Critic: updating a chapter at a time shouldn't be a problem as long as I'm consistent with my updates. Besides, my standard length for a chapter (from 2000-3000 words) is about 3-4 times that of almost everyone else I've seen, so it's mostly the same anyway

Anime Master ZERO: J

Anyway, enough talking. Time for chapter 2

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A Paradigm's Dawn

Chapter 2: ...Or Not

Lan let out a heavy sigh as he approached the door to the central conference room of SciLab. The demonstration was in ten minutes, and even though he had made absolutely sure everything was in order, thrice in fact, he couldn't avoid the feeling of nervousness around him. It didn't help when he found out his fa-- the boss had to leave on an emergency.

He wondered what it was that could've caused such urgency. As far as he could remember, there weren't any problems at the Netopian branch (and he had checked to make sure) and there wasn't a single person who had failed to keep an appointment today. Either way, Lan had hoped for some last-minute instructions before he had to do this, but with the boss gone, he was on his own.

"Lan, what's wrong?" a voice inquired from the side of Lan's waist. "Why'd we stop?"

Lan snapped out of his pondering and realized that he had in fact stopped moving, about ten feet away from the door. "Oh Megaman. I'm sorry. I guess I was a bit distracted."

"This isn't the time. You know how important this presentation is. I can only do my part if you do yours."

"Yeah I guess." Lan walked towards the door again and, after a deep breath, opened it and went inside.

The room was large, one of the most spacious rooms in the building in fact. It was largely undecorated except for two large plants on either corner, opposite that of the wall the door was placed in, and a large poster displaying SciLab's promotional logo on the wall adjacent to the wall the door was in on Lan's left. The other adjacent wall was, in fact, not a wall at all but a large glass window peering onto the Northern side of Den City.

The room's centerpiece was a huge, rectangular conference table. On the short side of the table nearest to the window was housed a large eighty-inch plasma screen for display purposes. The other three sides of the table were lined with chairs, from twenty to twenty-five depending on how crowded the group in here wanted to be. Also around the table were a collection of jack-in ports.

Those seats were now filled by a group of eight, all clad in formal business attire. They were members of the Net Battle Technology Association, a business designed for the marketing of new battling techniques for navis. It was this same company that bought the technologies for style changes, and more recently the soul unison system. Still, this was the first time Lan was sent to present to them directly, so of course he felt nervous. Then again, he knew he shouldn't expect any less, seeing as he was demonstrating his own personal project.

Lan made his way to the backside of the plasma screen where a laptop computer was situated on a small fold-up table. He approached it and performed some keystrokes, causing the screen to light up. It displayed the image of a normal navi walking around in what appeared to be a large round platform.

When the navi looked towards Lan, he began to speak. "Hello sir. I'm pleased to inform you that all necessary programs are functioning normally. The necessary test subjects have been contained and all connections to the net have been cut off."

"Thank you Sam," Lan stated, slightly relieved. No problems so far. "Has the display area for our clients' navis been set up completely?"

"I have one or two programs making sure everything is in order. Last I checked there weren't any problems though. Everything is in order."

Good. Lan took the PET from his waist, extracted the long jack-in cord, and plugged it into the computer. "I'm sending Megaman over now." After pressing a few buttons, the LCD screen on the PET lit up for a second, and then synchronized itself with the laptop, acting as a mirror of its display. Megaman appeared on the connection portal in the laptop, and then walked up to Sam.

"Good day Megaman. I take it you're ready?"

Megaman snickered. "Of course I am. This shouldn't be too hard."

Lan looked at his watch. He had two minutes of mental preparation before he was to begin, and he planned to take advantage of it. He closed his eyes and went over what he was going to do. As long as he didn't freeze up everything would be fine... at least he hoped.

With a deep breath, Lan stood up straight and stood in front of the large screen, facing the eager NBTA executives, who were still muttering various things to each other. "Good morning everyone." The entire assembly became silent at the sound of Lan's voice. "My name is Lan Hikari, Senior Programmer in the Net Navi Battle Division of SciLab." The large plasma screen flickered on to show the large platform on the laptop, courtesy of one of the many camera programs installed. Two navis were on the display. "On your left is my official lab assistant Sam. He is responsible for aiding me in the creation of this project. To your right is my personal navi, Megaman. He has the privilege of demonstrating the project to all of you."

"This project, for those who don't know, is a brand new data transfer architecture specifically optimized for net battling. The current architecture allows for the operator of a navi to upload up to five battle chips at a time. After uploading, the data is sent to the navi for use. After a period of time, the operator may upload more data for the navi to use. This pattern continues until the end of the battle.

"There are two problems with this architecture. First, all instances of data transfer to the navi are isolated; the battle data sent to the navi will completely overwrite any data the navi already has to work with. Second, it takes a period of time between data transfers for the connection to clear itself of any garbage data. The purpose of this new architecture is to remedy those two problems by optimizing the connection between the navi and the PET. Please pay attention to the display on screen as I demonstrate."

Lan picked up his PET as Sam released a small collection of weak viruses-- three mettaurs-- into the arena. Lan began sliding two battle chips into his PET: a cannon and a wide sword. With the data uploaded, Megaman began battling, dodging a series of shockwaves from one of the mettaurs before firing the cannon at it. The mettaurs dispersed into a collection of junk data. Megaman used his buster to weaken the others. After 10 seconds passed, the PET signaled Lan that it was able to input more data. Lan slid in an area grab, sword, and long sword before uploading.

With the new chips, Megaman reacted quickly, using area grab to steal the virus' battle area, following up with a sword to the closest mettaur and a long sword to the farthest. They both disappeared, signaling an end to the battle.

"Busting time: 13.34 seconds," Lan stated as he began pressing buttons on his PET. "As you can see, the current method is inefficient, especially when you re unable to find the correct chips you want in time. Now watch me perform the same battle using the new architecture." He pressed one last button on the PET as Sam released another set of three mettaurs.

Lan began this by sliding a cannon, sword, and three mini bombs, the maximum chip count. With the data uploaded, Megaman started the battle similar to last time, by dodging a shock wave before firing a cannon, destroying the mettaur closest to him. However, the similarities ended there as, a mere two seconds after the battle began, Lan was at work again. He filled the first slot with an area grab, and then replaced the first two mini bombs with a wide sword and a long sword, respectively. When the data uploaded, the three swords combined to form the Life Sword program advance. Megaman acted swiftly, stealing the enemies' area and ending the battle with one swipe of the sword. Both mettaurs disappeared, and the battle ended.

"Busting time: 3.67 seconds." Lan breathed a sigh of relief as he noticed an excited commotion in the group in front of him. Lan turned off the plasma screen, but before he could speak again he began receiving questions from everyone in the group about this new technology; what bugs needed to be fixed, how quickly could you upload new data, how Important was operating speed in the new system. Lan did his best to answer them all, thankful that the meeting was turning out well. What he failed to notice was small warning notice that had appeared on the screen of his laptop.

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Yuichiro Hikari stopped at the small building in front of him. He was at the outskirts of Electown, where the buildings were considerably less taken cared of than their inner-city counterparts. He had noticed many broken windows, lots of stray trash, and even more graffiti in the many empty alleys he passed already. The building in front of him was no exception. He almost wondered if he had made a wrong turn when a voice spoke from a small device near the entrance to the building. "Ah," it stated, rather ominously, "I see you've gotten my e-mail. Good, that's good. Please come in."

The door in front of Yuichiro opened slowly. He has surveillance here. Pretty good too since I didn't notice it. He slowly stepped in, and was a bit surprised at what he saw. Inside what he ascertained to be the living room was an absolute mess. Papers of many different colors and thickness littered the floor, almost covering the wooden tile surface. There was only a small rocking chair and a large bookcase as furniture. Peering at the floor he noticed newspapers, many of which were up to five years old. It seemed as if the room hadn't been cleaned by anyone in years.

Making his way through, Yuichiro noticed a slightly open door to his left, right next to the bookcase. Cautiously, he opened it and stepped into it. Inside was a collection of assorted items, ranging from a bookcase to various machines that not even he knew about. Farthest away from the door was a collection of 4 monitors, all turned on and displaying different types of data.

Seated at the desk where these monitors were situated was a young man of about 35. His skin was pale, his short brown hair a mess, and his eyes were glazed, partially covering his bright blue eyes. He wore only a pair of pants, a shirt, and a long trench coat, all black. The sight made Yuichiro a little uneasy. All this time, he thought, and he hasn't changed a bit. The thought was not comforting, and his uneasiness increased when the young man got up off his seat and began to speak.

"Well, if it isn't my old friend Yuichiro..."

"I'd prefer 'Mr. Hikari' if you don't mind." Yuichiro stood back a bit towards the door. "And I don't think 'friend' describes our relationship quite well."

"Same old Yuichiro I see." The man turned around to face the scientist. "I see you still have some hard feelings."

"Some." That's an understatement. "Tell me Martin, what do you want?"

The man stood silent for a moment. "Martin? I'd prefer 'Dr. Cain' if you don't mind." He spoke it in a mocking tone, unnerving Yuichiro even more. "As for what I want you for? Let's just say I have something that I know you'll be very interested in. Now, come here" Without another word, he sat back down on his computer and started typing.

Yuichiro started walking nervously towards Cain. I have to keep my composure. I don't know what it is he wants, but whatever it is, he stopped near the computer Cain was working at; it must be something if he's dumb enough to talk to me again.

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Now I wished I hadn't prepared so much, Lan thought as he helped another investor with his PET. He had taken the liberty of including a prototype of the system for installation on each person's PET. It was a good idea, but Lan found himself constantly attending to the various bugs that had crept up during their messing around. He had fully intended to deal with these bugs; just not during the meeting with everyone around. Still, he had to admit that this meeting had been a success, as the head of the group was already calling his boss about how to go about improving SciLab's funding.

"Lan! Lan!" a worried voice yelled from the laptop behind the screen. Lan excused himself from the group as he made his way toward the computer. When he saw the screen, he saw Sam frantically pacing around the area.

"What's wrong with him?" Megaman asked from his PET-- he had been jacked out of the computer after the demonstration.

"Sam, what's going on?" Lan spoke as Sam started to calm down "I'm kind of busy here. And try to keep it down; I don't want the executives getting anxious."

"I'm sorry sir, but... the new battle architecture... it's..." Sam tried to form the words but continued to mutter incomprehensibly.

"Sam, what's wrong. What about the new battle architecture."

"The data... all of it... source code, beta builds, external data... it's all been... stolen!"