Chapter 1: Project Gamma

Disclaimer: Gabcom, er, Capcom owns MegaMan et. al. I only own this story.

Well, I thought I'd write a story after reading so many good ones… Hope this one doesn't turn out so badly.

"Dr. Hikari, are you sure this is a good time to re-initiate Project Gamma?"

"Famous, I'm sure it is."

This conversation took place outside SciLab on a busy afternoon, in the recently built café that also supported NetNavis. Busy kitchen staff, being encouraged and/or prodded forward by Nanako, were working tirelessly to deliver good afternoon tea for the scientists. The same also took place in the cyberworld.

It had been a couple of months since the Darkloids were defeated, at least until the meantime, and Lan, Maylu, Dex, Yai and Tory were in the eighth grade at ACDC High.

On one side of a coffee table Yuuichiro was gesturing rather aggressively to a rather sceptical Mr. Famous and two other Scilab scientists, sitting on either side of him, were listening intently to the conversation.

"But. Yuuichiro, remember what happened to Ciel? How she was captured and manipulated by the Darkloids? It was sheer luck that Zero was able to save her…"

"Nononono, what I'm saying here is that there is an operator out there who is smart, cunning, resourceful, determined enough, and living in the correct environment, and therefore is able to maintain the highest level of security, that is, Level 24 security. The…"

Famous interrupted. "But his/her parents would need to know, which would break Rule 2.2 of the NetSavior's Laws, and therefore would compromise our security…"

"No! What I was going to say is that absolutely no-one would even have a shadow of a suspicion that he would be the UnderCover NetSavior."

"Well then, who is this?"

"Follow me."

Back in SciLab, a top-secret meeting…

"Ok, first things first. What is even the purpose of having a Level 24 NetSavior? Ever since Nebula, and after the Darkloids ravaged the Net, security has been pretty impregnable not only around here, but also around the world."

"Famous, we do need a top-secret plan at all times, now that Tora and KingMan have revealed themselves and discarded Level 23 security." Without waiting for a reply, Dr. Hikari filed through some filing cabinets and pulled out a two-inch binder.

"Now, the only beings that know about this so far, are you guys – Yuuichiro pointed to the dozen scientists gathered around – Rush – at that moment, Rush materialized out of nowhere and happily leaped on the nearest cushion – and your Navis, of course."

"Ever since NetTerroism has existed, largely by World Three, Gospel, Neo-World Three, the Dark Chip Syndicate, Nebula, and the Neo-Dark Chip Syndicate better known as the Darkloids, we, Scilab, have had to continually scurry forth many talented NetBattlers like my son, Eugene Chaud, Maylu Sakurai, among many others. They have helped enormously in maintaining peace around the world."

Rush barked in agreement.

"But what about Laik…"

"Him too." Yuuichiro interrupted. "Now, as we all know, the Darkloids struck approximately a year ago, whose forces were led by ShadeMan, and had been stopped nearly four months ago from today. In light of the increasing NetCrime preceding those events, we decided to create an upgraded security level, reserved for one, single, very talented NetBattler, mingled among the general population. This individual, of course, was Aragoma Toraichi, better known as Tora, and his NetNavi, KingMan. They struck during Operation Pi, where they succeeded in causing massive amounts of damage to the Darkloid base, accompanied by ShadowMan."

"The level of their data, however, was only level 23. In Level 24, as we all know too well, we created a customized Navi with no NetOp, named Ciel. She was meant to be the perfect spy, having no known contacts except the people in this room."

"However, this failed miserably, after one of the Darkloids, BubbleMan, noticed her and sealed off the Network, then captured and manipulated her to work against us. It was only due to some brave efforts by Zero that she was able to be saved."

A random hand flew into the air.

"Parsons?"

"Why the hell are you tellin' us all this shit already?"

"Okay, I'll get to the point now."

"What I am about to propose is that we start off by selecting the perfect NetOp." All scientists who weren't near Famous and Yuuichiro during the afternoon raised their eyebrows. This person…"

"…is smart, cunning, resourceful, determined enough, and living in the correct environment, and therefore is able to maintain the highest level of security, that is, Level 24 security." Famous interrupted. "Here is a mugshot of that kid."

The enormous plasma screen in front of them suddenly drew up a picture of a kid, not much older than Lan and not much younger than either Chaud, Tora or Laika.

"Name: James Li.
Hair Colour: Black.
Eye Colour: Black.
Very marginally chubby facial and bodily features.
Age: As of today, 14 years and 5 months.
Origin: Born in Yumland, but raised in Australia. He is currently residing in Australia.
NetNavi: A standard, off-the-shelf Navi named Façade.EXE.
Both NetNavi and NetOp have hidden their characteristics of being smart, cunning and resourceful for quite some time. They each believe that it is good to "show weakness to hide their strength." (A/N: A cookie to anyone who can tell me where I got that from.) Hobbies: Soccer, basketball, chess, reverse-engineering ancient operating systems like "Windows", and, of course, NetBattling.
Has many ultra-rare chips that he has stashed over the years, but never shown to anyone. One example is… a Balance ! Wow! Hey, this is also interesting: he knows Tora personally and is good friends with him. That could actually be useful."

"Famous, I assume those are just the more important details regarding James?"

"Yep."

"Famous, I have a question."

"Yuuichiro, please proceed."

"This James Li you talk about will need a customized Navi soon. Have any ideas for that?"

Yuuichiro blushed slightly. "I haven't actually thought of that yet. We don't know if he'll actually even accept our invitation yet. But, according to the rest of this data… he most likely will."

"As of today, file #09473 will be placed under Level 24 security, at 8:30pm, Wednesday, 2nd April, 203X. Any objections?"

There was none, so the file was carefully scanned, then filed away in a top-secret cabinet.

"Well now, shall we send that email to him?"

Sigh… At last! The week is over! Okay, when's the next bus coming…? In 20 minutes. That's fine. I guess I'll talk to Façade now.

"Façade! Next bus is coming in 20 mins. Should we wander around?"

"Yeah, sure." mumbled a deceptively uncheerful voice from my hip. Façade and I have been keeping a low profile ever since I was 10. It's not like we ever trusted anyone, really. Reverse-engineering those ancient operating systems from my grandfather's shed filled in some of my dull moments of solitude.

"Ok, see all of ya later. Yeah, whatever." I suppressed a laugh as I finally boarded the bus and waited for the weekend to arrive as the bus slowly prodded back home.

"Hey man."

"Davy! How about a NetBattle, since you like it so much now!" I said in a sarcastically cheerful voice. "Just kidding." I replied quickly, as he swelled up like a balloon. Ever since Davy got his NetNavi, JunkMan, from scrap data he found while scrounging around the Yumland Net, where the cyber-garbage tip was, he's been as arrogant as ever, winning all the battles he's been in. Like he couldn't get any worse than that chaud guy or whatever who's the world top netbattler or somethin'.

"You ready, Davy?"

"I'll pulverise you!" chanted Davy and JunkMan in unison. Now that was the scary part about them. Because, you see, JunkMan seemed to have a sort of… what's the word… unison! That's it! - with another NetNavi – or somethin'. With who, I have no idea. Either way, it seemed to pass on to the operator.

"Battle routine set!"

"Execute!"

The funny thing is, there's been this NetBattling ban, you see, that's been on and off for quite a while. Currently it's lifted; I don't know when the fuck they're going to put it back on though! Who knows.

"Eat crap, James! Double M-Cannon, download!"

"Yeah, right. Guard, download!"

The two M-Cannons bounced harmlessly off the shield and sent shockwaves that slammed onto JunkMan.

"Grah! That's it! Junk Flow! Nuts and Bolts!"

Uh-oh. This was the annoying thing about fighting JunkMan. You had to dodge – this – annoying – rubbish – constantly – flowing – from – him! Phew.

"Okay! AirHoc1, triple download!"

As I sais those words, I watched the hockey pucks merge into a single, powerful blue puck.

"Pithoky1!"

The powerful hockey rebounded over and over again, dealing tremendous amounts of damage to JunkMan.

"Long Arm!"

"Dodge this, Façade! Quic- Ow." Man, that's gotta hurt.

"Dynawave, download!"

"MegaManV2, download!"

As Façade sent forth a powerful shockwave with a pickaxe, MegaMan appeared and sent buster shots raining in my area.

"Owowowowowow!"

Okay, time for desperate measures.

"Hey, JunkMan, come out from that heap of junk and fight like a man!"

"Fine then James. Let's end this with a LifeSword duel!"

"Bring it on!"

"Sword, WideSword, LongSword, download!"

Both Navis' arms transformed into a large sword.

"LifeSword!"

JunkMan came forward, which was a rare sight, and Façade came forward too. Both swiped with their gigantic swords, forcing each other to logout.

FAÇADE.EXE LOGGING OUT

JUNKMAN.EXE LOGGING OUT

"Nice battle Davy! Oh, my stop is coming close now. We'd better stop,"

"Seriously though, I think you can battle heaps better than that."

I chuckled to myself at the irony of that comment.

"Here, have this chip. You'll need it," he added, as he gave me a chip with his navi data attached.

"Huh? Isn't this just a souped-up Poltrgst?"

"Still, it'll come in useful, you'll never know. Oh, yeah, and you think you're so good? Well guess what? You're not!"

Why does he always HAVE to say that? I pondered about that question as I walked the next five minutes back home.

"Well, we've arrived back home. What next, Façade?"

"James! You got mail! …"

"What is it?…"

Meanwhile, outside SciLab1, Bass was smashing through the firewalls of the security system.

"Impudent humans… How dare they hide it… They will pay!" Bass muttered to himself, as he looked for what he wanted, deleting Navis and programs as he went…

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Not sure when the next update will be up. Maybe in a few days, maybe in a few weeks.