EarthNet: Paradox

A Megaman: Battle Network fanfiction by Pyrestrike

Warning: This is not the normal, light-hearted material that many of you are
used to seeing from other fanfiction writers and from Megaman: Battle
Network. This fanfiction contains mature themes, vulgar language, extreme
violence and crude sexuality. This is not recommended for younger viewers.

The "-----"'s means that there is a scene change or a big change in
perspective.

The ""'s means that there's a small scene change, a change within the
current scene or a small change in perspective.

Disclaimer: Megaman, Megaman: Battle Network, and related characters are
copyrighted under Capcom. I do not own nor attempt to abuse these
copyrights. And if you see any characters I made up myself, consider them
copyrighted under me ;).

---------------------------
- Begin -

Chapter Two: Piercing Eyes

Shin tossed and turned in her four-poster bed. "Why am I attacking those rebels
using the NetBattlers?"

She found no reply to her answer, and she looked as though she expected one. Her
eyes suddenly took on a gleam of innocence, of the seven-year-old child she was
supposed to be.

Lervingthis gleamed. The moon-shaped obsidian crystal could not tolerate being
near such goodliness. It eased her into sleep, using its magic to calm her. It
erased the thoughts and questions, replacing them with a dream of putting
daggers into the backs of her giveaway parents. It told her to plant a spy
within the rebel network.

The next morning, Shin arose restored to the meaning of her name. She would send
a mole to track the rebels immediately.

-----

Lan sat in the lobby of the ACDC Hospital, nervous and annoyed. He couldn't help
but accept the flooding memories. Everywhere he turned, he could hear the loud
bursts as he fired at his parent's killer, that elusive Navi. Yet he couldn't
see any of it. The entire hospital seemed renovated and new, but that was
expected; he hadn't been home for seven years.

Yai, in her white lab coat again, stepped into the lobby. Lan smiled weakly,
asking, "How is it going?"

"Well, Mayl's awake now, and she only fainted due to some very severe trauma,"
Yai explained, pausing after saying "trauma." Lan knew why-the Invisibles must
have made her relive some horrible memory, probably dealing with Lan.

"The question was meant for you. How are you holding up... after Glyde?"

"I could be better," Yai said flatly and quickly walked away.

"Okay," Lan said to himself. It was no surprise that Yai-or anyone-would give
him the cold shoulder. He stood up, but didn't move towards the hallway leading
to the patients' rooms. He eventually started walking but paused again. He
turned around and the sliding doors to the hospital opened, but he couldn't see
whom it was; the morning sun was too low and shining brightly into his eyes.

"Lan, wait up!" Lan heard Megaman call. Roll, who had also been knocked
unconscious in last night's battle, was running into the room alongside Megaman.
She only suffered a small dent in her armor due to the scythe that Skullman hurt
her with.

"Is Mayl okay?" she asked.

Lan nodded. "I was on my way to her room. You guys coming too?"

"Yeah."

They walked through the corridors of the hospital in silence. They eventually
reached Mayl's room; she was sitting upright and smiled as Megaman and Roll
walked in. The smile lacked the enthusiasm once Lan stepped in. "Hi, everyone."

"How are you feeling?" Megaman asked.

"Much better, but I still feel a bit weak," Mayl answered.

"Do you know when you're going to get out?" Roll asked. "We have lots of work to
do, and I don't think I can explain our situation as well as you can."

"I'm supposed to be able to leave in about ten or fifteen minutes; all I'm
waiting for are the last test results," Mayl replied to the first question.

Lan looked around, noticing that the radio was turned on yet no sound came from
it. He scanned the room using the corners of his eyes, finding that the
supposedly stationary security camera had moved to watch him. He was under
surveillance.

Megaman and Roll exchanged glances and turned to Lan, who had taken a seat. They
figured that he wanted to be alone before he would talk to Mayl, so the left
with their best wishes.

Mayl heard the door to the room close, but didn't open her eyes to see if anyone
was still in her room. She heard Lan sigh as he sat down. She didn't know where
to start with what she wanted to say, so she just let her heart guide her mouth.
"The night of the fire, I didn't know what to think. All I heard was 'Lan tried
to shoot up the place' and people saying that you were chasing some blue-black
Navi, the one that killed your parents. But no one else saw it. I don't know
what really happened, but either way, our daughter was sacrificed."

She heard Lan shift uncomfortably, knowing that her last sentence must have
sounded more accusing than she had intended it to be. She opened her eyes and
turned to him. His head hung low, so she couldn't see any emotion in him or his
face. 'He should feel bad,' she thought to herself, trying to convince her
subconscious that what she thought of him was right. 'After everything he's
done, at least now he can show some guilt for what happened.' She didn't notice
that she whispered that aloud until it was already too late.

"Do you seriously believe that?" Lan burst out after what he had heard Mayl say
to herself. "You think that just now I'd feel guilty in any way? Why do you
think I never wanted to step back into this hell? I've walked with guilt in
every way possible for the last seven years! When I was in a town, people looked
at me sideways. The night before you were having your baby, I stayed with you.
Because of that, my parents and all of SciLabs were razed right to the ground
when I could have been there. I've sacrificed and lost you, my family, everyone
and everything. Don't think that just now I felt anger or guilt for the first
time."

Lan got up and was about to leave the room, but stopped at the doorframe. 'How
is walking out now any different from walking out back then?' he thought. He
turned back inside and sat down again. He ran his fingers through his brown hair
in frustration. He looked at her, but her back was to him, silently sobbing to
herself.

"It's amazing how so many can turn a blind eye to the truth," Lan said, mostly
to himself. He stared blankly at the red-tiled floor, seeing the embers of the
flame that had killed his mother and father.

-----

Yai was talking to a nurse when she heard her PET ring. "Just run the repair
program on him," she told the nurse. She checked her mail, finding a new letter.
She scanned through it quickly, then typed a reply message and started for
Mayl's room.

Yai stepped into the room and walked toward Mayl. "Are you sure?" she asked
quietly, although she knew Lan could hear. Mayl nodded. Yai turned to Lan, who
was staring blankly out the window. She saw something that looked like sadness
in his brown eyes, but she quickly dismissed it. She was purely convinced that
someone who ever could kill a baby didn't know guilt or sadness, running away
instead to follow some imaginary killer. She never expected Lan to one of those
people, but now that she knew that he was, she felt no sympathy other than pity
for what he had become.

"It looks like I'll finally know why I can't leave," he said, in an inquiring
tone rather than a stating one.

Yai ignored what he said, not letting her emotions get the best of her. "Come
on; I'm going to take you... somewhere important. I'll explain then."

The two of them stepped out of the room and stepped into a nearby elevator. Yai
hit the button for the seventh floor and stepped back, leaning against a rail.
"Megaman will be here to answer some questions as well."

Lan continued to act as though nothing mattered to him, staring transparently at
the rising number indicating the current floor. Yai felt like walking up to him
and slapping him twice to snap him out of his irritating attitude. She stayed
her hand, however, and they eventually reached the seventh floor.

-----

"Alright, I'll get straight to the point," Yai began, standing while Megaman and
Lan were sitting before her desk. "This new Netcrime wave has swept
strategically. If we follow the facts long enough, then ACDC will be the next
intended target, since they first destroyed DenCity, then ransacked SciLabs, and
we're the closest target. Now, for every wave, the two of you have been there.
We want to-,"

"-enlist us," Lan finished with a flat tone.

"To tell you the truth, I really don't care what Mayl wants you to do. I'm just
here to get the information we need. Now, if you'll cooperate rather than being
an annoying bastard then let's get started," Yai said icily. Lan was a bit
stunned to see her in such an emotionally controlled state. He figured that she
had as big of a grudge against him as big as the NetBattlers and still had a
bitter taste in her mouth from Glyde's passing.

"Well, if it's a, 'How do you guys do it?' question, we just fight," Megaman
continued politely.

"You just go out there, against an army of humans, Navis and viruses?" Yai was
appalled.

"Basically," Lan said once again in a blatant tone. Then his eyes narrowed. "But
we don't always win. Like the time we could have saved SciLabs, but were too
busy."

Yai questioned her perception of Lan for a moment. Had she just seen a slight
guilt in his voice? She knew the Lan before would have felt something, but what
he had become surely would not ... She shook the doubts from her mind. People
don't change that way; she had to believe that. She moved on to continuing the
interview. "Is there a difference between-"

"Do you seriously believe that I'm that kind of person?" Lan asked her suddenly,
interrupting her.

She raised an eyebrow, quickly attempting to feign confusion. "What do you
mean?"

"I'm sure as a doctor, you see all kinds of sick circumstances; there are people
who kill their kids in cold blood, leave them and never come back, or worse. I'm
sure that you believe I'm one of those people," Lan said in a non-accusing tone.

"Lan..." Megaman prodded.

"How...?" Yai asked in confusion. How did he know?

"Look, I don't blame you for thinking so," Lan remarked. "Hell, I would have
thought the same if it had happened to someone else. But believe me, I'm not
like that. I ran because I knew this is exactly what everyone would think of
me."

"Lan, will you cut it out?" Megaman pleaded. "What's gotten into you?"

"I'm just giving the people what they want. It's not like I'm exactly welcome
here anyway. After all, I did abandon everyone when that first Netcrime wave
struck," he replied with sharp cynicism. He looked directly into Yai's eyes, so
piercingly that she felt a cold shiver run through her. "Of course, you'd have
to wonder why the town wasn't destroyed in the first place, wouldn't you?"

Yai's eyes went wide. The entire town had believed that they were able to push
the criminals back far enough so that they lost interest and went off. They
weren't actually able to keep them at bay, but the enemy was suffering immense
casualties in the rear. They thought it was just backstabbers.

"Yeah, I'm sure that the town also thought the criminal group was still too weak
since it just 'woke up,' but that was easily disproved when it decided to go
after SciLabs right afterwards. While I was caught up here, trying to make sure
this place was safe, the home I once knew and where everything I cherished
lived, it found that my parents would be a much easier targets," Lan said
prickly, his voice slightly quivering. "I gave up my parents to save the town
that hates my fing guts to the very reaches of their souls. Well, now you
know who that mysterious halberd-wielding savior is. You know, the one that's
been all over DNN news?" He subsequently took out his double halberd and
activated it. "Yup. The devil of ACDC is the one who managed to save half of the
world's towns so far."

"Catharsis," Megaman said quietly to himself.

Yai didn't know what to say.

"I figured that this would be the best time to get rid of the lump on my chest,
considering that you decided to broadcast this interview- I mean interrogation-
throughout the town," Lan continued, "because the town would want to know what
valuable information this here evil mind had inside. I noticed the stereo in
Mayl's room had a blinking light-like it was trying to record something. The
town would want the information on how to keep the criminals away and then cast
me out, exactly the way I supposedly cast myself out, right?"

Yai was stunned-more than stunned, actually. Even the more decent Lan, the one
from her childhood, never spoke openly about his feelings and thoughts. She
suddenly felt a little guilty herself, following blindly on presumptions and
statistics. "How did you know?" she asked again, her voice quaking as well.

"It's all thanks to Mayl. You said she wanted me to have my headband back,
right? If there was any bad thing associated with it, it was that one sunset
seven years ago. That night that I left the town and Mayl and everyone to go and
'get revenge' still hasn't been forgotten nor forgiven. Am I right?" he asked
rhetorically. "How do you think I'd be able to survive this long? I just kept my
eyes peeled for small changes in the atmosphere; I had to be able to do that,
considering that every town I've ever went to has tried to cash in on the
NetBattler's bounty on my head."

Yai slumped back against a wall in the oval room. They were caught red-handed.
The town never wanted Lan to stay or even be near the town, but the rebel
faction needed the information he knew. They expected him to return eventually,
and they planned what they would ask and do so that they would be ready when he
showed up. They never expected him to know that.

"Everyone's changed. Everything's changed," Lan commented.

"How can you know all this?" she asked again. They'd taken every precaution so
that he wouldn't know; they didn't want him to not relinquish any information.

"I already told you," he replied coldly. "Now back to the interrogation. If it's
inside info you want on the NetBattlers, you're looking at him."

Yai still couldn't believe his attitude. Most people, knowing that they weren't
very liked and were being observed against their will or their knowing, would
have gone ballistic. It was an expected response. "Don't you feel anything, any
anger at all? Are you some indifferent stranger?" she asked, somewhat
accusingly.

"I'm just being what's expected of me. I'm a cold, heartless, emotionless,
apathetic child-killer, right? I sent the order of execution to my daughter and
the order of destroying this town by following my anger," he said bluntly, still
without any rage. "And I'll do what's expected of me." He got up and left the
room.

-----

Shadowman slipped through the gates of ACDC fairly easily. He was a trained
assassin, so the presence of guards did not hinder his movement. Despite the
simplicity, he still found excitement from the naïve guards. Grinning to
himself, he walked into the first scrap of shadow he could find, becoming it.

A Navi of great renown, Shadowman could track someone for days with nutrients
and still manage to finish them off without the enemy knowing. In his purple
ninja's outfit, he was considered the best and undefeated assassin of all time.
Of course, that title was lost twelve years ago. His fool of an operator had
made many mistakes in controlling Shadowman, so his first loss was against
Megaman. A bitter taste entered his mouth at the thought of it, although he had
long since disposed of his anger toward the match.

Now, Shadowman had no master. Thanks to the EarthNet, he was complete, whole; he
was the perfect assassin. He was more of a mercenary now, although every mission
he accepted managed to twist into his benefit. This time was different though.
It was time for vengeance and competition.

Once inside an alley, he immediately created a mirage over himself. He would
look like Lan.

-----

Mayl stepped out of the hospital, finally out of the constraining cubicle. She
took a quick look around, checking to see if Lan was around. She would have
slapped herself had she not been in public. What business did she have looking
for him anyway? She had nothing to say to him. She didn't want to and felt that
she shouldn't care for Lan. Yet she was searching for him, with a sliver of
indescribable hope that felt wrong within her heart.

She immediately sensed that something was wrong with the house, but she did
nothing to hinder the pursuit. She looked around warily, as though the shadows
of the house were living. She opened the door and stepped in. A loud creaking
noise brought Mayl out of her daze.

Mayl rushed in, her rings unsheathed in the blink of an eye. The entire house
was pitch-black, and the air was dead and without movement. "Come on out!" she
shouted defiantly.

The door slammed behind her and the lights turned on.

Mayl instinctively turned around. Before she even made half-circle, a black
shadow dropped from above and a hand clasped over her mouth. She felt herself
being turned away from the assailant's face, and felt a pointed object poke at
her back.

"Drop your weapons, Mayl," the attacker ordered in a deathly tone. His voice
sounded so familiar, ringing like an ancient melody in Mayl's ears."Lan!" she gasped, wide-eyed. She immediately released her energy rings and
waited. She felt a side of her to so desperately cut a smile in his throat, but
somehow she knew it would be pointless.

"Close, but not quite," the attacker said, laughing. The lights were out again.

Mayl was thrown into a chair, still not being able to see the mugger's face. She
felt her body seemingly shake uncontrollably. She had never before been so
afraid in her life. She heard the front door opening, and she wanted to cry out
in alarm to warn whoever was coming in, yet she was suddenly frightened at the
consequences. The way she was so easily subdued scared her.

"Hello?" the civilian asked. He wandered around in the darkness for a bit,
trying to find the light switch. Before a minute could pass, all the emphasis in
his eyes left him. A dozen silent shuriken sliced into his back.

-----

Megaman and Roll walked off to search for clues on Lan's whereabouts. Most
people would just say that they didn't want anything to do with Lan, but a
couple did mention some interesting things.

"So far, all we've gotten is that he was in his house and he left his house.
How's that for a lot of useful information?" Megaman said dryly.

Roll sighed. "Mayl isn't answering my calls either. Where is everyone?"

"Probably sulking," Mega replied dryly. Roll turned to him and slapped him.
"What was that for?"

"Stop being so cynical!" she shouted, then stopped once she realized that some
others must have heard. "You're starting to sound like Lan."

Mega stared into her luminescent green eyes. "Is there something wrong with Lan
that would be bad if I started to sound like him?" he snapped angrily.

"He razed an entire nursery, chasing some ghost that wasn't there!" Roll
retorted.

"That Navi could have been there. No one knows that for sure."

Roll hated to have to argue with Mega, but she just couldn't see Lan in any
other way than what he had described himself earlier in the afternoon. "Would it
change anything it was there?"

"Try losing your parents to something you can't explain. Try being someone who
was created just as a replacement. Maybe then you'll understand a bit." Megaman
uttered quietly.

Roll couldn't believe it. Mega had just disclosed his soul to her. She stood
there, speechless.

"All my life, I've felt that I was nothing more than a shadow of Hub, Lan's
brother. When I was created, I was meant as a replacement to Hub Hikari, just a
being to fill his shoes. Lan didn't know, so he treated me like a brother, not
some clone. When he found out, he didn't change the way he thought of me. We
were partners, and always will be," Megaman said. "I have to find him."

Instead of replying, Roll went up to him and kissed Megaman with more passion
than either could ever imagine.

-----

"What do you want?" Mayl demanded. She wasn't restrained to the chair, but she
felt paralyzed and unable to move. Her breathing came in hard, ragged breaths,
even though she wasn't tired. She heard one of her energy rings activate in cut
into flesh. She winced to herself.

"You are going to tell me where Lan Hikari has placed Zergniethil. Or you can
tell me where I can find Lan. Either way, if you refuse, I'll call someone in
here and show that you killed this man. You energy rings could have easily
caused all these slices in his back," her assailant demanded.

"No one will ever believe that," Mayl countered. After realizing that only one
person could move so quickly and be so conniving, she added, "Shadowman."

Shadowman laughed. The statement about framing her was only meant to unnerve
Mayl, to scare her subconscious a bit more. He was still guised as Lan, so he
walked in front of her. He knelt down and looked at her, knowing that all the
while he could see her perfectly through his enhanced vision, while she couldn't
see him. He leaned in and kissed her while throwing a shuriken to a light
switch. The room was bathed in light.

Mayl was stunned momentarily and felt a strange familiarity with the assassin's
lips. When she opened her eyes, she found Lan there, not Shadowman; she
immediately broke the kiss.

Shadowman laughed again, dropping his guise as Lan. "Not exactly what you
expected, eh?" he grinned mischievously.

"What the hell do you want?" Mayl reiterated, turned away from his face. She
would have slapped herself for being so afraid, but she was too scared to do
that.

"Just what I asked. Where's Zergniethil?"

Mayl shrugged. "Never heard of such a thing."

Still kneeling, Shadowman slapped her, then grabbed her chin roughly and made
her look at him. "If you don't tell me, I'll pick someone off the street and
slice them up with the other ring of yours, the one that isn't sticking out of
the man's back."

Mayl did not doubt him, but she seriously didn't know what he was talking about.
"I seriously don't know."

Shadowman studied her a moment, then took her two rings and handed them back to
her. Mayl understood his game. He was taunting her, giving her weapons back yet
all the while knew she wouldn't raise a finger against him. Then he sat down on
the chair across from her and thought.

Mayl's heart was beating so fiercely that she was afraid that Shadowman could
hear it. He suddenly got up to do something, then told her to get up. He created
a mirage over himself again, becoming the man lying on the floor.

"Come with me," Shadowman ordered.

Mayl, who had the bravery to become the leader of ACDC Town for over five years,
could find no way to refuse.

-----

Megaman and Roll stepped into Lan's house mere minutes after Shadowman and Mayl
had taken off.

Roll gasped audibly when she saw the man lying on the floor. "I'll go get an
ambulance!"

"Wait," Megaman said. He turned around with a letter from the counter. It read:

"Lan,

If you ever intend on getting Mayl Sakurai back, make sure you bring Zergniethil
to the Yumland Square. Otherwise, Miss Sakurai will be more thrashed up than the
man on your floor right now."

"It's signed by Shadowman. Two shuriken and one katana, drawn but cuts from a
dagger," Megaman finished. "Go and get Yai, Protoman and anyone else you think
may be able to handle the rescue."

Roll nodded and took off. Megaman crushed the paper in his hand. "Where are you,
Lan?" he muttered as he picked up the corpse and left the house.

-----

The blue-black Navi watched as Shadowman and Mayl walked out of the gates of
ACDC Town. 'What are you up to, Shadowman?' it thought to itself. Then the Navi
grinned maliciously as it considered the possibilities of an alliance. If the
two of them were on the same agenda, then who in the world would pose a threat
to the newly reformed NetBattlers and whoever it was that Shadowman was working
for?

-----

Megaman helped set up the provisions for their journey. All this time,
everything that happened seemed to focus on Lan. Yet he was still nowhere to be
seen. Megaman figured that it was for the best, since if they did know where he
was, they would be in worse than they already were.

"Everyone ready?" he asked his new troupe.

"All set," Meijin replied. He was one of the best strategists out there, and
even though he was a NetBattler, he had proclaimed and proved allegiance to Dr.
Hikari, Lan's father. He took out his shades and put them on.

Gateman, Meijin's partner, helped Roll keep track of supplies. He had the innate
ability to create inter-dimensional shields, allowing everything that passed
through them to go transparently into another dimension. He also held a huge
sound wave cannon in his chest, as well as a large army of miniature soldiers.
"We're finished here."

Yai stood by Protoman and called out, "Let's go. We're finished here."

Megaman went up the watchtower to the gates. The sun was starting to set, and he
knew that Shadowman had a considerable lead in walking time. He only hoped that
something would slow the assassin down so that he would be able to fight on open
turf, rather than the Yumland Square like Shadowman had ordered. The endless sea
of trees seemed to threaten him, telling him that anyone who wandered the woods
would pay dearly.

He opened the gate so that Roll, Yai, Protoman, Meijin and Gateman could exit,
then closed it and jumped down to meet them. Gazing at the setting sun again, he
murmured, "Where are you, Lan?"
- End -

- Notes/Explanations -

Yeah, yeah. I know that some of you are probably disappointed with this chapter.
There wasn't any fighting in it, but I'm hoping that you'll understand. Oh, and
about Meijin. I'm sure the US folk know him as "Mr. Famous," but who in the nine
hells (I've always wanted to say that) would go and name someone that? So I'm
using the Japanese name, Meijin.

The next one will be more action-oriented, with a bigger focus on everyone's
favorite btch, Shin. But please don't be angry with her; it isn't really her
fault. Everyone's just a pawn anyway...

-----
Check out my other story, IceFire Sanctuary. It will have a lot to do with the
two powerful objects you see in this one, "Lervingthis" and "Zergniethil." It
has a more suspense twist to it, but is a bit more explicit from this one. My
guess would be 15, or if you can handle grotesque descriptions.

The URL: http/ click below.
E-mail: Battle Network Universe: go to the Arts section of the MMU Forum and
post a reply there.

- Pyrestrike Out -