Chapter 5
Your Worst Fear
"This was my worst fear," said the chief. When the gang had left the bank they went directly to the net police headquarters to relate what they saw. "We should have known when Dr. Regal disappeared that this wasn't over. That's why I pushed for the PET III to be built so quickly."
"I wonder what that message meant." Lan said.
"Well obviously it meant just what it said. Nebula's still out there, it may have taken a major hit but it's survived." Chaud replied.
"And that Dr. Regal'll be looking for a little revenge. He can't be happy that his rampage was stopped by teenagers." Terra replied.
"And now that we know that Regal was affected by Duo and that he has the power to resurrect deleted darkloids from the cyber graveyard, he's more of a threat now than ever." Dr. Hikari mentioned.
"Well need to stay on our toes," Famous said, "if Regal stages any kind of attack no doubt it'll be aimed directly at us. He knows that he'll need us out-of-the-way of he'll want to take over any world, cyber or human."
"And it wouldn't hurt if the three of you keep close ties for the time being, if Regal is going after anyone most likely it'll be you three." Manuela remarked.
"Don't worry about a thing Manuela, we'll watch each other's back." Lan replied wrapping his arms around Chaud and Terra's shoulder pulling them together causing them to roll their eyes.
Over the next couple of weeks things we pretty quite, too quite actually, it was like the calm before the storm and everyone was on their toes.
"What are you working on?" Terra asked as she and Lan walked into Chaud's office. Chaud who was looking intently at his laptop hadn't noticed them until Terra had spoken. The three had taken Manuela's advice and were hanging out more than they usually did. At least with Chaud, Lan and Terra pretty much hung out together now anyway, not that they considered staying at Chaud's office for three hours as 'hanging out'. But if Manuela suggested something you did it because it probably came directly form the chief more or less.
"I was looking over the computer log from some of our battles. I had a felling that we missed something."
"Did you find anything?" Terra asked.
"I think so, remember that day when the darkloids tried to destroy Control X? I know that Megaman is more powerful in doublesoul but that still doesn't explain why he was able to delete the navi's with one clean shot. You two always has to ware them down." Chaud said directing the conversation to Lan and Megaman.
"Yeah I wondered that too." Megaman said, "of course at the time I was grateful. I wasn't going to look a gift horse on the mouth. But did you find a reason?"
"I think we did," Protoman replied, as he pulled up a couple or graph on the computer. "These graphs show the power levels of the darkloids before and after their deletion. Notice the difference?" he asked.
"Hey, they're way lower after Regal brought them back." Lan remarked as he looked over the graphs.
"Yeah, but we haven't heard a peep out of Regal since his rampage. This may prove that Regal didn't have his act totally together then, but I'm pretty sure that if we met up with them, again that the darkloids would be as strong, or stronger than they were before." Terra said.
"You're probably right." Chaud replied closing his laptop. I guess it's a good thing that we have the PET III on our side then. And just so you know I was trying to look in the bright side for once."
"Yes, I know and I'll start to acknowledge that when you loosen up. Your dad may have bread you to be a mini corporate tycoon, but keep in mind that you are 14. You don't have much time left to act like a kid, but you do have the rest of your life to be a business man." Terra replied.
"Well you can start to acknowledge now. Since there's nothing much we can do about Regal until he makes a move we might as well do something to keep ourselves occupied." Chaud said as he tossed a flyer to her and Lan. Since Terra had moved to Dentech she always teased him that he was too serious. It hadn't bothered him when it came from someone else but since it had stated coming from her…
"An underground netbattling tournament? Cool!" Lan exclaimed, as he looked the flyer over.
"Wow I'm impressed, this is defiantly an improvement. But are you sure you want to do this Chaud, you might get you designer clothes dirty " Terra said joking with her friend, then reading what the flyer said. "Underground netbattling tournament in warehouse district. All navi types excepted. From 5pm-8pm, only for teens ages 13-18. Must bring identification card for age verification. Why are the ages restricted?" Terra asked handing the flyer back to Chaud.
"I think because no one can be held liable for any type of injury once your over the age of 13 if it happens in a place that doesn't have insurance coverage." Megaman mentioned.
"Nice." Terra replied sarcastically. "Well this thing starts at five, that's in two hours we better hurry up and get down there, we still have to sign up and everything, not to mention check out the competition." Terra said looking over at Lan and noticing that he was searching all of his pockets. "You don't have your ID card with you do you?" she asked.
"No." Lan replied, "I must have left it somewhere, Chaud you don't mind if we swing by Scilab first do you? My dad always keeps a spare."
"No that shouldn't be a problem, Scilab is on the way to the warehouse district anyway. I don't see why we can't stop. Besides since the rare metal is being kept there before it's moved again it wouldn't hurt that we had a look at the firewalls and make sure that there hasn't been any attempted hacking."
"You always have to find some way to work even when you're fixing to play don't you Chaud?" Terra asked as they left the building.
"Hey," Chaud said when they arrived at Scilab, "I should be able to finish the search faster if I can have Megaman and Whisper's help."
"Ok." Terra and Lan replied as they jacked their navi's into Chaud's PET.
Mega had half a mind to object to this. He wasn't sure it was the best idea for Lan to be looking through his fathers' files, but he decided against it. If he did it might lead to questions he wasn't sure he should answer.
When they split up Chaud went to the main office taking Protoman, Megaman and Whisper with him and Lan and Terra headed to Dr. Hikari's office.
"Where is everyone? This place is like a ghost town." Terra said as they walked the empty halls.
"My dad said something about them starting a project in Sharro. Since the darkloids attacked they're beefing up security at the mine. "Oh great." Lan said. He and Terra had made it to his dad's office and he was now yanking on the file cabinet drawer finding it locked.
"You'll never learn will you?" Terra asked pulling a bobbing pin out of her hair and picking the lock.
"Ok, you want to help me with this?" Lan asked as Terra pulled open the drawer and found a sea of papers. "My dad may be a brilliant scientist but he has to be the most unorganized person I know."
"Most unorganized?" Terra asked, "You aren't exactly Mary Poppins Lan."
"Just help me." Lan replied handing her a pile of papers.
"Ok, we have, report card, report card, doctor bill, hospital bill, birth certificate, birth certificate, death certificate" Terra was about to move on to the next paper when the word 'death' registered in her mind and she flipped back to take a look at the three documents; what she saw took her by surprise. "Lan I didn't know you had a twin."
Lan was caught off guard by the statement, his brother wasn't someone he talked about often, but he quickly recovered. "Not many people do. He died when we were six, he had HBD, he struggled with it for months but it finally won." Lan replied trying to hide the pain of the memories by pretending to be absorbed in searching for his ID card.
"Lan, I'm so sorry, me and my big mouth, I shouldn't have even asked you that."
"No it's ok." Lan replied. "I think about him all the time anyway."
Terra looked at the birth certificate with a sad smile and began to read what it said:
Name: Hub Hikari.
Hair: Navy.
Eyes: Green.
Birth: Multiple
Order: First
Birthmark: Triangular mark on forearm
It was then that something hit her. I couldn't be could it? If it was true...
"Lan?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"Was Megaman made in your brothers image or was that just a coincidence?" Terra asked.
"I don't know, I guess, I mean the day that I got Megaman that was the first thing that I thought about. I asked my dad about it and he just shrugged me off and changed the subject. You know it's funny though, Megaman has almost the same personality that Hub did. Hub always bossed me around in that big brother way you know, even when he was sick. Not to mention that Megaman and Hub look a lot alike." Lan said pulling out an old photo of his brother and him out of a file. Terra caught her breath when she saw the uncanny resemblance between the two.
"Alike?" Terra asked. "Lan, they look exactly alike. Eerily alike. You don't think that there's any chance-" she started.
Lan saw where she was going and quickly interjected. "What, that Megaman is really my brother and that my dad somehow managed to bring him back from the dead and made him into my netnavi? There's no way, believe me I've thought about it and you couldn't even think of all the times I've wanted it to be true but there's just no way." Lan said, totally ignoring the dream that he had had just had a few days before. Hey I found it." He said when he pulled out his ID card.
"Lan if you don't feel like going anymore it ok. I'd understand and I'm pretty sure Chaud would too."
"Are you kidding me?" Lan asked turning to face his friend. "Besides curry a good netbattle is just the thing to cheer me up."
"Ok then," Terra, said she stuffed all the files back into the cabinet. "I guess we can get out of here."
They were just at the door when it suddenly shut and the room was filled with color.
"What was that?" Lan asked.
"I'm pretty sure I can guess." Terra replied.
"Guys, we have a problem!" Chaud exclaimed as a web cam pop-up appeared on Dr. Hikari's computer.
"Chaud's what's going on?" Lan asked.
"Three darkloids just came through the firewall, they're after the metal." Chaud relied.
"How did they get through the firewall with out setting off the alarm?" Terra asked.
"They had the over ride code." Megaman replied as he and Whisper returned to their PET's
"The only reason Megaman and I picked them up on our search was because they breached the security system that is protecting the metal. The alarm goes off even if you have the password and it only deactivates if someone gives you clearance. If that didn't happen we wouldn't have even known they were here." Whisper replied.
"How could that be possible?" Lan asked.
"I don't know, but we need to crossfuse and get to that underground vault where the metal is being kept. The more we stand around and talk the more time they have to get the metal. We have Nebula right where we want them. Weak. But if they get more metal they can make more darkchips and everything will just start all over again." Chaud said.
"Don't worry we'll see you in a second." Lan said as Chaud ended the transmission. This was just great, for the first time in almost a year he was going to a netbattling tournament and the darkloids had to ruin it. He felt like he was a walking Murphy's Law. When he went to the door he found it locked. "Great. It's locked, Megaman see if you can open it, jack in Megaman power up." He said jacking Megaman into the lock.
"Lan this is a lost cause," Mega said as he examined the control system. "The darkloids have over ridden the system and created a new passwords for all of Scilab's security systems. They've totally locked us out."
"Well lets see how two inches of wood handles a m-cannon, syncrochip in download, begin crossfusion now! M-cannon battlechip in download", he exclaimed as he fired and blew out the door. "Come on," he said as he grabbed Terra who had just crossfused, they were heading down the hall to the vault when they heard Chaud.
"Wait up!" he called as he came up behind them. Once there they continued.
"We'll have to take the stairs." Terra said as she ran. "If the darkloids have control over all the systems the elevators are useless."
"You're right," Chaud agreed "They'll most likely trap us if we tried to use one."
After they had run down about three flights of stairs Lan spoke up.
"The vault is just down this hall." Lan said as he opened the door that led further underground, when they reached it Chaud barked an order.
"When I blow the door be ready for anything." He said.
"Already on it." Lan and Terra replied together default weapons already drawn.
When the door blew they discovered the room was full of viruses. They were about to attack when Protoman stopped them.
"Stop." Protoman said.
"Protoman what is it?" Chaud asked.
"I just conducted a search, these viruses aren't taking the metal. They're only a smoke screen. The darkloids are doing all the work. They're right behind them."
"We still need to get past them though." Lan said.
"And I've got that covered." Chaud replied. "Salamander battlechip in," he said deleting enough viruses to leave a clear path for them to get through.
When they reached the other side though someone was waiting for them and they were greeted with one plasma blast each that knocked them to the ground. With the smoke still thick in the air they couldn't see a thing, even Terra's shades weren't helping, but they could hear. And what they heard was a laugh that was freakishly familiar. Dark Protoman's laugh.
"That's not me." Protoman replied from his half of the crossfusion when Lan and Terra looked Chaud's way.
When the smoke cleared they saw their assailants and came face to face with their own…
Navi's?
TBC