New Megaman Battle Network

A complete reimagining of the universe and stories of Megaman Battle Network.

Story 2: The Sun And The Moon


Chapter 8: The Ballad of Lan and Mayl

"Well, we better figure it out quick…"

Megaman stared into the face of Tomahawkman as they grappled in a battle of strength. An instant later, Tomahawkman's face transformed into that of a wolf, and he breathed fire all over Megaman, engulfing him, as the crowd gasped.

"Right here, I thought Megaman was done for," Yai commentated from the couch. "Mayl practically screamed."

Lan, sitting nearby, turned his eyes to the floor, his face red from embarrassment. "I can't believe you taped this..."

Yai laughed. "Of course I did! Why wouldn't I?"

She, Lan, Mayl, Dex, and the rest of their homeroom class were seated in the enormous entertainment room of the Ayanokouji mansion, watching a recording of the battle royale match of the Red Sun Tournament with great interest. It was the weekend after the tournament, as well as Mayl's 12th birthday, and they were celebrating both Mayl's birthday and Lan's victory in a single large event as they had discussed before. For the sake of a few who had missed the match, they were rewatching it on Yai's rather large television; most of the children were scattered on the floor, while Lan, Mayl, Dex and Yai sat on the nearby couch, with Lan's overlarge trophy residing in the corner.

"Oh, this is the best part!" Dex declared, as everyone watched Megaman stand up, resisting Tomahawkman's strength, and the results of his fire-based transformation became visible. Everybody ooh'd and aah'd at this turn of events.

"What happened there, Lan? What did Megaman do?" a classmate asked.

"I didn't know at the time, so I went to SciLab and asked my dad," Lan replied, looking at his PET. "He called it..."


"...a Style Change. This is what Megaman's upgrade was really about."

The week prior, after the match, Lan and his friends were all in Dr. Hikari's office; as Lan suspected, he had been unable to get himself to leave, despite his injury. Megaman was watching from a nearby system and keeping his promise to Iris, who had seemed rather pleased that he had returned; it was hard to tell, though, as she still spoke softly and never smiled. Megaman had returned to his normal self, after Dr. Hikari did a little bit of tinkering with Lan's PET.

"A Style Change? What's that?"

Yuichiro rifled through some papers of his, eventually coming across a certain document with lots of technical words and drawings of Megaman. "It's a new ability of his, that allows him to change form. Depending on the situation, he could grow stronger, faster, what have you. On top of that, there may be additional changes, like elemental powers."

He turned on a screen nearby and typed away on a keyboard for a few seconds, and an image of Megaman appeared, in the new red-orange appearance he took on at the tournament; he and his friends studied it closely. "Megaman currently has HeatGuts style. It charges his attacks with fire, and increases his strength significantly. You can imagine how it came about: during the match, Megaman needed to be stronger, and he needed to be able to withstand fire, so HeatGuts it was."

"Wait, you mean he can automatically get upgraded with what he needs, on the fly?" Lan's eyes boggled at the thought.

"Well, sort of," Yuichiro replied. "Each style benefits only one facet of Megaman, such as his speed or his strength, and you can't change between them very quickly. Not only that, but you can only store up to four styles in your PET."

"Right…" Lan grinned. "Still, that's pretty awesome. Now I can make Megaman stronger when I need to, right? I can just turn on HeatGuts style?"

His father nodded. "You need to be careful, though. If Megaman were in HeatGuts style, and he was hit with a water or ice attack, he'd receive twice as much damage as normal. It's not without its share of problems, either, so use it with care."

"HeatGuts style..." Dex pondered. "Is that supposed to be 'Guts' like Gutsman, Mr. Hikari?"

Yuichiro shrugged and smiled. "I remember Lan here complaining a lot about a Gutsman, and it sounded good, so…"

Dex laughed triumphantly. "Yeeha! Hear that, Lan? My Gutsman is still the strongest Navi there is, if your dad's using it!"

"What are you talking about, Dex?" Yai jumped in. "Protoman kicked your butt into next week!"

The two started bickering as they usually, and everyone in the room snickered. Megaman smiled, as he watched from inside the SciLab computer, Iris sitting beside him.

"It must be nice to have friends like that..." Iris spoke softly.

"Iris... did you have any friends before Nebula found you?" Megaman asked; Iris looked down.

"I don't know..." she replied. "I don't know what having a friend is supposed to be like. I didn't know many people back then..."

"Maybe you could make some new friends now," he offered.

Iris looked up, watching Lan and his friends enjoy themselves. "Maybe..."


"A Style Change, huh? Never heard of anything like that!"

Lan stretched on the couch. "Well, my dad said it's new technology. Not many Navis could use it even if they had it programmed into them."

"Megaman could, though!" called out another classmate. "Megaman can do anything!" The room cheered, and Lan looked down again, before he became aware of the e-mail alert beeping from his PET. He took a quick look.

"Hey, it's from the INC!" he said aloud. The room went silent as everyone instantly quieted down in unison and turned to face him, wanting to hear about it.

"What's it say?!" Mayl wondered, leaning into Lan's shoulder so she could read his PET for herself.

"Hold on, hold on!" Lan called out. He tried to shove Mayl away, to no avail, before he began to read.

"'Lan, congratulations again on your victory in Electopia's Red Sun Tournament! As we have said before, your flight will be departing at 6:00 am tomorrow from Den International Airport. Your first-class tickets are attached to this email.'"

"First class!" Dex exclaimed. "I've never even been in business class before!" Lan grinned and continued.

"'Your first day in Creamland will be yours, to do with as you please. The next day, the finalists will be taken on a tour of Creamland's royal and historic landmarks, and will be addressed by Her Highness, Princess Pride.'"

"Princess Pride?!" someone else spoke up, incredulous. "That's not fair! You get to meet a princess?!"

Yai stuck out her tongue. "You already know a princess, me!" Mayl and Dex laughed, as Lan read on.

"'The final round of the Red Sun/Blue Moon Tournament will take place on the following day. The competitors from each half will battle it out until the winners are found, and the final round, between the winners of the Red Sun and Blue Moon tournaments, will be broadcast live on international television. Best of luck, and thank you once again for your participation!'"

The room broke into loud discussion, with various people talking about how lucky Lan was, or asking him to bring back Princess Pride's autograph, and other random things.

"Wait, did they say 6:00 am?" Yai wondered aloud, trying to grab at Lan's PET so she could read the e-mail.

"Yes! Stop grabbing!" Lan responded, holding the device above his head.

"But the airport is almost an hour and a half away! And don't you have to get there an hour before your flight?"

"Shoot... you're right." Lan did some quick math in his head, groaning at the result he came up with. "That means I'm going to have to leave at three in the morning or something like that..."

"That's only eight hours from now!" Dex declared, looking at the clock in his PET. "That's nothing!"

"Well, we're just going to have to get to partying right away, won't we?" Mayl grinned and reached across Lan's lap, trying to get her hands on the trophy. "Come on, I wanted some pictures with this thing, remember?"

"Hey! Be careful!" Lan tried to grab the trophy as well, with slightly more care, as Mayl laughed. The party continued on in this vein, with plenty of laughing and roughhousing, as well as a significant amount of birthday cake, late into the night.


Eight hours later, the partying had finally wound down, and children were sleeping on the floor and on furniture across several different rooms. The party section of the house was completely trashed, with bits of streamers and silly string decorating a number of surfaces, and discarded pizza and cake everywhere; nothing was broken, as most of the valuables had been evacuated from the area well before the party started. Lan's overlarge trophy remained undamaged in a corner of the room, as the children had treated it with the utmost reverence.

Lan had fallen asleep upside-down on one of the couches two hours prior, exhausted. While he had originally planned to get more sleep, he had been convinced by his classmates that he could sleep on the plane, as well as on the bus that would take him to the airport. He snored lightly as he slept, and it took Megaman a bit of work to get him to wake up on time.

"Lan, get up! You're going to miss your bus!" Lan shook himself awake, looking around at the mess the room had become as he lay upside-down, friends sleeping everywhere and pizza lying about.

"Ugh... this is probably what being a college student is like." He sat up slowly, rubbing his eye and standing up, realizing he had fallen asleep in his clothes and shrugging it off. He headed into another room, to collect the suitcase he had put aside, and he tossed some silly string off of it.

"The bus is supposed to be just waiting outside, right?" Lan asked.

"You called the bus company hours ago, remember? They should be arriving any second. They might be here by now."

"Well, we better not keep it waiting." He headed toward the entrance, stepping over food and bodies and tripping over Dex before he made it to the front door and stepped outside into the night. As Megaman had said, a travel bus was waiting right outside, at the end of the driveway, and he started sleepily walking toward the vehicle.

"Lan! Wait up!" He turned around to see Mayl waving at him, running over and wearing a red jacket. Like Lan, she looked exhausted, but was cheerful nevertheless.

"Mayl? What are you doing?" Lan wondered aloud, as she ran up to him.

"I'm coming with you so I can see you off at the airport! No one else is coming, after all." She zipped up her jacket, a bit cold.

"Really? How are you going to get back here?"

"I'm going to take the bus back, of course," she replied. "Yai said her family would pay for it and not to worry about it, so there."

Lan started to respond, but yawned instead, covering his mouth with his hand. "Alright, alright... come on, let's go." Mayl smiled as the pair walked through the door and stepped onto the bus, taking the first vacant seats. Lan put his bag aside and sat down, resting his head against the window as the bus started to pull away, heading back down Yai's driveway.

"Looks like it'll be a long, boring ride through Den City," Lan muttered. "A boring bus ride before a boring plane ride."

Mayl yawned, leaning back. "Well, at least you'll be able to get some sleep." Her head tilted off to the side. "Sleep sure sounds nice right now..."

Lan smirked as the bus left the driveway and got onto a nearby road. By the time the bus had reached its first stop, both of them had already drifted off.


Lan was awoken 45 minutes later, as the bus hit a bump in the road, causing him to smack his head against the window.

"Ow..." He rubbed his head, looking around, taking a second to remember where he was. Looking out the window, he could see that the bus was still driving through downtown Den City, and the airport was nowhere in sight. He sighed and watched the buildings go by for a moment, before becoming aware of a weight resting on him. Looking over, he found that Mayl was leaning against him as she slept lightly; her arms hung loosely around his neck, and her head was resting against the front of his shoulder as she slept.

Lan smiled and rubbed her head lightly. Gestures like this were not at all uncommon for her; she was a very affectionate young girl, especially toward him, and she also had minimal consideration for his personal space. He didn't mind, enjoying the closeness and the affection, comforted by her touch as she was by his. While there were no romantic intentions in either direction, they were much closer than two friends would normally be, having known each other essentially their entire lives. They were often seen together, alone or with other friends; physical contact was not taboo; and there was almost nothing the two of them couldn't discuss together. While they almost never spoke of their bond, they cared for each other deeply, and were well aware of it. Though they weren't in love, they loved each other nonetheless.

As he rubbed Mayl's head comfortingly, he became aware once again of the difference in their skin tones, seeing his hand next to her face. It was hard to tell without close inspection, but Mayl was a couple shades lighter than most people they knew. While Lan and Yai were both 100% Electopian, and Dex's parents both were born in Netopia, Mayl's father was a traveling businessman who hailed from the northern country of Ameroupe, and she was fluent in Ameroupic as well as Electopian. In fact, Lan was one of a handful of people who knew Mayl's birth name, Maylumai Sakurai-Sirelis, a mix of Ameroupic and Electopian; she generally declined to use her full name for a number of reasons. She had dropped the "Sirelis" part of her name several years back for all practical purposes, since she felt it made her name too cumbersome. "Mayl" was a nickname created by Lan in their infancy, and she had stuck by it not just because she liked it, but because "Maylumai Sakurai" rhymed, and she got rather annoyed whenever someone reminded her of this fact.

Lan grinned to himself, remembering one instance where he had teased Mayl about it until she began chasing him around the room, wielding a toy robot as a weapon. As he brushed back some of her hair, his smile faded as he inadvertently revealed a large, barely-visible scar on the side of her forehead, above her right eye. His mind instantly flashed back to three months ago, where he found himself holding Mayl's limp form in the wreckage of a destroyed cable car, as blood flowed from a large cut in her forehead.

He looked down toward his PET, where his Navi was resting himself, recharging and preparing for the battles ahead. Mere seconds before Gospel had attacked their cable car, Lan was wondering to himself why he had been given Megaman. Was he really supposed to just leave justice to the authorities, instead of taking matters into his own hands? As he rode to the world Netbattle championships, his best friend in the world sleeping by his side, he knew the answer to his question. He was going to use Megaman to protect the ones he cared about, no matter what Chaud, his father, or any other authority figure tried to tell him otherwise.

Lan rested his head back against the window and went back to sleep, knowing he still had a long ride ahead.


"Den International Airport!" the bus driver called out another 45 minutes later. Lan stirred and blinked, sitting up, as other riders started sleepily getting to their feet and grabbing their bags. Looking over, he saw that Mayl was still right where he had left her. He shook her lightly to try and rouse her.

"Hey, Mayl, we're here." She blinked and yawned, looking around, then down at the position she was in.

"Oh, sorry..." She sat up, her arms sliding off of his shoulder. "Must have shifted in my sleep or something..."

"What?" Lan stood up and grabbed his bag. "You mean you did that while you were sleeping?"

Mayl grinned, standing as well and shifting into the aisle. "I can't help it. You're like a big old teddy bear when you're asleep."

The two got themselves off the bus and headed into the departures lobby of the airport, where Lan got himself checked in, handing over his suitcase to the airline personnel. They quickly found his gate, and after a few minutes of walking, they came across a sign in their path: SECURITY CHECKPOINT. NO ENTRY WITHOUT TICKETS AND IDENTIFICATION.

"Looks like this is it," Lan muttered, looking down and checking to ensure his PET was still with him, which it was. "Thanks for coming along. I'll let you know when I get there."

"Lan, wait." He turned around to face Mayl, who had adopted a rather worried look. "I just... I'm really worried about this trip. So many bad things have been happening lately, and… what if something happens while you're there, and we can't help you?"

He sighed. "I'll be fine, Mayl. Nothing's going to happen."

"How do you know that, Lan?"

"Just trust me," he replied unhelpfully, wanting to assuage her fears but too tired to come up with a good rationale for it. "Everything will be fine. You don't need to worry about me."

"Lan, just…" She groaned, not wanting to have a ridiculous argument at this time of night, and she thrust her hand into her jacket pocket. "Just take this, alright?" She pulled out a pewter pendant the length of her index finger, carved into the shape of a diamond and painted sky blue, and handed it to him.

"What's this?" he inquired, holding it up and taking a closer look.

"It's supposed to be for good luck," Mayl answered. "I got it yesterday, before the party started."

Lan grinned. "You were buying me stuff on your birthday? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?"

"I don't need anything from you, Lan. We talked about this already." She stepped closer to him. "If you come back safe from Creamland, that's a good enough gift for me."

"You're such a worrywart, Mayl." He dropped the pendant into his vest pocket. "There, I'll keep it on me, I promise. Everything's going to be just fine."

"I hope so." She stepped closer and wrapped her arms tightly around him; he embraced her gently as well, and they held each other for a few moments. As her grip loosened, he felt her lips pressing against his cheek before she stepped back.

"Good luck, Lan," she offered. "Do your best and come back safe, okay?"

Lan nodded. "I will, don't worry. Make sure everyone cheers for me back home!"

Mayl smiled and nodded back.