New Megaman Battle Network

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

Story 3: The Dimensional Core


Chapter 5: The Edge of Discovery

"For the third time, I don't have any more updates on Dr. Hikari." The increasingly irritated SciLab receptionist looked down at a highly frustrated Lan, both of them trying hard not to lose their cool. "He was supposed to be free by now. He must have a meeting running long." Lan nodded, biting his lip and loosing his nervous grip on the reception desk. Behind him, Mayl watched the exchange with vague interest, as Dex shuffled his feet back and forth; they had been waiting in the lobby for nearly an hour, and the terror of the early afternoon had mostly faded, leaving them less panicked and increasingly bored.

"Ugh, for… come on, Dad…" Lan started walking down a hallway, eyes on the ground and hands in his pockets. "Of all the times…"

"What is your dad doing?" Mayl asked, as she and Dex started walked behind him, not being familiar with SciLab and making sure to stick close. Lan, conversely, wasn't going anywhere in particular, wandering down a hallway with laboratories on either side, killing time.

"He's in some stupid meeting with IPC about who knows what," he grumbled. "Something way less important than this!" He started raising his voice, as his fists clenched in his pockets. "Why is he always… argh!" He swung his foot into the nearby wall, needing a target for his anger.

"Lan, just relax," Megaman said somewhat sternly from the boy's PET. "Getting angry isn't going to do anyone any good." Lan fumed, about to open his mouth to snap back at his Navi, when he was stopped by Mayl's hand gently coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Please, Lan, calm down…" He could hear concern and something approaching fear in her voice, which caused all of his anger to immediately evaporate from his body. He looked down at the ground again, feeling ashamed of himself.

"Sorry…" he muttered. "I'm just really stressed… all this crazy stuff happening…" Mayl nodded, squeezing his shoulder gently as Dex stopped walking, his attention caught on something happening through a small window.

"I know… I'm scared, too. But it's going to be okay. Your dad will know what's going on and put a stop to it." She smiled gently, trying to cheer him up. "Or maybe you'll find some way to save the day again."

"Mm. Yeah, that's me. Always saving the day…" There was a bitterness in his voice that took her by surprise, quieting her briefly. Before she could speak again, however, her thoughts were interrupted by a call from nearby.

"Hey, guys!" Dex called out. "C'mere and take a look at what they're doing!" The two of them turned around, Lan quickly walking over to where Dex was standing, not enjoying the conversation and thankful for the reprieve; Mayl followed after, looking through the glass at what Dex was watching. A holographic display sat in the middle of the room, and it was displaying three Official Navis, standing and facing each other in a triangle. One of the Navis was wielding a Life Sword above his head, while to his left, another Navi was summoning another batch of swords, which eventually formed what Lan recognized to be a Life Sword 2.

"What are they doing?" Mayl wondered aloud, as the third Navi formed yet another Program Advance. The three figures moved slowly toward one another, meeting in the center, and touched their energy swords together. The blades quickly and loudly merged together, combining into a much taller, white pillar of energy, with bolts of red, green and blue crackling around it. Lan stared at the reaction, amazed, when the pillar of light suddenly flickered and disappeared. The three children could hear dissatisfied grumbling voices through the window.

"What was that?" Dex wondered. "It looks like they were combining Life Swords together."

Lan nodded, still looking in. "Doesn't sound like it worked, though..."

"It never works." All three whirled around as they heard a voice from behind, to see Yuichiro Hikari standing there, looking through the window as well. "They've been trying to do that for months. It should be possible in theory, but you need an immense amount of power, not to mention synchronicity."

"Dad!" Lan exclaimed. "Where have you been?! Why weren't you answering your phone?!"

"My PET isn't working right now," his father answered. "I've been trying to modify PETs for something I've been working on, but no dice." He started walking off toward the lobby, headed for his office, and the children followed. "So the receptionist tells me you've been waiting for me rather impatiently."

Lan nodded. "Yes! We were all just-"

"Yuichiro!" Another voice called out from down a branching hallway, and Lan turned to see Dr. Regal running toward them. "Finally, you're back! I've been trying to-"

"Oh, come on!" Lan belted, exasperated; his father put a hand on his shoulder, a subtle order to keep quiet.

"I've been in a meeting with IPC all day, Lucius," Yuichiro responded. "Please tell me this is important."

The other scientist nodded. "You have to come look at this, right now. There's an old SciLab research building on the edge of the city that's resumed operating by itself."

"Wait, what? All on its own? How is that possible?"

"You'll see that when you see it," Regal responded, walking down another hallway toward a parking garage. "Come on, let's go."

Dr. Hikari started walking after him. "Hold up, hold up. What's with this 'surprise' crap? Just tell me what's going on!"

"Dad!" Lan called out, running to catch up. "Come on! This isn't fair! The three of us are attacked by a Navi in the middle of downtown, and-"

"What?!" Both scientists instantly turned around in shock, as Lan exhaled, partly frustrated, partly relieved that he finally had his father's attention.

"It was this ice Navi," Dex jumped in, stepping forward. "He just appeared out of nowhere and-"

"Appeared where?" Yuichiro asked, trying to clarify. "On the Net? Or…"

Lan shook his head. "He was downtown! On the street! And he had this crystal, and it looked a lot like a Dark Chip..."

"Oh, this is bad." Regal pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is very bad... Yuichiro, you have to come and see this building, right away."

Yuichiro nodded, turning toward the children. "You three, come with us. You can explain what happened on the way there." They nodded, following after a speed-walking Dr. Regal as they moved toward the SciLab parking garage.


"...and then he just disappeared, into thin air," Dex concluded.

"He sort of fizzled out, like a TV with a bad picture," Lan contributed, talking to his father in the passenger seat, as Dr. Regal drove them toward the outskirts of Den City.

"Bizarre…" Yuichiro muttered, taking it all in. "You have anything to add, Mayl? You've been pretty quiet back there."

Mayl shook her head. "No, sir." While she could have said everything the two boys had, the whole business of what was going on with Forte and Dark Chips made her very uncomfortable, and she was trying not to think about it too hard. He nodded in response, and she continued looking out the window.

"This has to be Forte's doing," he mused. "It's way too similar to what happened earlier this week with the viruses. But how on Earth did he pull that off? A Navi wandering around in the real world, almost no restrictions at all?"

"My guess is that it's related to our Cross Fusion technology," Regal offered. Lan blinked and sat up, wondering what he was talking about.

"How do you figure?" Yuichiro responded. "We're not anywhere near that stage yet, and…" His voice trailed off, and he leaned forward, staring at something that had just entered his vision. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

The three kids in the back all followed his gaze, trying to see what he was looking at, which came into view as they passed a large building. A short distance ahead, they could see a large, glowing, multicolored dome that appeared to be surrounding a laboratory. It seemed to be compromised of a number of hexagons, like a beehive, and the rainbow colors on its surface flowed and swirled about.

"We discovered it less than an hour ago," Regal explained. "And inside, there are a number of research machines running."

"But that's…" Yuichiro struggled to find words for a moment, in utter disbelief. "How could he get it to be so large? And it's not faltering at all!"

"Wow..." Mayl sat up, getting a better look. "What is that, Dr. Hikari?"

"It's…" Yuichiro struggled for a second to answer without cursing in frustration, as Regal pulled the car into the lot where the building was located. "It's a Dimensional Area. I don't know how it's here." Both scientists quickly unbuckled their seatbelts.

"A Dimensional Area? What's that?" Lan asked, keeping his eyes on the rainbow dome.

"Hold on, I have to check this out." The two adults got out of the car and walked toward the glowing dome, and the children quickly followed. Dr. Regal and Dr. Hikari started examining it, Regal holding his PET close to it to perform some sort of data collection, as Lan, Mayl and Dex looked up at the massive structure.

"Do you think it's okay to touch it?" Dex wondered. Lan glanced over at his father, who was pounding on it with his fist. Taking this as a sign in the affirmative, he walked up to the dome and put his palm out on it, feeling a mild electric charge run up his arm.

"Yowch!" He drew his hand back quickly, as the other two watched. "It's like an electric shock!"

"Really? Let me see!" Dex ran up to the Dimensional Area and touched his finger to it, yelping and immediately withdrawing his arm as well. "Whoa! Now my arm's all tingly!"

Mayl walked right up to the edge of the dome, looking up at it. "What does it do?" she wondered aloud. "Does it have something to do with Navis? Isn't that what your dad does?"

"Yeah, he does Navi research, mostly," Lan answered. "What could they do outside of the Net, though?"

"Graagh!" They all turned to see Dr. Hikari kick the Dimensional Area out of anger. "I can't believe this! He didn't just steal our technology, he's improved upon it! He's smarter than we are!"

"This is what Dr. Cossack was telling us about..." Regal added. "His intelligence is extraordinary, but I never really believed a Navi's mind could really be superior to ours."

Lan's father rested his head in his palm, as Lan walked over curiously. "Dad, what exactly is this? What does a Dimensional Area do?"

Yuichiro took a deep breath and let it out, needing a moment before answering. "Okay, do you remember the Alpha Incident, where I wished we could make something like that happen in a lab?" Lan nodded, and his father continued. "Well, that's what we did. We reverse-engineered what happened and we were able to recreate it. We created a space where executable programs could manifest a physical form and enter the real world."

"Computer programs in the real world?" Mayl looked back at the Dimensional Area. "But… how is that even possible?"

"I'll be honest, Mayl: I don't know. We know how to do it, but we don't know why it works. We're still studying that. Science is weird sometimes."

"So this thing can bring Navis in the real world?" Dex suddenly adopted a fearful expression. "Does that mean... Forte could be in this building right now?"

Dr. Hikari nodded slowly. "Yes and yes. And this would explain how your ice Navi appeared downtown earlier. It seems like Forte is doing his own research, based on our technology, and he's doing it on SciLab property to boot."

"So how do we stop him?" Lan turned back to his father. "Do we cut off power to the building or something?"

"Each of these laboratories has generators inside that can power it for a long time," Regal replied. "I doubt we can cut power to it long enough for it to make a difference. Forte will certainly find a way to bring the power back."

"We're not going to figure this out here." Yuichiro turned back toward their vehicle. "We need to get back to SciLab to figure out our next steps." Lan followed closely behind his father, hopping into the back seat of the car. Mayl entered and sat next to him, eyeing him with concern, worried that he was going to get himself into more danger trying to stop whatever was happening.


For most of the trip back, Regal and Yuichiro tossed ideas back and forth, to no avail. The three children sat in the back, having essentially nothing to contribute, though Lan and Dex listened in anyway.

"…I'm not sure that will work, and I'm not sure I want to try," Regal spoke, shooting down another of his partner's ideas. "We've never successfully broken through a Dimensional Area barrier. If we try to do so, we might cause all sorts of damage to the surrounding area." Lan sighed, realizing their conversation was going nowhere, and tuned out. Looking down toward his PET, he noticed he had received an e-mail from Princess Pride, with whom he had been corresponding regularly; he turned away from the others so he could read it with some privacy.

"What if..." Regal pondered. "What if that Dimensional Area were to intersect with another? How does the barrier handle collisions like that?"

"I have no… huh." Yuichiro thought to himself for a minute. "That might work, actually... I think the hexagon design might make that work. The problem is, we wouldn't be able to make a portable area large enough for any more than one or two people to enter. It wouldn't be safe going in with that few people."

Regal turned into the parking garage at the rear of the main SciLab building, driving down to a lower level where employee parking was located. As he approached the bottom of the slope, a powerful sensation suddenly made everyone sit up straight, as if a jolt had shot through them. It was as though some sort of static charge had filled the air, making it come alive.

"What the..." Yuichiro turned around, and the three youngsters followed his gaze. Outside the entrance to the garage, the sky seemed to have become a glowing rainbow of colors, one they recognized far too well.

"Is that a Dimensional Area, too…?" Lan asked quietly, already knowing the answer, but hoping against hope that he was wrong.

"What… that… shouldn't even be possible…" His father was dumbstruck, a rarity for him. "How… and who…?"

Regal had stopped the car, turning around himself and looking back at the hexagonal shell of the Dimensional Area. "Our generators shouldn't even be able to create a field that large… unless they've been modified, or tampered with…"

Yuichiro's hands gripped his seat tightly, as he quickly came to grips with what was happening. "There's only one person who could do something like that without us knowing… which means all of SciLab has been compromised by Forte…"

The last sentence weighed down oppressively on everyone in the car, as they all grappled with the ramifications. The quiet cyber war against Forte had entered a radical and dangerous new phase, and he had made a powerful first strike that they were unequipped to answer. They all continued to stare quietly at the rainbow dome that now encased the building, before Dr. Hikari spoke again.

"We need to get those generators shut down, immediately. I don't want to find out what he's planning." He turned to look at his partner in the driver's seat. "Give me your PET. I need to get in touch with Iris."

Regal nodded, pulling out his PET and handing it to Dr. Hikari, who immediately tried contacting Iris about the generators. Lan, Mayl and Dex all kept their eyes behind them, on the Dimensional Area that had formed around the building, as Regal started driving again.

"Why is this happening?" Mayl asked to no one in particular, visibly frightened. "This really is a nightmare, one I can't wake up from..."

"This kind of stuff always seems so much cooler on TV," Dex commented, also frightened, though trying his best to not appear so. "But when it's really happening to you, it's just... scary." Lan nodded in response, the only one of the three not panicking.

"Ugh, nothing. Communications are blocked." Yuichiro returned Regal's PET, as Regal drove right up to the elevators. "We'll just have to go and turn them off ourselves." He unbuckled himself and stepped out of the now-stationary vehicle, as everyone else followed suit. Lan rushed up to the elevator and started to hammer the call button, but his father shook his head.

"Forget that, that's going to be too slow." He walked over toward the stairs. "It's only on the second floor, we can walk." Lan nodded, walking next to his father as both of them started ascending, only to suddenly be stopped by a hand from behind.

"Look out!" Regal cried out as he yanked both Hikaris off of the stairs. A couple seconds later, everyone jumped back as a large, gray Heavy virus slammed down in front of them, destroying the stairs on its way down.

"A virus?!" Mayl took several trembling steps backward, her panic starting to grow by leaps and bounds. "What... why…"

"Gah, hell…" Dr. Hikari quickly moved himself out of the stairwell, grabbing Lan's arm and pulling him along. Once they were safely away, he let out a relieved sigh, before looking down at his son, who was still goggling at the virus that had destroyed the stairs. After a moment, he nodded and started digging through his vest pocket, having come to a conclusion he hadn't wanted to face; right now, however, they didn't have a choice. As his hands closed around what he was searching for, the gentle sound of a bell caused everyone to look toward the elevator, as the doors slowly opened, sooner than they had expected. Mayl quickly scrambled inside, and Lan started to follow her instinctively.

"Hey, wait!" Yuichiro called out, as Lan's arm slipped out of his grasp. He was worried about everyone getting into an elevator, after what had just happened to the stairs.

"Hold it right there," a voice called out from behind them. Everyone quickly turned around to find themselves faced with a familiar ice-blue Navi, the rainbow light of the Dimensional Area shining through the crystals that made up his body.

Frostman smirked. "How convenient... everybody I need to talk to, gathered right here for me." His eyes traveled from Dex, to Dr. Regal, to Dr. Hikari, and finally settled on Lan, who took a step back toward the elevator as its door started to close. "You're all too kind."

Moving quickly, Yuichiro took a step back and shoved Lan backward through the doors as hard as he could. He collided hard with the back wall of the elevator car, holding the now-sore spot where his father had pushed him, as the door slowly closed. Thinking fast, he stepped forward and slammed his fist on the button for the top floor, trying to get Mayl and himself as far away from the Navi as he could manage. He breathed a small sigh of relief as the car started moving, taking the two children away from their aggressor.

Back on the ground floor, Yuichiro was staring down the advancing Frostman, stepping in front of Dex in a meager attempt to protect him. "You must be the Navi who tried to hurt these three earlier. You're not going to lay a hand on them, you hear me?"

Frostman laughed. "What exactly do you think you could do to stop me if I tried?" He glided forward, leaving a trail of ice behind him. "Fortunately for them, I'm not here for those children. The one I'm interested in is you, Dr. Hikari... you and your partner over there."

He smirked. "I have some questions about your work, and you're going to give me answers."


In the elevator, Lan was resting his head against the elevator wall, breathing hard and still holding the spot where his father had pushed him, which was starting to become distractingly painful. Beside him, Mayl had progressed from fearful panic to complete and total meltdown. Her eyes were wide as saucers as she began hyperventilating, clutching at her bangs.

"Oh God..." she spoke aloud to no one, unable to catch her breath. "We're trapped… viruses… Navis… Forte…" Tears leaked out of her eyes, as her mind tried and failed to process everything that was going on, overwhelmed. "They're going to… we're all going to…!"

"Would you shut up for a minute?!" Lan snapped, stressed nearly to his breaking point. Mayl jumped, shocked, as she turned to face him, his voice managing to cut through her panic. "I'm trying to think about what to do… just stop freaking out for ten seconds…"

As his mind raced, he suddenly realized that the hand holding his stomach was also holding something else. Looking down at his palm, he saw a strange Battlechip unlike anything he'd seen before. His father must have handed it off to him discreetly.

"W... what's that?" Mayl inquired, kneeling next to him, starting to come back down to Earth. Lan held it up between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting it carefully. It had a small number of circuits adorning its surface, and in its center was what seemed to be a circle of green plastic or glass.

"I'm not sure..." Both of them stared at the mysterious Battlechip, as the elevator continued upward to the top floor of SciLab.