New Megaman Battle Network
A complete reimagining of the universe and stories of Megaman Battle Network.
Story 3: The Dimensional Core
Chapter 9: The Other Hikari
"Megaman, in part, is a Navi that I've been working on for an extremely long time," Yuichiro began, as Lan sat and listened attentively. Megaman listened as well, but he was more focused on Lan's reactions, as he knew the story back to front.
"When I was in grad school, I was doing a lot of work with Navis, as I've probably told you. Everyone was, really. Navi research was exploding right at that time. A man named Mikhail Cossack was at the head of it, and I was lucky enough to be studying under him. So was Lucius."
"Why was everyone studying Navis?" Lan asked. "What happened then?"
"Bass happened," his father replied flatly. "That was when he first appeared."
"What?!" Lan goggled. "Bass was why research was so big? How come? What did he do?"
"They didn't teach you this in school?" Yuichiro raised an eyebrow. "Bass was absolutely instrumental in making modern Navis. He appeared in one of the SciLab systems one day, after an EM wave experiment, and he blew us all away. He was far stronger and smarter than any Navi we could make, so we were all studying his construction and sharing our research notes. That's what I was doing under Dr. Cossack; I was analyzing Bass."
"Anyway." He pushed his glasses up and continued, ignoring the shocked expression on his son's face. "I spent a long time trying to deduce the basis of his composition, around a year and a half when all was said and done. I kept trying to find a pattern to it, but it was so complex that I could never make any meaningful progress. Then one day, I showed my notes to an old college friend of mine, and he said it reminded him of a strand of human DNA.
"Now, of course human DNA is way too complex to replicate, let alone mass-produce, so I didn't follow up on it right away and I studied other things instead. Once we were done researching Bass, however, I came back to it. I wondered what would happen if I made a Navi whose systems operated based on human DNA."
"So... is that Megaman? Is he part human or something?" Lan interrupted.
"Lan, for Pete's sake, let me finish," his father lightly scolded. "I'm explaining all of this for a reason. Just be patient." Lan nodded and let him continue.
"Anyway, with Lucius's help, I developed a way to construct Navis based on human DNA. Then I borrowed a number of DNA sources and tried making Navis from them. I would nick some from friends, professors, even tried some from your mother at one point. None of them worked out the way I thought they would, though. They worked fine, but no better than your typical Navi, you know? I felt like I was on the wrong track.
"Then, one day, I decided to try it out using DNA from my sister, your aunt Fusae. For some reason, the Navi I created then was immensely strong; not as strong as Bass, but far greater than any stock model Navi. I didn't have any idea why that happened, so I showed it to Dr. Regal so I could get his opinion. When he tried the Navi out, though, all its strength was just... gone. It was just like any other Navi I made."
"Did it lose all its strength overnight or something?" Lan wondered aloud.
Yuichiro shook his head. "No, not at all. When I tried to operate the Navi again, it worked spectacularly. Accidentally destroyed a part of something he was working on. Set him back like three days." He smirked at the memory.
"Wait, really? So… you made a Navi that was only stronger when you operated it?" Lan blinked in surprise; this was a concept he had never heard of before.
"Yes, that's exactly what was going on, actually." His father stood up and walked over to a nearby whiteboard, grabbing a marker. "If you make a Navi with this process, and the operator and Navi are a close DNA match, there's going to be an amazing power increase from the Navi." He quickly sketched a picture of an exponential curve to illustrate the point. "Not what I intended, that's just how it ended up working out."
He set the marker down. "So I figured, if I made a Navi based on my own DNA, it should be ridiculously strong, right? So I tried it out... boy, was that a mistake."
"How come?" Lan inquired. He wasn't quite sure how this was relevant to Megaman, but he was curious anyway.
"Well, I was right, it was incredibly powerful. It was easily the most powerful Navi I'd ever seen; it even left Bass in the dust. But on top of that, when I operated it, I entered a strange state of synchronization with the Navi. It was as if I barely had to think, and it could execute what I wanted it to. Unfortunately, it drained pretty much all of the energy from my body, and I ended up passing out about five minutes in. Had to go to the emergency room and everything."
"Eesh…" Lan winced. "Doesn't sound that great anymore."
His father chuckled. "Yeah, that's what I said. The experience put me off, and I stopped looking into it for a long time. I wouldn't pick it up again until about a year later, when your mother came to me with a rather big surprise."
In a distant, rather lonely part of the Net, a lone Navi stood, waiting. His oversized, bat-like ears stood atop his purple frame, taking in his surroundings. Suddenly they tensed and shifted, sensing a change in the environment; someone was coming. The Navi turned and watched his guest approach and emerge from the shadows, their long, blonde hair clashing against their darker skin. This Navi wore a black top with billowy white pants, with a golden helmet and wrist braces completing the ensemble.
"Serenade," the purple Navi spoke, in a somewhat mocking tone. "The Queen of the Undernet has chosen to pay me a visit. To what do I owe this honor?"
"You knew I was coming, Shademan," the other Navi spoke brusquely. "You know why I'm here."
The bat Navi smirked. "What, no pleasantries?"
Serenade's eyes narrowed. "Where is Forte?"
"I couldn't tell you," Shademan answered. "I imagine he's trying to piece his destroyed lab back together."
"Well, he's not," she replied. "I went in there a couple minutes after that barrier went down, and he was gone. Tracking you down was my next move, after pulling Megaman's frame out of that junk pile."
His eyebrows raised. "You bothered to rescue that Navi? What concern of yours is he?"
"He does good work," was her terse reply. "He's strong as hell, and he takes care of a lot of troublemakers. He makes my life easier." She folded her arms. "You're being evasive. I don't believe you when you say you don't know where Forte is. You've been pivotal to whatever he's doing with those Dark Chips."
He barked out a laugh. "You really are in the dark, aren't you?" He smirked at the irritated expression on her face. "Forte comes and goes as he pleases. He doesn't share with me anything more than he has to. I imagine he doesn't trust me."
"Well, he always was a smart one," she quipped. "What's your role in all this, then?"
"I exist to serve a darkness greater than you can comprehend," he continued. "An immensely powerful evil that pervades the land and corrupts those with weak hearts… one that has taken root on this Earth, and is spreading slowly as we speak. Forte has found this darkness himself, and is using it for his own purposes."
"Creating those Dark Chips and Dark Navis," Serenade spoke, continuing his line of thought. "How did he manage to get the better of something so powerful?"
Shademan hmphed. "This darkness is less a creature than it is a force of nature. No sentience, minimal consciousness… and in its current form, no natural defenses. That is why it needs me to protect it… and I have failed in my task. Forte managed to exceed even my strength, and now I am forced to work as his servant." He shuddered at the thought.
"Forte's overstepped his bounds," she replied. "He's gone too far. He needs to be stopped before he does something catastrophic." She took a step forward. "I can stop him, if you help me track him down. You clearly don't like having to do his dirty work."
He snorted. "Why should I trust you any more than Forte?"
"What, you don't trust me?"
The two Navis locked eyes, neither one breaking their gaze for several silent seconds. Eventually, Shademan turned away, refusing to answer her question. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't help you. Forte doesn't trust anyone, and certainly not me. Everything I know about him was confined to that lab. If there are any answers to be found, they'll be in there."
Serenade lowered her arms, not seeing any reason to doubt his words. "I guess I'm going back for a closer look, then." She turned away. "If he comes by again, let me know. You know where to find me."
"Forte will know about this meeting," Shademan replied immediately. "He won't be coming by again. Not before he deletes you."
"He can try," she responded, before turning into a beam of light and teleporting away.
"As it turns out," Yuichiro continued, "she found out that she was pregnant. Came as quite a surprise to us..."
"What?" Lan's eyebrows rose as he parsed this information. "I was a surprise? I'm an accident kid?"
His father froze, realizing only now what he had inadvertently revealed in his exhausted state. "That's…"
"Geez…" Lan looked down, slumping back in his chair. "That's just the cherry on top of today, finding that out."
"Lan, listen." Yuichiro stepped forward and placed his hands on his son's shoulders, summoning all of the Dad Powers that he could. "You were the best kind of surprise we could have asked for. We always planned to have kids, and you just arrived earlier than we expected. If we could go back, we wouldn't change a single thing. But for now, can we go back to the subject at hand?"
"Fine, fine…" Lan looked back up as his father stood upright again, leaving this revelation for later, as Yuichiro rubbed his temple and continued.
"Anyway, we went to the doctor and your mother was right, she was pregnant. And twelve years ago, on your birthday, she gave birth to two identical twin boys."
"Wait, what?" Lan sat up, in shock; he had never in his life heard this information. "Twins? I'm not a twin, am I?"
Yuichiro sighed. "Yes, Lan, you are. You are the younger of two identical twins. Your older brother, Hub, was born about an hour before you were."
"My… brother?" The boy sat back, dumbstruck by this information. "But… why haven't I ever met him? Why did you never tell me about this?"
"Your mother and I have always been rather hesitant to tell you," Yuichiro began to explain. "You see, you came out just fine, strong and healthy and crying up a storm. Hub... he wasn't doing so well. His lungs hadn't formed correctly, and he needed to be put on life support, right away."
Lan looked up, eyes wide with intrigue, as his father continued. "Weeks went by, and little Hub showed some signs of improvement, but not many. The doctor told us that there was a 60% chance that he would live, and that we should prepare ourselves for the worst.
"Your mother and I were both completely distraught. Even with the odds in our favor, we couldn't bear the thought of losing either of you. The worst part was feeling completely helpless, like there wasn't anything I could do for my son... and then, about a month after you two were born, I remembered my experiments with Navis and human DNA."
"Right… so you wanted to sort of make a Navi out of..." Lan's voice trailed off, and his mind came to the astounding truth, all the pieces of the story falling into place. "You… you mean…" He looked down at his PET, his mind blown. "Megaman… he's my…?"
Yuichiro nodded. "Yes… I used your brother's DNA, his mind, his personality, and I assembled all of it into a Navi. Megaman is, in effect, your twin brother, Hub."
"But..." Lan didn't even know what to ask first, barely able to process this new information he had received. All these months, he thought that Megaman was just a highly custom Navi; all these years, he had always thought he was an only child. His world had been turned upside down, in one instant of epiphany.
The room sat in silence for a moment, before he picked up his PET and looked in again. "Mega... did you know all this?"
Megaman nodded in response. "I've always known, yeah. Mom and Dad told me what happened a long time ago. They asked me not to tell you, though..."
"We thought if you knew the truth, you'd be reluctant to use him," Yuichiro added. "Lord knows your mother had no problems with that. But she eventually agreed that we couldn't keep him cooped up in the SciLab computers any longer. It's like not letting your child go outside to play."
"You're not kidding," Megaman contributed. "After eleven years in SciLab, I was going completely batty. I had to go out and do stuff! Bust some viruses, whatever!"
Yuichiro laughed. "You two are twins, alright. So yeah, after improving his strength and defenses, just in case, we finally brought him home and put him into your PET. We just tried to make sure you were careful with him from that point on."
"Which I wasn't..." Lan sighed. "Constantly having him battle, going up against criminal organizations... sorry about that, Mega. Now I feel like a complete selfish jerk..."
His Navi gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it, Lan. I'm a NetNavi; that's the only thing I've ever known. Virus busting is just something I do." He stretched his arm. "Besides, I enjoy it. And I'm good at it, too."
Lan smiled a bit. "You're right about that." He looked up at his father again. "So, Hub... the human one... he died? His health got worse?"
His father nodded soberly in response. "Yes and no." He sat down again. "When I created Megaman, I had to bring Hub here, to SciLab, and his life-support equipment as well. You were actually there, too, with your mother, though no doubt you don't remember it. You were only a month old, after all.
"I hooked Hub up to the right machinery and began inputting everything about him into the Navi that would become Megaman. That worked perfectly, as you can tell, but once it was done... for some reason, Hub's life support machines all malfunctioned, pretty much at the same time. We called an ambulance, and they got there as fast as they could, but it was too late... there was no saving Hub by then."
He slumped in his chair. "The only explanation I can think of is that the Navi machinery conflicted with the life support devices. I hadn't even thought of something like that happening. I was careless... and this is what happened because of it..." He wiped his eyes reflexively.
"It's not your fault, Dad..." Megaman offered.
"Thanks..." Yuichiro responded. "I'm fine, I'm fine..."
"No, really," Megaman said, a little more sternly, which surprised Lan. "It's not your fault."
The room sat in awkward silence for a second, not sure where exactly to go from here. After a few seconds, a distinct, feminine sneeze issued forth from the hallway, causing Lan and Yuichiro to look toward the door in surprise. A second later, a deeply red-faced Mayl emerged from behind the door.
"Er... hi..." she said, looking down.
"Hey..." Lan blinked. "I thought you had gone home?"
"The car that was supposed to take me home never showed up," she explained, walking into the room, her hands clasped contritely behind her back. "I came back to ask about it, and then... I couldn't really stop listening... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop…"
"So you heard pretty much everything, then?" Lan's father prompted; Mayl nodded meekly, causing him to sigh. "Well, have a seat, I guess. No reason to shoo you away now, after you've heard as much as you have. Just remember, you can't tell anyone else what you're about to hear. This doesn't leave this room."
Mayl nodded again, taking a seat next to Lan, who looked up again. "So, all this... how does this relate to whatever you and Megaman were talking about?"
"Right, that." Yuichiro sat up straight. "So after that, I spent some years watching over Megaman with your mother. She would stop by every single day to visit, treating him the same way that she treated you, to the extent that she could. She wanted to homeschool him, sort of, but I convinced her that it wouldn't be necessary. After a couple years, once we had gotten him situated, my mind went back to his construction."
Yuichiro gestured toward the curve he had drawn on the chalkboard. "Remember, you two are identical twins. It's hard to find two people with DNA naturally closer than that. When I realized this, it occurred to me what sort of power we could be dealing with if you were going to be operating him."
"So is that why Megaman's so strong?" Mayl wondered aloud. Lan's father chuckled in response.
"If you think he's strong now... you two don't have any idea," he replied. "And neither did I. I wasn't sure what kind of strength Megaman would exhibit, so one day, when you were about four years old, I decided to find out."
Yuichiro Hikari stood at a mainframe, making some last-minute preparations for the experiment ahead. Beside him, a couple of aides, graduate students as usual, continued their business of making sure everything was ready to go. He grinned as he entered the final few figures into the machine, already excited for the results of this experiment.
He turned to a nearby computer screen, where a child-like blue Navi could be seen. "Are you ready, Megaman?"
"Uh huh!" Megaman nodded. "I can't wait!"
Yuichiro grinned and turned back to the control panel, ensuring everything was set up properly. With the help of his colleagues, he had managed to set up a system of Navi operation that would simulate the DNA of a different operator; in this case, it was that of his other son, Lan. After a couple weeks of preparation, and years of anticipation, he would finally be able to see Megaman's true power.
"Alright, I'm starting it up." Dr. Hikari gave the signal to his assistants, and the team began to send power to the system. The room began to hum to life, and inside the computer, Megaman took a deep breath, the effects of the connection slowly washing over him.
"I can feel it, Dad!" he exclaimed. "It feels... weird. Like I'm light as a feather." He looked down and jumped into the air, but only rose up to about his own height before peaking. He fell back to the ground, a bit disappointed.
"We've got it set up so you receive the strength bit by bit," his father noted. "In a couple minutes, you'll be at full power. I'm going to dispatch some Navis now, alright?"
Megaman nodded, and Dr. Hikari pressed another button. Several orange Official Navis appeared in front of the blue Navi, and they quickly got into defensive stances, as Megaman formed his Mega Buster on his right arm. He pointed it toward the nearest Navi, who stood obediently still as Megaman fired. The shot struck the Navi square in the chest, exploding in a massive energy blast that knocked the others back.
"Holy cow…" Yuichiro commented, unable to stop himself from grinning. "He's not even at full power yet." He spoke into a nearby microphone. "Keep going, Megaman! Give it all you've got!"
The Navi grinned and nodded, dashing forward with far greater speed than he was used to. He ran up to the closest Navi and thrust his fist into the Navi's chest; his fist ran itself right through the Navi, coming out the other side.
"Whoa!" Megaman quickly withdrew his hand, and the Navi dissolved into deletion. "Sorry! I'm sorry!"
Yuichiro laughed. "You're doing great! Keep it up!" He pressed another button and more Navis appeared, encircling Megaman, who grinned and drew his buster again, starting to feel drunk with power.
"This is amazing! I feel really strong!" he exclaimed, firing off blast after blast, taking off one Navi after another, not noticing the energy buildup crackling dangerously at the end of his buster. Yuichiro watched, highly pleased, as he kept an eye on Megaman's stats.
"His strength is extraordinary," he commented to himself. "I didn't even think his frame was equipped to handle this..." He continued to watch Megaman plow through opponent after opponent. "How are you holding up there?"
"I'm doing fine... I think…" Megaman replied, his breathing slightly labored. The crackling energy was beginning to progress up his arm, and the other Navis were beginning to take notice, just as Megaman had; he refused to relent, however, not wanting to disappoint his father. As he continued blasting, he continued to feel more and more fatigued, his movements slowing and his muscles tightening, until he eventually collapsed to his knees.
"Unh... what's happening..." He held his aching frame, the energy buildup spreading past his arm and starting to envelop his body.
"Megaman!" Dr. Hikari took another look at the Navi's stats to find one of his fears confirmed: Megaman's frame was proving insufficient to contain the incredible strength surging through him. He turned his eyes back to the screen, where Megaman was now starting to cry out in severe pain, as his entire body was racked with excess energy. His body was slowly lifted off the ground, the energy repelling him from the Net.
"Shut it down!" Yuichiro turned to his assistants. "We have to get this turned off!" He started typing furiously into his console, one eye watching Megaman's screen; a second later, he did a double take and looked again. Megaman's energy was spreading to the ground below, which began to splinter and fall away, his raw strength tearing the Cyberworld apart.
"Damn it!" Yuichiro slammed his fist against the console and ran over to Megaman's PET, where the operator simulation had been set up. He grabbed the apparatus forcefully and ripped out the wires, severing the connection in an instant and bringing the experiment to a very abrupt end.
His assistants stopped what they were doing, as all their computers brought up error screens at once. Yuichiro exhaled and walked back over to his main console, where Megaman had returned to normal. He was lying on the ground, his body completely worn, as tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Dad... it was horrible..." he muttered. "Please, I don't want to do that ever again..."
"I'm so sorry, Megaman," his father answered, his heart sinking. "You won't ever go through that again, I promise." He walked over to the PET to start disassembling the experiment, not paying any mind to the potential of what he had just seen. It didn't matter to him that Megaman had just demonstrated power beyond anything a Navi had ever shown before. He didn't care about the possibilities or the applications, or what this meant for his research. The only thing he cared about was making sure his son never experienced that again.
Lan was wide-eyed as his father finished the story. "Holy... that's Megaman's true power?"
Yuichiro nodded. "Truthfully, Megaman, is the strongest Navi in existence. If he were at his true power, Forte would be a pushover, even as he is now. But you know how the story goes... I altered his frame to remove some of that connective tissue, so that he wouldn't overload with power when you used him, and I hid it away in the SciLab servers. HubBatch… the file that contains the key bits of DNA that link you and him."
"Just in case, huh..." Lan looked down at Megaman, starting to see more of the physical resemblances between them, as his father nodded again, rather sleepy.
"I thought there may come a day where we could use it. But as I saw, Megaman's frame just can't handle that kind of power, so I had to do what I did." He slumped further down in his chair. "But I guess I didn't do a good enough job. The two of you are starting to synchronize anyway. I guess this was always inevitable."
"Navi technology has come a long way in the past eight years," Megaman interjected. "You could upgrade my frame further. We can make it so I can handle my full strength."
"It's still incredibly dangerous," Dr. Hikari replied. "But you may be right... we don't have many options right now. I guess I could give it a try, and see if I can properly upgrade your frame. If I can't, then we're going to forget the whole thing and figure out something else. Alright?"
The two boys both agreed, and Lan turned his PET over to his father, who immediately handed it back, laughing. "You think I'm going to start working now? Do you have any idea how long it's been since I slept?"
Lan yawned, exceptionally tired himself, as Mayl smiled. "It's been nearly a whole day, hasn't it?"
"Probably." Yuichiro stood up. "I'm too tired to think on it at this point. Let's all get out of here and get home. Both your mothers are going to flay me alive for keeping you here as long as I have." The two youngsters stood up as well, and the three of them began half-walking, half-shuffling toward the parking garage, ready for something resembling normality after this long nightmare.
Some miles away, in a now-defunct laboratory on the edge of Den City, a Navi was combing through the abandoned computer systems that had been working to create a Dimensional Core just hours before. Serenade was looking through one file structure after another, parsing what little data remained, trying to find some clue as to his potential whereabouts. She was coming up even more empty than she expected.
She wasn't the only one scouring the Cyberworld. Several data technicians from SciLab had arrived twenty minutes before, looking for anything they could find, trying to indirectly pick the brain of one of the greatest scientific minds on the planet. Serenade moved quickly, carefully and quietly through the system, avoiding the other Navis as they searched for information.
After looking over most of the available systems, she was ready to call it quits. Between the collapse of the lab and now, someone had gone through the systems with a fine-toothed comb, removing every bit of data that was even remotely interesting. That person almost certainly had been Forte, returning to scorch the earth and then salt it before anyone could take advantage of his research. Had she not taken the time to rescue Megaman, she likely could have encountered him here, and put an end to all of this right away. Maybe later, she would come to regret this decision.
After exploring one more computer system, she shook her head and made her way toward the Cyberworld exit, not interested in wasting any more of her time. Just as she was leaving, a voice caused her to stop and turn around.
"Look at this…" one of the technicians muttered, her voice audible through the connection to her Navi. "Are you seeing this?!"
"I am, but I don't believe it," the other technician replied in a high-pitched male voice. "This is… everything. All of Forte's research notes on the Dimensional Core." Serenade quickly turned around, and she moved closer in order to listen in on the conversation.
"It all looks intact, too. Nothing missing, nothing destroyed, nothing removed. We could create our own core with this, I know it." There was a brief pause, as the two technicians marveled at their good fortune. "I can't believe he left this behind. Did he just not have time to remove it?"
"Who cares?" the man replied. "You don't look a gift horse like this in the mouth. Let's grab this and take it back right away." Their two Navis quickly got to work copying the remaining data, as Serenade watched for a minute before turning away. Apparently, Forte hadn't salted the earth as much as he intended. Missing something like that was unlike him, but today had been a surprising and stressful day for everyone.
In any case, this didn't help her in her quest to track Forte down. She was no better off than when she started - in fact, after realizing that she had missed her change to encounter him, she felt even further back than when she began. Forte wouldn't be returning here a second time, and the odds of her being able to track him down on her own were slim. She could use her extensive network of contacts and spies to gather what information they could, and she would, but she was going to need another plan. She continued ruminating on this as she departed the laboratory Cyberworld and returned to the Undernet.
The three Hikari boys finally stumbled through their front door at 6 a.m., much to the relief of Haruka. She hugged Lan and Yuichiro tight, before beginning to chew out the latter, while Lan walked, zombie-like, to his room.
The back of his mind was still reeling from everything he had learned over the past 24 hours. Forte, and his father, were able to bring Navis into the real world. He had just risked life and limb defending SciLab and protecting Mayl from danger. And his Navi, Megaman, was not only the most powerful Navi in the world, but the transferred soul of his twin brother that he never knew he had.
The front of his mind, however, was practically dead. After more than a day without sleep, which had been fueled almost entirely by adrenaline, his reserves had been completely drained. The one thing he wanted more than anything in the world, more than the defeat of Forte or the safety of his friends, was to crawl into his bed and sleep for two days straight.
Entering his room, he put his PET onto his bedside table and climbed into bed, not bothering to change out of his clothes. Within one minute of lying down, he was finally asleep and at peace.
