New Megaman Battle Network

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

Story 4: Defiance of Fate


Chapter 2: Synchronicity

MaylSakurai72: I'm bored. What are you doing?

_MegaLan_: bored? shouldn't you be hanging out with your dad?

MaylSakurai72: He's out on a date with mom

_MegaLan_: they left you alone so they could go out on a date?

MaylSakurai72: It was my idea!

MaylSakurai72: When papa comes home he spends the first Friday and Saturday with me, then the first Sunday with mom

MaylSakurai72: That's the rule we came up with

_MegaLan_: it was your idea for your parents to abandon you and have fun together?

MaylSakurai72: I want them to be happy!

MaylSakurai72: And they're going to come home with cupcakes so it's fine

_MegaLan_: ooo cupcakes

_MegaLan_: you should bring me one

MaylSakurai72: I will

MaylSakurai72: So what are you doing? I just saw a movie and now I'm at the park

_MegaLan_: i'm at scilab

_MegaLan_: dad's testing out a new synchro chip and he wanted me and chaud there to help test it

MaylSakurai72: Can I come by?

_MegaLan_: let me ask dad

_MegaLan_: he says it's fine

_MegaLan_: head to the south entrance and i'll let you in

MaylSakurai72: I'll be there in ten minutes

_MegaLan_: k see ya


A little over ten minutes later, Lan and Mayl were walking into one of the laboratories in the main SciLab building, the sounds of drills and buzzsaws etched into their brains. While SciLab was open for business again, the damage that had been done by Forte was still being fixed all around, and the entire network and security infrastructure had to be torn out and replaced for the second time.

Mayl looked around the laboratory and saw a number of people further inside. Eugene Chaud was standing at a machine that was connected to his PET, fingers flying, intensely focused. Beside him was Lan's father, as well as an older man in a red-and-black suit that she didn't recognize.

"Who's that?" she whispered as they stepped closer, leaning in a bit.

"That's Magnus Gauss," Lan replied. "Your dad's client."

"What's he doing here?"

"Getting the grand tour from Dad, apparently." He kept his voice lower as they approached.

Mayl raised an eyebrow in response. "Really? Does every guest get that treatment?"

"The rich ones do." They walked up behind Chaud, and Mayl leaning closer to see what he was doing. It looked like he was Netbattling, as far as she could tell, but she didn't know why. Gauss cocked his head a bit as he looked at her, wondering what this new guest was doing in the room.

Yuichiro noticed his confusion, stepping forward a bit. "Ah… this is Mayl Sakurai. She's a friend of Lan's."

Mayl turned toward the older man as Yuichiro spoke, smiling a little. "Sakurai-Sirelis, technically."

"Sirelis…" Gauss nodded, contemplating this for a moment. "You wouldn't perchance…"

She grinned, anticipating his question. "I'm Vikos's daughter."

"Really." He chuckled, extending his hand to her, which she shook. "Small world…" They both turned upon hearing a mechanical sound from the nearby machine, as Chaud finally stopped operating and stepped back. Some words and numbers flew by at high speed on a monitor attached to the machine, before it finally stopped and displayed a number: 97.

Lan's father grinned, folding his arms. "Up from 96 a few months ago. Nice work, Chaud." The boy nodded, as Gauss stepped closer to the device.

"So this Synchronicity Rating scale, it goes up to 100?"

"Technically, yes, but actually getting a 100 is effectively impossible," Yuichiro replied. "You and your Navi would have to basically be the same person. A 99 is the highest I'd ever expect to see under any normal circumstances." He declined to mention the abnormal circumstances involving his son, from a couple of months ago.

"I see…" Gauss nodded. "Do you employ any such 99-level Officials, Dr. Hikari?"

"Not quite." Yuichiro grinned down at his son. "Though I think Lan will put up a pretty nice number, won't you?"

Lan grinned wide and nodded, stepping up to the machine and connecting his PET to it. "I'm ready to go! Start it up!" His father chuckled, walking up to a nearby console and typing into it, resetting the system.

A few moments later, Megaman found himself transferred inside the machine, ready for battle. As the system prepared for another session, he saw viruses and stock Navis surrounding him, prepared to attack as soon as the battle started. He smirked a bit and cracked his knuckles.

"Remember, not a word should be spoken by either of you," Yuichiro reminded them. "We're starting in 3… 2… 1…"

Megaman watched as the viruses and Navis came to life around him. They quickly started to advance, ready to attack and not about to hold back, swinging at him with blades and claws and whatever they had. He smirked, leaping backward as he received a Sword from Lan, then dashing forward and going on the offensive.

Back outside, all four observers crowded around the machine, watching Lan and Megaman defeat their enemies in silence, but with deadly efficiency. About two minutes later, Lan stepped back as his Navi blasted away the final stock Navi, and everyone looked toward the monitor for the final reading. A few seconds after, the system issued a beeping sound and placed a 98 up on the screen.

"Not a 99…" Lan muttered to himself, looking up at the monitor with a twinge of disappointment.

His father chuckled. "You've been slacking off, clearly. Better get back to practicing, son."

"Yeah, yeah…" Lan smirked. "At least I got a higher score than Chaud did." The young Official hmphed.

"If you think that matters to me, you're mistaken," Chaud lied. "It's not a competition. As long as I can use Cross Fusion, that's good enough." He looked away as Lan smirked harder, feeling a sense of superiority all the same.

"What's needed to perform Cross Fusion, Dr. Hikari?" Mayl asked, looking up at him. "A 95? You mentioned that in the past."

"Well, that used to be the case." Yuichiro walked away from the machine and toward a nearby table, where a handful of Synchro Chips lay, and he picked one up. "But we've spent the past couple of months improving the design and efficiency of these chips. They should be usable by a wider range of operators and Navis now." He handed the chip to Mayl, who looked it over carefully, curious.

"And that's what you're doing here today, as I understand?" Gauss spoke up again, amusement on his face from seeing so many children in attendance, let alone involved in the experiment.

"Right. We're going to find out the Synchronicity Rating needed to use these new chips." He walked over to a nearby microphone, speaking into it. "Alright, you guys can come on in." He gestured to a nearby window, indicating that the others should go and watch, as he walked over to another device and started typing into it.

Everyone else walked up to the window and peered through. The lab they were currently in was overlooking a much larger room that was mostly empty, looking almost like some sort of arena. As Lan wondered what the purpose of such a room was, the doors opened, and four Officials, two men and two women, walked inside. He was about to ask what they were doing there when he felt a familiar surge in the air, and a small jolt through his body.

"A Dimensional Area?" He glanced over at his father, as Mayl jumped a bit at the sensation. "Aren't you using Dimensional Cores now?"

"Goodness, no," Yuichiro responded, walking over to join the rest of them. "We're probably a year away from making that viable. We're still stuck with Dimensional Areas for now. It's not like we're in that much of a hurry, though." He glanced down at them, then reached for the microphone, bringing it closer, talking into it. "Alright, Barre, you're up first."

One of the men in the larger room nodded, stepping forward and pulling out a Synchro Chip, slotting it into his PET. Everyone watched as the device glowed with light for a moment, starting to reconfigure itself, then slowly faded and returned to normal. Barre looked down at himself, seeing no transformation, looking dejected as the Synchro Chip spat itself out.

Yuichiro frowned. "Well, that's disappointing… I'd thought a 76 would be good enough." He leaned into the microphone again. "Paula, you try it."

One of the women reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out her own Synchro Chip and slotting it in, but the results were the same as before. The other woman tried shortly after, and everyone watched with rapt attention as her PET glowed and transformed, growing to cover her frame. Lan watched with wide eyes, expecting the light to fade and show Navi armor covering her, but the light stayed curiously where it was, and they all watched as the woman's breathing became more and more labored. Eventually she fell to her knees, and the light shrank and returned to her PET.

"Shiki, are you alright?" Dr. Hikari was visibly worried as the others knelt around her, none of them having seen this side effect before. The woman held up her hand, trying to indicate that nobody should worry about her, even though she couldn't even lift her head.

"Not even an 81…" Yuichiro grew visibly frustrated as the others crowded around the fallen woman, making sure that she was alright. "Barre, Paula, take her to the infirmary, please. Kent, you're our last shot. Rating 83. Give it all you've got."

The last Official stood up and nodded, as the other two led the third away to get her medical attention. He took a deep breath before slotting in the Synchro Chip, and the lab watched with bated breath as his PET glowed and expanded, covering him. A few seconds later, the light faded, revealing a full suit of Navi-style red armor covering the man, a green visor over his eyes.

From up in the lab, Lan and Mayl cheered, elated to see another successful Cross Fusion at last. Gauss adopted an amused smile, while Chaud barely changed his expression at all. Yuichiro sighed with clear relief, before leaning in to speak again. "Great work, Kent. You ready to try that out?"

The Official looked up and nodded, grinning wide and giving a thumbs-up, clearly excited to have successfully Cross Fused. Dr. Hikari moved to a nearby console and pressed a few buttons, and a bright line shone in the center of the large room for a second. When the light faded, a Billy virus stood short in the middle of the room, sparks appearing at the ends of the metal spikes that acted as his arms.

The Official took another breath and let it out, a bit unnerved at seeing a virus in the real world for the first time, but his confidence quickly returned as he extended his arm and formed a Cannon on the end of it. He grinned and took aim at the virus, firing, and the Billy didn't have the time or mental strength to get out of the way. The virus exploded quickly, dissolving into deletion.

"That was great, Dr. Hikari!" he called out, catching his breath. "Give me another!"

Yuichiro laughed, sending in a red, dog-like Spiky virus that had a bit more life to it, growling as it stared down its opponent. Kent held up his arm, his face red, as he summoned a Sword on the end of his arm. He lowered it again quickly, finding himself low on energy, his breathing labored. He tried to rush forward and attack the virus, but he stumbled as he did so, falling to one knee. The whole lab watched, wide-eyed, as he glowed with light again and his armor fell away, returning to his PET.

"Damn it!" Yuichiro slammed his fist against the glass. "Get out of there, Kent!" He turned his attention toward the young Official by his side. "Chaud, get down there and protect him."

Chaud nodded, running to the table and grabbing a Synchro Chip, slotting it in as he ran through another door. By the time he appeared in the larger room with Kent, he had already completed the Cross Fusion with Protoman. Lan started moving toward the table as well, but his father stopped him by putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Stay here, Lan," he ordered, his voice firm. "Chaud can handle himself. I want you here to make sure someone protects the rest of us."

Lan nodded and stepped back, watching the action in the larger room, as Magnus Gauss took a nervous step away from the window. "Are you suggesting we're in danger here, Dr. Hikari?"

"I'm just being cautious, is all." He jogged over to one of the many consoles in the lab, in order to shut down the Dimensional Area generators. Everyone else stayed near the window, watching as Chaud dispatched the Spiky virus without a second thought. Lan and Mayl sighed with relief, then gasped with alarm as several more viruses suddenly appeared. Lan quickly looked toward his dad, who was typing frantically as error messages popped up on several nearby screens.

"Dad, what's going on?"

Yuichiro muttered. "Rogue viruses… our networks still have plenty of them lingering while we…" His voice dropped off as he continued typing, turning all of his focus to his current task. Lan turned his attention back to the viruses, his eyes widening when he recognized one of them as a Handy virus. The color quickly drained from his face as the virus dropped a time bomb into the room, with only seconds on the timer.

"Everyone, get back!" He quickly grabbed Mayl's arm and ran, yanking her out of harm's way as the bomb exploded. The force of the explosion blew out the window, sending pieces of shattered glass into the room and knocking everyone off their feet. Lan was a bit disoriented, his head spinning, but he got over it quickly enough, looking around to make sure everyone was okay. His father was getting back to his feet, and Gauss was trying to do the same, though he was a bit more feeble, being older.

"Mayl? Mayl!" He called out her name, looking behind him, where he saw her lying on the ground. She started to sit up and rub her head, her other hand clutched in a fist, looking as if she was holding onto something. Lan sighed with relief and got up, running forward to grab one of the Synchro Chips that were now scattered all over the floor. Before he could grab the nearest one, another Spiky virus leaped through the now-open window, standing between Lan and the chips, causing him to screech to a halt, and causing Gauss and Yuichiro to turn their heads.

The virus roared, opening its mouth and firing a blast of flame at the two children, who barely managed to dodge it by rolling in opposite directions. Mayl ducked behind a partition for safety, but Lan remained out in the open. The virus snarled and turned its head toward the boy, who quickly started backing up, fearful.

His father's heart practically stopped as he watched the monster advance on his son, looking around for something he could use, some tool that would stop what was about to happen, and finding nothing. They all watched as the Spiky virus opened its mouth, ready to shoot a fiery blast in Lan's direction, when suddenly he howled with pain and turned away.

Lan blinked in surprise, not sure why the virus had suddenly recoiled, when he noticed several arrows sticking out of the virus's face. He turned around, trying to find the source of the arrows, and gasped at the pink armored form standing behind him. The being looked almost exactly like Mayl's Navi, Roll, but with two substantial differences. Instead of a synthetic blond ponytail, a curtain of long red hair spilled out from her pink helmet. Furthermore, Roll's face had been replaced with Mayl's, her wide, shocked eyes covered by a blue visor. Her arm was extended, a crossbow having formed on the end, pointed directly at the virus.

"M… Mayl…" Lan could barely speak, too stunned to form words. "You… you just…"

Her head snapped toward him, the long yellow bands that stretched behind her head waving a bit as she did so. "Lan! How do I use Battlechips like this?"

"Er…" He rapidly came to his senses. "Roll will know how! Just have her use one!"

"What? What does that mean?" Mayl tried to make sense of these instructions and do as she was advised, and she yelped as a sword spontaneously appeared on her arm. She inspected it for a second, amazed, but was brought back to reality by the roar of the Spiky virus. Focusing again, she dashed forward and stabbed her blade through the virus's body. The creature roared with pain before it started to dissolve away, the cries turning more synthetic before they faded.

Mayl took a minute to catch her breath, still completely shocked at what was happening, though not as shocked as everyone watching her. Her head snapped back up at the sound of combat happening in the next room. She turned and looked through the window, seeing Chaud surrounded by four Dominerd viruses, their tall, board-like figures looming menacingly over him.

The virus in front of him opened its mouth to attack, and he dashed forward to attack its exposed throat. As he hacked away and deleted the virus, he heard the sound of two others behind him, preparing to attack from different angles. He whirled around, his mind trying to figure out how he was going to get out of this, when a pink figure suddenly landed on one of the viruses from above, piercing its body with her blade. Like the others, Chaud was stunned into inaction for a moment, only shaken out of it as she turned to him and yelled.

"Chaud! Your left!" He quickly refocused and looked toward his left, to see one of the viruses dashing at him. He leaped backwards to give himself some space, before summoning a Vulcan Cannon and firing shot after shot into the virus, which crumbled away and vanished. He turned back toward Mayl, watching in amazement again as she dispatched the final virus. She barely had a moment to catch her breath before the two were surrounded by another batch of monsters, even more vicious than the last.

Lan gritted his teeth as he watched from above, turning around and grabbing one of the fallen Synchro Chips. He was about to slot it in, not prepared to watch anything happen to Mayl, but he paused as he felt the energy of the Dimensional Area being sucked out of the air. In the arena, the viruses disappeared one by one as the Dimensional Area slowly collapsed; seconds later, Chaud and Mayl's bodies glowed, the armor falling away and returning to their PETs, which clattered to the ground. Mayl stood in place for a moment, her heart still pumping adrenaline through her body, and she looked down at her own hands in amazement. She wasn't alone, as every eye in the lab was now on her, in disbelief at what they had just seen.


One hour later, Mayl stepped back from the same machine that Chaud and Lan had been using not long ago. Everyone watched the monitor, transfixed and incredibly curious, as it processed the data it had just received before spitting out a number.

"84." Yuichiro shook his head, amazed. "Well, I'll be damned. That's incredible… and I guess that's the new threshold."

"That's amazing, Mayl!" Lan exclaimed as she looked down, a bit embarrassed, but also smiling. "You've been holding out on us!"

"She sure has." Chaud kept his eyes on the monitor, as if he expected it to print out some sort of error. "You were definitely not that good during the Den City Tournament. What happened?"

"Ahem." Gauss cleared his throat, catching everyone's attention. "As exciting as that all was, this doesn't exactly… inspire confidence, Dr. Hikari. Am I supposed to believe that the laboratory I will be working in will be in better working order than this one?"

"It will be. You're working in one of the remote laboratories, on another campus that wasn't damaged." Yuichiro reached behind the machine Mayl was using and powered it off. "And if I may be frank, Mr. Gauss, your experiments are a lot more dangerous than this one."

The older man smirked. "That inspires even less confidence."

Dr. Hikari smiled. "Don't worry. Everything's in perfect working order. And if anything did end up going south, the server room could withstand a nuclear blast, if the doors were sealed. It's perfectly sale."

Gauss chuckled. "I'll try my best not to blow up Den City."

"I'd appreciate that." Yuichiro moved toward the youngsters, starting to herd them out. "Alright, I think it's time we clear out of here. We'll have to have people come in and replace the glass." The group started walking out of the lab, as the scientist glanced down at Lan and Mayl. "And not a word of this to your mothers, got it? I don't need anything else trying to kill me today."


"Pretty exciting day, huh, Mayl?"

Many hours later, Roll sat in her PET in Mayl's room, grinning at her operator as she walked by in her pajamas. Her operator grinned back, going to her vanity to put her hair up.

"That's one way of putting it. I never thought I'd be doing something like that…"

"Well, you sent a message to the boys," Roll commented. "They won't be counting you out anytime soon. You're a force to be reckoned with!"

Mayl laughed as she put the last touches on her hair, getting it ready for bed. "Hardly. I'll never be on Lan's level, no matter how hard I try." She stood up. "Still, it's good to know I can stand up for myself if I need to."

Roll grinned. "So, I'm guessing you'll want to skip practice tonight?"

"Are you kidding? There's no way I'm letting up now that I know it's working. Plus, I haven't missed a night since we started."

"You sure?" Her Navi cocked her head, raising an eyebrow. "After the day you've had, you want to spend two hours doing Netbattle drills?"

"Of co… course…" Mayl let out an involuntary yawn, stretching her arms. "Well… maybe not two hours. Let's do 30 minutes."

Roll nodded, smiling as Mayl sat at her computer and picked up her PET, just as she had every night before bed for the past two months. She started up the exercise with determination in her eyes, never again wanting to feel as helpless as she did during Forte's reign of terror. Minutes later, the two of them were battling fiercely, as they worked to refine their skills as much as they could.