New Megaman Battle Network
A complete reimagining of the universe and stories of Megaman Battle Network.
Story 4: Defiance of Fate
Chapter 5: Stymied
Lan finished ordering his meal, letting out a long, disappointed breath as he walked to the other side of the counter, waiting for his food to arrive. Moments later, Mayl joined him, looking as dejected as he did.
"All day spent looking for clues, and nothing to show for it," she muttered, looking down. She'd grown less distraught over the last few days, but she was far from chipper. "I don't know why we thought we could do this."
"I bet we could have found something if they'd let us into the IPC place," Lan replied.
"Well, they won't." Mayl folded her arms. "You heard that police officer. We'll foul up their investigation, or whatever he said. No one gets in."
Lan frowned, not sure how to respond. A few days after Vikos's arrest, the two children had set aside a weekend to look for any sort of clues that might exonerate him. Their only lead was the IPC facility that had been robbed, but they were stopped at the gate by the police, who were still thoroughly combing the place. Unable to proceed, they tried looking around local message boards and asking around town, but that had gotten them nowhere. Completely stuck, they had taken a break to eat dinner, their spirits low.
"We definitely should have done some more research before doing this." He glanced around absentmindedly, surveying the crowded noodle restaurant.
"What were we supposed to do? We're not detectives, we're kids."
"I don't know," he answered, surprised at Mayl's uncharacteristic pessimism.
She sighed. "Let's just stop for today. It's late, and we're not going to get anywhere. We should just wait until they let us look at the IPC facility."
"I guess…" Lan stepped forward as he heard their orders get called, and Mayl followed. "Sorry this is going so badly."
"It's not your fault." She stepped up to the counter and reached out for her food, as the restaurant worker handed it to her. "It was a good idea, just…" She trailed off, her gaze drifting upward, as she recognized the person handing her her meal. Lan noticed her pause and looked up as well, finding himself looking into the eyes of an equally stunned Maddy Iroaya, wearing a colorful hat to match her food service uniform, with hairnets stretched over the two puffs of pink hair on either side of her head.
The three of them looked at each other for several long moments, none of them sure how to react upon meeting each other in this way. Eventually, Maddy pushed their bowls of ramen toward them, hoping that would get them both to go away; she tried her best to keep herself from flushing red with embarrassment, failing miserably. Lan and Mayl took their food and backed away wordlessly, turning away after a few moments. Maddy immediately turned around and hid in the back of the restaurant, yelling to her manager that she was taking her five-minute break.
She retreated as far into the kitchen as she could, trying to hide from the world, face still burning from humiliation. It was bad enough that she was stuck in a job like this, but now more and more people were seeing what she had been reduced to. She leaned against a wall, closing her eyes and trying to shut out her thoughts, but her attempted serenity was interrupted by a loud ringing from her PET. She grabbed at it, more irritated than before as she looked at the caller name, eyes going wide when she saw who it was. She stared for several long seconds, debating whether or not to answer, before eventually accepting the call. She found herself face-to-face with an older man in a green suit, his blonde hair slicked back.
"Count Zapp," she seethed, glaring at him. "What the hell do you want?"
The man goggled for a second before bursting into laughter. "Well, you're a sight to see. That uniform doesn't look half-bad on you." He smirked. "How'd you end up in a job like that?"
Maddy's eyes flared with anger. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to land a job with a terrorism charge on your record?! How's asylum, you coward?!"
"Better than the alternative." He smirked at her. "Whip me up a hot dog, would you, Mads?"
She growled, grabbing at the brim of her hat. "Don't call me that. My father called me that." She eventually let go, resisting the urge to fling the hat off of her head and onto the ground. "Are you calling just to gloat, or what?"
"Obviously not," he responded. "I'm calling to offer you a job that's a bit more in line with your skill set. You could put that graduate degree of yours to use again."
She raised an eyebrow, highly skeptical but desperate to be doing something else with her life. "Tell me more."
Zapp grinned, glad to see her being receptive. "I'm financing a new company in Electopia, and they're in need of a data stream analyst. That was your specialty, as I recall."
"Specialty nothing, I wrote my thesis on that." She cocked her head. "This job, it's on the level? Nothing criminal this time?"
"Strictly on the level," he responded matter-of-factly. "It's a tech company working on the next generation of Navi development. This is just a money-making venture for me."
"And I'm supposed to trust you because…?"
"That's up to you," he answered. "If you don't like the job, you can hang up and go back to serving food for the rest of your life. The choice is yours."
Maddy glared, not liking his smug attitude, but she couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea. As much as she didn't want to get involved with any other former World Three members, she also didn't want to be stuck in a humiliating job any longer.
Minutes later, she re-emerged from the back of the restaurant. She snatched her hat off of her head and threw it on the ground, making sure it skidded over to her manager's feet.
"Hey, boss! I quit!" And with that, she turned and left out the back door without another word.
After finishing their meals, Lan and Mayl stepped outside, back onto the streets of downtown. They started quietly walking toward a transit station, in order to take a cable car back to the ACDC suburb. Neither of them spoke, emotionally drained.
As they were two blocks from the transit station, Lan turned his head, looking in the direction of the IPC building, which was a few blocks and a couple of turns away. He abruptly turned and started heading in that direction, surprising his companion.
"Lan, where are you going?"
"I'm going back to IPC," he responded, marching purposefully. "I'm going to talk to that officer again and get in somehow. I'll figure out something."
She ran after him, catching up. "Lan, I'm not sure that's a good idea. You're going to make them angry."
"I don't care." He kept walking on as a fire truck sped past, raising his voice in order to be heard over the siren. "I'll tell them I'm Dr. Hikari's son. Maybe that will help. I don't know. But I'm going to try." Mayl was still skeptical, but didn't voice her concerns again as she followed behind him. After seeing him this determined, she allowed a twinge of optimism to take root in her mind.
As the two of them kept walking, a second fire truck soon sped past, siren blaring, followed by another. The pair watched them as they raced down the street, slowing down and turning a couple blocks ahead. Lan's eyes widened a bit, as he realized the trucks were taking the same path that the two of them were walking down. He started running, hoping he was wrong about what was going on, as Mayl started running after him. They turned the corner and froze, and she gasped as she saw the IPC facility completely engulfed in flames.
"Oh no, no no no!" Mayl ran forward, followed by Lan, who quickly overtook her. She ran up as far as the firefighters would allow before blocking her approach, and she was forced to stand in the crowd of people that had formed. Instead of joining her, Lan pulled his wireless connector out of his pocket and jammed it into his PET.
"Megaman! Get into that network and grab anything you can find that could help us!"
Megaman nodded from inside the PET before disappearing, teleporting himself into the Den City network. He quickly made his way toward the local network for the IPC building, eyes widening when he saw that it was similarly engulfed in flames. He raced to the door and bashed his way through it, looking around to see the extent of the damage. There was fire everywhere he could see, and it was almost certain that nothing had survived.
"What happened in…" he started to ask himself, running forward, before spying something out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a familiar red-and-yellow Navi deeper in the network, both of his arms extended, spraying flames over everything in sight.
"You again?!" Megaman readied his buster as Burnerman turned himself around, surprised at the interruption. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
Burnerman grinned evilly, his eyes once again swirling a dark purple. "Whatever it is I've done, it doesn't matter to me. This whole world is going up in flames, one building at a time."
"You…!" Megaman gritted his teeth, firing off some buster shots in anger. His opponent laughed, dodging them with ease.
"That's all your anger does for you? That was pathetic." He smirked and raised his arm, a cannon forming on the end of it, which started to charge with an ominous dark energy. "Let me show you what real rage is like!"
Megaman's eyes widened and he quickly ran to the side, leaping out of the way as the massive laser blast of the Dark Cannon shot forth, barely missing him. Burnerman chuckled in response.
"Maybe I'll leave a couple of these with you… you could learn a thing or two about strength." The red Navi reached out his arm, two balls of dark flame appearing, and he let them drop to the ground. "Next time we meet, you can show me the strength of the darkness that's built inside you. Maybe then you'll understand why I do what I do." Before Megaman could incredulously ask what that mission was, his enemy teleported away, vanishing to another part of the Net.
Enraged, he stood and walked over to the items that Burnerman had dropped on the ground, leaning down to inspect them. The flames had died away, and what was left over appeared to be chip data - Dark Chips, as far as he could tell. He grabbed them a bit more forcefully than he would have otherwise, certain his father would want to hear about the presence of more Dark Chips. He stood and took a look around, running through the network in the vain hopes that there would be anything left to salvage, but it was clear there was nothing. He pocketed the Dark Chip data and disappeared, returning to his operator's PET.
Back in the real world, Lan was watching the fire with a dismayed Mayl, when he heard a beep come from his hips, indicating that his Navi had returned. He grabbed the device and looked into it, seeing Megaman's disappointed face.
"What were you able to find, Mega?" he asked, as Mayl leaned in as well, curious.
"I'm sorry, Lan… the fire started on the Net," Megaman replied, apologetic. "There was nothing left at all."
Lan blinked, stunned, not sure whether to feel enraged or distraught. He eventually lowered his PET and turned his attention back to the burning building, the two children watching in disbelief as their one and only lead went up in smoke.
Later that night, Mayl returned to her bedroom, just as upset now as she had been the first night her father had been arrested. They had been set back even further than square one, all the way to square zero, and it was hard for her to feel any hope at all.
Roll watched sadly as Mayl put her PET back into its charger, next to her computer. The girl disappeared into her closet to change into her pajamas, re-emerging a few minutes later and trudging to her bed.
"Mayl… I know things look bad, but…"
"Please, Roll, I just want to go to sleep," Mayl replied quickly, flopping onto her bed. "I just want this day to end."
Roll nodded, bidding her operator a quiet goodnight, as Mayl reached over to her lamp and turned off the light. The room sat in silence for a few moments before she started to sniffle, then sob into her pillow. Her Navi looked away, not wanting to see her like this, having heard her cry herself to sleep two of the last four nights already.
After about ten minutes, the crying subsided as Mayl finally drifted off to sleep. As soon as she heard the crying stop, Roll turned away from the screen, deciding that she was done sitting around uselessly. She left the confines of her device and disappeared into the Net, ready to do whatever it took to find something that would help.
