New Megaman Battle Network

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

Story 5: A World Outside of Time


Chapter 1: Strange New World

The ringing of school bells echoed throughout the metropolis of Den City, capital of the nation of Electopia. Downtown, the air was soon filled with the sounds of children, as numerous public schools let out at the same time. Running out into downtown, they crowded buses or cable cars in a rush to get themselves home, as the buses drew up to internet-controlled traffic lights.

Nearly every element of this city, like most cities in the world, was connected to its computerized counterpart, Den Net City. In the year of 2084, most of the world was controlled by computer, and almost every computerized device was linked together by the massive Net. Governments controlled it, scientists developed it, businesses depended on it, and children were taught how to use it in schools.

Outside of one such school, children were talking, playing, Netbattling and more, with most of them getting along just fine. Two of the students, however, were having a less amicable interaction.

"Haha! Try harder, Lan!" Dex Oyama, a tall, stout, darker-skinned boy, was engaging in some light bullying of one of his classmates. He was holding the other boy's Personal Terminal, or PET, high above his head, refusing to give it back. "You want your PET back or not?"

"Come on, Dex, give it back…" Lan Hikari, a slightly shorter but much meeker twelve-year-old with spiky brown hair, was trying to reach up and take his PET back with no success, as Dex easily dodged out of the way. Each person's PET was effectively their gateway to the digital world, acting as their phone, email, internet browser and more. Without his PET, Lan was going to have a hard time getting through his day, but physically confronting people like Dex was not something he was good at.

"Wonder what sort of emails you've been getting lately?" the taller boy wondered aloud with a devious grin, grabbing the PET with both hands and opening up Lan's email client. "Let's take a look!"

"No, don't!" Lan lunged for the PET that was now within his reach, hoping he could grab it with a surprise strike. Dex reacted quickly, stepping back and lifting the PET above his head again, and Lan stumbled forward and fell to his hands and knees. His aggressor laughed, looking back at Lan's emails.

"Dex! Are you bullying Lan again?" a female voice huffed from the school entrance. Both boys looked over to see Mayl Sakurai, a red-headed, outgoing girl of the same age and height as Lan, glaring at Dex with her hands on her hips.

"Aww, I'm just having a bit of fun with him," the older boy replied, as Mayl marched closer. "It's not my fault he makes it so easy."

"Leave him alone, Dex! Give him his PET back!" She was standing right in front of him, looking up and shooting him a death glare that would wither most people her age. Dex, however, was completely unaffected.

"Alright, fine. I'll give it back…" He grinned, leaning in close to Mayl. "…if you go on a date with me, that is."

"Ew, no!" She reaches out and tried to push away his large frame, her hands on his shoulders. "Ugh, you're so gross, Dex!" He laughed, undeterred, stepping closer to her, easily overpowering her and pushing her back, as Lan limply watched the two from his position on the ground.

"What's going on here?" All three children turned their heads to see their homeroom teacher, Ms. Mari, approaching with a concerned look on her face. "It doesn't look like all of you are having fun."

Dex quickly straightened, not wanting to get himself in trouble. "Aw, Ms. Mari, we were just…" He was quickly interrupted by Mayl, who took a step forward and snatched Lan's PET right out of his hand in a single fluid motion. She walked right past him, not wanting to be in his presence a second longer, and reached down to help Lan get back to his feet.

"Are you alright, Lan?"

He nodded quietly and took her hand, standing, and she handed his PET back to him before turning and walking off toward the cable car stop. Lan quietly waved and thanked Ms. Mari before they were out of earshot; she looked back at him with her arms folded, before turning her attention back to Dex.

As the two children walked away from the school, Lan took a careful look into the screen of his PET, trying to assess what damage Dex had done, before speaking to it. "X, did he do anything to the PET?"

His eyes focused on the humanoid figure that was now visible on the PET screen. This figure was his Net Navigator, or Navi, who assisted him with various Net-based tasks, from research to organization to busting viruses. This Navi was covered from head to toe in two shades of blue armor, save for his face, with a red jewel in the center of his forehead.

"No, he didn't. He just browsed through menus for a minute. He didn't look at your emails or anything of the sort." X spoke in a straightforward manner, lacking in personality, but that was the case for almost all Navis. Lan sighed in relief, putting the PET into the holster that was attached to his belt.

"You can't let Dex keep walking all over you, Lan," Mayl spoke up, looking toward her companion. "You need to stand up to him. He keeps bullying you because he knows it's easy."

Lan nodded quietly, taking in her words but staying silent, not even confident enough to respond to her. She sighed and shook her head, disappointed. The two of them had been friends since they were young, but they had never been particularly close; Lan had always been timid and withdrawn, and it was hard for anyone to get close to him.

"Well, it's just going to happen again tomorrow, so I hope you're ready."

Lan nodded again, and the two of them continued on to the cable car that would take them home.


Twenty minutes later, Lan walked through the front door of his modest-sized house in the suburb of ACDC. He slid his backpack off his arm and dropped it to the floor, resting it against the wall.

"Mom? I'm home!" he called out, closing the front door behind him. He was a bit surprised to hear no answer, peering into the living room and seeing nobody there. He stepped into the kitchen, looking at the refrigerator, where a digital whiteboard and pen had been mounted. Written on the whiteboard was a message that he had been half-expecting.

Lan - out running errands. Back at 5, dinner at 6. Love you! - Mom

He glanced over it quickly, not too surprised to see it; his mother was often out during the day, running errands or working. Once he had read it, he let his eyes drift over the front of the refrigerator. They passed over pictures, alphabet magnets, and old pieces of art from when Lan was several years younger. They finally settled on an old photograph from many years back, of a young man and woman standing close together, with the woman holding a young, unruly baby in her arms.

He easily recognized the woman as his mother Haruka, and he knew that the young baby was himself. He knew that the man in the photograph was his father, as he'd been told in the past, but Lan had no memories of this man ever being in his life. His father had left the family when Lan was less than two years old; his mother was reluctant to talk much about it, but he knew that it involved an accident that had somehow taken the life of his twin brother, Hub. As far as he could tell, his father had never been able to deal with the guilt.

After looking at the picture for a minute or so, Lan reached out and tapped a button on the whiteboard, instantly erasing it. He grabbed the digital pen that was magnetized to the refrigerator and wrote out a new message.

Mom - went down to the End. Will be back for dinner. - Lan

Satisfied, he put the pen back down, stepping back out the front door and heading for the edge of Den City.


After fifteen minutes of walking, Lan was closing in on his destination. The large buildings of downtown were far away, and the houses of the suburbs were giving way to more parks and public spaces, as he started reaching the outskirts of the city. He mostly looked down at the ground as he walked, but his eyes snapped up as he sensed the presence of someone walking in his direction. Looking up, he saw not another person, but a humanoid being clad entirely in green armor, with digitized eyes peeking out from behind a visor. He instantly recognized it as a generic-issue Navi, just as their eyes met.

Without hesitation, the Navi stepped to the side of the sidewalk, letting Lan pass. "My apologies, citizen!" it chirped dutifully, watching Lan walk by before continuing on its errand.

Lan continued walking forward, undeterred and entirely unsurprised to see a Navi walking out and about in the real world. It had become a much more common occurrence in the last few years, after the National Science Laboratories - or SciLab, as it was better known - had invented the very first Copybot. These devices acted as shells for Navis to insert themselves into, letting them wander around in the real world, with the Copybot taking on the Navi's appearance. They had quickly become popular devices among wealthier households, and with Den City being the world's largest Copybot producer, they were a common sight around the city these days.

Continuing on for a minute more, Lan walked through a small grove of trees. When he came out the other side, his destination was clear in front of his eyes. He had arrived at the End of the World.

The End was an enormous wall of rock, looking much like the face of a giant cliff, which stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see. The wall stretched out for tens of thousands of miles, around the entire world, eventually connecting back to itself. It stretched up vertically as well, far past what the eye could see, and even higher up than airplanes could fly. No one had ever found a way around it from any direction, and despite numerous attempts, no person or organization had succeeded in drilling through the shockingly tough rock that the wall was made of. Nobody knew what lay beyond, or if anything lay beyond at all. For all intents and purposes, this wall was the point where the entire world terminated.

Lan walked forward until the grassy ground started to slope downward, sitting down at the top of the hill and looking up at the massive rock face in front of him. He let his mind wander, going back to earlier in the day, where Dex had been teasing and bullying him, refusing to give his PET back. He knew that Mayl was right, that he would need to stand up for himself at some point, but he could barely imagine finding the courage or the strength to stand up to someone like that. It felt to him as if Dex was as tall and imposing as the infinite wall that he was sitting in front of.

He sighed and lay back, trying his best to forget his troubles, but they easily crept back into his mind. He wondered, as he often did, what his life might be like if he had a bit more courage and self-respect. He wondered what it would feel like to have a large group of friends, instead of just the one. He wondered how his life might be different if he had a father.

Lan closed his eyes, taking in the gentle sounds and scents around him, unable to shake the feeling that this wasn't how his life was supposed to be.