New Megaman Battle Network

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

Story 5: A World Outside of Time


Chapter 6: The Uprising

Lan watched with fear and apprehension from his bedroom window, as an enormous mob of Copybots marched down his street. They stormed forward with callous disregard for whatever was in their way, stomping over cars, smashing through mailboxes and mangling bicycles. A handful of them were occupied with generic Navi frames, but most of them were empty, chalk-white and blank, as if they had just arrived from the factory. Some of them showed signs of damage, as if their owners had fought them to prevent their escape. Some of them sported bloodstains, as if they had fought back.

Amidst the stomping of mechanical feet, the sound of the emergency broadcast system could be heard. "Attention, all citizens of Den City. Due to increased aggressive behavior, all Copybots are now considered safety hazards, even when deactivated. If you have a Copybot in your home, please leave your home immediately and take shelter someplace safe. Do not attempt to deactivate or restrain your Copybot. Further instructions will be provided as necessary."

Lan could feel a chill spread throughout his body, anxiety carving out a hollow hole in his chest, as a familiar sequence of words played themselves over and over in his head.

You need to step up and become the hero you were born to be.

The words of the mysterious blue Navi, in the face of this bizarre Copybot threat, began to feel threatening and overwhelming. This couldn't possibly be what he meant, could it? Was Lan somehow supposed to face down an army of machines and stop them from destroying Den City? He took a closer look at one of the marching Copybots, whose left fist was stained a dark red. He couldn't see himself standing heroically in front of this advancing mob, but he could easily imagine himself as a broken pile of limbs on the pavement.

He jumped as he heard the jarring but familiar sound of his PET's ringtone. He reached down and grabbed the device from his hip, looking into the screen and quickly recognizing the caller. He pressed a button to accept his call, and his mother's face filled the screen.

"Mom!" He leaned in closer. "Where are you?"

"I'm at work," she answered, trying to hide the terror in her brown eyes. "There aren't any Copybots here, so a lot of people are sheltering here. Where are you? Are you at home?"

He nodded. "I'm in my room. I was just watching outside through the window."

"Good. Stay there and don't leave," she instructed. "I'll come back home the first chance I get. I'm not sure when that will be. Whenever they let me leave."

"Okay. I'm fine here," he reassured her. "The door's locked, and I have food. I think the TV still works."

"Try not to watch the news too much," his mother advised. "The news is just going to be scary. Try to find something you'll enjoy. Watch some cartoons." She looked away from the screen for a moment. "There are some people here who need bandaging up. I'm going to go help them. Stay where you are. I love you."

Lan nodded again, his eyes fixed on hers, wishing she didn't have to hang up. "I love you, too. See you soon."

"Take care, sweetie." The call ended, and his PET screen reverted to the main menu, with his Navi X standing in the corner. He went right back to watching the chaos outside the window, unable to look away, like a bystander watching a burning house. He nervously kept his eyes on any Copybot that came close to his house, hoping that none of them would turn and march to his door. He could hear plenty of yelling and screaming as it was. He didn't need to be another statistic in the aftermath of whatever was happening.

As he continued watching, he paused as he heard what sounded like a very familiar but muffled scream. He debated with himself for a moment before opening the window, peeking his head out a bit, trying to discern the source of the scream. His head snapped over to the right as he heard it a second time, following the sound to its source. He froze in fear as he realized the sound had come from the house next door - Mayl's house.

He could feel his heart drop as he suddenly remembered the Copybot that Mayl's family had in their home, one that was evidently still there. His mind started filling in the blanks that existed between Mayl's cries of fear, playing out a painfully one-sided battle that would leave the young girl in the hospital or worse. If Dex had been laid out with ease by his own family's Copybot, Mayl certainly didn't stand a chance.

Lan continued staring out the window, terrified as he listened to the faint sound of Mayl's voice, pleading with her assailant to leave her alone. After several long moments, his trembling legs started backing away from the window, walking him nervously toward the door. As he opened his bedroom door, his legs started picking up their slow pace, until he broke into a full run as he reached the ground floor. He could feel a righteous anger in his chest, the same sense of urgency and protectiveness that he had felt in the arcade, some days ago. He may not have been a hero who could save the world, but he could at least try to save one person.

He threw open the front door and raced out onto the lawn, staying away from the sidewalks as he ran toward Mayl's house.


Locked away in a dark room in the SciLab network, Roll sat against the wall, holding herself as she tried to fight off an onslaught of confusing and disturbing visions. With nothing else to look at, and little light to illuminate the barren room, she had nothing to distract her from the sights before her.

She continued to see the bizarre alternate memories of herself and a strange blue Navi, though they were more faded than the other visions appearing before her eyes. She saw her operator's death played out in front of her, over and over in gradually greater clarity, as if it was growing closer and more unavoidable. She saw herself flying up along the massive stone wall that marked the End of the World, before blasting a hole in it and trying to see what was on the other side.

One more vision joined the others to clog her senses, the most disturbing one yet. She saw a room filled with bodies, lifeless or nearly lifeless. Standing amidst the bodies, two groups of warriors battled for dominance, attacking each other with blows that transcended human comprehension, scars and wounds appearing as if out of nowhere. At the head of one of these two factions was a large, menacing, humanoid figure, with solid blue eyes and a red jewel embedded in his bald head. His evil, twisted smirk sent shivers down Roll's spine.

She only knew what one of these visions meant, but that was enough to make her feel sick. Her operator was in danger from this bizarre accident that perhaps wasn't an accident. Far more people might be in danger from this murderous figure in her newest vision. And somehow, all of this tied into whatever lay on the other side of the End of the World.

"I have to get out…" she muttered to herself, her eyes shut tight. "I have to escape… I have to unlock this door somehow…" What remained of her working mind was racing, trying and failing to come up with some sort of plan. "Mayl's in danger… I have to save her…" She held herself more tightly, as another vision of the giant, world-terminating wall appeared before her eyes. "I have to get out…!"

She opened her eyes and saw a switch in front of her.

Roll blinked several times. There was definitely not a switch in here moments ago. Looking again, it almost seemed as if the switch wasn't even in the room at all, despite being right in front of her eyes. The area around the switch was brightly lit, and the walls around it were a different color from the rest of the room. She turned her head from side to side curiously, to find that there seemed to be a ring hovering in space, where one room simply ended and another began. It was as if a portal had manifested itself right before her.

She took another long look at the switch, unsure if this was real or just another vision. Eventually she reached out, slowly and hesitantly, not sure if she would be able to touch the switch or if her hand would just pass through it. Her question was answered as her hand came to rest upon it, able to feel it under her fingers. She held her breath as she activated the switch, not sure what was about to happen, and was greeted with a loud, mechanical noise from the far end of the room. The portal vanished as soon as she retracted her hand, giving her an unobstructed view of the door on the other side of her prison, which was now wide open and flooding the dark room with light.

Roll's eyes were wide as she stood up and walked, then ran, to the now-open door. She wasn't sure who or what had caused the switch to manifest in front of her, but she didn't have time to think about it; she had to escape while the opportunity was available to her. She slipped through the door and took a look around, finding herself in another, larger area, one that was lit the same way as the strange switch she had just activated. She made a quick network request to confirm that she was still inside the SciLab network, which she was. She breathed a deep sigh of relief before racing toward the exit as quickly as she could. She didn't have a moment to waste.


Lan gasped as he stepped inside Mayl's house. The living room had been torn apart from some sort of intense scuffle. Furniture was knocked over, holes had been punched in the walls, and the television was issuing sparks from its shattered screen. His heart dropped into his stomach, as he wondered if he had been too late. Another scream, coming from upstairs, told him otherwise.

"Get away from me!" he heard Mayl yell in a muffled voice, as if from behind a door. "Just leave me alone!" Several loud banging noises answered her, sounding like a fist slamming against a door or a wall.

Lan instinctively moved toward the stairs before stopping himself, realizing that a fistfight against a Copybot was not going to end in his favor. He instead moved toward the kitchen, throwing open drawers and cabinets, looking for something that he could use as a weapon to even the odds a bit. He passed over an assortment of sharp knives, eventually settling on a wooden rolling pin. He turned back and started making his way up the stairs, gripping his weapon tightly in his right hand, his legs trembling with each step. He tried not to think about the possibility that he would be the one battered by the rolling pin instead.

As he reached the top of the stairs, he turned his head down a hallway, freezing as he saw a blank Copybot pounding its fist against Mayl's bedroom door. The door was already splintering and falling away under the relentless onslaught, with one of the hinges broken off of the wall entirely. He could see slivers of Mayl's wallpaper through the massive cracks and holes that formed. It wouldn't be long before the door was gone.

Lan resisted the urge to run, creeping up as quietly and quickly as he could, until he was right behind the Copybot. As the robot reared back to swing its fist again, Lan raised the rolling pin above himself and brought it down onto the Copybot's head with all of his strength. He couldn't help but let out a yell as he swung, giving it every ounce of strength he had.

The Copybot crumpled a bit under the force of the blow, but it recovered quickly, standing up and turning around to face its aggressor with a newly-formed crack in its malleable head. Lan panicked and swung the rolling pin a second time, but the Copybot caught it easily in one hand, yanking it away. It took a step forward and swung the rolling pin toward Lan's head, and the boy yelped and jumped backward, stumbling and falling onto his back. As the Copybot advanced, Lan scrambled to get away, moving back toward the stairs and descending as quickly as his legs could carry him.

As he neared the bottom, he tripped over his feet and started to fall, rolling down the final three steps. He hit the ground painfully, sore but not injured, and groaned as he sat up again. He looked up the stairs to see the Copybot leaping down the stairs in one large bound, prepared to stomp when it hit the bottom. Lan scrambled once again, ignoring the pain in his legs and back, moving out of the way just as the Copybot stomped into the floor where he had been moments ago. The robot's feet sank several inches into the splintering floorboards.

Lan tried to ignore how close he was to being stomped to death, as he ran for the kitchen again, needing another weapon. His charge was interrupted by the sound of Mayl's voice from the top of the stairs. "Lan, look out!"

He turned back toward the Copybot just as the machine flung the rolling pin directly at him like a knife. He yelped and ducked just in time, and the rolling pin flew over his head, embedding itself in the wall behind him. He looked back at the Copybot again, which was now advancing on him, and he turned around to retrieve the rolling pin from the wall as quickly as he could. He was able to pull it out with one strong yank, whirling around to see the rogue machine only feet away.

Acting on instinct, he swung the rolling pin at the Copybot's head once again, but the robot caught the pin easily in one hand. Its other hand pushed Lan forcefully into the damaged wall, knocking the wind out of him and holding him firmly in place. Lan tried to get out of the murderous machine's grip, tried to pull the rolling pin away for another swing, but his strength was like nothing compared to the Copybot that had him in its clutches.

The fear that he had been suppressing this entire time suddenly came back in full force, hitting him like a tidal wave that would have knocked him off his feet if he weren't currently pinned to the wall. The world around him faded away, the room behind him becoming blurry, the sounds of Mayl's voice and the marching feet outside becoming oddly muted. As the Copybot pulled the rolling pin out of his hand and tossed it aside, freeing its hand for a fatal punch, Lan had no time to cope with the fact that he was about to die. He didn't have time to scream, or cry, or do anything at all, as the machine reared its arm back.

Just before the Copybot could slam its fist into Lan's face, Mayl's broken television crashed onto its head.

The Copybot began to writhe and spasm as electricity wracked its frame, delivered through the crack in its head that Lan had created a minute ago. A series of popping noises rang out through the room like tiny firecrackers, as the machine's circuits were overloaded one by one. Finally, the Copybot fell to the floor in front of Lan, still lightly twitching, the broken television falling off of its head.

Lan held his collar where the Copybot had been grabbing him, catching his breath for a moment, before looking up to see who had just saved him. He stared dumbly at the imposing figure of Dex, as the older boy stood over the fallen Copybot, a bandage on his head and an expression of vengeful satisfaction on his face.

"Yeah!" Dex declared victoriously. "How do you like that, you mechanical jerk?!"

Mayl quickly ran down the stairs toward the two boys, holding her hand over her heart. "What are you two doing here?"

"I heard screaming… from my house… so I ran over," Lan answered, catching his breath, still recovering from his near-death experience.

"I came to…" Dex began, before stopping himself and changing his story. "I was running by and I heard screams, so I came in to see what was going on."

If Mayl found his change of explanation suspicious, she didn't say anything about it. "Well… thanks, both of you. That thing would have…" She let the thought die in her throat, not wanting to vocalize what would have happened to her.

"Yeah…" Lan nodded, turning back to the boy in front of him. "Thanks… that was really close…"

"Don't mention it," Dex spat. "That thing had it coming."

Lan pushed himself away from the wall. "Anyway, we need to-"

"Hold on." Both Lan and Mayl turned their heads toward Dex, who was looking intently at Lan with a serious expression. "You and I gotta talk."

"Me?" Lan felt himself shrink a little bit, worried all over again. "What do you mean…?"

"Lan, you're the biggest wimp I've ever met," Dex began. "You're the easiest target in the whole city. You take whatever anyone throws at you and you never stand up for yourself. I honestly can't stand people like you."

"Um… okay…?" Lan let him continue, not entirely sure where this was going.

"But… when someone else was in trouble, you manned up and put everything on the line for them. At the arcade, and right here. And I gotta respect that." Dex took a breath before extending his hand toward Lan. "So… truce?"

Lan stared at the hand in disbelief. Of all the shocking and improbable things that had happened recently, earning Dex's respect had to be the most unlikely thing on the list. Some small part of his brain, whatever remained of his ego, told him to reject the offer, that he deserved recompense after the years of bullying. Ultimately, his self-preservation instincts won out, and he reached out and accepted the handshake, looking back up into Dex's eyes.

"Yeah, truce," he agreed, feeling relief spreading throughout his body. He didn't even care that Dex's grip felt like a crushing vice on his hand. The two let go as quickly as they could.

"Finally… thank goodness," Mayl muttered under her breath, before speaking up. "I'm glad you two got that worked out, but we need to get out of here."

"We sure do." Dex clenched his fist. "We've gotta give the rest of those Copybots what's coming to them."

"We what?!" Mayl's eyes bugged out of her head. "No! We have to evacuate! We need to go somewhere safe!"

"The hell with that!" Dex roared back. "I'm not going to let a bunch of crazed robots mess up my city!"

"Are you crazy?!" She marched forward, standing right in front of Dex, making herself look as imposing as possible. "Any of those could kill you with one good punch! What do you think you're going to do?"

"I, uh…" He thought for a minute, hand gently holding his bandaged head. "We'll go to that factory! I bet there's some way to control the Copybots from there! We'll stop them all at once!"

"You can't be serious!" She turned away from him, toward the other boy standing by her side. "Lan, talk some sense into him, please!"

"Well…" Lan paused, thinking quietly for a moment. "What if Dex is right? What if there is a way to stop them? Shouldn't we at least look?" He wasn't thinking about the danger they would be putting themselves in, or his mother's stern warning to stay home. He was instead thinking about the mysterious blue Navi's words, about Lan stepping up and becoming a hero. With Dex's help, he was able to stop a single Copybot. Maybe together, they could stop more. Maybe his time had come after all.

"Oh god, you're both crazy." Mayl held her face in her hand for a moment, trying to decide what to do. "Alright… alright, fine. We'll go downtown… very carefully… and we'll try to get into the factory. If we can't get in, or if it's full of Copybots, then we leave and go somewhere safe. Okay?"

"Mayl, you're coming with us?" Lan asked, surprised.

"Well, someone has to keep you two dolts from getting yourselves killed," she answered. "Come on, let's go before that thing gets back up somehow."

Dex rushed ahead and opened the door, and the three children started making their way downtown, traveling as far from the mob of Copybots as they could manage.


The Copybot factory in downtown Den City was surprisingly quiet. The machinery had come to a stop earlier that day, having finished its long-standing task of assembling an army. The lights were all off, and the doors had been locked tight. The only sign of damage was a hole in the glass roof of the building - a hole that had been made from the inside.

Miles away, an independent Copybot was running through the forest at a high speed, occupied by a female pink Navi. Roll had found her way into one of the only available Copybots in the entire city, a prototype she had found in the factory. She was now racing toward the outskirts of Den City, toward the enormous wall that loomed over the city and over her mind - the End of the World.

She knew that her operator was in danger, as was the rest of the city, but there was a powerful, gnawing need within her that demanded she breach the wall that nobody had breached before. Nothing was more important than this. Her answers, her salvation, her destiny were all waiting on the other side - and she was going to claim them, no matter what.