I own no Megaman characters, any familiar dialogue or the main plot. Credits to Capcom.
Reply to Ghost501's review of Chapter 10: At the time I wrote this, I drastically changed what the Traffic Light Network would be like. I'm not sure if you, or anyone else, will appreciate the change, but the explanation's in the chapter.
-Chapter 11: Trouble In Town-
The Following Saturday...
"Man, where's Maylu?" Lan sighed, pacing back and forth between the Metroline under the mid morning sky.
"Well, I'm surprised," Megaman commented. "It's usually you who's late. I wonder what's keeping Maylu up."
"Hm... Now that you mention it, Megaman, you're right! For once, she's the late one!" Lan grinned suddenly. "Now I can't wait to see the look on her face! Only problem is that she isn't here yet. Darn."
After a few more minutes of pacing, Lan finally caught sight of his magenta haired friend, who panted as she rushed to him.
"Hah! Who's late now?" Lan smirked.
"Sorry, sorry!" Maylu apologized in between breaths. "I had something to bring over to my grandma's..."
"Hmph. You could have told me."
"I promise I'll make it up to you! Now, let's go."
After school on Friday, Lan and Maylu agreed to meet up at the Metroline and head for DenTech Town, the central area of DenTech City, home to the Internet Area 'Central DenTech Area'. And so, this was where they were headed today. While train rides from ACDC Town to Marine Harbor took twenty minutes, train rides from ACDC Town to DenTech Town took a chunky thirty five minutes. This, however, gave the two friends plenty of time to talk about loads of different stuff, including...
"Lan, do you... like anyone?"
"What do you mean?" Lan asked, clearly confused at Maylu's question.
"Well, what I mean is..." She lowered her head in slight embarrassment. "You know what, never mind..."
"Huh..."
"Don't you get it, Lan?" Megaman spoke up.
"Don't get what, Megaman?" the boy responded.
"The way Maylu asked you that question, the question itself," the blue Navi reminded his NetOp, his voice lowered to a hushed tone. "Do you seriously not get it?"
"No...? Am I supposed to?"
"Sigh... Sometimes, you can be so dense, Lan..."
"But it's not my fault I don't get it!"
Whatever Maylu meant, Lan wouldn't ever understand (or, so he thought). In their own heads, the two vowed to forget about it, especially Maylu. Well, at least until she could muster up enough courage to talk about the subject properly... In any case, they arrived at DenTech Town.
DenTech Town, dubbed to the entire city's citizens as 'The Town', was normally very busy and this day was no exception. While the town was massive, the many commuters and civilians took up the huge space. The town itself was separated into five sections, each signified by the houses' roofs: North (with red roofs), East (with yellowy orange roofs), South (with lime green roofs), West (with navy roofs) and Center (with white roofs). The Metroline was located in the town's Center, which was where Lan and Maylu were greeted with tree trunk brown sidewalks and plenty of buildings, housing and facilities.
"So, what are we gonna get Yai?" Lan asked.
"Well, I heard that she's been collecting antiques recently," Maylu answered. "So why don't we get some for her?"
"Good idea. But where are we gonna find a place to buy antiques?"
"Don't worry, Lan," Maylu smiled. "I've been here before with my mom. The antique shop is over at the town's East."
"East?" Lan repeated, before Maylu explained everything about the town's structure. Lan understood some of it, but he received the info too quickly (according to him, anyway). The two traveled through the northern area to get the the east, for there was a lot for Lan to see, but they couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. They took a glance around and noticed something odd about the traffic lights.
"Hey, Maylu. Are traffic lights supposed to be green both ways?" Using the latest technology, the red lights emitted strips of energy, which prevented people from driving past. Walkers and drivers heading vertically were allowed through when those heading horizontally were stopped, and vice versa (for the sake of convenience, entrances to tunnels which led to the other side of the street were built). In this instance, the green lights were on for vertical and horizontal drivers at the same time!
"Oh no! Watch out!" Maylu shouted to the driving citizens, but it was too late. Two drivers, one driving eastward and another heading south, attempted to pull the brakes, but the heads of their cars collided in a booming explosion, striking fear on all the other town goers and Lan and Maylu.
In the midst of all that, Lan and Maylu suddenly received mail. But why now, at a time like this!? They began to take a look. It was from World Three! It contained this message:
'Greetings, citizens of DenTech Town! Is your autodrive system malfunctioning? Well, don't fear! We at World Three have created a program guaranteed to solve the problem! Just install it into your car and it will run like new! On sale at DenTech Town's Center while supplies last! It's a little pricey, but it's all worth it!'
After scrolling down through it all, the price of the 'program' appeared in bulging text, to which Lan and Maylu yelped in shock and exited the message.
"Those World Three jerks!" Lan growled. "Kicking people when they're down!"
"It must be World Three viruses bugging the traffic lights!" a voice shouted to Lan from across the street. Lan and Maylu turned to the direction they heard the voice from and noticed Sal, with her was a close friend of hers, Miyu, who was the owner of the antique shop Maylu was talking about. Said shop was where Sal and Miyu were headed.
"We must stop them before the situation gets worse," Miyu stated calmly after the introductions were gotten out of the way. "I sense impending danger as we speak."
"Then we better get moving!" Maylu responded. "Let's jack in from where we are and our Navis will meet up and take care of everything! Ready, Lan?"
"Who do you think I am?" he smirked. "Let's do this! Jack in, Megaman! Execute!"
"Jack in, Roll! Execute!"
In The Traffic Light Network...
Each part of the real world's town housed their own area of the Traffic Light Network, which could be accessed by jacking into the respective traffic lights themselves. Since Lan, Maylu, Sal and Miyu all jacked in from the North, their Navis arrived at the Northern Traffic Light Network.
Megaman and Roll were on one side of the network, but on the other side were two other Navis, Woodman, a hefty, tree based Navi, and Skullman, a skeletal Navi. The cyber sky was black and lined with road like patterns, which came in shades of red, blue and yellow. The cyber ground was red on the side Woodman and Skullman were on, but it was blue on the other side, the side with Megaman and Roll. In the center was a bright main platform, one with two Mr Progs. They controlled the actual lights from the traffic lights. However, the four Navis couldn't reach them yet, for lines of viruses, all with World Three's data signatures, made their way to them in an attempt to delete them all. They were tougher than regular viruses, but they were still no match for the Navis.
Paths may have branched off every now and then, but it was actually very simple to get around. That was because maintenance was extremely important for travel systems, so repairmen's Navis shouldn't have had to struggle getting to where they needed to do their job. To make up for it, security Navis had to be dotted across the Traffic Light Network. However, neither Megaman, Roll, Woodman nor Skullman saw any sign of them and they wouldn't dare to talk about why...
As the four Navis made it there, they saw groups of viruses, made up of Puffers, VolGears and Mettool2s, surrounding the two Mr Progs.
"Stop, evil doers, and release them!" Woodman commanded them, only to have them turning to him and displaying angry looks on their faces.
"Hmph. Won't do it, eh?" Skullman smirked. "Then get ready to be deleted! Ready, Woodman?"
"As always, friend!"
"Roll and I will help you guys out, too!" Megaman said to Skullman.
"Ah! Good to see you two again!" Woodman remarked. There was an incident back with ACDC's squirrel statue where the three had met. Megaman and Roll were new faces to Skullman, though.
"So, you're Megaman and Roll," he mused.
"Yep. That's us!" Roll responded cheerfully. "And you must be Skullman, right?" Woodman briefly mentioned Skullman to Megaman and Roll once.
"Got that right," said skeletal Navi responded. "But enough of the greetings. We need to show these viruses their place!"
"Right behind you!" Megaman affirmed, as the four of them prepared to strike.
Roll jumped backwards and turned her right arm into a pink bow. From this, she shot her 'Roll Arrows', which seemed to do minimal damage to the viruses, but before they could laugh tauntingly, they found themselves severely stunned. Taking the chance, Skullman leaped upwards and breathed balls of 'Ghost Fire', which rained down on the virus hordes, while Megaman fired his Mega Buster at them. Meanwhile, Woodman used his 'Green Wood' attack by slamming his fist down and summoning sharp wood spikes to trap and impale viruses. Only a few of the pests survived this combined attack. A couple of VolGears began to use their Tower attacks, but they were interrupted and stunned by Roll Arrows and finally deleted by Mega Buster shots. The Mr Progs, who witnessed the beat down the viruses deserved and got, cheered together.
"Now that we're free, we can do our jobs again!" one of them sighed in relief.
"Well, make it quick!" Skullman told them. "Change the lights red before another pair of real world cars bite the dust!"
"Will do!" With that affirmation, the Mr Progs flipped their switches, the signals on top of them turning from green to red.
"You know, you two are pretty strong," Skullman said to Megaman and Roll. "Maybe as good as me or Woodman!"
"Ha ha. You're pretty strong yourself," Megaman admitted. "What do you think, Roll?"
"I'm with you, Mega," Roll smiled.
"C'mon, Roll. Now that the traffic's back, we better warn everyone not to buy that so called program!" Maylu said.
"Of course." Before everyone agreed to jack out, Roll waved to Skullman and Woodman and said to them, "I'll see you guys soon!"
Back In DenTech Town...
"That time may come very early," Miyu responded to Roll's words.
"Hm? What are you talking about?" Sal asked her.
"I just have a feeling," Miyu replied stoically as the two followed Lan and Maylu's lead to DenTech Town's Center. There, they saw the woman Lan saw last week. With the amount of people around her willing to 'buy' the 'program' for their cars, she was pleased to see that everything was going according to her plan. However, as soon as she saw Lan, her grin pulled down to a frown.
"You again..." she growled.
"You were from the Waterworks, weren't you? And you were a World Three operator the entire time!?"
"That's right, you meddling kid!"
"You're the one meddling!" Lan retorted.
Meanwhile, Maylu, Sal and Miyu convinced the people of the crowd that this was all a World Three scam. They, too, knew of the trouble World Three caused and didn't want anything from a 'company' such as them. One by one, the people of the crowd left.
"Aaaaahhh! My customers!"
"Your so called 'customers' now know why you're running this 'business'!" Maylu smirked.
"Grrrr! You don't know how much... Aaaarrrgh! This time, I'll break all the traffic signs for good! And I'll get you good, kid!" She addressed Lan as she said her last sentence.
"Lan?"
"What are you talking about!?" Lan growled.
"I've been reading your personal files," the woman began. "And I know that you hate nothing more than losing your loved ones! You're gonna be real depressed when I'm done with you! Then, you'll remember to never mess with Maddy!" Cackling, she took off.
"No!" Sal spoke up. "We can't let her get away with this!"
"..." Miyu said nothing. Instead, she breathed more heavily.
"Hm? What's up, Miyu?" Sal asked her.
"Lan, Maylu, the woman that just took off may have foreshadowed a terrible event!" Miyu warned the two.
"What!?"
Suddenly, their PETs began to ring. They took them out to see that they had calls, calls from Dex and Tory! They needed help because they were stuck in a bus that was being controlled past green lights! They panicked, but they were told to calm down and say where they were.
"Um, it looks like we're headed for the Western Area," Tory said to Lan, noticing the dark blue roofs on the houses.
"Alright! Just hang on! We'll do something to stop the bus!" Lan told him.
"Hang on!? You need to get us out of here fast!" Dex's shout rang through Maylu's PET.
"You heard Lan! We'll be right there!" Maylu assured him.
As fast as they could, Lan, Maylu, Sal and Miyu dashed for the area Tory mentioned, the west of DenTech Town. After finding a traffic light to jack into, they immediately jacked their Navis into the Western Traffic Light Network.
It was the same routine as last time: find the main platform with the Mr Progs and delete the viruses holding them.
Virus Log-
Mettool2s: faster and stronger Mettools with magenta bodies and blue crosses on their helmets
I wasn't sure how to write out the disappearing and reappearing of platforms as someone steps over something. However, in the next network, I was able to write out its gimmick perfectly fine! For the life of me, I don't know why, so I sincerely apologize.
But enough guilty talk. I'll see you guys next time!
-Have a great day, week, month, whatever, and stay upbeat, y'all!-