I own no Megaman characters, any familiar dialogue or the main plot. Credits to Capcom.

Before I begin, I would like to say a big thank you to 'IchigoPinkPearl101' for adding this story to their alerts and 'nhinhonhinho' for adding this story to their alerts and favorites.

Reply to Ghost501's review of Chapter 17: Ah, yes. In BN2, I remember that there was quite the atrocious backtracking segment. In fact, it took up an entire scenario!

-Chapter 18: Under Where? In The Undernet, Of Course!-

In The Cyberworld...

After making his way through the ACDC Area and Metroline Area, Megaman arrived at the 'DenTech Town Area', aka the 'Central DenTech Area'. Like the real world counterpart, it was a large community of Navis and Mr Progs. Like the real world's DenTech Town, it was split off into five different sections: N, E, S, W and C, obviously abbreviations of the names of the town's s five sections. The size of the Area was quite a sight for Megaman to behold. However, there wasn't any time for sight seeing, for he had a mission to accomplish. He needed to find a 'W3' sign somewhere.

Along the way, he deleted several viruses, old and new. There were Flappy2s, Flappy3s, Dynamytes and Mettool3s. Individually, they were nothing, but together, they posed a bit of a problem for Megaman. That wasn't saying much, though. The blue Navi still easily deleted the viruses that were persistent in getting in his way. Eventually, Megaman discovered two paths of cyber trees, parallel to one another. The trees themselves took on darker tones. Suspicious, Megaman followed the path in front of him. No one else dared to follow him, for passersby thought he was crazy! What he discovered was a large wall, a large black wall with rusty orange characters on it. They read 'W3'.

"This must be it, Lan," Megaman said to his NetOp.

"Looks like it," Lan agreed. "Let's use the codes Higsby gave us." Megaman did as suggested and stepped in front of the series of buttons in front of the wall. He pressed a few of them in a sequence and in a few seconds, the wall disappeared. Then, a whole new area became visible to him. It looked kinda like the ACDC Area, except the tress had no leaves, barren cyber ground took the place of the grass and the cyber sky was an eerie red.

As Megaman took a step into what he assumed was the Undernet, he couldn't help but see silhouettes. He readied his Mega Buster, but not before the wall appeared behind him once more, sealing him in the Undernet.

"What's up, Megaman?" Lan asked him.

"I think I see more viruses," Megaman said, taking slow steps. The figures became clearer to him. He gasped. "Here they come, Lan! And big ones at that!" Three machine cannons, each with four legs and large shields in front of them. IronShields! The one on the left was pinkish with a gray shield, while the stronger one on the very right was tan with a red shield. The strongest of the three, the apparent leader of the trio, donned a white metal coat and a gold shield.

"Man... This looks bad..." Lan groaned. "But it look like there's no choice! Megaman, let's go!"

"Right!"

The battle began with all three IronShields raising their namesakes up, then firing large cannonballs at their Navi enemy. They all headed for one point, so Megaman dodged them easily and fired away with his arm cannon, but he was too slow, for the shields were put down again. Guessing that the backs were their weaknesses, the blue Navi decided to be a little crafty and leap over the cannon like viruses to shoot, but they were too clever. They turned round, facing Megaman as he jumped, and raised their shields up to stop his shots. Then, there was just a staredown. Neither the Navi nor the viruses made a move.

If attacking these guys from the back won't work, I guess I'll have to stall for time until they put up their shields! That is, if they ever do it!

After what felt like an eternity, the IronShields made their move. Cannonballs were shot at Megaman, who rushed ahead of them and shot the weakest of the three viruses down. The tan and red IronShield scuttled around Megaman and faced his back. It, along with the white and gold virus, circled round Megaman, who frequently turned back and forth. By the sound of cannonballs being fired from behind, said Navi ducked under one and shot the virus down, courtesy of a Hi Cannon. All that remained was the white and gold IronShield. In rapid succession, it fired a fleet of cannonballs, dropping the shield in front of it in between every shot. Megaman barely made it through most of them and was blasted in the stomach by the last one. Struggling to get up, he witnessed another wave of cannonballs heading his way.

Suddenly, Megaman disappeared and reappeared behind the IronShield, thanks to Lan's use of Area Steal. Taking the window of opportunity, Megaman rapidly fired at the virus' back. A dent was left, but the virus itself was still around. After turning around, the IronShield made use of its four legs and rushed at Megaman, ramming him with its shield on a dead tree. This was followed up by another cannonball being fired. As the IronShield prepared to launch another one, Megaman received an Electro Sword during his recovery. Dodging cannonball after cannonball, the Navi awaited the right time to swing. He had to be quick, for the blade wouldn't last forever. He got closer and closer, dodging more cannonballs shot his way, until he was an arm's length away from the IronShield. Megaman immediately slashed at the virus, following up with another slash in the perpendicular direction. A stab followed that, making the virus burst into little clusters of data, deleting the IronShield.

"Whew! That was a tough one," Megaman sighed in relief, his arm returning to its original place.

"But we made it through, huh?" Lan added.

"'We'? Who was the one out there risking their life?" Megaman teased his NetOp.

"C'mon! If it weren't for that Area Steal, you would have been gone!" said boy grinned. The two friends laughed away for a few seconds until the seriousness of the the current situation loomed over them. "Now, let's find those locks Higsby was talking about."

"I'm on it," Megaman responded calmly.

Megaman began to explore the Undernet, which was infested with tough viruses. He and Lan heard rumors of the Undernet being not only dangerous, but also a massive network, almost as massive as the entire regular Internet. Like the Internet, the Undernet has been divided into smaller segments, though how they were separated was entirely random. The area Megaman was in was where World Three hid their server address. In order to get there, he had to open the three locks that stood in the way.

An ominous feel in the Undernet shook all data. No Mr Progs dared to hide out here and no normal Navi dared to venture deep in the Undernet. The few that roamed were criminals' Navis that took shelter from the Officials. Fortunately for Megaman, he didn't encounter any of these renegades on his search for the three locks. The locks were actually walls like the one at the entrance. It took a long time, but eventually, Megaman found and opened all three locks and he passed through the third in triumph.

However, what Megaman discovered was not only a blotchy, dark path with 'W's along it, but a Navi guarding it! This orange Navi had bomb like shoulders and a mohawk like shape protruding from the top of his head. The emblem on his chest was shaped like an explosion of sorts.

"Huh? How did you get in here?" he grunted in his gruff voice. "Who are you? And what brings you to me, the great Bombman?"

"I'm Megaman! I'm here to get World Three's server address! If you have it, then hand it over!"

"Hah! No can do, little man!" Bombman grinned. "Anyone who gets in World Three's way gets deleted! Deletion for you!" A lit bomb suddenly appeared in Bombman's hands and was chucked straight at Megaman, who dodged the actual weapon itself, but barely missed the incoming explosion. Bombman took this chance to ram his shoulder at his enemy for quite some damage.

After Megaman recovered from the fall, he assumed that all of Bombman's bombs would be lit from the get go, so he had to focus every one of his Mega Buster shots on the actual bomb loving Navi. What he didn't know was that Bombman was able to take plenty of abuse. As said Navi did so, he laughed tauntingly. Then, after summoning two bombs at once, he hurled them both at Megaman. Megaman leaped up to their level and kicked both bombs at their original wielder. To counter this, Bombman threw another one of his weapons at an incoming one, leaping out the way of the explosion which occurred. As the cyber smoke began to clear away, Bombman couldn't help but see a shadow in it all, with one hand filled with a sort of energy. This energy was hurled above Bombman's head and transformed into a silver weight, which began to crash into him from below. After barely dodging the Quake attack, he tilted his head upwards slightly. He found Megaman right above him!

"Gah! How did you get there!?" Bombman demanded from him.

"Just a little magic!" Megaman grinned sarcastically. "We have him now, Lan!"

"Let's go, Megaman!" Lan called out. "We haven't used this thing in a while! Fighter Sword! Battle chip in! Download!"

As Megaman descended, he received the power packed blade. Raising it high, it turned into a red stream of energy. With a battle cry, he swung the weapon down at Bombman, who roared in pain.

"But... But... How!?" Bombman yelled as he clutched his wound. "I've been undefeated since Day One!" A blue orb shot out of Bombman. It floated over to Megaman and went into him. Megaman could then feel knowledge sinking into him.

"Lan, I think I have World Three's server address," he said.

"Great job!" the NetOp cheered. "Let's use it to break into World Three's network!"

"Fool..." Bombman uttered in a low voice, his body beginning to flash. "They don't call me Bombman for nothing." As the bombs on his shoulders were set alight, the body continued to flash rapidly. "If I go down, I'm taking you with me!"

"What are you doing!?" Megaman shouted, shielding himself.

"Megaman! Look out!" Lan yelled, before he heard a massive explosion boom in the Undernet. He shut his eyes in fear. What happened to Megaman?

The thick cluster of cyber smoke slowly cleared away. Megaman still stood, but Bombman did not. And neither did the dark path to World Three's server.

"Darn it! We were so close!" Lan groaned.

"Hey, don't worry, Lan," Megaman said. "I'm sure we can still use the address somehow."

"Hm... Let's go talk to dad."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll jack out now." In a blue light, Megaman disappeared from the Undernet.

"MEGAMAN, LOGGING OUT," a rather sinister computerized voice announced.

Virus Log-

Flappy2s: stronger and redder Flappys

Flappy3s: even stronger gold Flappys

Dynamytes: bushes with hands protruding out of them, which are used to throw grenades

Mettool3s: the fastest, strongest and bluest of the Mettools

IronShields: pinkish machine cannons with four legs and gray shields

IronShield2s: tan IronShields with red shields, stronger shots and faster firing rates

IronShield3s: white IronShields with gold shields, even stronger shots and even faster firing rates

Yeah, in the original game, the Undernet didn't look any different from the regular Internet. I didn't even realize that it was the Undernet! With that in mind, I decided to change things up a bit. Being the first game with the Undernet, I went with a simple idea: a corrupted lookalike version of the regular Net.

By the way, how does the Undernet keep changing in appearance and location between games? Am I forgetting an ingame explanation? Perhaps Lan and Megaman explore different sections of the entire Undernet... Then again, why wouldn't they run into Undernet areas from the previous games? Bah, I'm thinking too deeply about it.

-Have a great day, week, month, whatever, and stay upbeat, y'all!-