Entry tags:
Mask or Menace App
〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Leriel
AGE: 26
JOURNAL:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
phantomshade
IM / EMAIL: email - raven_abraxas@hotmail.com
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AngelLeriel
RETURNING: New player!
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Hub Hikari/Megaman.EXE
CHARACTER AGE: 12
SERIES: Mega Man Battle Network
CHRONOLOGY: Post-MMBN3, just before the end of the epilogue
CLASS: Hero, of the somewhat-accidental variety
HOUSING: Heropa, with roomies!
BACKGROUND:
In an alternate universe, in the early 2000s, the Internet and computers have advanced and been integrated into everyday life to a spectacular degree. A single supercomputer can be made powerful enough to manage the information and stability of an entire nation, and everything from hospitals and water management plants to ovens and water heaters are connected to the Internet. Technology has advanced so far that scientists have actually managed to create true Artificial General Intelligences - human intellect-level AIs that are fully self-aware and sapient. It's also gotten so complicated that these AGIs are necessary for most people to utilize the Internet effectively and to help keep day-to-day life running smoothly. These mass-produced programs are called Internet navigators, netnavi or navi for short, and come pre-installed in every PET (Personal Terminal, a handheld device that functions as a laptop, tablet, and smartphone all in one). The majority of netnavis are basic off-the-shelf models, with simple personalities and basic skill-sets, but many are powerful custom models designed to work best with one particular user.
Megaman.EXE is one of these custom navis, programmed by premier Net researcher Dr. Yuichirou Hikari as a gift for his son, Lan. Megaman proves to be exceptionally humanlike for a navi, to the point that he refers to the Hikaris as his family and calls Lan's parents "Mom" and "Dad", and he and Lan bond so strongly that they freely describe each other as their best friend. Life for them is pretty normal by Net Society standards, with Lan attending elementary school, hanging out with friends, and spending time online, Megaman accompanying him every step of the way. At some point the duo discover a natural talent for busting computer viruses and fighting with other navis, and they set to honing this skill with gusto; eventually they gain a reputation as quite possibly the best netbattlers in Lan's fifth grade class.
Then a cyberterrorist group called World Three shows up, and suddenly their fights have a whole lot more at stake than playground bragging rights.
At first Lan and Megaman don't really care too much about the mysterious group - they're a distant threat if anything, and seem to have more bark than bite. There's been a rash of spontaneous oven fires in the area, which is definitely dangerous, but the only connection to World Three is rumors. Why should they worry? They change their tune pretty quickly when their home experiences an oven "malfunction," and a World Three agent calls to claim the credit and gloat about Lan and his mother's impending deaths! Megaman manages to clear out the viruses in the oven's computer and deletes the World Three navi responsible, which stops the fire, but the agent has already managed to steal a program that Dr. Hikari had hidden inside the oven computer without his family's knowledge. The incident leaves Lan shaken, but the blatant threat to his Operator's life just bolsters Megaman's resolve: if World Three wants to take control of the Net, they'll have to go through Megaman.EXE first!
He gets his chance to back that up a few days later, when another World Three agent "schooljacks" Lan's elementary school and fires up a brainwashing program. Lan and Megaman have to work together to break through the school's firewalls, and at one point Lan even has to save Megaman from being painfully trapped in a malfunctioning computer's Internet connection. Later that same day an attempt to visit Lan's father at the labs brings Megaman into conflict with another World Three netnavi trying to disable the city's new Metroline subway.
World Three strikes again a few months later, shutting down the water management plant and leaving the city without water. The boys take advantage of the fact that the plant is connected to the same building where Dr. Hikari's lab is, and the fact that Dr. Hikari is out of town, by "borrowing" his ID card and hiding out in his office in order to break into the waterworks after hours. Unfortunately their first attempt to fix the problem themselves backfires: Megaman manages to find and restart the program that runs the water pumps, only to discover that the real problem was in the water filtration system. He's just supplied the city with tainted water! Megaman feels terrible for assuming the first issue he came across was the only one, and now people are likely getting sick because of his mistake. Lan reassures him, saying that they just have to go back and fix the real problem this time; Megaman ends up in a fight with the plant manager's navi in the process, but things work out in the end.
Things start striking closer to home after that. When Lan and Megaman try to foil a World Three scheme involving messing with the downtown traffic lights, the agent responsible threatens to blow up a bus carrying Lan's friend Mayl and later orders her navi to delete Mayl's navi Roll, a close friend (and not-so-secret crush) of Megaman's. Another plot targets the building where Dr. Hikari works; World Three arranges a party for the scientists and their families, then cuts the power and leaves them to suffocate! The boys rush to stop the agent and restart the generator, even though connecting to the Net during a blackout means that the battery charge in Lan's PET is the only thing between Megaman and a slow, painful deletion.
At this point the duo are done waiting for World Three to strike. They've learned that many of the attacks, including the one on the Hikari home, were part of a scheme to steal four powerful programs that could be used to create a super-virus called the Life Virus, and now World Three has all of them. Not willing to sit back and risk the next strike being the EndGame, the duo set out to find the World Three hideout and stop the attacks at the source. After a dangerous trek through the Undernet, a hidden and dangerous area of the Net filled with cybercriminals, Megaman manages to find just the information they need for Lan's father and the other scientists to track it down.
Once at the hideout, Megaman hacks their way through the facility's door locks until he's confronted by the last remaining World Three navi, MagicMan. He manages to beat MagicMan back at first, but the enemy navi unleashes an attack based on the World Three's Life Virus and strikes Megaman dead on. He's saved from total deletion by Protoman and his Operator Chaud, an Official and netnavi duo who've been butting heads with Lan and Megaman for some time, but the damage is done - Megaman is completely unresponsive and fading fast.
Chaud reveals that he was sent by Dr. Hikari to deliver a program called "Hub.bat" to Lan, and Dr. Hikari himself manages to contact Lan moments later to explain the program's purpose: it will fully repair Megaman and bring him back online stronger than ever, but with the risk that any damage Megaman takes could backfeed onto Lan and injure him too. This is because Megaman is made with the digitized DNA of Hub Hikari, Lan's twin brother who died when they were one. Dr. Hikari used Hub's DNA to make Megaman as a way to keep a part of him alive and give Lan something of his brother to hold dear - but he had to offset the genome code by 0.001% to keep them from entering a state called "Full Synchro" and putting Lan's life at risk. Using Hub.bat would reset that 0.001% and bring Megaman's source code and Lan's genome into perfect sync.
(This is also part of why Megaman is the only netnavi in the series to not be able to restore from backup data after deletion - he unexpectedly ended up inheriting not only Hub's genetic code, but his soul and memories as well, and there was no guarantee that it would carry over into a backup file.)
Lan decides that saving Megaman and stopping World Three is more important than trying to avoid injury and runs Hub.bat. Megaman comes back online after a few moments, and the brothers have a heart-to-heart while they wait for the program to finish; Megaman admits that he regrets not being able to live with his family in the real world, but simply being a part of Lan's life as his netnavi is enough to make him happy, and that Lan should continue to treat him the way he always has. He urges Lan to hurry, and the two of them rush off to confront the leader of World Three, Dr. Wily. Wily prepares to unleash the Life Virus on military satellites and Megaman scrambles to delete it before the it can launch, only just managing it in time with the aid of Hub.bat boosting his abilities. This triggers the hideout's self-destruct sequence; everyone escapes unharmed, but Wily vanishes in the chaos.
In the aftermath, Lan becomes something of a celebrity as the one who stopped World Three. Things do eventually die down, though, and life for the duo slowly returns to normal.
By the time summer vacation starts, though, another threat has risen from the depths of the Net - the Gospel netmafia. Gospel's first attacks are much more random and seem focused on creating general chaos: one agent attacks one of Lan's friends in her home in order to extort money from her wealthy parents, and another attempts to blow up a local dam. The brothers work to stop both attacks, the latter with Chaud and Protoman's help, but they aren't content with simply being ordinary civilians anymore and apply for a "City Netbattler License" that lets them work as a less-powerful branch of the Officals.
It's pure chance that leads them to discover Gospel's next plan, however, when a trip to the Net space of Yumland results in them witnessing the aftermath first-hand. A Gospel netnavi has attacked and completely destroyed the Yumland national supercomputer, and his next target is Lan's homeland! They rush back to warn Dr. Hikari and beg to help with the emergency preparations. Their father asks them to find a program that will allow him to upgrade Megaman, and warns them that without that upgrade Megaman doesn't stand a chance against the new netnavis working for Gospel. Megaman eventually tracks the program down in Yumland's Cyber Square and grabs it to take it back to Dr. Hikari...only to discover that he has officially just stolen a Yumland national treasure. Whoops. At least dad manages to put it back later?
Dr. Hikari completes and installs the upgrade (a process that is apparently physically painful for Megaman) just moments before Gospel launches its attack on the Electopian mother computer. The brothers join Chaud, Protoman, and a few other Officials and their navis in defense of the Mothercomp; Gospel navis, including the attacking force's commander Shadowman, pick them off one by one until only Megaman and a severely damaged Protoman remain. The two try a desperate Hail Mary to pick off Shadowman in one shot, but several Gospel navis block the shot and Megaman is forced to fight Shadowman one-on-one. He wins, but it's a close thing.
This victory puts Lan on the map again, so to speak, and he ends up invited to attend a global Official Netbattlers' Conference as a representative of Electopia. The catch? The conference is being held in Netopia, a country on the other side of the world. The entire trip is pretty much hell for the brothers: Megaman gets confiscated by security at the airport and sent to be loaded as cargo, and when he and Lan manage to reunite (thanks to a bit of string-pulling by Chaud, who's also heading to the conference) he learns that someone stole Lan's money; they eventually manage to catch the pickpocket and get Lan's cash back, only for a moment of misjudged character on Megaman's part to end in Lan getting mugged for his battle chips. By the time they get to their hotel the stress and exhaustion are too much for Lan, and he and Megaman end up in a massive argument that ends with Lan throwing his PET across the room and storming off, leaving Megaman alone in the hotel.
Megaman's anger at his brother fades rapidly when someone breaks into the room and hacks the PET, attacking him with a virus and stealing Lan's passport data. Megaman takes his failure to protect Lan's information hard, and can't even bring himself to care that he was damaged fighting off the virus - clearly he deserves it for yelling at his brother. When Lan returns to the room to apologize for starting their fight, he explains the break-in and theft, clearly expecting to not be forgiven for it. Lan reassures him, repairs his damaged data, and the two reconcile. They then spend the rest of the day tracking down everything stolen from Lan.
It's a good thing they do, especially in regards to Lan's battle chips, because the conference the next day is attacked by a Gospel mole. The mole turns the meeting place's security against Lan and the Netbattlers, and proceeds to sow confusion and dissension amongst the group by allowing just enough information out to let them know that the mastermind is "one of us." This results in Lan and Chaud mistaking each other for the Gospel agent, and Megaman ends up in a fight to deletion against Protoman before the mole's true identity comes out.
After a hellish international trip and a terrifying conference, the boys can't even relax on the trip home - their flight ends up highjacked by a Gospel agent, and they're the only ones on board qualified to confront him. Because apparently the Hikari brothers aren't allowed to have nice things.
Everything explodes rather quickly after that: environmental control systems around the world start failing and triggering natural disasters, the Net is completely taken over by multicolored cyber-ice, and navis online at the start of the attack lose contact with their Operators. Megaman scours the Net to find Roll, whose PET connection failed completely and left her stranded online, and manages to break some of the weaker ice and obtain a data sample. The brothers rush it to Dr. Hikari's lab for analysis.
Their father determines that the ice is a form of virus, and is likely what's responsible for the natural disasters occurring. Lan and Megaman offer to work on clearing it from the Net so Dr. Hikari and the scientists can focus on keeping the environmental control systems in check. This eventually leads to Megaman confronting Freezeman, the lead Gospel netnavi and the one controlling the cyber-ice. He taunts him with the revelation that a magnitude 10 earthquake is about to strike Electopia. Megaman leaps into battle, desperately trying to delete Freezeman and the ice in time for the earthquake to be halted, and only just manages to succeed in time.
At first it seems that Gospel has finally been destroyed, but cybercrime continues to rise at a rapid pace and the brothers discover that Gospel's real hideout is still out there. Their father is able to pinpoint it's location based on one very large clue - Gospel's headquarters is emitting massive amounts of electromagnetic radiation. Lan and Megaman beg to be allowed to investigate, and Lan's given a special magsuit to protect him from the radiation they'll encounter. When the two arrive they're unable to access the upper floors of the hideout at first. Megaman jacks into the computers to investigate and is shocked when he sees why the floors are inaccessible: they're inside the computer system. The radiation emitting from the hideout is so strong that it's somehow warping the boundary between reality and the cyber world!
Megaman works his way through the hideout's servers, trying to bring down the radiation level and separate the real and cyber worlds again. It's difficult for him to focus when he's worried about Lan, however, and he keeps checking on his brother and trying to warn him about the increasing radiation. They keep pushing forward anyway and eventually manage to confront the mysterious leader of Gospel. Megaman attacks the Supernavi Bass and deletes him with surprising ease. Gospel's leader (revealed to be a kid genius named Sean) responds by trying to create an even stronger version of Bass...except that this Bass doesn't stay a navi for long, and mutates wildly into a huge Multibug Organism. It highjacks the server controls and sends the radiation levels skyrocketing. Megaman prepares to fight the Gospel multibug, but the radiation in the real world far exceeds what Lan's suit can protect him from and both he and Sean pass out.
Megaman, rather understandably, freaks out. In his panic he inadvertently taps into their Synchro and somehow manages to speak to Lan via his subconscious. Desperate, he synches part of his programming with Lan's mind, allowing his brother to operate him by sheer force of will and taking them another step down the path to true Full Synchro. Working together, they delete the multibug organism and Megaman shuts down the servers. The world is now safe from Gospel; just in time for the start of the new school semester, too, much to the brothers' horror. Things went downhill so fast that even Megaman forgot about Lan's summer study assignments.
Sometime later, Lan and his friends are hanging out in the park when they're approached by a local TV producer. He tells them that the network is going to be holding a netbattle tournament called the N1 Grand Prix and invites them to try out. The brothers rush home so they can sign up, and Megaman and the other navis pass the prelims with flying colors.
As everyone celebrates, Lan's friend Dex realizes he left something he needs for a homework assignment behind at school, and Lan and the others hatch a scheme to sneak into the building and get it. They end up surprising a thief, who reacts to Lan's name by announcing that he and Megaman are "on my organization's blacklist" and trying to kill them! The thief's navi hypnotizes Lan's friends and only just misses catching Lan as well; Megaman tracks him down in the principal's computer and deletes him to break the hypnosis, though the navi performs a kamikaze attack at the last moment that leaves Megaman stunned but seemingly unharmed. The thief escapes with a "Tetracode" before the brothers can stop him.
A few days later Lan's PET starts to malfunction, causing Megaman's vocal systems to randomly short out. They head to their father's lab to see if he can fix the problem, only to get told that he's in a meeting and sent off with a temporary fix. Before they can leave, they bump into the TV producer again, and he tells them the next round of preliminaries for N1 is starting and practically orders them to get online and participate. Megaman blitzes through the round yet again (and he and Lan prove that they're really not cut out for television) but the PET's error gets worse, and he ends up temporarily stranded on the Net with no connection to Lan whatsoever.
Luckily for them Dr. Hikari manages to get home from work early, and he promises to send them a patch to repair the issue as soon as possible. It arrives while Lan's class is on a field trip to a zoo a few towns over - just in time, because someone's hacked into the animals' health-monitor microchips and is making them attack the visitors! Megaman goes into the zoo's network to disable the chips and ends up running into the navi responsible. He and his Operator manage to steal another Tetracode before Megaman can delete him, and the hacker claims to be a member of a revived World Three and working on Wily's orders.
The brothers aren't quite sure what to think about that, and after a month goes by with nothing untoward happening it they brush it off. This ends up being a mistake, and World Three launches a plot to terrorize the people of Electopia with...dishwashers. And bubbles. Giant people-trapping bubbles made of explosives that will eventually detonate and cause massive destruction, true, but still. Bubbles. It's hardly the stuff of nightmares.
Yet that seems to actually be more effective than something more obviously dangerous, at least in terms of getting Megaman to drop his guard. Add in the fact that Bubbleman, the World Three netnavi responsible, is not exactly a criminal mastermind and you've got a recipe for "severely underestimating the seriousness of the matter at hand." Megaman and Lan are so certain that Bubbleman is a non-threat that they very nearly give him the opening he needs to kill thousands of people; it's only a timely intervention by Protoman that stops him from detonating the Bubbles of Frothy Doom. He and Chaud tear into the brothers for being "too wishy-washy" and endangering countless lives, but Megaman brushes much of it off. Yes, he made a big mistake in not taking Bubbleman seriously, but he knows better now for next time and doesn't see any reason to adopt Protoman's delete-first-ask-questions-later method. He's perfectly fine being who he is, right?
Time ticks by, and the day of the N1 Grand Prix arrives. Lan finds out that Chaud is participating as well, and the two butt heads a few times before the competition starts. Megaman handily trounces the competition, even managing to impress one of their opponents enough to earn Lan a new friend, and things look to be leading to a championship showdown between him and Protoman. However, during Chaud's semifinals match, his mystery-man opponent reveals himself to be the producer responsible for the N1 - and an agent of World Three. The entire tournament was a setup to announce the return of World Three by having an agent defeat Protoman and Megaman on national television! He kidnaps Chaud's father in an attempt to blackmail him into handing over Protoman, but Lan gives them the opening to escape by, well, throwing his PET at the producer's head. Megaman is not amused.
The events leave everyone a little shaken. Trying to get back a sense of normalcy, the boys decide to visit one of their friends while she's in the hospital (having been injured during one of the tournament's more dramatic elimination rounds) and end up befriending another patient, a boy named Mamoru. Megaman himself gets surprisingly invested in this friendship, and it's eventually revealed that Mamoru is suffering from HBD, the same birth defect that killed him when he was Hub. The brothers are both driven to help Mamoru survive what Hub couldn't and help support him when a new life-saving surgery becomes an option; but during the middle of the operation a World Three agent attacks the hospital to steal another Tetracode. Megaman chases the enemy navi all over the hospital's computer systems and eventually corners him in the operating room's controls. The agent once again manages to steal the Tetracode before Megaman can delete the navi, but he's far more concerned with getting the surgical equipment and life support back online before Mamoru dies. He manages to jump-start the equipment by using himself as a power source, saving Mamoru's live and scaring the wits out of Lan in the process.
Saving a hijacked hospital ends up being a pretty big deal, and Lan ends up getting called to receive a commendation. Megaman is struggling to keep his brother's ego in check when they have a rather unpleasant encounter with Hinoken, the World Three agent who first tried to burn down the Hikari home. Hinoken claims to be an ex-agent now, having decided to straighten up and get a real job at the lab where Dr. Hikari works. Lan doesn't quite buy it, not even when he helps the brothers deal with an attack by World Three netnavis, but Megaman comes around to Hinoken's side pretty quickly and encourages Lan to do the same. He even goes so far as to refuse to let Lan quit after he promises to lend a hand with some work around the labs.
Unfortunately for Megaman, this ends up being a huge mistake. Hinoken was merely manipulating the two of them into setting up his attack on the lab for him while he stole the last Tetracode, and he gleefully calls to taunt them about their father's impending death and their "new status" as terrorists. Megaman ends up having to chase Hinoken's navi into the depths of the Undernet, and only just survives an encounter with the real Supernavi Bass.
Things manage to work out without anyone getting killed, but Dr. Hikari ends up hospitalized and the boys are hit hard by their part in the incident. Megaman comes around faster than Lan does, deciding that "what's done is done" and choosing to focus on making amends however he can; he gets his chance when Chaud asks the brothers to infiltrate the Undernet and find a program called Gigafreeze. The Tetracodes that World Three has been stealing are apparently part of a plot to release a semi-sentient, cannibalistic Internet entity called Alpha, and now that World Three has all the codes the Gigafreeze is the only thing capable of stopping Alpha should it get free.
Megaman works his way into Undernet society by way of the Ranking system. He fights his way up the ladder, trying to find a way to get in contact with the Rank 1 navi, "S," who is apparently the one keeping the Gigafreeze safe. The entire process eventually leads him to the hidden servers that the Undernet is stored on and he's declared the new guardian of the Gigafreeze program (though not without giving Lan another heart attack first - Megaman seems to keep finding new and exciting ways to skirt deletion).
Alpha is stolen just moments later. While the initial thief goes down easily, Bass reappears to fetch Alpha himself. Megaman fails to stop him even with the Gigafreeze, which Bass also takes.
Alpha starts infecting military hardware across the globe, and after Dr. Hikari escapes from the hospital to track down World Three's new hideout the brothers decide to take on Alpha themselves. They bust into the facility, but end up confronted by a strange problem: the supercomputer Alpha is stored on doesn't have any way for Megaman to access it on his own. The only way in is for Lan to use a Pulse Transmission Chair to send his own mind into the cyber world alongside Megaman. It's an emotional moment, and allows them to use true Full Synchro for the first time, and the level of power it brings is enough for them to defeat Bass and delete Alpha.
After the fight with Alpha the brothers find themselves inside a VR simulation of a lab, inhabited by an AI made to mimic their grandfather's personality. He gives them an encrypted file to deliver to their father and sends them out of the simulation, warning them that Alpha isn't entirely gone yet and to leave the supercomputer as quickly as possible, but before they can get to the logout point a still-active remnant of Alpha grabs them and starts trying to absorb Megaman. Aware that Lan will be killed if he can't escape, Megaman decides to use the only option he has available: disengage Full Synchro and free Lan's mind from the remnant by self-destructing.
Lan becomes hysterical when he hears this plan and starts begging Megaman to find another way, but he refuses. He's already cheated death once by being resurrected as a navi, and he's perfectly content with the time he's had. Every day he spent with his brother is a happy memory for him, none more so than those few brief moments when they were finally face-to-face in the cyber world. Megaman tries to lighten the mood by preemptively chiding Lan for skipping homework and sleeping in, then thanks him for letting him be a part of his life, and overloads.
And, rather unexpectedly, isn't deleted.
Oh, Lan's mind is still flung to safety, and Megaman isn't anywhere in his PET. It seems that at the last moment, their grandfather's AI construct was able to preserve Megaman's data inside the code for the lab simulation, even going so far as to uninstall himself so Megaman could fit. He remains inside the simulation for months before being found by Dr. Hikari; rather by accident, as he was investigating the encrypted message the AI construct gave Lan. His father is happy to find him safe, and though Lan is already asleep by the time they return home, he reinstalls Megaman into his PET anyway. They can reunite in the morning.
PERSONALITY:
Megaman's personality can be summed up in three words: he's a kid. A kid who's rather mature for his age, to be sure, but a kid nonetheless. He's friendly and fairly outgoing, and loves hanging out with his friends. He's also loyal to a fault, sticking up for those he cares about whenever they're being put down and risking his life to protect them without a second thought. If he sees someone feeling down, especially a friend, he'll do his best to cheer them up and help them out. This means not only offering comfort and encouragement but also willingly going out of his way to help fix their problem or get something he knows will put a smile on their face. Megaman is not someone who makes idle promises - if he tells you that everything will turn out all right, you can bet he's already planning a way to go out and make things work out.
He's the kind of person who tries to see the best in everyone. While it's not terribly hard to get on Megaman's bad side (threatening lives, especially his family's, is a good way to do it), it's not all that difficult to get back on his good side, either; you'd have to really screw up to end up on on the blacklist permanently. This does make him rather easy to manipulate at times - the incident where Hinoken tricked Lan and Megaman into helping him attack SciLab is a prime example.
That being said, he's not one to wallow in guilt whenever he gets manipulated or makes a mistake. He'll feel absolutely awful while it's happening and throughout whatever attempts at fixing things he can carry out, but once everything is over he steps back and sets the incident aside. He doesn't forget it, not by a long shot, but he's not going to worry about something that's in the past. After all, it's not like beating himself up and indulging in what-ifs will do anything to change what happened. Better to accept that he screwed up, learn from his mistakes, and make amends by moving forward and doing whatever he can to deal with the aftermath or help out elsewhere.
Megaman's personality really shines through the most in the context of his relationship with his Operator, Lan Hikari. While the two of them have plenty of similarities, they're best defined by their differences - Megaman is more polite and generally more well-behaved than Lan, and has no problem with chastising his Operator for being rude or nagging him to do his homework or get out of bed. He prefers thinking things through when Lan would rather jump in and wing it, and is usually the voice of reason and the one to advocate caution. As a result it's not uncommon for them to argue, though they're close enough to reconcile fairly easily and can usually understand where the other is coming from. For the most part, Megaman plays the part of the dutiful older brother, doing what he can to keep Lan safe and in line; rather appropriate, considering Megaman's true nature as the digitally resurrected Hub Hikari, Lan's older twin.
It must be said that, while Megaman is normally the Thinker to Lan's Doer, there are times where he'll gladly rush in recklessly. Usually this is whenever there are people in danger and he's capable of doing something in the cyber world to help them: navigate a complex government computer network during a blackout to restore power, debug an airplane's control computer mid-flight, fight his way through the seedy criminal-laden underbelly of the Internet to stop a computer-controlled building fire, the list goes on. In fact, it sometimes seems like the only time he's willing to be reckless is when doing so puts himself in the most danger compared to others.
Which is not to say that he does it only in dangerous situations. His desire to see those around him happy and his insistence on following through with his promises means he can end up in some pretty crazy situations. This tends to happen when he promises to help with something and ends up over his head; however, things like "promising to obtain a rare Battle Chip that requires trawling around a hard to reach computer hunting for a rare virus and praying he gets lucky enough to score the data from its deleted remains as a gift for someone" have been known to happen.
In spite of this (or perhaps because of it) Megaman is not one to give up easily. The harder a task is to complete or a promise is to fulfill, the harder he works at getting it done right.
Megaman.EXE is rather unique among the Mega Men in that he is quite possibly the only one who is not combat-avoidant. Part of this is probably due to the fact that combating computer viruses is a main function of all netnavis, though he does rather clearly enjoy friendly sparring and netbattling. He doesn't immediately default to fighting hacker navis, but he has absolutely no problem with attacking if they won't settle things peacefully.
He's also not one to hesitate in deleting an enemy netnavi unless he can think of a good reason to let them live. This is probably due to the fact that most netnavis can be restored from backup data afterwards, so he's not really killing them. Again, it's not his default reaction in combat, but it doesn't really bother him if and when he does do it. His friends and navis who don't seem to be willingly participating in whatever is happening are pretty much the only real exceptions; he'd have to be forced to delete them and doing so would hit him pretty hard, even with backup data to revive them.
POWER:
DNA netnavi: Megaman is unique among netnavis in that his code is created mostly, if not entirely, from digitized human DNA. In his world this results in him being a navi with some undeniably human characteristics; in Heropa, the situation reverses.
The effect is mostly on his physical abilities, especially as compared to his 12-year-old apperance. His strength, stamina, and agility are on par with a professional athlete's - not quite to the level he can reach in the cyber world, but well above what would be expected of a kid his age. He's also more resilient than a normal human when it comes to blunt force trauma, and he can take a serious beating before suffering broken bones or getting knocked out (blades and bullets are just as effective as usual on a human). There's no bench-pressing cars or sprinting from one end of the city to the other here, though he could certainly hold his own in a fight with an adult.
The most dramatic impact this has is on his apperance, as Megaman retains his frame in the real world, though he is capable of removing his helmet should he choose.
Beyond this he's pretty much an ordinary human, with all the weaknesses and survival requirements that entails.
Mega Buster: MegaMan has the ability to reconfigure his right forearm and hand into an energy gun, the Mega Buster, and he's very skilled at using it thanks to years of fighting viruses and other netnavis. It can fire several small shots in rapid succession as well as a larger and more powerful "Charge Shot" after several seconds of concentrating power. However, he cannot keep up a constant stream of shots, and the recoil and need to aim means he cannot move while firing (though he can fire in midair after a jump in exchange for getting thrown off balance).
In Heropa, he can use the Mega Buster in both the real and cyber worlds.
Data Transfer: Megaman is capable of turning himself back into data and "plugging in" to electronic devices to access their cyber worlds in order to affect the device itself, retrieve data, and access files or the Internet. Within the cyber world he'll experience standard computer phenomina as physical objects or entities: hard drive size translates to the size of the device's cyberspace plain, the data stored on it manifests as blocks and stacks scattered about, network connections become roads, firewalls become actual walls, security systems and anti-virus programs become traps and fixed weaponry, and computer viruses becomeadorably deadly creatures and constructs. He can utilize the Mega Buster to attack and (at least attempt to) destroy these, though he'll usually restrict that to the viruses.
What he can do within the cyber world is limited by the device in question. He can only transfer from one machine to another if they're networked or connected to the Internet, for example, and cannot access anything that's powered off. He also can't crack through protections and can only access password-protected files/devices if he can actually input the correct password. He can communicate with people in the real world as long as the device has some form of audio output, though he can only actively carry on a conversation if it also has an audio input device (so he can hear) and can only "see" the real world if it has a camera he can access.
Turning off a device he's currently inhabiting forces him to "plug out" to the real world and leaves him dizzy and in a lot of pain (but uninjured). Damaging the device only affects the cyber world inside it and not Megaman himself, though destroying it will force him back into the real world with minor injuries. Any injuries he sustains in the cyber world will carry over into his real world body, as well, and if he's deleted in the cyber world? Game Over.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[The feed opens with a relieved sigh. Megaman'd been trying to figure out how to use the network's mental connection for a few hours now, if only because it seemed like it would feel closer to how he normally communicates. And every little bit of "normal" counts right now.]
Okay. I know something happened recently that had to be fixed by upgrading the...the nanites. [Wow is that ever weird to say.] I was wondering, how hard is it to modify them? Can they be hacked?
[It might sound like a strange concern for a twelve-year-old to have, but he does come from a world where pretty much anything and everything can be hacked. It's kind of scary to have unfamiliar tech of unknown security quality inside his body. (It's weird to actually have a physical body in the first place, but one thing at a time.) Especially with what he does know about how they work; if the Porter really did "build" his body by pulling Hub's DNA out of his source code then it might have given him back his HBD, and in that case the nanites working properly could be the only thing keeping him out of the hospital. Not to mention alive.
Hence the post.]
It feels a little silly to be asking, but I'm not used to relying on technology that I can't maintain myself. I don't think I can plug into something inside my body... [A pause.] Right. Anyways, if anyone can share any information, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
He hates this body.
Well, not hates, not really. Resents it. It just doesn't seem to move right, all heavy and slow and awkward, nothing like what he's used to. He's had headaches almost constantly from the sensory overload, and the latent sense memories from his brief time as Hub that keep getting triggered hinder almost as much as they help. The fact that he's apparently not entirely human doesn't help matters; every little twinge and pain in his chest sends him into paranoid panic, because if the Porter made this body based off his genetic source code then could it have recreated his HBD too?
What he resents most of all about his body, though, is that it means Lan isn't here.
It's probably an irrational correlation, but he can't help making it. He'd didn't particularly want a physical body, no matter how much he regrets not being able to be with his family as something more than a voice and an image on a screen. He was still a part of his family, still a part of his brother's life, and that's all he needs. He was content. Then that stupid Porter had to go and take him away from that to stuff him in this body instead. Like some kind of terrible consolation prize - sorry we stole the one thing in your life you truly want from you, have something you couldn't care less about in return.
When he was with Lan he didn't have a physical body, when he was given a physical body he was taken away from Lan. He knows that corrrelation doesn't equal causation but it's a difficult association to not make. Especially considering when he'd been taken; he'd already missed months of Lan's life, months of his brother growing up and moving on without him. Time he'll never be able to get back.
He hadn't even gotten a chance to tell Lan he was okay.
It's late, he's tired, and he knows he should be getting some sleep, but his head is still pounding and he's not particularly looking forward to adding to the storm of sensory input by crawling in bed. It's incredibly tempting to just jack into his communicator and rest that way, leech off its power source and recharge functions to fuel a recharge of his own. Maybe if he's in there for a while his head will stop hurting.
Maybe, if he just waits long enough, the PET's alarm will go off and bring him out of sleep mode, and he can finally say "I'm home."
FINAL NOTES: Nothing that I can think of!
NAME: Leriel
AGE: 26
JOURNAL:
phantomshadeIM / EMAIL: email - raven_abraxas@hotmail.com
PLURK:
RETURNING: New player!
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Hub Hikari/Megaman.EXE
CHARACTER AGE: 12
SERIES: Mega Man Battle Network
CHRONOLOGY: Post-MMBN3, just before the end of the epilogue
CLASS: Hero, of the somewhat-accidental variety
HOUSING: Heropa, with roomies!
BACKGROUND:
In an alternate universe, in the early 2000s, the Internet and computers have advanced and been integrated into everyday life to a spectacular degree. A single supercomputer can be made powerful enough to manage the information and stability of an entire nation, and everything from hospitals and water management plants to ovens and water heaters are connected to the Internet. Technology has advanced so far that scientists have actually managed to create true Artificial General Intelligences - human intellect-level AIs that are fully self-aware and sapient. It's also gotten so complicated that these AGIs are necessary for most people to utilize the Internet effectively and to help keep day-to-day life running smoothly. These mass-produced programs are called Internet navigators, netnavi or navi for short, and come pre-installed in every PET (Personal Terminal, a handheld device that functions as a laptop, tablet, and smartphone all in one). The majority of netnavis are basic off-the-shelf models, with simple personalities and basic skill-sets, but many are powerful custom models designed to work best with one particular user.
Megaman.EXE is one of these custom navis, programmed by premier Net researcher Dr. Yuichirou Hikari as a gift for his son, Lan. Megaman proves to be exceptionally humanlike for a navi, to the point that he refers to the Hikaris as his family and calls Lan's parents "Mom" and "Dad", and he and Lan bond so strongly that they freely describe each other as their best friend. Life for them is pretty normal by Net Society standards, with Lan attending elementary school, hanging out with friends, and spending time online, Megaman accompanying him every step of the way. At some point the duo discover a natural talent for busting computer viruses and fighting with other navis, and they set to honing this skill with gusto; eventually they gain a reputation as quite possibly the best netbattlers in Lan's fifth grade class.
Then a cyberterrorist group called World Three shows up, and suddenly their fights have a whole lot more at stake than playground bragging rights.
At first Lan and Megaman don't really care too much about the mysterious group - they're a distant threat if anything, and seem to have more bark than bite. There's been a rash of spontaneous oven fires in the area, which is definitely dangerous, but the only connection to World Three is rumors. Why should they worry? They change their tune pretty quickly when their home experiences an oven "malfunction," and a World Three agent calls to claim the credit and gloat about Lan and his mother's impending deaths! Megaman manages to clear out the viruses in the oven's computer and deletes the World Three navi responsible, which stops the fire, but the agent has already managed to steal a program that Dr. Hikari had hidden inside the oven computer without his family's knowledge. The incident leaves Lan shaken, but the blatant threat to his Operator's life just bolsters Megaman's resolve: if World Three wants to take control of the Net, they'll have to go through Megaman.EXE first!
He gets his chance to back that up a few days later, when another World Three agent "schooljacks" Lan's elementary school and fires up a brainwashing program. Lan and Megaman have to work together to break through the school's firewalls, and at one point Lan even has to save Megaman from being painfully trapped in a malfunctioning computer's Internet connection. Later that same day an attempt to visit Lan's father at the labs brings Megaman into conflict with another World Three netnavi trying to disable the city's new Metroline subway.
World Three strikes again a few months later, shutting down the water management plant and leaving the city without water. The boys take advantage of the fact that the plant is connected to the same building where Dr. Hikari's lab is, and the fact that Dr. Hikari is out of town, by "borrowing" his ID card and hiding out in his office in order to break into the waterworks after hours. Unfortunately their first attempt to fix the problem themselves backfires: Megaman manages to find and restart the program that runs the water pumps, only to discover that the real problem was in the water filtration system. He's just supplied the city with tainted water! Megaman feels terrible for assuming the first issue he came across was the only one, and now people are likely getting sick because of his mistake. Lan reassures him, saying that they just have to go back and fix the real problem this time; Megaman ends up in a fight with the plant manager's navi in the process, but things work out in the end.
Things start striking closer to home after that. When Lan and Megaman try to foil a World Three scheme involving messing with the downtown traffic lights, the agent responsible threatens to blow up a bus carrying Lan's friend Mayl and later orders her navi to delete Mayl's navi Roll, a close friend (and not-so-secret crush) of Megaman's. Another plot targets the building where Dr. Hikari works; World Three arranges a party for the scientists and their families, then cuts the power and leaves them to suffocate! The boys rush to stop the agent and restart the generator, even though connecting to the Net during a blackout means that the battery charge in Lan's PET is the only thing between Megaman and a slow, painful deletion.
At this point the duo are done waiting for World Three to strike. They've learned that many of the attacks, including the one on the Hikari home, were part of a scheme to steal four powerful programs that could be used to create a super-virus called the Life Virus, and now World Three has all of them. Not willing to sit back and risk the next strike being the EndGame, the duo set out to find the World Three hideout and stop the attacks at the source. After a dangerous trek through the Undernet, a hidden and dangerous area of the Net filled with cybercriminals, Megaman manages to find just the information they need for Lan's father and the other scientists to track it down.
Once at the hideout, Megaman hacks their way through the facility's door locks until he's confronted by the last remaining World Three navi, MagicMan. He manages to beat MagicMan back at first, but the enemy navi unleashes an attack based on the World Three's Life Virus and strikes Megaman dead on. He's saved from total deletion by Protoman and his Operator Chaud, an Official and netnavi duo who've been butting heads with Lan and Megaman for some time, but the damage is done - Megaman is completely unresponsive and fading fast.
Chaud reveals that he was sent by Dr. Hikari to deliver a program called "Hub.bat" to Lan, and Dr. Hikari himself manages to contact Lan moments later to explain the program's purpose: it will fully repair Megaman and bring him back online stronger than ever, but with the risk that any damage Megaman takes could backfeed onto Lan and injure him too. This is because Megaman is made with the digitized DNA of Hub Hikari, Lan's twin brother who died when they were one. Dr. Hikari used Hub's DNA to make Megaman as a way to keep a part of him alive and give Lan something of his brother to hold dear - but he had to offset the genome code by 0.001% to keep them from entering a state called "Full Synchro" and putting Lan's life at risk. Using Hub.bat would reset that 0.001% and bring Megaman's source code and Lan's genome into perfect sync.
(This is also part of why Megaman is the only netnavi in the series to not be able to restore from backup data after deletion - he unexpectedly ended up inheriting not only Hub's genetic code, but his soul and memories as well, and there was no guarantee that it would carry over into a backup file.)
Lan decides that saving Megaman and stopping World Three is more important than trying to avoid injury and runs Hub.bat. Megaman comes back online after a few moments, and the brothers have a heart-to-heart while they wait for the program to finish; Megaman admits that he regrets not being able to live with his family in the real world, but simply being a part of Lan's life as his netnavi is enough to make him happy, and that Lan should continue to treat him the way he always has. He urges Lan to hurry, and the two of them rush off to confront the leader of World Three, Dr. Wily. Wily prepares to unleash the Life Virus on military satellites and Megaman scrambles to delete it before the it can launch, only just managing it in time with the aid of Hub.bat boosting his abilities. This triggers the hideout's self-destruct sequence; everyone escapes unharmed, but Wily vanishes in the chaos.
In the aftermath, Lan becomes something of a celebrity as the one who stopped World Three. Things do eventually die down, though, and life for the duo slowly returns to normal.
By the time summer vacation starts, though, another threat has risen from the depths of the Net - the Gospel netmafia. Gospel's first attacks are much more random and seem focused on creating general chaos: one agent attacks one of Lan's friends in her home in order to extort money from her wealthy parents, and another attempts to blow up a local dam. The brothers work to stop both attacks, the latter with Chaud and Protoman's help, but they aren't content with simply being ordinary civilians anymore and apply for a "City Netbattler License" that lets them work as a less-powerful branch of the Officals.
It's pure chance that leads them to discover Gospel's next plan, however, when a trip to the Net space of Yumland results in them witnessing the aftermath first-hand. A Gospel netnavi has attacked and completely destroyed the Yumland national supercomputer, and his next target is Lan's homeland! They rush back to warn Dr. Hikari and beg to help with the emergency preparations. Their father asks them to find a program that will allow him to upgrade Megaman, and warns them that without that upgrade Megaman doesn't stand a chance against the new netnavis working for Gospel. Megaman eventually tracks the program down in Yumland's Cyber Square and grabs it to take it back to Dr. Hikari...only to discover that he has officially just stolen a Yumland national treasure. Whoops. At least dad manages to put it back later?
Dr. Hikari completes and installs the upgrade (a process that is apparently physically painful for Megaman) just moments before Gospel launches its attack on the Electopian mother computer. The brothers join Chaud, Protoman, and a few other Officials and their navis in defense of the Mothercomp; Gospel navis, including the attacking force's commander Shadowman, pick them off one by one until only Megaman and a severely damaged Protoman remain. The two try a desperate Hail Mary to pick off Shadowman in one shot, but several Gospel navis block the shot and Megaman is forced to fight Shadowman one-on-one. He wins, but it's a close thing.
This victory puts Lan on the map again, so to speak, and he ends up invited to attend a global Official Netbattlers' Conference as a representative of Electopia. The catch? The conference is being held in Netopia, a country on the other side of the world. The entire trip is pretty much hell for the brothers: Megaman gets confiscated by security at the airport and sent to be loaded as cargo, and when he and Lan manage to reunite (thanks to a bit of string-pulling by Chaud, who's also heading to the conference) he learns that someone stole Lan's money; they eventually manage to catch the pickpocket and get Lan's cash back, only for a moment of misjudged character on Megaman's part to end in Lan getting mugged for his battle chips. By the time they get to their hotel the stress and exhaustion are too much for Lan, and he and Megaman end up in a massive argument that ends with Lan throwing his PET across the room and storming off, leaving Megaman alone in the hotel.
Megaman's anger at his brother fades rapidly when someone breaks into the room and hacks the PET, attacking him with a virus and stealing Lan's passport data. Megaman takes his failure to protect Lan's information hard, and can't even bring himself to care that he was damaged fighting off the virus - clearly he deserves it for yelling at his brother. When Lan returns to the room to apologize for starting their fight, he explains the break-in and theft, clearly expecting to not be forgiven for it. Lan reassures him, repairs his damaged data, and the two reconcile. They then spend the rest of the day tracking down everything stolen from Lan.
It's a good thing they do, especially in regards to Lan's battle chips, because the conference the next day is attacked by a Gospel mole. The mole turns the meeting place's security against Lan and the Netbattlers, and proceeds to sow confusion and dissension amongst the group by allowing just enough information out to let them know that the mastermind is "one of us." This results in Lan and Chaud mistaking each other for the Gospel agent, and Megaman ends up in a fight to deletion against Protoman before the mole's true identity comes out.
After a hellish international trip and a terrifying conference, the boys can't even relax on the trip home - their flight ends up highjacked by a Gospel agent, and they're the only ones on board qualified to confront him. Because apparently the Hikari brothers aren't allowed to have nice things.
Everything explodes rather quickly after that: environmental control systems around the world start failing and triggering natural disasters, the Net is completely taken over by multicolored cyber-ice, and navis online at the start of the attack lose contact with their Operators. Megaman scours the Net to find Roll, whose PET connection failed completely and left her stranded online, and manages to break some of the weaker ice and obtain a data sample. The brothers rush it to Dr. Hikari's lab for analysis.
Their father determines that the ice is a form of virus, and is likely what's responsible for the natural disasters occurring. Lan and Megaman offer to work on clearing it from the Net so Dr. Hikari and the scientists can focus on keeping the environmental control systems in check. This eventually leads to Megaman confronting Freezeman, the lead Gospel netnavi and the one controlling the cyber-ice. He taunts him with the revelation that a magnitude 10 earthquake is about to strike Electopia. Megaman leaps into battle, desperately trying to delete Freezeman and the ice in time for the earthquake to be halted, and only just manages to succeed in time.
At first it seems that Gospel has finally been destroyed, but cybercrime continues to rise at a rapid pace and the brothers discover that Gospel's real hideout is still out there. Their father is able to pinpoint it's location based on one very large clue - Gospel's headquarters is emitting massive amounts of electromagnetic radiation. Lan and Megaman beg to be allowed to investigate, and Lan's given a special magsuit to protect him from the radiation they'll encounter. When the two arrive they're unable to access the upper floors of the hideout at first. Megaman jacks into the computers to investigate and is shocked when he sees why the floors are inaccessible: they're inside the computer system. The radiation emitting from the hideout is so strong that it's somehow warping the boundary between reality and the cyber world!
Megaman works his way through the hideout's servers, trying to bring down the radiation level and separate the real and cyber worlds again. It's difficult for him to focus when he's worried about Lan, however, and he keeps checking on his brother and trying to warn him about the increasing radiation. They keep pushing forward anyway and eventually manage to confront the mysterious leader of Gospel. Megaman attacks the Supernavi Bass and deletes him with surprising ease. Gospel's leader (revealed to be a kid genius named Sean) responds by trying to create an even stronger version of Bass...except that this Bass doesn't stay a navi for long, and mutates wildly into a huge Multibug Organism. It highjacks the server controls and sends the radiation levels skyrocketing. Megaman prepares to fight the Gospel multibug, but the radiation in the real world far exceeds what Lan's suit can protect him from and both he and Sean pass out.
Megaman, rather understandably, freaks out. In his panic he inadvertently taps into their Synchro and somehow manages to speak to Lan via his subconscious. Desperate, he synches part of his programming with Lan's mind, allowing his brother to operate him by sheer force of will and taking them another step down the path to true Full Synchro. Working together, they delete the multibug organism and Megaman shuts down the servers. The world is now safe from Gospel; just in time for the start of the new school semester, too, much to the brothers' horror. Things went downhill so fast that even Megaman forgot about Lan's summer study assignments.
Sometime later, Lan and his friends are hanging out in the park when they're approached by a local TV producer. He tells them that the network is going to be holding a netbattle tournament called the N1 Grand Prix and invites them to try out. The brothers rush home so they can sign up, and Megaman and the other navis pass the prelims with flying colors.
As everyone celebrates, Lan's friend Dex realizes he left something he needs for a homework assignment behind at school, and Lan and the others hatch a scheme to sneak into the building and get it. They end up surprising a thief, who reacts to Lan's name by announcing that he and Megaman are "on my organization's blacklist" and trying to kill them! The thief's navi hypnotizes Lan's friends and only just misses catching Lan as well; Megaman tracks him down in the principal's computer and deletes him to break the hypnosis, though the navi performs a kamikaze attack at the last moment that leaves Megaman stunned but seemingly unharmed. The thief escapes with a "Tetracode" before the brothers can stop him.
A few days later Lan's PET starts to malfunction, causing Megaman's vocal systems to randomly short out. They head to their father's lab to see if he can fix the problem, only to get told that he's in a meeting and sent off with a temporary fix. Before they can leave, they bump into the TV producer again, and he tells them the next round of preliminaries for N1 is starting and practically orders them to get online and participate. Megaman blitzes through the round yet again (and he and Lan prove that they're really not cut out for television) but the PET's error gets worse, and he ends up temporarily stranded on the Net with no connection to Lan whatsoever.
Luckily for them Dr. Hikari manages to get home from work early, and he promises to send them a patch to repair the issue as soon as possible. It arrives while Lan's class is on a field trip to a zoo a few towns over - just in time, because someone's hacked into the animals' health-monitor microchips and is making them attack the visitors! Megaman goes into the zoo's network to disable the chips and ends up running into the navi responsible. He and his Operator manage to steal another Tetracode before Megaman can delete him, and the hacker claims to be a member of a revived World Three and working on Wily's orders.
The brothers aren't quite sure what to think about that, and after a month goes by with nothing untoward happening it they brush it off. This ends up being a mistake, and World Three launches a plot to terrorize the people of Electopia with...dishwashers. And bubbles. Giant people-trapping bubbles made of explosives that will eventually detonate and cause massive destruction, true, but still. Bubbles. It's hardly the stuff of nightmares.
Yet that seems to actually be more effective than something more obviously dangerous, at least in terms of getting Megaman to drop his guard. Add in the fact that Bubbleman, the World Three netnavi responsible, is not exactly a criminal mastermind and you've got a recipe for "severely underestimating the seriousness of the matter at hand." Megaman and Lan are so certain that Bubbleman is a non-threat that they very nearly give him the opening he needs to kill thousands of people; it's only a timely intervention by Protoman that stops him from detonating the Bubbles of Frothy Doom. He and Chaud tear into the brothers for being "too wishy-washy" and endangering countless lives, but Megaman brushes much of it off. Yes, he made a big mistake in not taking Bubbleman seriously, but he knows better now for next time and doesn't see any reason to adopt Protoman's delete-first-ask-questions-later method. He's perfectly fine being who he is, right?
Time ticks by, and the day of the N1 Grand Prix arrives. Lan finds out that Chaud is participating as well, and the two butt heads a few times before the competition starts. Megaman handily trounces the competition, even managing to impress one of their opponents enough to earn Lan a new friend, and things look to be leading to a championship showdown between him and Protoman. However, during Chaud's semifinals match, his mystery-man opponent reveals himself to be the producer responsible for the N1 - and an agent of World Three. The entire tournament was a setup to announce the return of World Three by having an agent defeat Protoman and Megaman on national television! He kidnaps Chaud's father in an attempt to blackmail him into handing over Protoman, but Lan gives them the opening to escape by, well, throwing his PET at the producer's head. Megaman is not amused.
The events leave everyone a little shaken. Trying to get back a sense of normalcy, the boys decide to visit one of their friends while she's in the hospital (having been injured during one of the tournament's more dramatic elimination rounds) and end up befriending another patient, a boy named Mamoru. Megaman himself gets surprisingly invested in this friendship, and it's eventually revealed that Mamoru is suffering from HBD, the same birth defect that killed him when he was Hub. The brothers are both driven to help Mamoru survive what Hub couldn't and help support him when a new life-saving surgery becomes an option; but during the middle of the operation a World Three agent attacks the hospital to steal another Tetracode. Megaman chases the enemy navi all over the hospital's computer systems and eventually corners him in the operating room's controls. The agent once again manages to steal the Tetracode before Megaman can delete the navi, but he's far more concerned with getting the surgical equipment and life support back online before Mamoru dies. He manages to jump-start the equipment by using himself as a power source, saving Mamoru's live and scaring the wits out of Lan in the process.
Saving a hijacked hospital ends up being a pretty big deal, and Lan ends up getting called to receive a commendation. Megaman is struggling to keep his brother's ego in check when they have a rather unpleasant encounter with Hinoken, the World Three agent who first tried to burn down the Hikari home. Hinoken claims to be an ex-agent now, having decided to straighten up and get a real job at the lab where Dr. Hikari works. Lan doesn't quite buy it, not even when he helps the brothers deal with an attack by World Three netnavis, but Megaman comes around to Hinoken's side pretty quickly and encourages Lan to do the same. He even goes so far as to refuse to let Lan quit after he promises to lend a hand with some work around the labs.
Unfortunately for Megaman, this ends up being a huge mistake. Hinoken was merely manipulating the two of them into setting up his attack on the lab for him while he stole the last Tetracode, and he gleefully calls to taunt them about their father's impending death and their "new status" as terrorists. Megaman ends up having to chase Hinoken's navi into the depths of the Undernet, and only just survives an encounter with the real Supernavi Bass.
Things manage to work out without anyone getting killed, but Dr. Hikari ends up hospitalized and the boys are hit hard by their part in the incident. Megaman comes around faster than Lan does, deciding that "what's done is done" and choosing to focus on making amends however he can; he gets his chance when Chaud asks the brothers to infiltrate the Undernet and find a program called Gigafreeze. The Tetracodes that World Three has been stealing are apparently part of a plot to release a semi-sentient, cannibalistic Internet entity called Alpha, and now that World Three has all the codes the Gigafreeze is the only thing capable of stopping Alpha should it get free.
Megaman works his way into Undernet society by way of the Ranking system. He fights his way up the ladder, trying to find a way to get in contact with the Rank 1 navi, "S," who is apparently the one keeping the Gigafreeze safe. The entire process eventually leads him to the hidden servers that the Undernet is stored on and he's declared the new guardian of the Gigafreeze program (though not without giving Lan another heart attack first - Megaman seems to keep finding new and exciting ways to skirt deletion).
Alpha is stolen just moments later. While the initial thief goes down easily, Bass reappears to fetch Alpha himself. Megaman fails to stop him even with the Gigafreeze, which Bass also takes.
Alpha starts infecting military hardware across the globe, and after Dr. Hikari escapes from the hospital to track down World Three's new hideout the brothers decide to take on Alpha themselves. They bust into the facility, but end up confronted by a strange problem: the supercomputer Alpha is stored on doesn't have any way for Megaman to access it on his own. The only way in is for Lan to use a Pulse Transmission Chair to send his own mind into the cyber world alongside Megaman. It's an emotional moment, and allows them to use true Full Synchro for the first time, and the level of power it brings is enough for them to defeat Bass and delete Alpha.
After the fight with Alpha the brothers find themselves inside a VR simulation of a lab, inhabited by an AI made to mimic their grandfather's personality. He gives them an encrypted file to deliver to their father and sends them out of the simulation, warning them that Alpha isn't entirely gone yet and to leave the supercomputer as quickly as possible, but before they can get to the logout point a still-active remnant of Alpha grabs them and starts trying to absorb Megaman. Aware that Lan will be killed if he can't escape, Megaman decides to use the only option he has available: disengage Full Synchro and free Lan's mind from the remnant by self-destructing.
Lan becomes hysterical when he hears this plan and starts begging Megaman to find another way, but he refuses. He's already cheated death once by being resurrected as a navi, and he's perfectly content with the time he's had. Every day he spent with his brother is a happy memory for him, none more so than those few brief moments when they were finally face-to-face in the cyber world. Megaman tries to lighten the mood by preemptively chiding Lan for skipping homework and sleeping in, then thanks him for letting him be a part of his life, and overloads.
And, rather unexpectedly, isn't deleted.
Oh, Lan's mind is still flung to safety, and Megaman isn't anywhere in his PET. It seems that at the last moment, their grandfather's AI construct was able to preserve Megaman's data inside the code for the lab simulation, even going so far as to uninstall himself so Megaman could fit. He remains inside the simulation for months before being found by Dr. Hikari; rather by accident, as he was investigating the encrypted message the AI construct gave Lan. His father is happy to find him safe, and though Lan is already asleep by the time they return home, he reinstalls Megaman into his PET anyway. They can reunite in the morning.
PERSONALITY:
Megaman's personality can be summed up in three words: he's a kid. A kid who's rather mature for his age, to be sure, but a kid nonetheless. He's friendly and fairly outgoing, and loves hanging out with his friends. He's also loyal to a fault, sticking up for those he cares about whenever they're being put down and risking his life to protect them without a second thought. If he sees someone feeling down, especially a friend, he'll do his best to cheer them up and help them out. This means not only offering comfort and encouragement but also willingly going out of his way to help fix their problem or get something he knows will put a smile on their face. Megaman is not someone who makes idle promises - if he tells you that everything will turn out all right, you can bet he's already planning a way to go out and make things work out.
He's the kind of person who tries to see the best in everyone. While it's not terribly hard to get on Megaman's bad side (threatening lives, especially his family's, is a good way to do it), it's not all that difficult to get back on his good side, either; you'd have to really screw up to end up on on the blacklist permanently. This does make him rather easy to manipulate at times - the incident where Hinoken tricked Lan and Megaman into helping him attack SciLab is a prime example.
That being said, he's not one to wallow in guilt whenever he gets manipulated or makes a mistake. He'll feel absolutely awful while it's happening and throughout whatever attempts at fixing things he can carry out, but once everything is over he steps back and sets the incident aside. He doesn't forget it, not by a long shot, but he's not going to worry about something that's in the past. After all, it's not like beating himself up and indulging in what-ifs will do anything to change what happened. Better to accept that he screwed up, learn from his mistakes, and make amends by moving forward and doing whatever he can to deal with the aftermath or help out elsewhere.
Megaman's personality really shines through the most in the context of his relationship with his Operator, Lan Hikari. While the two of them have plenty of similarities, they're best defined by their differences - Megaman is more polite and generally more well-behaved than Lan, and has no problem with chastising his Operator for being rude or nagging him to do his homework or get out of bed. He prefers thinking things through when Lan would rather jump in and wing it, and is usually the voice of reason and the one to advocate caution. As a result it's not uncommon for them to argue, though they're close enough to reconcile fairly easily and can usually understand where the other is coming from. For the most part, Megaman plays the part of the dutiful older brother, doing what he can to keep Lan safe and in line; rather appropriate, considering Megaman's true nature as the digitally resurrected Hub Hikari, Lan's older twin.
It must be said that, while Megaman is normally the Thinker to Lan's Doer, there are times where he'll gladly rush in recklessly. Usually this is whenever there are people in danger and he's capable of doing something in the cyber world to help them: navigate a complex government computer network during a blackout to restore power, debug an airplane's control computer mid-flight, fight his way through the seedy criminal-laden underbelly of the Internet to stop a computer-controlled building fire, the list goes on. In fact, it sometimes seems like the only time he's willing to be reckless is when doing so puts himself in the most danger compared to others.
Which is not to say that he does it only in dangerous situations. His desire to see those around him happy and his insistence on following through with his promises means he can end up in some pretty crazy situations. This tends to happen when he promises to help with something and ends up over his head; however, things like "promising to obtain a rare Battle Chip that requires trawling around a hard to reach computer hunting for a rare virus and praying he gets lucky enough to score the data from its deleted remains as a gift for someone" have been known to happen.
In spite of this (or perhaps because of it) Megaman is not one to give up easily. The harder a task is to complete or a promise is to fulfill, the harder he works at getting it done right.
Megaman.EXE is rather unique among the Mega Men in that he is quite possibly the only one who is not combat-avoidant. Part of this is probably due to the fact that combating computer viruses is a main function of all netnavis, though he does rather clearly enjoy friendly sparring and netbattling. He doesn't immediately default to fighting hacker navis, but he has absolutely no problem with attacking if they won't settle things peacefully.
He's also not one to hesitate in deleting an enemy netnavi unless he can think of a good reason to let them live. This is probably due to the fact that most netnavis can be restored from backup data afterwards, so he's not really killing them. Again, it's not his default reaction in combat, but it doesn't really bother him if and when he does do it. His friends and navis who don't seem to be willingly participating in whatever is happening are pretty much the only real exceptions; he'd have to be forced to delete them and doing so would hit him pretty hard, even with backup data to revive them.
POWER:
DNA netnavi: Megaman is unique among netnavis in that his code is created mostly, if not entirely, from digitized human DNA. In his world this results in him being a navi with some undeniably human characteristics; in Heropa, the situation reverses.
The effect is mostly on his physical abilities, especially as compared to his 12-year-old apperance. His strength, stamina, and agility are on par with a professional athlete's - not quite to the level he can reach in the cyber world, but well above what would be expected of a kid his age. He's also more resilient than a normal human when it comes to blunt force trauma, and he can take a serious beating before suffering broken bones or getting knocked out (blades and bullets are just as effective as usual on a human). There's no bench-pressing cars or sprinting from one end of the city to the other here, though he could certainly hold his own in a fight with an adult.
The most dramatic impact this has is on his apperance, as Megaman retains his frame in the real world, though he is capable of removing his helmet should he choose.
Beyond this he's pretty much an ordinary human, with all the weaknesses and survival requirements that entails.
Mega Buster: MegaMan has the ability to reconfigure his right forearm and hand into an energy gun, the Mega Buster, and he's very skilled at using it thanks to years of fighting viruses and other netnavis. It can fire several small shots in rapid succession as well as a larger and more powerful "Charge Shot" after several seconds of concentrating power. However, he cannot keep up a constant stream of shots, and the recoil and need to aim means he cannot move while firing (though he can fire in midair after a jump in exchange for getting thrown off balance).
In Heropa, he can use the Mega Buster in both the real and cyber worlds.
Data Transfer: Megaman is capable of turning himself back into data and "plugging in" to electronic devices to access their cyber worlds in order to affect the device itself, retrieve data, and access files or the Internet. Within the cyber world he'll experience standard computer phenomina as physical objects or entities: hard drive size translates to the size of the device's cyberspace plain, the data stored on it manifests as blocks and stacks scattered about, network connections become roads, firewalls become actual walls, security systems and anti-virus programs become traps and fixed weaponry, and computer viruses become
What he can do within the cyber world is limited by the device in question. He can only transfer from one machine to another if they're networked or connected to the Internet, for example, and cannot access anything that's powered off. He also can't crack through protections and can only access password-protected files/devices if he can actually input the correct password. He can communicate with people in the real world as long as the device has some form of audio output, though he can only actively carry on a conversation if it also has an audio input device (so he can hear) and can only "see" the real world if it has a camera he can access.
Turning off a device he's currently inhabiting forces him to "plug out" to the real world and leaves him dizzy and in a lot of pain (but uninjured). Damaging the device only affects the cyber world inside it and not Megaman himself, though destroying it will force him back into the real world with minor injuries. Any injuries he sustains in the cyber world will carry over into his real world body, as well, and if he's deleted in the cyber world? Game Over.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
[The feed opens with a relieved sigh. Megaman'd been trying to figure out how to use the network's mental connection for a few hours now, if only because it seemed like it would feel closer to how he normally communicates. And every little bit of "normal" counts right now.]
Okay. I know something happened recently that had to be fixed by upgrading the...the nanites. [Wow is that ever weird to say.] I was wondering, how hard is it to modify them? Can they be hacked?
[It might sound like a strange concern for a twelve-year-old to have, but he does come from a world where pretty much anything and everything can be hacked. It's kind of scary to have unfamiliar tech of unknown security quality inside his body. (It's weird to actually have a physical body in the first place, but one thing at a time.) Especially with what he does know about how they work; if the Porter really did "build" his body by pulling Hub's DNA out of his source code then it might have given him back his HBD, and in that case the nanites working properly could be the only thing keeping him out of the hospital. Not to mention alive.
Hence the post.]
It feels a little silly to be asking, but I'm not used to relying on technology that I can't maintain myself. I don't think I can plug into something inside my body... [A pause.] Right. Anyways, if anyone can share any information, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
He hates this body.
Well, not hates, not really. Resents it. It just doesn't seem to move right, all heavy and slow and awkward, nothing like what he's used to. He's had headaches almost constantly from the sensory overload, and the latent sense memories from his brief time as Hub that keep getting triggered hinder almost as much as they help. The fact that he's apparently not entirely human doesn't help matters; every little twinge and pain in his chest sends him into paranoid panic, because if the Porter made this body based off his genetic source code then could it have recreated his HBD too?
What he resents most of all about his body, though, is that it means Lan isn't here.
It's probably an irrational correlation, but he can't help making it. He'd didn't particularly want a physical body, no matter how much he regrets not being able to be with his family as something more than a voice and an image on a screen. He was still a part of his family, still a part of his brother's life, and that's all he needs. He was content. Then that stupid Porter had to go and take him away from that to stuff him in this body instead. Like some kind of terrible consolation prize - sorry we stole the one thing in your life you truly want from you, have something you couldn't care less about in return.
When he was with Lan he didn't have a physical body, when he was given a physical body he was taken away from Lan. He knows that corrrelation doesn't equal causation but it's a difficult association to not make. Especially considering when he'd been taken; he'd already missed months of Lan's life, months of his brother growing up and moving on without him. Time he'll never be able to get back.
He hadn't even gotten a chance to tell Lan he was okay.
It's late, he's tired, and he knows he should be getting some sleep, but his head is still pounding and he's not particularly looking forward to adding to the storm of sensory input by crawling in bed. It's incredibly tempting to just jack into his communicator and rest that way, leech off its power source and recharge functions to fuel a recharge of his own. Maybe if he's in there for a while his head will stop hurting.
Maybe, if he just waits long enough, the PET's alarm will go off and bring him out of sleep mode, and he can finally say "I'm home."
FINAL NOTES: Nothing that I can think of!