Mega Man Battle Network 5 - Story

Story

Lan Hikari and his friends, Dex, Mayl and Yai, are called to Sci-Lab headquarters for the revelation of the latest research project Yuichiro, Lan's father, has been working on. Before he can reveal it to them, however, mysterious agents take over Sci-Lab, subduing everyone with sleeping gas, kidnapping Yuichiro, and stealing the PETs (and thus the Navis contained within) of Lan's friends. However, Lan's PET is not stolen, because he was retrieving his father's ID, and is not seen by the agents. These agents turn out to be working for Dr. Regal and his crime syndicate Nebula, which has returned after being defeated in Mega Man Battle Network 4.

While Lan is unconscious, Nebula takes over the internet. To counteract Nebula's efforts, Chaud (in Team ProtoMan) or Baryl (in Team Colonel) form a secret, elite team of Navis, and Lan is wanted as the team's Navi operator, with Mega Man a member of the team. This team, which attracts new members as it progresses, liberates each section of the internet, revealing new secrets about both Nebula's plans and Yuichiro's research project. The membership of the team and how they join differs between the different versions of the game, but their roles are largely similar.

Nebula's latest plan, at first, seems to be the creation of Dark Chips, battle chips that corrupt the user. At one point, they even kidnap Mega Man, corrupting him and recruiting him by implanting a Dark Chip in him. This plan escalates, however, when Nebula corrupts the End City transmitter, corrupting NetNavis everywhere, causing them to act erratically and aggressively. Shortly afterwards, they corrupt the team's leader (either Protoman or Colonel, depending on the version of the game). In Team Colonel, Protoman helps Colonel break free of the corruption, and in Team Protoman, Colonel is introduced, and helps Protoman. It escalates further, when they spread micro servers all over the net that cause people in the real world to act similarly. To complete this plan, however, they need Yuichiro's research project.

Starting with a clue from an encrypted message on Yuichiro's lab computer, Lan and Mega Man discover VisionBursts hidden in the net. These VisionBursts, virtual snapshots of ACDC Town,Oran isle,and Scilab from the year of Lan's birth, turn out to have further clues to Yuichiro's research project. This project turns out to be the unfinished work of Tadashi Hikari, Lan's grandfather, and his research partner, Dr. Wily.

Their project is SoulNet, a network connecting the minds and souls of people and Navis everywhere. While Tadashi Hikari and Dr. Wily hoped to bring people together with this invention, Dr. Regal, who turns out to be Dr. Wily's son, plans to upload NebulaGray, a Program composed of pure hatred, to SoulNet, to shroud the world in darkness. Lan's team infiltrates the Nebula base and reaches Regal just in time to see him upload NebulaGray. While Lan's teammates are all affected, Lan himself is immune to Soulnet and NebulaGrey, because he is wearing his grandfather's amulet of Magnometal, which protects the user from Soulnet's effects. Lan retrieves his friends' PETs, his teammates rescue Yuichiro, Mega Man defeats NebulaGray in a final confrontation, and Baryl rescues an amnesiac Dr. Regal from the self-destructing base, regardless of version. It turns out that his father Dr. Wily, who survived the events from Battle Network 3, re-activates and overloads SoulNet, causing Dr. Regal to lose the last 10 years of memory in his life. He thens moves on to working for Sci-Lab, having forgotten ever being evil in the first place.