Part 4: Killing Kids. Not Featured: Killing Kids.

Between the last update and this one, so just a few days, Gunther the NetBattling Chicken became thread mascot, and Third Murderer drew a picture of the hypothetical EggMan.EXE. Good times all around.



Arriving at the classroom, Dex can't find his disk. So he's double lost it.

Oh no!! Good thing he brought his friends, because that is a double problem!



Dex stamps up and down while flailing his arms, while Yai sets in motion the little hunt we'll have to do.

Yai's a genius. Deal with it.



There's three possible locations Dex could have dropped the disk, but they're shown via flashback anyway:



That one's on-screen at the moment, so no need, though.

That was probably a mistake, not having a flashback for the first one. I can fix that!



(you're welcome)




Sepia tone flashbacks ensue.

Way ahead of you!




Much to the chagrin of the interior Mr. Progs, as you'll recall. Chalkboard? Smartboard? I think it's the latter, where you use a stylus to draw on it.



Smartboards are read as hell, you can even use smartboard markers and smartboard erasers. Love that shit.




It's a little odd that you have to go looking for it, considering this following segment consists of "press A to check the spots, which are all within 2 seconds walk of each other", but hey, it's quick and easy, so no complaint.

Yeah, I could think of way worse fetch quests. Like if you had to go through the school and find the piano and play a piece corresponding to some puzzle about birds so you can collect a medallion and-



Yoink. It's always in the same spot by the class animals. Trivial detail here, but the Item Get! message template is used, implying that the item has actually been added to Lan's inventory. Lan gives it back immediately though, and we'll never have it again, so I'd be willing to bet that either no such item was ever added to the pack or that the Dex's Disk item has a null value for its image and description.

It would be much funnier if it just hung out in your pack, forever. But that's neither here nor there.



No, Dex, that was the School, the Power Plant, Yai's house, Okuden, Kotobuki, and probably at least one scenario in Network Transmission. That's not even counting the "affects everyone" scenarios like the Environment System. Honestly though, I'm riffing on Dex, but in this game he's actually probably at his best.

Dex has a lot of gratitude in him, man. Let it all out.



"Getting"? Given that school has started up again, and I know more about how Japanese education systems work now after Hatoful Boyfriend, this is probably right after the summer equinox. So it's probably around 8 pm.

Good thing the school doesn't have a proper security system or anything.



Yai seems to have sharper hearing than the others, as she picks up a faint sound in the distance. It's not actually in-game sound though, nothing gets played in the background despite no background music playing during this part.

Yai's a genius, deal with it.



Nobody else heard it though, so let's scram already.



However, sound effects very much like a rattling lock being broken open are quite a bit more audible once the team is back in the entry hall!

Those sound effects sound very much like a bunch of other things though.





Ghosts are immediately suspected yet again.



Which is why all the lights are still off. And Yai's the kid genius.

I told you.



And I'm pretty sure a teacher wouldn't need to break open any of the school's locks! Actually, it's unusual for Battle Network to imply a physical entry, usually you'd expect to see a "hacking the security" situation.

??



I'm getting serious A Pup Named Scooby Doo vibes from this. "Yes, let's confront a likely armed burglar by ourselves, fellow 6th graders!"

It's possibly a ghost though!! Jinkies!



The supply closet Ms. Mari got locked in in MMBN1 is inaccessible for the whole game, in case you remembered it. I think you can find a HPMemory on the door later in the game? It was just a passage point in MMBN1, wasn't in MMBN2, and no other games after MMBN3 feature this hallway, so by process of elimination...yeah, probably. If there's something on the door, it'll have to be this game.



This is a good idea, but what would you expect? If you've read MMBN1 and MMBN2's LPs, which I urged all readers to do, you know darn well this is par for the course.

Being that they broke inside the school and there's an off chance this could be a teacher, they could always just go home. But then they'd... uh... ... Let's go investigate!! Yay!



It's only a little peek, what could the harm be? You know, I keep referring to an armed burglar, but then I recalled that Japan has some of the world's strongest anti-firearm laws. A criminal actually having a gun of some sort would be a rare find, presumably even more so in vague-future-MMBN-land. Turn this into a gun control slapfight in the thread and you can bet I'll close it immediately between now and the next update, incidentally. We'll be having none of that.

If you wanna talk about guns then it should be about how since everything in the MMBN world is operated by computers, what sort of cool Mr Prog would be in a gun??

PS. It would definitely be a Mr Prog, not some dang navi.



Time to confront the burglar!




Let's have our priorities straight first though. Hey, more HP means more survivability against the burglar!

Oh, I thought it was for the completion. ALL THE COMPLETION.



Believe it or not, this little statue in the Teacher's Lounge will be a massive boon way the hell later in the game after the final boss has been flattened. For now though, it's just a weird little background detail.

How does Lan know it's from a shady antiques dealer??



Oh.



TetraCode? That implies 4 of them. One sentence immediately implies we're going to see a MMBN1-lookalike plot. Oh, and hi guys.

Hooray!! Our friends are here too!!



Dex may be a physical powerhouse in theory, but he's a sixth grader for crying out loud.

Yeah, so he's probably super hyperactive and annoying to adults. Perfect backup.



And I think Yai is genuinely small enough that an adult could theoretically punt her like an American Football.

She would probably sue afterwards though. That's terrifying.



The only thing better than 3 6th graders trying to take on a burglar is one 6th grader trying it, after all. I'll always mock the insane writing in the series, and otherwise be the first to point out flaws, but the stupid factor is honestly part of the MMBN fun overall. It's just not Battle Network if things are sensible. Someone in one of the LP threads pointed out that the games play a lot like what a cartoon would, given the distinct "episodes" the scenarios lend themselves to, and I agree.

Lan's crazy good at taking on criminals though. He's pretty much learned that this is the best way to handle things, because it always has been in the past.



Well, Mayl, that has a tendency of actually working. You three don't have as nearly a good track record.

Hey now, what about the, uh.... and the, um...






CHAAARGE! You know, semi-relatedly, I realized just how old my generation has gotten when I realized there are World of Warcraft players younger than the Leeroy Jenkins gag. Never played it myself, but that was one of the fairly early YouTube memes, for crying out loud. But hey, that's part of why I'm here with MMBN3. I'm returning back to one of my childhood's fondest memories. And I'll be sure to settle a few scores once and for all. The final update of this LP, and the Battle Network main series LPs in general, will be a special one, I promise.

I have a 13-year old Neopets account. That's sad for many reasons, but I blame the youth of today. Er... *ahem* MOVING ON that final update sure sounds cool! I dunno what it's about but me (and hopefully Gunther) will totes be in on that!



But hey, I'm getting ahead of myself quite a bit. Like I mentioned in an earlier update, I have a tendency to focus on the future a bit too much. Meet Saikeo Rei, if I recall his name correctly. He's a monk, apparently, which is an odd detail in that it's never relevant outside of his costume. His Navi isn't even related to it.

Much like the first bad guy of MMBN2, I just can't remember this guy's name. NO OFFENCE, LOWER-TIER VILLAIN GUY. Super forgettable. His navi's cool though, if only for the chip.





He's rather surprised to have been caught, and let's face it, it's only a freak coincidence (par for the MMBN course) that anyone found him at all.

He's just surprised to see kids at an elementary school.



Rei proves to be one of the nastier MMBN opening villains, as he's not afraid in the slightest to threaten to kill everyone else present in open language. No, he doesn't use euphemisms like "delete" about it either.

He's got stiff competition as far as MMBN opening villains go. I mean there was that guy who nearly killed Lan's mum, and that guy who tried to kill Yai in what proved to be the world's most inept ransom plot that didn't even involve a ransom or anything apart from almost killing Yai...



You'll see more of this shortly, but Yai spells it out. Rei's a new breed of MMBN criminal.

Yai status: Still a genius



It's a good thing, for once, that they don't listen to Lan. Dex being fat very well may have saved the MMBN world, in fact, given he's right between Lan and Rei.





One slip from Dex, however...



Yeah, Rei knows who Lan is. Damn well, in fact. He apparently knows that Lan is a student at this school, given that he isn't brushing it off as coincidence.

It's about time somebody knew who Lan was.





So yeah. Rei's not afraid to murder children for personal gain. I'm making a fuss about this, but situations where MMBN takes a turn for the grim are pretty rare. You very rarely see a villain openly saying he intends to murder anyone, let alone personally, death is usually a glossed-over thing.

You can't kill a navi, Rei. Oh. Wait I guess you can if it's Mega. Kind of.



And I'm sure you'll do spectacularly in that effort, Mayl.

I'm glad you finally see how good Lan's friend's really are!



Power of teamwork and friendship! More like power of getting in the damn way, as usual.

I-... oh, you were being sarcastic again. Even though you know dang well they will save the day!! With teamwork and friendship, dangit!



Despite this bold statement, Rei opts for a different means of disposing of the team.

See, he says this, but-...





The computer FlashMan's jacked into proceeds to shoot brainwashing light beams at Dex, Mayl, and Yai. Power of "getting in the damn way" indeed, Lan's apparently spared only because Dex, directly in front of him, is so bulky that Lan can't see the light. And you can imagine how well things would end for the world if the protagonist was taken out.



You'd think this would be a repeat of the Gospel Server scene with Lan's friends seemingly brainwashed into attacking him, but FlashMan evidently opted to drive the trio insane in various cliched ways. Arguably worse, as rather than just killing them all, FlashMan/Rei are attempting to drive them mad for the rest of their lives.

Notice that he didn't actually kill them though, and possibly had no reason to believe FlashMan's magic monitor hypnosis powers would kill them. Dude talks big, but c'mon man, lift your game.



Those who have seen my commentary in the Starforce LP will note that this is what I was talking about in the most recent update.

That's. Horrifying! Do you know how aggressive swans are?! Oh my goddddd



They will mess you up.



And then Mayl was a zombie.

Way less scary than a swan at least.



So naturally, let's keep standing here for now!

In fact, let's turn and face the light again! This is a good idea.




Thankfully, FlashMan and Rei are adhering to shonen anime writing conventions, not only explaining the nature of their attack but also being cocky and sticking around where we can later kick ass.

And also not using the attack on the main character right now. PHEW.



Yeah, time to vacate!

Well, Lan figured it out eventually



Rei doesn't pursue, oddly, noting that he's already accomplished his mission anyway and retrieved the TetraCode, whatever that is. So the villains have already won here, we're just stuck cleaning up the mess after the fact, unfortunately.



Best to exit a crime scene ASAP, after all. Rei beats it, and leaves FlashMan behind to deal with Lan and MegaMan.

So much for killing everyone! Sheesh, bad-guy-whose-name-I-already-forgot!