Megabyte

"Welcome to Megaframe!"

- Megabyte. "Why yes…it is! Young Enzo Matrix, home from the games. My, how you've grown. And such toys! Does your sister know you're playing with them? (…) Where is that annoying chatter of yours!? 'Mega-Breath' this, 'Mega-Barf' that! Why don't you put that gun away, boy, and try fighting like a real sprite!"

- Megabyte in his confrontation with Enzo Matrix.

Megabyte is the main antagonist of the ReBoot series. He served as the central antagonist of the original series, and one of two main antagonists of the 2018 Netfilx sequel Reboot: The Guardian Code, alongside the enigmatic hacker known as the "Sourcerer". Megabyte is a sentient virus from Mainframe who wanted to conquer the Super Computer, and focused on that plan for most of the original series. When he returned in the new Netflix series, he became more upgraded and dangerous, as he now wanted nothing more than to conquer all of cyberspace with his new army of sentinels that he made out of corrupted code.

He was voiced by the late veteran actor Tony Jay who also voiced Judge Claude Frollo, Shere Khan, Monsieur D'Arque and Lord Dregg. He is now voiced by Timothy E. Brummund.

ReBoot
He was also known for his countless clashes with his sister Hexadecimal. He was created when the Gigabyte virus was caught in an explosion which also created his sister. He was a harsh ruler who controlled one of the sectors in Mainframe called Giedi Prime which he had a large tower called Silcon Tor, but also acted in a sophisticated manner, sometimes displaying some code of honor. It was later revealed that he gave up his plan of conquering the net, and is now doing evil acts because he likes committing them.

Megabyte is incredibly strong and durable (within his computer existence) and, with the addition of his extensible claws from his knuckles and fingernails, his hover control throne and imposing force in close combat. Megabyte could also control non-sentient "machinery" by touching it. Despite this he frequently assigned important tasks to his henchmen Hack and Slash or his seemingly endless supply of like-colored binome underlings.

After being defeated by the mainframers and stranded in the web, Megabyte changed into a trojan horse virus and was able to copy a complete likeness of anything he touched. He was then wiped out by a powerful delete command, but it would seem even that is not enough to destroy Megabyte for good.

Return in ReBoot: The Guardian Code
After 20 years of dormancy, Megabyte has been resurrected by the hacker, The Sourcerer and has upgraded him to a more powerful form. With this, he planned to rule all of cyberspace with his new powers. However, he was brought before the mad hacker, and was forced to work for him as his pawn, or else he would activate the delete code that he installed into him with his new body. This did not stop the malicious virus from committing more of his wicked crimes, as he soon made his way into an old gaming platform and corrupted the characters there, turning him into his own personal army of sentinel robots under his command. He then created his own upgraded version of his throne, and set forth his plans of corrupting and conquering. However, he did not expect that a couple of human teenagers would be brought over to Mainframe as their guardians. Though he was defeated, Megabyte remained competent and lethal no matter the setbacks.

Personality
Megabyte is a manipulative mastermind through and through, and knows just how to manipulate others into doing his bidding. He presents himself as a calm, respectable, patient, sophisticated, refined, obsequious, trustworthy, and capable gentleman almost all the time, even whenever he commits crimes. Megabyte is a unique character, in that compared to most other well-known cartoon villains, Megabyte becomes far more heartless as the series progresses, and with him, his entire series darkens as well. He is devastatingly intelligent, charismatic, persuasive, competent, and perspicacious, as he shows multiple times throughout the series.

When he first appeared in the series, Megabyte is portrayed as a humorous and affable, yet also competent and dangerous whenever the time arises for him. Like many cartoon villains, Megabyte has his share of comedic moments, like his sibling rivalry with Hexadecimal, which is more comical than serious. In spite of this, there ares let episodes where they work together. He also had his limits on villainy, as well as having a code of honor, shown as when he captured Dot in one episode, Bob steps in and defeats him. Rather than outright kill Dot in rage, he actually lets her free, saying "now they are even". He even had some redeeming and altruistic qualities within him at the time, as shown as when he and Bob had their famous guitar duel for Enzo's birthday, and even gave Enzo his guitar as a present. However, when he sent Bob straight to the web after helping him out initially with shutting down the portal to the web, he showed his dark side to not just Bob, but to the entire computer space.

After betraying Bob and sending him into the web, the entire team of guardians were traumatized as a result, and as a result, the entire series becomes less humorous and more serious. As a result, any of Megabyte's humorous and redeeming qualities that he may have still had at the time was outright stripped away, and Megabyte became a brutal, callous, megalomaniacal, sadistic, and ruthless monster with no regard to anyone except himself. His rivalry with Hexadecimal becomes far less comical, and as such, she is unfortunately not exempt from his cruelty. For instance, he had her smashed by the side of a game cube, and then had her rebuilt just so he can enslave her. When Enzo is particularly disgusted by this, even when reminded that she is his sister, he only calmly states that it is "rather good".

He becomes more tyrannical, callous, egotistical, and sadistic as he sets forth his plans to rule the entire city of Mainframe, and is shown to be willing to sacrifice others for the sake of his evil schemes, worst of all, even his own sister. When he faced an embittered adult Enzo, known as Matrix, he only showed sadistic amusement at the sight of his threat, even repeatedly mentioning his sister to provoke Enzo. After he was defeated, and then humiliated by Enzo by slamming his trident near his head, Megabyte proved dirty enough to fake falling to his death in the cliff, and then tried to infect all of Network, only to end up seemingly killed, and then to transform into a Trojan Horse virus.

As a Trojan Horse program, his personality does not nearly improve, but he continues to keep his gentlemanly façade as his method of justifying his horrendous crimes.

Perhaps what's the most depraved and horrendous of Megabyte is his complete and utter inability to feel love, compassion, sympathy, kindness, friendship, or even family to virtually anyone, not even his own sister. Besides Hexadecimal, another example of this is when he once went so far as to actually pose as Bob with his new powers, so he can marry Dot, but the reason for this isn't because of love, but so he can use her as his pawn once he succeeds with the marriage. When his façade is exposed at the wedding, he tried to to act like a gentleman, as per usual, and only calmly states that they would make "a good couple".

Not only is his inability to feel love is his downfall, but his weakness is, and always will be, his own egotism and arrogance, as he can be quite overconfident with his plans, and can sometimes overlook his own flaws in his plans, allowing his enemies to be able to exploit them.

Overall, Megabyte is cruel, callous, sadistic, unsympathetic, manipulative, monstrous, vicious, megalomaniacal, and wicked by nature, and has virtually no redeeming or even comedic qualities whatsoever. However, he is notable for justifying his horrifying personality and ruthless belief of infecting and dominating all of cyberspace with a calm and seemingly polite and friendly gentlemanly demeanor.

In the Netflix sequel, he is noticeably far less calm or even gentlemanly, and becomes far more ruthless and sadistic than before. He is more than willing to harm or kill children, which the new guardians technically are, if it suits his needs, making him all the more cruel by nature. After ruthlessly taking complete control over an innocent game platform, and infecting the characters there, he upgrades his plans to not just rule all of Mainframe, but all of cyberspace itself. Even after being enslaved by the ruthless hacker Sourcerer, Megabyte still retains vituperative and sadistic by far. Aside from the Sourcerer, whom he is actually both afraid and hateful of, he is not willing to stop at anything in order to set his plans into motion. He even enlisted his sister, even though he had a history of abusing and enslaving her before, in order to do so, even manipulating her into joining his cause, and saying that they will rule side by side. Unsurprisingly, though, he only sees her, as ever, as his pawn than he does a family. Even Hexademical herself was somewhat suspicious of him, until she became deceived into working for him.