After his aquatic defeat, Dr. Wily has gone into hiding yet again. At the first National Robot Master expo, he decides to make a public appearance and activates some of the robots in the display cases. Luckily, Mega Man is at the expo at the time, but Wily can't find a way to harm him. Wily escapes, and now Mega Man has a new quest: find all the Robot Masters and deactivate them before they can do the harm they did in the past, while dealing with the ever-mysterious Ballade.