A couple days pass, and just as Lan is starting to wonder about how Mamoru’s doing he gets an email from the hospital saying that Mamoru has suffered a relapse and that he’ll be undergoing surgery today. Lan and Megaman decide to hurry to the hospital to see him. Mamoru’s in bed in his room and he weakly tells Lan that he’ll be okay since he has the Ice Ball chip as the staff arrive to take him to the operating room. Lan decides to go to the third floor where the operating room is so that he can at least be near his friend. After witnessing the “operate” light turn on there’s nothing left for him to do but wait.
After three hours pass Lan’s still waiting by the door and Megaman urges him to step outside and get some air for a bit. Once they get to the lobby, they find that vines have suddenly grown out of the Tree of Life, covering the walls, the floors, and even blocking the way from the elevator to the exit. What’s more, it’s announced over the PA that the hospital’s systems are starting to fail. Well y’know, if Lan visits a place it’s guaranteed to have something go wrong with it.
Concerned about Mamoru, Lan rushes back to the third floor, only to find that the vines and nettles are blocking the way to the operating room as well. A nurse trapped on the other side comes up to let him know that the operating room is fine for now, and when Lan asks if there’s anything that he can do to help, she says that the Tree of Life’s growth system is probably malfunctioning. Yeah, the society in this universe seems to operate on a “what could possibly go wrong?” premise. The growth system is located in the hospital’s basement, but when Lan goes to call the elevator he finds that it’s stopped working. The only way to get to the basement is via a door on the outside, by the beach where Mamoru was sitting. With the elevator out of service, the only way to get down is via the emergency stairwell, which of course is also locked. At least this time there’s a control panel next to the door that Lan can jack in to.
Finally we have another dungeon network – the Hospital Computer. The Hospital Computer’s gimmick is that there are obstacles blocking the way: trees bar the paths and clusters of weeds cover up warp points. A Program gives us a program called Energy Change. What this does is convert either an Aqua or Fire chip into energy. For this network we’ll be using it to convert Fire chips to actual fire to burn away the obstructions. What makes this annoying is that first of all, the program obviously takes up room in the Navi Customizer that could go towards more useful programs, and it can’t be compressed, and second of all, the converted chip is used up, gone forever. Fortunately, a BMD at the start of the area contains the Oil Body program that attracts Fire enemies when installed. The trees are easy enough to burn but the weeds aren’t, since they come in clusters of at least three and the warps they cover are only under one. There are Programs nearby who’ll drop hints as to which is the correct weed in the formation to burn, though some of their instructions are difficult to pinpoint thanks to the series’s isometric perspective. It’s easy to burn through chips, no pun intended, but between Oil Body and the fact that some of the plants have Fire chips hidden beneath them this network isn’t too too bad to deal with.
Hospital Computer 1 is pretty short, and at the end is the control panel for the emergency stairs. It’s booby-trapped by a virus, but after it’s deleted Megaman lets Lan know that he use the stairs now.
But even though Lan can now freely move from floor to floor, he still can’t get out of the building thanks to the vines. After searching all over the only way out seems to be through an open window in the room where Yai was hospitalized. The ocean’s directly below, but since it’s only the second (or first depending on where you live) floor Lan steels himself and takes the plunge. He manages to not break anything on impact with the water and swim around to the front of the building, and Megaman’s fine thanks to the PET case that Yuuichiro gave them a while back, so the stunt works out.
As the nurse said, the door by the beachfront leads to the basement where the Tree of Life’s system is, though we first need to go get the key from a nurse to unlock it. Even the roots of the tree are overgrowing their housing. Just as Lan’s about to jack in he hears the sound of the elevator starting back up again and Anetta exits grumbling about not being able to find the Tetra Code, finally reappearing three updates after her introduction. And I only just noticed that she’s dressed like a nurse after all these years of owning the game. Upon seeing Lan she rushes over and demands to know what he’s going with the Tree of Life, calling him a Net society spy and going on about how the hospital deserves to be destroyed, which naturally is just Insane Troll Logic to Lan and no doubt the player.
Y’know, the whole eco-terrorist thing in Battle Network has never really made any sense. From what we see in-game, Net society has not turned the world into say, the Los Angeles seen in Blade Runner. There’s a ton of green everywhere we go, and the only active environmental destruction that we’ve seen so far has been at the hands of WWW and Gospel!
Anyway, Lan yells at Anetta that his friend is in the middle of an operation and could die, which she completely dismissed and reveals that she works for the WWW by name-dropping Wily. Lan fires back that Wily’s just using her, causing her Navi Plantman to speak up and tell her not to listen to Net society spies. Realizing that she’s completely brainwashed, Lan and Megaman turn their attention back to jacking in to the Tree of Life while Anetta goes back to looking for the Tetra Code. Her downright callous characterization here is a pretty stark contrast to her anime counterpart, I must say.
The second area of the Hospital Computer is a little bigger than the first and has a small section that we can’t get to at all right now. That’ll be for later. It does introduce the gimmick of finding switches under the burnable weeds to open doors, though. And some weeds will have recovery panels underneath that’ll heal 100 HP. At the end of this area is Plantman
◊ himself, who’s at a control panel and informs Anetta that the Tetra Code appears to be inside of the operating room’s system. Upon seeing Megaman he compliments him with some flora-related similes before siccing a miniboss virus on him. A Goofball to be exact, just like that one Black Navi did during Shadowman’s scenario in Battle Network 2. Defeating it does away with the vines in the real world, allowing free travel throughout the hospital.
Upon reaching the third floor Lan starts pounding on the operating room’s doors until a doctor on the other side answers. He says that the door’s locked and that the equipment inside has suddenly stopped functioning. Luckily though, there’s a control panel right beside the door that Lan can jack in to, which brings us to the final three areas of the Hospital Computer. At the very end at a large control panel that looks like a heart monitor is Plantman, who informs Megaman that he’s finished with the transmission of the Tetra Code. Since Megaman still doesn’t know exactly what the Codes do, he explains that there are four in total (tetra means four in Greek after all) and that the WWW will be able to awaken The Beast with all four. And so now that he’s explained the plan, Plantman is going to eliminate us.
Plantman
HP: 1000
Element: Wood
Attacks:
- Rose Needle – Plantman shoots several spikes down one row for 50 Wood damage.
- Plant Weed – Plantman sticks his vines into the ground and they will track Megaman’s movements from below, hitting twice for 40 Wood damage per hit and immobilizing him.
- Yellow Flower – A yellow flower sprouts on the field and spreads pollen in a plus shape that will paralyze Megaman.
- Red Flower – A red flower sprouts on the field and spreads pollen in a plus shape that messes up Megaman’s movements.
Despite the longish dungeon Plantman is a pretty straightforward boss. I’m still packing the Hades Folder as my main folder because I’m lazy, and it’s got a bunch of strong Fire chips within to roast him. The battles with his Alpha form and above are a touch more tricky because he’ll be packing Leaf Shield then, but since he has no such defensive ability here the damage is free to pile on.
Winning gives us 3000z.
As he explodes Plantman warns Megaman that he’s too late, for the WWW already has three of the Tetra Codes, and he namedrops the name of the beast that will be awakened: Alpha. After a couple more flower-related metaphors which I assume were puns in the Japanese script Plantman is deleted, freeing Megaman up to reactive that control panel for the emergency room’s equipment.
Another three hours pass and the operation finally comes to an end. According to the doctor in charge the surgery was practically flawless apart from the incident that Anetta and Plantman caused. Mamoru eventually regains consciousness in his room, and the doctor gives him an optimistic outlook. He’ll have to stay in the hospital for a while longer to recover from the surgery, but if all goes well he’ll eventually be able to go home. Mamoru tells Lan that while he was put under for the operation he had a dream about a boy who looked a lot like him urging him to stay strong and beat his disease. Megaman tells him that he’s sure that Lan’s twin brother would be proud of him.
So after that happy conclusion, let’s check on what Wily’s been up to, shall we? We see him talking to someone unseen over a monitor, reminding them of a deal to aid one another. There’s only one Tetra Code left, so Wily informs the figure that he may have to call upon him in the near future. Wily signs off and begins another peal of evil laughter – even if he can’t resurrect Alpha, “he” is still on his side, meaning that it won’t matter anyway. Net Society will be destroyed regardless!
Virus Listing
- Totem
- Totem's stay in place and attack by shooting a three-panel-long stream of fire from their mouths. If they get hit with a sufficiently powerful attack they will spin around to display the face on their backs. They don't attack in this state, but instead heal themselves.
- Viney
- Viney viruses are also immobile, but they attack by sending vines after Megaman in the same manner as Plantman's Plant Weed attack. Vineys are immune to all non-Fire attacks, though their vines can be damaged conventionally.
- Needler
- Needlers are squat, quadruped tanks that shoot spikes down their row and column. Occasionally they'll tremble and quickly trundle into Megaman's area to take an additional potshot at him.
- Puffball
- Puffballs are mask-wearing bushes. They will eventually remove the mask, which blocks all non-breaking attacks, and us it to spread poison to the surrounding panels.
Soundtrack
- Save a Life
- The Hospital Computer's theme. The clock is ticking.
