After the business with Taurus Fire's resurgence and the conclusion of the TV shoot we're to head back to the event stage. Entering the studio building triggers a scene of Ice somewhere outside raging over how how both Sonia and Megaman upstaged Belle. It's absolutely no surprise then that Jack walks up to her saying that he can help her get both of them out of the picture. Declaring that her title will be “Diamond”, Jack throws another Noise Card at Ice, transforming her into the fairy/figure skater EM being Diamond Ice.
At the event stage something's going down. Lee Stern walks over to Geo and his friends and tells them that "someone" sent a virus to his Hunter along with a message proclaiming that they will ruin the concert. This “someone” must have connections with the studio he reasons, and Geo offers to join Team Sonia Backers to help out. Lee's reluctant, but Luna steps up and vouches for Geo, explaining that he and Sonia are best friends and that he's solved lots of virus problems already. Bud and Zack, apparently still remembering her Star Force 2 characterization, are shocked that she's willing to let Geo leave their own Team but Luna insists that this is beyond just the concert: Sonia's safety could be in danger. That's good enough to convince Lee, and so Geo joins Lee and two generic studio NPCs as part of Team Sonia Backers. Our Team emblem is changed to show a bunch of hands holding up a pink mic. The others go off to help investigate with their own Wizards, and Lee tells Geo to search the studio for anything suspicious.
Heading back inside, Lee instructs us via email to check out the prop room. One of the staff members can't open the prop cabinet inside and his Wizard won't come out of the Cyber Core. So we access the Cyber Core ourselves and find that the Wizard is actually frozen inside a block of ice! Geo tries destroying the ice with his buster but it's too tough for his peashooter. Fortunately for us Bud just got a new, fiery Wizard, and he sends Taurus to us to help us melt the ice. He'll be with us in pop-up form for this scenario, and touching it brings him out to breathe fire on any ice that needs melting. The thawed Wizard thanks us and says that he thinks his assailant was female, which Omega finds odd because female EM beings are pretty rare. When we pulse out we can see that Taurus has replaced Omega on the bottom screen and he even has snippets of voice acting too. His English voice is cut from the same cloth as Omega's, though not quite as rough.
Lee emails us again, telling us to come back outside to take a look at the stage projector. It's been frozen too, but one summoning of Taurus thaws it out. Our next problems is out on the grounds, where we have to investigate a bomb threat being issued from the Cyber Core of the stunt car. The bomb itself is a hoax, but there is another Wizard inside to thaw. He also claims that he was attacked by a female Wizard. Finally we have to thaw out the door to Sonia's dressing room. When we return to Lee he thanks us for our help and forms a Brotherband with us, giving us fifty more Link Power. With that he activates the projector, and a giant raised pink stage appears. It's high enough off the ground that the audience needs an elevator to reach their seats! Standing room only, apparently.
As Sonia comes out to start her set Lee calls Geo aside and confides that “someone's” frozen the projector's Cyber Core, causing the air temperature around the stage to start plummeting. Uh, well, okay, I was going to say something but I suppose that does make sense. Not often in Megaman games does the cold side of convection come up. The audience eventually realizes that it's really starting to get cold, and the stage color turns blue for a handy visual cue on what's happening, though Sonia tries to ignore it. At this point Belle wanders over to tell us that Ice is missing and she suspects that she's behind all the threats since she was so mad. Lee says that it's impossible for a Wizard like Ice to be able to freeze the projector, but Geo remembers what happened to Magnes and suspects the same thing's happening here. He asks Lee for the access key to the Cyber Core, and then jumps off of the stage and Wave Changes in mid-air. Before we go into the Cyber Core we can access one for a nearby vending machine for an Invisible and buy the Shadow Claw WE (Charge Shot can paralyze) from a Hertz for 3000z.
Parts of the Event Stage Cyber Core's pathways are frozen over but the gimmick doesn't involve slipping and sliding like Battle Network 1's Waterworks Network. Instead it's Coldman's temperature gimmick. Stepping on the ice lowers temperature (indicated by a HOT-COLD meter) and when it depletes Megaman's frozen solid. When this happens Taurus will automatically appear to try to thaw us out and we have to rapidly mash the A button during the ten seconds he's out to determine how much heat we'll regain once freed. Stepping off of the ice will naturally raise temperature. Other than that Taurus can be used to melt ice cubes that occasionally block the path. Humorously at one point he says “Teamwork can solve anything!” Ironic for the guy who seemed to figure out that Omega was an AM-ian back during the rematch on Peace because teamwork wasn't something the FM-ians were big on.
I have to say, the bland dungeon aesthetics of this game made it easy for Capcom to create compressed, complex maps. It's pretty easy to get lost in here.
When encountering Diamond Ice at the end of the third area Geo calls her out on trying to hurt all these people just to satisfy her own pride, not for Belle's sake at all. Diamond Ice's counterargument is that you have to be willing to do anything to succeed in the entertainment industry and the smack talk comes to a close.
Diamond Ice
◊
HP: 700
Element: Aqua
Attacks:
- Cold Ballet – The two ice crystals are shot down one column each for 20 Aqua damage.
- Ballet on Ice – One of the two ice crystals are shot down Geo's row for 20 Aqua damage.
- Diamond Dust – A gust of cold wind strikes a large diagonal swath of the field, freezing Geo and the affected panels for 30 Aqua damage.
- Break Ice Hammer – Diamond Ice tries to smash Geo with an oversized hammer that cracks the panel and deals 50 Aqua damage.
Those chunks of ice in her artwork aren't for show. They provide most of the battle's annoyance since they'll constantly get in the way to block attacks and they'll be able to freeze you if you're standing on an ice panel. Diamond Ice likes staying towards the back of the field, so this is where the Area Eater support function comes in handy. If you manage to shrink the field down to only two rows she won't be able to attack you at all!
Winning gives us 1500z. I guess whether you get their Mega card from these story battles is determined by busting rank.
Ice returns to normal (though doesn't seem to be particularly contrite) and drops her Noise Card. Geo starts feeling numb from the Noise in the air and suddenly it condenses into the red energy that Master Shin spoke of on TV: Crimson. It flies away and the scene cuts to the real world where we see that Jack's been joined by his sister. She holds up a canister that absorbs the Crimson and remarks that King should be pleased with this amount.
Back on the...other side of the area, Ice and Belle reunite, though Ice still doesn't apologize for all the stuff she did until Belle tells her that Sonia's her role-model, not rival, and that she didn't get to where she is by stepping all over people. The stage has returned to normal and the concert's at it's end. The final song Sonia sings is titled “Shooting Star.” Yes, it's the same as the series's main theme, and the lyrics (which are basically about her meeting Geo) actually do seem like they could be sung along with the tune. Afterwards Geo and Sonia reform their Brotherband for another sixty Link Power.
Jack and Tia are next shown to be back on the studio roof, discussing that Megaman's more interesting than they though. Upon Jack mentioning that Geo's Wizard Omega-Xis is the source of his power his own Wizard says that that's a name he hasn't heard in a long time. Both of the siblings' Wizards materialize, revealing that they're two new FM-ians named Corvus
◊ and Virgo
◊. Like the FM-ians from the first game they're up to no good, their only interest being to cause panic among the humans. Jack asks Tia what their next move is, and she says that there's going to be an entertaining event coming up with the school that they're to take advantage of.
Down in the parking lot more members of the Satella Police commandos are trying to pry information on the incident out of Lee while he tries to cover up Ice's involvement in the incident. Sonia tries to pass the incident off as being part of the concert but the commandos don't buy her excuses. That's when Ace arrives and dismisses the officers, finally revealing to the kids that he's a Satella Police officer himself and that he's here to get an autograph from Sonia. While everyone's taken off guard by that he whispers to her that he'll be needing Harp Note's power soon, and then with autograph in hand he departs. Our Purpose as part of Team Sonia Backers is fulfilled and we're given a prompt to save the game.
Virus Listing
- Spinguin
- As the name suggests these viruses are penguins that attack by spinning around the field like a top, ricocheting off of the sides.
Soundtrack
- Event Stage Cyber Core
- I haven't heard much ice stage music that's this fast.
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