Now that the excitement over the election has died down Geo's gotten down himself over the fates of his one-time friend and student teacher. Omega's sure no help on the empathy front as he's unsurprisingly more interested in fighting King and Joker than Geo's feelings. A little spirited and lighthearted talk with his mother and his friends waiting for him outside cheer him up. At this point we get an email from Zack saying that an unidentified EM being has starting blocking traffic on the Astro Wave. That's something that we'll address shortly.
The holes Solo put in the school have been repaired and the students of 5-A are excited over Luna's election but the effects of the attacks are still being felt as a few of the teachers and the discussing the possibility of the school being shut down for a while for the students' safety. After talking to everyone class automatically begins...and gets promptly interrupted by an announcement over the PA saying that a Wizard is going out of control in the front foyer. Geo leaps from his seat and when we head downstairs we see that there's not one, but two Noise Wizards fighting each other. Geo Wave Changing draws their attention and they decide to double-team us. If I didn't have Air Shoes they'd actually be rather difficult as one of them has a new attack where it spits out a ball of lightning that can crack panels, making it really hard to dodge their sword and Gatling gun attacks. After they're defeated the normalized Wizards let off some Crimson and Geo gets a call from the Satella Police saying that Wizards are going berserk all over Electopia, but no Noise Cards have been found.
We're tasked with scouring Spica Mall and there are three Noise Wizards to beat here, one on the overworld and two inside Cyber Cores. Each one of them lets off some more Crimson when defeated, and when all are down we're told to come to the Satella Police HQ to be debriefed in person. Before that however, something lucky happened: I ran into an Omega boss, specifically Dark Phantom Omega. To give you an idea of how strong he is, he's packing 2700 HP (V3 only has 1700) and Phantom Claw does a mean 300 damage. The key to beating him and other Omega bosses is to Finalize as soon as you can, as if you'll remember Black Ace doubles damage during Mega Attacks. You can get some good illegal data off of Omega bosses, I happened to get Wicked Flame, a secret Giga card that has Jack Corvus lob fireballs at the back 3 x 3 area and if you shrink the field down you can cluster the hits closer together and deal more damage to a single target. We also get our first Omega Piece (from what I understand each Omega boss only has one to give) allowing me to open that security door and access the teleporter inside the school gate Cyber Core (Omega Pieces fortunately aren't used up for this). If leads outside to a PMW with the Fast Aura ability, which I already have thanks to Rogue Noise but whatever.
On to the Astro Wave, and we might as well check out that traffic blockage. There is indeed a new EM being in the second area, this game's create-a-boss winner: Moon Destroyer, whom Omega describes as being one of the best singers in the galaxy. He's got a security gate up that's blocking access to most of Astro Wave 2, and he says he'll only lift it if we either fight him, or listen to him sing for ten hours. I think the choice is clear.
Moon Destroyer
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HP: 1000
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Crescent Spin – Moon Destroyer spins from one side of the field to the other unleashing boomerangs down each column that inflict confusion and deal 60 damage per hit.
- Comet Pitcher – Moon Destroyer throws a meteor at Geo's current panel, dealing 70 damage and breaking the panel.
- Moon Reflex – Moon Destroyer does a spinning kick that strikes Geo's row as he passes by for 70 damage.
This guy's a complete chump. His movement pattern has him hop from panel to panel (without going off-screen like some other bosses have in these games) with the same sort of alacrity and floatiness you'd expect to see if you were on, well, the Moon. So it's super easy to lock him down.
Winning gives us the Moon Destroyer card which has him attack with Crescent Spin and confusing targets.
At the WAZA command center the meeting is kicked off by Boreal reporting that despite being made of crystalized Noise, Crimson doesn't let any off at all, leading him to conclude that it has a Noise absorbing nature. However, at a certain point it'll explode like a bomb, releasing a massive about of Noise, more than what was originally absorbed. This is the mechanism that's drawing Meteor G towards Earth, and Boreal adds that when he was researching this, he detected a new, odd sort of signal coming from it, almost like Meteor G's “voice.” There's actually a fair bit of sound in space if you have the gear to detect it, caused by radio noise and vibrating molecules in stuff like plasma and gas clouds (check this out to get an idea of what he's talking about
). Goodall says that this is very interesting and worth looking further into, and then the Satella Police take over, moving the conversation to the out-of-control Wizards. Ace still thinks Dealer is behind it even though there's no implicating evidence, suggesting that they figured out Crimson's Noise-controlling properties a long time before they did. He spells it out for everyone that King plans to take full control of Meteor G, and that defeating the Noise Wizard's is actually helping him.
At that moment one of the Wizards in the room announces that their main computer has been hacked and a hologram of King appears to greet everyone. In his arrogant, Smug Snake way he announces that he's taken complete control of Meteor G and that they're going to help him...by defeating a horde of Noise Wizards that've been unleashed on WBG Studios. Ace tells Geo that they'll just have to defeat them now and figure out how to deal with the consequences later. At least Dealer no longer has the “Ace Card” he says. So off we go, having no choice but to trigger what is obviously a trap.
There is indeed an entire horde of fighting Noise Wizards all over the event stage area, and thankfully Geo and Ace dispatch them in a cutscene rather than make us have to fight them all ourselves. This time the Crimson doesn't fly away to parts unknown, but rather zips up to the concert stage where we see Joker standing with another one of those canisters that Jack and Tia had. Ace leaps up to confront the man, but Joker warps out of the way of his attack and holds out a hand, enshrouding Ace with some sort of eerie red aura. Acid starts gasping in pain and his operator demands to know what's happening. Joker replies that Acid is merely responding to his call because they are of the same “shooting star power.” The aura gets stronger and Joker observes that the Noise level is at 200% and calls out for Acid to Finalize. This results in Ace's wave form taking on an unnatural red-and-gray color and seemingly going berserk himself. He attacks Joker, who again warps out of the way while thinking to himself that the Satella Police must have altered Acid so he couldn't fully Finalize. He tries to egg on the berserk Ace some more by saying that Meteor G is their bond and that their strength validates their existence. He warps away again as Geo finally gets up onto the stage itself to see what's going on. The crazed Ace turns on him, and while Geo's unsure that he can win he remembers that Ace can't stay in his wave form for very long so he figures he can at least waste some time.
Acid Ace B
HP: 1200
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Lock-On Sword – Acid Ace locks on to Geo and slashes his panel twice with a sword, dealing 80 damage per hit and breaking it.
- Ground Wave – Acid Ace unleashes a homing shockwave down the field towards Geo for 70 damage.
- Buzz Saw – Acid Ace shoots a bladed disk down one column for 70 damage. It'll take a right-angle turn to hit Geo.
- Dance Fire – Acid Ace shoots a flamethrower down one column for 70 Fire damage.
- Wide Wave – Acid Ace shoots a three-panel-wide blast of water down the field for 70 Aqua damage.
- Stealth Laser – Acid Ace shoots a volley of shots down one column for a total of 120 Elec damage.
- Squall – Acid Ace generates a tornado on one of Geo's panels for a total of 60 Wood damage.
- Wing Blade – Acid Ace dashes down one column with the energy from his jets hitting the adjacent columns for 100 damage.
Acid Ace is invincible, so this is another battle that we cannot win, only survive until it automatically ends.
The battle ends with Ace losing his fusion and both he and Acid collapsing on the stage. A massive amount of Crimson is released and then whisked away. Back at WAZA Geo and Goodall are about to discuss what happened while she repairs Acid but Ace shows up, despite the fact that he's been hurt rather badly by the ordeal, and tries to stop her from revealing the truth. And he pretty much succeeds as his subsequent collapse brings their meeting to an abrupt end. Afterwards Geo and a bunch of other officers are summoned by the chief who announces that they can't just keep reacting to Dealer, they're going to find their base and shut them down once and for all! Geo's told to go home and get some rest, for tomorrow will be the big day.
Now the plot's done for the day, it's time to catch up on a few job requests:
WAZA Job 3: Rob Sidkic
This officer tasks us with deleting three viruses in Spica Mall, which are luckily sitting right by the Wave Liner stop on the overworld. Beating them all earns us an HP Memory 10.
WAZA Job 4: Aaron Boreal
Boreal's job is thankfully is not plagued by translation errors this time. All he wants is to trade a Heat Grenade for a Big Drop 1.
Spica Mall Job 2: Kaz Nova
Oh hey, it's the Matter Wave guy from Wilshire Hills. We have to find some sold-out video games for him: Taco Fantasy and Burger Quest. Burger Quest is found in a sales bin in the mall, but for the other game we have to go all the way back to Big Wave and check out a display case. Both games cost 5000z so they're both rather pricey, something that Geo even remarks on. And that's before DLC! Fortunately though the client's courteous enough to reimburse us with 3000z extra and an HP Memory 10.
That's all the jobs for now (oddly enough there don't appear to be any clients in Alohaha at all) so next up is the school roof, where Jack Corvus V2 can be found on a dead end wave road. His card attack is Grave Claw, and his V3 form can also be found on the roof. At home Geo gets in hot water with his mom again for cutting school but this time Omega manages to defuse the situation by claiming that he asked him to take him somewhere where there wasn't any Noise. Hope's rather gullible sometimes. Time to go to bed for the big day.
Virus Listing
- Nutty
- These squirrel viruses hide within stumps until they pop out to throw a bomb that bounces down the field and blows up with it hits Geo's row. The stumps can be destroyed by Fire attacks.
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