One month later we open once again with Megaman trying to rouse Lan out of bed. Lan protests that it’s the weekend, but Megaman reminds him that he has weekend classes. Yeah, some Japanese curriculums have school six days a week. Downstairs a new crisis is afoot: there’s no water, so Haruka can’t make breakfast (never heard of cereal, or pop tarts, or bagels or muffins?). Dejected, Lan heads to school.
It turns out that ACDC’s water main has been shut off, because according to Mayl she didn’t have any water at her home either. There’s no water in the schoolyard pond, even. Aside from that, once we get to class we can freely fight Gutsman by talking to Dex. He finally gets the boss theme, and can also drop the Guts Punch chip in addition to his Navi chip. Yai also discloses the fact that a boy in the next door class is missing. Once class begins Ms. Mari confirms that there’s no water anywhere in town and promptly…cancels class. Not that I’d complain in that situation, but that seems like a rather weak excuse for a cancellation.
Once we’ve left school we can confirm what Ms. Mari said simply by glancing at the town park – it’s little fountain is barren, and a Waterworks employee is examining it. But that’s not what concerns us just yet. The formerly empty building near the school is now a battle chip store, run by none other than Higsby. Higsby’s is a cozy little shop and amusingly enough there’s a poster of Vile from the X series hanging on a wall. We can buy chips from Higsby himself at the register:
- Cannon E – 1000z
- Spreader K – 1000z
- Recovery 80 E – 3000z
- X-Panel 3 L – 3000z
- Repair G – 3000z
- Barrier F – 3000z
- Elec Sword E – 5000z
- Steal L – 5000z
Not that bad a selection at the moment. For now I’m just getting the Elec Sword since this scenario has a lot of Aqua viruses. Later on Higsby adds more chips to his stock.
Aside from that, there’s a machine that we can use to refight Numberman. His chip has him carry out his Dice Bomb attack, so it’s not really reliable for regular usage. However, the two devices by the door, the Chip Traders, are the real crown jewel of Higsby’s.
There are two kinds of Chip Traders, one Regular, and one Super. Whenever you use a Chip Trader you must sacrifice chips from your pack, three for Regular and ten for Super. You get one completely random chip in return, with Super having better returns. You can get absolutely any chip in the entire game from them, meaning that this is a good place to off-load all of your Vendor Trash chips. What’s even better is that in this game you can save scum the Traders, meaning that you can get late-game chips ridiculously easily with a little patience. I’m talking stuff like Muramasa or Dropdown or Leaf Shield that normally wouldn’t be available until you reach the last few Internet Areas.
Talking to Megaman, he suggests that we go visit the Waterworks and see exactly what’s up, but first there’s an old man near the Metroline who claims to have lost his dentures in the park. All we have to do to find them is examine one of the trees, and upon giving them back we’re rewarded with a chip for Recovery 80 G. Stepping into the station, we get an email from Yai claiming that the missing student was kidnapped. How would she know that?
The Waterworks’ lobby is full of people here to complain, and examining the vending machines reveals that they are empty too. I guess there was a run on anything drinkable as soon as the water went off. What we need to do is go over to the reception desk near the elevator, where a white-haired boss is speaking with the secretary. The secretary asks to see his Official ID so that he can examine the building, and it’s at that point that he realizes that Lan’s behind him. He rudely says that Lan’s in the way and walks off. Megaman exposits a bit on how the Officials fight online crime and wonders what sort of Navis they’d have.
Unfortunately, the secretary won’t listen to Lan, and we can’t pull the wool over her eyes by claiming to be an Official like that other boy. So the only way we’re going to be able to get into the Waterworks itself is through subterfuge. The solution is to go to the SciLab half of the building and swipe the ID card from the lab coat hanging in Yuuichiro’s cubicle. With the SciLab ID, we can now freely use the elevators, without having to go through the secretaries.
After taking the elevator to the Waterwork’s main floor and traversing a short hallway we can enter the control room. Surprisingly enough the head of the place, Dr. Froid
◊, doesn’t throw Lan out of the place. He says that there’s an issue with the water pump’s program, but once it’s fixed ACDC should have water again. He even lets Lan look around the place to his heart’s content. Nice guy, that Froid. We can find an HP Memory in a nearby shelf, as well as a Recovery 200 L and 3000z in the room’s main computer console. We can even go into the rooms housing the filtration system and water pumps, but there’s nothing of interest there other than the Official boy wondering what we’re doing here.
That search didn’t satisfy Megaman any. Back in the lobby he wonders what an Official would be doing investigating a water shortage, not to mention that kid is still missing. The two devise a plan to hide in Yuuchiro’s empty lab until everyone leaves so that they can sneak onto the Waterworks’ network and investigate things for themselves.
Once we’ve waited long enough and the building empties, we have to go back to the Waterworks’ main floor. We can’t get into the control room, though someone’s in there as Megaman hears typing. We have to find something else to jack in to, and the solution is to examine a water cooler set up in the hallway. However, once we do Lan is caught by a rather gaudy-looking woman who demands to know why Lan’s here. He lamely replies that he’s lost and the woman tells him to go home. Of course, once she’s gone Lan jacks Megaman in anyway.
The Waterworks’ network is a rather dreary place. It’s largely abandoned and some sections of the floor appear to be iced over. The main gimmick of course is that we can slide around on the ice, and even slide right off of ledges if they’re frozen. There’s also running water pouring from facets that Megaman occasionally has to make a detour to shut them off so that he can proceed.
There’s not much in the first area, but waiting for us at the terminus of the teleporter to the second area is a red, sword-wielding Navi. Lan instantly realizes that he can’t be a Waterworks’ employee and guesses that it’s part of the WWW. The Navi takes exception to that and takes a swipe at Megaman. It turns out that his name is Protoman, and that his operator is the white-haired boy from before, Eugene Chaud. Chaud tells Lan and Megaman to stay out of his way unless he wants to get deleted, something that naturally riles up Lan. Chaud says that he has bigger things to deal and jacks Protoman out, telling Lan to get lost in the process.
You know, I think this is the only time in the series that Chaud’s first name is mentioned in English. See, his name in Japanese, Enzan Ijuuin, contained the kanji for volcano in his given name. As a way of getting the pun across, it was localized to Chaud, the French word for hot. But for some reason they stuck it as his last name. Referring to people by their family name is very common in Japan, but not so much in English as far as eleven year-olds and their peers are concerned. The dub of the anime got around this by renaming him to Chaud Blaze, thus reinforcing the pun and perpetuating the trend of giving rivals an Awesome Mc Cool Name. Eugene’s still a fitting name though, considering its roots and Chaud’s attitude.
Anyway, tangent over. Proceeding, we run into a Navi who tells us that we can melt some of the ice by turning on a facet to run water over it, knowledge that we must quickly put into practice. Near this facet is an HP Memory and a clown Navi that tells us that we’re at a dead end, since there’s a running faucet nearby with no handle blocking the path. Fortunately, by running water over the ice, we’ve opened the path to another teleporter leading to a new area. The new area isn’t that remarkable, and after some looping we reach another new area.
The ice sliding puzzles become a little trickier now, making us choose between multiple paths where only one will allow us to progress. Just takes a little intuition is all. Soon we reach the machinery representing the pump program, and find the whole thing’s frozen. And we’re immediately thrown into a miniboss battle against two Cold Bear viruses. They’re not hard, they simply shoot ice cubes down their row. With them defeated, Lan has Megaman defrost the system. They decide to go back to ACDC to see if the water’s back yet.
They end up checking the school pond, and while there is water it’s all polluted looking. Just then a thirst-crazed man wanders over, and upon seeing the pond proceeds to slake his thirst on the sewage. Naturally he immediately keels over. Lan gets a phone call from Chaud justifiably bitching him out for what he’s done. As you recall, Chaud was doing a proper investigation of the place and he reveals that the real issue was with the filtration system. Undeterred, Lan resolves to go back to the Waterworks and set things right.
Virus Listing
- Piranha
- These fish viruses move up and down a single column, sending crosshairs down a row. If any of these lock on to Megaman, all Piranhas on the field will shoot a spear down their row.
- Cold Bear
- Polar bear viruses that at first show up as minibosses, but become regular enemies later on down the line. They're slow and attack by shooting ice cubes down their row. Apart from their high HP they're not too much of a threat.
Soundtrack
- Suspicious Mood
- A variant on "Incident Occurrence!" Used more for "impending doom" than "we'redeaddeaddeaddead!"
- Cold and Silent
- The Waterworks' network theme. A dreary tune for a dreary level.
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