The next chapter opens with someone being late for school. A familiar tale, right? Only this time, surprise!, it isn't Lan. It's Mick, and according to Mr. Mach this isn't anything unusual for him. Mick blazes into the classroom...with a penguin in tow. He tries to frantically shoo it, but it remains attached to him. Apparently he fed it some birdseed and now it can't be pried away from him. Mick and Lan also handily demonstrate their incredible levels of Book Dumb by initially confusing the penguin with a pigeon and a pelican respectfully, resulting in exasperated groans from both Mr. Mach and Megaman. For now Mick is stuck with the penguin, much to his dismay. We then cut to the end of the day where the penguin's raising a racket since it's hungry and wants to be fed. So Lan takes it upon himself to go and find food for it.
Megaman suggests finding the Biology teacher and asking him what penguins eat, but before that we can do a little more exploring of the school. Specifically, there's a little girl in Class 1-2 that'll trade a Double Shot C chip for an Energy Bomb K that I got in a BMD earlier. This is the beginning of a long trading chain that culminates in I want to say a Justice One J. The Biology teacher is in the Teacher's Room, and he's easily identifiable as he has a scientist's sprite. Talking to him has him demonstrate his amazing knowledge of marine life by supposing that a penguin would eat fish. He suggests talking up his class assistant, who's in charge of feeding the classroom pets at the school. This boy is in Class 6-2, and he doesn't have any fish, it turns out. Thankfully for us though his grandfather is an avid fisherman, so we're told to meet him in front of the LevBus stop in town. There we have to delete some viruses that're infecting the lock of the guy's cooler, but then we get the fish to feed the penguin. At last.
With the penguin's appetite sated for the time being, Lan and Mick turn their attention to the issue of where the heck the penguin came from. Megaman suggests going online to find a BBS in case someone left a post about it, and Mick says that there's a board in Seaside Area, the network for Seaside Town. Lan leaves him to stew with the penguin while he goes home and jacks in. There's some new mail from ACDC on his homepage, but nothing important, just everyone wondering how Lan's doing. When we get on the actual Net we get an email advisory from the Net Police warning us to be on the lookout for a smiling figure that's been going around attacking Navis lately. Interesting. In Central Area 2 there's a Punk Navi (replacing the Heel Navis of old) who'll challenge us to a virus battle in exchange for a Sub Memory.
Seaside Area is accessed through Central Area 3, but the way there is through the path that's blocked by the leak. Since Megaman can't just wade through the ankle-deep puddle we have to go find the repairman who was supposed to come and fix the pipes. He's at the Net Cafe panicking since he lost his tool when working at a Central Town house. Take a wild guess which one.
Heading downstairs there seems to be an issue with the john. The toilet won't work despite being fixed earlier according to Haruka, so in we go. We just jacked in to a toilet, that must be some sort of milestone for the series. Our target of interest is a Mettaur virus that's sitting in the middle of the Cyberworld with a plunger stuck on its head. Megaman's really reluctant to fight it for some reason, but Lan insists, leading to the most unenthusiastic “Execute...” in the entire series. This is a simple battle against a Mettaur, Mettaur 2, and Mettaur 3. This game returns to the old model of viruses simply getting stronger as you go through the game instead of having to muck around with difficulty levels and portals like in 4 and 5.
With the plunger retrieved the repairman is able to uh, apparently suck up all of the water if the sound effects are any indication, freeing up the pathway to Seaside Area. Before we can leave the Net suddenly quakes and the repairman's reaction is a nonplussed “yeah, that's been happening a lot lately.” Dude, experience shows that when the Net is shaking, that's a really, really bad sign!
Seaside Area 1 is where the BBS is. As the name implies it's full of Aqua viruses, and further in ice panels start appearing in battle. In this game, if Megaman or an enemy get hit by an Aqua attack while they're on an ice panel they'll be temporarily frozen, during which time they'll take double damage from a Break attack.
Seaside Area 1 follows the “pathway on top, plaza below” school of Net design, and there's a teleporter that leads to the Cyberworld of a stuffed toy shop that's located in Seaside Town itself. In there is a White Capsule * and a Double Shot *. On the bottom level we can see, in addition to a skull door, a geyser that's blocking the way to a BMD. This is an example of an elemental gate, and there are five types in total: a fire, a geyser, a cloud, a tree, and a whirlwind. There's a specific protocol for removing them, but we can't do so at the moment. For now I'll just say that it won't be Megaman who'll do the deed.
The BBS is on the lower level, and although we're not allowed to read it just yet for ourselves Megaman does say that there's a post by the director of an aquarium at Seaside Town who happens to be looking for an escaped penguin. Sounds like we got all the information we need, so back to Mick, who agrees to go with Lan to Seaside Town. The LevBus station turns out to be a stop for a flying airbus. I guess no retro near-future society is complete without flying cars somewhere.
Seaside Town is, as the name suggests, a town by the sea. The area that we can visit is not very large, the walkway that leads from the LevBus station empties out into a small square with a fountain. The stuffed toy shop is there but we can't jack in to it to access Seaside Area, but the shop next to it, a fish stick stand, does have a fryer that we can jack in to for another White Capsule * and an Unlocker. Megaman can buy a cyber-fish stick from a Program for 100z, who'll then throw in the Seaside Key in gratitude, which will be used eventually to open a door on the Net. There's also an odd-looking vending machine that we can jack in to for a Barrier 100 H. By the sea is the area's local Sub Chip dealer:
- Full Energy – 1000z
- Locate Enemy – 7000z
- Sneak Run - 500z
The Seaside Aquarium isn't hard to spot, as it's a giant, whale-shaped building. When Lan and Mick arrive at the front entrance with the penguin in tow they overhear someone complaining about being fired. It's a...pirate-looking guy who used to be one of the aquarium's animal trainers, but judging by the whip he's holding in his hands it doesn't take a genius to figure out why he was fired. In fact, once he storms off Mick notices that the penguin is trembling.
The trip turns out to be a bust as the aquarium happens to be closed, so Lan and Mick decide to come back tomorrow on the weekend. Mick gets stuck taking care of the penguin for the night, much to his chagrin.
Off to bed with us, tomorrow will be a more eventful day to be sure.
Virus Listing
- Piranha
- Returning from Battle Network 1 (!), 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.
- Puffy
- Despite sharing names and being the same species, these blowfish viruses are not related to the ones in the first two games. These guys remain in place and shoot one of their spines into Megaman's area. The more they get attacked, the bigger they become, shooting more needles at a greater frequency.
- Star Fish
- These starfish viruses spit bubbles down one row. If Megaman gets hit he will be briefly trapped inside of one, and Elec attacks will deal double damage.
- Quaker
- Returning from Battle Network 3, these viruses have nothing to do with oatmeal or religious sects. Armed with heavy metal balls, Quakers jump around the field and unleash shockwaves that travel down one row when they land.
- Swordy
- Returning from Battle Network 3, these knights have two attack patterns - close range and long range. If Megaman is in the column in front of them, they will swing their sword in a Wide Sword-range slash. If Megaman is not directly in front of them, they will attack with a slash that has a range of two horizontal. Should Megaman persist in dodging their attacks, they will use the Area Grab chip to close in on him if they are equipped with one. Swordys are Normal element, while Swordy 2's and Swordy 3's are Fire and Aqua respectively.
Soundtrack
- Seaside Town
- A track this happy is a surefire indicator that something's going to go wrong at this location.
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