Well the visit to ACDC turned into a fiasco, but to his credit Lan recognizes that commiserating with his friends won't get anything accomplished, so it's back to Cyber City. The scene changes to Seaside Town, where Vic, Ito, and Blackbeard are conspiring to form their own criminal organization now that they've captured Megaman while Mr. Mach stands off to the side. Eventually he tells them that he has no intention of going along with their plan to betray Baryl and the WWW and before he leaves he says that when they meet again they'll be enemies. Once he's gone Yuika walks up and tells the others that she's made their split from WWW official, taking glee in the fact that Baryl was apparently blindsided by this development. What's more, Cain has hooked them up with the Cybeast cultists on the Undernet, giving them a way to draw out all of Gregar's power...
What this all entails is soon made clear by a panicked call Lan receives from Mick when he gets home. Megaman has been rampaging around in the real world in his Beast Out form, which would mark the first time in the series (at least as far as the games themselves are concerned – the anime already one-upped them with Dimensional Areas long before) that a Navi has directly inflicted damage on the real world. So we have to hurry over to Seaside Town, the site of the rampage, where Lan finds Megaman perched atop one of the vending machines in the square, which is littered with the bodies of injured or unconscious people. Lan tries to get through to him but Yuika, who's watching the proceedings from afar with her cohorts, claims that the cultists drew out so much power that his efforts are futile.
Megaman hops to the ground and is about to attack Lan when he suddenly freezes up. Iris appears from off screen and tells Lan that she can't fully control his Navi. This prompts Lan to ask who she is again, but this time adding “or what” as even he can tell by now that there's something unnatural about her. As it always is with Iris, answers will not be forthcoming as the problem of the crazed Megaman is literally staring them in the face. Iris urges Lan to try to get through to Megaman again, and this time he's partially successful. He isn't able to break free of Gregar's control, but he at least leaves the Copybot he was in. Upon witnessing this the ex-WWW members realize that they've royally screwed up, but really, if their grand plan was just to have a berserk Megaman rampage in the real world, what the heck did they expect would happen? Needless to say, those four aren't very bright.
Cain soon arrives on the scene in order to investigate the scene in his capacity as mayor. He assures the rattled citizens of Seaside Town that the monster will be caught and examined, and Lan takes exception to that and starts towards the mayor but his bodyguard gets in his way. “Officially” tipped off that the monster was Megaman, Cain says that that power must be how he won the selection test, and that it was a mistake to make him the Operator Navi. He is then called away to attend a meeting covering what happened here. Once he and his entourage depart, Lan gets a message of his own; it's an email from Mr. Mach, saying that he wants to talk at Sky Town.
Mr. Mach is waiting for Lan at the same ledge where he and Megaman jumped from during the Elementman scenario. Right away he confesses to being involved in the ACDC kidnapping and the abduction of Megaman, and admits that he's Blastman's operator and a member of WWW. Lan has a hard time swallowing this, especially as Mr. Mach's demeanor has completely changed from what it normally is. He tells Lan that Megaman is currently in the Underground, the network where the Cybeasts were sealed beneath Central Area 3. Perhaps, he speculates, the Cybeast inside of Megaman drove him there. Lan insists that he has to be a good person if he's helping him like this, but his teacher disagrees; he says that he wants to feel better about himself. He hops down from the ledge and disappears into the admin building, but not before telling Lan than although he can't turn his back on Baryl and that his actions may say otherwise, he truly does care for his students. Poor guy. Lan's saddened by this, but swears that he won't let Mr. Mach's kindness go to waste.
Whew, there's still a lot of exposition to go, and we're not even at the endgame yet. Our next move is to grab a Link Navi and head to Central Area 3 where the giant pit to the Underground is. A Net Policeman who's present tells us that the Underground is protected by a powerful barrier that only the mayor can lift. Megaman apparently forced his way through, but was heavily damaged in the process. For a normal Navi it would be suicide (to say nothing of a Normal Navi!). So we have to meet with Cain himself. That's sure to go swimmingly.
As I believe I mention towards the beginning of the game, Cain's office is on the upper level of Cyber Academy's foyer, accessed by a set of stairs in the Teacher's Lounge. One of the school's security robots won't let him in, though. And here's something weird: the Copybot that's normally displayed up there is missing. Surely Cain wasn't dumb enough to loan that one to Yuika and co., was he? Going back down to the ground floor, Lan finds Mick hanging around the lobby, and he offers to help Lan by jacking his Navi into the electronic bulletin board and screwing around with it until all the security robots, including the one that was guarding the office, come running. It's no big deal, he tells Lan. Getting yelled at by Mr. Mach is nothing compared to the pain of losing your Navi, he says. Thanks to him, we can now get inside the office.
What we find is Cain in a meeting with Blackbeard, whom he's very displeased with. Not only did they lose Megaman, but he can't risk being seen with the WWW. Cain says that he'll remove the Underground barrier so that they can retrieve Megaman and then has Blackbeard explain exactly how they lost control of him. He seems to have some inkling of Iris's identity given his surprised reaction upon learning that she was there at Seaside Town. It is at this moment that Lan accidentally walks in on their conversation. After the initial surprise at his presence, Cain is actually very frank about being a villain, declaring that he'll continue to trick people and helpfully outlining the history of the Cybeasts and what his own plan for them is.
So a long time ago, when Cyberworld was still new, a phenomenom occurred when a bunch of bugs began to clump together, eventually forming the entity known as Gregar. Notably this is the exact same origin that Gospel had, and Cain even references the events of Battle Network 2. The reason that Gregar looks so much like Gospel can be chalked up to the fact that it too is a Multi-Bug Organism, only one created under natural circumstances. Since Gospel was technically immature, I imagine that had it not been destroyed by Lan and Megaman it would've eventually grown in power and begun to look more finished like Gregar does.
Anyway, Gregar was causing a lot of damage in its rampages and nothing could stop it. That is, until a scientist decided to fight fire with fire and created Falzar in order to combat it. It should surprise no one that Falzar broke free of control. The scientist at least got one thing right: Falzar continued to obey its programming to fight Gregar but since it was now totally unchecked the damage just grew greater and greater. One day they fought to a complete standstill and mankind took advantage of their weakened states to seal them beneath Central Area...at least until Circusman woke them up. Meanwhile, the scientist who had created Falzar was basically completely disgraced.
Cain finishes his monologue by revealing that he is the grandson of that scientist, and with the powers of both Cybeasts he'll show the world the worth of his grandfather's work. Having told Lan all this he naturally has no intention of letting him go, and Lan's predicament is worsened by the arrival of Cain's bodyguard, leaving him with no means of escape.
The bodyguard, however, isn't interested in apprehending Lan, instead he says that he's more interested in what Cain is doing meeting with Blackbeard. The mayor retorts that he doesn't need to know, but the bodyguard says that it's actually his job to find out these things, just as a squad of Net Policemen Navis enters the office. He throws off his parka to reveal that he's really been an undercover Chaud
◊ this whole time, come to investigate Cain's involvement with WWW. While Lan stands there shocked, Chaud has the Navis place Blackbeard and Cain under arrest.
Once they're gone Lan asks Chaud why he never told him that he was in Cyber City and gets the obvious answer: his cover would've been blown. Now that that's all out in the open, Chaud brings Lan up to speed on what's been going on with the WWW splinter group and tells him to get to the Underground and promises to send Protoman later to help.
Now we have to go and get a Link Navi again. Even though Undernet 2 is far away, I'm going to use Chargeman for this segment. I've never operated him much before, and he can remove the two elemental gates in the Underground.
Once we send Chargeman into the giant pit Colonel jacks in and stands on the edge, silent.
Soundtrack
- Hero!
- This gets played a lot in the later parts of the game, but that's cool because I like this track a lot. Up there with Battle Network 2's hero theme.
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