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Part 15: Flames of Vengeance
Before visiting Mamoru, I checked out Beach Area for the BBS. In the process, I found this guy who alludes to a future NCP that MegaMan will need to use to get a prize from him, much like the Humor guy.
quote:
Beach Area (Chat BBS)
|--------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------|
|KingKoma|Gambler |Ahhhh. Another day, another win. It's a tough life. |
| | |So this punk in the Cyberworld challemges me to a |
| | |bet, right? Says he'll double up or something, so I |
| | |played him until he'd had enough punishment. When it |
| | |was time for him to pay up, he gave me a chip' cause |
| | |he was all out of money! I was in a good mood, so I |
| | |took it. |
|--------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------|
|Ponzu |Re:Gambler |Whoa! Exactly how many times did you win at |
| | |Double-Up? I'd definitely have stopped after four |
| | |wins, myself. By the way, what kind of chip did you |
| | |get? I'm curious. |
|--------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------|
|Micchan |Why there? |I just went to Zoo, and found out something about the|
| | |Giraffe Educational Computer. You can jack into it! |
|--------+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------|
|Taka |RE:Why there?|Really? I didn't know you could jack into their, |
| | |either! I know another secret place you can jack |
| | |into, but I can't tell. It would not be fair to |
| | |SciLab programs. |
Remember kids: gambling makes the world go round.
As it turns out, Mamoru will be able to go home soon. 
In gratitude, he gives us this Hospital Code. I don't know if he's allowed to give this out, but it leads to a Spin Pink program and I really needed that, so I'll let it slide.
Sure thing, buddy.
There's also this guy who's making coffee in Mamoru's room for the rest of the game. He's tied to the condor quest, actually, and gives Lan the means to catch it. I just found it weird since he's just kinda lurking in this room.
Mr. Match shows up, likely having overheard about Lan's plans to visit the hospital from the other scientists and... sigh.
Alright, let's get this stupidity over with.
Aaaaand red flag. You came all the way to the hospital to ask an 11-year-old boy to help you install an important program into SciLab's computers as opposed to literally anyone at SciLab?
Even Lan thinks this is ridiculous.
Mr. Match proceeds to guilt trip Lan into doing it anyway. Lan says he won't just stand here and take Match's heckling, so instead of just leaving, he decides to help him out.
For this next section, Mr. Match gives Lan three programs based on his Navis. Notably, no one from SciLab is around at present because they're having a meeting in another room.
The exception is the guy in the top right there, but only because he's an NPC from a Request Board job. So for all intents and purposes, he doesn't actually exist in this room at present.
Red flag! Red flag!
Despite the program not being informed of this, he assumes the person at SciLab knows best and installs the program.
Mr. Match then takes Lan to the vending machine to install HeatDa-
Hey, wait a second!
MATCH! How dare you make me backtrack to Okuden instead of solving my problems faster! 
Seriously, the inability of Lan and MegaMan to notice something wrong here really bothers me.
But don't worry!
Because they happen to miss the mother of all red flags immediately afterwards!
You idiots.
Naturally, Mr. Match gives Lan a fire-themed chip. Because that's his thing.
Lan then goes on his way and leaves Mr. Match alone in Yuichiro's lab.
What could go wrong?!
Lan and MegaMan then proceed back home.
Well, that sounds promising.
Back at SciLab, computers begin to spit fire. Naturally, no one suspects Mr. Match.
I'd be inclined to believe that no one knew Mr. Match was working here, but that scientist from earlier outright approached him. So either Match was surreptitiously here this whole time or that guy is going to be extremely fired after this is done. Possibly in more way than one.
Yuichiro is staying behind, because apparently the backup data for SciLab is stored on-site at SciLab.
Brilliant planning, guys.
I mean, it's not like SciLab has ever been attacked before, right?
At the very least, a number of very loyal scientists stay behind to retrieve the backup data as quickly as possible so that Yuichiro doesn't have to handle this alone, but come on. 120 degrees? In a metal building? You guys are extremely dead. This is practically a Saw deathtrap.
Speaking of which, why don't you have any windows in this building!?
At home, Lan hears about the fire and heads out to SciLab to get appraised on the situation.
All of the NPCs around ACDC are basically saying "Oh no, Lan, SciLab is on fire! How is your father doing?", aside from one kid who wants to know if Lan saw anything suspicious at SciLab.
So, yeah, things are getting pretty bad, needless to say.
So, I had one person comment that they thought that Mr. Match had changed his ways since the first game and felt remorse about being a terrorist that tried to murder people by burning them alive.
I hope that person can appreciate this following cutscene of Mr. Match calling Lan up to not only laugh about how his father is burning alive due to his duplicity,
but also how he tricked Lan into basically committing patricide.
This is also the point where he reveals that the Heel Navis were his doing, incidentally.
Needless to say, this is where the whole "Lan is a hero!" thing was going. Lan gets a swelled head, and it wound up leading him to make a big mistake. Mr. Match even explicitly used his title of hero to goad him into setting up those fire bombs.
Basically what I'm saying is that Mr. Match is kind of a dick.
Mr. Match decides to make Lan play a game, though. FlameMan is going to set the whole Net on fire. Don't ask me how this works, but it has precedent. FireMan did the same thing in Network Transmission while under the control of Zero's virus. At any rate, if MegaMan can put out all of the fires and then defeat FlameMan, Mr. Match will put out the fire at SciLab.
Needless to say, this game is going to require an extraordinarily lengthy amount of time, which is likely what he's betting on. Did I mention that Mr. Match is a horrible person?
Most NPCs are talking about how their appliances or computers are burning up due to FlameMan, causing a lot of pandemonium everywhere, including for this guy.
I can't say I expected MegaMan to remind me of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but here we are.
Everyone continues to suffer because of the WWW.
The DNN building is free from the effects, though, perhaps due to having a closed off network. Good on them for having common sense.
Anyway, this scenario is basically just PlantMan's dungeon again, only across the whole internet and you're using Aqua chips for the Energy Change this time.
Because why not give up all of the chips that'd be strong against FlameMan before you fight him?
Every time you complete an area, Mr. Match calls Lan to mock him some more. Because he's a terrible person.
After clearing out ACDC, SciLab, Yoka, and Beach, Mr. Match tells Lan that FlameMan is waiting in the Undernet. Because he's really trying to drag this out as much as possible, you see. And also because that area with the torches I showed you a number of updates back is about as appropriate an area as possible to fight FlameMan.
Oh, and just in case he wasn't being enough of a dick, he decides to show Lan live footage of his father dying.
Would you believe that Mr. Match goes on to be a recurring character in two of the remaining three games and MegaMan gets a friendship based transformation with his Navis in those games? 
Undernet 1 and 2 pass by uneventfully.
But upon arriving in Undernet 3, MegaMan feels a strange pressure.
Lan asks if it's FlameMan, but
MegaMan's answer is concerning.
Despite that, we don't have time to stop and muse over odd power levels, so MegaMan heads off.
...
Up ahead, a Heel Navi has decided to block the road, so MegaMan takes a detour.
Suddenly, the path tears open in front of him! And it will remain that way for the rest of the game!
So yeah, the only time you can walk across this area is if you come here before this scenario. But there's nothing over here, so it's entirely pointless.
Hmmm...
...
The Heel Navi will now let MegaMan pass in exchange for defeating (deleting?) him.
Lan mistakes MegaMan's worries to be about the power and the earthquake from before, but...
Whoever this person who is watching us is, they can wait.
Because the confrontation with FlameMan is nigh!
As usual, the cutscene is in the video link!
Boss Fight: FlameMan
FlameMan has... one attack. I'm serious. He breathes fire. Sometimes it goes down one row, and sometimes it gets a bit bigger and hits wider. Otherwise, you'll spend most of the fight dealing with his annoying candles. He's honestly not too bad for such a late-game boss.
Flame Candle: FlameMan possesses two candles at the back corners of his area. They grant him a special ability depending on the color of their flame. They both start off green and shooting the candles will put them out for a while, before they reignite with a random color. Candle effects can also stack (e.g., if one candle is red and the other green, FlameMan will be invincible and regenerate HP). (Green: FlameMan is invulnerable; Yellow: Flaming balls will circle MegaMan's initial 3x3 area, making only the center square safe; Red: FlameMan's HP will slowly regenerate.)
Fire Breath: FlameMan breathes fire down one row.
Flame Blast: FlameMan breathes fire at MegaMan, first hitting the panel immediately ahead of him, then a WideSword-esque manner in the second and third columns.
After the battle, FlameMan is... not really doing too badly.
I got hit literally once and healed off most of the damage. Give me a break.
Lan tells MegaMan to dodge, and Mr. Match tells MegaMan to... delete MegaMan. Okay then.
As for what happens next, well... here's a video. Scroll down when finished.
Video: MegaMan Deleted?
Well, that certainly happened.
And no, you cannot defeat Bass here, no matter how hard you try. I even used an instant delete GameShark code to test if the game would crash and he does not care and keeps fighting with zero HP like this is Final Fantasy V. At best, the most you can do is hack in a Giga chip called Balance to continually halve his HP, which will take him down to 1. It has no bearing on the cutscene, though, and it's exclusive to White version.
At any rate, MegaMan is no fun for Bass anymore, so he decides to murder him. Notably, Lan is absent for this scene because MegaMan was defeated so hard that it cut off PET communication.
But suddenly, a challenger approaches!
As it turns out, Mysterious Official Navi from before has a bit of history with our caped friend here.
This was even somewhat alluded to in the last update.
I may have tipped my hand a little by mentioning that this Navi may belong to the Bearded Man, but it's not too big of a deal. The actual details of the Alpha Rebellion and the why of the hunt will be explained later.
Hey, shut up, you! Stop trying to summon those terrible plot elements from the next game.
Grievances with future games aside, it turns out the MON came prepared with a secret weapon.
I rather like how Bass gets mildly offended by someone copying his Aura usage. Then again, he copied it first, so does he really have room to speak?
At any rate, the Dark Aura is indeed a real chip (a Giga Chip exclusive to Blue Version) that will not break unless it takes a hit of 300 damage or more (600 or more if you're standing on a Holy panel). As we saw in the battle, all of Bass' attacks were dealing 200 damage, so he's not equipped to handle it.
Is what I would say if cutscene power wasn't a thing.
Fortunately, Wily chooses this moment to make a house call. You may recall that earlier in the game Wily contacted someone who got huffy about a human calling them directly? There you go.
Wily wants Bass to return to HQ since he has all four Tetra Codes, much to Bass' immense displeasure. Despite that, he opts to take his leave for now
though not before swearing vengeance to the operator of MON.
Cutscene power!
I hope Wily doesn't kick himself too hard about interrupting Bass in the middle of him almost getting rid of one of his most formidable adversaries.
MON muses about Wily and Bass working together to revive Alpha, then laments that MegaMan wasn't quite up to snuff when it came to fighting Bass.
He then proceeds to disappear from the rest of the game and is never mentioned again.
No, that's not a joke.
Remember how earlier I mentioned sloppy writing? There you go. This guy existed literally just to deliver exposition about Mr. Match and allude to something in Bass' past. We get no solid answers on who that Navi even is. There's speculation, and Bass' comment about a human still being after him gives an idea as to who it might be, but this is the end of what the game is willing to tell.
MegaMan decides he doesn't care about MON anymore than the game does, and so Lan and MegaMan jack out to see if Mr. Match kept his word.
Mayl tries to reassure Lan, while Yai proves to be excellent at GamingSins.
A number of NPCs are also suffering from injuries or property damage due to the net fires.
Yoka Inn and the Beach Hospital seem to have no ongoing problems, at least.
SciLab is open again, though a number of the staff can't find Yuichiro. I'm assuming these are the people who evacuated in time.
That being said, why has no one checked his lab? Y'know, the first place you'd think to look?
Sure enough, that's where he is.
At this point, this guy in a blue suit who is never named comes in and asks why Yuichiro is still here instead of at the hospital. Yuichiro says that he still needs to check the system, and the guy points out that he just spent the last (insert amount of time) in a 200 degree room and passed out and that he needs to go to the hospital, like, 30 minutes ago.
I'm gonna call this guy The Voice of Common Sense.
Yuichiro agrees to let this guy check the system for damages in his stead.
And then...
The Voice of Common Sense disappears from the game following this scene.
There is a skip to the hospital, where Yuichiro has now been admitted. While he'll live, he's in no state to be accepting visitors at the moment.
Now that the heat of the moment (pun unintended) has passed, Lan has time to dwell on how his actions have caused all of this and he's not taking it very well at all.
Haruka shows up and... is kind of abrupt with Lan? I didn't cut any dialogue, this is all she says to him.
I mean, she might be dealing with the shock of the situation herself, but I still feel like she should've said something to Lan. Letting him go home alone without even checking on his mental state probably isn't the best thing for him, either.
At any rate, Lan goes home.
A few NPCs express condolences about his father.
We also see that the Tree of Life helped the hospital in this incident, causing people to turn around on the idea of chopping it down.
Meawhile, at the Hall of Doom, Wily is celebrating his success at acquiring another four MacGuffins.
Much like last time, the fourth one came from who knows where. SciLab maybe?
Wily has one last kooky Navi in his new WWW, that being DrillMan.
Wily has a very important job for DrillMan. The most important he's entrusted to any of his autonomous Navis thus far.
As it turns out, Alpha is being stored at SciLab, which now has its security weakened from Match's shenanigans.
Hmm... Tetra means four, right? I wonder...
Oh dear.
His drill will pierce the... monarchy?
Wily doesn't seem to have a lot of trust in DrillMan, though, and is already planning on sending someone else (I'd play coy, but it's obviously Bass) on standby in the event that DrillMan is hypothetically deleted in a boss fight.
