I own no Megaman characters, any familiar dialogue or the main plot. Credits to Capcom.
Reply to Ghost501's review of Chapter 7: The problem for me is positioning Megaman at the right angle. If I mess up, I would bump into a wall, slide along it and to the wrong path. Then, I have to backtrack and try again.
-Chapter 8: Not So Cool As Ice-
In The Waterworks Network...
The cyber sky was dark blue with bright images of water droplets which stood out from the dark. The cyber ground was mostly made up of brown platforms with green pipe like bridge structures connecting them. Seemed ordinary, right?
"Funny... It's frozen here," Megaman mused, noticing that some of the platforms and bridges were encrusted with sheets of ice as he took a walk around. "No Navis, no Mr Progs... What!?"
"What's wrong, Megaman!?"
There were indeed some Mr Progs scattered about, as far as Megaman could see, but they were frozen!
"One of the guys said that they would be debugging!" Lan said. "Why are they frozen?"
"Something's up, Lan," Megaman warned his NetOp. "But I'll go and find the water supply and see what exactly is up."
"Let's do this, Megaman."
Megaman began to head forward through the bridge. It was the only thing to walk on to in order to progress. The blue Navi took it slowly, step by step, as he was walking on ice, and he didn't want to slip! He continued to walk along in this manner until he came across a stream of water. At first, he was shocked, but he took a look upwards to see that it was coming from a large tap. On Lan's advice, he decided to find a way to turn it off. Conveniently, there was a path which branched off and upwards to the tap, so Megaman gingerly stepped to it. There was no ice on this side path, so he paced normally.
Suddenly, two blue clusters of data began to form on top of the slope. Megaman formed his Mega Buster, ready for the viruses that were to come. The groups of data formed into two VolGears. Their bodies were big gray mouths and they had flames for limbs and gray pointed hats. One of the VolGears had red flames and a red face, while the other had blue flames and a blue face. They didn't look too challenging, but the moment they opened their mouths, two pillars, one of fire and one of water, surged upwards and began to rush down the slope at Megaman. But he just stood there.
"Megaman! Do something!" Lan commanded him. "The Fire Tower and Aqua Tower are heading straight for you!"
"Heh heh. Watch," Megaman said to his NetOp.
Megaman awaited the two towers to home in on him. They did so. Megaman smirked. The Fire Tower and Aqua Tower suddenly collided with each other and a huge cyber smoke cloud covered the area. The smoke eventually cleared. Megaman and the VolGears still stood on the opposite ends of the slope. There was a silence.
"Oh, I get it!" Lan said, breaking the silence. "Water puts out fire in the cyberworld, too!"
"See, Lan? I had nothing to worry about," Megaman responded. To the VolGears, he taunted them, "Maybe you two don't work so well together after all! Don't worry, I'll separate you from each other!"
The viruses showed off a panicked look on their faces as Megaman charged his Mega Buster. He rapidly fired at the red VolGear, deleting it in an instant. In immense fear, the blue VolGear hopped away. Megaman let it go, for it left the area and probably vowed to never harm anything again.
"Well, that was easy," Lan realized. "But enough of that. Let's turn off that tap, Megaman."
The Navi made his way up the slope and continued to his right, to where the tap was. Gripping the handle with his two hands, he turned it counterclockwise. The water flow shrunk gradually until it stopped completely. Megaman headed back the way he came and continued along the main path. A few steps later, he came across an ice encrusted crossroad. Ice was one thing, crossroads were another, but the two put together didn't appeal to Megaman at all. Taking a wild guess, he cautiously stepped along the left path, only to find a dead end brown platform. he headed back and tried the middle, only to encounter a blue VolGear. It was deleted quickly, but it was a minor nuisance regardless. After returning back, Megaman headed for the right path, the only path left.
"This place can get pretty confusing," he said to himself along the way. "Probably to keep away intruders..."
"Well, we're here to save this place! Why do they have to make things difficult for us?" Lan groaned.
"Nothing is ever fair, Lan," Megaman sighed. "The best thing we can do is just go along with it."
"You know, Megaman, I have a feeling we'll be doing this a lot more often."
"Do what?"
"Saving the day! I mean, the house and the school were safe thanks to our actions, but what if there are a lot more problems and we're the only ones who can fix them?"
"You're just being paranoid, Lan. There shouldn't be any more problems after this one."
"Let's hope so, at least..."
After a few minutes of crossroads, taps and viruses, Megaman encountered a Navi! Yes, a Navi in the frozen Waterworks Network! This red Navi's white hair flowed down. His helmet had a fin spiking upwards and a white ring surrounding the bottom of it. There was an emblem on his red chest: a yellow circle split in a thunderbolt pattern into black and white sections. This could also be seen on the back of his red gloves.
He also wore shades! To be cool? Sure!
At this moment, the red Navi had a Cyber Sword ready, but it was purple, unlike the regular blue sword.
"Who are you?" he demanded to know.
"That's no Waterworks Navi!" Megaman said to himself.
"He must be part of World Three!" Lan warned him. "Watch out!"
At that moment, the mysterious Navi lunged for Megaman and swung his sword at him, only to be barely dodged.
"What are you doing!?" Megaman shouted.
"You dare call me one of those World Three lackeys?" the Navi growled.
"What's the matter, Protoman?" a voice asked him. It sounded strangely familiar to Lan.
"Chaud, sir!" Protoman addressed him.
"You! From before!" Lan called out to the same person.
"What? You again?" the boy grunted. "You lost or something? Because I can tell you're definitely not an Official Net Battler."
"Do I sound lost to you?" Lan retorted.
"Fine. I guess I'll introduce myself. The name's Chaud Blaze and my Navi here is Protoman."
"Get out of the way or I'll delete you, kid," Protoman threatened Megaman.
"You can't just delete whoever's in your way!" Lan snarled.
"I can and have the power to do so, Chaud replied nonchalantly. "But I can't waste time with you now. I have a job to do. I'll deal with you later. Protoman, jack out!"
"Yes, sir!"
"PROTOMAN, LOGGING OUT," a computerized voice announced as Protoman disappeared in a blue light.
"What an attitude that guy has," Lan growled.
"Lan, calm down," Megaman told him. "Getting angrier will make you thirstier."
"Fine... You're right," Lan sighed. "Let's go."
"Roger."
Megaman continued to make his way round the convoluted maze known as the Waterworks Network when out of nowhere, blue bits of data appeared in front of and to the sides of him. He pointed his Mega Buster in front of him and turned around cautiously. The viruses that spawned were Piranhas, but unlike the real world's carnivorous fish, they took turns shooting arrows at Megaman. He only got hit once, but it was a minor wound which would recover itself. The Navi warped behind the leftward Piranha with Area Steal and blasted it with a point blank Spreader shot, deleting the virus. Maneuvering around the arrow shots, he blasted at the remaining two Piranhas and deleted them.
"Megaman! That arrow didn't hurt too bad, did it?"
"Nah. It's all good, Lan."
After that encounter, Megaman continued rightward (in relation to where he was originally headed, of course), then turned right from where the paths branched off. What he found was a tap with water running. However, there was something off about that one.
"Hm? How did the handle come off?" Megaman wondered out loud.
"What? Well, it doesn't matter for now," Lan said to his Navi. "Let's find another way."
After heading back to where he encountered the Piranhas, Megaman decided to head straight. Continuing along the correct path (or so he and Lan assumed), he saw more bits of data, signaling viruses were about. This time, the viruses were a Fishy and a Puffy. The Puffy fired a bubble and Megaman kept jumping out of its way, but the bubble homed in on the Navi as it kept bouncing. The Fishy took aim and blasted off at Megaman and landed a direct hit. The virus charged backwards for a second hit. Megaman got up easily, however, and barraged at the Puffy with Mega Buster shots, taking the bubble down with it, for he knew that the bubble would get in the way. He received a Wide Sword from Lan and awaited the Fishy's attack. The green virus charged forward, but was sliced on half.
"You okay, Megaman?" Lan asked him. "That Fishy virus attack looked like it hurt a lot."
"No cuts or anything," Megaman reassured him as he kept walking. "I'll be fine."
After a long pathway, Megaman finally arrived at the pump. It was a huge structure, albeit in a very frozen state as of that moment. A voice was then heard.
"So, you're the ones behind this!"
"Huh?" Megaman looked for the source of the noise, to find a Navi confronted with two ColdBear viruses. This hunched over Navi resembled a shark, but with two legs instead of a tail. Appropriately, he was called Sharkman.
"Unfreeze the pump and I won't have to delete you!" Sharkman yelled at the ColdBears.
"Sharkman!" Megaman called for him.
"Hmm?" Sharkman turned around and found Megaman. "Well, if it isn't Megaman!"
"Sharkman? Then, that means..." Lan began.
"Yep! It's me!" a voice called to Lan, who recognized the voice. The two knew each other for a while and last fought alongside each other against a minor World Three attack on DenTech Town Aquarium.
"Maysa! But how did you get Sharkman in here?"
"Shhh. I'm hiding in the basement of the Waterworks," Maysa answered in a hushed tone.
"Wait. There's a jack in port for this place there? And there's a basement I didn't know about!?"
"Yep. Behind the- hey, that reminds me. How did you get in here?"
"The water cooler upstairs."
"What? But don't you need an ID card to get up there?"
"About that..."
"Well, it doesn't matter now, boy. These guys ain't gonna unfreeze the pump, so we're gonna have to delete 'em!"
"Ha! Let's do this!"
The ColdBears shot blocks of ice at Megaman and Skarkman, but they were either dodged easily or broken through by Sharkman's Fin Cutter attack, a fin shaped projectile attack that he could fire from his fins. The Fin Cutter knocked a ColdBear away and Megaman took advantage of this by shooting that same one with a charged Mega Buster shot. The other ColdBear, however, was persistent enough to keep shooting ice blocks at the two Navis, but it only resulted in failure. A combined attack from a Cannon shot and another Fin Cutter was all that it took to finish the job.
"That was all they got?" Sharkman smirked. "Too easy!"
"Yep! Piece of cake!" Megaman smirked also. "Hey, Lan! We did it!"
The two Coldbears were indeed linked to the freezing of the pump. The ice shrouding it began to disintegrate. Bit by bit, the ice disappeared until all that remained was the big pump itself.
"We did it!" Lan cheered. "Thanks for the help, Maysa!"
"Aw, I didn't do much," Maysa laughed sheepishly. "But hey, let's go check out the water! Maybe all the fish will be happily swimming now!"
"I hope so, too."
Outside The Waterworks...
There was a pond to the left of the Waterworks. Like the school's pond, it was normally clear and clean. What made it different from the school's was that there was a fountain at the center. It was a statue of a fish with an open mouth and water rushed up from the mouth and down into the pond. Because of the water problems, it was in an empty state the whole morning. Not even the fish poured out the clear liquid from its mouth.
But because the pump was fixed, the water have returned back, right? Well, the water did come back, but not the way Lan and Maysa expected it to.
It was polluted.
Virus Log-
VolGears: gray mouth viruses which open themselves to fire their attacks; those with red flames fire Fire Towers and those with blue flames shoot Aqua Towers (putting the two together isn't a good idea)
Piranhas: fish like viruses which shoot arrows from their mouths (usually come in pairs or trios)
Fishys: green jet bird like viruses which charge back and forth at its enemies to attack
Puffys: puffer fish like viruses which blow bubbles that bounce, closing in on enemies, and explode on contact with them
ColdBears: polar bear like viruses with blue jackets which shoot blocks of ice at its enemies
Like the idea of virus logs in this novelization? I thought it would be a neat little thing to throw in at the end of whatever chapter Megaman encounters a new type of virus. I could elaborate more on the viruses, but I prefer them to be brief snippets of information.
Anyway, see you next chapter!
-Have a great day, week, month, whatever, and stay upbeat, y'all!-