Adventure Mode
Level 5: Vines and Mines
"Hey, there it is!" Chun-Li said, pointing.
Up ahead of her, Mario, and Chris was the downed aircraft. Upon closer inspection of the smoldering ruins, they found that it used to be an Arwing…who still had a pilot. Moving quickly, the trio scrambled to pull an anthropomorphic fox in a pilot's uniform out from the cockpit. The man-animal was unconscious, with numerous cuts all over his body.
"Fox…" Chris murmured.
"You know him?" Chun-Li asked.
Mario reached into his overalls and pulled out a 1Up Mushroom. Lifting Fox's chin carefully, the portly plumber pushed the green fungus into the canine's mouth. There was a brief sparkle of green and the wounds vanished. After a second, Fox MacCloud opened his eyes.
"Mario…" Fox murmured. Mario let go of Fox's head, allowing him to look at Chris. "And… You're Redfield, right? Nice to meet you."
Chris nodded. "Likewise."
"How do you two know each other?" Chun-Li asked. Mario nodded, wondering the same thing himself.
"Since the merger, my team and several others have been working together," Fox explained, "It hasn't been easy, mostly because the entire world's so screwed up, but we manage."
"What happened to your ship, MacCloud?" Chris asked, nodding at the wreck.
"Ugh, thanks for reminding me," Fox muttered, shaking his head. "I was tracking the airship that attacked Sim City and got shot down."
Mario was surprised to hear this; he didn't think Bowser's Airships had the firepower to take down an Arwing.
"It wasn't their cannons that got me," Fox explained, "It was…well, this guy."
"Guy?" Chun-Li and Chris asked, with Mario cocking his head.
"Big, muscular type," Fox went on, "Dressed in some kind of red army general's outfit. Last thing I saw in the air was him shooting out this huge purple laser from his hand."
Chun-Li gritted her teeth. "Bison…"
The men looked at her.
"M. Bison, the leader of Shadowloo," Chun-Li explained, "Those girls who were at the castle are his puppets. They're on Interpol black list. Especially that monster Bison…"
Mario, Fox, and Chris could tell from the edge in the Chinese lady's voice that she had something to say about Bison and Shadowloo. Something…personal.
"…Yeah," Fox said at last, "Well, before I got shot down, I managed to hack into their computers with a little gadget Slippy outfitted my ship with," Fox pulled out a small PDA from his vest pocket. "I got their flight plan and final destination."
Fox pulled up the file. After studying the image for a few minutes, Mario realized something. He reached into his pocket and unfolded the map he found at Peach's Castle. Sure enough, the X on the paper and one of the X's on the screen had identical coordinates.
"…Well, at least we know the map is legitimate," Chun-Li remarked when Mario showed them this.
"Where'd you guys get that, anyway?" Fox asked.
"Found it," Chris replied, looking off into the distance. "We should probably find some cover, and fast."
"Why?"
Chris pointed. "That."
Some distance away from where the heroes were, a large amount of strange looking creatures were heading towards them. Leading these monsters was an untransformed Nemesis T-Type.
Chun-Li looked around. Spotting a nearby jungle, she said, "Let's go there, now!"
"Hold on," Fox was at his Arwing. "I just need to activate the SOS beacon. With any luck, the Great Fox will home in on it and fix her up."
"You'll need more than that," Chun-Li said, and struck the ground next to the Arwing's crater. "Kikoken!"
The blast kicked up a lot of dirt, and when the dust cleared the Arwing was mostly buried under a pile of soil.
"Think that'll hide your ship without blocking the signal?" She asked.
Fox shrugged. "…That should do the trick."
"Good. Let's go!"
Stage 1: Into the Jungle
As the quartet of heroes ventured into the jungle, they found their path littered with abnormal enemies. These things looked like horrific mish-mashes of various monsters Mario had encountered and bioweapons Chris fought against. Zombies with giant turtle shells, giant snakes with Chain Chomp heads… Luckily, both Chris' and Fox's handhelds allowed them to clear the path of minor threats with ease. The only real trouble came in the form of the occasional relentless Nemesis. When one of those came lumbering at them, Mario and Chun-Li would have to move fast to bring it down, hammering powerful blows while at the same time keeping out of its grip, with Fox and Chris supporting from a distance. And aside from the time Fox accidentally shot Mario's hat off, this system seemed to work.
However, there were other problems. The jungle, as most jungles, had a plethora of dangerous elements. There were pitfalls, carnivorous plants, and self-contained storms, lightning included.
"Gah!" Fox cried, just narrowly avoiding a bolt of lightning that, conveniently enough, also incinerated a mutant. "Why is this happening?!"
"I've been asking that ever since the merger." Chun-Li responded.
They kept moving on, dodging whatever obstacles nature or the forces of evil had set in their way. As they moved, they discussed their next move.
"So we're just going to where X marks the spot?" Fox asked, "Seems kinda risky."
"We don't have much of a choice," Chris said, "Our organizations haven't gotten around to setting up a place to meet at yet. There's still a lot we don't know about this planet's geography. And we still need to figure out what Wesker and his new friends are doing."
"Hopefully we can get the information we need at the Airship's destination," Chun-Li said, kicking a mutant away. "Let's focus on that for now. Until we have the right intel, any plan we make will be just a matter of assumption."
Mario hoped they'd find out what they needed to know on the way. It would save a lot of time and trouble. As they journeyed further into the wood, Mario noticed a flagpole and pulled the flag up.
Stage 1 complete
As the four continued, they didn't notice the large figure zipping throughout the treetops. On the flip side, the big didn't notice and wouldn't have cared about the four heroes fighting monsters beneath him.
Donkey Kong was not enjoying his life in the composite world very much. First off, he had lost track of his banana horde. Second, he didn't know where any of his friends were. Even Cranky's endless complaining and cane-whacks would be nice to have again.
But the most important reason he wasn't enjoying himself were the people chasing him. DK didn't like being chased. Chasing was okay, but being chased was an entirely different matter. Mostly because Donkey Kong rarely encountered anything he had to run away from; Just one of the many advantages of being a 300-pound ape.
DK then stopped thinking about this, or anything as he fell over unconscious. There was a tranquilizer dart stuck firmly in his butt. The mini-clown copter hovered just away from where DK lay in the treetops. A Bison Doll hopped out and walked over to the big ape, followed by some Hammer Bros.. As she pulled out a large net, the dart gun she had fell out of its holster and down through the branches…
…And into an open air vent in the ground. The gun bounced freely off the walls of the shaft until it landed on the floor of an underground tunnel. An armored blue foot absent-mindedly kicked it away.
"Jeez…" murmured MegaMan Volnutt, stopping to look at his surroundings. "This ruin is huge…"
Stage 2: Circuit Shafts
MegaMan continued on his way further and further down the tunnel. His journeyed was hampered not just by traps and Reaverbots, but by the utter silence. Although it had happened a few times before, he just wasn't used to exploring a ruin without his foster-sister Roll acting as Spotter. Data was still with him…somewhere…
MegaMan was forced to abandon this train of thought when he almost got incinerated by a sudden pillar of flames shooting from the floor. After a moment of waiting, the flames ceased and MegaMan was able to continue on his way. He was fortunate that the traps so far were simplistic enough to get around, he knew that worst parts wasn't the fire, but the…nothingness. There were pits in his path, some so long that the only way across was to use smaller ledges as stepping stones in a river of nothingness. As a test, MegaMan had dropped a piece of scrap metal down one such pit, and was deeply disturbed when he didn't hear anything hit the floor…if there was one.
However, while the traps were easy enough to get around, there were still Reaverbots to contend with. The guardians of the ruins were always about, and whenever MegaMan came by they would descend on him like a plague. Luckily for him, the types of Reaverbots were limited to Zakobons and Fingerii. But while the Zakobon would rush MegaMan, the Fingerii perfered to fight at a distance with balls of energy. Destroying them was a bit tricky, but MegaMan was able to do it.
After several meters of dodging traps, bypassing pitfalls and destroying Reaverbots, MegaMan came upon the end of the tunnel. Before him was a closed door, and standing in front of door, doing his little hoping dance, was Data, MegaMan's pet robot monkey.
End Stage 1
"Hi, MegaMan!" Data greeted, never missing a step. "You sure took your time getting here, didn't you? I'm glad to see you're doing well! Oo-kiki!"
Chipper as ever, that was Data. But MegaMan was glad. How long had it been since they had been separated? A small tear welled up in MegaMan's eye. Too long.
"I'm glad too…Data," MegaMan murmured, bending down and giving his friend a pat.
"Well, don't get used to it," Data continued, "Behind this door is a really powerful Reaverbot! I've seen it take then Reaverbots the size of trucks!"
"Why?" He never heard of a Reaverbot attacking other Reaverbots.
"I'm not sure, but it was really brutal! It's resting right now, so my best advice is to blast it while its guard is down," Data suggested, "Here, let me recharge your energy."
There was a slight hum as MegaMan felt his body heal. After giving his fist an inquisitive clench, he went through the door.
He found himself entering a large room. Standing in the center was a tall, humanoid Reaverbot with dark orange armor. He could see that its right forearm was an arm cannon similar to his Mega Buster. And it was aimed at a Servbot!
"No…no!" the Servbot wailed, tears pouring from his eyes. "Please, let me go, Miss Aran!"
MegaMan didn't know why there was a Servbot in the ruins. Maybe it had gotten lost from the rest of the Bonnes. But he knew he couldn't allow it to be left in danger.
"Hey!" MegaMan yelled. The 'Miss Aran' turned away, allowing the Servbot a chance to flee.
MegaMan Volnutt vs Samus Aran
Taking Data's advice, MegaMan let loose with a volley of blasts from his Mega Buster. To dodge it, Aran did something quite unexpected; it curled up into a little ball (About 1/4th of her size) and rolled away. MegaMan tried to hit it, but the Aran was just too fast and nimble to be hit. It went around the room before heading towards MegaMan, zigging and sagging between his shots. MegaMan realized what was going to happen and jumped away just in time to avoid being hit when Aran shot upward spinning.
Now's my chance! MegaMan thought, and fired another stream of energy, this time hitting. Aran resumed its humanoid configuration and fell to the ground. Not wanting to lose his chance, MegaMan activated his jet skates and zoomed towards Aran, changing his special weapon arm to the Drill. MegaMan prepared to strike, but at the last minute Aran rolled away again, this time leaving a few small bombs in its place.
BOOM-BA-BA-BOOM!
This time it was MegaMan's turn to go flying. And as he fell, he just barely saw that Aran had its arm cannon out and charging. By the time he hit the floor the ball of energy was the size of a beach ball.
It fired.
BLAM!
And it hit.
End Battle
When MegaMan woke up, he was lying flat on his back with the Aran standing over him, arm cannon pointed directly at his chest. There was a tense two minutes of silence.
Then, the Aran cocked its head. It tapped the side of its head a few times before snapping its fingers. That was when something even more shocking- It took its head off! A mass of blond hair fell out as the Aran revealed its human head.
"I hate it when the speaker breaks on me." The woman commented.
"You're…a person?!" MegaMan asked, stunned.
"Yes," She replied coolly, "Samus Aran, bounty hunter. And now you can explain who you are and why you attacked."
"I…you..that is…" MegaMan looked over and saw Data coming up. "Data! You said she was a Reaverbot!"
"I thought she was, honest!" Data insisted, doing his hopping dance. "I kept getting an inhuman reading from her, I swear! Oo-kiki!"
"A scanning error? I guess that explains it," Samus mused, "Considering…"
"What?" MegaMan asked.
Samus shook her head. "Never mind. It's not important. Anyway, I can't mess around with you all day. I need to track down the pirates' central headquarters."
"Pirates?" So Tron is here! MegaMan thought, and said, "Maybe I can help you with that…"
Samus raised an eyebrow.
ELSEWHERE
In an underground area a bit deeper but more to the left of where MegaMan and Samus were, a train was blasting down an ancient railroad. Clinging to the roof of the caboose was none other than Haggar and Ness. (Remember them?)
In Sim City they had discovered the subway the Servbots used to sneak in and esacpe with their stolen goods. Stowing away, they planned to follow the Servbots back to their hideout and put the kibosh on their looting for good.
Haggar was thankful that they hadn't been discovered yet. While the Servbots weren't anything in the combat department, he didn't think it would be a good idea to start a brawl on a locomotive in motion.
Ness was thankful that the tunnel ceiling wasn't lower. In fact, it seemed like there was enough room to stand up!
They heard a Servbot speaking over a loudspeaker of sorts. It was hard to hear on the outside, but they were able to make out, "We are now entering the outer ruins! Please prepare for anti-Reaverbot measures!"
"What's a Reaverbot?" Haggar asked. Ness just shrugged, clueless.
The two got their answer when several Zakobon fell down from the ceiling onto the train.
Stage 2: Underground Railroad (All aboard the Serbot Express!)
What followed was one continuous battle atop the Servbot Express, as Ness and Haggar tossed and knocked off as many Reaverbots as they could. It was a simple matter at first, what with Zakobon's being one of the most basic and weakest Reaverbot, but things soon escalated. The type of Reaverbots attacking changed from Zakobon to Frongel, which meant Ness and Haggar had to be more careful. Unlike the stumbling Zakobon, the Frongel could jump high, making getting to one a chore. Ness' psy attacks made the matter easier, but he still had to watch out. Haggar found clothes lining one easier when they were in aerial motion, due to the relative size different. Sometimes a flying type of Reaverbot called Foo-Foo came about, and their small size were almost impossible to deal with.
Of course, there was also the 'measures' the Servbots themselves used to attack the Reaverbots. Panels alongside of the train would open up, revealing missile launchers. This meant that not only did Ness and Haggar have to deal with the Reaverbots, but they also had to make sure they caught in the missiles' line of fire!
This three-way train-top battle went on for some time. Ness and Haggar did their best, using PK Fire and tossed Reaverbots to intercept the missiles. Eventually, both the rain of Reaverbots and ballistics calmed down.
End Stage
As the train continued along the tracks, Ness and Haggar fell back onto its roof. As they rested, another Servbot's voice could be heard (Just barely) on the train's PA system;
"We now leaving the Reaverbot area! Now approaching our base's station…"
BACK WHERE WE LEFT OFF
MegaMan Volnutt and Samus Aran walked along the corridor together. They eventually came upon another door at the end, and as usual, Data was there, doing his little dance.
"How did he get here before us?" Samus asked, "We left him behind in the last room."
"I don't know, he just does that…" MegaMan sighed.
"Oo-kiki! There's a really powerful Reaverbot behind this door!" Data exclaimed, "And this time it really is a Reaverbot, I double-checked!"
"Do you have any intel on its functions?" Samus asked.
"It's AI is damaged, so it can't focus on more than one target," Data answered, "My advice is to fight separately!"
"Will do," MegaMan nodded, and looked at Samus. "Well, here we go!"
Entering the door, they found themselves in a room very similar to the one they first met in. Then the ground began to shake, and out for the shadows came an immense, humanoid, hunched-over Reaverbot. The thing stood over Samus and MegaMan for a moment before lifting one of its massive arms. The duo jumped out of the way just in time to avoid the crushed by its blow.
Boss Battle: Giwan
Samus and MegaMan both circled around it. Although they were able to avoid its attacks, each time it hit the floor its fist created shockwaves, which meant the bounty hunter and the digger had to keep moving to avoid being tossed around by tremors. They fired at Giwan whenever they could, but none of their shots seemed to slow it down.
I've fought one of these before, MegaMan thought, Is there a faster way to take it down? Then he spied the pink spike jutting out from Giwan's hindquarters. That's right! It's weak spot!
MegaMan changed his arm to the Powered Buster and fired off a round. However, before it could hit the pink spike, Giwan spun around, flailing its arms. The shot was easily deflected, and now Giwan was focused on attacking MegaMan. However, before it could get near the digger, Samus rolled by in her ball form, leaving behind a couple of bombs for it to step on. The sound of the explosions echoed off the walls of the chamber, but didn't seem to do any obvious damage.
"Doesn't anything slow this thing down?" Samus grumbled as she unrolled herself.
"The pink spike at the rear!" MegaMan shouted, "It'll lose power quicker if you hit it!"
"Is that what you aiming at before?" Samus asked, "Looks like it knows how to protect that spot."
And it did. No matter what Samus or MegaMan did, Giwan make sure its pink spike was untouched. The two had no choice but to keep moving about and shooting, hoping to wear it down. While it was a strategy neither were unfamiliar with, Giwan didn't seem affected by their weapons, and its tireless assault was starting to take its toll on the pair.
Neither the kid or I are going to last much longer at this rate, Samus thought, and began input a certain command into his arm cannon. I'm gonna have to unload the big guns…hope I won't need the Power Suit for a while! "MegaMan!" She shouted, "Keep the robot's attention for about one minute while I charge up the Zero Cannon!"
"R-right!" MegaMan replied, jumping and barely dodging another ground-shaking punch. Changing his special weapon to the Blade Arm, MegaMan slashed a few times at the arm. He didn't move fast enough to avoid being knocked back, and went flying. As MegaMan bounced off of the floor, Samus charged at Giwan, her arm cannon glowing ominously.
I need to fire it at point blank, or it might dodge! She thought, sweating in spite of her suit cooling function.
The Giwan saw Samus coming and raised its arms. At the same time, Samus raised her arm cannon and fired.
FUUUWAAAAAASSHH
What came out from the arm cannon's barrel wasn't so much a laser as MegaMan recognized it but a giant pillar of light, almost dwarfing the Reaverbot in width. And the force was so great that it melted through the otherwise invulnerable walls of the ruin. When the attack ended, only Giwan's legs were left, clattering to the ground.
"That was incredible, Sam- Samus?" MegaMan's amazement turned to worry as he saw Samus' power suit sparking. The bounty hunter herself was on one knee.
"Don't worry," Samus said, "Using Zero Laser overloads the power suit's frame…it'll take a while for it to cool down."
"But…"
The power suit fell off of Samus in pieces, and the woman stood up. MegaMan's jaw dropped.
Whoa…she's beautiful… He thought.
"It'll take time, but once it cools down I'll be able to restore the power suit," Samus explained, tying her hair into a ponytail. "Until then, I'll have to depend on the Zero Suit and my Paralyzer."
"Your what?" MegaMan asked, trying not to stare.
"My gun." Samus reached down into the power suit's pieces and pulled it out. After gathering up the suit's parts, she cocked the Paralyzer turned to the room's door. "Let's get moving. We've dawdled here long enough."
MegaMan snapped to attention. "Right!"
End Level 5