Part 56: Going Postal in the Postgame

Welcome to the final area of the game, NebulaArea6. The area is a two-level square with the recurring last-area staircase at the end. Said staircase is blocked by a door that refuses to open unless we "Defeat the darkness that lurks within you".

The only other things to do? More doors. Each of these refuses to open unless you've S-Ranked the SP version of the teammate Navi it corresponds to.

This one, first to the right from the entrance, is ShadowMan.



KnightMan is second to the right.



Right past his gate, however, is an invisible path that lets you warp to the lower level from the platform it leads to.



The last HP Memory in the game, in terms of placement. Also down here is a PMD containing the LifeAura D MegaChip.



Top-right is Colonel.



First on the left side is TomahawkMan.



Second-left is NumberMan.



And lastly, ToadMan. So given the isometric perspective of the games, clockwise from top is the order the teammates joined us. And are those NebulaGray soul balls? Yes. They're used to represent souls in general here. Kinda of a good choice, even if it's lazily reusing the sprite, I'd imagine a soul looks something like a wispy blue glowball.



Just past ToadMan's door is a teleporter that leads to the obligatory BugFrag trader.

Welp. Time to go hunt down the V2 and SP versions of the teammates! We're back to the rule of "The V3/SP version randomly appears in the area you beat the V2".



Colonel's hiding on the rightmost platform you can access in Undernet3.



He has a new attack that serves as a finishing blow. He'll throw his mantle to stun you and hold you in place, followed by him stabbing the shit out of you several times. It hurts, though it isn't an instant kill.

I'm not recording any of these fights because the doors in NebulaArea6 all lead to the DS versions, which will get recorded.



ShadowMan is in OranArea1, right below the path that leads to OranArea3.



Speaking of OranArea3...There's a nasty surprise in store for those who use BassCross.



It's really too bad I couldn't get BassCross working sooner, I could have taken on this fight as early as right after the ShadeMan mission. I'll make up for this next game.



Guess who's a tad interested in the fact we're using BassCross?



MegaMan knows Bass all too well. The hardest, most fun fight in every game he shows up in.



Bass, rather than being furious at us for copying him like he was at Wily in MMBN2, is intrigued. After all, he's quite aware of the merits of copying the powers of others for one's own use.

Come to think of it, the GetAbility program is virtually identical to the original MegaMan's weapon copy ability.



As usual, MegaMan and Lan are both aware that Bass is their ultimate archenemy, and is much, much more powerful than anyone else they wind up fighting.



Here he comes.



Bass acknowledges that we've succeeded in using the same power he does. And if you're wondering, no, none of his dialogue changes depending on if you use BassCross Gold or Silver.



Bass, as always, is really damned tough. Down but not out, he hints that his power is unstable and needs to be kept on a tight leash.



And that he'll be after us again.



I already ran into TomahawkMan before, so my apologies but no screenshot of his location. Which, incidentally, is on the leftmost square platform in SciLab4.



I'm surprised I never ran into him before, KnightMan is right next to Lan's PC.



NumberMan is an immediate right from one of the ramps in EndArea3.



And ToadMan is...wherever the hell this is. Have I mentioned I despise EndArea?

That's the whole team, so back to NebulaArea!



Where we've got a new surprise way in the end of NebulaArea4.



Considering how early he could have been fought before, this really could have been a long time depending on when you beat the earlier Bass.



More HP and damage. Actually, these two forms of Bass are weaker than when you'd normally fight him in a non-BassCross game. For one thing, he lacks one of his attacks.



It's always fun, Bass.



TEXT PLACEMENT.



More like text DISplacement if you ask me...if I remember correctly, this stupid issue finally gets resolved in MMBN6. It might not.

Anyway, Bass is quite surprised to be beaten yet again. Considering how exponentially his power grows every time we fight him, it really is kind of surprising, unlike typical villains who try the same things over and over and are shocked every time they fail.



The thing is, Bass is drawing power from that same aggregate of hatred and darkness that ChaosLord does.



So he's got the same sort of regeneration powers that other dark beings do now. Yes, Bass has gotten even more dangerous because he basically has G-Virus powers of evolving after every battle, although the effects are far less mutagenic.



And much like another Resident Evil villain, Bass has one goal in mind.



Killing MegaMan.



And now for an avatar-worthy line courtesy of Lan:



We're attacking the darkness! So, Lan Belmont, are we going to go defeat ShadeMan and the night now?

And speaking of attacking the darkness, it's time to get the DS Navi battles underway.

Once again, they've been compiled into a single video for your viewing. However, this time around I was given a challenge by a friend: Design a new folder to battle each DS Navi with, incorporating their own basic (not SP) NaviChip and corresponding code. I further imposed that no recovery between fights was allowed, so this really is a boss rush.

Each soulball behind the doors has something to say, and I've transcribed it rather than take screenshots because only one line varies between all 6 of them.

"My flames reflect the darkness in your soul."

(KnightMan) "Your trustworthy soul that protects your friends..."

(Colonel) "Your masterful soul that commands all..."

(ShadowMan) "Your piercing soul that sees through all..."

(TomahawkMan) "Your powerful soul that crushes all..."

(NumberMan) "Your wise soul that has all the answers..."

(ToadMan) "Your healing soul that soothes all..."

"It stirs my flames!"

When you beat the battle, the soul ball informs you quite politely that it will return when you Jack-Out.

So, here are the codes of the folders I used:

KnightMan Folder: K-C-M

Colonel Folder: C-D-Z

ShadowMan: S-V-H

TomahawkMan: T-L-F

NumberMan: N-I-F

ToadMan: T-Y-R



With all that out of the way, the final door opens, letting us access ChaosLord at long last.



This is the core of all DarkPower and hatred.



CHAOSLORD SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS. And no, he's not the vortex itself, that's the "Dark Matter" that his forms emerge from. We actually will fight him multiple times, but he takes a specific form for the first fight.



IS ANYONE SURPRISED BY CHAOSLORD'S MOTIVE? Although CHAOSLORD implies that he's actually some other sort of being that's come here, rather than being formed by the world's hate in digital form. Yet another hint that he's an Eldritch Abomination of some kind.



Surprise, his first form is NebulaGray V2. Not so much of an anticlimax considering that this is basically Round 1 against him. Next update will cover his other forms.

For now, let's kick some ass in a way I'm sure you'll find fitting. Yeah, I made a specific Anti-NebulaGray folder to swat him like a fly.



That Castlevania joke works better than I thought, now he's talking like SotN Shaft.



DarkPower self-propagates, as Regal noted. Violence begets violance, hate earns hate in return. This is why the teammate DS soulballs return whenever you Jack-Out, ChaosLord does the same thing. Which of his other forms you fight from now on depends on how fast your average time against the DS battles is.



Considering he's stronger than the final boss, yes, it was. And he was humiliated. (Or rather, I was when I uploaded the wrong video of a failed attempt before the folder got improved.)

(AND THEN DID IT FUCKING AGAIN.)



Duo speaks again, for the first time since the first NebulaArea.



Once again, he grants us his power. Duo's redeemed himself from MMBN4, not an easy feat. He's now more of a godlike presence that aids those who fight against the DarkPower.



Hell yes, the MeteorKnuckle M GigaChip! It's like the JusticeOne chip, except it calls down TWELVE fists that randomly bombard the enemy field, doing 100 points of breaking damage each and cracking a single panel.

Team ProtoMan players get BigHook B instead. That only has 2 fists, but they're enormous and both sweep across the entire enemy field. Enemies standing in the middle column get punched twice.

Now if only there was an Anger Impact chip...



Over and over again, even.



You've come to the right battle-hungry guy, Duo! MegaMan asks who he is, presumably not being able to recognize Duo from his voice alone.



"I'm the judge who almost destroyed your entire civilization, but that might worry you a bit, so I'll be vague instead."



Yeah, there's really no question that Duo is godlike in the MMBN series. Duo is evidently the God of Judgement or Punishment, while Bass is the God of Destruction.

They were both created by mortals. And we've kicked both of their asses before, the latter...let me think. Fake Bass, Real Bass, BassDeluxe, Bass, BassGS, Bass Omega, Bass, BassSP, Bass, Bass. 10 times in this thread alone. 11 times in the whole series up to this point, considering he was a 100% completion secret boss in MMBN1.

I think we deserve his title.



And no, MegaMan still doesn't have any idea that Duo is Duo. To be fair, I wouldn't expect Duo to be hanging around either considering he's flying around in the depths of interstellar space.



Materant, here's your cue. "We'll just pretend this never happened."



Jokes aside, Lan's justified here, because we've still got some work to do!