Part 39: Bonus 1: More Temporal Tomfoolery

Bonus Update 1: More Temporal Tomfoolery

What's that? You thought we were done with weird time stuff after Operation: Shooting Star finished? Oh, of course not. The space-time continuum isn't nearly done getting torn in half yet, there's still some notion of causality left.

Ah fuck, it's OSS.



To solve the problem of the timelines not being fucked up nearly enough, we have to go back to the doghouse.



When we enter, there's a big ball of... wibbly-wobbly computery stuff. (Hey what can I say, it's a very good way to describe what's going on here.)

You might be wondering, "Why wasn't the ball of energy there when we visited the first time?" The true answer is, "It was, I'm posting this out of order because of exactly one textbox at the very end of the sidequest". The mechanical answer is a little easier.

You all might have heard of a kinda-obscure game series called Mega Man Battle Network. If you have one of the GBA games in your lower DS slot and then boot up this game, it triggers a sidequest. The ball will only appear while you have the game in, so don't forget to finish the quest before removing the game.




Geo do not approach random things you see hovering around, they might kill you.

Nonsense. Absorb its power into your own.






Weird. A very small Mr. Hertz has been trapped inside the ball all this time.

Kill him!






No, please don't ask Geo to do sidequests, the kid is hopeless with them.

But a sidequest means items. GIVE.






Really they just stole a GMD containing like 200 zenny.








Seriously, the security of these SciLab jokers must be swiss cheese. At least with this level of competence, it can't be a very important location. This data is probably just someone's lunch order. And you just know Brenda will complain if the intern doesn't get her sandwich perfect with lettuce, onion, and light vinaigrette. Light vinaigrette, how do you fuck this up so many times.

"Ah, shit! All hands on deck! Get the data back! We'll lose our jobs if her sandwich is even slightly wrong! Fuck, fuck, fuck!"






You spoke with them for like ten seconds, how are you this naive - wait, right, 5th grader.

"I can sense his intentions."



After chatting with Ye Ol' Glowy Orb, a Mr Hertz shows up near the portal here to remind you what to do. If you talk to him, he'll mention that the 'bad guy' ran off somewhere... artsy.



It's a good thing this is literally the only art piece in the entire town, or we might have a harder time finding the thief.



or, alternatively, don't talk to the mr. hertz and run around with no idea where to go for ten minutes. nobody would do that, though. that's silly.

Get fucked, Yeti. Always talk to NPCs.




Hmm, I wonder if this guy's the thief?

Racial profiling.







I'm glad these people confess to their crimes at the slightest prompting. "Hi how are you today?" "I just stole the Mona Lisa."

Some BN habits never die, I guess.






Jammers are stupid.

I mean...






Not that Geo's much smarter.



That aside, our fight is against three Jammers. This can be kinda scary when you do it at low level with awful starter chips, but it's also a little bit more fun that way. I like to do the sidequest as soon as possible.

This was fun doing it before Taurus Fire way back. I distinctly recall them getting one lucky hit off, but the rest was pro-level.



Kinda like what Yeti just had. Deal, Yeti. It's the closest thing to a compliment-Wait, I'm complimenting Yeti. This timeline truly is fucked.

But, like other Jammer fights, they have exactly two moves. Just stay calm and you'll win with no problem at all.





Hey, cool, data get. Though, I wonder how much it sells for...



A quick jaunt back to the doghouse later, and we are face-to-orb with the voice.

Missed opportunity for Key Item text.






Didn't think that far ahead, did you?





This seems like an awful idea.




Wha?! This guy?!

Oh, they at least gave him a new sprite.





I'm sure it's a coincidence. The color blue is very popular. (This line right here is the whole reason why people are convinced that Geo is a descendent of Lan. They just conveniently ignore the fact that after this long, any of Lan's genes would be very, very unlikely to express themselves unless genetics are really weird.)

I admit that it would be very Capcom-cheese to do that, but by playing through the series, you'll see that they aren't related.



Oh boy! Screen shakes! You know what that means, grab your monitor or phone and shake it around for an interactive LP!

AAAAAAAAAA SHAKE.






This stupid textbox right here (and I guess technically the one where we got the MystrDat in the first place) is the reason I had to put it off until after Taurus, because Buster Boy Blue didn't come up with the name until Luna asked him.






MegaMan, why do you have that. It's an alien's weapon, why do you have it.

Glad that even though the portal is closing, the heroes have a chance to exchange items.







After the 'shocking reveal', MegaMan.exe leaves through the portal.



Another quick fade to white, and everything is back to normal.





You came up with the name in an instant, Geo. Of course there's going to be someone named the same thing.

---

And that's it! The BN Blaster is a Mega weapon with a 1/5/1 stat spread, so it's piss-weak and takes forever to charge but if you hold B it's like having a pea-shooting machinegun. Back when I played this game multiplayer with people, I tended to use it to break barriers and do chip damage while waiting for the Custom Gauge to come back.

It's a fun little sidequest at least, and the cameo is nice. Just don't think about the timelines too hard; Operation Shooting Star was written way later and they didn't pay that much attention to this optional sidequest's writing.

That won't stop people from rationalizing, though! Easiest way is to just say this sidequest isn't canon.