The Big Shake

 

After thirty seconds of looking at a big ol' city at various angles, EARTHQUAKE! Mega Man is on the scene, and he begins by saving an old lady from falling rubble and fixing a monorail line. He spies Cut Man and Guts Man walking casually down the street, and decides to harass them. They reply be cutting down an electricity post, and while Mega Man is fixing it, Guts Man fires a tiny tracker bug onto his neck, and with their mission accomplished, they scarper. Mega Man gives chase, but is slowed down by meat chunks of debris, so he returns to Dr. Light's lab.
 

Light takes note that there are no fault lines in the area, nor has there been in an earthquake before in that region. They immediately set to blaming Wily, what with his two lackeys being there, so Mega Man goes out to examine the centre of the quake area, but is delayed with Roll having an earthquake sensor and yammering on about how he needs her help, though in the end Light praises her device, but says it's too unsafe.

We then see Wily watching all this on his magic screen, where he too does some blabbering over how he was behind the earthquake, he can use the earthquakes to bring the world to its knees, and Proto Man will be waiting to ambush Mega Man at the quake centre, and they'll know when to strike thanks to the tracking bug.
 

Mega Man and Rush arrive in the cave of a quake centre, slide down a steep slope, and as expected, are greeted by the usual cronies, as well as Stone Man and Drill Man. Despite Cut Man claiming he can't take them all, that's precisely what he does, and defeats all but Proto Man. Before Proto Man can actually do anything, Wily enters in a massive skull drill, and everyone advances towards Mega. He dodges the shots of Cut Man and the drill, and knocks down Stone Man and takes his weapon, using it to destroy the lasers of the drilling machine.
 

While Dr. Wily sits there complaining, Mega Man knocks down the other three guys with a spring kick, and uses the typical "I'm here now wait now I'm not" trick to have Guts Man punch Drill Man in the face. Proto Man tries to get around to that duel he keeps trying to have in every episode, but Mega just explodes the cliff he's on and escapes with Rush Jet. Wily insults his creations for failing, but does say he could use the tracker bug to spy on Dr. Light. Oh ho ho!

Mega Man and Light meet up with the mayor, and confirm to him that Wily was behind the earthquake. Immediately after the mayor asks what they can do about it, Wily appears on the television and suggests surrendering to him, or else he'll shake the cities into the ground. Wily then causes another, smaller earthquake, just as a reminder.

 

The mayor is breaking down; Wily has already caused millions worth of damage, but Light brings up an idea: His anti-quake stabiliser, a device he started but never finished years ago. Naturally, Wily sees this on his magic screen as well, and is highly frustrated, so he sets the quake power to maximum and aims it directly as Light's lab.

Over there right now, they're working on the very device and doing pretty well, when Roll's device alerts them of a really big earthquake. The others don't hear anything, and it's only after Mega Man suggests fixing it that the quake hits, causing the stabiliser to fall over and shatter on top of Dr. Light. Any chance of fixing it is nullified by the fact Mega Man picks it up and hurls it across the room to help Light to his feet, and then shove the others out of the way so he can have several girders and a ton of rubble fall on him.
 

Wily couldn't be happier over this, but gets over it fairly quickly to move onto the next target. Mega Man unearths himself, revealing one of his arms is busted, and finds Light, Roll and Rush in a security bunker. While Light goes to fix up Mega Man, Wily gives the mayor a call, telling him Mega Man and Dr. Light are goners, and asks what he's going to do; the mayor threatens Wily to shake the world to pieces, for he'll be the emperor of nothing. Wily toys with his broken state by calling that a bad decision, and leaves him.

Back at the lab, Light is just finishing up the repairs on Mega Man, and discovers the tracking bug; he gestures Roll over with her airtight food containers, and drops the bug into it. He then explains that everything that's happened can be, as usual, blamed on Wily, and with the anti-quake stabiliser both discovered and destroyed by Wily, looks like they've failed. But Mega Man has a plan.
 

He, Roll and Rush enter the city with the container and a "hunk of junk" modelled to look like the stabiliser, where he explains that he'll use the bug to bring Wily to him. They place the bug on the faux-stabiliser and talk false words, and his plan works like a charm. They find the fake stabiliser but no Mega Man, and begin searching for him. He drops down, owns Drill Man and takes his weapon, but Roll's attempt at being cool fails miserably, as after she sucks up Cut Man's blade, she gets kidnapped by Proto Man.

 

He drags her into the drilling machine, which then burrows it's way into the subway. After crushing Cut Man and Guts Man with a monorail line, Mega Man gives chase and drills himself inside, taking care of Proto Man and releasing Roll. Wily and Proto escape on flying chairs, but not before programming the machine to explode. Mega Man deals with this by kicking and slamming the console until it explodes, only to then realise the machine's going to crash, so they climb out and leap away from the explosion. Wily got away, though.
 

Our heroes, with a job well done, help rebuild the city. Today's Rush gag is dragging a big pile of materials with Roll sitting on top, and after a promise of being given an energy biscuit for finishing the job, he becomes Rush Jet and flies off, dumping Roll onto the ground. Mega Man just shakes his head and looks at the camera. HE SO CRAZY


The Big Shake is a fairly ho-hum episode. There's nothing really wrong with it, but aside from some wacky moments near the end, there's not much that stands out about it either.

2 out of 5 despairing mayors.


Stone Man disappears for the rest of the episode after the underground fight.