NT Warrior: There's No I in Team! (Part 2)

Plot Synopsis
The matchup between MegaMan and ProtoMan versus StoneMan and BlasterMan has finally started, but MegaMan begins the match alone while Chaud and ProtoMan sit back and watch. MegaMan takes a beating before ProtoMan finally steps in, but instead of helping out, he punches MegaMan in the gut and tosses him aside "for his own good."

ProtoMan starts dominating the match up but MegaMan refuses to stay down. Eventually StoneMan unleashes a huge pile of quake viruses which smash into MegaMan. Lan loses contact with him on his PET and everyone speculates that MegaMan is deleted. Chaud tells Lan to buzz off but Lan refuses to give up and keeps trying to contact MegaMan.

ProtoMan decimates BlasterMan and then turns his focus to StoneMan. He unleashes an attack with the Hero Sword chip (a rare chip in the game) which causes StoneMan to fall apart. However, StoneMan suddenly regenerates from a sphere inside his body. This is unexpected for Chaud and ProtoMan so they try another attack, but this time it's ineffective. Lan tells Chaud to use the Program Advance but Chaud is missing the Wide Sword chip. Instead of asking for help however, Chaud gets arrogant and blows Lan off, even though Chaud is in serious trouble. StoneMan traps ProtoMan in between his giant stone crushers and begins to slowly squish him.

Just at that moment, MegaMan reestablishes contact with Lan, as he was trapped under the rubble. He tells Lan to send him some Mini-Boomers to clear the rubble, and when he does, Lan unleashes the Program Advance on StoneMan, finally hitting it correctly. StoneMan starts to regenerate again, but ProtoMan slices the regeneration sphere in half, causing StoneMan to log out.

"Hate to break it to you, but we just worked as a team," smiles MegaMan. Chaud of course, the ungrateful dick he is, notes that Lan would have been able to take out StoneMan in one shot if he had perfected the Program Advance. With all the competition out of the way, only Lan and Chaud are left for the finals of the N1 Grand Prix.

Critique
One thing that irritates me about Chaud and ProtoMan is that their skill levels are so fucking inconsistent. One minute ProtoMan is unstoppable, the next he's at the mercy of his opponent. On the other side of the token, MegaMan tends to get dominated until he and Lan pull a miracle out of their ass to win the match. If one were to look at ProtoMan's previous matches versus MegaMan's, one would probably conclude that MegaMan doesn't stand a chance. Yet later on, ProtoMan and MegaMan will be about even in skill level in the next episode, and later in the series, MegaMan will be much more superior. I just think ProtoMan should have been shown to have more realistic weaknesses consistently rather than appearing invincible for the majority of his screen time.

This episode is a perfect example of this inconsistency, but it is a small element of this episode. There's a decent amount of suspense with MegaMan and some what, and they try to show the weakness in Chaud's arrogance, but I don't think it comes off well. Personally I didn't enjoy this episode all that much, but the episode just barely receives the thumbs down rating because I think there was more potential with this episode than the performance it gave.

Rating: Thumbs Down.