Megaman Zero: Mission 1B (Find Shuttle)

Find Shuttle (4/5)

"Some of the abducted Reploids seem to have hijacked an enemy transport plane 
and have now escaped. But the plane disappeared over the desert..." 
(by that she means it crashed) "They might have crash-landed in the desert, 
and so we sent our scouts to look for them... However, our scouts are having 
difficulties due to the hordes of hostile enemies in the area... I'm sorry, but will you 
go and help their rescue?"

And go we shall. This mission is one of my least favourite things in video games; an escort mission. Luckily only half of it, though.



Itettle (1/4)
You get this happy fellow after you defeat a few Sandsnakes. It will almost certainly be the first you find in this mission.



Birfly (2/4)
Find this guy after defeating a bunch of Condoloids.

Ciel contacts you to say something unimportant, which you probably won't read because you'll be busy trying not to die.

Stocpie (3/4)
This elf is found after defeating about five Sandjaws. You can just ignore them on your first pass through, you'll have to kill a bunch of them on your way back anyway.

Make sure you destroy the Ryusa Mixers at the bottoms of the two sand pits as you go along, because they will be a big hassle on your way back when you are escorting the wounded soldier.

Lubtan (1200 EC)
This one is above the "ruins" in a crate. You have to make a series of semi-blind dash jumps to get up to the ledge, and what's worse is that if you don't jump far enough and land on the crumbling pieces, they will fall away and won't come back ever for the rest of the game. So you may want to be firing your buster as you jump, if you haven't played before and don't know where exactly you're jumping to.

When you come to the tornados, you have to shoot the Techntwister that moves up and down in the middle. If you have the charged shot for your buster, a single shot of that with the lightning chip will take it out.

Boss: Anubis Necromancess III
Weakness: Fire
Reward: Cyber Elf

This guy is fairly simple, just make sure not to have the lightning chip equipped or you won't hurt him at all. He will rise up out of the sand and twirl his staff around to summon a couple robot zombies. They can be disposed of with a charged slash and then a regular one. They're usually grouped close together, so even if he conjures up two or three you should be able to take them all out at once.

He will also throw his staff down where it will twirl in place, then he will move to the other side of the screen and it will fly up to him. Once you damage him enough he will sink below the sand and raise up pillars that are spiked on top and will close in on you from both sides. Just climb up and jump over the top of one to avoid these.

You can't really tell, but this is his EX Skill. No, not getting a sword in his face. It's called "Staff Roll" and it's exactly what it sounds like. He throws his staff down and instead of moving to the other side of the screen he stays in one place as the staff moves across the bottom of the screen. Woooooow. Really pulling out the power moves.

Anubis old fellow, you're SLIPPING. Hahahahahha. (I didn't actually laugh at that joke, don't judge me.) Anyway, once he's defeated you are rewarded with the last Cyber Elf of the stage.


M-oria (4/4)
I am including this elf in the count for the one-chance elves in the mission because you CAN actually make it back through all of the escort business without collecting it and you of course won't have the chance to get it again. You pretty much have to not collect it on purpose, though.

Defeating the boss is technically only the half-way point of the mission, but the rest is just going back through the same area you've already been through, so there really isn't anything to screen-cap or much directions to give. Just listen for the screeching vultures and watch for the bulging sand so you can protect the soldier on the way back. The spinning jump slash technique is really handy here, I find. Also note that you can destroy the pellets the Sandsnakes shoot out by slashing them.

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