Part 27: Abyssal Base

Hello everyone and welcome back! When last we left off, Audrey had kickstarted the apocalypse by having Lugia flood the world. We should probably put a stop to that.



Yeah, she's kind of a dick.



Talking to Anastasia was a mini point of no return for Kepler City. We're "locked" into finishing this bit of story before we can enter any of the houses. The pokecenter is open, at least.



Despite Kepler City presumably being a flat area, some parts of it are flooded and require surf to navigate.

ultimate goal.





Translation: Anastasia is a coward who is afraid of a little water, and so it's up to us to take care of business.



Pfft. Okay that's actually pretty funny. It's just Kepler City that has flooding problems. Indeed, the whole rest of the world is fine as far as I can tell. This upcoming bit is a bastard if you're unprepared, so I'll take whatever small mercies I can get.



You know, while making portraits for this update, I looked into this. The "surf" sprite in the "characters" folder is perfectly fine so there is zero reason that the Lapras should be turning into a half naked lady.



There's some pokemon wandering around down here, like Carvanha, Relicanth, and Wailmer. You can also get into random battles in the kelp tiles.



It's pretty neat, but there's not much to see.



Southeast of where we dove down, there's a little cave. (As an aside... dove? dived? This page says they're both correct, so who knows!)



This looks like the spot...





Hint hint! Remember something Damian gave us before Nora decided to scream at him.





Transforming into other people has to be the weirdest feeling. I can't imagine suddenly being 2 feet taller and in an entirely different body.









Just generic cultists, so skipping their intros. I do like that the game frames these battles as practice between cultists instead of normal high stakes matches.

I do not like that there's no source of healing down here. There's no ready access to Chanseys or stolen pokecenter devices. So if you need to heal, it's either items or a very long backtrack.



Even better, it's a goddamned teleport maze. My first time, I spent close to an hour trying to mentally map the place out, and I never did succeed. There's like 8 rooms and a bunch of teleports going back and forth between them.

This time I just followed the walkthrough on the wiki because fuck that. Taking the East teleporter here.











Going in the teleporter behind Amy. The northeastern one.



This is as close to a hub room as you're going to get.







Pictured: Your average Abyssal Cultist.



South teleporter this time.







Audrey is just to the north of us here, but only she can pass through the purple barriers. You can probably see where this is going.









Back into the pool room, and this time we're going east.







What, you mean using a diverse team to cover weaknesses, and not going all in on an easily exploited theme?



Only one teleporter past this person.



Go north again from here.



Green barrier means scientists!





No battles in here. This would make a pretty nice recovery point, but sadly no dice.







You remember that red computer back in the scientist DNA room? Yeah, this goes to that. So let's return there...









Uh... sure.



Back to the pond again, and now we're going back west.



And again.









Only one unused teleporter here, so north we go!



Gross.



There's something over there, not sure what though. Looks like a copy of Audrey's clothes?



Those are Audrey's clothes, by the way. So now we can go all over the base!





Snitch.





Back in the red computer room, we can finally progress past the Audrey barrier. Most everyone in the base has special dialogue for Audrey-Amy, but





According to the wiki, there's Sharpedonite in here somewhere, but we can't actually access it until the postgame because Pokemon Insurgence.



Oh good, Kyogre is here.

: ... ... ...Did you know that 97% of the ocean is unexplored? It covers the majority of the planet, and we barely know anything about it. We know more about the moon than the seas on Earth. What kind of awesome pokemon could exist down there?



: About thirty years ago, when Kyogre was first summoned by Team Aqua, the weather went wild. Tons of things were raised from the depths of the ocean. Most of it was unimportant. Bottles, shoes, maybe a few gems or peals...



: A squid that looked similar to Tentacruel, but with vastly higher stats.

Gonna be honest, if I comment on every mention of stats in this game we'd be here forever.



: A pokemon with stats that rivaled legendaries... and further research shows that there are hundreds and hundreds more. Of course, this was kept hush-hush. It would be awful if everyone knew what creatures the oceans held. Everyone would be trying to catch these monstrosities, and with good reason.

as they are in it.

: Do you know why we're after Kyogre? It's incredibly powerful, and with a Blue Orb, it becomes one of the strongest pokemon in the world. But do you know where its true talent lies?



: That's not an honorary title. Kyogre is the king in the most literal way. I'm not sure how, but it has the power to control and command the creatures of the sea. Sure, having Kyogre would be great. But having an entire army of deep-sea pokemon, all with the strength of legendaries... We would be undefeatable.



: With the surface flooded, my army will be stronger than ever. Kyogre is slowly calling forth the first of my beasts from the ocean even deeper than where we are.



: I couldn't start until today. Not until I had a power source strong enough to power both Kyogre and Lugia. But now I have a shard of the very same crystal that once powered the Augur.



: My life, my child, and more.







Showing this again because it's the very last time we'll ever see it. I've cut it out of all the others, but it's shown up before every fight with the Abyssal Cult. This is the final battle against Audrey, so it seems only fitting to show it one last time.





Yes, that's a fucking Primal Kyogre. It's the reason I wanted to use Poliwrath/Politoed. Origin pulse fucking hurts and being healed by its hardest hitting ability would have gone a long way to helping out. But it also has a perfect accuracy Thunder...





Snorflax gets ready to lay down some hurt. Lanturn wastes its turn by paralyzing an already slow pokemon.



I also realized that Leftovers doesn't stack with Ingrain. So once I find the move tutor for Giga Drain, I'm teaching Snorflax that instead.



Lanturn decides it's a capital idea to use Volt Switch against a pokemon that resists thunder. Sure...?



Ludicolo gets sent out into a waiting full-power Wood Hammer.



I didn't pay close enough attention to what her Alakazam knows. So I sent Dracolich out against one of the strongest pokemon in the series that knows an extremely powerful move that hits Dracolich for supereffective damage.



It's faster, and hit Dracolich for more than half its max HP. So he goes down on the second turn.



Ahem finishes the job, but he takes a supereffective Focus Blast on the chin for his efforts.



Mega Crawdaunt is back, and Knock Off finishes off Snorflax.



It don't matter how strong Mega Crawdaunt thinks it is, HenryDavid is stronger.



One hit KO!





Generator is my best chance to resist Primal Kyogre.



This little effect in particular makes Thunder that much more dangerous to stuff that doesn't outright resist it.



Water is neutral to Steel/Electric, and so the only reason Generator survived Origin Pulse was its Sturdy ability.



Thank you 30% paralyze chance on Discharge!



Discharge KOs Kyogre before it can run roughshod over the rest of my team. The fight is finally over... just gotta make it official.



Soft Serve can take care of Lanturn and Kingdra both.



Audrey just damned her Kingdra. Volt Switch would be a little more annoying if my team didn't resist its damage.



Kingdra was dragged out to face down a 4x supereffective Freeze Dry. It went down before it could even react.



And then Lanturn follows suit because it doesn't have any other meat shields to run and hide behind.





: It doesn't matter, though. I can see the water stirring already. My army will soon rise. And then, Amy, and then...



The screen shakes.

: What on earth was that?







Oh wonderful. Malde has arrived.

: W-who are you? How did you get in here?
: Your Alakazam fainted. The barriers are gone.

Malde doesn't have a proper battle sprite despite being a principal antagonist. So I had to make do with his field sprite instead.

: Who are yo... wait a second. Aren't you that man from Sonata Hills? The Leader's father? I guess your treatment didn't go well.
: You couldn't be more wrong. I feel better than ever. I've been improved. Empowered.



: I extend to you the same offer, Audrey. Forget this ocean army... join me. All I ask in return is that crystal.
: All you ask is... Are you insane? You want me to release the only thing keeping Kyogre in check? I don't know how you got down here, but you better turn your weird tentacle-covered tail around and leave.
: It wasn't me that wanted you to join.
: What? What are you on about?
: I want to help heal the world. You want to rule it. Our goals differ. You would not be of help to me.



: Things are revealed. You remember things that were... suppressed.







Fuck.

: Damian...? You mean...?





Damian took a step forward. Audrey took a step back.

: ...you're all grown up now. You're like him. You're one of them. What happened to you?



: This is what he wants. Just give him the crystal.
: But... why would you want that?
: The crystal is a power source for pokemon. And we're just as much pokemon as human, now.













Kyogre body slams her into the ocean...



And then body slams her into the ocean.



: Mom...
: You did the right thing, Damian. Everyone thought you were going to snap... But you're going to help me heal the world.







: That's horrifying. It's appropriate, but still. That's seriously incredible, Amy.



: You're the first person since the First Augur to pull that off.



: ...I heard about your friend. If whatever's affecting Malde is affecting him too, then I promise we'll find a way to help him. I've been doing some research into the pokerus virus. I'll tell Nora about it, and we'll work on finding a solution together.



: The decisions he's making... they aren't his. Don't do anything rash, ok? I'll leave you here, I have a Gym to run. And from what I hear, you have one to visit! Anastasia should be ready for you in Kepler!

friend again.





: One down. The Mistress will be most pleased. The shards will return to us.





NEXT TIME: Gym #5