Part 33: Selene City

Hello everyone and welcome back. Now that we've been properly introduced to the Evil Cult Du Jour, let's head off toward our sixth gym badge.



Today's update features a couple more requests. For this one in particular, we need to visit "Jesusml"'s secret base.







To be honest, I didn't really have high hopes for YOOM-TAH.





On the upside, she's cute as she can be, and she's got pretty decent potential.





The problem is, in the end she's just a not-as-good version of Ahem. The only things she's got going for her are a bloated health pool and immunity to dragon moves. So while I would like to use her, Ahem does everything she does, but louder and better.



The cool thing about Insurgence, at least, is that learning that only cost me 20 minutes and a few thousand pokebux. So that's not too terrible of an investment! It's a shame she didn't work out, but now we have a rubber bunny friend.



While training up YOOM-TAH's replacement, it finally occurred to me to turn off the "Always Daytime" setting in the options menu. The pokemon behind Amy requires both high friendship and nighttime to evolve. So now you guys can see why I leave that setting on!





Speaking of which... meet Delta Roserade. We've had him in our box ever since the library like 12 updates ago.





Much better. It's so hard to see at night.



Gonna be honest, I don't know what happened here. OBS either hiccuped, or something went screwy with the recording. But my video file sat at this frame for a good 4 minutes and then it suddenly jumped to the one down below.











So, uh... welcome to Route 12?



Delta Pokemon. They're incredibly strong!





I love that this roughneck with a fairy is geeking out over Deltas.







Chill out kid.



Anyway, just past the screamy ninja, we find a cutscene!



: You didn't bring all of your pokemon with you. What happens if you need to battle someone?
: It'll be fine. Am I not allowed to visit my sister?
: Well, yes, but... I mean...
: Then I don't see the problem. Anyways, if we can't figure out why Darkrai keeps running off to her, we won't make much progress in catching it.
: Shouldn't you be looking for that kid? If you don't, the Augur's going to come after us.





Well that was ominous.







Fancy's mega evolution... I have some new thoughts about it. They'll have to wait, however. Suffice it to say, it's not nearly as good as I believed.



Next stop... Selene City!





Another city with five houses! Selene City doesn't have very much going for it besides the gym. Though we are officially in the northwest corner of Torren. First off, a quest I didn't start because it was 11AM when I recorded.



If you come here at night, you can see a ghost cat-fox walking around. Talking to it gets you in a battle where it immediately runs away. But if you talk to pretty much everyone in town, you trigger a bunch of flags that eventually lets you see and battle...









Delta Liepard. It's Ghost/Fairy type and its abilities are Illusion (Comes out disguised as the Pokemon in the party's last spot.), Unnerve (Unnerves opposing Pokemon and makes them unable to eat Berries), and Bulletproof (Hidden; Protects the Pokemon from some ball and bomb moves).

Eh. It's okay. The vast majority of the moves it learns are normal and, for some reason, poison type. It only learns 6 STAB moves: Astonish, Disarming Voice, Shadow Claw, Moonblast, Phantom Force, and Play Rough.

For me it's a hard skip because while it's an intriguing concept, it's just not interesting enough to use when we have so many other, better, options. It's the only Ghost/Fairy pokemon in the game, and only shares its typing with Mimikyu, so that's kinda cool.



Welp.









Psychic and ghost, you say? Sounds like a certain undead dragon is going to clean house!









These descriptions are connected to the Delta Liepard quest.





battle!



Le Feu lets us combine food for different items. The items you can get are really powerful, but they require extrmely rare ingredients so



Chosen by a legendary pokemon? And Darkrai keeps coming over here? I get it.

First Augur disappeared.





That's not good. So does Torren just not have an 8th badge?











Calreath is the 7th gym leader. Zenith mentioned him last time as "the rain team leader." So you can probably guess what his deal is.

long.

me.

For no particular reason, let's hop back over to the pokecenter to talk to everyone in its upper floors.



Goddammit Xavier. Stop stalking me!

: Remember me? Xavier? From Vipik City! Why, I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for asking. Selene City is one of my favorite places. The creepy aura of the area just... gets me.

town seem to share.





Not believing in ghosts doesn't mean that 1/18th of the pokemon type chart stops existing.







Everyone keeps trying to get me to join the rangers. I want to join them. Please let me!

unhatched.

That's nice. I don't care.











battles.





I'm sure we can find a good use for this!



At least there are a ton of move tutors all over!





Gimme gimme gimme!



You know how a Damp Rock makes rain last longer? This is that, but for the New Moon move. We will be putting this to such good use.



It's that Darkrai cultist from earlier!





I believe this is the first time we've fought one of these jerks.







Alright so... this is going to take some preparations. Persephone is waiting just up ahead. As you might expect, she's going to want to throw down with us in particular. So let's be sure we're ready first.





: Persephone.



: I wasn't here to see you. I wanted to see it with my own eyes.



: Uhh?
: You know, Darkrai! We've talked about this before!
: Listen, Persephone. I know you seem to think that I'm best friends with the legendary pokemon, but I'm really not. I've never even seen the thing.



: I get that you want revenge- so do I- but this isn't going to work. You're going to get yourself hurt, or worse! You might even get captured again!



: Wow, Diana. The was you phrased that... It almost seemed like you cared.
: Oh drop it, Persephone. It was years ago and-
: You abandoned me, Dia! That's not just water under the bridge! If you're not willing to help, I'm leaving. I'm a busy woman- people to meet, places to be, child threats to the Augur to capture.



: Oh, yeah. I supposed you haven't heard. I'm looking for a young girl who escaped from our custody a while ago.



: If I don't find her, then he's going to come after the Cult of Darkrai.
: A kid, huh?





: Just my luck- of course you'd appear when I don't have my full team on me! But no matter! I'll still take you out right here! You're going right back into custody... and this time, I'll finish what I started!

Cool. Glad that Diana is just going to hang out while her insane sister tries to abduct a small child. Don't help or anything. I got this.



So this battle? Surprisingly hard!



This is not ideal...



This is very not ideal.



This is extremely not ideal!



Take two! Yes, this means that I have to sit through that entire familial fight again.



Fancy transforms to take care of Gengar.







Mega Zoroark is supposed to have Trace, but per the wiki...



Seems complicated, but whatever.



Now that we know what we're dealing with...





Persephone isn't necessarily hard. But that Gengar is going to pose many, many problems. You'll see just what I mean in a moment. By the way, that Gengar is speficially on our shitlist. She's the one who ate all of Amy's memories at the start of the game! She even still has Dream Eater.





Night Daze kinda hurts, but it also lets Defiant kick in.



That, plus the boosts from Bulk Up, leaves Centaurion looking pretty good.



Zoroark is the least of our worries.





Thunder Punch takes care of the ninja frog no problem. Sure, Ice Beam kinda hurt, but he's a tough guy. He can take the pressure!





The real Gengar comes out and the first real problems show themselves. Do you remember when I said that Irrelephant lets Fancy ignore Levitate?



I was wrong. Oh so very wrong. This is something of a huge problem, as I was kinda counting on Irrelephant letting Fancy hit something with Levitate.



Then I started to panic. My carefully laid out strategies were evaporating all around me. Crunch would have worked, but I didn't think of that at the time.







Inside of three minutes, this Gengar just swept half my team.





Once more with feeling...



Mega Zoroark goes down with no trouble.



Geninja too.



So now we're back here. Persephone pushed The Asshole Button. She shouldn't'a did that.





See, the funny thing about Phantom Force is that if there's a New Moon out? It has no charge turn. So Mega Dracolich can just spam the shit out of it.



Fuck off.



Delta Roserade treads much the same ground that Dracolich does, so he won't be on the team forever. But for the next couple of updates, he will be invaluable.



He also has an ability that heals him while the New Moon is out.



I almost feel bad for this Hydreigon. Almost.



4x weakness to fairy moves is a bitch.





: Just my luck... only I would find the very person I'm looking for when I'm woefully unprepared. You better watch your back, Amy. I will find you again, and nobody escapes me twice.

Funny, by my count that is the second time I've escaped your clutches.



that.

: I'm Diana- I'm the Gym Leader here in Selene City. Persephone is my sister. She's not... She... well...



: But I do want to say that there's a reason why she's doing what she does. It doesn't justify it, but please don't rush to judge her.

She abducted Amy, erased most of her memories, and was evidently aiming to ritualistically sacrifice her all so she could get stood up by Darkrai. It really doesn't fucking matter what her reasons are. If anyone in the goddamned world is allowed to judge Persephone, it's Amy.



: If you want to take me on, I'll be in the Gym.

What is with the fucking gym leaders in this region? They're either cultists, cowards, or are willing to let their cultist relatives abduct small children in broad daylight. The only decent people among them are Harmony and Orion.

That's enough for now.

Looking Ahead

Mysterious Hideaway

Jumpluff
Sigilyph
Noivern

Flower Grotto

Vivillon
Florges

(Nearly all worldwide variants can be found here)

Ancient Tower

Golbat
Mawile
Claydol
Banette
Sigilyph
Fraxure
Mienfoo
Lucario
Delta Noibat*

* - Requires Mew DNA we don't have yet

NEXT TIME: Selene City Gym.