Pokemon Insurgence Part #44 - The Cult of Darkrai (Revisit)

Part 44: The Cult of Darkrai (Revisit)

Hello everyone and welcome back. We're closing in on 60 hours and we're also inching closer to the end of the game.

So let's start off by seeing off one of our oldest pals. Fancy's been with us since just after the second gym and she has more than earned her retirement.

Naproxen may not have been able to fulfill the duties he was recruited for, but he still did one hell of a job against Zenith. I don't think there's a single person out there who would argue he doesn't deserve a hero's retirement either.

In fact, there are several more pokemon that deserve similar recognition.

So welcome to the Hall of Heroes... Rollgirl, Ahem, Chompy Boy, Sparky, Snorflax, Magnolia, Daisy, Clarence, and Infector. Eighteen retired heroes was more than I expected I would have when I started this LP! In fact, I'm still thinking I should include Generator and Soft Serve as well.

Anyway, before we continue down to Narra Town, let's take a tour around the region and grab whatever we can get with Heart Swap.

Slither Forest is first up. We're gonna be meeting several new deltas in this update, and this first one is one I've been dying to show off.

Lots of snakes in slither forest, as you might expect. There's a small strength puzzle here.

This heart swap statue prevented us from doing this earlier.

This isn't a difficult puzzle, but you have to stop and think about it for a moment.

Close enough.

There's our new friend now.

Female Delta Deino

Female Delta Zweilous

Female Delta Hydreigon

Shiny Female Delta Deino

Shiny Female Delta Zweilous

Shiny Female Delta Hydreigon

Delta Hydreigon's line is Ground/Poison type. If you have a really good memory, you might remember we saw this in one of the first images in the LP. Delta Hydreigon is the last member of my old champion team. So that should tell you how good it is!

Deino and Zweilous both have the Venomous ability (All poison they inflict is toxic). Hydreigon on the other hand is... interesting. Do you remember Duke Nukem from the Uranium LP? He was the screamy nuclear eevee. Well, Delta Hydreigon is similar. Its ability is Intoxicate (Normal-type moves become Poison-type moves). They also gain a 30% power boost.

When Zweilous evolves, it learns Tri Attack. Then a few levels later it learns Hyper Voice. It can also learn Hyper Beam. So while it's not as outright insanely broken as Duke Nukem was, it's still extremely powerful.

We won't be using it.

I googled "King Cobra" and it said that was another name for it. Sure, whatever!

He has fairly usable potential! Though I do kinda wish that Hydreigon had a choice between Venomous and Intoxicate. Having all normal poison be Toxic could be really fun!

Our next stop is Koril Town. While I doubt anyone remembers it, this is the town at the front of the desert.

We actually need to head backwards.

In the bottom of Samsara cave, which is where we found Delta Pidgey, there's a distant Heart Swap statue.

I've been waiting for this one.

More options when it comes to burning opponents is never a bad thing! Also this gives me a source of water-type damage on the team.

Our next stop in this whirlwind tour is Helios City. Gotta go back in the shudder sewer level for what I assume will be the last time.

It's at least a quick trip. Just gotta go right and keep going right.

Like 20 seconds later...

From here we just have to walk straight down a corridor.

Delta Heatmor is Steel/Poison type. Its three abilities are Liquid Ooze (Damages attackers using any draining move), Sheer Force (Removes additional effects to increase move damage), and Mega Launcher (Hidden; Powers up aura and pulse moves).

It's very alright. If it had been available as soon as we got to the sewers in Helios, it would be an awesome delta to find and use. But it's only available just before the end of the game and so it falls into the usual pitfalls with Heatmor (and Durant). It's simply too little, too late. Also our team is very Steel heavy as it is and I don't particularly want to get rid of NATHAN or Beeisel.

At least it looks badass.

"Is this the Payne residence?"

I wish you were available earlier in the game Delta Heatmor. Oh well.

Our quest ends in Nasca Town. A long time ago we promised a hiker we'd take care of the spiders in the forest for him.

May as well while we're here, right?

bugs and junk.

You know what? Fair. I'm also gonna take this opportunity to put down a blanket content warning for the rest of the LP: arachnophobes beware! We're about to get spidery up in here.

There's six Ariados hanging out in this part of the woods. We just need to beat 'em up.

Two...

Three...

This is one of two things we need Heart Swap to get in here.

Shit dude, spoilers for the delta we're about to meet!

Four...

Heart swapping again!

Well hell there's the last one. We'll have to circle back around for him.

Amy will hop across these meteorites if she approaches them from above.

The fifth Ariados is up here. He's why you need Heart Swap to complete this quest.

This little guy is the last one.

We'll actually need him here in a minute.

A huge spider appears at the entrance when we get the last of its minions.

LET'S JUST SKIP 20 ACTUAL MINUTES OF TRYING TO CATCH THIS ASSHOLE JERK.

Also this is your last warning. If you're afraid of spiders, I'm about to post a whole lot of images of what I'm told is an extremely creepy and fucked up looking spider pokemon.

Delta Beldum's line is Ground/Bug type. All three of them have Poison Touch (Chance to inflict poison on physical attack), Immunity (Can't be poisoned), and Poison Heal (Hidden; Heals self when poisoned) as abilities. Then there's Mega Delta Metagross which has Mold Breaker as its ability.

Remember how I was frustrated that Mega Fancy's ability didn't let her hit the Champion's ace? Yeah well, Mega Delta Metagross can. As far as how good is it? I mean... come on. It's friggin Metagross, except now it gets STAB Earthquake and can just randomly poison things it hits. It's real good.

This thing took 20 minutes to catch because I wanted to get one that was somewhat usable. The first approximately nine I caught weren't good at all. Standard "IVs aren't everything" disclaimer, but all of them had potential that maxed out at 5 in any given stat.

It's a shame about its defense but...

We have a single IV stone, so we can turn that 0 to 31.

For 40 grand, we hire the IV Changer's services.

From there we just have to tell him we want to alter Aragog and then which stat.

In theory, IV Stones are farmable by just repeatedly using Rock Smash on cracked rocks. It's a 1% chance each time you do it, though.

But now Aragog has some damn impressive potential. I'm looking forward to trying him out!

I'm not really arachnophobic, but Delta Metagross is unsettling in the same way that your average garden spiders are. Something that arachnid-like shouldn't be that big.

My dumb ass forgot to do a proper look at Aragog, so here's the no frills version. Its stats while not mega evolved are nearly as high as Mega Fancy's were, while its moves play to its strengths. It hits damn hard and fills in a much-needed niche for the team. Anything that survives Earthquake will lose a fuckton of health with each turn. And on top of that it can mega evolve and Earthquake any damn thing it pleases.

To put it simply, Aragog is overpowered as fuck.

So now that we've finished our tour around the region, let's return to Deyraan and climb down the mountain the proper way.

The cave out is really short. There's lots of ice types in here, but it's nothing we haven't seen before.

That item on the far side of the screen is Frosslassite. It's postgame-only.

Yeah, weird. For what it's worth, Waterfall's replacement is a postgame item. Really deep postgame at that.

And that's the end of Deyraan Cave!

I'm actually kicking myself here. I'm looking at the wiki page for Route 16 and the game's first Ancient Ball we can find here. They "offer an increased catch rate on legendary and mystical pokemon" but not anything else. There's only a tiny handful available before the postgame.

And here's the map. The Ancient Ball is hidden in the middle, on that white flower.

I... is that true? Is Amy tall?

She's not much older than this Youngster.

Delta Girafarig is yet another Steel/Poison type. Its abilities are Anger Point (Maxes the Attack stat after the Pokemon takes a critical hit), Stench (The stench may cause the target to flinch), and Intimidate (Hidden; Lowers foe's attack by 1 stage). Mega Delta Girafarig gets Filter (Reduces damage from supereffective attacks).

Like with Valkyr, we just have an absolute fuckload of half Steel types. It feels like every other Delta in the lategame is half Steel. By itself I'm sure this is a quite nice Delta, but we're just completely overloaded. Also Anger Point doesn't seem all that helpful when, as we've seen, unlucky crits straight up One Hit KO the pokemon in question.

Anyway, I don't even bother trading for it because that's kind of a steep ask for something that's competing against all the other half steel deltas.

We're being scouted by both the Rangers and the PokeNavy. Yvan eht Nioj I suppose!

eaten!

Please eat. Low blood sugar is fucking you up right now. You're out in the wilds with a single Scizor.

Hahaha. Yeah. Funny. Pretty sure he's the only cop in the game.

There's a hidden grotto over there, but there's no Deltas in it.

up again?

Anytime?

share the same interests as me.

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man."

The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition.[2][3]

What I'm saying is this old woman is a strawman that whoever wrote this was projecting onto.

Narra Town is refreshingly tiny. More than half of it is taken up by an open air market.

Not sure if I want to actually go this way...

: You look small.

That boy on the last route just called us tall.

: Not just you. Your... people. There's just something very fragile about you. It's odd. It's very different. I'm not sure how to describe it.

: You haven't seen much of us, nor will you- until we make our move. ...I'm sorry. But this is something we need to do. Everything is going just as Mistress predicted. You and the mercenary- the fake prophet- we hired took down the Infernal Cult. You took down the Abyssal Cult by yourself.

: Very soon, you will see the true power of that crystal. Of our crystal.

Amy has no idea what this dude is talking about. She's never seen these Giratina folks before, and now this one shows up to rant at her.

Open air market first? Open air market first.

Market!

One person sells bitter medicine.

One person sells a lot of mega stones. There's also a Banettite available below the Medichamite.

I didn't look at her inventory, but she sells all the basic X-items.

I buy all the flutes she has. The "urge" items as far as I can tell cause partner pokemon in doubles to do stuff.

The last person sells items for specific pokemon.

We put Snorflax in storage earlier, but this is the guy we were waiting for. Way back when I showed off Delta Snorlax's formes, people really liked the winter one. This is the guy who shows you the "winter leaf."

I take a free fire stone.

Yep! If you remember back to the Midna Town update, I mentioned Narra Border to the north of town, past the inaccessable ledges. Well, Narra Border is the cave this picnicker is talking about.

Narra is the gateway to the Pokemon League.

day.

We're right on her heels it looks like.

Hey, fuck you buddy!

Pokemon League.

No skipping the last gym for us. Even if the last gym doesn't exist anymore.

I'm starting to doubt that fellow we saw on Mt. Rose was actually the champion. So who the hell is it, then?

Uh, that's kinda specific.

Delta Growlithe and Arcanine are Normal/Dragon type. Their abilities are Inner Focus (Protected from flinching), Intimidate, and Multiscale (Hidden; Reduces damage the Pokemon takes when its HP is full).

It's... uh... okay? I can't think of a single thing to say about it besides that it looks kinda like a Quilen from WoW. Also I'm fairly confident that the team is now finalized, so there's no point in pretending I'm gonna use anything else from this point forward.

So let's leave through Narra Border.

: Oh, it's you. I don't like disguising myself, but I was worried about running into someone. I trust your little adventure in the mountains went well? Good. Well, no time to chit chat.

: Specifically, a very special place there. Absolutely do not follow me. Not to the only significant area in Shade Forest where you were held captive. Things are happening there that are far too dangerous for your little child-eyes to see.

: There are some very, very exciting things about to happen.

Welp. Sounds like we're definitely returning to the Darkrai Base.

Rock Climb!

I can just fly back up on a taxi, dude.

I like that so many of our opponents are like 'That was fun!' after our battles with them. There's no hard feelings involved, just two extremely powerful trainers having a fun battle.

Neat?

We've officially come full circle around the region! Midna Town was where we first met Nora, and went to school for like 20 minutes.

But no time to rest on our laurels. Gotta speed off to the Darkrai Base.

It's faster to fly to Telnor and walk north. Let's head out of town quickly before someone asks uncomfortable questions about how Damian is doing.

It was only a few months ago when we were level grinding in here just hoping to survive the trip to Midna. Now we're one of the most badass trainers in the region!

The front gate is open. Hmm...

Feels weird coming back here.

No point in reminiscing about old times.

While we could use Seed Flare to clean up this pool, there's nothing up here at all. This, by the way, is where we got the cultist DNA.

Everyone's in the meeting room like last time.

Before we continue on, one last bit of indulgence...

Told you it was here!

We'll reset the room to preserve the creepy noxious ambience. And then... I'm gonna let this scene play out without much commentary. Instead, I'll just see you all in the next update!

Gonna warn you, shit's gonna get weird.

: It's been a while since we were here last. My friends, it's been one long ride. Years and years of developing machines, studying pokemon and the world, all to help Darkrai see how loyal we really are.

: It abandons us. Flees. Runs away to my sister. All of that changes today. In my right pocket, I have the pokeball that holds the magnet that lures Darkrai away.

: Is the machine working? Do we have a link on Darkrai?

: Excellent. Tonight, my friends, we have bargaining power. We have leverage over Darkrai. This is our chance to achieve everything we've ever wanted. To find Darkrai... and keep it. Let's do it.

: Let's begin! Activate the machine!

: I'm not going to beguile you with compliments like last time. This is the third time we've met.

: That was the night Amy escaped. And we all know what happened the first time.

: ...and if Mew didn't come in at the last minute to rescue our prisoner, we might have finished him off for good.

: But, I feel I should warn you. Leave, and your little friend here...

gonna be stuck!

Malde and Damian strut up.

: Oh look, it's the orphan and the codger.

: This kind of stuff is disgusting. You can't go around like this.

: Heard it before. It's funny that you two showed up. I guess I should have expected resistance.

: It seems everyone's come to see the full glory of the Cult of Darkrai!

: Release it, Persephone. I'd die before I see another legendary pokemon get enslaved by humans.

: You folks are immortal, right? Side-effect of the virus? We have a way around that. It's like a loophole. It's fun. I've accomplished my goals. Let me pay it forward!