Part 53: Gaea Town

Hello everyone and welcome back. We're back in Amphitrite City after being crowned the Third Augur.



Last time, Orion called us asking for nonspecific help. So that's as good a spot as any to begin our postgame adventures.





Already?

: Hey, uh... Amy, right? You might remember me. I'm Professor Pine. From the Scientist's Club? In Koril Town? You helped us out with a rogue Kabutops and several other fossils... do you remember? Well, I hope you do. You're awfully quiet.



: It's a big one... but it's an amazing one. If you're interested, meet me in Suntouched City, on the south end.

This is the lead-in to what is probably the largest sidequest in the game. I'll give more details at the end of the update when I call for votes, but it's extremely cool.





There's a Relic Song wall over to the right, across that pit blocked by a Tesseract orb. Zapdos is behind that wall.



Feels like ages ago we were here as a challenger.



: Amy, oh goodness, thank you for coming. You gotta help me. I... I can't believe I was that stupid. I wasn't being careful. I was about to close out the Gym, when Taen surprise attacked me.



Goddammit Taen.

: I didn't see it coming. He knocked me clean off my feet and ran off with Reshiram again! I'm such a screw up, man... You gotta help me. Maybe I don't deserve to be friends with Reshiram, but... If Taen has Kyurem-B and Reshiram, well...





: Do you think you could help me? I can't think of anyone else to turn to- you're the Augur now, after all. Listen, how about this. I'm going to see if I can track him down, using my bond with Reshiram. It's a stretch... but... well, it's the best I can hope for. Do you think you could check the Black Market?



: I'd say I owe you one, but I think I owe you like, twenty, at this point.



That's yet another sidequest lead. If you haven't guessed yet, most of the postgame sidequests deal with dangling plot threads from the main game. The ones that don't are leads for legendaries.



Anyway, we're going to follow this plot thread at least as far as the Black Market. You'll see why.





On reflection, it probably would have been just as fast to come in from the Jade Tower. We're heading for the Perfection Base.



Oh well. I like walking through the black market anyway. It feels just about as seedy as Rogueport.







Former Champion Reukra seems to be having some difficulties.

: Yeah, we'll stop when you stop experimenting on pokemon! Isn't that right?







Change seems to be coming to Torren.

: We'll keep coming! We'll bring more and more of us each time! You can't take down everyone in the Torren Region... even if you were the Champion.



: Leader of the Perfection Cult? Disgusting. You've been outed to the entire region. You're going down, buster.
: For the love of... I'm out. I can't do this. I can't work in private with protesters bothering me. You dispose of them and they just keep coming back.



: Turn the place into a gluten-free vegan homeless shelter for all I care. I don't need it anymore.



: Amy. Have you come to rub your victory in? I'm already being forced to move because these insufferable protesters will not just leave me alone.



: Why are you here, then? Make it quick.



: Taen? I haven't seen him for ages. He's plotting something, probably. He's been talking non-stop about the Original Dragon even though that plan went nowhere.



: Anyways, we don't have that crystal piece anymore. It's not like we could summon something that strong now. No thanks, by the way, to you. I'm outta here. I'm done with you. I'm tempted to move out of Torren, but I have a couple last ideas to try before I do.





And out marches Reukra. He's obviously up to something, but we don't have to worry about that for a while yet.

: Hey! That scumbag was just talking to you.



You could say that, yeah.

: Oh, man, I didn't even recognize you. How could I forget the hero that exposed that rat for what he really is? You were fantastic. You're definitely my favorite champion we've had so far. And well, the second best Augur.



Gail is a main character in the Chasing Taen sidequest, so she gets a portrait.

: Listen... you're looking for Taen? He's that blue-haired turdstain that works for the jerknozzle who just left, right? I can find him for ya. I'm good at that sort of thing. You seem like you're suspicious of me. Listen, I'm not... I'm an environmentalist.

defend themselves.

: The Original Dragon? Mewtwo? Overpowered pokemon with no regard for their surroundings? There's too many little pokemon that could be hurt by that. My mom had this task, and her aunt before her, and so on. We were chosen by a legendary pokemon! We protect the ecosystem. This was their duty, and now it's mine! You shouldn't underestimate me. Let me show you why!





Gail could be a surprise boss fight out of nowhere. But she's not really a problem now that we've got a level 100 team.







Mega Earthquake!



Gail has guts, I'll give her that.



Challenging the Augur to a battle, even if it is a friendly one. Also I'm surprised that Swalot wasn't one shot by Cirno's Psychic move.



Second time's the charm though.



If not for the fact that Gail is a boss fight, I probably could have skipped over the fight and you wouldn't have missed anything.





Mega Sunflora has a particularly nasty ability, Unleafed.



"Boosts Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed by one stage each. These boosts last X turns, where X is the number of fainted Pokemon on your team at the time of the ability's activation. After X turns, the boosts disappear."

That's four turns of boosted stats, because Sunflora is Gail's 5th pokemon out. Also its facial expression changes, which is absolutely adorable.



But it's downright unfair to expect a Sunflora, even a mega one, to stand up against the monster that is Mega Aragog.







10% Zygarde? Unless I'm wrong, isn't that something that was only introduced in Sun/Moon?



Well it definitely wasn't enough, because Cirno one shot it with Ice Beam.



Game, set, and match. Amy wins!



Were you... hoping on ambushing and beating up on a small child in order to prove your point?

: I'm not someone to mess around with!



: It's not just one pokemon. It's a hivemind. Hundreds of thousands of tiny pokemon working together to guard the ecosystem and the rest of the world.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Zygarde is meant to be the pokemon version of Jormungandr. You know, the serpent that will kill Thor during Ragnarok. I don't think it's a guardian of the ecosystem.

: Of course, it's more complicated than that. There are cores, cells, a whole bunch of doohickeys that go into it. But you get the drift. The truth is, Zygarde is everywhere! Cores all over the world... it's like a network that lets it observe the ecosystem everywhere at once.

region.

: If you're looking for him... he's last been seen in the No Man's Lands.



: Well, yeah. Obviously you haven't heard of the No Man's Lands. If it were a popular destination spot, it wouldn't be called that. There's not much there. It's all unclaimed territory between regions- super dangerous. No cities, no towns, no regions, no routes, no people.



: ...and yes, before you asked, I watched him, too. Can you blame me? Look at the guy. Great genes.



: Anyways... there was something in Gaea Town, near his Gym, that he used to get there. You should definitely check it out. I'm not sure of all the specifics, but you'll need this.





The Hiking Boots are, you guessed it, the Rock Climb replacement.

: That'll let you get to all sorts of places, like Gaea Town.



: 'scuse me. Gotta follow the mafia dude.



and take action.





Keep on fighting the good fight! I'ma get outta here.



That's Delta Volcarona armor, by the way. It's been taunting us since we first got to Helios City, and we can't get it until the end of the LP. Seriously. If I get it at all, it will be in the final update, because it's only available after the 10th sidequest wraps up.



Last time we came this way, we went south into the Cave of Steam. This time, we're going north toward Route 17.







Yes. Yes I would.





Route 17 is the one of the last "unexplored" routes in the Torren Region.



And unlike the last routes we explored, it's very short. Also let's take a quick look at the pokemon on the route!

Route 17 Pokemon

Charizard
Tauros
Luxray
Cherrim
Unfezant
Bouffalant
Frillish (Super Rod)

Route 17 Hidden Grotto

Bulbasaur
Beldum
Chespin
Froakie

As always there's a bunch of water types I didn't list because you can catch them in 90% of Torren's waterways. Strange that the first time you can find Bouffalant is in the postgame, but whatever!

meet!





I mean it is Amy's hometown, so...

that incredible



Part of me wonders why starters are so rare in the main games. I understand they're powerful, but imagine if you could just find a Bulbasaur in the grass in the Galar Region without having to engage in weird QR scanner shenanigans.







I also appreciate these normal trainers again. Well, normal for Insurgence.





Not many people are happy that I used a spider to attack their psychic starfish.





I thought Yellow was a small girl?





I'm still really happy to have access to this.











Gaea Town is the last new town, so let's go meet the locals!





This lady sells all the type plates.





No... no, that's okay.





The Battle Frontier is something I will not be covering. I might visit it briefly, but will definitely not be engaging in the battles therein.





There's Adam's first gym, but it's wholly inaccessible. His batcave is below it. We'll visit it in a bit.





The Elite Four refight becomes available after we finish all ten postgame sidequests. They, again, scale to your level and this time they start at 110 instead of 88.



and people can watch it that easily!



Same. Hard same.







This is a clue to yet another sidequest. This one involves investigating the ruins of the Infernal Cult base.









sometimes.



mancave below the Gym.

You know, I just this morning read an article about mancaves and why they seem to have completely fallen out of style.

out of respect.



Nobody here seems to notice that Amy has returned to town after having been missing for, presumably, more than a year.









Yep, the person who lets you swap a pokemon to its hidden ability is in this town somewhere.





I've never really messed with headbutt encounters much, but presumably Insurgence has those. I can't otherwise imagine why you would have a tutor for specifically it.





I think he's trying to point us at the Ancient Tower.







the tower!

something very interesting.



This will nab us our own Delta Ditto so we can breed Delta pokemon. It's actually not one of the ten "major" sidequests.









She can teach these moves to Eevee and Eevee alone. These moves are mostly to let its Mega Evolution be, uh, better.







Oh right! I forgot all about that. I'll show that off the next time I record.









Do you remember back in the Nightmare Realm when I briefly talked about the trading sequence? This is actually the start of it! At the end of the sequence, we have a chance to catch a level 120 Genesect.



We'll chip away at it as we have the chance. One of the steps requires us to progress another sidequest.



It's just a regular Darumaka. You can get them elsewhere, so it's not a really good trade.











Heck yeah!







I guess she didn't quite recover from Persephone stealing all her pokemon in the Infernal base.













Neat! Useless, but neat.



He's the guy who lets you get hidden abilities. Cutting him off like this lets me skip, I'm not kidding, 16 text boxes.

new Champion over here.

him to do that.

Him? SHE is right in front of you. Unless Amy had to give up her Champion title when she became Augur.



Alright now that we've been all over town, let's see what's in Adam's office.



Of course Adam had one of these.





Finding False Swipe here is a bit of brilliance. It's what he did to the Cults during his tenure as Augur. He never would finish them off, if you recall.



Cool. Now we can possibly maybe do a Danger Mario setup with a hydra.



That's the way to progress with the Taen quest.



It's been a while since I watched through that. Kinda thinking I should amend that.



I'm pretty sure this is the only evidence that Amy lived here at all.



Hmmmmm. I got an idea!



Let's play with the calculator some more.





Let's divide five by...



Zero.













: Do you know Tri-Edge?



: What did you say?



: He's a legendary PK, shrouded in blue fire. They say players that get killed by him never come back to the game.





: Huh? Oh, come on now! Don't tell me you actually believe that crap! Those old forum fairytales.





: So, you think you can go up against me, the great Bordeaux, and just walk away like nothing happ--









: Yeah, I think I can.



: *scoffs*











...and predicting winning lottery numbers is as easy as that!



Alright so our next stop is Gaea Town.



Yeah, that looks about right.







Umm...?



UMMM?









Oookay then. We just caught a level 80 Missingno and it only knows four moves... Water Gun, Sky Attack, Water Gun, and Sky Attack.

I think that's enough for now.

NEXT TIME: Well, that's up to you all!

1. Defeat the Timeless
   
2. The Science Club's Request
   
3. The Hunt for Taen
   
4. Missingno
   
5. Relic Song
   
6. Deyraan Town
   
7. The Nightmare Realm
   
8. The Parcel
   
9. "One of you is close to someone who needs help. Find this person fast."
   
10. The Finale
    

We've got three different choices, so bold your votes. The most votes determines what we do first. Second most is what we do after the first, and so on. We can chip away at Relic Song regardless of what we choose to do.

Do we... continue to hunt for Taen in No Man's Land?

Or perhaps we could help that kid in Deyraan Town explore the Infernal Cult ruins

We could also see what the scientists want. (This is the largest and longest sidequest in the postgame, and it involves going to an entire other region to do some work. It's also home to approximately thirty eight different species of Delta Pokemon.)