Part 40: Something Truly Spectacular

Update 41: Something Truly Spectacular

Wyndon - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

Let’s pick up where we left off.



Quick turnabout.

You’ll need somethin’ to ride the monorail over, though, since it’s limited to MC employees. So, I’ll walk ya over there and use my keycard to start it up for you two.

Hell yes!

And off he goes…

…

… You played him. He wouldn’t have been ready to force the issue unless revved him up.

Mmhmm.

Just like you played Marnie before her gym battle.

Well, now, that’s a mite uncharitable isn’t it? All I did was push her along a little bit. I didn’t have anythin’ to do with that Team Yell business.

… But you knew it was going on.

Right perceptive, you are. I just figured she needed a little push to realize how far she’d come, and I knew she was right sick of the lads condescendin’ to her.

Were you expecting her to snog me in front of you and half the city?

Five years ago she was beatin’ herself up about not being able to hug anybody. Kissin’ you demonstrated how far she’s come. I knew it, she knew it, the lads knew it. I’m right proud of her, I am.

… And what about me? With her?

I may be, shall we say, estranged from Rose, but I’m still a Gym Leader. I’ve heard nothin’ but good things, and that’s not countin’ all the praise Sonia likes to heap on you.

Speaking of which, what’s going on between you and her?

A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.

… You’d better treat her right, Piers.

You don’t have to worry on that front. I’d never hurt her.

But how do I know you won’t –

FINALLY. What the fuck took you two so long?

So sorry to cut this conversation short, but it looks like your friend’s waiting for you.





…

And now the narratives come back together. We get a brief moment of freedom to roam the Tower grounds, but there isn’t much to do except find a couple items.

Gloria… Don’t know if you knew this already, but I’ve heard Rose Tower was built on a Power Spot. Yeah, you know what I’m saying… When we get up to the roof and have a bit of space, we can Dynamax our Pokémon!

Why would I want to do that?

Why would HE want to do that?

He’s a big show off?



Uh, ma’am? Can we – can we use the lift?

Storming Rose Tower - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



MC Grunt: I’m afraid you two are trespassing on private property and I have to ask you to leave.

What? We literally just walked in –

_{Don’t yell at a security guard, are you mad?}

MC Grunt: Is there going to be a problem?

No, no, we’ll leave now –



MC Grunt: Ms. Oleana?!

Please answer your phone.

MC Grunt:… Ms. Oleana?



MC Grunt: Wait, the chairman himself?



MC Grunt: What do you MEAN without escort?!



MC Grunt:… Understood.

…

…

MC Grunt: Chairman Rose has invited you to the top of the Tower. Please step through the door behind me and ride the lift to the viewing platform.

… Thanks?

MC Grunt: Get on the lift.

Okay!_Move!

Why does that bloke scare you so badly?

Why DOESN’T he scare you? I’d rather not have my career derailed by getting booked for unlawful entry!

Gloria’s right, you know. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that I’ve been doctoring small parts of the narrative without telling you (<player_name> didn’t actually talk the Team Yell grunt out of trying to steal that bike ). Last update covered a sequence too extended for me to excise and too nonsensical for me to include, so I compromised by splitting the narrative. This time, though? Canonically, you and Hop scale the tower by having Pokémon battles against employees that try to stop you on the way up. That HAS to be the PokéWorld equivalent of breaking and entering. But no, nobody ever treats it as a big deal even though you used violence to enter and stay within private property. Fuck, man. So, yeah. I’m not having them break the law.



As you travel up the tower, workers from Macro Cosmos’s subsidiaries (construction, airliner, and life insurance) come out and challenge you and Hop to double battles. They aren’t terribly notable – the Pokémon are pretty strong, a little below Hop in level, but each employee only has one Pokémon and Hop fully heals your party after each fight so I can’t imagine them posing a threat. They don’t even have separate battle music, the music never changes . They do, however, provide us with something wonderful.



They use the possessive correctly! While some people would look at this and say the S on the end is incorrect, in fact according to most accepted style guides, you only omit the S for plural possessive nouns . For instance, if we wanted to insult our employer, we would talk about our boss’s shriveled genitalia, not our boss’ shriveled genitalia. If we were talking about multiple bosses, only THEN would we omit the S: our bosses’ shriveled genitalia. I’m really glad they got that one right. Otherwise, I’d expect these losers to tell us its there doody twos top use.

Anyways the elevator eventually stops.





I actually waited for a few seconds before I realized we were free to walk around. I promptly walked away from Oleana to explore only to get flung right back into a cutscene.

I’ve been instructed by the chairman to wait with you until he and the Champion have finished their conversation.

Aren’t you his second in command? Shouldn’t you be, you know, doing administration and such?

Of course I should! But, the Chairman always knows better. He said I should wait here, and that’s what will happen.

Why? That’s kind of wasting talent, isn’t it?

I refuse to discuss this with you.

I’m not sure I’d accuse the man who raised Bede of having personnel management skills –





How dare you talk about him! You ruined his life!

Pretty sure he did that on his own. He’s kind of a mess, did you realize?

He was a rising star! And then he ran into you and his whole life went to shit!

Oleana, I never even tried to fight him. He just challenged me a few times before he lost it.

He HAD to! He had to prove himself worthy of the chairman’s attention. When he couldn’t beat you, it humiliated him in front of Mr. Rose. His disappointment would break ANY of us.

But wouldn’t that mean Rose set him up to fail?







Battle! (Oleana) - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST





I like how Oleana’s theme is mostly just the Wyndon theme remix, and also how her team is just a little bit more levelled than some of the strongest Challenges. Anyway, it’s actually a pretty easy fight. Her Froslas goes down in one hit, but her Milotic is a pain in my ass.



It doesn’t threaten Briggs much, but it does constantly heal itself up to make my life harder. Her Salazzle goes down in one Bubble Beam from Tiddles, and her Tsareena goes down in one X-Scissor from Baklava .

But remember how Hop said we could Dynamax on this tower?



















Now Oleana’s pile of garbage Pokémon is a bigger, more visually intricate pile of garbage. It’s still not terribly intimidating, though.





My gut instinct is that this fight exists as some kind of progress check: you might be able to scrape by against Hop and take down Marnie through exploiting her Type weaknesses, but Oleana exists to make sure those weren’t flukes. But honestly, she’s really not intimidating. Most of her Pokémon are pretty fragile and have obvious counters, and frankly, if you’ve made it this far, you should be able to take her down, no problem.

… They’re in the viewing station on the top floor. There is a spiral staircase behind you. Take it up.

Thank you, Ms. Oleana. <sub>You really have a talent for setting people off, don’t you?

I mean, I GUESS. I don’t do it on purpose…</sub>

…