Part 45: Grown Tremendously
Update 46: Grown TremendouslyChairman Rose's Plan - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST
Fair warning, Gloria, he’s actually a nutter.
Oh good.
Gloria! YOU will understand what I’ve done! Tell me, do you remember the conversation we had a year or two ago in Hammerlocke? I mean, I do, but it was in July – Shut up. You asked me if we’d run out of Galar particles that someday. And you were right! In fact, I’ve had to discreetly switch most of our mining operations over to other materials just to keep it quiet. Oh, the particles themselves are chugging along just fine, but there just aren’t any more to find. By the end of this month we’ll have to start slowing expansion; by the end of this year, we’ll have run out entirely. Can you imagine how the investors would respond? Did you put the entire region at risk to keep your shareholders happy? No, I did it to keep the economy from collapsing, you little shit! Every market projection, every development plan, every retirement fund, all down the shitter the moment Galar’s most important industry bottoms out. So imagine what happens when we find a literal dragon sleeping at the bottom of the deepest Galar particle vein we’ve ever located. We thought, “no way in hell has no one in the region ever seen what is clearly a Legendary Pokémon”. Do you know what we did next? I’m still marveling at how you literally dug too greedily and too deep. Shut up! We followed the vein all the way up to the Bath in Circhester, made the connection, and commissioned Magnolia’s favorite lab assistant to follow up on it!… Oh no 
. We never briefed Sonia in full, of course – we gave her just enough information to go off to get her started. And she was hardly the only researcher we had. We call it the Darkest Day Entity, but one of ours in Wyndon uncovered its Old Unovan name: Eternatus. Rather poetic, don’t you think? We kept digging. We did scans, physical exams, everything we could think of without waking it up – and it turns out, part Poison and part Dragon. Exposure to low heat and exposure to pressure keep it dormant, and with the batteries and equipment you see around you, we could simulate the appropriate sensory input right here in this tower! So you stored a mysterious and possibly dangerous Legendary in a historic building in one of the biggest cities in Galar? Shut. Up. As it was, dear Eternatus didn’t take kindly to being prodded in his sleep. Maybe it might have in the past, but, well, it was waking up. And every time it stirred, all across the region, Galar radiation spiked. We could soothe it during these episodes with crystallized Galar particles…
Bede did good work there. Shame about what happened to him. But it just wasn’t enough. If we could just wake it up safely, we could milk it for Galar particles indefinitely. Eternatus has circadian rhythms, just like all of us. Its last a few months, and we were forced to choose between waking it now, before the equipment was fully tested, or wake it months from now, once the energy crunch and runaway emergence events had gotten underway. That’s what all of this is! All this equipment was designed to keep it both awake and docile, all this planning, all this money – and it wasn’t Goddamn enough. Our equipment wasn’t fine-tuned enough. Too little heat, too little pressure… ……We were storing it in the former containment cell behind me when it broke free, and off it went… And for all that, it worked anyway. Or rather, Leon did. No doubt he’s already worn it down at the top of the Tower. The longer he can delay it, the more Galar particles our equipment can harvest out of the air around it – and when he captures it? We can do the same again. And again. And again. No energy shortages. No deprivation.… So can we go see Leon now? No. Could’ve told you. I’ve had too much go off the rails today. Too many other variables gone wrong. Millions in damaged equipment alone. What happens if you interrupt him? Distract him? Worse, if you catch it and refuse to let us use it? No. You will stay here until Leon catches Eternatus or it destroys the Tower with us in it.
But I –
Battle! (Macro Cosmos Rose) - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST
I haven’t showed this much on screen, but outside of Oleana, almost every Macro Cosmos trainer has used Steel-types, notable for their skyhigh defense and constellation of resistances (including Electric). As such, the leader of Macro Cosmos uses ONLY Steel-types. His issue is? Every single one of his Pokémon is either weak or double-weak to Fire. And it’s not like his team his particularly impressive in and of itself, to be honest. Plus, Gloria really isn’t in the mood to dance around the point anymore.
For all the fanfare, this is not challenging fight.
Especially not with Bruce around. The closest thing he has to a threat is his signature Pokémon, the same Copperajah Bede stole earlier. Instead of just taking it down with Bruce like the others, I switch out Briggs for a quick photo op.
This move damages any Pokémon that switch in, too. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough.
Are… You’re letting us go? Just like that? I can hardly stop you now, can I? At this point it’s been long enough that our batteries must nearly all be full, and they weren’t built with the possibility of overloading in mind. That was on the docket for three weeks from now. Funny, isn’t it? It looks like Leon may not be enough to defeat Eternatus, after all. I may have been wrong in that too.… Go on ahead. Either Leon, the police, or the agents of heaven will find me down here when it’s all over. There’s nowhere else I have to be.…
Even in the rush to get this game finished, they took the time to set up a view so vivid you can feel the heat off the electric coils.
About as ready as I’ll ever be for this, mate.…
Battle! (Eternatus) ~ Phase 1 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST
Thanks, Hop. And you, Gloria. You two really have grown tremendously! But I think it’s a bit late. Every time I knock it out, it wakes back up and more Pokémon Dynamax, and every time I try to catch it, it just breaks free. I’m down to my last ball. Look.
So, uh, that’s a pretty space-age-looking Pokémon. Anyway, I’m gonna just have L337 pound it with a Draco Meteor –
L337 goes down in one hit. I’d forgotten just how tough it was. Its attacks are enormously powerful Dragon-type moves – it knocks out Briggs despite the type disadvantage, too, before Mr. Blobby takes it out with Psychic.
… …wait for it – 
Pokémon Ruby was the second game I played in Gen 3; I went with Sapphire at first because I like the color blue. If Team Rocket in Gens 1 and 2 were the Mafia, Teams Magma and Aqua were halfway between cultists and ecoterrorists: they wanted to revive ancient deities to reshape the face of the earth in profoundly stupid ways. In Sapphire, Team Aqua revived a God of Water to raise the oceans above the land, and while it was running free, the weather system, which otherwise vary from place to place, was stuck in rainstorm everywhere.
In Ruby, Team Magma planned to dry out the oceans so that land would reign everywhere. The endless rainstorms were impressive and not a little alarming, certainly. But there was a grinding, gray-brown desperation to the landscape in Ruby’s endgame that just wasn’t present in its sibling game. Even if all the land in the world vanished underwater, there’d still be life swimming in the oceans. But almost by definition, if there was no water in the world, there would be no life at all. It felt like the earth was dying in a vivid, insidious way I’ve never encountered in another Pokémon game, including this one.
But this comes pretty close. And after all, what would a JRPG be if one of its most important bosses didn’t have multiple stages
? Battle! (Eternatus) ~ Phase 2 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST
Through this whole fight we can see impressions of other locations in Galar flashing by in the background; without even focusing on it I caught Ballonlea, Wyndon, and the Diglett statue by Stow-on-Side.
Fortunately for us, Hop jumps in to help, and apparently our team is completely healed? Don’t question it, we don’t have the time.
And yet every time we try to do anything, Eternatus sits around storing its energy and prevents us from moving…
Just… raise it up? 
S-stop! It’s… Loud. Speak… Somehow else, please.… (Is this acceptable?) Yes, thanks. Zacian, you can talk Uh… (My brother can speak to your friend in his head, and I in yours.) Okay. Okay. Then what should I do?
Battle! (Eternatus) ~ Phase 3 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST
Another strong recommend track – instead of an evolution of the last theme, it’s a remix several other standout tracks.
Remember how you have four Pokémon working together against Pokémon in Dens? Welcome to the equivalent
. That doesn’t make this fight trivial, necessarily; it did down L337 in one hit. But…
…With a little assistance, it goes down easier than most high-level den battles. After a couple rounds, adorably enough, Hop’s Dubwool gets in the final hit with a Double-Edge that does as much damage to it as to Eternatus.
Wait – Zamazenta, can you link me to Eternatus like I’m linked to you? (Yes, but that is highly unwise –) Then do it! Trust me! You want Zamazenta to do WHAT –
