Part 22: Gazing At The Blasphemous Moon While Perched Atop A Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Forsaken Slope Of The Northern Mountain
A strange man is here and talking like he's very familiar with Good Human Hokage Dick Solomon!
Just kidding, it's Theo.
Wait, Theo!? He looks like he's 20! How long have I been lost in that ice cave?!
Just compare his two sprites.
And the game claims it's just an outfit change?
Other gyms just give TMs and event flags, but this one also gives a real special thing. The 6th generation Pokemon games gave mega evolution about 1/3 to 1/2 through, so it's kinda weird for Uranium to shoot so close to the end. But then again I've had the Gyaradosite for a while so maybe it knew what I'd do...?
A guy runs out to inform that this gym is taken two at a time.
But we're split up until the leader.
What happens if someone drops out early, is the other person doomed? Nothing in this gym really shows that it's supposed to be done by two at a time. It's mostly just an excuse for Theo to also get to mega evolve things.
It has five rooms that range from braindead simple to annoying in all the wrong ways.
The Power Glove does it just right. Kinda weird how no one but the Tinkerer acts like it's possible to use the HMs' field functions without having a Pokemon learn the move. Almost as if it's a disparate part of the game bolted on at some point in its nine-year development cycle that wasn't accounted for in the editing.
It just so happens that this trial tests a quality with the same name as its solution. There isn't a trial of Surf.
Surprise! Another boulder puzzle. This one is annoying because you can't see the third row without comitting on the first, which might screw you up.
Afterwards is this guy who uses a bunch of easily-bested dragons.
Trico evolves into its second form by happiness. A bunch of drugs and then the experience share get him there real fast.
After that is the Dawn Stone and he's a full-fledged Luxelong. Unlike a lot of Uranium things, it has a reasonable BST distributed reasonably, and fairy/dragon's offensive and defensive presence with Wish and Baton Pass give it a few tricks.
The second trial is...
A maze. Next!
The trainers have different colors. I don't know why.
...A 3-legged electric buzzard.
Weird for an electric/flying thing to be in a gym with an ice/dragon leader, but ok.
Adaptability, and not the ability.
By adaptability they mean not telling you that you need an HM for this in advance despite naming Strength in advance.
Not even another Tracton can stop MEGAWEAPON!
The fourth trial is forcing school children to pray to Allah 7 times daily.
Just kidding it's another "push a button to see a path light up" thing like Sheldon's gym.
Except it is infinitely more windy and complicated and failing requires going through the first! And this is still RPG Maker XP forced to run Pokemon so movement still isn't precise.
Thank fuck these games let you save everywhere, eh?
...Yeah sure, that's intimidating. It was weird when a cutie like Shinx does it, but this is just kinda stupid.
Well there's the instructions.
Not sure if there's a trick involved but there's no reason to not just hold up.
That's how I have been doing it, so this is no big deal.
Okay, no items is one thing, but clearly you aren't even using a Pokemon.
Guess the typing: it's Ghost/Fire
Having passed the trials, we□re allowed to challenge the gym leader.
Foreshadowing: there will be at least one trainer with mega evolution who is not pure of heart and filled with determination.
The way he yells about it, you'd think he's a dragon specialist through and through.
The antlers and the fur around his shoulders really resembler fafurr's so maybe the ice/dragon thing was planned from the start.
OFSelects: Converge - Jane Doe
Maybe it's just me, but his key stone staff is somewhat obviously added to an already existing sprite, both for the vs splash and here.
Unlike prior gym leaders, this is a partner battle, and Theo finally has a full team of six.
Zapnap's electric return takes out the Glavinug instantly. This battle is in constant hail, just thought I'd bring that up.
Play Rough is the sole physical fairy move, but it's decent enough. That 90% accuracy is painful through and through, though.
Then Nimflora gets punted with Skyfall.
Theo's sixth member is his own Nucleon. It's the only member of his team that doesn't change depending on starter, actually.
Zapnap's Rock Slide does a number to both opponents.
And Theo's Nucleon has Hyper Voice.
Devs Knew.
Pfft, okay sure maybe Fafurr's evolved form Fafninter is pretty beefy-looking, but-
Oh.
Well then.
Vaeyrn's Fafninter has Fur Coat, so besides its massive 590 BST, it is halving all physical damage. It's tough as beans.
MEGAWEAPON takes out the Anderind, to prevent it from doing anything with its Ground STAB.
Vaeryn's last Pokemon is a doofy little Ampharos, but he doesn't say this in jest.
When a trainer has a key stone, and their Pokemon holds a corresponding mega stone, some shit can go down.
The Ampharos is enveloped in massive light and-
...well okay Mega Ampharos wasn't meant to be a sprite and it wasn't meant to look angry. But it has Mold Breaker to go through abilities and Electric/Dragon typing.
All other things equal, Iron Head is better to use than Dragon Calw because of the flinch chance. Fafninter probably would've caused problems if it got to do something.
Mega Ampharos has a 165 base special attack, so its Thunderbolts blow straight through Theo's Vilucard.
MEGAWEAPON finishes off the Fafninter on the next turn, leaving Mega Ampharos alone.
Dragon Pulse, like Dragon Claw, is a move with no side effects and a relatively meh power. But, you know, 165 base special attack.
Duke Nukem prods its x4 weakness to Nuclear and obliterates it in a Hyper Beam, and with that, Dick Solomon and Friend have triumphed. A total slugfest, to be sure.
An Uranium-original move, it sounds extremely strong, but Uranium's dragons are the kind that want to throw giant haymakers immediately or buff themselves, rather than use a weak move to make the next hit harder.
More importantly, the power of Mega Evolution!
Theo picks his Archilles, but instead of being forced to take our starter's stone, we get to choose. Thing is, every mega evolution I want to use but one is available before the post-game elsewhere, and in fact I have most of them.
The exception is Syrentide. But you get a free mega stone of whatever you pick here, so Porkyus gets the nod.
So rather than having to wait for her's, or just not showing it, I get it much earlier.
Oh, and the rival also got a superpower.
Of course we have to throw down right here, right now.
Just. New. Clothes.
When you've met the conditions, this icon appears in the corner. Press Z before selecting a move to unleash the power. You only get one a battle, but you can have as many things holding mega stones at once as you want.
Mega Archilles is much faster - fastest non-inflagetah lifeform in Tandor - and has a boost to its Special Attack to match getting Drought as an ability. But the ambient hail takes priority, it seems.
Porkyus becomes even more fucking indestructible. And her special attack becomes pretty good too. Nothing to her attack and speed, but, did we ever care about those?
She shrugs off a STAB Earthquake and OHKOs back. 98/128/158 defenses do that.
Her ability is now Pixilate, which turns Normal moves into Fairy. Certainly not as busted as Atomizate, but as anyone who's tried 6th gen OU can attest, pixilated Hyper Voices are no joke.
Not even STAB Giga Drains can take her down.
It takes weather's fixed damage to finally get her.
Nucleon takes down Chainite and gets into a mirror match, but...
The AI script only sees the damage off of 130 BP and not that it hasn't met the condition (I know because I looked at the AI script) so it does nothing while Duke Nukem gets to it.
Yeah go straight and fuck invisible mazes. Eat shit I'm just gonna use my new superpower frivolously.
Incidentally...
The power of Mega Evolution is activated by the bond of trust between trainer and Pokemon. Rad Pokemon can still mega evolve, even though they're feral killing machines barely restrained from trying to kill their own trainer.