Okay, I’m going to the GTS.

Time to trade ultrabeasts!

Buzzwole. The upper half is too reasonable, but I quite like the legs.

A mysterious life-form called an Ultra Beast. Witnesses saw it pulverize a dump truck with a single punch.

That’s not even particularly impressive by pokemon standards. Similarly, it’s also bug/fighting, and manages to be even more meh about it than pheromosa. It’s basically a bug version of incineroar.

Kartana.

This one’s grass/steel, and probably the only interesting thing about this is it’s floating about while celesteela has the whole faux bamboo thing, so that you can picture them swapping types easily which is an interesting connection between version exclusives. The folded look is odd but not that much considering we’ve had pokemon like chimecho, and it’s entirely too human-shaped for my taste.

One of the Ultra Beast life-forms, it was observed cutting down a gigantic steel tower with one stroke of its blade.

Okay.

Overall, much more pleased with Moon’s than Sun’s. My whim paid off!

Checking Bulbapedia on a hunch that the entries for the game they’re caught in might be better, it says, This Ultra Beast came from the Ultra Wormhole. It seems not to attack enemies on its own, but its sharp body is a dangerous weapon in itself. So it’s a pacifist blademon. Buzzwole’s Sun entry is, This Ultra Beast appeared from another world. It shows off its body, but whether that display is a boast or a threat remains unclear. again giving us a bit better of an idea of the psychology, even if both those options seem pretty mundane. Meanwhile, Sun’s entry for pheromosa is the far less interesting, One of the dangerous Ultra Beasts, it has been spotted running across the land at terrific speeds. and celesteela’s is It appeared from the Ultra Wormhole. Witnesses observed it flying across the sky at high speed. Meh.

(Also, I’m now in possession of a lunatone. L100, German, shiny, apparently came from original Hoenn, OT a Sakati.TV)

Time to go visit Wicke and finish this disaster up.

Wicke: We have been waiting for you, Bonnibel.

Anabel: Bonnibel, thank you for coming.

Wicke: I’d like to thank you first for all of your hard work containing the UBs. On behalf of the entire foundation, I would like to offer you our most sincere thanks. With this, all the UBs that appeared from the Ultra Wormhole, which opened in the earlier incident, have been caught.

Anabel: Oh, no, we’re the ones who should be thanking you, I think…

Then you’re objectively wrong.

Anabel: We could not have done it without the use of the Beast Balls that you provided for us.

Okay, look. If I drop a bunch of t-rexes into the middle of a city, I’m not a saint for grudgingly offering a few tranquilizer darts to whoever actually deals with it.

And you could so have done it without the beastballs. The internet is very clear that masterballs still work fine on them, and each game makes masterballs less of a big deal. There’s only one jellyfish, four cockroaches, a pair of bamboo rockets and a trash compactor. That’s a mere eight masterballs. I already have one so you’d only have to scrounge up seven more – just find out whoever’s giving them out as lottery prizes if you’re in a rush.

Wicke: They are negative assets of the foundation… I am happy to see them put to some good use.

You mean exactly the use you guys wanted for them. You’re even getting all the data on the ultrabeasts!

Wicke: I hardly know how I can thank the two of you…

The three of us/Don’t forget Looker

Oh fuck you game.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. The three of us third member unstated. If you think I mean Looker, that’s just you being stupid.

Anabel: Yes, Mr. Looker also did a great deal to help us with this mission.

That is a lie and you know it.

Anabel: But I thought he left before us. What is taking him so long to get here? I know I told him that we would meet here. Could something have happened?

Looker, spikyboxed as ever: Taihen da!

Anabel: R-really, Mr. Looker! Even after all this time…

Looker: I’m sorry! I know it’s a terrible habit, but I can’t help it! And more importantly…it’s a disaster!

Anabel: I would imagine it must be. What happened that made you so late?

Looker: I was on my way here when I stopped by Melemele Island to get some of their famous and delicious malasada as a gift for you all…

Well, it may have taken this entire sequence, but at least he did something slightly useful in the end.

Looker: But just when I had finished my purchase, I chanced to look up at the sky and there… He flips to dramatic spikybox. there it was! A mysterious black…something was zipping across the bright blue sky over Alola!

Doesn’t pretty much everything look black when it’s between you and the sun?

Looker, still spikyboxing, defends his freakout again my reasonableness, continuing, It was black and yet it was shining somehow! It was…it was like it was refracting light!

You mean like how there’s tons of perfectly mundane black items that are also semi-reflective, like obsidian, or crows?

Looker, refusing to stop spikyboxing: It might have been a UB! No, I’m certain of it! It was surely a UB!

Anabel: But it couldn’t be… We haven’t had any word from HQ about there being more UBs!

Wicke: Please rest easy. I do not think it was a UB. We have a hundred of our foundation members working in parallel with the International Police investigating and scouring Alola for UBs. We have not detected any UBs other than the ones that you already contained for us.

Because you are a trustworthy individual.

Anabel: So you see? We should be quite safe now.

Looker: I…I suppose… Perhaps I was just dazzled by the brilliant, shining sky that stretches over Alola…

Wicke: And it is little wonder if you were dazzled. You all have been working so very hard. You must be very tired, Mr. Looker.

Looker: W-well…yes, I suppose I could do with a nice little break…

Anabel: And now you can have it. I received a message from HQ saying that our paid leave has been approved.

Looker: Paid leave?! You mean…actual vacation time?!

Anabel: They say we are free to do whatever we would like until we get our next orders from HQ. I hope you will also use this chance to relax for a little while, Mr. Looker. I think that I will stay here and have a good look around the Alola region. Not for work this time, but just as a regular tourist doing some sightseeing.

Looker: Then I think that I will go and eat my fill of delicious Alolan cooking! There are simply too many restaurants and eateries that I wish to visit! And the traditional dishes at Sushi High Roller are absolutely sublime!

Anabel: Sushi…High Roller? Oh no! I completely forgot! I was supposed to be meeting someone!

Looker: What’s this?! A date?!

oh my god I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE

Anabel: N-no! Not a date! I am meeting with Mr. Nanu! We owe him quite a bit for all his help!

Yeah he sure stood and rambled like a champ.

Looker: Yes…I suppose we do.

Anabel: So if you will excuse me… Bonnibel, everyone… I’m afraid I must be going. But I really do thank you all. I hope we will all meet again someday!

Looker: Yes, my young Bonnibel… I also owe you my thanks. It was because of your efforts that we were able to keep the chief safe until the end.

What pokemon would be the most upsetting to have turn on you, would you say?

Looker: The folks at HQ thought that you needed to be paid for your work, so they sent this. Take it.

And now I have an extra 1,000,000 not-yen. Yeah, a lot of zeros were involved, but on the other hand, it’s yen, so you can chop out two of those. I guess in some way it’s interesting to get a big hunk of money instead of a unique item, and there is a lot of stuff to spend money on now that you can play dressup.

Looker: And now…I think that it’s time I went.

Thank christ.

Looker: I’ll

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? GO!

Looker: be staying at the motel in Melemele Island, though, so feel free to stop by anytime.

Oh god finally.

So yeah. As I said earlier, this whole plot thread would’ve been better served by just Wicke and the kahunas, with Bonnibel functioning just fine as a wormhole attractant (…or just not include that at all? It doesn’t seem to add much of anything beyond another dollop of misery for how every second in our world is suffering for the ultrabeasts and they chase any possibility of returning home.)

If it’s really important that the postgame involve new characters, and they’re committed to involving Looker…have him be the faller getting run ragged. Looker first appears in a fourth gen game, which means he’s just prior to mega evolution, which in turn appears to be what we’re using to distinguish the two universes. And the fact he’s been in each of the games since then means players are familiar with him and it’d be an interesting twist that he’s hopped dimensions. Looker spends the first couple missions guarding the populated areas while Anabel blocks the ultrabeasts from escaping wherever we’ve cornered them –  so I can also chat with her for replacement balls, saying the mission is done, etc. Each time I return victorious, we discover Looker got attacked by the next ultrabeast in the chain and just barely fought them off, so now we have to rush off.

Alright, Wicke, let’s chat.

Huh. Trading doesn’t unlock buzzvole or kartana’s entries, so only guzzlord is an option:

UB-05. Code name: “Glutton.” Properly known as Guzzlord. This UB has been sighted in the Alola region in the past as well, according to our reports. It seems it was targeted by the International Police in a top-secret mission at that time. Its most distinctive feature is its limitless appetite. It feeds without pause every moment that it is awake. It uses the two large tongues that protrude from its mouth to catch and devour everything in its path, be it organic or inorganic matter. And while it eats such an inordinate amount, Guzzlord excreta has never been discovered. It is thought that it might fully convert the things that it eats into energy for it to use.

Given the fact you can look right through a guzzlord, I’d guess that it’s actually some sort of portal. Its body doesn’t seem to be able to process anything, it’s all focused on moving whatever goes in down its conveyer-belt tongue right back out.

Speaking of…let’s give these guys a cuddle.

Buzzvole’s eating animation is almost what I’ve been talking about, with its proboscis sucking up the bean…but it’s still got the crunching sounds and bite marks. They should’ve done something like the bean just shrinking.

Guzzlord got the one-bite gulp thing, although it would’ve been even funnier if it didn’t get full. And you can hurt yourself on the outer teeth but pet the inside of its mouth safely.

Kartana is just ordinary, it seems like.

Well, to Bulbapedia to find out what I missed.

UB-02. Code name: “Absorption.” Properly known as Buzzwole. This UB was sighted for the first time following the incidents at Aether Foundation. Its most distinctive feature is its skill to strengthen itself. Buzzwole is able to absorb energy and then achieve a chemical reaction between the energy it has absorbed and its own body fluids. As a result, Buzzwole’s body swells to an almost explosive extent. Its muscles bulge and are so thick and dense that they are stronger even than steel. Both its Attack and Defense experience a clear leap in power. It also displays a habit of striking a pose each time that it takes any sort of action… It is thought this might serve as a method of communication, but it is not well understood.

UB-04. Code name: “Blade.” Properly known as Kartana. This UB was sighted for the first time following the incidents at Aether Foundation. Its most distinctive feature is its thin and razor- sharp body, of which every edge has as cruel a cutting edge as any well-honed blade. The edges on its arms are particularly in a class of their own. Any opponent who tries to attack it will be cut down with a single strike of its “blades.” Its thin body also allows it to evade attacks by dancing lightly out of the way. This is a very dangerous creature, considering its excellent offensive and defensive capabilities, but due to the nature of its body, it is also highly vulnerable to fire and moisture.

…except grass resists water, and steel isn’t exactly vulnerable to it either. The types really aren’t matching up well. I get that it’s supposed to be the papercut pokemon, but if they wanted it to behave like paper they should’ve thought more about this.

Well, still a few more plot threads to follow, and a few more pokemon to evolve. Very nearly done, though!