Well, time to head into Magma’s very secret base that they told me about.

On the way down, one of the grunts tells me they’re sure that this will make their family’s lives better, suggesting Maxie may be recruiting from the rural poor.

Then I find myself once again presented with the enemy team’s brilliant “block the way out with wailmer but not our actual base’s entrance” plan. And as always, somehow I can’t just fight them.

Then I enter and start talking to people who won’t fight me.

All of us gather and listen to our leader Maxie’s edifying speech at 11 o’clock every morning. Every morning. EVERY morning…


So, cult but not very good at it?

Then finally, a fight.

Hahaha! Suspicious person spotted!


Yeah I’m only not in your uniform while being that person who kicked your team’s ass every other time.

The next one says she’s bored of watching the base so she’ll fight me, implying she doesn’t think fighting me is part of her guard duties and just thinks I’m a fellow grunt. Afterward she warns me to leave lest others attack me, which suggests she’d figured out I’m not part of their crazy but not that I’m actually not supposed to be there.

I continue on to discover this is a filthy lie and no one fights me.

I heard our leader Maxie and Team Aqua’s leader Archie used to be on the same team.


I’m pretty sure they’re still playing for the same team.

But more seriously, what was going on there? Who broke from who?

I’d assume Maxie split to form his own team – you’d expect if Archie left, Team Magma would remember, while if Maxie left, Magma grunts would naturally come in at a point after that was all done with.

I really like my idea of Aqua being religious nutjobs, because flooding the world has too obvious drawbacks for me to believe they’d do it otherwise. That’d mean Maxie was originally a believer in Kyogre but lost his faith in whatever Aqua’s version of things is, deciding to go for something more obviously beneficial to humans instead.

Also possible is that the Kyogre cult existed but neither were part of it and form Humans First, then Archie finds religion partway through and defects, and it’s just that everyone in Team Magma is dumb so that’s why it’s just a barely known rumor that they used to work together.

I keep suppressing the urge to drink soda, and then I praise myself for it. Yes! I’m a man who knows how to create a small successful experience for myself.

Okay so I really hate the general watering down of everything and why will no on fight but there’s just something so charming about this bit. It’s not just that he’s doing this, it’s that he’s so pleased with himself that he’s telling a random kid who walked by about it.

Continuing on, I finally find someone willing to battle me. She crows about how I must be super confused by the warp panels and uh I got here by taking the stairs. I guess there was one warp panel involved.

A scientist informs me that they’re trying to make an artificial red orb and that meteorites are a major component of this, because I am so right and Groudon is alien to this planet. Also he’s a terrible scientist because he ends with some half-assed “maybe this is just too difficult for humans to solve” and screw you buddy, if something is too hard for humans to solve you invent a computer that can do it. And then ideally jam that computer into your meat brain and become a cyborg.

Apparently the science he was doing was lasering another Meteorite – perhaps a relative of our friend Meteorite who we’ve all come to know and love. Meteorite is a surname I guess. Also how does lasering even help? This is like Night Vale science.

PROJECT AZOROTH
File No. 2
We intend to analyze the power of the ultimate weapon used in Kalos 3,000 years ago and work on the development of a drill weapon utilizing the technology. The Seafloor Cavern is sealed by the power of a Legendary Pokemon. The only way to gain access to the cavern is to break the seal with power that exceeds that of the Pokemon. According to the report from the Petalburg recon team, Devon Corporation holds the secret of the technology of the ultimate weapon. We will dedicate all our resources to obtaining this technology.


Whoa.

They’re going to use the genocide beam? Devon ALREADY HAS the genocide beam?

Well. That sounds like it’s at least as high a priority as stopping these guys.

I go onward to find a room. For once, there’s text when I check out the computer:

The monitor shows pictures of Maxie with different expressions from different eras.


You know what’d be nice? Showing us those.

I then find a place with more bookshelves.

PROJECT AZOTH
File No. 1
The goal of Project AZOTH is to return the world–return everything–to the beginning. In order to further the project, we must proceed with research on Groudon’s Primal Reversion.


Now, ignoring my own space alien theory and considering the actual history of the planet, a case could be made that “desolate land” is an okay description of the early earth too. The problem is just that there’s no non-cultist reason to want to reset things to that. Not only were humans nonexistent, but there’d be no oxygen or anything, so even if you assume humans somehow survive the transition, we die immediately after.

Primal Reversion is a potential of Pokemon Evolution, a potential different from Mega Evolution. Mega Evolution is made possible by the energy of people and Pokemon. Primal Reversion is made possible by natural energy.


Game nothing you do can make me care about mega evolution.

In Primal Reversion, Groudon absorbs natural energy into its body, thereby increasing its power dramatically.


How on earth would you know this when not only has Groudon been missing since ancient times but apparently it’s currently behind an unbreakable barrier?

Both states significantly enhance a Pokemon’s power: the difference lies in the source of the required energy.


Hey, so what if “mega evolution” used to happen naturally, then as humans remodeled the world to their specifications, pokemon began to lose the ability and had to turn to partnerships with humans to accomplish the same thing?

And…apparently the same thing is on every bookshelf. I guess the game designers think we’re too dumb to think to check each bookshelf in sequence.

How about you, Team Magma grunt?

The Project AZOTH… A stands for the beginning, Z stands for the end–that’s what I think, but I don’t know what O, T, and H stand for.


I’m pretty sure AZOTH stands for awakening the Great Old Ones.

The scientist tells me that I’m not supposed to be there, correctly identifying me as a non-Magma troublemaker, then does nothing – no pokemon battle, not even a threat to alert the rest of the base.

In the next area, it’s another scientist who informs me that the item in this SCIENCE ROOM OF SCIENCE is a diving suit for magma and they managed to make it because “Tabitha, aka Tabitabi” used to work for them. So is Tabitabi a nickname he uses because he’s one of her scientist buddies or would she totally punch him if he used that in her hearing?

I find another room where I can’t see the computer screen but can check out the papers on the desk. They include Team Magma having a ten year plan, so either they are way, way too overconfident about the future or that’s old and this is the culmination of the ten year plan.

Finally, I find someone willing to fight.

If you want to know the secrets of our hideout, try to defeat me!


At last, I might learn where all the good trainers are hiding!

My first pokemon faints! Mightyena is down. I send out Silver. He levels. I decide, okay, you can evolve. Now Silver’s purple!

I retrieve the masterball, in the process getting my sceptile battered by electrode. Flare’s turn now!

And he does marvelously well, in part because the AI keeps wasting its turns but still.

Ah, and now it’s a whole pack of Magma!

Hehehe!


We finally meet again.


Hm? Ah… Is this the first time we’ve met?


Nincompoop! It doesn’t matter!


Brace yourself! We’ll show you the power of quintuplets!


Oh is that what you are. That’s actually less intimidating.

They all fight me at once in a horde battle – nice to see that mechanic get used for this sort of thing! – but like a horde battle they’re all underleveled. Flare manages to take out two of them before sucumbing. It’d be easy to just wipe them out with Silver, but instead I send out my sceptile and have it mega drain itself back to better health,

So yeah. Like real quintuplets, there were more of them but they were all feeble.

Hah, hah, hah… We lost…


It’s odd. I can’t believe the five of us couldn’t defeat just one Trainer. Did you cheat? Grumble, grumble…


Well, sort of, in that you losers each only had a single pokemon. Five pokemon each might’ve been an interesting battle.

Nincompoop! You’re strong, aren’t you? Stop whining!


Our leaders are ahead! You have no chance to defeat them!


And hey, it’s Tabitabi!

…


Well, she’s not killing me for using the nickname, I guess it’s okay with her.

…


…I knew you would come.


Uh, yeah? Also your boss explicitly told me to come and everything.

…Too bad, though. It’s all over now. (music note) …The submarine has been upgraded. …Look. (music note) …At that drill. …With that…even the seal on the Seafloor Cavern is in for a walloping! (music note)


…


…There’s still more…work for me to do. …I must…stop you. …Until Leader Maxie…departs… …But… …Now…I just…want to… …With you… …I want to…engage… …You… …I want to…analyze.


Uh.

So why was it all the fic I read in January was May/Maxie?

Ahahaha. (music note)

And we’re on!

She has a L39 camerupt. Silver uses surf, the battle ends.

Hah hah… Uhn…hah hah…


…


…Change…the world.


And the submarine finally departs.

…Leader Maxie…


…


…Mission… …Complete. …Leader Maxie…has departed. …For the development…of humanity. …For our…dreams… …To you…whom I had not foreseen. …I will give a hint. …So that you…may dream… …the same dream as us. …Leader Maxie…is headed for…the sea stretching out from Lilycove.


Well, thanks, but you guys have your impassable wailmer barrier, remember? With the way the game works, that traps me here forever.

…In the depths of the sea…lies the Seafloor Cavern. …What are you…going to do? …Looking around…in seaside towns. …That might work. …Ahaha. (music note)


…I don’t know…what you could do to get there. …Even if I knew…I wouldn’t tell. …Ahaha. (music note)


…Oh noo, Brer Magma, pretty please don’t take off and go carve an opening in the barrier I can then use to reach a pokegod. Anything but that.