Refusing to act until he stops doing this stupid thing and gets out of my way just makes time stop instead of letting me actually get to play meteor chicken with Wallace.

Then let us begin… Champion of Hoenn. You, who should exhibit the most graceful of art in battle with your Pokemon… I would have you show me your true strength!

We already did this, Wallace.

L55 wailord It insists on using water spout against my L29 corphish despite Raiden sacrificing himself to bring it down to a sliver, so now Corphish is L30 and soon to not be a corphish.

L55 ludicolo, it doesn’t land a single hit on Irin.

L55 tentacruel, wastes its turn on rain dance despite how I have Groudon, then uses dazzling gleam which takes off about half of Irin’s HP, so if it’d just done that from the start…

L57 milotic who the rain dance was probably set up for. Wallace, I have Groudon. You know I have Groudon. Here, let me remind you: I have Groudon and no qualms about activating mega primal overpowered world destroying form for absolutely no reason at all. Precipice blades, Groudon! It’s stabmurder time!

L55 whiscash. That sure was a momentary thing.

L55 gyarados. Flying types are annoying, so I send out Saurius, only to be met with ice fang. A combination of leech seed, detect, and mega drain by Sceptile get it most of the way down, and Groudon finishes the job by fire.

To defeat me, a descendant of the ancient Sootopolis people and even when I was holding nothing back… says Wallace, implying my earlier win was illegitimate because he’s a bastard like that.

Then my corphish evolves! So at least he was good for something.

Crawdaunt has an extremely violent nature that compels it to challenge other living things to battle. Other life-forms refuse to live in ponds inhabited by this Pokemon, making them desolate places.

As I have come to expect from you, Lucki… Wallace backpeddles probably in response to my hateful look. You are an excellent Pokemon Trainer. The Pokemon that you sent out in that battle… At times dancing as lightly as an elusive spring breeze… Yet striking with the sudden surety of lightning from the blue. Watching you command the battle with such ease and grace… Even I might succumb to your charm.

This is apparently the same regardless of the character’s gender, so I guess that explains the other half of the gay panic emanating from fandom back when the games came out.

Now go forth. Find the truth you seek.

I’m…pretty sure we’re all clear on what’s the truth by this point.

As one of the ancient people of Sootopolis, I cannot intrude upon this holy place.

“Just send someone totally not supposed to be here at all in. Because I respect it so much.”

Hm. I wonder if he’s not entering because he’s trying to act like he totally is an ancient Sootopolitian no really look or because he’s afraid that, not being one, something bad will happen if he keeps hanging around.

I will return to Sootopolis for now and try to lay plans in case the worst should come to pass despite all our efforts.

By which you mean, apparently, Zinnia not being stopped from preventing us all from dying. Maybe the police have started closing in on his killings and he figured he was okay because the meteor would end the world before they finished working out he did it.

I’m sorry that we always seem to be leaving the fate of the world in your hands.

I’m sorry you always refuse to just get the fuck out of my way.

Yet here it lies once again. Good luck to you, young Champion!

Finally, he’s gone.

At last I can enter the cave. Time for glowy bobbing antenna!

Oh, it’s Zinnia!

Oh god why did I put on the antenna i regret everything.

So you came for me. Thanks for that.

And she claps. Please don’t be being sarcastic, Zinnia, I would die.

That’s really good, Lucki. I really feel it, right here. Mm-hmm… Since you’ve been a good girl, I think I’ll give you something I’ve been keeping.

She turns away, facing the metal ladder. Actually, everything down here looks oddly new. There’s old pictures on the walls but they’re mostly covered by boxes or crates.

Look…

The paintings that cover the walls of this tower… See, these are the history of humanity, of Pokemon, and of nature itself. They’re the tales that have been passed down by my ancestors, the Draconids, for thousands of years. And now…I will pass that history and lore on to you.

So this means we’re getting married, right? Since only Draconids can know this stuff.

Thousands of years ago, in the primal age long lost, the world was overflowing with natural energy. Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre fought over that energy in endless, furious clashes. In the face of Primal Groudon and Kyogre’s great power, people could do nothing.


If “Primal X” is their default state, why the qualifier?

For that matter, from the sounds of it the only point in history where they’ve been not-primal has been this time, so they were just Groudon and Kyogre, and currently they’re Depowered Groudon and Depowered Kyogre.


 The only choice was to watch as disaster upon disaster swept over them. It was in such a time that a great many meteors poured from the darkness of space, from a place higher even than the heavens. And as the meteoroids fell in their multitude upon a waterfall that had been home to a tribe of Dragon-type Pokemon users… …OK! That’s it! That’s the end of the first chapter of my tale. I’ll tell you the next part of the story on the next floor. Look forward to it!

So do I just keep walking up or is this a prove my worth thing where there’s actual challenges? I remember 3rd gen Sky Pillar being difficult due to having those cracked floor puzzles, but I haven’t seen any sign of them in this game yet.

Up I go!

Oh! Here you are! Let me continue. It’s finally time for chapter two. Here we go! At last, right? Hah! I know you’re thrilled.

Little concerned the game seems to think walking upward was a major challenge for me, but otherwise, yes, keep the exposition flowing!

The meteors shone with a rainbow brilliance, as if some great life was held within. That was when, as if drawn by the brilliance, a Pokemon that shone in a blazing emerald hue descended from the heavens… That Pokemon was none other than Rayquaza. Rayquaza’s power overwhelmed that of the two Primal Pokemon, and peace returned to the world. The people of Hoenn revered Rayquaza as a true savior.


It seems rather coincidental that the meteors were raining down on a bunch of people who were super into dragon types and then their savior was a dragon type. I’d guess that what really happened was that the people who saw this ended up revering dragons and then as time passed it changed from “those people were there at the time and decided to train dragons and name themselves dragon people over this” to “the dragon people who keep dragons were there at the time” to “the ancient Draconids were there”.


A thousand years after this time, the meteoroids once again fell. A huge meteoroid, far greater than any before, struck the planet, boring deep into the ocean and leaving behind it a crater larger than any other. The land born of this event later became known as Sootopolis.

Uh – but volcanic and meteor craters are different.

Really, really different.

I mean, I guess this explains WTF “ancient Sootopolitians” had to do with anything at all, but…this is a really dumb retcon that doesn’t even make sense with the name, let alone any understanding of geology.

And that’s it! Chapter two is over! But we’ve only just left the starting line. There’s a long way yet–don’t fall behind now!

So like, did she write it all out in advance and decide where she was going to break it up for best dramatic impact? Or is she doing this off the top of her head and the suddenness of the breaks is her going wait no fuck I need to make sure I have enough to spread out over the next five levels!!! to herself?

Now, our tale reaches the best part. Sootopolis was born from a great meteoroid strike.


It was not.


The great meteoroid was the first of many disasters to befall humanity. When it punched into the planet, the land cracked beneath it, and a great welling of natural energy poured from beneath Hoenn. Thirsting for that energy, Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon once again woke.


Now this has some interesting implications for my planet heart theory. From the description here, the heart would appear to be some third party that’s being preyed upon/parasitized by the two of them.

Of course, people may also have misinterpreted events. It’s possible the energy surge was more along the lines of Kyogre bleeding out energy, explaining why Groudon took it as a good time to strike. It’s also possible the meteor didn’t release Hoenn’s energy but was itself the energy.


The people had a wish–a memory from a thousand years before… They wished that the Legendary Pokemon clad in emerald light would appear again. The huge Meteorite


I would just like to pause to say that yes, I am really fucking smug that all my doomsaying about capitalization was so incredibly right.


 that lay in the heart of Sootopolis gave off a boundless brilliance. In its brilliance, it resembled a vast a powerful Key Stone. And once again, Rayquaza descended from whence it came in the heavens. The people fell to their knees before Rayquaza and made a wish for salvation. As they did, a great change came over the Legendary Pokemon. It was enveloped in blinding light. As the light receded, they beheld a Rayquaza beyond all knowledge–a sublime figure, incandescent with overwhelming life force. It was humanity’s wish that brought about Rayquaza’s transformation in the face of the rainbow stone… Yes… A wish… An intangible thing, invisible to the eye. Yet this wish bound people and Pokemon together, enabling the Legendary Pokemon to change its appearance… Doesn’t it remind you of something? That’s right… It sounds like Mega Evolution, doesn’t it?

It actually does not, except for the glow. I mean, that’s probably the point you’re trying to make, but this game has been making a huge point about primal being somehow different from mega so the moral is glowy temp evolutions apparently isn’t supposed to sound like mega evolution.

And in mechanism, it doesn’t sound like how mega evolution is supposed to work. Supposedly, that’s all about the bond between human and pokemon. Now, in practice, we know it doesn’t have any affection or friendship requirements and have now seen three separate pokecidal villains manage to use it, two in this very game. I suppose you could argue that Steven may be able to care for his individual pokemon while still being totally in favor of shoveling pokemon in general into the furnaces, but the fact he doesn’t even seem aware of the dissonance suggests otherwise.

Even that aside, we’ve never seen mega evolution involve multiple people. I’m not really sure what mega evolution is supposed to involve from the human side of things, since from the player’s POV it’s just a matter of selecting an option, but it seems mechanical, not a matter of emotional resonance.

So whatever she’s describing seems like it’s either some third form of evolution OR human faith is similar to whatever nebulous energy “nature” counts as, and Rayquaza can suck it up to power a primal transformation – one it didn’t actually require to stop the other two given it manages fine in the first appearance.

On a definitely unrelated note, do you know what the shiny version of Rayquaza looks like?

That’s a rather…shadowy…serpent.

Capable of sucking up the prayer of terrified humans to grow in power.

And viewed in that light, green isn’t the most reassuring color either.

Zinnia cares not for obscure references implying unpleasant things about our lord and savior and leaves me with my rambling.

And then an ariados shows up.

Ariados’s feet are tipped with tiny hooked claws that enable it to scuttle on ceilings and vertical walls. This Pokemon constricts the foe with thin and strong silk webbing.

Back to Zinnia.

And how did the story end? After being transformed by the wish of the people, did Rayquaza save them from disaster? Rayquaza once again confronted Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre. The golden filaments that sprang from its body covered the sky. An emerald brilliance illuminated the area. A terrible wind rose.


Rayquaza for secret villain!


The wind and emerald light visibly sapped the power from Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre. Drained of their primal powers, the two vanished into the depths of land and sea. Rayquaza watched them go, regaining its usual appearance. Then it soared back into the heavens where it dwelled. A witness to this series of events, a tall visitor from a distant land


Oh my god go away already you were annoying enough the first time around.

Also I thought you were supposed to be like punished with eternal life not hobnobbing with everyone important every time anything cool happened.


, said, “It is the Δ (Delta), born of the great disturbances in this world.”


A statement that doesn’t actually seem to make any sense with anything else. Rayquaza doesn’t seem designed to deal with the actual world disturbances, because it doesn’t seem to notice Groudon and Kyogre until it arrives. It’s first summoned by meteors and then summoned by wishes, and in both cases appears to exist independently prior to this. The story even emphasizes the whole “came FROM” the heavens, as in, already existed and was hanging out there long before this.

I will grant that this raises a lot of questions about why Zinnia thought summoning Groudon to stop meteors made sense, as opposed to summoning meteors to stop Groudon. Maybe her plan had two steps – first Groudon, then get everyone praying around the stone. Groudon does seem like a much slower apocalypse than meteor instadeath. The previous stories seem to have much smaller and survivable meteors, and they make it clear a whole lot of them fall without Rayquaza doing anything. The only time people managed to summon Rayquaza in the past was while cowering from another godmon, and in that light, trying to reenact that whole section of the story makes sense.

That does suggest Zinnia’s plan likely did have a death toll built into it, though it’s pretty hard to say for certain without being able to actually ask her how long she expected the summoning to take.

Looking over this story I don’t see any references to Rayquaza stopping meteors at all, so either she edited that out for the cliff notes version she’s giving me (and can’t see why when there’s a meteor coming) or the reason the plotline’s been treating this as a weird and questionable idea is that the people who know the history know Rayquaza never stopped a meteor before.

Zinnia’s either working off the idea Rayquaza is designed to respond to calamity in general therefore it’ll fix whatever the current problem is or she figures if it doesn’t work they’re all dead anyway so she may as well try. The second actually fits well with the fact her interactions with Hitler Jr aren’t “omg you don’t need to murder pikachu to accomplish it” but “our survival isn’t worth this”. She destroys the portal rather than asking him to just wait a bit first since her plan will make it unnecessary.

As an actual student of this, it’s probably not lost on her that the meteors in the first tale appear to be a long term problem only to stop when Rayquaza arrives and she may have some reason to believe the sequence is not a singular meteor shower then Rayquaza then stopping Groudon and Kyogre but steady meteors coming to an abrupt end after Rayquaza shows up. A bit odd she doesn’t explain any of this, but I think she’s just trying to get me up to speed on the background because she’s already enacted the plan herself and so doesn’t feel she really needs to convince me of the merits of trying it.


“By the bonds born of mankind’s wish and the power of the stones, it will calm the troubles that plague the world.”


Worryingly, though, is the fact that unlike someone for whom this is just history, I actually know that the tall asshole is just some dude who should not be viewed as a source of additional information. And as he evidently missed that Hoenn has been powered by his own evil invention for generations in the present, I find it extra hard to believe him from a thousand/thousands of years ago would somehow know what he was talking about from seeing a mysterious super pokemon once.

If Zinnia’s taking all this as true when constructing her plan, that’s a big point against it actually working.


That was when the Draconids constructed their great tower, to hold the rainbow stone that had granted Rayquaza its power, and to try to get a little bit closer to Rayquaza in the heavens above. To record the history of their trials and the great feats of mighty Rayquaza for all to know, they left behind the murals you see here.


Why’d they keep it a secret from everyone else, though?

I guess we can assume concern that somehow, if a lot of people knew about it a few of them might get it in their heads to mess with this, but as described, it doesn’t seem like there’s much concern. Rayquaza is hard to summon (requiring at least a whole bunch of people and possibly a whole lot more stress and terror) and apparently never causes harm anyway, so there’s no risk of idiots summoning it and doing massive damage to the world. Maybe somebody might be crazy/evil enough to try to steal the stone to prevent the world from being saved, though that seems rather less likely than a duck carrying its own seasoning, but even then, the rainbow stone is only used in the second story, Rayquaza shows up on its own originally.

Maybe the real answer is because this is all retcon, and if the games were being made from scratch today, the Draconids would totally be there from the start proselytizing everywhere about the Good News about Our Dragony Savior, they’d just be a minor sect because so much time had passed so no one really paid attention, especially once the land/sea cults really get going, and then at the end Zinnia pops up and is all yep actually we were right the whole time btw my god can beat up BOTH your gods so there and instead of everyone being all I HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU KNOW YOU MUST BE WRONG it’s that they know exactly who she is and assume that the Draconids are idiots who believe a bunch of stupid nonsense, so obviously anything she says about a plan can be ignored.

A giant tower… And paintings of the past… You know, I feel like I’ve seen something like that recently. Heh. But now, I suppose it’s time for the last chapter in our tale.