[Discussion] You Are a Rock

[Mirage]

Well. This seems fine!

Yep. Everything's under control, it's all fine™! (insert copyka2 emote here)

Yeah we really don't have very many any good options here, unfortunately. Our abilities and moves are all heavily geared towards mobility or one on one close combat, no real spread options, at least until our big dragon friend shows up.

I think enervating the roots is a solid starting play, it'll slow them down which will hopefully help us dodge. I think to go with that, maybe the next best thing to try might be to poison multiple roots with Poison Jab? Fairy is particularly weak to poison after all, and if the root system is interconnected, and especially if we can hit multiple targets... then maybe the poison will spread, and help further weaken it?

Alternatively, we can also try to Catapult again and move Millie to wherever the safest place we can see is. Granted, I don't see anything particularly notable, but... she only needs to be safe for however long it takes for Dark Matter to get here. Maybe there's a random walkway or something out of immediate reach that we haven't noticed yet?

For dealing with the humanoid and Pokemon shapes coming in... depends so much on what's specifically going on here. If Xerneas is using her life energy to reanimate them though, it's maybe possible that we can try reaching out to Yveltal, and seeing if he can absorb that energy? I'm doubtful that will work, but... yeah. We might not be getting out of this one unscathed.

idk if we also need to give Weavile a pep talk to convince him to let us defend ourselves

Yeah, that might be necessary. His loyalty is definitely something else, to not be shaken by that creepy decayed jumpscare we got just now!

Real pity that we just sent our flying expert and her literal airplane packing.

Yeah, that backfired spectacularly quickly

 

[Negrek]

If Xerneas is using her life energy to reanimate them though, it's maybe possible that we can try reaching out to Yveltal, and seeing if he can absorb that energy? I'm doubtful that will work, but... yeah.

Oooh, this is a really cool idea. It seems like we're probably going to need to draw on our Yveltal-ness at some point to get this done. Gonna take my consideration slot to look for alternate exits/places to hide this turn, but I do think it'd be good to follow up on this on a future turn. Or ask DM, when he gets here, since he seems to know how to tap into his Yveltal powers pretty well.

We might not be getting out of this one unscathed.

I think this might be the first phase of the final fight, so... yup! Let's rock!

 

[Namohysip]

Sorry for the delay there. Review Blitz and Catastrophe Academy prep had me with an overfull plate for a bit there. Progression is now in!

 

[Negrek]

Well... it seems like the master ball isn't quite going to stop Xerneas in her tracks. But we probably have a moment to coordinate/plan here and get a good hit in when she reemerges? I imagine Dark Matter would be happy to do a team strike as soon as the ball fails and Xerneas properly reappears. We could probably pop an X-speed or potion or do another swords dance (unsure if the attack boosts stack in this system) and then launch a big poison jab as soon as Xerneas reappears. We could even do something like a big World's Guardian here, at a moment when Xerenas hopefully(?) will be pretty vulnerable.

I could see Weavile seizing up when Xerneas appears, though, so we probably don't want to commit to anything too big.

Probably we want to ask Millie to stay well back, too; I imagine things are going to get cramped if Xerneas manifests in the factory. (Or maybe the best idea would be to run outside while we've got the chance?)

 

[Mirage]

That sounds like a plan to me! This does indeed seem like an opportune moment to use World's Guardian, while we still have a lot of our HP left and have some buffer in case she lands a good counterattack. Good point on Weavile... if we team attack with Dark Matter, at least Dark Matter's portion of the attack will likely go through. I do wonder if Dark Matter's Dark affinity, combined with his new Dragon typing, will make him especially vulnerable to her Fairy attacks.

I'd definitely be in favor of getting Millie and Lily away from the fight, I think they've done what they can to help!

As a IRL note - I have to go into work early tomorrow so I won't be able to do the full writeup today, but I should have my post in no later than this time tomorrow!

 

[Mirage]

Alrighty, I wrote in my actions! Since I'm not sure if she'll still be able to contribute after Xerneas breaks free, I suggested Millie go find N -maybe he's figured something out, or if nothing else, he at least knows how to keep her out of danger. Looks like it'll be us and Dark Matter for the rest of this fight!

 

[Negrek]

I don't know, I have a hunch that Millie still has a role to play in this fight somehow... but in the meantime, looking for N is a good idea! We're going to need whatever allies we can find for this fight.

 

[Negrek]

Well... our max-power attack did a little under a third of Xerneas' health, which isn't too shabby! Unfortunate that DM wasn't able to lend a hand with it, though. Also I didn't realize swords dance would fade that fast, oof.

With our speed boost up and Xerneas preparing a big attack, maybe we want to focus on dodging this round? I dislike that "???" attack rating, heh.

DM says he needs an opening... maybe try to distract Xerneas somehow while dodging? Interesting that he's scared/horrified by all of this.

At least it looks like Weavile is committed to the cause, too. Would have been pretty bad if he froze up when we were trying to attack!

 

[Namohysip]

To clarify: The Attack is only ??? because Xerneas' form changed and has yet to land an attack in said new form. It's not necessarily mysterious for other reasons.

 

[Mirage]

Alrighty! Read the new chapter. A few things quickly stand out:

1. Xerneas is charging a Geomancy at the end here. I'm guessing that if Geomancy works like it does in the games, once it activates, Xerneas is going to be buffed pretty much all around - she'll be way faster, hit far harder, and take less damage from special attacks (or potentially, ALL attacks). I wonder if it might be a good idea if we try charging up as powerful of an attack as we can, and hope that it might destabelize her enough to disrupt the Geomancy? It would probably leave us rather vulnerable while we charged...

2. Dark Matter mentions someone on his back. I'm guessing it's likely Millie or N, but... I wonder if it might be a good idea for us to investigate, just to make sure it's not a sneak attack of some kind?

3. Nooooooo not Enervate! RIP

We'll have to think carefully about which moves we use from here, since we might not get to use them again anytime soon.

 

[Mirage]

While brainstorming, I found myself wondering "Is Dark Matter smaller than Darach's car?" with absolutely zero hesitation or second thought. Imagine asking someone without any context this

 

[Namohysip]

Kyurem's body is about the same size. The car was a pretty hefty collision.

 

[Negrek]

I think at this point going for a big attack seems like the best option? idk that it'll disrupt the geomancy, but we don't have taunt or anything that could potentially work better, so we might as well give it a shot. We also want to get as much damage in as possible before all those buffs go into effect, and we potentially have a free round to not worry about any crackback on a big offensive turn. So, possibly a Catapult + Poison Jab + World's Guardian, going down to 1 HP for the maximum amount of damage we can do at this point and aiming at the core before it can restore its defenses? Then use our consideration to pop a hyper potion and heal back up?

We're working with a lot of unknowns, though...

- How much a hyper potion heals, and whether it heals energy as well as health
- Whether Xerneas can continue sealing additional attacks
- What other sorts of abilities the "body" portion of Xerneas has, and whether it could potentially damage and KO us if we play fast and loose with our HP
- Whether revives trigger automatically or have to be used (seems like they'd be pretty useless if not, but perhaps they're mostly intended to be used on allies instead of we ourselves)

So that in mind, I'm okay doing something a little more conservative here if you think it's too risky to burn down to 1 HP and put everything into one big attack at this point. But I do think we ought to take this opportunity to get in a bunch of damage, even if we don't go all in!

Definitely we ought to investigate the person on DM's back... maybe ask them telepathically to give some sort of sign to identify themselves? Xerneas certainly seems pretty out of it, but we probably shouldn't attract attention to them by shouting to them. Although asking them to do something to let us know who they are/why they're there certainly has a big risk of outing them, too, so idk.