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: It looks like it's made of old computer parts. On its surface someone scratched out a crude picture. It looks like... A hive? In any case, the door is locked. Probably not that interesting anyways.
Remember this door from all the way back when we explored Journeys End? Probably not, it's been a hot minute.
We can open it by interacting with this machine in the hive.
On. Off. On. Off. On. On. On. Off. Off. On. That's what the crazy book person said, right?
If you see this, you know you did it right.
For no particular reason, here's what my team looks like.
Lets see what's inside!
The cave has a giant mirror spanning the north part of it. We aren't able to run, so we walk slowly up to it.
Hey, I just said that 
: Your reflection catches your eye. You've never really gotten to see yourself clearly before.
: You wonder if your appearance is modeled after someone. Not that it matters. They're probably long-gone, if they even existed in the first place.
: The mirror makes you feel ever so slightly less alone, at least.
I don't recommend touching a mirror or else you'll have to clean it, but that sounds like someone else's problem here. Lets boop it!
: You cautiously reach out to your reflection. Just as your fingertips are about to touch, you catch a glimpse of... a grin?
Oh shit
Oh fuck!
OST - Emerald Rival Battle
There's no point to me making a team preview. Why?
Because they just have my team but better.
I intentionally brought two mons who were primarily physical attackers to lead just so I could get intimidate off with Salamence and have more time to set up.
Infernape is still doing a lot of damage though. Redcap has done their job, I need to switch them out.
Unfortunately, I am not smart, and send out Darkrai right into a Close Combat to die.
Got the Dragon Dance off at least.
+2 Headbutt takes out Infernape in one shot; I think this was a misplay because they had low defenses from all the Close Combats and probably would have been one shot by Zygarde while Crawdaunt isn't going to be taking much damage from Zygarde; focusing down Crawdaunt would have been a better use of the turn.
I had to gamble on an Outrage KO here because otherwise Salamence would have been an issue. This gamble succeeds and Salamence goes down...
Unfortunately, the next one targets Crawdaunt instead, and Salamence goes down having only KO'd half the team. This isn't good.
The plus side is Zygarde's Complete Forme activates and they get a little extra bulk now.
Their Redcap can't harm Zygard because Ground Type, but they can buff the other Zygarde and make them hit that much harder.
Fake out continues to be really excellent for keeping tempo.
Yikes Redcap shrugs off a supereffective Thousand Arrows, that's not great.
Sacrificing Infernape to get off another Turbocharge Fakeout combo.
For some reason the opponent's Volt Switch doesn't switch them out; unsure if it's bugged or if Thousand Arrows also did the Thousand Waves effect or something.
Just barely able to take out the opposing Zygarde, and the opposing redcap is low health and will die to one more hit.
Unfortunately, my earlier misplay of Darkrai comes back to bite me, cause I have nothing left alive for their Darkrai.
My only mon standing is Crawdaunt, who will get nuked immediately by Redcap Pika. If this was a fair fight, I would have lost it at this point.
Fortunately, it isn't a fair fight 
I don't know if Crawdaunt could have taken out the Pika before getting KO'd, but that was a risk I wanted to take.
Zygarde is brought to half health by Darkrai, but manages to take out Redcap Pika.
Being brought to half health activates Complete Forme, which grants Zygarde enough bulk to not be 2 shot by Dark Pulse.
It still wouldn't be a winning position, but.
I can play as dirty as I like against my reflection. What are they going to do, bring out a mirror full restore? 
Have to use a second one, but.
We win these.
Cope and seethe.
Er I mean good match, gg, well played.
A reward? For moi?
You shouldn't have!
: The mirror bulges and ripples under your touch. You grasp the item within!
:sickos:
Eh, it's probably fi-
: It's probably fine.
Shush.
We'll check out Ditto??? in a second, but first I want to see what's up with this hole in the wall.
: You feel nothing. Nothing at all. There's no breeze. It's not even cold. Sit on the edge of existence?
>Yes, Cautiously
No
Living on the edge.
: You stare down into a perfect abyss. This part of the world is... unfinished. After the Seamother made the night and dark sea, there was still darkness left over.
: You were made of this darkness, anchored by salt.
Nah, I'm good!
: You turn away from oblivion.
We'd get one more warning not to do it if we proceed, and I'll show that off in a bit, but entering that hole is an instant death that will use up a day.
Anyways, Ditto??? (or alternatively, Pride Ditto) is the other contender for strongest mon in the game. They are the embodiment of "No, you" as a Pokémon; you send them out against an opponent and they will turn into the opponent, with all the same stats (minus HP)... and then proceed to slightly buff whichever stat of theirs is highest even more. And then the badges you own will boost it even more so with all badges it will always outdamage, always outdefense, and always outspeed the opponent. This is before any held item. It's kind of absurd in the best possible way. You can also switch it's ability to Magic Bounce, use Cosmic Power to buff up, and then Transform??? manually. I haven't used this strat, but I'm kinda curious if it's good or not.
quote:
Okay, but what if I wanted to be really cheeky and play the fight super safe? I've already shown that you can leverage use items to turn the fight in your favor, so allow me to show you how I won the fight my first time with a backup save.
Allow me to introduce you to Beez Nuts, a lower levelled Beedrill with no attacking moves holding a Flame Orb. They're the only mon we need.
Your Reflection will always have a full team of 6; if you only have one mon they'll just make a full team of just that mon.
Any non-attacking move will do; I went with Harden. At the end of the turn, all Beedrills will be burned by their own Flame Orb.
The reflection realizes they have no attacking moves and switches out, but it's futile. None of their beedrill can strike at me.
Berry Juice are quite cheap this time of year, aren't they? They only heal 20 health, but that's still 1/3rd of my health when the burn does 1/16th. Even if, say, my reflection copied whatever use items I used (they don't), the burn would outdamage the berry juice for them because their beedrill have more HP from being higher level.
Full heals aren't as good; they're only worth one turn of burn damage as opposed to the multiple berry juice heal. I actually died in a really stupid way on my first playthrough doing this strat; Beedrill had endeavor to try to speed the fight up and reduce how much items I used. However, on the turn I healed up with a healing item, their Beedrill used endeavor to bring me back down to 1 HP and I died from burn. I had to adjust my strategy to count how much HP they had and when they'd only have 1 HP left and time Full Heals so I wouldn't take burn damage on the turns they died from burn. Still incredulous that I was outplayed by my own reflection.
Anyways, 48 turns of stalling out 6 beedrills dying from burn damage later (I was out of berry juices and cut it close), the last bee goes down.
Lets give them a wave!
From there, we get Ditto as normal. No, I did not figure out what the rude gesture does.
Skipping ahead a bit, let's see what happens if we enter the Abyssal Sea (even though I already told you what happens).
: Creature of shadow, made from the darkness left over... ...If you were to enter as you are now, you would be lost.
Okay but. How do I know if the stove is hot and I shouldn't touch it unless I touch it and burn myself? Checkmate, blue voice.
The screen goes black, as a cave entering sound echoes. We fall for a bit in the darkness, until we hear a thud.
Our first (non-canon) death!
We wake up back at the bed in Ranger's Rest, with a reminder of how many days we have left.
Now, back to the canon file, where my entire team perished save Zygarde!
Let's kick some dragon ass.
Behold, the team of professional dragon killers.
: Fearing our rising star, the Champion severed the sources of growth and power, and slew anyone who stood in his way. His betrayal is unforgivable, and he must pay the ultimate price.
: But no matter how much I drew upon this crystal, I failed to extract that price from him.
Okay, well lets work together and just tag team the Champion. Any time you're paired with a partner in the main games, you're basically unstoppable.
: You would only drag me down. That's all you Seaborn are good for.
Wow, caress you.
: You think yourself capable of toppling the Champion? Worthy of Skyspear's power?
: Hah... as if you would do anything but squander it.
Okay then, let's go then!
...Oh, poison and steel. That's not great for my fairy leads. Let me just. Run away real quick.
Okay, reorganized my team.
: Fine. Let's get this over with.
OST - Elite Battle
As the name implies, Dragonmaster Ji uses only Dragon types. Despite this, there's still quite a good handful to pick from; leading with Duraludon and Dragalge is a funny prank for those who thought to bring fairy types. Hydreigon, Garchomp, and Dragonite are all fearsome OU mns, and Haxorus is no slouch either. Impressive showing!
Shame that by leading with anti-fairies, he gave himself a crippling weakness to Ground.
Snarl lowers both of our mon's special attacks; despite being -1 special attack Gardevoir still almost one shots Hydreigon thanks to that 4x fairy weakness.
Gardevoir goes down, but they did their job admirably.
Zygarde finishes off Hydreigon and turns into their Complete Forme; 3 down, 3 to go.
Ouch. Zygarde dies for a second time this update. That's rough. Azumarill takes out a nice hefty chunk of Haxorus's health though, so they will go down with another hit.
Can I introduce you to 4x supereffective priority move? I thought this guy was OU material
Haxorus takes out Weavile before Azumarill can take them out, but we're doing really good despite our losses. Only one mon remains, but I've already won.
Level 56 Dragonite? Oh no how scary.
If only I had an Uno Reverse card. Oh wait.
Ahahaha. Oh you're about to eat dirt. ...Okay, in fairness that only rose my Attack and the only physical attack they have is Extremespeed. Still though.
If they weren't using a priority move here, I would have outsped them. Ice Beam also does barely any damage thanks to Multiscale.
I could have switched out Azumarill to save them, but I was too busy power tripping.
You should have taken the team up offer buddy.
He gives us his Garchomp for beating him. ...Honestly, I would have preferred the Dragonite, but I guess they're okay. Lets see what the Crystal gives us!
: You touch the Crystal Beacon. Its power has been drained and cracked to the roots.
Our real reward is the ability to raise a single Pokémon to level 48; the highest level we can possibly have. I used it on Zygarde in my first playthrough; neither Ditto nor Redcap benefit much from the extra few levels, and Zygarde is IMO the third strongest Pokémon in the game. I'm thinking of using it on either Kyubey or Eve since if I'm bringing them to the Champion, they need all the help they can get.
For now, I'll hold off. Saving it as an emergency revive might still be something I want.
We also unlocked this side area with a few goodies.
Cobalion card is one thing; I don't know if there's any other portrait cards out there, so attempting the tournament might be a decent idea now.
Two good TMs and a Seamother's tear. Breaking Swipe hits the other team for okay damage and lowers their attack by one; tempted to teach it to Sillymence as an alternative to Outrage. Dragon Pulse is just a generically good special dragon move; sort of a Dragon-type elemental beam. Not a bad haul!
Before we end off, I need to get a different team going (although knowing me I'll probably end up switching things around before I actually use the team).
Finally evolving the Cubone we got at the start of the game; armed with the thick club, I hope they'll be getting off some real good earthquakes!
I also gave the team nicknames and (finally) changed Eve, Marrow, and Kyubey's names to not be all caps.
Next time, either the Tournament or the Willbreaker. Or maybe we hunt down the Fisherman for his final encounter. Heck if I know!
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