Last time on the Pokemon Insurgence Hardcore Nuzlocke: We were introduced to the Augur, A.K.A the High Priest of the entire Torren Region. We created our character before escaping the murderous Cult of Darkrai and their leader, Persephone, who were trying to summon Darkrai. We met a kid named Damian who brought us to the pokemon lab where we now must decide which of the 4 starter pokemon we must take......

After tallying up all the votes from the previous part, the decision was quite easy, actually. Winning in a landslide is Delta Charmander! And after naming her Malice, we finally have our first pokemon. 

However, we're thrown into battle immediately as Damian challenges us to a battle with his own pokemon, the one better to ours, Delta Squirtle(because this game was made in the era where the rival still picked the stronger starter, GameFreak please bring that back!). Anyways, the battle was a close one since I'd forgotten that Delta Squirtle starts with STAB Pursuit, just like how Charmander starts with STAB Twister, but thanks to a lucky Flinch on our end, we win our first battle. It also helps that we have an advantage of our own, given our starter begins at Lv. 7, while Damian's begins at Lv. 5.  

Afterwards, Damian rushes off because he wants to get this rare stone from a nearby cave as a gift for the Augur when he arrives, but runs out too quickly as Sylvan was about to give us our Pokedex's. I take both and have to run off to this cave and find him, but there's two things I have to do first. 

First off, I talk to a merchant standing outside the pokemon center who gives us 5 Pokeballs, officially starting our Hardcore Nuzlocke run. And secondly, I can get an encounter inside one of the houses in Telnor town by talking to one of the TV's inside. Eventually, a Rotom that is, at minimum, Lv. 10 will pop out and attack, which is very risky for me but getting it early would make things easier for battling and capturing mons given it has Thunder Wave. However, if this Rotom has Astonish, I could be ending the run very quickly. Luckily, it didn't and I was able to get the Rotom to a low enough point to where I could catch it.

We nickname it Hypershock before healing up the team and making our way out of Telnor Town. We arrive in the Shade Forest, the location where the Cult of Darkrai base is located. We're not headed for there quite yet though, so for now, my focus was to catch another member to the team. Given I already have 2 ghost types and an electric type on my team, I didn't really want to catch a Pikachu or Gastly on this route, so I was hoping to find a Caterpie or a female Nidoran. Unfortunately, our first encounter on this route was the rarest one, a 5% Patrat. We catch it without even damaging it, and nickname her Overhaul. 

I guess if I had to say one nice thing about Overhaul the Patrat, it's that it does have an Attack boosting Nature. Regardless, it's still not great. We trek on, taking on trainers and wild mons and raising all of the teams levels to at least Lv. 10 before we arrive at Telnor Cave where Damian had run off to.  

We're able to get another encounter here, and i'm hoping for one of the two mons with the highest encounter rates here, those being Geodude or Roggenrola. But it would seem this game has it out for me because the first encounter was a Cubone. I catch it after a close call with it critting Malice the Charmander, but there were no deaths, so everything was fine. And despite my disappointment at getting a Cubone, the gods themselves blessed me with this absolutely perfect specimen!

BloodSport the Cubone has an Adamant Nature, the best it can have, and I got the 5% luck that it had a Thick Club! For those of you who are unaware of what a Thick Club is, it can only be used by a Cubone or Marowak, and it doubles their Attack stat whilst holding it. So yeah, I take back my previous disappointment. If I can make this thing survive into the mid-point of the game, it's going to become so strong as a Marowak.  

We trek on after that legendary catch, eventually finding Damian who says he's located the rare stone he's come to find here in Telnor Cave. However, before we can go retrieve it, a cutscene begins, showing us an Abyssal Cult member deliberating with an Infernal Cult member, something that's never happened before. Unfortunately, my dumbass forgot to take a screenshot so I can't show you all, lol. The Abyssal Cult member claims she's implanted 2 of her agents in Telnor Town to assassinate the Augur when he arrives, and that the 2 Cults will soon be the ones in control of the region. Obviously, someone needs to do something about it. If only there was an 11-year old-Oh wait! Me! Damian and I rush back to Telnor Town and enter the Town Hall where we see the Augur has arrived, but has not been attacked yet, thankfully.  

The two of us warn the Augur about his imminent assassination, in which Damian's father tries to shut us up and calls up stupid kids. But then to prove we were right, two shady looking guys in the room tear off their clothes and reveal themselves to be another pair of Abyssal and Infernal Cult members. 

Now, instead of letting the Augur handle this himself, he makes me and Damian fight them instead! Damian takes on the Infernal Cult member, whilst I challenge the Abyssal Cult member. The Cultist only has 2 mons on him, a Skrelp and a Horsea. For the most part, Cults stick to one type of mon in particular, with the Abyssal being Water types, and Infernal being Fire and Ground types. Horsea here isn't really an issue, unless if it were to crit me, then its Sniper ability would deal huge damage to me. But that's not the worry here. The Skrelp is! As this is Hard mode, mons have their best abilities, whether hidden or not, so this Skrelp has Adaptability for its, well, ability. What does Adaptability do, you may ask? Well when a mon uses a move that's the same type as itself, so like Skrelp uses sludge bomb and it itself is a poison type, the move gets powered up by what is known as "Same Type Attack Boost" or STAB as it's commonly called. The boost is normally 50%, but Adaptability doubles STAB moves powers by 100%! So that's double the power, and more than a reason to fear this weedy sea dragon pokemon!

Knowing what's coming though, I send out Hypershock the Rotom first while the Cultist sends out the dreaded Skrelp. I could've guaranteed a KO on the Skrelp if I'd sent out Cubone and landed a Bone Club attack, but the Skrelp would've been faster and likely would've KO'd me first. So Rotom was my ideal option. I fire off a Thundershock attack and the best thing ever happens. I deal over 50% damage to the Skrelp, then Paralyze it, and it's fully paralyzed for its turn! This battle's already over in the first turn(saying this is gonna bite me back so hard later in the run, I just know it).

We KO the Skrelp the next turn with another Thundershock, then almost one shot the Horsea that's sent in afterwards. It hits us with a Bubble attack but it doesn't even deal 25% damage to our health. We KO it with the next attack and the battle ends, with us not losing a single mon, and barely receiving a scratch.  

Damian defeats the Cultist he was facing, and the two of them(and it's not fully clear on what happens but this is my best guess) threaten to blow up the place because one of them claim they'll "take the Augur down with us," but this is when the Augur himself actually steps in. He speaks in what I can only assume is some type of Latin, and after a flash of light envelops the room, the Cultists have vanished. The Augur used his now very real powers to send them to the Helios City police department. 

The Augur thanks us for battling in his place, and then takes his leave. So apparently he was just in town for like 10 minutes and then left, wtf? Anyways, after seeing his son be given praise by the Augur himself, Damian's father realizes his little man's all grown up now and that he can go on his own journey now. Damian is ecstatic at this development and swiftly rushes out the door, but not before we finally give him the pokedex that Professor Sylvan gave to us to give to him.  

Damian's headed off to the next town's pokemon school where he claims all his friends are, so that's where we head off to next. We go through the Shade Forest and Telnor cave once more before finally arriving on Route 1, where we catch our next pokemon.  Now there's a few different mons we can encounter, but the one I was hoping for was a Bunnelby. Now, I was certain if I found one, I wouldn't get one with the ability Huge Power, but getting one with Pickup us almost as good since it's just free items. And we lucked out this time because that's exactly what I found and caught! We nickname him Lucky because i'm hoping to get lucky with what it picks up, and then we continue down the route. 

We trek on through Route 1, getting a Repel from Lucky which may come in handy later. And after taking out a few trainers, we take a little side path on the route and enter Dark Cave. Once again, we can get an encounter here. If I had a fishing rod, i'd use that, but since I've yet to get one, i'll have to deal with whatever I find on the ground. And like the last cave, I was hoping for a Geodude as my first encounter.  And to my luck, that's what I find! I easily catch the Geodude, but...... it's total trash, for two reasons. 

The first is that Deadlift the Geodude has a Modest nature. This means it's Special Attack stat(a stat is never uses) is raised, whilst its Physical Attack stat(a stat is always uses) is lowered. It's literally the worst nature it could have. And the second reason is that this Geodude doesn't even have the Sturdy ability! It has Rock Head instead which, yeah, can be useful, but Sturdy is infinitely better in every way. I will not be using this thing, unless I have no choice, or as death fodder.  

However, passing through Dark Cave takes us to a small location known as the Midna Gardens, and we can get an encounter here later on when we get a fishing rod, but we can still get another encounter thanks to a certain mechanic introduced in gen 5, the hidden grotto, so long as it spawns a pokemon and not an item. Four different pokemon can spawn in the grotto, each with a 25% encounter rate. Exeggcute, Stunky, Heatmor, and Durant can be found here. The one i'm hoping for is a Heatmor, as it'll give me some advantages during the first gym. And luck comes to me again as the static encounter in the grotto is the Heatmor! This is early power right here, and I manage to catch it and nickname it Blacksmith.  

This definitely balances out the terrible Geodude catch earlier. So I return to route 1 and defeat the rest of its trainers with ease before exiting the route and entering Midna Town. Our goal is to go to the trainer school first, but we've got some things to do before that. A lot of the NPC's in this game, including the overworld pokemon, actually gives you tons of helpful items. In Midna Town, a Floatzel inside of one of the houses actually gives a free Leftovers item, one of the best items ever. So yeah, I scooped that up pretty quickly, along with some other not as, but still useful items. I level up Blacksmith the Heatmor, give Hypershock the Rotom the Leftovers, and make my way into a home where a girl asks if I want to trade her Elekid for any Bug Type pokemon? Now, I don't have a bug type yet, however, this is something to keep in mind for later as a potential Electivire could be useful if Hypershock were to die. 

Anyways, we make our way into the town's trainer school where we find Damian and the teacher who explains that they're about to start a daily school tournament to teach about battling, but one of the students is missing. The student's name is Nora and she was spotted going into the town's mine, so that's where we head next, and also where we get our next encounter! Unfortunately, even if I were to find a Geodude, I can't catch it as I already have one now, so the next best things would be if I ran into a Phanpy or a Drilbur. And the luck continues as I find a Drilbur! Although, I didn't feel lucky when it proceeded to eat up all of my pokeballs, only catching it on my VERY LAST ONE! So yeah, not so lucky with that. And while I wanted to nickname it Santoryu, after Zoro's three-sword fighting style in One Piece(because Excadrill has 3 blades), i'm sticking to a specific nicknaming theme, so the Drilbur is named Jackpot. If it makes it to be an Excadrill, then it might just become the most powerful member, and most important member, of our team.  

However, like with the Geodude, this Drilbur's got the worst ability it can have, as well as the worst nature it can have, so i'm not even bothering to show you this time. Guess I didn't hit the Jackpot with it after all, god damn it! And there's no way to change abilities or natures in this game, so it's stuck like this. 

We trek forward through the cave and come to, what might be, the hardest battle before the first gym. Hiker Samson.  And let me tell you, this guy....

THIS

GUY

This monster of a man is absolutely brutal if you don't know he's coming. He's this games equivalent of May or Brendan's Route 110 battle in the Hoenn games, if you know what I mean. He's only packing 2 pokemon, but they're WAY stronger than anything we've faced prior to this point. He's just got a Solrock and a Lunatone, and Solrock's sent out first. My plan is to use Hypershock, Thunder Wave to paralyze it, then hit it with confuse ray so it hopefully can't do anything, then hit it with Thunder Shock enough times till it faints, then do the same with the oncoming Lunatone. I land the Thunder Wave but the Solrock isn't fully paralyzed and hits me with a Rock Throw, and it crits me! It dealt 50% of my Rotom's HP in one hit. I'm dead to another crit, but nothing else on my team can really deal with this thing. 

(If only i'd brought a crappy Geodude to use a death fodder for a free switch in)

I try a confuse ray and the Solrock hits itself, giving me a free turn to gain more HP recovery from the Leftovers. I now bombard this thing with Thunder Shocks as I know I can survive another crit. Solrock hits itself again, letting me get another free hit. But after the next, it breaks out of confusion and hits me with another Rock Throw, critting me again and putting me at about 33% HP. However, I finish it off with one more Thunder Shock, leaving just the Lunatone to deal with. 

Now, this may seem a bit crazy, but once the Lunatone is brought in, I do not switch Hypershock out. Thanks to the Leftovers recovery, I'm not only dead to another crit, so i'm gambling when I hit the Lunatone with a Thunder Wave, paralyzing it. It doesn't get fully paralyzed and hits me with a Psywave, but thanks to Psywave's random damage generator, it low rolls and I take next to no damage, healing it all back with the Leftovers. I land the Confuse Ray, and the Lunatone hits itself, giving me another free turn to heal with Leftovers. I Thunder Shock it and it hits itself again, and again, until, finally, I hit it with one last Thunder Shock, a critical hit too, to seal the deal and slay this motherf**king monster! YES!!! Screw you Hiker Samson, you take no mon of mine this time!

*AHEM!* Sorry, don't know what came over me. Anyways, we continue forward, and come to our next encounter, despite still being in the same location to where we found the Drilbur. How can I encounter a second mon, you might be asking? Through a Rock Smash boulder. This counts as a static encounter, so the first mon I find from one is able to be caught, assuming the Dupes clause doesn't come into effect. We break the rock, since you only have to have a Fighting type move to do so in this game, and one of three things can happen. 1. Nothing. 2. We find an item. And 3. We find a pokemon, which we do! It's a Dwebble, a Rock/Bug type, and we catch it with ease. I don't however, nickname it as it can be used in that trade I mentioned earlier, the one with any Bug type for a girls Elekid. But i'll decide on that later on. For now, we continue through the mine, eventually making it to the bottom floor where we encounter a green haired girl, Nora, the one we're looking for. 

However, before speaking to her, Malice the Charmander levels up to 16, meaning it's time to evolve! Behold, Delta Charmeleon!

Finally, our starter can deal some decent damage now! And with this great upgrade, we continue and speak with Nora. All around us, there's a bunch of fossils of ancient pokemon, and she reveals that, like us, she also has a Mythical pokemon that watches over her, like how we have Mew. In Nora's case, her Pixie Pokemon(as mythicals are referred to in this game), is Celebi. And she uses it to move the fossils through time and bring them back to life! 

But for whatever reason, she reverses the effect afterwards and turns the pokemon back into fossils. Then we explain to her about the school tournament which she claims she forgot about and rushes off, as we do the same. Now, with everyone accounted for, the tournament can begin, and that's where i'll leave things for now! In the next part, we take on the school tournament, and, assuming we don't lose, we'll continue forward and possibly take on the first gym!

But the question for this part is: Should I trade the Dwebble we caught for the Elekid? Or keep the Dwebble instead?

The decision will be tallied up by your comments and will be revealed at the start of the next part! See you all then!