Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 17: Debt Collectors

Now during the dinner after the Gwynn/Ivor sequence, there's a brief moment when Taunie gets a call that the rest of us aren't privy to, and she brushes it off. 

The next day, Naveen notes how quiet everything is, and how he's finally getting some peace now that Lida and Taunie aren't causing a ruckus in the morning. He's going to catch up with his sewing commissions, and he randomly gives me a pair of performance sneakers. Okay, Naveen. Lida then rushes in and, of course, something bad's happened. Turns out that Taunie has been borrowing money to film a Hotel Z Promo Spot... and now, we're in debt to a scary group called the Rust Syndicate. 

Hold the fuck up, we are having a debt collector arc? In a Pokemon game? Huh???

Also, Taunie, wtf? You were just filming videos on your Rotom Phone. You were even dragging random people into your videos! Why do you need to borrow money for? 

Naveen is horrified, Lida is terrified... and I get a call, of course, from the Rust Syndicate. The debt collectors know that I am a kid that lives and helps out Hotel Z. I can pretend to not be me, but the Rust Syndicate representative says that there's no use playing dumb. He talks about the amount of money that Taunie has borrowed and hasn't paid back. Regular debt collector stuff. He tells us that he could show up at the hotel but it would be preferrable for a reputable business to not have debt collectors showing up and causing a scene. So he's asking for us to go to them. Going straight to their base is not the best thing to do when you're facing off against the French Yakuza, but do we have a choice? 

Lida apparently also got the same call. Naveen says that Taunie didn't borrow a ton, but the interest! The interest is out of control, and that's how they get you. Naveen says that these organizations often force you to work off your debt by doing their bidding. Yeah, I doubt Pokemon would go that dark, but it's still a surprisingly mature plot to bring up in this game. 

AZ tells us to go and try and smooth things out, saying that it is only through speaking with each other that we can hope to find a satisfactory conclusion. I mean, when you have a disagreement about politics, maybe, not when you're dealing with the French Mafia! Lida and I go off to the Rust Syndicate. 

So Lida and I arrive at the Rust Syndicate's dojo, a very Japanese-yakuza-coded building with statues of Kingambit and Weezing in the courtyard. Two grunts, a guy with a funky haircut and a lady with a very 'goopy' blonde hair, do a little jingle. "We clean the city of dirt and dust! Watch us grunts wash away the rust!" Okay, not quite as catchy as 'to protect the world from devastation', but sure. The grunts are angry when we say we're here to talk, and threaten to crush us. Unlike what the cutscene seems to imply, however, it's not a 2v2 battle -- a bit strange, since the earlier Dedenne fight showed off that this is most certainly a viable technology in this game. But okay. 

The dude grunt sends out Garbodor, followed by a Lairon. The Poison-type isn't too surprising, but the Steel-type? As I would soon figure out, the Rust Syndicate is a Poison and Steel themed team, so I guess they really, really have a beef against faeries? 

The two grunts argue at each other at whose loss is the more embarrassing one, with the female grunt insisting that her win is a 'near win'. They are interrupted by a big unit of a man, a massive dude in a fancy suit, with, uh... staples? Are those staples? And... uh... metal spikes embedded onto his facial hair. Okay. Let me not mock the French Yakuza. This man is Phillippe, and he admonishes the two grunts for not maintaining appearances and dignity in front of their organization base. The two guards kowtow for forgiveness, and Phillippe tells them that guard duty is a crucial part of their organization's charter, and they have to do it properly. 

Phillippe then addresses us, and we tell him that we're here to discuss Taunie's loan. Phillippe is the man that called me earlier, and thanks me for coming since they take loans and debts very, very seriously... before gaslighting us and saying that we are kind of horrible people for beating up his guards, 'humiliating them so thoroughly and heartlessly', and muttering if he could even 'do business with people as rude as [us]'. Phillippe then notes that it would be equally rude to send us back after we went so far, so the solution is to clearly for him to give me a thrashing in battle, and he'll call it even. 

He would be intimidating if this was the real world and he was a real yakuza intimidating two teenagers, but thankfully I have a monster centipede, a flower dinosaur, a mind-controlling psionic squid, a hippo with a parasitic shell friend, and a soul-sucking ghost chandelier on my side. Phillippe boasts that he is the top brass of the Rust Syndicate, and he won't leave me with false optimism as to how the battle will go... and we get a fight!

Phillippe is a Steel-type trainer, and he unleashes a massive, impressive Steelix upon us. Steelix spends his one turn on the field setting up Stealth Rock... and my Chandelure just unleashes a gout of Flamethrower that one-shots it. Phillippe then sends out Scizor, which doesn't even get to do anything as Chandelure breathes fire through the Stealth Rock and cooks the robo-mantis alive. 

Phillippe's ace Pokemon? It's a Skarmory! Oh! This wasn't a Pokemon I expected to get a new Mega Evolution! Honestly, I do like the rather random choices for the brand-new megas in Legends Z-A! Phillippe taps the Keystone on his lapel, and Skarmory mega evolves... into Mega Skarmory! It's, um... it's interesting. All of Skarmory's silver parts become golden, which looks pretty badass. Its secondary colour is black, but... most importantly, its talons elongate to an absurd degree. I mean, I shouldn't say absurd, some real-world birds like the jacana bird have those kinds of proportions, but it looks really weird on a Mega Skarmory that's constantly flying. 

I like it, though! For the ten seconds that it remains on screen before I mega-evolve my small chandelier into an even bigger chandelier and cook the metal bird to a crisp. 

Phillippe is shocked but regains his composure very quickly, even healing my Pokemon (yes, the 10 HP that Chandelure lost from running into Stealth Rock). Because he's a man of his word, he brings us in to do business. So Lida and I follow him into the Rust Syndicate building...

And oh boy, the presentation! It's just a single room, but we've got two rows of guards standing rigid with their arms behind them, and we can only walk, not run, as we walk down the guard-corridor towards where Phillippe is waiting in front of the lift. It really is quite tense, and, again, the yakuza aesthetics of the building is pretty cool. There's a random Sneasel-themed bar where a lady is muttering about a 'fresh start', but we can't really interact with her now. 

After that intimidating walk, Phillippe brings us to a massive, lavish yakuza boss office with a lot of fancy decorations -- a whole Japanese sand garden, wallpaper with Steelix on it, a giant golden Kingambit statue, random katana displayed all over the place... Phillippe reports to his boss, Corbeau, the boss of the Rust Syndicate. Corbeau is an interesting design, with the same 'goopy anime hair' texture on parts of his hair and the accents of his business suit, so he clearly is a Poison-type trainer. He's got a general businessman-with-glasses look, with two dangly things off the sides of his glasses. 

Corbeau isn't too pleased that we came in place of Taunie, so at least we know that Taunie isn't being held hostage in a yakuza basement somewhere. Corbeau then asks Phillippe why we are unharmed, since Phillippe should have 'crushed our spirits' to make us more persuadable. Phillippe freely admits his defeat, which Corbeau finds interesting. The two of them have a brief discussion, which reveals to us that Phillippe was the former boss of the Rust Syndicate, but freely ceded his seat to Corbeau after seeing how much stronger he is. Corbeau also notes that he didn't really want the title of boss, but here he is. 

Corbeau then directs us to the very comfortable sofas... "our guests all love 'em. In fact, they never seem to want to leave 'em... at least, not before agreeing to everything we ask."... Okay, that is surprisingly unsettling for Pokemon's standards! I still find it rather refreshing and awesome that we're getting a somewhat more serious debt collection and yakuza subplot out of Pokemon! 

Corbeau warns us and tells us that we better make it worthwhile for him. Lida explains the situation and says that we hope to negotiate in Taunie's place. Phillippe gives a recap of the situation from his side, emphasizing how kind he was when he offered Taunie help with funding when he found Taunie helping people in the streets. It's a service, and Taunie should totally be thankful to be offered such an assistance, because after all it's the yakuza's service to provide loans to those in need! A beautiful little circle, as they helped each other in the end... and, of course, all the terms were detailed within the contract. Corbeau tells us that he totally took Taunie's well-being and capabilities in mind, asking her if she's sure, if she could pay it back, because after all she's not a pro and her videos won't be that good.

Of course, despite all of the totally-legitimate-business's warnings, Taunie's interest ballooned to ten times her original loan. Pretty typical loan shark story, really. 

Corbeau asks us what we're going to do about the situation, and we give the standard reply of 'we need more time to repay'. Corbeau decides to leave the matter of the initial 100K loan to just Taunie, but essentially gang-presses us to deal with the 1 million Poke-euro interest. Because of course this is for our own good, and this is for our sake so we don't have to deal with debt hanging over our heads. Sure! Totally for our mental wellness. 

Corbeau says that he'll give a proposal that's not too hard -- just some little jobs here and there for us.  This sounds very much like either indentured servitude (of any kind, really, including the less-PG-13 one) or that they're hiring me as drug carriers or hitmen. Lida asks what guarantee that we would have that the yakuza would follow through... and Corbeau just shrugs and says that this is the best deal we'll get, it's out of the goodness of his heart and it's up to them how much of the interest-debt they want to shave off with every job. Lida gets angry because we might end up working for them forever, but Corbeau just brushes it off as it 'probably' won't come to that. 

Lida gets a bit angry, and Corbeau also starts getting pissed off... before calming himself down because he shouldn't be losing his temper at civilians. He emphasizes that this deal is the best for all sides, and if we don't like it... he'll just show up at the hotel with the entire Rust Syndicate at his back and call to have a big, messy yakuza Pokemon showdown. 

I can actually say 'no way' in response to Corbeau's offer, but Lida immediately accepts on my behalf in panic. Corbeau thanks us for a good deal, and spins some yarn about how the job will be for the benefit of the city -- just do our best, and everything will be fine. Phillippe sees us out after the agreement, and Lida bemoans the fact that we might find ourselves indebted to the Rust Syndicate forever. Oh no!

Returning to Hotel Z, we are greeted by Naveen, Floette and AZ. Naveen is very thankful that we came back alive, and also notes that Floette was apparently ready to go full-on Light of Ruin on the yakuza base. I mean... let her! The Syndicate was ready to bring the fight to our doorstep, let's unleash the whole flower power on their base! AZ is also wholly unconcerned despite his wards just being threatened and dragged into free enforced labour by the goddamn yakuza. 

Lida starts a meeting with just Naveen and myself, essentially recapping the Rust Syndicate situation and trying to figure out where Taunie even is... only for Taunie to come in and be confused at what she has missed. Lida gets angry at Taunie, and it's at this point when Taunie realizes just how much of interest debt she had accumulated. She missed the small print in the contract! Silly Taunie. She can't even see it without zooming in!

Taunie is apologetic and feeling silly for herself, but the plot ends up being a bit interrupted by a call from Vinnie. Three more Rogue Mega Evolutions have appeared in the city, and with the Rust Syndicate not calling yet, Team MZ decides to tackle these evolutions. There is a Mawile, Ampharos and... Barbaracle! That's another new one! Another rather underrated generation VI Pokemon! I love that a lot of the Gen V and VI Pokemon are given some attention!

But before I go on a Mega hunt (or really, a side-quest hunt -- the Gwynn, Ivor and Phillippe scenes have triggered the activation of a bunch of them) I think I have decided on who's going to be my sixth party member. Chandelure and the shiny Slowbro have basically ousted out Aegislash and Greninja, thanks to the type overlap and the latter two not really having any megas. And I definitely want to use some of the newer Legends Z-A megas. Out of the ones available to me right now, Eelektross and Hawlucha speak out to me... but Hawlucha is a Generation VI Pokemon and I feel I need to have some Kalosian-originated Pokemon other than just my friend Malamar! 

Hawlucha spawns on top of some specific buildings, but they don't always spawn there! I had to do some resetting and climbing up way more times than I care to admit. But at least this time around I get an ALPHA Hawlucha! With the Hawluchanite in tow, this means that four of my six party members now have access to megas now, and I do know for a fact that the other two will get megas at some point in the game. Current party, and likely to be my final party: Meganium, Scolipede, Malamar, Slowbro, Chandelure, Hawlucha!

Next up is going to be me catching up on some side-quests, and maybe a couple of mega evolution hunting too! 

Random Notes:

• In an attempt to make us calm, AZ notes that 'the police has never moved against the Rust Syndicate', indicating that there might be more than meets the eye and that they might be a bit nicer than their population. I read it immediately as 'oh, the cops are fucking dirty'.
  
• I didn't realize the Z-A dex is a lot smaller than I thought, and as far as I can tell, neither Kingambit or Weezing are in this dex. Their pre-evolutions would've probably shown up at some point already. I think I was under the impression that like Legends Arceus we'd get all the Pokemon in the original national dex, but nope, as it turns out. We're just guaranteed all the Generation VI guys. 
• Since I've seen Mega Chandelure used by Gwynn, its stone is now on sale in Quasartico. So yeah, Chandelure is now my permanent fifth party member, replacing Aegislash. A lot of the trainer-tied mega stones become available either at Stone Emporium or Quasartico after beating the respective associated trainer, so Excadrill, Eelektross and Falinks are also available. 
• I bought the Amaura and Aerodactyl fossils and revived them for the dex! Also have been slowly staking out that one Eevee spot to catch more Eevees to get more dex entries. I don't think I care enough to do all the trading to get the full dex (boo hiss, no trading cable item in ZA) but I'll still make an attempt to. 
• I have a lot of colourful screws that I hunted during the downtime as well, which translates to a lot of experience and money bonuses! 
• Steelix's textures look really good. I don't know if this is an upgrade that Scarlet/Violet gave it. Did Steelix even appear in that game? But he actually looks like he's made of proper, glinting metal now!
• I am surprised the loan sharks didn't use a Mega Sharpedo or Mega Garchomp. Too obvious, I suppose. 
• Phillippe's quote if I re-enter the yakuza hall after the scene: "money is a very important matter. It has the power to destroy friendships."