Catastrophic Convergence

bCatastrophic Convergence, or CC2, was the second server war on the r/Pokemon Discord. It took place from April 2018 to February 2019. The event focused on four factions based on criminal organizations from different regions searching for a mystical force located in the region of Kalos. The main event featured a wide cast of criminal Pokemon stylized after: Kanto's Team Rocket, Sinnoh's Team Galactic, Unova's Team Plasma and Alola's Aether Foundation. These factions allowed participants to pick one of three classes which corresponded to various types of events accruing additions bonuses: contests for Artisans, puzzles for Oracles, and battling for Warriors.

The lead up to the event saw the return of Beatrice Burnadette Bidoof, debuting her employer ARMOR, hot on the case of multiple criminal organizations seeking a relic. This pursuit of these organizations would inevitably lead to her capture in a Rooks of Rocket HQ basement.

A major event in the war was the discovery of the relic deep within the Cyllage Caves. This relic turned out to be the Eternal Prison Bottle sealing an ancient force known as Hoopa. Ownership of the Prison Bottle was heavily contested between the four factions and a tournament was proposed: "Battle for the Relic". This tournament resulted in a victory for the Pawns of Plasma who would claim ownership of both the bottle and Hoopa. However, they immediately lost control of this force of pure wrath and it began to destroy the regions.

The event was eventually brought to an end when the four factions provided Manaphy and the Smeargle Brothers with blueprints for new containment devices for Hoopa. These devices would require the divine magical blessing of Arceus to function. The newly crafted Aether Eternal Prison Bottle was used to reseal Hoopa and the four factions used their accrued wealth to restore the regions from the damaged caused by their actions.

## Pre Event

CC2 began with the introduction of ZZ, a Zoroark who expressed concern of the disappearance of his friend BBB. ZZ introduced himself as working outside the bounds of ARMOR, BBB's employer, but that he had garnered knowledge on her status and whereabouts. This intelligence lead ZZ on an international quest to find and rescue his friend, utilizing a boat tour which he had access to tickets from a former set of acquaintances, The Twinleaf Trio. The Twinleaf Trio was a boat band and hit sensation out of the Sinnoh region who provided coded messages in their songs. The hints culminated in a radio broadcast from Kanto region, revealing BBB's location to be in a neighboring Rooks of Rocket hideout. After her rescue, BBB revealed that in her investigation of these criminal organizations, she had uncovered that they were in close pursuit of a powerful and dangerous relic and that recent intelligence had determined its most likely location to be deep within the Cyllage Caves in the Kalos region.

## Hunt For The Relic

Realizing that it was far to late to stop their plot, BBB instructed ARMOR operatives to join the ranks of these four mafia-like factions (Rooks of Rocket, Grunts of Galactic, Pawns of Plasma, and the Aides of Aether) and understand their operations covertly. To properly infiltrate their ranks, operatives were expected to engage with the Admins of their respective factions, and often complete some rather unethical ventures in hopes of seeking approval, including but not limited to helping engineer a Pokemon-Weapon hybrid with hopes of containing some extreme force the Admins were intentionally vague about. The Admins were adamant that a relic was located within the mines and that searching for this powerful mystic relic was priority number one, with the secondary priority of preventing the other factions from locating it first. Once the relic was found, it was revealed to be a bottle storing the ancient energy of Hoopa. Before it could even be opened, the bottle's immense power filled the teams with rage and contempt about who had rightful ownership to unseal it and request Hoopa's fealty.

## Opening The Bottle

In an attempt to quell further violence, an invitational tournament for each of the factions' strongest Warriors to compete in their faction's name was setup. While the battles were valiant, the Pawns of Plasma emerged victorious and claimed the Eternal Prison Bottle for themselves. Unbeknownst to this criminal organization, what they contained in their hands was not just strong magic, but a divinely created prison manufactured by Arceus with the intent to seal away a powerful force far beyond mortal control; an eternal element. Hoopa, a pure manifestation of emotions, used the Pawns of Plasma's own lust for power and wealth to convince them to open the bottle and unseal the magical prison of its confinement. While the Pawns of Plasma, like the other factions, foolishly believed they could control this arcane force, Hoopa instead demonstrated that it was the one in control by offering the factions a chance at redemption before their inevitable fate.

## Ceasefire

Delibird appeared just in time to stall the war from progressing, as well as exerting his limited seasonal magic to prevent Hoopa's destruction from progressing. Using a new tool, which he referred as "The Slay Bell", he exerted his magical control over Hoopa long enough for the teams to participate in some team building activities in hopes they would abandoned their criminal enterprises and instead cooperate towards the common good. Delibird cautioned the teams that the Slay Bell could be used against more than just Hoopa if necessary, indicating cooperation was far from voluntary. With their faith in each other renewed, the three factions returned to the battlefield to go to war once the ceasefire ended, but with Hoopa rather than one another.

## Hoopa's Wrath

Seeing this type of cooperation and harmony between these previous enemies both enraged and weakened Hoopa, as its strength stemmed from this animosity. Hoopa began to crudely destroy the regions, taking cherished landmarks from one region and depositing their destroyed, crumpled remains in another, in hopes of destabilizing the alliance between these factions. With each of these landmark relocations Hoopa provided reasonings for his actions as a final mockery of his captor, Arceus, including: lifting the Kanto's Pokemon Tower burial site and placing it among the skyscrapers of Castelia City for the dead to face the living; harvesting the Dragonspiral Tower out of the ground of northern Unova and planting it on-top of Spear Pillar in the Sinnoh region, insulting the Divine assertion that Spear Pillar is the height of power; removing Sinnoh's ancient Snowpoint Temple and placing it upon the Altar of the Sunne and Moone, indifferent to the historical clash of those celestial beings; moving the renowned Hokulani Observatory from Alola and placed it in the Kanto Safari Zone, a mocking observation about the quest for wealth exceeding the quest for knowledge.

Hoopa provided the factions with a wager, that if he could be bested in certain games of chance, like Tiny or Heavy or Minior Marbles, that he would reverse this destruction and replace the landmarks where they belonged. While some of the factions were successful in restoring the damage done to their regions through this wager, these childish games on further aided Hoopa's agenda of sowing frustration amongst the factions' cohesion. Half of Pokemon Tower remained in Castelia City, the entirety of Dragonspiral Tower remained on Spear Pillar, half of Snowpoint Temple remained on the Altar of the Sunne and the Moone, and only Aides of Aether were able to fully recover their Hokulani Observatory from the Safari Zone.

## Resealing Hoopa

The war waged on, and the teams realized that the would require assistance in defeating Hoopa. They sought out the wisdom of the currently exiled Manaphy, who had knowledge about both the Royal Palace as well as the Prison Bottle's manufacturer, Arceus. Manaphy saw this as an opportunity to both help her friends, but also to obtain favor with Arceus in hopes of being able to return to the palace. A plan was constructed that saw the teams constructing four bottles, each of their own design, with Manaphy returning to the Royal Palace and asking for Arceus's Divine blessing of the bottles. Manaphy would then take on Hoopa in combat as a distraction while the teams used this distraction as an opportunity to try and reseal Hoopa within one of the bottles.

While the events went almost according to plan, there were a few snags. As Manaphy descended from the Hall of Origins, with all four bottles in hand, she was tripped by Phione, and stumbled dropping the Arceus Enchanted Lockbox, with three of the four bottles contained within falling out and shattering on the floor before her. Still confident that their plan could still be completed with just one of the bottles, Manaphy set forth into battle with Hoopa, whilst the Aides of Aether used the only surviving bottle to reseal Hoopa.

The war came to an end with Aides of Aether claiming victory over the other teams, thanks to this final act of bravery and heroism. As a result, Bobby Bewear, the former leader of the Aides of Aether, was deputized by ARMOR for his contributions in thwarting Hoopa. Bobby Bewear and the Aides of Aether also turned over control of the new Aether Eternal Prison Bottle to ARMOR for containment and further investigation into worldly applications of this eternal element.

## War Events & Features

CC2 was the second war, and introduced new elements and structures to the annual event. One such introduction was classes, with Warriors, Artisans, and Oracles introduced with a focus on battling, art, and puzzles, respectively. Token bonuses were granted based on your class, so Oracles had a disadvantage when battling, but gained extra tokens for solving puzzles, for example. Additionally, this war introduced many bot features beyond the token scoreboard that Bronzong had provided for CC1, such as pre-event solving in DMs, automated minigames, and other support for the war.

The pre-event feature was vastly expanded and featured in a separate channel, with a large token bonus to those who were able to complete it. It began in April of 2018 and continued until the war began in November. It featured heavy lore content, introducing many one-shot characters and expanding on the lore of existing characters such as Beatrice Burnadette Bidoof.

CC2 featured minigames, as mentioned, which included Stones and Cups, Minior Marbles, and Tiny or Heavy. The Gamer class was not yet introduced, so all war participants received equal points.

The war also featured expanded puzzles, including some puzzles featuring sound. Meloetta was required for some of the puzzles, as songs by The Twinleaf Trio were part of the event.

This war introduced comics, which helped explain the plot of the war and the conclusion of the story.