"Not Sailor Moon"

I was supposed to meet Kahuna Olivia in the town hidden behind Diglett's Tunnel.  Konikoni City is a town that reminds me a lot of Miyajima Island near Hiroshima in Japan.  There are red structures resembling the tori gates, street markets on old stone roads.  There is a lot about this town that reminds me of my trip to the same place this last summer.

This is the second consecutive Pokemon game where I have found that I have actually been to one of the in-game locations in the very recent past.  I wonder if my travels are actually influencing the game design?!

I had found that I had missed Olivia by just a few moments when I got there and I swore right there in Konikoni that I would find her and have my revenge...

Now on with the chase, Miami, Dallas, New Orleans, then I came face to face with the rat in Niagra Falls...

Olivia told me to meet with her in the sanctuary where the Akala Island Guardian Deity resides.  I suppose that having god watch my battle is the ultimate in nerve-inducing audiences, but that shaking you see of me is probably just the cold.

On my way through another graveyard--this one infested with Gastly and Phantump.  Noteworthy amongst my travels was a near-loss against a tough Umbreon and a double blackout against what can only be described as the douchiest of Douchebag Gyarados.

I also came across a Trainer class called "Punk Girl".  Let's play a game of "Spot the Differences" between "Punk Girl and Boy" and "Team Skull Grunts"

 

Guys, I think we have finally figured it out...Team Skull is just real people!  Phew!

Speaking of those numbskulls, "Not Sailor Moon" showed up to chastise me for picking on her gruntlings.  Her name is Plumeria and apparently she's a leader of Team Skull.  She called her minions idiots a few times and then challenged me with her Golbat and her Salandit.

I actually had a little trouble with this match.  Her Golbat was faster and at a higher level than any of my pokemon and most of the pokemon I had with me at the time (Crabrawler, Steenee, Sylvan, ...) were mismatched against the Poison/Flying pokemon.  Luckily, I have the best pokemon ever on my team, so I was able to finish it off with a few powerful moves.  In this case, "the best pokemon ever" is my water starter Pako Pako, and "a few powerful moves" means Hydro Vortex and Scald.  

Yes, I know I am temperamental about this sort of thing.

Current Squad:

Brionne/Pako Pako/lvl 25
Crabrawler/Ppunches/lvl 23
Salandit/Sassy Sally/lvl 23
Oricorio/Ori-Chan/lvl 23
Steenee/Bouncee/lvl 24
Sylveon/Sly/lvl 24

On Rotation:
Grimer/Sludj/lvl 23
Misdreavus/Missy/lvl 23
Trumbeak/Pip Pip/lvl 23
Mareanie/Meanie/lvl 21

Pokedex: 101 caught

Team Flare at the Power Plant

With my fourth badge in hand I decided to take a moment to analyze the motley crew I call a pokemon team.  I found that the only real weak link was Floette--who has failed me as a special wall and also as a special attacker/supporter--so I tossed her out.  Team down to 10!  Woo Woo!

At this point, I felt that I hadn't fulfilled my necessary time quota of fucking-around-while-between-gyms so I went fishing all over the world with my newly acquired Good Rod.  This is when I came across Skrelp, a new Poison/Water type pokemon, who I caught and added to the team.  Back to 11. Damn.

I may not have gone with this guy so quickly, but his pokedex entry says something about building power while waiting for his evolution.  This seemed fairly auspicious to me so I can't wait for the grand unveiling of his "true power".  I bet he evolves into Garchomp.

Aaaand speak of the devil, I just caught Gible. 

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Route 13 is introduced as the "Badlands" and rightly so: it is a desert inhabited by Dugtrio, Gible, and Trapinch who actually burrow around underground towards you whenever you walk around in the sand.  After catching all of these ground types and trying to figure out if Dugtrio's pink mouth is actually a pink nose, I found a Team Flare member hanging-out near the Power-Plant.  He didn't outright TELL me where the Power Plant key was hidden, but be definitely sent me in the right direction if you know what I mean...

I expected the Power Plant to be a puzzle dungeon, possibly like the Mahogany Town Team Rocket base from Silver version--a maze-like structure with electrode traps running generators.  Instead, it was a gauntlet of 10 Team Flare members exclusively carrying Golbat and Houndoom (okay, maybe there was a scraggy in there somewhere too).  PikaPi keps getting itself knocked-out after causing massive damage on turn one, so my high-risk, high rewards strategy-thingie is safe, but he learned Thunderbolt recently so we'll see how much longer I wait to evolve him into Raichu.

The battle with the two Team Flare Admins went by without a problem and for my efforts, Kirlia evolved into Gardevoir.  After the match, Team Flare disappeared from the Plant, and somehow this magically turned the lights back on in Lumiose City, which is nice since it allows me to return to that mess of a city, but the implication is that the mere presence of Team Flare ruins technology.  An odd take on the villain dynamic: are they villains because they like to be the bad guys or are they villains because no one ever invites them to their birthday parties because they don't want the lights to turn off?

Current Squad:

FROGADIER/Froakles/lvl.29
IVYSAUR/Ivy/lvl.29
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.29
SKRELP/Toxie/lvl.30
SCRAGGY/Scrappy/lvl.29
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.29

On Rotation: Gardevoir, Pikachu, Hippopotas, Lucario