#centered in kalos??? ZYGARDE MY BOY????

[skoulsons]

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME??? MEGAS ARE COMING BACK??? MEGA FLYGON FINALLY???

[dontfindyourcenter]

Chapter seven:  New island

Rules: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177027661290/rules

Previous Chapter: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177339049670/chapter-six-its-a-cold-and-its-a-broken-hala

Alola, Akala! What a wonderful phrase Alola, Akala! Ain't no passing craze

It means new trials, I might be crying for days About my center-free, philosophy

Alola, Akala!

Why, when Nina was a young rock doooog

Rockruff, ruff ruff ruff rockruuuuuuuuuuuuuuff!

Very nice!

Rockruff.

We came to Heahea city and I couldn’t help feel I was enjoying this challenge!  I could let out a squeal! I’ve an optimist’s soul, though I couldn’t begin To really truly believe, that I could ever win...

And I’m not ashamed!

(No, there’s no shame!)

It’s a difficult game!

(Why am I doing this game?)

I feel like I’ve lucked up

(How do I feel?)

Whenever I haven’t -

(Tori! Not in front of the kids!)

Sorry.

Alola, Akala!

What a wonderful phrase

Alola, Akala!

Ain't no passing craze

It means new trials, I might be crying for days About my healing-free, philosophy

Alola, Akala!

...Uhhhh… Sorry about that.

But seriously, I’m actually feeling pretty good about myself, docking into Heahea City!  Even though I can remember the second island of Alola is a lot harder than the first, I’m pretty happy with the team I cobbled together back there, and I’ve got a pretty respectable stash of revives if the worst happens.  Even if I’m still not convinced I’ll make it to the Elite Four, I can still be pretty confident that I’ll make it to the other side of this island.  Bring it on, I say!

Another city, another chance to buy everything blue and purple from the clothes shop.  (Did I even mention that I went back and got everything purple from the Hau’oli clothes shop before I came here?  Because I did!)  Shockingly though, even without having spent any money on items for the entire game, I still can’t afford the slightly-purple trainers they’re selling here.  I blame the recession.  I vow to come back here after the first trial and see if I have more luck then.

Before I can even get onto route 4 and savage the local wildlife, I’m accosted by Sina and Dexio, a pair of scientists on their holidays all the way from Kalos!  I kinda miss Kalos.  Since my copy of pokemon Y got lost a long while ago, it’s the only region I haven’t been playing games in non-stop in the last three years.  If I have any secret millionaires hidden among the five people who follow this blog, hit me up if you want to send me a copy of pokemon X.  

Anyway, Sina invites me to a pokemon battle, but that doesn’t last long.  Her delibird provides me with one of those rare battles where my pokemon end up with more health at the end of the match than they had at the start, and her glaceon gets dispatched by a couple of Magnet Bombs from Digit Al the magnemite.  As a reward, she heals my pokemon and gives me a Zygarde Cube.  I have no intention of adding a Zygarde to my party, but I’ll take the cube anyway - I can’t say no to a good treasure hunt.  Also, I literally can’t say no.

I charge through route four pretty quickly on tauros’s back, with Nina throwing rocks at trainers as we go.  We soon reach Paniola Town, where Hau catches up to me.  Hi Hau!  He challenges me to a battle, and - oh, Hau, sweetie, you still only have two pokemon?  I have a feeling that nepotism played a part in Hau winning his first grand trial, bless him.  In any case, Jabba the grimer beats his pikachu, Digit Al beats his popplio, and I find out that sweet, innocent Hau heals all his opponents’ pokemon both before and after every battle he gets into.  No wonder the boy’s not doing so well - the potions alone must be costing him a fortune, and god knows how he manages to restore the moves of everyone’s PP on top of that.

I wander around the only open non-pokemon-center building in the Town and a magmar gives me a quick ball which is heavily implied to have been hidden up its read end.  I think that’s my cue to leave.

Onwards to Paniola Ranch, where I get a Stoutland registered on my ride pager who can sniff out items for me, and the useful lad even finds me some useful healing items.  Hey, if it finds super potions on the ground, does that make it a drug-sniffing dog? ...That was really clever in my head, but on reflection, that’s probably where the entire concept of the Stoutland Search function came from.  Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything.  

While I’m here, I say hi to a tauros in the corner, and a pokemon breeder wanders up to me and asks me if I want to battle him to calm him down.  Makes sense - when I’m feeling riled up, nothing calms me down more than having a cartoon woodpecker break a brick on my head.  Anyway, the breeder gives me a Scope Lense when I’m done.

Just before I head up to route 5, where my next trial is waiting, I see a miltank standing next to the pokemon nursery.   Normally, I’d go up to it and investigate; I love the little touches the developers of the game add when you interact with pokemon like that, even when they turn out to be a quick ball hidden in a magmar’s arse.  I don’t do it here, though, because I remember that I used to get healed by that miltank when I was playing Pokemon Sun, and getting deliberately healed by an NPC is Against The Rules.  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been tempted to feign ignorance, though.  The trainers around the ranch are a great source of experience, but they do take a toll on the HP.

And now I’m on route 5, and I can finally meet everyone’s favourite edgelord, Gladion!  I love the weird thing he does where he sort of clutches his hand in from of him and it sort of vibrates.  I’m sure it’s meant to make him look more mysterious and unpredictable or whatever, but it just makes him look like he’s doing that thing you do when you’re trying to spook kids at halloween.  “And the scariest part is, nobody knows where the disembodied hand is now - wait - noooo!  It’s here!  Run, save yourselves!”

Gladion’s first pokemon is a zubat, which goes up against Celine McQueen the slowpoke.  I win that match, but in hindsight, I wish I’d switched pokemon early on in the battle.  I should know by now that zubats always seem to know Bite, and Celine took more damage than was really necessary.  Regardless, I switch over to Jabba when he sends out his Type:Null.  Jabba poisons Nully with his Poison Fang attack, but man, I forgot how much of a punch that guy packs, even with a relatively weak attack like tackle.  Jabba immediately has to switch places with Digit Al to avoid death.  

...Hey, speaking of Jabba dying, a thought has just occurred to me.  How did Jabba the Hutt die of being strangled in Star Wars?  He doesn’t have a neck!  What’s that about?

Sorry, I guess that’s not that important.  Digit Al has higher defence than Jabba, so he manages to take a couple of hits and send a couple of thundershocks until Type:Null gets knocked out.  That’s that done and dusted and he… doesn’t heal my pokemon.

Huh.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, that marks the first time in the game where I battle a major recurring character and don’t have my pokemon automatically healed before or after the encounter.

I guess this is where things really get interesting.

End of chapter seven.