Bolt Badges in hand, Jim and I decide to look around Nimbasa City and its surroundings a bit more. We head east, out of the city, and explore the road to the Marvellous Bridge. We try the bridge, but find that we cannot reach it from ground level without taking an elevator, which is broken. As in so many other buildings in the Pokémon world, the elevator is the only way up. I have never understood their reliance on elevators. A woman in Hearthome City once told me that her house had no stairs because elevators were much easier for small Pokémon to use than human-sized stairs, which I suppose could apply to a lot of buildings, but isn’t that a massive fire hazard? I bring this up with the guards at the Marvellous Bridge, but they just stare at me blankly until Jim grabs me by the collar and drags me off. Since the bridge is closed, we go instead to the wilderness area northeast of Nimbasa City – the Lostlorn Forest.
Lostlorn gives me the willies. I complain, as Jim leads the way inside, that we shouldn’t be there, and that some forest spirit could jump out at any moment and turn us all into star-nosed moles. We find no forest spirits – only Roselia, Combee, and Pinsir. I briefly consider catching a Roselia, but decide that since I already have a Poison-type I’ll wait and go for another Grass Pokémon later. We hang around to train our Pokémon a little instead, and are rewarded when Sansa and Elisif evolve into a pair of Ampharos, Tyrion reaches the pinnacle of grumpiness as a mighty Scolipede, and Falk’s fire erupts into life as he evolves into Magmar. We wander deeper into the forest, and meet a backpacker who explains to us that a woman once lived here in a broken-down old trailer, bluntly refusing to speak to anyone and generally wallowing in her own crotchety misanthropy. Apparently she turned out to be a disguised Zoroark who had used her powers of illusion to turn the forest into an insane maze, but she’s gone now, and people don’t get lost here anymore. Well, that’s a relief, I say. The backpacker farewells us, walks a short distance away, then turns into a Zoroark and vanishes into the trees.
Jim. Leaving. Now.
Jim insists on checking the area more thoroughly to see whether there are any Zorua still living in Lostlorn, so I abandon him and wait at the entrance, refusing to take responsibility for his fate. Eventually, he reluctantly moves on and we decide to hit the stadia back in Nimbasa City for some training. When we get there, though, we find Hugh waiting for us… along with some Team Plasma goons. Hugh is doing his usual “destroy all Team Plasma” speech and warns them that they’re “about to feel his rage.” Ordinarily, of course, Jim and I would ignore this nonsense and get on with what we were doing earlier, but we’re not sure whether Hugh has ever heard of the Geneva Convention (or even whether it exists in this word) and we decide that the Team Plasma grunts need to be chased away for their own safety. With an awkward apology, we spring into action and, as gently as possible, disable their Pokémon with Sansa and Elisif’s Thunder Wave attacks, keeping all the trainers occupied so there’s no-one for Hugh to battle. Hugh quietly simmers in the background until we’ve scared them all off, then demands to know who he can unleash his rage on now. We tell him very sternly that he is not to unleash anything, rage-related or otherwise, without giving one of us notice and seeking permission, and that he is going to bottle his rage up inside until it sends him into a death spiral of depression and anxiety like normal people do. Hugh starts to object, and then, with a sigh, finally explains the deep, dark secret of his troubled past that is the cause of all his explosive rage.
A couple of years ago Team Plasma stole his little sister’s Purrloin.
We look at him blankly.
“…and…?”
Look, don’t get us wrong, it was a dick move on their part, but Team Plasma stole, like, a zillion Pokémon and most of their owners’ older brothers didn’t become gruff, obsessive sociopaths filled with barely-suppressed rage that explodes onto innocent bystanders at a moment’s notice. We sit Hugh down, repeat the “anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering” sermon, and ask him to tell us whether it’s really all worth it. Will fulfilling his goal and getting Purrloin back truly make him a less violently angry person? He raises an eyebrow and answers in the affirmative. Jim points out that at least Hugh’s on our side. At the moment. I tell him he’s not helping, and explain to Hugh that many of the Team Plasma crew from two years ago had been manipulated by Ghetsis and truly believed they were doing the right thing, even if their zealotry got out of hand at times. Jim mentions, thinking out loud, that the new Team Plasma seem much less morally ambiguous and are probably genuine bastards. I tell him he’s still not helping. We argue about it, and eventually come to an agreement that Hugh is still potentially a danger to himself and others, but at least he’s theoretically pointed at people we don’t like, and with fairly good reason. We just need to keep an eye on him.
This is problematic since he’s wandered off during our discussion.
We hurry out of Nimbasa City to the west, looking for him, and- oh, damnit, it’s Bianca; quick, hide before she- too late. Bianca is here to introduce us to Hidden Grottoes, one of the new features of Black and White 2. She drags us over to a place in the tree line where some bushes are visible between the trees – the sort of thing that’s obvious once you know what to look for, but you might never find on your own. Bianca explains that this is the entrance to a Hidden Grotto, an area where rare Pokémon sometimes hide. She shoves us into the hidden path between the trees, and we fight our way through the tangle of leaves and branches, to find… a Minccino. Seriously, Bianca? I know you think they’re cute, but was this really so important? Ah, what the hell. I battle the thing with Tyrion, capture it, and move on, giving Bianca a reproachful glare which, true to form, she doesn’t notice. Only much later, after stuffing it in a PC and leaving it there for days, do I realise that this Minccino has its Dream World ability, Skill Link. Hmm. Okay, maybe Bianca and her Hidden Grottoes aren’t a waste of time after all, but don’t tell her I said that.
Jim and I still can’t find Hugh, so we make for the Driftveil Drawbridge, which is being blocked by a crowd of people watching none other than Charles the Heartbreaker. Charles was in Black and White, but you might not remember him because he is silly. He is an expert on rotation battle, the mind-warping new battle format introduced in the fifth generation, as well as its less trippy cousin, triple battle. I have never really been sold on either of these. Double battles were already kind of a niche thing – I mean, I know people have double battles, and there are doubles tournaments and everything, but really? We all know they’re never going to rival singles as a battle format – and now the game is throwing triples at us, so we can have an even more niche format, and compounds it by throwing in another ridiculous niche format at the same time where predicting your opponent’s choices becomes so insane that your brain melts after three turns against the AI. Honestly, I think even Smogon gives up and says “don’t look at us” when faced with rotation battles, and they know everything! Fuelled by pure righteous irritation, I marshal my forces and stomp Charles into the dirt so we can use the Driftveil Drawbridge. We encounter a few Ducklett as we cross, and Jim, realising that he still doesn’t have any flying or swimming Pokémon on his team yet, catches one and names her Lydia. Other than that, the Driftveil Drawbridge presents few surprises, and we arrive safely in Driftveil City – time to find Hugh and keep him from getting into trouble…
Pokémaniacal 