With only a bare handful of grunts on deck, my Pokémon and I manage to force our way onto the Team Plasma frigate without much trouble. Jim and Hugh arrive just as my Ampharos is tossing the minions overboard. Together, the three of us march into the ship’s forecastle, our Pokémon swarming around us. Tragically, our dramatic entrance is stymied by a Team Plasma security device: a crackling blue force field.
Oh, okay, I remember how to handle these things; we have to find the ‘off’ switches in the rubbish bins, and- wait, there are no rubbish bins. Damnit; what kind of power-crazed madman designed this place!?
Inspection reveals that the force field is controlled by a keypad. We need to input the correct passphrase if we want to get inside and confront Team Plasma’s leaders. I momentarily regret ordering Sansa to throw the first batch of grunts off the ship without first torturing them for information. I instruct Hugh to guard the force field while Jim and I find someone to interrogate, but Hugh is having none of that. He still has rage to unleash today. He tears off towards the rear of the ship, looking for a way down below the deck. I follow him, glancing back at Jim with a helpless shrug. I catch up with Hugh as he barrels down the stairs only two steps behind his Emboar, who lands with a sickening crunch on top of an unfortunate Team Plasma grunt waiting at the bottom. Hugh is beginning some kind of rage-related threat when the grunt splutters a plea for mercy. He is, he claims, a spy for Rood’s splinter group, keeping watch on the movements of Ghetsis’ loyalists in order to help thwart their mischief. Huh. Way to go, Rood. I didn’t think espionage was really his style, but I guess it must have been easy enough, since the loyalists are still actively trying to recruit from his group. Unfortunately, Hugh and I very quickly learn that this spy has discovered absolutely nothing of any value. He knows that there is a force field protecting the ship’s command centre, and he knows that there is a password. He has no idea what that password is. Nor, when Hugh questions him, does he know anything about a stolen Purrloin. Hugh snorts derisively, muttering that he expected no better from a former member of Team Plasma, then tells Emboar to get off the poor guy and stalks off into the bowels of the ship. The spy apologises to me for not being helpful, but suggests that some of the real Team Plasma members might know something.
While the exterior of the Team Plasma frigate is quite imposing, and has a certain old-fashioned charm to it, the interior is really rather depressing. All the furnishings are in dull grey metal, and the grunts sleep in crowded dormitories and take their meals – bread and water, according to their cook – in a run-down mess hall. Frankly, the place reminds me of a prison. When I question one of the grunts about their living conditions, she remarks defensively that some of them have nowhere else to go. Well. That’s depressing. I suppose when the alternative is the revilement faced by Rood’s group, maybe this doesn’t seem so bad. I feel a momentary spasm of guilt at invading their home, and decide to take my mind off it by having Jaime the Samurott dangle one of them out a porthole. We quickly establish that none of them actually know the password, they just have a couple of letters or clues each. All this guy knows is that it begins with R. Well, surely, I point out as Jaime shakes him up and down, they must have compared notes once or twice. He protests, his voice slightly muffled as it comes in through the porthole, that the kind of people Ghetsis liked to recruit are not exactly experts in cooperative thinking. I shrug in assent, and dismiss him. Jaime drops the grunt into the sea, and we turn to the next fellow in line. He holds up his palms and explains quickly that he knows the password is the name of a Fire-type Pokémon, but nothing more. I am about to have Jaime stuff him through the porthole anyway, when my brain starts to tick. A Fire-type Pokémon whose name begins with R. That’s actually reasonably specific. Which Fire Pokémon have names that start with R? There’s Rapidash… Rotom when he’s in the form of a toaster, if you can even count him… and…
No… surely not… surely Zinzolin wouldn’t be so brazen?
I call Jim on my X-Transceiver and tell him to try entering “Reshiram” as the passphrase. It works.
Clearly Zinzolin never got the memo that your password should never be your name, your spouse, child or pet’s name, your date of birth, or the name of the ancient god who is the raison d’être of your entire organisation.
Jim marches through the deactivated force field with his Lucario, Dovahkiin, at his side. Behind the field is a tiny room containing a warp panel, presumably leading to somewhere else on the ship that can’t be directly accessed from the outside. They step onto the warp panel and, with a flash of light, find themselves standing on a balcony overlooking what appears to be the ship’s power core. Zinzolin is waiting for him. He applauds Jim for making it into the engine room, to which Jim modestly admits that all he did was keep watch while I found the password. Zinzolin shrugs, and notes that Jim is still clearly a very powerful trainer – and worthy of seeing the secret of Team Plasma’s newfound success. He gestures to the power core below, an enormous glass cylinder surrounded by an eerie blue glow that seems to feed the machines around it. Inside the cylinder, apparently passive and docile, is Kyurem, the legendary dragon of ice. This is the source of energy that powers their ship’s Nevermeltice cannon and, presumably, its other systems as well. It takes a while to recharge the cannon after a volley, but apparently the ship is almost ready. With Kyurem safe behind glass and all his ship’s systems powering up for battle, Zinzolin confidently challenges Jim, but the conclusion is forgone and hilarious. All of Zinzolin’s Ice Pokémon, of course, are cripplingly weak to Dovahkiin’s powerful Fighting attacks, and have no effective means of damaging a Steel-type anyway. Hugh, meanwhile, has arrived to deal with Zinzolin’s attendants. Once their battles have run their course, Hugh approaches Zinzolin and demands to know what’s happened to his sister’s Purrloin. Zinzolin frowns and gives Hugh a sceptical look. He has no idea where Purrloin is, though he assumes it now belongs to a member of Team Plasma. He suggests that Hugh should go and catch another one, to which Hugh objects that this Purrloin was caught for his sister by their grandfather, who has since died. Zinzolin dismisses this, saying that “an individual’s feelings” are “a trifling matter indeed.” He chides Hugh for wasting time on such sentimentality, then proclaims the ship ready to fly and summons the Shadow Triad. Two of them appear by Jim and Hugh on the balcony, and the third appears next to me on the lower decks. For an instant, everything goes black, and we find ourselves standing on the beach.
GOD DAMN IT, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS TELEPORTING NINJA BULLS#!T.
I run to get back onto the ship, but Zinzolin has already fired up the flight engines, so I start hurling abuse at them instead, beginning with ‘coward’ and working my way up through all the different possible levels of obscenity and anatomical detail. For some reason, the ship does not descend, but instead flies off to the northwest. As I slow down to take a breather, we here a familiar voice – “sorry I’m late.” Cheren, useful as always, has just arrived to tell us that he thinks the ship is heading for the Giant Chasm. We all hop on our respective Flying Pokémon and prepare to move out, but Cheren himself doesn’t move. I give him an accusatory glare, and he just says something about looking for the heroes, since only Reshiram and Zekrom can stand up to Kyurem. We’ll see about that, I mutter as I spur Daenerys into flight. This is my damn story, and I’m standing up to whatever Pokémon I please, N or no N. Daenerys the Flygon, Lydia the Swanna, and Hugh’s Unfezant soar off, past Humilau City and back towards route 22.
Pokémaniacal 