On Playing Through Alpha Sapphire: Ep VII

We must be nearly done by now, right?
My journey through Alpha Sapphire continues to the Elite Four – and beyond. Team status is as follows: 

And today’s thoughts and discoveries:

• According to Professor Birch, the rain of life energy that was released by Kyogre’s defeat has reenergised and revitalised all of Hoenn – to the point that the ecosystem now supports dozens of species of Pokémon that haven’t been seen here in more than a thousand years. There are, like, Lillipup just outside Littleroot Town and stuff. Huh.
  
  
• Checked out the rest of Sea Mauville since I now have Dive. There is some weird stuff in here.
  
  
• A document in one of the rooms – damaged, but you can make out most of the first sentence; “Official Statement of Apology: I, –izo– Co–mo, am responsible for the loss of the Odd Keystone donated by the Oreburgh Mine…” Co–mo as in Cozmo, the astronomer from Fallarbor? And Odd Keystone as in the unholy magic artefact that binds the souls of one hundred and eight unrepentant murderers to the physical world in the form of the Pokémon Spiritomb? What the hell even happened here?
  
  
• Glass bottles labelled “Wake up with Devon Energy Elixir! Now with Refined Seviper Extract! Increase your focus! Work for days! You’ll never need another rest!” …it’s snake oil. It is literally snake oil. There is a huge stash of literal snake oil on this ship. I just… don’t even know anymore.
  
  
• A filing cabinet containing ‘confidential’ reports. “[De(?)]von Secret [Investi]gation Re[port]. The [state(?)]ment on new ene[rgy] turned out to be true. The [ene]rgy that uses Po[kém]on’s –ene– is called Inf[inite(?)] [ener]gy. [Investi]gation Report on [Watt(?)]son. A series of actions related to cancellation of the New [Mauvi]lle Project [tur]ned out to be true. I [recom]mend prompt [discip]linary action against him as a traitor to our group. –ck, Team E Leader, Opera[tion] Group –.” Wow. This is some serious cloak and dagger $#!t going on here. I’m going to have to figure out how to get into New Mauville when I’m done here.
  
  
• A bookshelf “covered with different knickknacks, all featuring a Skitty in some kind of dress.” I do believe we’ve just found the Pokémon equivalent of Hello Kitty.
  
  
• Documents pertaining to the salary of one Ra– Coz[m]o. In the same bookshelf are a series of letters from Cozmo’s son, Takao – given the age of all the other documents on this ship, and the interest in astronomy that he expresses in his letters, Takao is almost certainly the Cozmo I know from Fallarbor. From what the letters say, the elder Cozmo’s relationship with his wife was breaking down, and he spent very little time with his family. Also Takao was an ungrateful little $#!t who traded away the Shelgon his father gave him after it evolved into Salamence (!!!) because it didn’t look like a meteorite anymore and he wanted a Solrock instead.
  
  
• A notebook belonging to the leader of the New Mauville project (not Wattson, since the notebook mentions him by name – possibly Cozmo? Or someone else entirely), describing the catastrophic effects of its failure and cancellation on the now-jobless employees.
  
  
• Stalked and ambushed by a wild Spiritomb – so I guess we found the Odd Keystone that Cozmo’s father lost. It used Memento to destroy itself rather than allow itself to be captured, which seems like a bit of an unfair trick. I’ll have to come back another time and see if it rematerialises.
  
  
• When I finally got into the main storage room, which was filled with nuggets and other treasure, a man called Raizoh – presumably the elder Cozmo – turned up, took a… small pink thing of some description… from the floor and then left. Maybe that was the Skitty doll that Takao’s letters mentioned giving to him.
  
  
• I was expecting a choice of a Deep Sea Tooth or a Deep Sea Scale from Captain Stern in exchange for the Scanner from the bowels of the complex, but instead I was given a Tidal Bell – the magical artefact that calls Lugia. Hmm… this could get interesting…
  
  
• Never mind; New Mauville was really boring. There wasn’t even anything wrong when Wattson sent me there – just some sort of malfunction in the machine that monitors the status of the complex. Also I got to see Wattson’s apartment in Mauville City. His wife is, like, at most thirty, probably younger. So, uh… that’s not weird at all.
  
  
• Got through Victory Road and had my long-awaited bout with Wally. To be honest, Wally seems to have benefited the least of the major characters from the improved characterisation and dialogue of the remakes, but he does get some pretty spectacular scenery, and his own battle music. What’s more, the kid got hold of a Digivice somewhere! Rather than Gardevoir, his partner in the remakes is a Gallade – with a shiny new Mega form to boot. Didn’t stop my Xatu, of course, but the effort was admirable. And he gave me a Dawn Stone, so I could potentially bring my own Kirlia out of retirement now. Or do something completely different.
  
  
• Now that I think of it, all of the members of the Elite Four have at least one Pokémon that I know to be capable of Mega Evolution – Sidney’s Absol, Phoebe’s Banette, Glacia’s Glalie, and Drake’s Salamence (Steven, of course, will presumably deploy Mega Metagross). I wonder whether they’ll all have Digivices too? Only one way to find out…
  
  
• Never mind, they don’t. Only Steven can use Mega Evolution. That didn’t save him either, since he insists on following in the footsteps of past Champions by using Giga Impact on his Metagross. I’m totally the Champion! Whoohoo!
  
  
• After the credits, May requests a battle at the site of our very first one, just outside Oldale Town. She’s obviously not as powerful as the Elite Four, but she’s certainly been making progress – and she has a Digivice too! Where the hell are we even getting these things from in Hoenn?
  
  
• And after that… more stuff keeps happening. The Mossdeep Space Centre has detected a meteor on a collision course with Earth, which will apparently land somewhere outside of Sootopolis. This seems like as good a way as any to drag Rayquaza into the plot – protecting the planet from errant celestial phenomena is very much within his domain, and we have to get that sweet new Mega form somehow.
  
  
• Meanwhile, a former Team Aqua grunt – or possibly a spy who infiltrated their ranks, from the way she talks about it – is apparently waiting to put some kind of plot in motion, something that was somehow frustrated by my stopping Kyogre, but not derailed entirely. Once out of her Team Aqua uniform, she wears some kind of tan cloak – and an anklet which, unless I’m very much mistaken, is a Digivice. Her partner is a Whismur named Aster, to whom she seems to be utterly devoted. I have no idea what this chick’s up to, but there’s something awfully sinister about her…
  
  
• The moment I leave my house after returning from Ever Grande City with May, the mysterious girl turns up to introduce herself to me. She claims that her name is Zinnia, and she knows that I have a Digivice, but it’s not exactly clear why she felt she needed to introduce herself right now.
  
  
• The b!tch mugged May and stole her Digivice! What the HELL!? And apparently she said something like “Petalburg’s next”!? Oh, this little skank is SO going down.