I’ve been excitedly reading your Sun and Moon playthrough and enjoying it immensely. However, you passed through route 8 and didn’t even mention Colress’s appearance! I’m disappointed, I wanted to see you thoughts and your character’s reaction!
Good heavens, you’re right! I completely forgot about that while I was writing! We must remedy this situation at once!
…
“You there!” I stop walking and turn around, ready to fire off a snarky quip at whoever just called me “you there,” until I see… oh. Ohhhh good. This guy.
“Oh, excuse me! I am a scientist. My name is Colress,” he introduces himself. Colress still has his trademark lab coat and sweeping plume of blue hair, but has added a pair of robotic gauntlets with touchscreen displays on the wrists, so he can look like his every gesture is something important and sciency.
“Yeah, I’ve… I’ve heard of you,” I tell him haltingly. He looks surprised, then worried.
“Really? A young trainer like you has heard of my work? Or- oh. You don’t know about-?”
“The whole war crimes thing, with Team Plasma back in Unova? How you were complicit in a plot to plunge a continent into a new ice age and bring about the end of modern civilisation?” Now he looks very worried. “No, look, it’s fine, I don’t care, just… look, we’ve sort of met before; it’s kind of a long story… I was a few years older, I might have been a chick at the time…” I shake my head. “I was literally a different person, is the point, and so were you, as far as I’m concerned. And I’m on holiday. So unless whatever you’re doing in Alola is somehow a threat to the entire planet, it is officially not my problem.” Colress just stares at me blankly. “Seriously. We. Are. Fine. What’re you up to, anyway?”
“Well…” Colress begins cautiously, “That is… the theme of my research is… ‘bringing out the potential of Pokémon.’ What brings out the power of Pokémon is… I believe that is – the bond they share with their trainers!” Okay, so he’s still working in the same research area, but the events of Black and White 2 have proven to him that supercharging Pokémon with evil machines to create powerful weapons is not the best method. “And thus my attention is drawn to trainers like yourself… trainers bound to their Pokémon through the power of the Z-ring! Z-power… is it the true potential I seek? Does it surpass the Mega Ring?”
“Nope.” He blinks at me.
“…what?”
“Surpass the Digivice. Pretty sure it doesn’t.” He stares at me in confusion.
“Digi- Digiwhat?”
“Digivi- oh, um. Mega Ring. Whatever. Look, the Mega Ring unlocks a whole new level of evolution, changing a Pokémon’s form and powers, bringing it one step closer to spiritual completion… The Z-Crystals blow stuff up.” He raises a finger like he’s about to say something. “I mean, I guess if you only have a Charmander then a Firium-Z is gonna get you further than a Charizardite-X… seriously though, try ‘em both out. They give Z-Rings away practically for free here in Alola; you just have to, like… risk your life to help out a terrorist, or something.” Colress shakes his head in amazement.
“Alola is fascinating! I believe I will stay here for some time! Well then, I hope to see you again some time.” He turns and walks away.
“But don’t get any ideas!” I call out after him. “You better not try to destroy the world with this stuff! I live here!”
Pokémaniacal 