Time to go and get the last gym badge, then? No.

Professor Sycamore asked me to meet him in the next town, so I travelled on Route 18 to meet him. At which point he battled me. As you do. Bear him easily, of course, with my Delphox’s flamethrower coming in very handy. Luckily there was no side quest introduced at this point, so I went off to find the next city.

It was a bit of a winding path, through swamps and across bridges. And just as I arrived on the last bridge, my friends turned up. Were they here to support me, to encourage me, to journey with me?

Of course not.

Friends defeated, I went into the next city only to find that the gym leader isn’t there. Another little diversion ahead.

I fly to Lumiose City and wander around looking for signs of Lysandre. Eventually someone hints to me that he likes red and he owns a café which is red, all while standing next to a red café. On entering the shop the two assistants are probably the worst people ever at keeping secrets, and they give away there’s a secret entrance to the underground lair. Down I go, fighting away red-dressed fools, until I find a floor with random arrows that send you spinning in a certain direction until you hit a wall.

I hate rooms which have random arrows that send you spinning in a certain direction until you hit a wall. Particularly when you can’t see the full room and so everything has to be done by trial and error.

I discovered Team Flare’s ultimate plans, to use a weapon that would kill all people and pokémon other than themselves, because … something about overpopulation and scarce resources. This weapon was a thousand years old and had been hidden in plain sight for years. There was another story about a man called AZ who saved his pokémon by sacrificing many others, but that seemed a bit unrelated. I was given the choice of a blue button or an orange button to press – one would launch the weapon, the other wouldn’t.

I chose blue.

In the end it didn’t matter because they decided to launch the weapon anyway, so I set off to stop them in another secret lair underneath Geosenge Town, which has now been largely destroyed by a big crystal appearing in the centre. It turns out that the ultimate weapon was being powered by a thousand-year old pokémon, who I released after beating Team Flare. It then attacked me.

This pokémon was Xerneas, the cover star of the game and the X-shaped legendary creature. They¹ were only level 50 and most of my team was at level 62 or above. Luckily I’d saved just before the battle. Double luckily, my first hit with Aurorus took them down to about 10% health, and I caught them on my next move with an ultra ball. A bit of an anti-climax!

I immediately added Xerneas to my team, displacing Pikachu, and then Lysandre decided he wasn’t going to give up and demanded another battle. I one-hit-killed everything he threw at me, including a mega-evolved gyrados² which didn’t last long against my mega-evolved Lucario. After that he finally gave up.

Everyone was very happy, and it felt like the end of the game – but, of course, for a pokémon trainer saving the world is just one side quest encountered on the way to the Pokémon League.

Yes, we can indeed. Back to Anistar City.

1. Xerneus appears to be neither male nor female, so I’m using the generic “them”. ︎
2. I don’t give my pokémon names, so my pikachu is called Pikachu, and my gyrados is called Gyrados, but other people don’t own Gyrados, they just own a gyrados. ︎

It’s been a while.

I remembered getting Lucario in Shalour City, and defeating the sixth gym after having travelled North. However, the trail went cold there, both in terms of which gym to visit and what Team Flare were up to. I last saved, in 2017, in Dendemille Town, without a decided path.

So my next thought was to look at which route number I’d just been travelling on. Route 15 goes to Dendemille, and Route 16 goes back to Lumiose City, so I decided to try and journey along Route 17. Easier said than done, since it was under a lot of snow and blocked by boulders, meaning I needed the help of a big Mamoswine to pass it. Luckily there was a Mamoswine nearby, but it was frit because of something happening in Frost Cavern nearby.

It was at this point I remembered my previous thoughts of Pokémon X – that the storyline seemed to include far too many little diversions and side quests. To progress on my quest for the gyms I had to journey though the caverns to find Team Flare being mean to an Abomasnow; defeating them meant that Mamswine’s friend was safe and I was able to finally get a lift to the next town. I picked up quite a few new pokémon while doing so.

So to Anistar City, and I stumble upon the gym pretty quickly. This is the psychic gym, and while none of my pokémon is ideally suited for this battle – I have a team consisting of Aurorus, Blastoise, Delphox, Pikachu, Pidgeot and Lucario – the higher levels mean I have no problems obtaining the seventh badge. One more to go!

Except the Team Flare storyline gets in the way again, and I’m summoned to Lumiose City to talk to Lysander who apparently was the boss there. Something else to do before I fulfil my destiny, then.