Well, let’s enter Holocausthair’s not-so-secret Team Flare front. Cafe looks empty.
Talking to one of the servers, he tells me to get out, then attacks. With a L46 scrafty! My team is amazingly bad at handling that.

Upon defeat: Oh no! She’ll find out the password to the hidden door in this cafe is “open sesame”!” Come on game, at least let me pretend they’re blurting this info out because I’m threatening to murder them.

The other server just has a liepard. Upon defeat: At this rate, she’ll figure out there’s a hidden door to Lysandre Labs!

I’m going to go with my backup excuse for this dialogue and assume they’re annoyed at having to wait on people for crappy pay in service of the cause and are now passive-aggressively striking back.

I can’t remember where Lysandre Labs is, though. And when I head to the lab in this city, stupidface professor just wants to see my pokedex. Not a word on Holocausthair at all. Back to the cafe to check around for a secret door.

Okay, it’s behind a shelf of china. That seems like a terrible idea, but fine. I say the words and the door just opens. No sign of anyone actually there.

Well, time to trample my way througooooh god Holocausthair.

Welcome. And he walks toward me. Don’t do that! This world will eventually reach the point of no return… Saving the lives of all is impossible. Only the chosen ones will obtain a ticket to tomorrow. Do you want to have a ticket? Or, do you want to stop me? Show me in battle.

So…you only save people who lose to you? Because I’m not seeing how losing would prove I mean to stop you.

He starts off with a L45 miefoo. It doesn’t knock out my precious avalagg in the first hit, so she knocks it out with an avalanche. L47 boy pyroar follows. Then a L49 gyarados. Then, anticlimactically, a L45 murkrow. I win with my avalargg, who’s all I have left. You know, he’s got grunts with L46 pokemon, he shouldn’t have anything below that.

Excellent! I can feel the fire of your convictions burning deep within your heart!

Serena stop smiling at your victory he’s going to take it the wrong way. Don’t give creeps an inch.

Wah ha ha! Your convictions, and those of your Pokemon, please me! You are here to stop me. But I ask you to wait.

WHY WOULD I DO THAT

I tried to save people–and the world–with the profit from this lab.

Uh…so, you charged people money to enter Team Flare because also you were using the money for…theoretically I guess it may have been good?

But my efforts had no effect…

Considering the pokeworld is pretty much a utopia, I can see that.

The world was just too vast…and too full of fools that I couldn’t save through my hard work alone…

Have you considered buying an island and setting up your utopia there? See, you don’t have to kill everyone to get a more manageable population!

That’s why I decided the only way to save the world was to take it all for myself. I don’t expect that I will ever make you understand how I think and feel…

Look. It’s not like I can’t sympathize with the urge to rain destruction from the skies and purge a region or two with the fires of my almighty dragon. But when I decided all of Unova needed to go, it was because every goddamn person was a selfish idiot who only very debatably qualified as sapient life. You don’t seem to have any real reason here. You just keep rambling about murdering the imperfect and creeping on innocent actors about how much better it’d be for them to be preserved in your basement freezer forever. What exactly are people doing in particular that you want stopped? I can give you a whole dissertation on why Unova needed to be cleansed with fire. What can you tell me about what’s wrong here? All I’m getting from you appears to be some mess of moral impurity, which is about the only way you can be more deranged than Hitler in your genocide plans. At least he had some practical reason as well.

Try to stop the ultimate weapon if you must, but to do so, you will have to explore our lab and have Pokemon battles with all you meet.

Uh.

In the interests of sharing and being on the same page, I should point out that what you just said is sort of like “You can have candy, but only if you play with some kittens too.” See, explaining your feelings is actually really easy. Now you try.

Oh, and as for the Elevator Key, one of the Team Flare Scientists you’ve met on your journey has it.

I hope it’s the last kitten I play with!

Saving everything… The world is suffering because of this absurd dream…

And he walks off into the elevator. Dammit Serena. I know he’s super creepy and you don’t want to get pedo cooties on you, but you have to try to stop criminals.

Hey, the lab has those arrow things that make you go in one direction! Oh arrow things, I have missed you! It’s like I have to go across a jungle gym to the kittens, and also it’s made of rainbows.

The warp panels transport both happiness and sadness in equal measure.

Uh, okay. What’s important is, warp panels too! Awesome. And it leads to a scientist.

Ah ha ha! Why, if it isn’t that fascinating little Trainer from the Kalos Power Plant. So we meet again, just as I said we would! Aliana, apparently. She’s got a mightyena and L48 druddigon.

You sure are an interesting Trainer. You’re far more capable than our useless Grunts. Thanks!

I don’t have the key, but I’ll let you pass.

Dammit, game! I don’t want my victory to just be a matter of them rolling their eyes and saying sure whatever.

But which warp panel could it be? Which one cooould it be?

Now I feel all self-conscious. Uh. yellow?

Nope. Dammit!

Let’s see if she’s gloating.

I had fun at the Kalos Power Plant. Of course, we could have generated electricity with Team Flare’s technology, too, you know. We just didn’t think it justified the cost. To create a world for us and us alone, we have to play it smart, you see.

So metaphor for how the wealthy elites wring the rest of us dry?

There are some interesting ways to use this. My father was talking to me about a book he’s reading where there’s this evil doomsday cult and how they murdered the people who got them information to make sure there were no loose ends, and I mentioned how in another book, the very fact someone’s committing murder to try to cover up other more minor crimes ends up being what attracts attention over the longer term. We decided that the doomsday cult’s behavior made sense in the context of how close they were to fulfillment of their destroy-the-universe plan – they’re very nearly done with it, so they only need to get away with the crime long enough for no one to realize the supercollider will actually trigger the next big bang.

With this in mind, you could use a shift from subtle to overt crime to signal how close the group is to finishing up their evil plan. If they’re going to be blowing everyone up in a week and it’ll take two weeks for the police to finish tracking them down, it’s a good move.

Of course here there’s the problem that she seems to only be talking in the literal sense of not wanting to spend money, which doesn’t make sense because money will have no value once everyone else is dead. (Which raises the bigger question of why they care about money itself when everyone else is about to be dead – power and stuff, sure, you can loot corpses for that, but money is only valuable when you haven’t burned down the government of the place.)

There’s a room full of beds for Serena to nap on. The people there just assume she’s a Flare grunt who took off her uniform. What’s even the point of an identifying uniform if it can’t even be used for identification within your group? Maybe they just can’t believe anyone else would be napping in their stronghold, but this is a world of kids with killer monsters, of course Serena wouldn’t bat an eye.

Ugh, it’s stupid superhero Skirt and Trousers. No sign of him here either… You! Have you seen anything?
Trousers: We’re looking for a really tall guy… And I mean tall. If you stretched out a Serviper and stood it up, he’d be that tall. So I guess this is that giant guy mentioned in legend. We recieved some intelligence that Team Flare is also trying to find him for some reason. So why the hell are you looking in Team Flare’s base you idiots.
Skirt: His relationship to Team Flare is still a mystery, but… Oh, by the way, I’ve got something for you. Take these with you, Serena. Man, you guys suck at this whole secret identity thing. Oh, wait! We met some time ago, but I didn’t get your name then. I’ve never heard your name before! Not once!
Trousers: Uh… Anyway… We came here — at a certain professor’s request — to stop Team Flare. I assume your goal is the same? Don’t do anything reckless, O.K.?

Talking to Skirt, she’s saying that she thought Holocausthair wanted a beautiful world. Yes, by killing everyone. This was always obvious. Meanwhile, Trousers says that the professor is using his network of acquaintances to stop Team Flare.

On to the next room! I spy some scientists.

Huh?


What, he didn’t even tell you I was coming?


Foresthead: I’ve seen this kid somewhere before.
Violethead: So who is she?
Foresthead: I have no idea. But obviously she is not in Team Flare. Let’s get her, yeah?
Violethead: Yep. That sounds good to me. Then I’ll get the first blow!

And battle! Violethead is Celosia. Damn, they aren’t doing a double battle. Why not?

Oh my god manectric knows flamethrower that’s so cheap. Especially because I didn’t raise one this game.

Ah ha ha ha! You beat us good. Wow, we are sooo lame. Dammit game, I don’t want people who are lame.

Foresthead: Oh? What a brute! Look at poor Celosia! And battle. She is Bryony.

Violethead: What’s this?! Who would have thought a child like you could beat us both? Well, I did do it once already. You and your Pokemon were utterly in sync in that battle, and I know why. You’re here for answers, aren’t you? I suppose we’re at your mercy. I will tell you what I know, at least.


Foresthead: We’ve been using the electricity we stole from the Power Plant to get everything prepared for activating the ultimate weapon. But it’s not like that’s all we’ll need to use it. Are you following me? We’ll need energy absorbed from Pokemon to power the device! Yes! It’s the stones on Route 10 that will steal that energy for us and power the ultimate weapon! In reality, those stones that lined Route 10 are the graves of Pokemon. What the hell. When the ultimate weapon was used to end that horrible war over 3,000 years ago, it stole the lives of all those Pokemon. Their lives were the price of peace then. And if we want to make our own wishes come true today, we and Team Flare also have to sacrifice something precious.

So…huh.

I feel part of the problem is that despite the 3,000 years thing and the war popping up throughout this game, I didn’t really get a coherent picture of it. I’m still not sure why there was a war, who started it, who else it was with… “Ending” the war makes it sound like it was being used by the defending side, but every other reference to the war in this area is that it was by the king against some other region, which means it was “ending” the war by killing the people just trying to defend themselves so they’d stop fighting back.

Pretty different, you know? In one case there’s a horrible price for peace. In the other, someone just decided that fuck it they wanted that region and they didn’t care what the death toll was.

Talking to Foresthead again, she adds That’s right. The stones on Route 10 normally put out energy, but when the ultimate weapon is activated, that reverses and they begin to absorb energy from Pokemon! Behind them is a sciency thing with a stone and there’s actually some flavor text. Can this stone really be used to absorb a Pokemon’s energy? Really, Serena, you live in a world where stones can do anything, is now really time to be skeptical? Especially after digivolving our cute blastoise all those times?

Anything interesting from you, random grunt? We were researching the ultimate weapon along with Lysandre and his team of Scientists in order to bring about world peace!

The game’s just mocking me with the capitalization now.

Next Flare grunt says, Spying on people’s Holo Caster conversations gets boring pretty quickly, after all! So I guess that’s also a thing they’re doing.

And now another scientist. This time it’s Vriska 2!

Oh, oh, oh, oh? You’re that kid from the Frost Cavern… On your lonesome this time?

I prefer to think of it as on my lonesome all the time.

Huh, I get a choice. Yes!

Oooh, that’s cold! Colder than that cavern! Music note. Your Pokemon don’t even count for anything? That’s a point. We gather data about all the Trainers in the region through the Holo Caster, so we know all about you guys. My hatred for using Holocausthair’s gadget is justified! And you know how the Mega Ring is used to awaken a Pokemon’s power, right? Just like how the ultimate weapon can max out a Pokemon’s power. See, I knew that was a bad idea too! Heheh… Looks like you and me are practically after the same thing, yeah? Not really. I just happened to be standing there while everyone else made a big deal about it, and then I figured out it was probably bad from the description and said I shouldn’t keep using it.

Vriska 2 gives me the key.

The power of the Legendary Pokemon… The power to grant life to all around it… It’s a mysterious ability that even scientists like us haven’t been able to really decode. What d’you think would happen to the world if we fuel the ultimate weapon with something like that?

Uh…nothing, because you’re powering your deathbeam with healing energy?

Okay, so now I have the key to the elevator. Normally I’d expect there to be several more levels, but Holocausthair sounded like he was waiting right past here and also I think I fought just about everyone Team Flare has to offer, given I just had to rebattle people I already fought.

Anyway, it’s late so I’m going to call it quits for the day and finish up this dungeon next time.