Gentleman Jaggi

Alright, I'm back! An interesting battle is waiting for me in Lapis Ward, so time to deal with all of the stuff before that. After watching Corey up on Beryl Bridge and then checking out his mess down in Lapis Ward, as well as Meteor's mess at the Grand Staircase before that, we find ourselves down in the cave system facing Aster and Eclipse to rescue Victoria. Cue Battle VS Meteor Grunts Aster & Eclipse II Right after the battle, Quilava evolves to Typhlosion. Neat, though I wanted to hold off on that until the fight with Shelly... This fight was kind of a pain. I tried to not use Quilava due to his level, but he's the only one of my team mebers that could consistently outspeed Solrock and Lunatone. All the other guys just got their asses kicked by Rock Slide. You'd think Pignite being there would draw the occasional Psywave, but no, it's Rock Slide Central. I'm not sure how I feel about having had to rely on Pignite to buy me some turns against Electabuzz, but at least it's a Fire Type, I guess? I'm just glad it decided to attack Electabuzz and not Magmar; getting burned would have pretty much screwed us both over. I just remembered Fire Types can't get burned, derp. <_> We've rescued Victoria from Team Meteor, so now it's time for our next Gym Battle! ... Nnnnope, we first have to go visit the orphanage/psychatric clinic, but then it's time for our next Gym Battle! Right after Victoria stops meaning well. VS Apprentice Victoria III Trying not to use Typhlosion here resulted in a lot more tries than I expected. In the end, even with as much luck as I had here, I only managed to reduce his actions to taking out Hariyama... I'm not sure if my team's kind of weak right now or I'm just not using the right tactics. Anyhow, it's time some of these guys evolve. I also need something to replace Pansear (because the first Firestone is a long way off and also reserved for Growlithe) and some more secondary STABs. After grinding a few more levels and dealing with Shelly's Gym Puzzle it's time four the next Battle. VS Bookworm Shelly There was no way for me to counter Rain Dance with my own weather, nor to keep Illumise from setting up in the first place. Tanking it out was all I could do. That said, it worked out perfectly. I'm actually rather surprised. I did have to retry the battle once, but that was only because Camerupt's Rock Slide dealt a crit on Masquerain, allowing Anorith to come in while rain was still up. It then proceeded to kick my ass with Rock Slide. As a reward, we gain the Cocoon Badge, raising our Level Cap to 40, and the TM Struggle bug, which is of no use to us. That's it for today. Next part will see a bunch of Rival Battles and maybe Shade, we'll see. Until then, see ya!

I'll be taking a little break from this Monotype. The reason is simple: I got the new Fire Emblem early, so now I'll be busy with that one for some time. Burning critters will resume once I'm through with FE. I promise I won't be gone for a month this time.

Happy Birthday fellow Monotyper! ^^

After clearing the city from all its rampant plantlife it's time to chase down Corey who has himself holed up in his Gym. Cue Battle! VS Agent Corey This battle took some tries, with Crobat often wiping up the remainders of my team. Skuntank did pretty well in softening me up as well and Skrelp was annoying because pretty much everyone except Numel proved incapable of properly dealing with it. I would've prefered to beat Crobat the usual way, but whatever works, works? This thing is too stupidly fast. Next part should hopefully go up until Shelly. Until then, see ya!

After defeating Florinia we're off to defeat some more PULSE Tangrowths. The first one is located in Jasper Ward and Taka is the one watching over it. Cue Battle VS Meteor Admin Taka I Easy battle thanks to the Forest Field. Chatot is the only thing that's somewhat of a threat due to confusion hax. The third Tangrowth is waiting for us over in Beryl Ward, but right before going there we go back to collect the Growlithe from the police station. Since I had to breed it anyway to get the Mystery Egg I also decided to try and breed a stronger Growlithe than the one I got. Here's the result: After leveling up our new party member a bit it's time to return to Beryl Ward. Cue Battle VS Meteor Admin Taka II and Meteor Admin ZEL II This battle took some tries, partly because of Espeon and Umbreon and partly because I wanted Growlithe to collect some exp during it. It probably would've worked this time if Tangrowth hadn't gotten lucky. That's it for today; the battle against Corey will follow some time in the coming days. Until then, see ya!

@Sceptilespy@Cronos5010 I never really looked at the time, but I'd say when using vitamins, Power Items and x3 speed training sweepers only takes me about 10-15 minutes against Lv.5 Woobats. For tankier things (Claydol, Hippowdon,...) I fished for Grimer in the warehouse with Amaria's boat. (I only fished there because it's the only spot with water where I can actually toggle x3 speed without the game actually slowing down on this laptop. Any other spot with poisonous water should work as well.) Whenever I EV train multiple Pokémon in the same stat I also make sure to give the exp.share to the next one, so it can already pick up some EV as well. The best thing about the Woobat spots is that they're just Lv.5, meaning even newly hatched Pokémon can deal with them pretty quickly.

I had the most stupid battle against Shade on my Flying Monotype. I had only one Pokémon, Jumpluff, not weak to Electric, so his Gengar and Rotom gave me some major troubles. Jumpluff with Grassy Field could deal with one of them (in the sense that he could set up for Charizard to burn the hell out of them), but not the other one, so I never even got to Chandelure. The only other Flying Types not weak to Electric were Tropius, who refused to show up, and Emolga, whom I refused to train. So I just caught a Motor Drive Emolga and alternated between that one and Fearow to make Gengar run out of PP for Shadow Claw and Thunderbolt. Its other moves were Hypnosis and Dream Eater. For the remainder of the battle Gengar switched in and out a lot, putting a lot of my 'mons to sleep while I relied on Murkrow's immunity to Dream Eater to force it out again. At the end we were down to a bunch of sleeping Pokémon vs Gengar and a half dead Chandelure. Chandelure picked them off one by one until I was down to Murkrow, who managed to wake up and finish off Chandelure. Gengar stalled out a bunch more turns with Hypnosis, but eventually went down as well. That's easily the most riculous battle I ever had; I was far too distracted by the fact that PP-stalling actually worked out and made far too many mistakes. But somehow it worked anyway.

@Jess Well it's kinda high-pitched I suppose, but far from the worst thing I've heard. Jynx's cry is pretty horrible though. @Neco No yielding to the mainstream, eh? I know that situation, though only with specific Pokémon. With Team Meteot thrown out of this Ward (for now) it's time to head on to Onyx for our next battle. The Game Corner here has Slugma, but I don't need another pure Fire Type and I don't want another slow party member. Therefore we head straight for the Gym, Fern's attempts at keeping us out only making our team stronger. Cue battle VS Swag Jockey Fern II Type Advantage, yay. With that out of the way, it's time for more Type Advantage, this time against Florinia. Cue Battle VS Head Instructor Florinia This would've been so much easier if Leech Seed didn't exist. Poor Litleo was denied the Moxie Sweep at every turn. Other than that pretty straighforward killing with Fire. We earned a Badge, raising the Level Cap, as well as TM Nature Power. That last one is good for Quilava, since it'll be quite some time until he learns a better Fire attack. That's it for today. Next time will see the events at Jasper and maybe Beryl Ward.

@Neco Thank you; funnily enough I might have actually done a Grass Run if you hadn't beat me to it. Mostly for those Contrary Shenanigans. I don't have any "hated" Types, though I'm not particularly fond of Fairy due to its late introduction into the series. @Jess Poison is another run I've been wanting to do for some time, but I'm holding out for E17's release and Salazzle. Hopefully Salandit won't show up too late. Now, after defeating Julia there's a new Fire Type available. It's one I'm rather familiar with. Over in Obsidia Ward Victoria is once again blocking the way, cue Battle! VS Apprentice Victoria II Easy battle, moving on The slums turn out top be a non-issue and we quickly reach the miniboss battle at the end. VS Pokémon Gang Quite a lot of burns in this battle. Fitting for a Fire Type run. Nothing more to say about this battle. The next battle is down at Coral Ward; unfortunately the weather is currently stuck at rain. Nevertheless, cue Battle! VS Pretty Boy Cain II Eternal rain is annoying, though this fight still isn't much of an issue. We go back north to Obsidia Ward, get Cut, and use that to go on a bit of a detour, netting us a new team member: With this it's now time to return to Obsidia Park and have our first PULSE Battle. VS Meteor Admin ZEL I All those burns. Rainy weather made this battle last way longer than it should have. That's it for today. Next destination will be Florinia's Gym up in Onyx Ward. Until then, see ya!

The issue with that is that it would basically require a check for every single possible combination. Plus whatever is neccessary to keep moves like Role Play etc from breaking things. And it's pretty much impossible for the developers to foresee how much potential each individual combination could have. Sometimes it's hard enough to anticipate simple combinations like "this ability" plus "that attack". That's why we get things like nerfed Gale Wings or Parental Bond. 8And then even nerfing PB didn't fix the issue of double extra effects being hilariously abusable.) Even Adaptibility is an ability that partially breaks part of the games system just by itself. A Pokémon with that ability will only need coverage against Types that resist its STAB(s), since neutral STAB hits now deal as much damage as a super effective non-STAB. (On a sidenote: Mega-Beedrill's stats are completely nuts and I love it! That 15 Sp.Atk next to 150 Atk. And 145 Speed! It's nuts. And then it even gets one of the best abilities.)

I mean, I'd hardly call an immunity to Ground a wasted ability, especially on stuff like Gengar that would be weak to it otherwise, but it's all rather inconsistent. On the other hand, trying to keep a few hundred of these creatures consistent is likely just plain impossible. Or at least detrimental to freedom of creativity. Triple Typing could be funny. add in abilities and you could have quadruple weaknesses/resist! Add in dual( or more)-typed attacks like Flying Press and all bets are off. "This thing would be the best wall in the game ever if it didn't take x16 damage from [X]."

Pokémon being either grounded or not grounded is something is still haven't quite grasped somehow, so it actually took me some time to remember that Emolga isn't affected by the field. The fact that it's a rather arbitrary distinction (Flying Types and Levitate are not grounded) doesn't really help. Jupp, Dusknoir's grounded, nevermind that the fact that it's visibly a floating ghost. Same thing with Chandelure. On the other hand, Dodrio isn't grounded. A non-grounded Ostrich, explain that one to me. o.ö

We have Grass and Water Monotypes running now, so I'll be the one to complete the triangle. (Sorry Wolfox) Unlike my previous run this one will only be battles. It's a lot faster that way. First off, our protagonist: And our starter: The introductory battles against Cain and Victoria go without a hitch. Not much to see here so no pictures. Somewhat unfortunately we can only get one additional team member before facing Julia: Now, after some leveling up against random trainers (there's quite a lot of Water Types running around...), it's time to meet up with Fern. Cue Battle VS Swag Jockey Fern I RIP Fern, you will never amount to anything on this run. Cyndaquil evolves, yay! Now he'll have to stand back and watch Pansear get a bunch of levels. (He's at 12 right now.) The next battle is our first Team Meteor boss battle VS Meteor Grunts Aster & Eclipse I Straighforward battle here. Nothing to say. With that over it's time to go for our first Badge. Cue Battle VS Cheer Captain Julia This battle was fairly troublesome. Heliolisk and Blitzle couldn't really damage Quilava and those two Voltorb could only do it if they used SonicBoom, but Emolga and Electrode were more trouble. Emolga has high defenses for that point, making it the only one of the grunt Mons I couldn't 2HKO. It's also faster than Pansear, which was bit troublesome with getting Sleep to stick long enough. In the end, this battle was decided by luck. We get a Badge! It raises that looming level cap! Also Charge Beam, don't think I'll be able to use that. That's it for today Until next time, see ya!

There sure seem to be a lot of Monotype Runs popping up recently. Lots of luck to you; Water is a pretty strong type so I doubt you'll have problems once you get a team going. A friend of mine actually did a Water Monotype not that long ago, so in case you're interested here's one thing we ran into:

>>>>>> Halberd: These things are highly flexible; they've got the long range of a spear, a lot of hooks and pointy bits to stab and pull at foes and their equipment, can throw a guy off his horse and you can swing them really hard. These things can punch through helmets and armor. Using it will likely make you look more like a footsoldier than a valiant warrior, but who cares about that when your foe can't even get his little toothpick of a sword past your stabbing range?

Now that we can Fly it's time to check up on Reborn City; Julia and Florinia did mention there was some restoration process going on. This leads us to: Chapter XII: A City, Reborn The difference is immediately notable upon landing. The city's atmosphere is completely different, everything has been prettied up and there's a lot less roughhousing going on in the streets. After looking around for a bit (and buying various items to get away from the money cap) we enter the Grand Hall to go check up on Ame. She's there with some other official dudes discussing Laura's supposed resignation from the E4 and Bennett being accepted into them. She's pretty happy to see us and already wants to send us on another errand. First she sends us to go find Victoria, Arclight and Adrienn somewhere in the city and send them back to her, then she'll tell us the details of what she's planning for all of us. We easily find Arc and Adrienn in front of their nightclub and Gym respectively. Victoria on the other hand is up in the Beryl graveyard and evidently hasn't gotten over Kiki's death by now. We return to Ame and, along with Adrienn and ictoria, are informed about the current issue: There's still a Meteor Base somewhere in the city, specifically in the supposed Devon Co. building. Apparentally Lin is there as well; with our recent victory over Solaris she's the only remaining major threat right now. While Ame and Adrienn distract the storefront Victoria, Arclight and us will infiltrate their basement via the Railnet. As we head over to our meeting point we run into an Absol... As we charge into the basement we're immediately greeted by some New World Orderlies. Of course they knew we were coming. Up on the ground floor the only sign from Ame and Adrienn is their abandoned Radio Transceiver lying around. We proceed higher up and run into an electrified floor panel puzzle. The only way to manipulate the floor panels seems to be here on this floor, so Arc stays here while we go on with Victoria. Of course, we could just tell him that our team of entirely Ground types doesn't care about the electric floor, but that would be too easy. We proceed up some floors until we run into the classical "the walls come closer" trapped room. Victoria prevents us from getting crushed by having her Emboar block the walls, but now we're left to continue alone. Another floor up we get a call from Arc that Team Meteor found him. The connection cuts off. A bit ahead there's another electrified floor trap, but this one just plain knocks us out. We awaken in a small room with a healing machine and PC. The only exit leads right into a cage at one end of an arena with Victoria in the same situation on the other side. Lin shows up on a screen and informs us that we'll have to fight our friends if we want to get out. The winner gets to go ahead, the loser will suffer a penalty. Cue Battle VS Apprentice Victoria I still have kinda bad coverage against Fighting Types... There's Claydol, but it would most likely just get Sucker Punched. Victoria seems rather distraught about the loss, but her monologue gets cut short by her getting eletrocuted. Our cage door opens and Victoria shoos us out, insisting that she'll be fine. The conveyor belt puzzle on the next floor would be a lot harder if we weren't immune to electricity. Yet another floor higher we end up in another cage, this time with Arclight on the other side. He reveals that Adrienn refused to fight him and so he was pushed to the next round. Cue Battle VS DJ Arclight Easy battle. Most of his Pokémon are Electric and none of them is Rotom. None of them's bulky either, so they didn't have much to stop me from Earthquaking them all. Arc has just enough time to give us some encouraging words before he plummets into a hole that opened beneath him. With a rather cartoony sound at that. Our cage door opens and we move on, towards more conveyor belt puzzles! The floor after we find us behind bars once again, but this time there's alreay a battle going on on the other side. Lin is currently destroying Ame's Icetails with her Hydreigon and follows it up by having it bite off her head. Lin: "Today the heart of Reborn falls. Hor marvelous." She gives us a short look, then turns around and heads for the next floor. One the bars in front of us disappear we hurry after her, but only run into more conveyor belt puzzles. Nothing better to snuff out righteous fury than lenghty puzzles. Another floor up we run into ZEL arguing about some issues with their network's security. We managa to pick up about some "PULSE2" and "Arc-PULSE" projects. Well now, which plot-important Pokémon do we know that has a name starting with "Arc-"? They go an a bit more about how PULSE-Magnezone seems to be malfunctioning and that it's the worst possible time for that with a "hero-brigade" running rampant through the building. Then they finally notice us standing there. They ask us if we're here to destroy everything and decide that we're the one who hacked thir system. They also drop that Lin specifically wanted us to not be harmed; that can't be good. We end up fighting them anyway. Cue Battle VS Meteor Admin ZEL ZEL's Alakazam and Espeon would have been much less of a threat if I had something faster or more coverage moves against them. Magnezone is super tanky, but can be worn down. There's an explosion. Afterwards the whole room is wrecked, including the PULSE machine, and Magnezone is gone. Zel gets up again and notices the destroyed PULSE, followed by the lack of other minds in their head. After distressing for a bit Zero announces he has to get to Agate and hurries out of the room. We head out after him and come across a closed off exit. A computer panel next to it opens the barricade as well as some parts of the wall, where Victoria, Adrienn and Arclight drop out of. The first two seem more or less fine, but Arclight is out cold and missing an eye. Victoria starts having a breakdown about Kiki's death again, but Adrienn calms her down with a passionate speech about moving on from past mistakes and giving all your effort for a better future. They declare that now, with Ame dead, the four of us will have to lead the city instead. We all leave the Meteor base and discuss our next course of action. The now-abandoned base needs to be scoured for information and Arclight given medical care. Adrienn asks us to come by their Gym in a bit, then our group disperses. We Fly down towards the Coral Ward to meet up with Adrienn, who has a request for us: to battle them and to become the new champion of Reborn. With Ame dead the league's status is unclear and it needs a new champion that can stand up to Lin. Before that however Adrienn has another favor to ask of us. They're rather swamped with organising several projects short on workers and so asks us to go around finding volunteers. Before returning to the Gym we spend some time breeding and training this bad boy: As well as grinding the whole team up a few levels. Now we're ready for our next Badge. We go back to Adrienn and collect our reward for collecting those volunteers. Then, cue Battle VS Visionary Adrienn Victory on the first try - this went surprisingly well. I planned to keep Claydol back so it can counter Tailwind with Trick Room, but Mawile went down pretty quickly. I got rather lucky here. This victory earns us the Amaranth Badge, raising the level cap to 85 and boosting Sp.Def a bit, as well as the TM Dazzling Gleam. Adrienn informs us that, with Victoria and themself running the city, we're going to have to be the one battling Team Meteor out there. Also, the train station has reopened, that means we can go out into the desert to chase down Titania. Free of charge, even. ...Or we could, if this wasn't the current end of the game. There are a few sidequests still left to do, but none of them are really notable enough to receive mention here. This means there won't be any more updates on this until episode 17 rolls around. Thank you to everyone that's been sticking around throughout this! If I was an artist I'd close this up with a picture of the whole gang cheering; unfortunately I'm not, so have a line-up instead!

After Team Meteor's defeat at Fiore Mansion it's now time for us to go get another Badge, so we can finally use Fly and get back to Reborn City. We check up on Samson, who stil hasn't had any luck locating Terra. Cie shows up as well and, after some banter, arranges for the arena to be prepared. Cue Battle. VS Skydancer Ciel I was pretty much still trying out here but somehow managed to get through anyway. Togekiss managed to annoy by flinchspamming Nidoking quite a number of times. Since I needed to keep Mamoswine around for Archeops, Noivern and maybe Gliscor, I needed Nidoking to defeat Togekiss. Turned out to be a lot more of a hassle then you would expect. Giving an Ice Gem to Mamoswine would have KO'd Archeops outright, but then Noivern's Boomburst would have OHKO'd Mamoswine, so he needed the Berry that weakens Normal attacks. I hoped Camerupt could survive one round against Talonflame to Rock Slide it, but that didn't work out. There are a lot of things I could have tried outm including Trick Room, but it's fine like this. This victory earns us the Suspension Badge, increasing the Level Cap to 80 and allowing us to use Fly to return to Reborn City. We also get the TM Acrobatics. Unsurprisingly, nobody in our team can learn it. That's it for today. There's not that much more to do before we're through with the current content. Until next time, see ya!

@HakuryuYukio Aron is in the Weeping Depths main room, where you had to fight the Crescent Grunts. You need to examine all the cracked tombstones. (The ones where it says "the text is too faded to read...")

@Jess I don't have any strong feelings about Garchomp in general, but Terra's Garchomp has a really mean setup on that Field. On the other hand, changing the field will give it a considerable nerf since its tactic is mostly based on it. So far I haven't really had any trouble with it; it helps that the rest of her team isn't particularly threatening. Even with no counters on my team I could just wear it down.

As we're riding back up Celestinine Cascade we're spotted by Julia and Florinia, who then somehow make it to our position on route 2 in a matter of seconds. Julia also expresses her amazement at how many high-level Gym Leaders we manage to challenge, what with most of them hiding out in caves and somesuch. Florinia presents us with the HM Fly, so once we get our next Badge we'll finally be able to Fly around and get back to Reborn City. Our little chat gets (loudly and obnoxiously) interrupted by Team Meteor on a helicopter, headed for Amaria's and Titania's home. We all decide to go wreck whatever operation they've got planned this time. As we enter the house we're treated to a small cutscene of Solaris, Sirius, Fern and Blake preparing for assault. The latter two hit it off immediately with each other. Their goal here are the Saphire Bracelets, naturally. Inside Julia informs Titania of the situation. Amaria is still unconscious, so we decide to defend the building and Florinia formulates the battle plan. Us and her are going to do the heavy duty at the front, Julia will guard the back and Titania will stay with Amaria as a last line of defense. Right then, Solaris comes in and offers a peaceful resolution if we just hand over the Saphire. Naturally, we decline which promts Meteor Grunts to burst through the windows. A pair of them comes up to us and we quickly swat them aside with help from Florinia. Solaris then comes in and plays a little hostage act with Fern; it would probably be more believable if Fern hadn't tried to boast at us in Calcenon already. Julia investigates a crashing sound in the back room. Florinia remains unimpressed by Sirius's attempts at extortion, causing Fern to chew her out a little. Blake then shows up out of the back room and seals Julia in it with a wall of ice. Cue Battle VS Swag Jockey Fern and Agent Blake Victory on the first try; These guys don't particularly like Fire. Fern rages at Florinia for a bit and then bails out. Solaris steps up, announcing that he will deal with us personally. Our old friend Orderly John assists him. Cue Battle VS Meteor Leader Solaris and New World Orderly John Won this one on the first try as well, though it was rather weird... I was kind of scared of Gyarados, but it just ended up sleeping while getting its HP whittled down. Breloom did some pretty nice work too, I'm legit impressed. Overall this fight felt like a huge luck fest. Julia breaks though her makeshift cell and proceeds to flip Blake over a railing. I approve. She also apparentally destroyed the helicopter. Titania shows up because nothing happened on her post and she wanted to check what was going on. Solaris declares that they won't be able to break through our defense and orders Sirius to have Chandelure set the house on fire. He also notes that that's the second time he burned down a house to get at the Saphire Bracelets. Hoo, boy, what a twist. Titania's having none of that plan and lets her Excadrill destroy Amaria's gym to flood most of the floor with water. Solaris orders a full-scale retreat. Team Meteor has experienced a complete defeat. Julia does a little victory cheer when Amaria shows up, asking about all the commotion. She likes the new decor. She also apparentally forgot who we are, as well as everything from the last [hoewever long ago Chapter II was]. Titania dashes out of the room. Florinia declares that Amaria has Amnesia. Having forgotten a bunch of important events and most importantly makes Amaria feel rather bad and she announces that she'll take some more rest. Our group is getting smaller and Florinia announces that she'll be leaving for Calcenon City to fight Team Meteor there and hopefully find Fern to deal with him. Julia will stay here and watch after Amaria, but sends us out to check on Titania. We find her standing right outside the front door, venting her frustrations on some poor boulder. She doesn't want to deal with Amaria right now and decides to take the Saphire bracelets as far away as possible before flying away on her Skarmory. Back inside the house Julia tells us that Titania most likely went to her gym in the desert and that we'll have to go through Reborn City to get there. That means going back to Agate Circus and beating Ciel so we can use Fly. That's it for today. Next part some time this week, most likely. Until then, see ya!

It's no big deal, I just wanted to make sure anybody seeing that video with the translated lyrics doesn't get a wrong impression. We Germans can be rather worried and... sensitive about such things. xD

Excadrill does basically the same thing as Sandslash, but with better movepool and stats all around, except for Defense. Since you don't have anything that can set up Sandstorm you might as well use something faster. Dugtrio is the fastest obtainable Ground Type right now, but doesn't seem to ever get recommended. Aside from that Flygon is the fastest one and has a pretty great movepool via Levelup. I don't think any particular Ground Type will have an advantage against one of the upcoming leaders. Titania and Hardy are already weak to Ground in general, Amaria will most likely neuter Ground Types with the Water Surface Field. Mamoswine might have an advantage against Saphira, but only if you can get rid of the Dragon's Den Field she will most likely be using. Even then, depending on what Saphira's team looks like it might be too slow to effectively fight her dragons. Flygon might have a better chance, but only if it manages to not get hit.

I just wanna pop in to note that only the third stanza, starting at 2:00 is the official German anthem. The previous two stanzas, the first one in particular, are at best frowned upon in Germany due to our historical baggage. The song itself is actually from the 19th century and carried a different meaning than most people would imediately associate with it, but history left its mark on people's perception.

Chapter XI: Treading Murky Waters Now that we can use Waterfall it's time go down Celestinince Cascade to save Amaria. Down at the waterfall's end is Reborn's Watter Treatment Center where we're greeted by Titania: "Do you have any fucking idea how long I've been down here?" Maybe, next time, don't jump down a waterfall with no way back up? Amaria's nowhere to be seen, apparentally Team Meteor immediately grabbed her and then just locked Titania out. Two Meteors come in and inform us that some new commanding officer has ordered to give us access to the WTC. As thanks, Titania murderizes them. She also informs us that we're going to have to do the heavy lifting, because she only has one Pokémon with her and has been down here too long. I thought every self-respecting trainer would carry their Pokémon around everwhere? In accordance to Reborn Dungeon Rules, the WTC is a maze of switches and variable water level. We also can't Surf, because the water here is all gross like in Azurine Lake. Evidently this place hasn't done a particularly good job a treating water recently. Fun Fact: This is the first time I've been down here without having to carry along an HM Slave for Surf and Waterfall. Poor Buizel. There's a bunch of Meteor Grunts and New World Cultists to deal with here. Taka shows up as well, repeatedly stranding Titania on isolated platforms and not so subtly insinuating that he really wants us to wreck their operation down here. And in general. After much meandering about we eventually run into the reason why this facility hasn't been functioning: a PULSE Swalot is clogging the system. Cue Battle VS Pokémon Stopple Not much to say about this battle, moving on. With the Swalot gone the facility can now finally clean up the water again. We sspend some time going around everywhere, flushing out the icky water and then return to Titania. After freeing Titania out of hwhere she's been stuck this time we proceed towards the Control Room with her, where Taka is with Amaria. He readily hands over the Saphire Bracelets, but Amaria is still unconcious. Taka also informs us that Solaris is on his way to take the Bracelets, so Titania goes over to pick up Amaria. Titania: "Give my regards to the man who treated her." Taka: "I would, but you kinda already killed them." Titania: "...Right. Well... Tough." She asks him if he's really going to just let us walk out here with the Bracelets and Amaria. He affirms, but asks for one favour: Since he's been helping us get through the facility he wants us to beat him in a battle so he doesn't lose face with Team Meteor. Titania rejects that idea, stating that it will only enable him to keep going on with his indecisive deal. Usually I agree and just walk out, but since I'm with a full-powered team this time and might as well showcase all major fights... Cue Battle VS Meteor Admin Trash Taka Pretty easy battle. Take buggers off and we make our way back to Clestinine Cascade. Right at the exit Shade jumpscares us and tells us that, from the four death visions we had seen in his gym, only two would actually happen. Uhh, yeah, totally hadn't forgotten about that one by now. We find Titania already sitting on Amaria's Lapras, and the three ride up the Waterfall without us. We follow on Swampert... That's it for today. Next part will probably come tomorrow. Until then, see ya!

Corey's and Aya's fights are made a lot harder by the lack of weaknesse their Fields have. There's just about nothing you can do against the Corrosive and Wasteland Fields and the latter makes most Ground Attacks useless. There's no way to turn the Fields against them, other than to spam the same moves they use themselves. Charlotte's really tough if you don't have anything that outspeeds her (as I recently experienced). If your team is slow it becomes super hard to get to do anything against her very offensive team and good coverage. Rotom's pretty much the only break in her offense with its tendency to cripple itself with Overheat. Shade was hell on my Flying Monotype, though I probably could've changed that if I had trained Motor Drive Emolga.