Jaggi's Ground Monotype Run [Amaria down - see you again in Ep18!]

Gentleman Jaggi · February 4, 2017

As the title says this thread will detail my adventures in Ground Types Only. The rules are simple enough: Only Ground types and Pokémon that will evolve into Ground Types are allowed for any and all Trainer or Boss Pokémon Battles. Pokémon of other types may be used for breeding, capturing or getting items.

I'll mostly cover the important battles and skip over all the moving from point A to B-stuff. Screencaps will mostly be put in Spoilers to cut down on length.

With that out of the was let's get right to it!

Chapter I: One Mon Army

First things first: protagonist and name

This time I decided to go with one of the female protags and since I majorly suck at creativeness she gets stuck with her default name.

Spoiler

Meet ~~Victoria's little sister~~ Lucia

And more importantly: our starter!

Spoiler

Damp isn't a particularly useful ability, but that's easy to take care of. Those measly 8 HP IV are bothering me a lot more, but oh well. Though I've got a feeling Speed will be the greatest issue in this run.

Moving right on to our first two Rival battles:

Cain's Nidoran misses two times with Scratch thanks to Hustle. Meanwhile Mudkip already knows Water Gun thanks to Gen VI, so this is an easy battle.

Victoria... she has a Tepig, so that battle went pretty much exactly like you would expect.

With that done and after getting our Pokémon Trainer Starter Kit ™ it's about time to move out and beat up a bunch of random trainers for ~~their lunch money~~ experience. It's Raining outside, which helps in quickly getting rid of enemies.

After a number of battles and LevelUps we soon reach our first destination, as well as our first obstacle: a Grass Type Trainer - cue battle

VS Swag Jockey Fern

Spoiler

First up is Lotad - three Tackles get rid of that as well as Fern's single Potion for this Battle, while its Absorb does only pitiful damage to Mudkip

Next up is Snivy, definitely more of a challenge.

Vine Whip actually hurts and Wrap is just annoying since I can't quickly end this fight. A few Mud Slaps make it miss its attacks a fair bit (good thing it doesn't yet have Contrary), but if it lands a Wrap, that one's gonna keep hurting for a few rounds.

Last on is Budew, the biggest threat. Its Mega Drain deals about the same damage as Snivy's Vine Whip, but it's the only offensive attack this thing has, meaning it uses nothing else.

Mud Slap is once again my lifeline here until eventually...

Victory!

All in all, that battle took only about a dozen tries, a fair bit of luck and all four of the potions I had collected so far; and I still almost lost. Yaaayyy...

Off to a great start!

(There would've only really been two other strategies to get through this:

1. Using the power boost from Evolution to get an advantage against his unevolved team, but the resulting double weakness to Grass probably would've turned Budew into an even greater issue.

2. Cathing a Burmy - the at this point only other available Pokémon that (potentially) evolves to a Ground Type - and training it to Lv. 15 so it learns Bug Bite. ´But to even get one I would've first needed to capture and grind a Pokémon that learns Headbutt and then baby Burmy until it learns Tackle at Lv. 10. And then probably baby it some more.)

Anyway, this first (somewhat) major victory has also resulted in this run's first Evolution and therefore first actual Ground type, hooray for that!

It also immediately learns Mud Shot.

Now it's time to go kick some Meteor butts! Yaaay!

Unfortunately that means having to team up with Fern...

Spoiler

No yaaayyy...

Marshtomp easily rips through the Grunts while Budew just kind of flails around.

Soon enough we reach the control room which means...

cue Battle

VS Meteor Grunts Aster & Eclipse

Spoiler

Round 1: Elekid quickly falls to one Mud Shot and Mega Drain each. To be honest I'm somewhat surprised it even survived one Mud Shot, if only barely.

Round 2: Magby takes out Budew with Ember, then gets OHKO'd by Mud Shot. So much for the first Team Meteor-related Boss Battle.

Question Marks-Man agrees that this was a poor performance and the three of them hightail it out of there through the Secret Villain Teleporter Exit ™ .

Julia then blows the whole place up for no reason whatsoever. Could've at least tried to check if those Computers still hold some valuable information.

With that done, the party splits up. Fern buggers off back to somewhere, Florinia has something to attend to in Obsidia Ward and Julia goes back to her Gym so guess where we're heading next.

Unfortunately Marshtomp is already very close Lv. 21 and thus the point where it stops obeying. I decide to ignore that because I loathe wasting experience, so it'll have to work out.

Cue Gym Battle

VS Cheer Captain Julia

Spoiler

Fortunately it turns out that the advantage in type and level are plenty enough to brute force my way through this fight.

These three buggers all went down in one hit each and only one of them got to do something - the first Voltorb used one Sonic Boom.

Next up was Emolga, which I forgot to screencap. >_>

Since it's immune to Ground it had to eat a bunch of water Guns instead, which was a good thing, because it caused Julia to waste all her Super Potions on it, leaving none left for Electrode.

Beating it resulted in another LevelUp and Mud Shot got replaced with Mud Bomb.

(Aaand I reacted late to this one as well >_>)

Blitzle used a bunch of hilariously weak Quick Attacks before finally getting OHKO'd as well.

Finally, Electrode actually managed to survive one Mud Bomb and then survived some more turns because Marshtomp was messing around, even forcing me to use a Super Potion. :c

Another Victory.

Beating her nets us our first badge, raising the level cap to 25, as well as the TM for Charge Beam, which I suspect will be supremely useless throughout this entire run.

Outside the Gym Victoria is already waiting for us and delivers some notable news: Apparentally Obsidia Ward is getting attacked by plants! We all know what that means.

Next Destination: Obsidia Ward

But before that there's some new stuff still to do in Peridot Ward. Namely getting some Additional Team Members!

First up is this Numel just chilling in the rain.

Feeding it causes it to decide to join our team; that was easy!

Spoiler

She also has an Egg Move - Body Slam

This girl will actually be a quite important party member since it's one of the very few available Ground Types with a usable SpAtk. stat. It's also super effective against Grass and Ice Types and only takes neutral damage from them, making the (not yet present) other team members less vulnerable against those types.

Next Up: This hiker is stuck in Reborn City due to the train station being destroyed and is now looking for a house to rent.

Helping him out rewards us with an Onix:

Spoiler

Not much to say about this one. Onix's only good stat is Defense so I'm for now mostly using it as a placeholder to have a less empty team.

And that concludes Chapter I.

No major happenings so far, but there's still plenty of game left.

Current Play Time: 1:05h

Expect the next Chapter sometime tomorrow.

See ya!

Edited January 3, 2018 by Gentleman Jaggi

Gentleman Jaggi · February 4, 2017

Last time we ended with the battle against Julia and the gaining of two new team members. Without much furtcher ado, let's get right to our next destination:

Chapter II: Frenzy Plants

The Obsidia Ward is currently under attack by plants, so obviously it's time for us to go get shit done.

Up on Beryl Badge, right before the police-guarded checkpoint, Florinia is already talking to the whole two(!) officers enforcing the lockdown and, after brief consideration, asks them to let us through so we can help.

(Not that they're wrong, but I still find it amusing that pretty much all of the NPCs in this game just kind of naturally assume that of course we're going to go fight the murderous maniacs who have already thoroughly destroyed Reborn's eco-system.)

Entering the Obsidia Ward we will immediately notice ~~tentacles~~ wriggly vines growing where they shouldn't, as well as numerous abysses separating the various parts the whole Ward cracked into. We're supposed to meet up with Florinia at the Obsidia Park, but the only intact (if you can even call it that) path leading there goes right through the South Obsidias Slums, which are supposedly filled with dangerous thugs and Pokémon.

Right outside Victoria is already waiting for us and announces that that place is just way too dangerous and if we want to pass, we'll have to beat her. Cue Battle

VS Apprentice Victoria

Spoiler

Here first Pokémon is Ralts. It's weak and quickly falls to Numel's Magnitude.

Next up is Makuhita, who is considerably thougher, but still falls to Magnitude. It also uses up all of Victoria's Potions.

Last one is, of course, Pignite, who takes out Numel with Arm Thrust.

Marhstomp takes over and after just one Mud Bomb Pignite already keels over.

An easy win.

Moving through the Slums it becomes apparent just how troublesome low speed will be. Onix and Marshtomp still manage fairly well, but Numel constantly gets hit first, which results in a lot of damage that could have been avoided by knocking the enemiy out before they can move.

Then there's the Miniboss Battle against the Scraggys+Scrafty Gang at the end of the Slums.

Spoiler

Onix, thanks to its Typing and Weak Armor gets off exactly one (not very effective) attack before going down and while Numel can deal some decent damage to the Scraggys it always goes last due to its poor Speed. This means its up to Marhstomp to pick up the slack, but even with the advantage in level it's still pretty troublesome if Numel goes down while there are still two enemies up.

I never had this battle on the radar as being potentially troublesome. Heck, I completely forget about it up until the moving box came up, so this came as quite the surprise. Took me many more tries than I'd like to admit. Not having any Potions with me also didn't particularly help.

With this we can now exit the slums, but the way north to Obsidia Park is still blocked by the police, so Coral Ward to the south is the only place to go to now.

On the pier we run into Amaria worrying about an Oshawott stranded n the lighthouse, as well as Cain, who rescues Oshawott using his Grimer and then adds it to his team. Of course he also need to test out his new acquisition, cue Battle

VS Pretty Boy Cain

Spoiler

His Grimer is first up, but it gets easily annihilated by Numel's Magnitude.

I forgot to screencap it, but Oshawott was naturally his next Pokémon. Marshtomp gets to take on this one and easily beats it. There was a difference in battle experience of like nine levels and one evolutionary stage, so that was no suprise.

Numel's back up and Nidorino gets OHKO'd by a lucky Magnitude 9.

Venonat then falls to two Flame Bursts. If it wasn't raining, even one might have actually sufficed.

~~Fire Type Puns~~

Cain then takes his leave and Amaria notes that we should probably both be up in Obsidia Park doing something about the whole situation, so time to move up there.

There's a police officer here stating that there's probably no need to panic. I'm sure such confident law enforcers do wonders to help the people feel at ease.

Meeting up with Amaria and Florinia we prepare to head into Obsidia Park. The two of them then immediately get themselves captured, so it's up to us. What follows is our introduction to Team Meteor's PULSE-machines and their first Admin, ZEL, as well as our first battle against one of their Admins.

VS Meteor Admin ZEL

Spoiler

They only use a single Pokemon in this battle, PULSE Tangrowth.

Compared to the other PULSEs it's fairly harmless, but being up against a bunch of Ground Types it's got quite an advantage here.

Marshtomp's Mud Slap is my lifeline here, since my Pokémon can only deal chip damage to it and Mega Drain will heal it a fair amount. The rainy weather nerfing Numel's Flame Burst doesn't help either, since that's the one super effective move I have at my disposal.

Nevertheless, after assistance from five Mud Slaps Numel is able to finally wear it down and gets a LevelUp and a new move - Lava Plume - for it's efforts.

Onix continues being useless. :c

Another battle I didn't expect to be trouble; I'm actually kind of getting pumped.

ZEL monologues(?) for a bit and then uses the Secret Villain Teleporter Exit™ to take their leave, somehow taking the entire frikking PULSE machine with them.

Amaria goes to continue these happenings to Ame at the Grand Hall and Florinia returns to her gym in the Onyx Ward to await our challenge. No reason to leave her waiting.

Except Gambling, ~~that's a good reason.~~

After spending way too much time cheating at Voltorb Flip (and still having shitty luck) we finally get our Next Team Member:

Spoiler

A male Nidoran! That Nature isn't going to do much, but I like that Speed IV; Atk is also nice. Hustle is great. (or rather, Nidoking's Sheer Force)

It feels a bit weird using this, knowing that Nidoking is Cain's Ace, but I don't feel like challenging a Grass Leader without this guy. Numel can't do that alone.

With that done, it's time to continue cutting our way through the trainers in OTS; goodbye Game Corner, see you never.

Along the way Nidoran evolves into Nidorino and then immediately Nidoking, because I didn't feel like waiting until it gets Poison Jab. (It'll get Sludge Wave at that point, anyway.) Also, I feel more comfortable using an actual Ground Team against a leader, especially since Nidorino resists Grass, while Nidoking doesn't.

Fern's goons continue to provide valuable exp, but eventually run out, leaving Fern himself as the last hurdle before Florinia. Cue Battle

VS Swag Jockey Fern

Spoiler

He leads with Lombre. It turns out to be surprisingly tanky, but can't really damage Nidoking. After three Chip Aways Lombre goes down, unfortunately without using up any of Fern's Super Potions.

Servine is next up (I forgot to screencap that one, too, really gotta step up my game, jeez...), while Numel takes over for Nidoking. Numel gets Leech Seeded, while Servine gets burned by Lava Plume. Fern then switches to Roselia...

right into another Lava Plume. It's a crit, ouch.

Unfortunatley, Fern still has his Super Potions, both of which he uses on Roselia while Numel spams Lava Plumes. Roselia gets burned and Numel, right before fainting, delivers another crit, putting Roselia back into the Red.

Nidoking takes over, and from there it's basically a done deal.

~~I then almost get a heart attack because the game freezes for about two minutes right before the victory screen. Luckily, it didn't crash, but I was totally convinced it was going to.~~

Next up is Florinia, finally.

Nidoking is over the level cap, Marshtomp and Onix are double weak to grass and Numel is slow as molasses, so this is going to be interesteng.

Cue Gym Battle

VS Head Instructor Florinia

Spoiler

Maractus sets up spikes and Numel uses Lava Plume. Maractus gets healed by a Super Potion, then burned by Lava Plume and immediately faints to burn damage. So much for using up all of her Potions on her first 'Mon.

Breloom gets OHKO'd by Lava Plume, sweet.

Ferroseed doesn't stand a chance. Numel levels up to 25, our current cap...

Cacnea Leech Seeds Numel and then gets OHKO'd by Lava Plume. We're getting close, but Florinia still has one or two Super Potions...

Cottonee comes out and Numel switches out for Nidoking, who first dodges a Leech Seed and then uses Poison Sting. Cottonee survives and Nidoking then proceeds to spend several turns mucking around due to being overleveled, all the while tanking Nature Power=>Sand Tombs until he finally goes down. GJ...

Numel takes over, gets Leech Seeded again and takes out Cottonee with another Lava Plume.

That leaves only Florinias Ace.

Bad News: it's super tanky

Good News, it actually doesn't know any Grass Type attacks, meaning Onix and Marshtomp can help out with this one!

Numel somehow manages to be slower than Cradily and tanks a Smack Down, before firing off a way too weak Lava Plume and fainting to Leech Seed damage. I was hoping for a bit more...

Onix takes over and the two spend several turns dealing supremely tiny damage to each other. Then Florinia uses a Super Potion, nearly healing Cradily back to max...

Marshtomp takes over.

This is going to take ages, so six Mud Slaps will hopefully extend Marshtomps lifespan here. I also got ten Super Potions, so I'm more worried about PP running out...

Luckily Cradily, for some reason, decides not to use Recover. (It does still know that one, right?)

A hard-earned victory, but actually on the first try!

Florinia awards us with the Canopy Badge, raising the level cap to 35, as well as the TM Nature Power. Probably one of the more useful TMs in this game due to all the Field Effects, ~~but I don't think any of my team can learn it.~~ Turns out both Numel and Onix can learn it, colour me surprised.

She also asks us to go help out at the Jasper and Beryl Ward, which are in the same situation as the Obsidia Ward was, except worse.

Thus, our next destination is set: Jasper Ward

~~[I accidentally hit Submit way too early, so this post will be edited. >__>]~~

That concludes Chapter II. As before, expect the next update sometime tomorrow. (Provided I don't get more sick than I am right now.)

I might actually break up updates into smaller parts, since these take a lot longer to write up then I expected. Might have to cut down on words and images, though I don't want to go too bare-bones on presentation. We'll see.

Until next time!

Edited February 5, 2017 by Gentleman Jaggi

Farnsworth · February 4, 2017

As someone who is almost finishing his ground mono run, I wish you good luck on your adventure. It is a really fun run, and rather easy at times but you'll have some trouble with ice types (and Fern's ungodly Ludicolo).

Edited February 4, 2017 by Farnsworth

Gentleman Jaggi · February 5, 2017

I (finally) updated Chapter II, so go check out the second post if you haven't yet!

@Farnsworth: Thanks and good luck on your finishing stretch too! Do you maybe have any advice on things I should prepare before going to Agate Circus and getting locked out of the City? (Once I finally get to that part.)

Ice Types, eh? I'm already dreading the battle against Blake on Mt. Ametrine, true. On my Flying Type run I was able to abuse Grassy Field+Heat Wave=>Burning Field, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to pull a combo like that of again. Best I can do is probably to melt the snow and then use Rock moves, before it comes back. Well, still plenty of time to think up a strategy. For Serra, i'll probably have to destroy her Mirror Arena again this time, before I'll even be able to do much of anything. I already miss Charizards Flamethrower, hehe.

Also, out of curiousity, which battles were the easiest to you?

Farnsworth · February 5, 2017

9 minutes ago, Gentleman Jaggi said:

I (finally) updated Chapter II, so go check out the second post if you haven't yet!

@Farnsworth: Thanks and good luck on your finishing stretch too! Do you maybe have any advice on things I should prepare before going to Agate Circus and getting locked out of the City? (Once I finally get to that part.)

Ice Types, eh? I'm already dreading the battle against Blake on Mt. Ametrine, true. On my Flying Type run I was able to abuse Grassy Field+Heat Wave=>Burning Field, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to pull a combo like that of again. Best I can do is probably to melt the snow and then use Rock moves, before it comes back. Well, still plenty of time to think up a strategy. For Serra, i'll probably have to destroy her Mirror Arena again this time, before I'll even be able to do much of anything. I already miss Charizards Flamethrower, hehe.

Also, out of curiousity, which battles were the easiest to you?

Before going to Agate, remember to catch every available ground type mon, since a lot of them have useful niches (such as Hippo setting sand or Claydol with Trick Room). Also use the strength glitch to get the life orb in the icy rock cave, so you can abuse it with Nidoking and remember to get a Smooth Rock to use with Hippowdon (for the Sand Rush fun). Also, get all the store stickers because some of them become unavailable after returning to Reborn.

The easiest battle was by far Luna, if not for the field effect that prevented me from spamming earthquake I would have easily swept her with my moxie Krookodile (still it killed 5 of her mons). Aya, Cal, the Team Meteor battles, Noel, Radomus and Shelly were also very easy.

The hardest ones were a few of the Fern battles (but after he got rid of that unholy Ludicolo he got much easier), Serra (mostly because I didn't want to break her field because I didn't want to lose relationship points with her), and Samson (because 2/3 of my team was weak to fighting and my only mon that had STAB against him was Claydol). I still haven't gotten to the Blake battle yet, but I do have a solid plan to defeat him and don't see myself having much trouble against him.

However, the battle I'm truly afraid of is Amaria, she is literally the bane of a mono ground run. The only thing I can think of to have a small chance of defeating her is Trick Room + Choice Band + Torterra + Wood Hammer spam, hopefully that works...

Gentleman Jaggi · February 5, 2017

Hippowdon and Claydol are actually two Pokémon I'm already been planning to capture, precisely due to what you said. Fun Fact: That would be the very first time I even consider using Trick Room, let alone actually seriously planning on doing so. I kind of dislike using slow Pokémon, since they often have to take hits before they can take out their enemy.

I know Sand Rush-Excadrill is a monster, but in the very likely case that I don't get one from the Mystery Egg I'm planning to try using a Sand Rush Sandslash as somewhat of an alternative. Because apparentally I also have to drag weak Pokémon along way beyond the point where you don't think they can still do anything.

I'm surprised Aya was easy to you, since the Wasteland Field heavily nerfs most of the common Ground moves. Hopefully Earth Power can pull me through that.

If I'm remembering right, the only time I'll have to deal with Fern's Ludicolo will be the battle in Grand Hall, since he's already gotten rid of it when you meet him again in the Wasteland. At least that's just once.

Serra will see her mirrors get shattered 100%, I'm not dealing with that field without Flamethrower.

I totally forgot Amaria is another Leader with Type Advantage I'll have to deal with sometime in the future. I don't know what to expect of her team, aside from Lapras and Kingdra, so I'll just have to hope that she's going to continue the trend of everything post-Serra being a lot easier than before that.

Good luck with your strategy, Torterra might just be something I'll have to pick up too, although I don't like changing my lineup too often. I'm actually kind of proud of only having had to do that once so far. (Twice if you count switching out members that were falling behind before I actually got stuck.)

Edited February 5, 2017 by Gentleman Jaggi

Waynolt · February 7, 2017

On 5/2/2017 at 3:43 AM, Farnsworth said:

The hardest ones were a few of the Fern battles (but after he got rid of that unholy Ludicolo he got much easier)

"Try not being cheap for a change, noob" said the Grass specialist after losing to the Ground monorunner XD

Gentleman Jaggi · February 8, 2017

Alright, time to get back to this. Sickness and work ate u my time and energy, so this is way later than I had planned; sorry about that. Today will be a small update, as well as most likely any other updates on Mo-Fr I'll be doing; work takes up a lot of time.

With that said, let's get right to it:

Last time we saved Obsidia Ward from Team Meteor's PULSE Tangrowth and then mopped the floor with a bunch of school kids so we could shake a Badge out of their teacher. That means it's now time for

Chater III: Urban Jungle

[Part 1]

After BACKTRACKING from end of the city to the other we reach the Peridot-Jasper passage, where an officer gives us a brief update on the situation (plants destroyed everything; Beryl is even worse) and then let's us through.

Right out of the passage there's the police station. Inside Da Chief is informs us that several officers have gone MIA and, since we saved Obsidia Ward, enlists us to keep a lookout for them. So we're a Detective now, neat.

There's not much to say about Jasper Ward. There's a forest, wild Pokémon, random Trainers, buncha Meteor Grunts, two of the missing police officers and, at the end, another Meteor Admin and his PULSE Tangrowth. The usual stuff. While on the way through the jungle Numel learns Earth Power, which is pretty dang sweet. 90BP 100Acc, so basically it's like Flamethrower and co, but early. Marshtomp also learns Rock Slide, which is very good as well.

We meet a guy who introduces himself as Taka and, after he monologues about all the damage done by the PULSE to both people and Pokémon he attacks, because he's actually a Meteor Admin and has orders to eliminate us - nothing personal though. Cue battle

VS Meteor Admin Taka

Spoiler

This battle takes place on a forest field, which only his Tangrowth can take advantage of. Or it could...

If I wasn't a dirty arsonist. Lava Plume sets the forest on fire and Lileep uses Confuse Ray. Numel spends a few turns hitting herself, while Lileep (ineffectually) tries to survive the Burning Field damage every turn but eventually keels over after a second Lava Plume.

Taka sends in Chatot and Onix takes over for Numel. Impressively enough, Onix is faster than Chatot and Rock Tomb takes off a bit about half of its HP. Then Chatter confuses Onix. That move is why I hate that goddamn bird, guaranteed RNG and on later battles it's so freaking fast. Anyway, Onix, despite confusion, manages to use another Rock Tomb but mucks it up by missing and then hitting herself to death. GJ. Meanwhile Chatot gets healed up again.

Marhstomp takes over and after two Rock Slides, the first of which made Chatot flinch, the bird goes down.

Finally, Numel is once more up against a PULSE Tangrowth but this time, due to the Field Effect and lack of rainy weather she fares a lot better. Nature Power=>Flamethrower takes of about a third of Tangrowth's HP, Field damage about another third and a second NP=>Flamethrower finishes it off. That went well.

~~You get one Gold Star.~~

Taka informs us that there's another PULSE machine in Beryl Ward and tells us to meet him there. Sure, I was on my way there anyway...

Right after Taka leaves we run into Heather, who proceeds to be a brat by complaining about that we were faster than her at taking out the PULSE. Well, whatever, moving on to Bery Ward.

Here's preetty much the same deal as Jasper - plants, wild Pokémon, Meteor Grunts, three missing officers another PULSE Tangrowth. Only the Nuzleaf are really new. ~~Those jerks~~

Buuut I'll cover that part another time, just a small update as I said. I'll post the next part either tomorrow or on Friday, depending on how tired I'll be after work.

Until then, see ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 10, 2017

The trek through Rhodochrine Jungle is fairly uneventful. There're Bunnelby in the caves, but I decided against using one, because Diggersby looks absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the Jungle ZEL, Taka, another Question Marks-Man and a third PULSE Tangrowth are waiting. Heather shows up and takes on QMM, that leaves Take and ZEL for us. Cue Battle

VS Meteor Admin Taka and Meteor Admin ZEL

Spoiler

As before, Taka leads with Lileep while ZEL use a Glaceon this time. Ice can be troublesome, so I counter with Numel and Marshtomp.

Marshtomp's Rock Slide flinches both enemies and Numel's Flame Burst puts Glaceon down to a sliver of HP. Too bad there's no Forest Field here. Another Rock Slide takes out Glaceon (I was totally expecting them to heal) and it plus another Flame Burst put Lileep to a sliver of HP. Lileep then confuses Numel.

Espeon takes Glaceon's spot and uses Future Sight while Taka heals Lileep; Marhstomp uses Mud Bomb, Numel Earth Power, lowering Espeon down to 1/3HP.

It uses another Future Sight before a second Mud Bomb takes it out. Numel deals good damage to Lileep with Earth Power, Lileep then confuses Marshtomp.

Espeon gets replaced by Umbreon, which turns out to still be the fastest thing on the field. Marhstomp hits itself while Numel uses Earth Power and gets hit by Feint Attack and Future Sight.

Another Feint Attack takes out Numel, Marshtomp hits himself. Lileep uses Acid to little effect. The second Future Sight hits Marhstomp.

Nidoking takes over for Numel and uses Double Kick on Umbreon while Marshtomp gets healed by a Super Potion. Another Feint Attack hits Marshtomp and Nidoking gets confused.

Another Double Kick+Rock Slide takes out Umbreon and Lileep; with that we're now down to a favorable 2vs1, with Taka having two Pokémon left.

PULSE Tangrowth is next and gets Mud Slapped, but still manages to take out Marshtomp with Vine Whip while Nidoking hits himself.

Onix takes over (pleasedon'tgethit) and gets hit with Mega Drain. Shit. Nidoking hits himself again.

I use my only Revive on Numel while Nidoking tanks a hit, then the two of them whittle down Tangrowth, all the while keeping HP high for Chatot.

The last enemy. Two Chip Aways and a Flame Burst take it out, ending the battle.

Taka still doesn't care

Yes

Overall, that battle was a bit more trouble than I expected. I thought it would take place on a Forest Field like the one in Malchous Forest; Flame Burst would have transformed it into Numel's turf and dealt some good damage to Tangrowth, but I had to make do like this. Still managed to win on the first try, but admittedly lucked out with that double-flinch right on the first turn.

ZEL and Taka use their Secret Villain Teleporter Exit™ while Question Marks-Man II just casually walks offscreen. There, he gets cornered by the Police officers we found before (minus the dead one, naturally) and unmasked as the Beryl Ward Gym Leader, Corey. He's also Heather's father. Heather leaves on her Salamence and Corey taunts the police for a bit before Teleporting out as well. He tells us to go meet him at his Gym, which is obviously a trap, but we've got no other choice than to go along with it.

Next destination: Beryl Ward Gym

That's it for today. The conclusion of Chapter III will follow on Sunday. It'll also hopefully be a bigger update than these two.

Until then, See Ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 11, 2017

It's about time to get this chapter finished now, so let's get to it.

Starting right up with the finale: Cue Gym Battle

VS Agent Corey

Spoiler

Since we found all five police officers before the double Admin battle, this battle is set on a Corrosive Mist Field. There's nothing I can do about that that won't involve Numel nuking the entire arena, including herself, so it's gonna have to stay. I don't particularly mind, since I've always found it to be less of a pain than the Corrosive Field.

Ame: "Try not to over-level too much!" Uhh...

Coreys starts up with Skrelp and I counter with Marshtomp, since he's the only thing I have that is not weak to Water.

Marshtomp's Mud Bomb immediately triggers Skrelp's Focus Sash and also lowers its accuracy; Skrelp's Bubble misses as a result. Marshtomp then gets poisoned by the field.

Next turn, Skrelp gets healed by a Super Potion and hit by Mud Slap. I hoped that would do enough damage to put it back into red HP, but it didn't, so next turn another Mud Bomb takes it out.

Croagunk is next up, but gets OHKO'd by Mud Bomb.

Nidorina barely survives one Mud Bomb. I expect Corey to heal her, but he doesn't - Mud Bomb misses and Bite takes out Marshtomp. Meh

Nidoking takes over and takes her out. I guess Corey only had that one Super Potion?

Corey sends out Grimer and Numel switches in for Nidoking. Grimer just barely survives one Earth Power and the uses a decently effective Mud Bomb on Numel. A second Earth Power and Grimer is down.

Skuntank is sent out; Numel uses Earth Power to put it into critical HP, but falls to Pursuit and Poison damage

Nidoking takes over and KOs Skuntank with Chip Away, but loses half HP to Aftermath - probably shouldn't have forgotten about that.

Crobat is up last and Onix takes over for Nidoking. Air Slash and Venoshock don't deal that much damage to Onix, but combined with poison damage it's just enough for Onix to go down just before it could've take out Crobat. Still, 3x Rock Tomb should allow Nidoking to quickly take it out before it can act again.

One last Chip Away takes out Crobat and Nidoking levels up two times. I should probably get more team members to spread exp out.

Nah, just you.

Another victory on the first try. Actually having some Ground moves at my disposal for once helped out pretty nicely here.

After the battle Corey asks us to meet him on Beryl Bridge. Personally, I think that meeting a nihilistic, deressed and somewhat unhinged enemy up on a bridge sounds like a pretty bad idea but since he's an enemy we also can't just let him get away. He also didn't cough up a badge or anything, soo...

Right outside the gym we are greeted by an Absol; ominous. ~~I want one.~~

Up on Beryl Bridge Corey tell us about how he ended up with Team Meteor, about the Ruby Ring and that Heather is in danger because of it - those last two will soon keep us busy for quite some time - and then jumps off, right down into the Lapis Ward. Fern then shows and proceeds to be a dick just because he can, before an explosion at the Grand Staircase shakes the city. With that, we've got two new Destinations: Grand Staircase => Lapis Ward

Unfortunately beating Corey didn't net us a Badge or any TM, so nothing changes for our team.

Before moving on, there's a bit more to do: Grabbing Corey's Silver Ring from his secret room in the Beryl Gym and, more importantly, getting the Mystery Egg. That last one requires a lot of running around to go get Growlithe at the police station, breed it for an egg at the Obsidia Daycare (Nidoking gets to be the dad) and the run all the way back to Jasper to trade the eggs. And then back again to Opal Ward. ~~My feet.~~

And the egg iiis...

Spoiler

A Togepi, definitely. *shrug*

Well that's the end of chapter III, which dragged on far longer than I had planned. I'll hopefully manage to put out the entirety of chapter IV tomorrow.

Until then, see ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 12, 2017

We've got two immediate objectives for now: (1) find the dead men in Lapis Ward and (2) go check out whatever happened at the Grand Staircase. I'm also planning for two new team members up ahead, so let's get to it quickly.

Chapter IV: Rocks Fall

(I ran out of puns.)

To reach the Lapis Ward we'll have to use the previously blocked off street north from Opal Bridge which also leads us past the Grand Staircase. There's nothing really to do here; aside from talking to a bunch of officers to learn a bit about the explosion that wrecked the place. To the east is the restaurant The Spyce, which sells usefull Lemonades for healing, as well as the Magma Gang's Hideout. Lapis Ward is to the west.

The spot that Corey crashed down on is in the northeastern corner of the ward, right behind the Gym. Victoria is already there, as is Bug Leader Shelly, who is also a friend of Heather and as such recognizes Corey. ~~Good job Corey - even in death you still manage to fuck up a kid.~~

Shelly starts having a breakdown which gets interrupted by Aster and Eclipse showing up to confirm the death of "Agent Beryl". While we're all busy watching Aster make a fool of himself some sort of aparition sneakily shows up floating above Corey's corpse and then takes him away the same way he came. Victoria takes Shelly back to her room in the gym so she can calm down and then asks us to meet her at the Grand Staircase to check out what Team Meteor is doing there.

Over at the Staircase there's now a ladder leading down; after climbing down we run into Victoria getting kidnapped by Aster and Eclise, meaning we get to be the hero again.

Here, below the Grand Staircase, is an entire cave system complete with wild Pokémon. Two of those get to be new members of the team:

Spoiler

Sturdy is pretty much all I was going for here; going to mainly use this one for Stealth Rock and maybe Bulldoze. Probably not a permanent addition to the team.

Nice attack and Speed, as well as SpAtk, although that last one won't be that useful. Sand Rush will come into play once I get something that can set up Sandstorm. Sort of a poor man's Excadrill, I supose?

Sandshrew evolves into Sandslash quickly afterwards.

We also run into a shiny Unown! Completely useless, but it's shiny...

Spoiler

~~I'm blue, da-ba-dee~~

At the end of the cave we run into a third Question Marks-Man staring at a giant door. He tells us about some sacred place behind that door and that four keys - Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Amethyst - are needed to open it. And just like that we finally know what the villains are even after, at least partially. He thenn tells us to leave and that we can take Victoria with us, but also asks us to tell the people up in the city about this lace. Well, too bad, but Pokémon protagonists aren't exactly the talkative sort.

Anyway, a bit further up Aster and Eclipse are holding Victoria, although they apaarentally didn't think to take away her Pokémon. Cue Double Battle

VS Meteor Grunts Aster and Eclipse

(Aren't these guys about the second most recurring Boss fight? How come they don't have Vs.-Sprites?)

Spoiler

Marshtomp leads this battle alongside Victoria's Pignite. The Crystal Cavern Field boosts Rock Slide and randomly adds either Fire, Water, Grass or Psychic type to it, so two of those, aided by Pignite's Arm Thrust, bring down both enemies rather quickly.

Next up are Aster's and Eclipse's two Aces. Marshtomp quickly goes down to Electabuzz Low Kick while ignite manages to paralyze itself by Arm Thrusting Electabuzz.

Sandslash's first major battle! Electabuzz uses Shock Wave on Pignite and Magmar Flame Burst on Sandslash. It puts Sandslash into critical HP, but the following Magnitude 7 crits and downs Electabuzz and deals good damage to Magmar. Pignite also manages to survive the attack, but fails to take out Magmar by having Arm Thrust hit only twice.

Last turn, Magmar gets healed by a Super Potion, but Sandslash's Magnitude 9 takes it out anyway. Pignite as well, whoopsie. *shrugs*

So, who of you is saying that? Both?

Victoria thanks us for helping her out and then leaves to check on Shelly. We follow her since we've got nothing better to do for now and still need to get her Badge.

That's it for today. unfortunately no full chapter this time either, because things kept coming up I had to do, but the next part should come out tomorrow.

Until then, see ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 13, 2017

A note about updates from now: I decided to cut down my updates to only the major battles and general lot hapenings, cutting out most all of the stuff happening inbetween. Originally I wanted there to be some connectivity between everything everything, but with how slow of a writer I am it all just ended up taking way too long.

With that out of the way here's the continuation of Chapter IV:

We return to Shelly and Victoria and the latter sends us back out to go check out the local psychiatrist to see if he can maybe help Shelly not become traumatized. After arriving at his clinic-slash-orphanage it quickly becomes apparent that Dr. Connal is not someone you want to be treated by. Since we still need some kind of reason to be there we end up in a battle with Orderly John. I guess he kind of counts as a Miniboss, but Sandslash takes him out alone.

Afterwards, Anna more or less shoves us out of the door and gives us a message for Shelly: To look out for the one who's really hurt by all this. I.e. Heather, who's going to keep us busy in the near future.

We return to Shelly with Anna's message and she agrees to face us in a Gym Battle, but before that we have to deal with Victoria trying to protect Shelly from potential stress. Cue Battle

VS Aprentice Victoria

(Is it just me or does Lucia totally look like a somewhat younger and more tanned Victoria?)

Spoiler

Graveler is up against Scraggy. She just barely survives one High Jump Kick and gets some damage plus Speed reduction with Bulldoze before setting Stealth Rock next turn and going down right afterwards.

Sandshlash is up next. A bunch of Magnitude 7-9 use up Victoria's Super Potions before Scraggy finally goes down.

He's up against Pignite next and manages to take it out with a nicely timed Magnitude 10!

Victoria sends out Kirlia and I switch to Numel to evade a super effective Magical Leaf. Kirlia's Trace copies Numel's Simple, causing it's Calm Mind to get boosted, oops. As a result, Earth Power doesn't do as much damage as it could and Numel goes down after two attacks.

Onix is up next and takes out Kirlia with one Rock Tomb.

Victoria is now down to Hariyama. Onix uses Screech before getting paralyzed by Force Palm and then taken out next turn.

Sandslash is up and takes out Hariyama with another lucky Magnitude 10! Sweet.

Mkay

Victoria tells us to better win so it won't be for nothing and then leaves. So now we have to deal with Shelly's bookshelf puzzle.

While battling the trainers in the Gym Numel evolves into Camerut, learns Rock Slide and gains the ability Solid Rock which lowers damage taken from super effective attacks, all of which is very nice.

Not it's finally time to battle Shelly - Cue Gym Battle

VS Bookworm Shelly

Spoiler

Graveler and Camerupt are up against Illumise and Masquerain. Illumise sets up Rain Dance and Masquerain fires an Energy Ball at Graveler which she survives thanks to Sturdy. Camerupt Flame Bursts Illumise and Graveler sets up Stealth Rock.

Shelly withdraws Masquerain for Anorith and heals Illumise with a Super Potion. Camerupt uses Rock Slide and Graveler then takes out Anorith with Smack Down.

Shelly sends out Masquerain again who immediately loses half HP to Stealth Rock. Illumise's Dazzling Gleam takes out Graveler and Masquerain's Bubble Beam crits Camerupt, knocking her out as well.

Marhstomp and Onix take over. Masquerain gets healed with a Super Potion and then OHKO'd by Onix's Rock Tomb and Marshtomp's Rock Slide takes out Illumise.

Next up are Wormadam and Yanmega, the latter of which takes heavy damage from Stealth Rock. Yanmega's Giga Drain knocks out Onix and heals itself back to 3/4 HP, but it still gets knocked out by Marshtomp's Rock Slide. Wormadam dodges Rock Slide and takes out Marshtomp with Giga Drain.

Shelly is now down to Volbeat and Wormadam while I'm left with Nidoking and Sandslash, but I forgot to screencap that. >_>

Nidoking and Sandslash spend some turns ineffectually wailing on Wormadam while it pelts Nidoking with Psybeams and Volbeat spams Dazzling Gleam. One Lemonade keeps Nidoking alive before Wormadam goes down, followed by the rain finally stopping...

Another Lemonade fixes up Sandslash and the two then take some turns to take out Volbeat.

Personally, I'd say you did just fine.

Overall, that was a decent battle. Rain Dance kept Camerut from going full force on a Burning Field, but Graveler's Stealth Rock did some nice damage and the enemies ususally targeted my less important Pokémon first. Definitely some luck involved, but another nice victory on the first try.

This battle earned us the Cocoon Badge, raising the Level Cap to 40 and allowing us to use Rock Smash outside of battle, as well as the TM for Struggle Bug which, unsurprisingly, nobody in my team can use.

That concludes Chapter IV which turned out to feature fewer falling rocks than I expected. Chapter V will happen sometime this week, probably, but before that there's some stuff to do with Rock Smash.

Until then, See ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 16, 2017

Shelly wants us to go report the whole situation with Corey to Ame at Grand Hall, but before that there's some stuff to do.

Like getting the Mining Kit and mining everything in sight.

Or wandering through a dark cave to get to this guy:

Spoiler

Later on I'm going to use this for Trick Room, but for now it gets boxed.

Corey's Nidorina is also here:

Spoiler

I've already got Nidoking and no second Moon Stone anyway, so she gets boxed as well.

Lastly I go capture a female Swinub and a male Cubchoo which I'll use for breeding a bit later on. (Beartic refused to show up.)

With that out of the way it's now time for

Chapter V: Kids from the Orphanage

At Grand Hall we find out that somebody has already beaten us to reporting Corey's death. Fern is here and tells us about how we're going to need a key to get to the new Poison Leader in the Byxsbbyggisigbyg Wasteland and he'll only tell us where to get one if we beat him. Cue Battle

VS Swag Jockey Fern

Spoiler

Camerupt's Lava Plume makes short work of Ferroseed.

I had been warned that Ludicolo is a giant pain, but didn't end up really having any trouble with it... Thrash takes it out in two hits

Roserade is the one that's really an issue here. Giga Drain makes it suer hard to kill by a team of Ground Types. This time I get lucky and it, for some reason, uses Hidden Power {Fire} on Camerupt. I don't know why and it's never done this before, but eh, i'll take it. Due to this, Camerupt can actually fire off a second Lava Plume to take out Roserade instead of getting taken out after the first one. Fern tries to keep Roserade alive with a Super Potion, but it doesn't help.

Nah, I most definitely do want that.

Servine is last and gets taken out in one Lava Plume, nice!

Says the guy who lost despite a massive Type Advantage.

To be fair, this battle was a major pain and that was entirely Roserade's fault. That goddamn Giga Drain. After a number of failed tries I decided to slightly beef up the team, mainly by evolving Marshtomp to Swampert and having Nidoking learn Thrash (plus getting a bunch of Persim Berries from the Dept. Store). The next attempt is the one you can read above, where I got so lucky that 2/3 of my team didn't even need to do anything. Go figure.

Fern actually keeps his promise and tells us where he got his key to the Wasteland from. The description is 100% Cain, who's apparentally at the Beryl Ward Graveyard right now, so that's where we go next.

True enough, Cain is there at the Cemetery looking at Corey's grave and tells us he wants to go find Heather to make sure she's okay. He doesn't want to give us the key to the Wasteland though, because he doesn't really like his sister that much. (I don't see why that's an issue, since he doesn't have to come along...)

If we want the key, we have to beat him, so Cue Battle

VS Pretty Boy Cain

Spoiler

Swampert goes up against Dewott and easily beats it with Field-boosted Rock Slides.

Cain then goes full out with his ace Nidoking but Sandslash's decent Defense allows him to take two hits from Thrash and take out Nidoking with two Magnitudes.

Onix gets to take on Venomoth who lucks out by getting a boost from Silver Wind, allowing it to survive a Rock Slide and take out Onix.

Another Rock Slide and Venomoth is down.

~~Please don't hit on my Pokémon~~

Grimer is last and gets OHKO'd by Magnitude 9

You don't sound particularly bothered; did you just want an opportunity for that "bent-over" line?

An easy, first try victory; no surprise here, considering the Type Advantage.

Cain starts up some post-battle dialogue but stops when he notices Heather staring at us from a bit up the mountain. He tries to be nice to her but falls on deaf ears, leading to Heather flying off to Shelly and Cain running after her - without giving us that key. That means now we have to run after him. Another trek through basically the entire city.

Over at the Lapis Ward Gym we run into Heather once again yelling at everybody. She runs off again, prompting this response from Cain:

Spoiler

To be honest, I'd probably react like that as well.

We follow Heather outside and watch her run right into the clutches of Dr. Geezer who pulls some legal stuff to take her with him for "treatment". After Shelly has another breakdown the three of us prepare to storm the orphanage and rescue Heather!

... Only to be stoped by the door being locked. Fortunately, Ann lets us in.

Cain stays at the Ground Floor to keep the Orderlies there from rushing out while we team up with Shelly and raid the upper and lower floors.

This is probably my favourite point of the game. Not sure why, maybe it's just because it's the first time we team up for a "dungeon" since Fern, or because we're doing this together with Shelly and Cain, or because every single thing Anna says makes me wonder what exactly her deal is. Or maybe it's this guy:

Spoiler

The only negative point I have to say about this episode is that there's no Boss Battle of any sort at the end, making it feel slightly anticlimactic.

Anyway, after cornering the Doctor he lets us take Heather but also tells us that he's already contacted the authorities, so we decide to hightail it out of there and meet at the Underground Railnet. The plan is to go to the Chrysolia Region from there and to where Charlotte's sisters live. There's a cutscene showing Dr. Connal being aproached by Team Meteor's Question Marks Man I and offered an alliance.

Back under the railnet our group's way is blocked by a computer-controlled door lacking power, so Anna suggests that we go meet Shade at the Abandoned Power Plant to ask him to turn it back on and to have a Gym Battle with him. So off we go right into that ambigiously monstrous Shade's domain!

At the entrance of the power plant/Gym we're greeted by an Absol...

We go inside and deal with the four monitors each showing a death scene and then get to Shade. Cue Gym Battle

VS Entity Shade

Spoiler

First up are ~~Gengar~~ Corey - you're just doing this to fuck with me, aren't you? - and Onix. Weak Armor lets Onix go first after just one Shadow Claw. Onix uses Rock Slide a whole bunch of times until she eventually goes down, but by that point Gengar had an Ultra Potion used on it, is down to half HP again and had its Speed nerfed by Rock Tomb.

That's plenty enough for Swampert to take it out with two times Muddy Water (after Gengar got a second Ultra Potion) without taking damage himself.

Shade sends in Trevenant and I counter with Camerupt. Lava Plume only nearly OHKO's it, so Camerupt has to tank two Shadow Claws before Trevenant goes down.

Swampert is up against Banette (but I forgot to Screencap it). One Field-charged Muddy Water later Banette is down for the count already.

Mud Bomb OHKO's Doublade.

Rotom tends to be the bane of my existence whenever it appears, but this time I know how to deal with it. Graveler (who I forgot to screencap as well) cancels Rotom's Levitate with Smack Down; her second turn is used to heal Camerupt with a Lemonade.

Now Sandslash can take it out with Dig and Magnitude. He levels up and learns Gyro Ball.

That leaves only Shade's Ace, Chandelure. Getting hit hurts, ~~fortunately it's pretty slow~~. But not as slow as my time, as it turns out.

Nidoking plays the sacrificial meat while I max out Camerupt's HP, just to be sure.

Camerupt just barely survives one Shadow Ball (7 HP) and beats Chandelure in one hit with Earth Power.

Is that good or bad?

Victory on the second try. The first attempt went much like the second, with the difference that I unsuccessfully tried to beat Banette with Sandslash, so to keep it alive I switched in Nidoking earlier. Chandelure later took apart my team because I underestimated its Speed and did't have anything left that could take a hit.

In hindsight, I probably wouldn't have needed Onix to muck around with Gengar, but oh well. She wouldn't have survived one turn against Chandelure anyway.

This victory earns us the Omen Badge, which raises the Level Cap to 45, as well as the TM for Shadow Claw. Nidoking and Sandslash learn it.

Shade also turns on the power and shows us something on the big screen behind him: the locked door in the Railnet opens, causing Meteors to rush out and kidnap our new friends. (That's just about the most awkward cutscene in the game btw; the way the kids just stand there while Meteor grunts walk out one by one and grab one of the kids each. xD)

Only Cain gets away by having Nidoking Earthquake the path in front of his would-be-pursuer.

That's it for Chapter V; next chapter will see the beginning of The Longest Fetch Quest Ever.

It's been some time since the beginning so this feels like a good moment for a current status summation:

current team:

Spoiler

current badge count | level cap: four | Lv. 45

current playtime: 9:23

Until next time, See Ya!

Edited February 17, 2017 by Gentleman Jaggi

KazuyaProta · February 17, 2017

I feel sadness and admiration for everyone who try to do a monotype run on this game, is true that the Ground type is a variable type but still.

I honestly can`t imagine someone beating the game without changing their team. My only constant is my Starter (Delphox :3).

Good luck Jaggi. Awesome.

Gentleman Jaggi · February 17, 2017

Why feel sadness for someone who's just setting a challenge for themselves? I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't fun, so no worries there. ;D

Part of Reborn's challenge is to to be restricted to using Pokémon you wouldn't normally consider for your team - I'm kind of bad at that, so I decided to do Monotypes to really limit my selection. And to gain some new appreciation for certain 'mons. My Flying Monotype Run really changed my mind about Charizard, Jumpluff and Butterfree - all Pokémon I hadn't used in ages and who then surprised me with their power, utility or perseverance. Shoutout to Butterfree taking down three of Aya's Pokémon and soloing Noel's entire team, never expected that little guy to pull through for as long as he did.

This time it's Camerupt that's really been exceeding my expectations, even if I like to complain about her abyssmal Speed. xD

Still, I definitely wouldn't do a blind Monotype Run on a game like this; knowing what you'll still have to go up against leaves you plenty opportunity to prepare accordingly. To make sure you're not missing anything vital. This time I'll have to change my team later on since I'm still lacking some options and only use certain Pokémon to bolster my numbers. Claydol, Hippowdon and Krookodile are just the ones I'm seriously planning to use; Flygon, Torterra, Gliscor and Excadrill are all things I might use depending on what my team needs. That's an entire second team. xD

Delphox is great, you've got good taste. ;D

And thank you. :3

Gentleman Jaggi · February 19, 2017

So I've spent quite some time breeding a new team member:

Spoiler

That nature isn't particularly helpful, but I kept getting ones with <10 IV in Atk, so just getting this took way too long. Just gonna have to change the nature later on.

Anyway - last time Shelly and the other kids got kidnapped by Team Meteor while Cain managed to get away, so we rush back to the Railnet. Cain isn't here anymore, but Victoria is. She tells us that we'll need Strength to get through the now blocked tunnel and where to get it; this starts:

Chapter VI: The Longest Fetch Quest Ever

Objective 1: Get the HM Strength from Fighting Leader Kiki at Apophyll Academy across the lake

Objective 2: Get the Venom Badge from Aya, Cain's sister and the new Poison Leader so we can use Strength

At Coral Ward's pier we run into Cain, who hops on his Muk and surfs off across the lake. Poisonous water and a Pokémon made of poisonous sludge, I wonder if that's healthy...

Right after we run into Amaria who recruits us to go find the source of the lake's pollution in Peridot's Blackstream factory.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Team Meteor are responsible. We get separated from Amaria and end up fighting our way through the factory on our own.

Eventually, we run into ZEL and ???-Man III in a room filled with a whole bunch of Meteor Grunts and scientists, as well as a Muk hooked up to a PULSE-machine. Amaria shows up right in time to stop us from getting killed by ???-Man and takes him on. Our job is to deactivate the PULSE, which ZEL tries to prevent. Cue Battle

VS. Meteor Admin ZEL

Spoiler

Swampert spams a bunch of Rock Slides while ZEL repeatedly heal Glaceon until they eventually switch out for Espeon.

Espeon's Psychic leaves Swampert at only 1HP before it goes down to Muddy Water.

ZEL sends Glaceon back out and Camerupt takes over for Swampert. She actually somehow manages to be faster than her enemy for once and knocks Glaceon out with Lava Plume.

Nidoking goes up against Umbreon and Double Kicks away while Umbreon fails to achieve anything of note.

PULSE Muk is last and Sandslash is here to exploit its low Defense. Magnitude 8 leaves only a sliver of HP left and breaks the field, while ZEL fails at Type Matchups by having Muk use Sludge Wave. Another attack and Muk goes down.

Yeah, really, that was way too easy. Only one of my team took any serious damage, but he also didn't even start with full HP, so...

Probably the easiest PULSE battle...

Their leader, who's name is revealed to be Solaris, calls all of our efforts useless~~uselessuseless~~ and orders Team Meteor to retreat - but not without leaving Amaria a arting gift in the form of his Tyranitar using Superpower on her. ~~RIP~~ She somehow survives having mini-Godzilla smash her and, after a bit of reflecting on how we just did something really important for fixing up the city, offers us her boat to cross over to the Apophyll region. She then decides to head home to recuperate for a bit.

Contrary to what you'd expect from previous dialogue the boat doesn't just dissolve into wreckage as soon as we reach Apophyll, meaning we'll get to use it a bunch more times.

At Apophyll Beach there's a whole bunch of trainers as well as Apophyll Academy, where Kiki is. After we ~~beat up all trainers in the area~~ locate Kiki Victoria catches up to us. Kiki tasks us with going up Pyrous Mountain and defeating a certain student of hers as a test while Victoria will take the Academy's graduation test to get Strength.

Along the way up the mountain we capture a Shiny Magcargo:

Spoiler

I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with all those random Shinies I capture during an unfitting Monotype. For now I'll just hoard them...

Up at the crater we run into Cal, ex-Fire Leader and the guy we're supposed to beat. Cue Battle

VS Ex-Leader Cal

Spoiler

Swampert is up against Infernape. Muddy Water gets nerfed heavily on the Superheated Field, meaning I'll have to make do with Mud Bomb. Infernape lowers its Defenses with Close Combat and then gets OHKO'd by Mud Bomb. So far so good.

Typhlosion charges up a Solar Beam and survives Mud Bomb, so I switch out for Nidoking.

A whole bunch of Shadow Claws and two of Cals Ultra Potions later and Typhlosion finally goes down.

Sandslash tanks a Mystical Fire and Shadow Ball each before Delphox goes down to two Shadow Claws.

Cal sends out Magmortar and I switch to Swampert to goad him into using Solar Beam. One Mud Bomb isn't enough, so Nidoking switches in to take the Solar Beam, allowing Swampert to go back in and provoke another Solar Beam. A second Mud Bomb and Magmortar is down. Yay for exploitable AI!

Onix easily tanks a Dragon Claw and then Rock Slides the hell out of Charizard.

Speed Boost Blaziken is up last. Camerupt's Earth Power takes it out in one hit. Nice

Hm?

Another easy victory on the first try due to Type Advantage.

Back at the Academy we arrive just in time to see Kiki recover from some sort of illness-related attack. She pushes it aside and tells us to come face her in an official Gym Battle. Before that however we have to deal with Victoria trying to stop us from battling her out of worry over her condition. Cue Battle

VS Apprentice Victoria

Spoiler

Swampert leads another battle. A bunch of Muddy Waters use up both of Victoria's Choc Ice Creams, although Scraggy did get a little crit in right on the first turn. (The only turn it managed to do something.)

Sandslash tanks one Swords Dance-boosted Psycho Cut and Gallades goes down to two Shadow Claws.

Heracross manages to survive one Lava Plume and deafeats Camerupt with Night Slash and then Close Combat.

Piloswine's first important battle! Though he's still a bit behind in level... (Why did I think training an Ice Type while going through the Fighting/Fire-portion of the game was a good idea?)

Heracross falls to Ice Shard. Yay for priority!

It's Ace vs Ace Time! Although it'd be a little fairer if both were at full health. Still, Muddy Water crits and Emboar goes down, so I don't get to complain much.

Hariyama is up last. It's also the only thing I don't have anything super effective against. Onix uses Screech and Hariyama uses Belly Drum. Iron Tail still isn't enough to knock it out though and Onix gets OHKO'd by Force Palm.

Piloswine leeches another kill with Ice Shard.

Sorry, but I've got to hurry...

Another easy battle. Onix is starting to fall behind, but for now she still has some utility with Screech.

"...It's for the kids, right? They're more important than her, right?" Shit, Victoria, you're making me feel like the bad guy.

But, in a sense, yes. Because last time I saw them, they weren't dying...

Kiki is still waiting, so time to heal up and Cue Gym Battle

VS Sensei Kiki

Spoiler

I have nothing to counter pure Fighting, so Swampert has to lead yet another battle. The level cap is looming.

Surf's up! Muddy Water gets boosted by the field, putting Machamp right into critical HP and allowing me to deplete all of Kiki's Ultra Potions.

Hitmonlee is another pure Fighting Type. It knows Fake Out and carries a Normal Gem, so I switch into Onix. She immediately gets knocked out by High Jump Kick; didn't even get to use Screech. I hoped Fake Out activating Weak Armor would have boosted Speed enough.

Swampert is up again. Hitmonlee's next HJK misses and Muddy Water finishes it off.

I fail at reading and accidentally send out Camerupt against Gallade, for some reason expecting it to be Lucario. It goes badly.

Camerupt goes down and Sandslash takes over. The field activates Sand rush, doubling its Speed, but Gallade manages to survive the first Shadow Claw and gets one Strength in on Sandslash before it goes down.

Dig isn't enough to OHKO and Sandslash goes down to Psychic.

Nidoking barely manages to survive Psychic and Double Kicks Lucario.

Swampert tanks a Poison Jab and Mud Bomb OHKO's.

Medicham Time. Piloswine takes a hit while I heal Swampert.

Swampert tanks a Drain Punch and actually manages to OHKO Medicham with Muddy Water. Not bad.

Didn't Corey say something pretty similar?

This battle was easier than I expected. I still managed to lose on the first try by underestimating her Medicham though. NEVER underestimate someone's Ace, I really should've learned that by now. >_>

Swampert had to pull an uncomfortable amount of weight here, considering he's already at the level cap...

This victory earns us... nothing, because Kiki collapses right when she's about to give out the Badge. Victoria carries her into her room, where she proceeds to habe a breakdown about her situation. She shoos us out and Victoria reminds us of another issue: Cain was heading to Apophyl but never showed up. She sends us to go look for him on Azurine Island, located between Coral Ward and Apophyll Beach and the only place he could've ended up on the way.

There's our next destination, but it'll have to wait until next time. Hopefully I'll get the remainder of the Apophyll Arc as well as the Wasteland done tomorrow.

Until then, See Ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 19, 2017

The very first thing we run into on Azurine Island turns out to be a shiny Amoonguss ~~of all things~~.

Spoiler

A Timer Ball, Heavy Ball I think(?) and... no idea what the head is

We find one of Cain's earrings lying on the ground here, so that's confirmation that he's at least been here. Also I think it's funny that the protagonist can recognize Cain's jewelry even though we've only met him like five times so far.

We also run into a shiny Foongus (WHY?)

Spoiler

That one's easy - a Great Ball

Just when I start to get sick of mushrooms we finally reach the only hut on this island. Inside we run into Aster and Eclipse who note that, this time, we're outnumbered. Cue Battle

VS Meteor Grunts Aster&Eclipse

Spoiler

Onix and Piloswine are up against Solrock and Lunatone. Iron Tail+Icicle Crash put Solrock into critical HP, it gets healed up again and then knocked out by crit Iron Tail+crit Icicle Crash. What are the odds for that, huh? Piloswine levels up and learns Mist - probably the only field-changing move we'll have at our disposal for this run. Lunatone mucks around with surprisingly powerful Psywaves

Rhydon is next. Iron Tail+Icicle Crash fail to knock it out, only putting it into critical HP. Definitely need to switch Onix out for something else... Lunatone knocks out Onix and Rhydon flinches.

Rhydon gets healed and put back into critical by another crit Icicle Crash while Sandslash Shadow Claws at Lunatone. Another Icicle Crash and Rhydon is down, but Lunatone gets switched out for Milotic...

Gotta get rid of that Milotic before it Hydro Pumps my whole team. Magmar, naturally, Fire Punchs Piloswine into the Ground. ~~puns~~

Sandslash gets Hydro Pumped before he gets to do anything against Milotic.

That Milotic needs to go down quickly. Magmar Fire Punches Nidoking, Shadow Claw+Mud Bomb put Milotic into critical HP and Milotic uses Twister, for some reason.

Nidoking gets healed with a Lemonade and then burned by Magmar's Fire Punch while Milotic manages to live one more turn by dodging Rock Slide and Hydro Pumps Nidoking...

Down to Camerupt (pleasedon'tgetHydroPumped) and Swampert (screwthelevelcap).

Another Rock Slide from Swampert takes out both enemies this time, leaving the enemies with only Lunatone and Electabuzz.

Muddy Water+Earth Power takes out both of them, ending the battle.

Yes, but who of you is saying that?

Mostly an easy battle, but Milotic made me sweat for a bit.

Eclipse taunts us that we'll never find Cain, but Aster lets slip that he's somewhere in this building, much to Eclipse's chagrin. The two bail using the Secret Villain Teleporter Exit™, leaving us to find a hidden passage. At its end we run into Taka, as well as both Cain and a Camerupt behind bars.

Taka: "Anyway, we were also ordered to capture you. And since you sorta just waltzed in here... Yeah, that's a thing." He cares so much. Cue Battle

VS Meteor Admin Taka

Spoiler

Klefki sets up Spikes and gets put into critical HP. Earth Power would have OHKO'd it, but I want to deplete Taka's Ultra Potions first before using Earth Power. Turns out Klefki can just barely survive Earth Power as well, bummer. It sets up another Spikes and then goes down.

Piloswine tanks one Acrobatics and 2HKO's Gligar with Ice Shard.

Nidoking vs Cradily. A whole bunch of Double Kicks. Unfortunately confusion prevents Nidoking from taking it out.

Piloswine just barely survives Spikes and KO's Cradily with Icicle Crash.

Piloswine fires off an Ice Shard before getting taken out by Heat Wave.

Onix gets a chance to prove herself. Chatter is a pain, but Onix still manages to use Rock Slide. Unfortunately, even after Piloswine's Ice Shard that's not enough to KO Chatot. Chatot gets healed a bit by its Sitrus Berry and then defeats Onix with Heat Wave. :c

I send out Sandslash (which I forgot to screencap) and then immediately remember that Chatot is immune to both Magnitude/Dig and Shadow Claw. And Gyro Ball kinda sucks. At least it's enough to KO Chatot. Sandslash levels up and learns Swords Dance, which is pretty nice. Now I only need something to set up Sandstorm and the Sand Rush Sweeps can commence!

Team Meteor plans to erupt Pyrous Mountain with a PULSE Camerupt, so we have to head there and stop them. Cain rushes ahead, even though our boat should really be faster.

Cain rushed up the mountain first, followed by us teamed up with Victoria. The constant Double Battle along the way allow Piloswine to catch up in levels; Nidoking also learns Earth Power, finally giving him a useful STAB. Considering his lack of one, he's held up surprisingly well so far.

Up at the crater we run into Cain, Cal, Taka and Solaris. Cain already lost to Taka and Solaris, so we and Victoria take on one each. We also find out that Taka is Solaris's son.

Cue Battle

VS Meteor Leader Solaris

Spoiler

Yeah, this isn't a battle we're supposed to win. It's possible, of course, but personally I think it's better for the story to lose here.

Even without the field nerfing Ice moves Piloswine's Ice Shard would have done barely anything here.

Everybody present is suitably freaked out by our unstoppable protagonistness being soundly beaten. Except for Kiki, ~~because she doesn't know us well enough~~. She sics her Medicham right on the PULSE machine, but Cal, on Solaris's order, has his Magmortar throw it into the Lava. Solaris then has his Garchomp kill Kiki. Cal complains that this wasn't part of the plan and, after reflecting on the nature of strength and weakness for a bit, has his Magmortar destroy the PULSE.

Solaris calls him useless for a bit and then retreats along with Taka. Cal subsequently gets chewed out by Victoria and leaves.

Back at the Academy Victoria presents us with the TM Strength, but also informs us that with Kiki's death our Gym Battle with her and claim on the Fury Badge are now null and void. At least we got the main objective of this whole trip and Apophyll didn't get nuked. What's missing now is only the Venom Badge so we can use Strength; Cain heads off back to the city to meet us there at the gate to the Wasteland. Victoria will remain at the Academy to take Kiki's place there.

"Don't keep those kids waiting. We've done that enough." Seriously

Cain is waiting for us in South Obsidia, but won't open the gate without fighting us first. Cue Battle

VS Pretty Boy Cain

Spoiler

Camerupt OHKO's Venomoth with Lava Plume.

Samurott is up next. Swampert is the only one of my Pokémon that isn't weak to Water, but he's also only one battle away from reaching Lv. 46... Nidoking should manage this. Earth Power spam until Cain's Choc Ice Creams are used up and Samurott goes down.

Sandslash tanks a Shadow Ball and OHKO's Haunter with Shadow Claw.

Nidoking's Poison Tail doesn't do much and Piloswine's Icicle Crash puts it into critical HP. Cain switches to Muk and a bunch of Mud Bombs back and forth later Muk goes down.

Nidoking comes back in and gets finished off by Ice Shard.

Now, please open that gate.

Not much to say about this battle. The level cap is looming...

Cain opens the gate for us and heads off back to the Railnet to meet us there later.

Aah, the Byxsbbyggisigbyg Wasteland!

I hate it. Partially because this ages old laptop I'm using always lags to a crawl while wading through here, partially because the Wasteland Field is one of my least favorite fields. It's one of those fields that really only benefits its intended Type and offers no way to turn it around. Shelly's Forest Field can be set on fire, Serra's Mirror Arena gives Flamethrower perfect accuracy, Kiki's Ashen Beach boosts Psychic and Calm Mind etc.

At least the music is kinda cool/funny.

There's a Black Sludge hidden a bit out of the way. Nidoking gets to hold it.

We finally arrive at the Wasteland Hideout, where Cain's familiy lives. Aya is already in a battle with her first challenger who turns out to be Fern - ergh. Hardy, Reborn's Rock Leader, shows up as well and he knows Fern from their time at Onyx Trainers' School. Aya proves to be way too susceptible to Fern's... Fern. He reeatedly calls her a noob, pushover etc and then challenges us to a battle, "so we won't have come the whole way without getting at least on roper battle." How considerate of him. Cue Battle

VS Swag Jockey Fern

Spoiler

Camerupt destroys Ferrothorn with Lava Plume. I wonder if that thing is traumatised by now, with how often that happens.

Krokorok is next - he did say he ditched his specialization on Grass Types. Piloswine's second Icicle Crash OHKO's it after the first one missed.

Roserade, that demonic thing. Lava Plume puts it down to ~1/3 HP. It gets switched out for Scyther afterwards.

It survives the Lava Plume on switch in, gets partially healed and then knocked out by a second Lava Plume.

Roserade is back. Camerupt survives one Giga Drain and takes it out with Lava Plume.

Serperior is last. I hoped Piloswine could take a hit and beat it with Icicle Crash=>Ice Shard, so it doesn't get a chance to heal with Giga Drain, but it didn't work.

Onix takes a hit while I heal Camerupt back up.

Camerupt tanks one Giga Drain, uses Lava Plume, and then falls to a second Giga Drain without having dealt as much damage as i would have liked.

Nidoking takes over and manages to win with Thrash - but only because Serperior's Iron Tail missed once.

"Yeah, keep tellin' yourself that, mate."

Still not an easy battle, but decidedly less of a pain than previously. Serperior and Roserade are the only things to look out for and they'd both be much less of a pain if they didn't know Giga Drain.

Hardy agrees that seeing Fern get beat is worth trudging though the Wasteland. Shame Aya wasn't around for the fight, maybe that would have cheered her up.

With that out of the it's about time to raise our level cap again. Cue Gym Battle

VS Wasteland Punk Aya

Spoiler

Special Attackers are up first, since they probably won't be that much use against her Ace. Earth Power+Muddy Water ut both enemies at critical HP, though Tentacruel would have probably fainted if it didn't dodge. Tentacruel sets up Toxic Spikes and Nidoqueen Stealth Rock, dealing some damage at the end of the round due to the Wasteland Field and poisons Swampert. Aya heals both her 'Mons back up and Earth Power+Muddy Water puts them right back to where they were. Another Muddy Water knocks them both out, causing Swampert to level up to 46...

Aya sends out her Gengar and- Dragalge? I'm pretty sure she isn't supposed to do that. Gym Leaders Aces are always up last... Anyhow, Swampert faints to Shadow Ball+Dragon Pulse while Nidoking's Shadow Claw puts Gengar into critical HP.

Gengar uses Focus Miss, Piloswine's Icicle Crash puts Dragalge into critical HP and another Shadow Claw knocks out Gengar. Dragalges Dragon Pulse then nearly OHKO's Piloswine, yikes. Adaptability sure is terrifying.

Aya sends in Draion, but it seems I forgot to screenca that. Piloswine defeats Dragalge with Ice Shard - just to be sure it gets to act - and, sure enough, gets taken out by Drapion's Night Slash right after. Dragalge's defeat also leveled Nidoking up to 46, so it just loafes around instead of attacking...

Aya's last two Pokémon. Drapion's Aqua Tail misses, but Venusaur's Power Whip hits Camerupt for quite a lot of damage thanks to the field. Nidoking actually attacks this time and OHKO's Drapion with Earth Power, while Camaerupt Lava Plumes everything - the fact that Nidoking actually listened this turn makes me feel somewhat guilty I didn't use fire Blast instead...

One more, and it's burned, but still strong enough to beat Camerupt with Power Whip. Nidoking doesn't attack. Sandslash finishes the battle next turn.

Probably the easiest battle against Aya I had so far. Her Dragalge coming out early somewhat messed up my planning, but in the end it worked out. Even though the level cap reared its ugly head a bunch of times.

This victory earns us the Venom Badge, raising the level cap to 50, as well as the TM for Sludge Wave, meaning Nidoking gets a second useful STAB! Swampert learns it as well - probably doesn't do that much for coverage but it's better than Rock Smash, no?

AND, most importantly, we can now use Strength to push around boulders. You know what that means? That means this concludes The Longest Fetch Quest Ever!

Next chapter should come some time next week and will probably get split into multile parts again.

Until then, See Ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 26, 2017

Nope, not dead yet! I tried to post an updates earlier this week, but something ate it and then I got sidetracked with breeding.

Anyhow, let's not delay this any further:

Chapter VII: Tanzan Mountain

I lost the first part I had already written up, featuring saving the kids at Yureyu HQ and fighting Sigmund, as well as arriving at Belrose Manse, so here's a summary:

We fought our way through the Meteor-infested Yureyu HQ and eventually battled Sigmund to free Heather. That battle was more of a hassle than it had any right to be, mainly because Electivire's Ice Punch kept freezing the 'Mons I was relying on to beat it and Cain was being no help whatsoever. Right after exiting the Railnet Heather jumped on her Salamence and flew away while followed to make sure she's gonna be OK.

Shortly afterwards we arrived at Belrose Manse and were introduced to Charlotte's sister Laura, who's one of the Elite 4. We quickly got sent away to go pick up some medicine in Spinel Town because ~~Anna~~ Nostra is sick. Before leaving Onix gets put into the PC. Byebye, see you once I find a metal coat.

A small detour back to Reborn City's Daycare and Move Relearner resulted in following changes to the team:

Spoiler

I spent like three hours doing nothing but getting and hatching eggs and this is the best I got. That Speed is taunting me, I swear. At least he has a good nature...

Bity fucker, huh? Thunder Fang's probably gonne be generally useful down the line, since I don't have any Electric or Grass moves in my team so far. Fire Fang's gonna be useful against Serra, especially if he can pick off something weak to get a Moxie Boost first.

About damn time!

I also picked up a whole lot of Type Berries - including, of course, those that weaken Ice.

With that done it was time to trek back through the Railnet and towards Spinel Town's Pokémart. Unfortunately, everything in Spinel Town recently has picked up the habit of randomly teleporting around, so the Pokémart ends up porting itself right on top of the local Gym. We're introduced to Ice Leader Serra and her son Bennett, as well as Elias, who is totally not a cult fanatic. Since we can't reach the Pokémart Serra decides that we might as well have a Gym Battle.

Before that, however, we're challenged by Bennett, who wants to become a Gym Leader and thus battles all of his mother's challengers. Cue Battle

VS ~~my hair is a Zorua~~ Lepidopterist Bennett

Spoiler

A Bug Type Specialist. Signal Beam gets boosted by the field, so I have to watch out for that. A lot worse though is that about half of his team know Sleep Powder and Quiver Dance; since my team is pretty slow there's a decent chance the enemy will try to set up some boosts while disabling whatever I've got out with Sleep Powder.

Krookodile is up vs Larvesta, because that's the only thing he won't be Signal Beamed by. Dig leads to Larvesta crashing into a mirror and taking damage before getting put into critical HP by the attack itself. One Crunch later Larvesta is down and Bennett used up one of his Berry Ice Creams.

Thunder Fang flinches Vivillon, allowing Krookodile to take it out with another one. (But not without crashing into a mirror while Vivillon gets healed first.)

Another one carrying Bright Powder. Fire Fang OHKO's it and Krookodile gets yet another Moxie Boost.

I forgot the screencap here; Masquerain's Intimidate sets Krook's Atk down one stage again, but that's okay. It goes down in one hit anyway.

Next up is Butterfree (which I forgot to screencap as well - grrr); another OHKO, another Moxie Boost.

~~Behold! A screenshot!~~ Another OHKO, another Moxie Boost - too bad the battle is already over.

~~Is taming your ridiculous hair one of those "adaptations"?~~

I got lucky that Larvesta's Flame Body didn't burn Krookodile and that Vivillon got flinched; from then on there wasn't even any resistance. Still, using a Dark Type of all things to sweep this guy... Hehe.

El announces that Bennett is apparentally Elite 4-material. Guess that makes us the Champ, huh? ~~Like we didn't know that already.~~

The two leave to discuss their dealings and El leaves us with an ominous "All is reflected within the eyes of the lord, remember this." Ugh

With that out of the way it's time to face Serra. Cue Gym Battle, while Bennett sells himself out for fame.

VS Beauty Queen Serra

Spoiler

Ice Types, oh dear...

Swampert vs Cryogonal. That thing's a lot faster than you would expect, so all I can do is send something out that's not weak to Ice. Fortunately, it has really bad Defense, so one Hammer Arm is enough to crush it into pieces.

Jynx is up and Krookodile takes over for Swampert. crit Crunch OHKO's the enemy and Krook gets a Moxie Boost.

Vanilluxe survives one Fire Fang and Krook barely manages to hang on after one Signal Beam. Due to Weak Armor Vanilluxe is now faster and Krookodile goes down to a second SB.

Serra uses an Ultra Potion, but Lava Plume+Burn Damage put Vanilluxe's HP right back to where they were. Camerupt manages to survive a Water Pulse and Vanilluxe goes down to another Lava Plume.

Glaceon is up next; it knows Mirror Coat, so I go for something physical. It unsuccessfully tries to counter Rock Slide with Mirror Coat and then gets taken out by another, crit Rock Slide.

Swampert and Aurorus both survive one Muddy Water and Frost Breath respectively before Aurorus goes down to a second Mudd Water. I forgot Hammer Arm would've been double effective, whoops.

Froslass is last. Frost Breath "comes into focus" - whatever that may mean - and Nidoking faints despite his anti-Ice Berry.

Another try; Sandslash survives one Frost Breath thanks to its berry (confirming that Nidoking only fainted due to bad luck) and takes off about half of Frosslass's HP with Shadow Claw. His second turn gets used to heal Camerupt, but Frosslass just gets healed instead of using another Frost Breatch like I had expected. Another turn to heal Camerupt to full and then Sandslash takes another hit and faints.

Camerupt takes one Shadow Ball and Lava Plume puts Frosslass into critical HP. Serra uses her last Ultra Potion and Lava Plume puts Frosslass right back into critical HP. Camerupt's last turn gets used to heal Swampert, just to make sure, before Frosslass downs her with another Shadow Ball.

(That thing looks totally ridiculous from behind, wow) Mamoswine tanks one Shadow Ball and Frosslass finally falls to Ancient Power, ending this battle. Mamoswine also gets a now totally useless All Stats Up, thanks game.

I don't like the way you talk...

Victory on the first try and a lot easier than I had expected at that. Didn't even have to crash her mirrors.

This victory earns us the Rime badge, which raises the Level cap to 55 and slightly boosts our Speed (hooray!), as well as the TM for Frost Breath. It's always a Critical, but nothing in my team can learn it. No, not even Mamoswine.

During the post battle-dialogue a quake shakes the house, so we go check outside. Meanwhile Bennett sells out his adoptive sister-slash-crush as well.

Serra tells us that the Pokémart seems to be gone, and so is Bennett. "I'm sure he can take care of himself, but he doesn't always make the best choices." Hoo, boy. You have no idea.

Serra sends us away, though I've got doubts about how good of an idea it is to just leaver her alone. I just don't know what to think of her...

Anyhow; the Pokémart teleported right to the other side of Chrysolia Forest, right next to the path leading to Tanzan Cove, so that's good. Less good is the fact that there's now some random kid stranded inside it. Err...

It's time to finally go give Anna that Medicine!

She proceeds to pour it all over her Jirachi doll of questionable liveliness. And gets better anyway. Alright, moving on.

Anna wants to Noel to have a Gym Battle with us, because apparentally it's important we get as many badges as possible as fast as possible. Charlotte passes for now, because apparentally we're not up to her "rank" yet. Rude?

That's it for now. I'll try to post another part later today, hopefully finishing everything at Tanzan Mountain.

Until then, See Ya!

Current playtime: 23:32

Edited February 26, 2017 by Gentleman Jaggi

Gentleman Jaggi · February 26, 2017

Anna expects us to fight Noel, so everybody runs outside and takes position. Cue Gym B- ?

Nope.

We're interrupted by a person riding on a Dragonite. She's Saphira, Charlotte's eldest sister, and a Gym Leader. Turns out Sigmund and Team Meteor are on their way over to get the kids, so our Gym Battle will have to wait. Saphira orders a battle plan and everybody takes position.

Our job is to guard the door while Laura will guard the upper floor. Saphira charges the Meteors coming across the lake and Charlotte, Anna, Noel and, for some reason, Shelly keep themselves hidden.

Soon enough Sigmund waltzes right through the door, but instead of facing us he just has his two Orderlies keep us busy while he goes upstairs. So much for "any dumb Meteor or doctor who comes through gets their face smashed in."

After we're done knocking around those Orderlies Team Meteor's Sirius walks in, cursing about Saphira attacking his troup on the lake. He's pretty pissed and not at all happy to see us. Cue Battle.

VS Meteor Admin Sirius

Spoiler

This guy keeps showing up everywhere, but there's so far only one battle against him. Weird.

You might think that Mamoswine wouldn't be a good choice against Chandelure, but he is. Earthquake knocks it out before it gets to do anything.

I still don't have any counters against Fighting Type, so Nidoking's resistance will have to be enough. Nidoking spams Sludge Waves while Hitmontop alternates between attacking and getting healed, but eventually Nidoking goes down.

Hitmontop gets healed with one last Ultra Potion before two Muddy Waters finally bring it down. Stupid thing.

Swampert levels up and learns Earthquake, that's pretty neat. I like Earthquake.

Manectric is up next; from what I've seen it knows the Elemental Fangs+Crunch, so there's not a whole lot it can do against Mamoswine. Thick Fat effectively removes his weakness to Fire.

That's irrelevant however, because Mamoswine is faster and just Earthquakes it.

Seviper is up next and Sandslash gets to take it on. Dig+Magnitude take it out while Sandslash only had to take one Aqua Tail.

Honchkrow gets Icicle Crashed, rip.

Probopass is last and double weak to Ground, but also has Sturdy so it's gonna be a 2HKO anyway. Sandslash easily tanks one Magnet Bomb and Magnitudes the enemy. That's the end of that.

Because otherwise I would've gotte more experience and that would've been horrible, eh?

That was an almost disappointingly easy battle, but to be fair: His team's pretty weak to Ground.

Right after we finish our battle we hear Laura upstairs scream. Now, we could go up there to check on her, but that would leave Sirius free reign on the lower floor. And besides: Laura's an Elite 4, she's gotta be able to handle herself, no? So we stay. And watch Sirius nearly piss his pants when Saphira comes in. He quickly teleports out, but not without informing us that Sigmund has apparentally managed to capture two of the kids.

Turns out Laura couldn't handle herself against Sigmund, because he didn't even bother fighting her and instead just had his Pokémon shock her.

So now the twins got kidnapped, again. And we're gonna meet up with Saphira in Meteor's base in Tanzan Mountain to rescue them, again.

By the time we reach the entrance to their base Saphira has already murderized the dudes guarding the door. Gee, chill out woman, they're just Grunts...

There's not much to say about the base. Spinny transporter things and Grunts out the whazoo. We battle our way through and run into Anna and Noel behind bars; they're pretty used to it by now. We move on to go find the key to their cell, along the way running into Saphira and protecting her while she hacks the security. We move on again and beat up some more grunts and scientists so we can open the door to the project room, where Sigmund and ZEL (well, mostly ZEL, Sigmund's just standing there) are rather unsuccessfully trying to get a PULSE Abra under their control. Sirius shows up as well and he still doesn't like us, but apparentally it's more important that Lin, their true boss, is going to check up on their work. Which is bad, because if it doesn't work she's going to take everyone's heads.

Be that as it may, Saphira announces that she's going to wreck their faces anyway and promtly gets teleported away by Abra. Immediately followed by us. I guess Abra dislikes us even more than Team Meteor? Rude.

We find ourselves in some dark cave filled with toxic waste. After running about for a bit we find Saphira, who's stuck even deeper below at the bottom of an abyss. We run around some more and eventually find the source of the earthquakes that have been plaguing the area recently. Or rather, the source finds us - a gigantic Steelix pissed at all the trash getting tossed into its home attacks us. Cue Battle.

VS Pokémon Gargantuan

Spoiler

Not as threatening as it looks. It has really low SpDef and doesn't understand that Earthquake has added Rock typing on this field, meaning Swampert can easily 2HKO it with Muddy Water.

Wimp

It retreats back into the chasm and immediately comes back up - with Saphira riding on its head.

With Onix hel we make our way back to the entrance to the base and, while Saphira goes to bust out the twins, we go to take care of that PULSE Abra. We find ZEL still unsuccessfully trying to get Abra under controle all the while being teleported around the room. And then right outside the door. They then have us fix their problems for them. Cue Battle.

VS Meteor Admin ZEL... kinda sorta

Spoiler

They only use PULSE Abra in this battle; it has high SpAtk and Speed, but only knows Dark Pulse and Hyper Beam, so abusing the latter should make this pretty easy.

Krookodile immediately gets Hyper Beamed, so the honor of attacking next turn goes to whoever has the highest Atk.

And it's Mamoswine! Unfortunately Abra manages to survive just barely.

Ice Shard unsurprisingly isn't enough to finish it off, but luckily its next two Hyper Beams both miss, allowing Mamoswine to knock it out with another Eartquake. I like Earthquake.

And it's all you guys' fault too!

Sirius shows up and informs everybody that Lin has just arrived. He also notes that we managed to make it back here. Since he can't have an enemy run around while their Big Boss comes to visit he rather plainly decides that we're now a new recruit, because that way maybe we won't all get murdered to shreds.

Lin doesn't buy it for one second, but aparentally doesn't care. During the conversation Sirius also casually drops that El is working with Team Meteor to get the four keys. He has no reason to believe we already know that (In fact, playing through this the first time you can't know, only have a hunch.), so why would he mention it so casually?

A Grunt runs in and reports that a giant Steelix has been ripping their base a new one and took the entire holding cells with it. Lin goes out to deal with it and sure enough, we're treated to a short cutscene of Lin shooting down Saphira and Steelix with her Hydreigon.

That's our chance to hightail it out of here, so we leave Tanzan Mountain's Meteor Base behind us.

That's it for today; I'll try to get the last bit of Tanzan Mountain done sometime in the coming days.

Until then, See Ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · February 27, 2017

There's only a few more things to do in Tanzan Mountain.

First: Going back into the Tanzan Depths to capture a Hippopotas. The one I got has the wrong ability and unfitting IV and nature, but it's female, so I'll probably just breed it some time later.

Next, since Saphira's nowhere to be found, going back up to everyone else at Belrose Manse. Anna and Noel are, somehow, both already here as well; after some discussion about Saphira's situation and Team Meteor's plan we actually get to fight Noel this time. Cue Gym Battle

VS Prodigy Noel

Spoiler

This battle takes place in the middle of Laura's garden, so I'd like to not destroy the place. That means no Eruption, Flame Burst or Sludge Wave. ~~There go my best attacks on this field.~~

Wigglytuff can't really do anything against Nidoking but does set up Stealth Rock and Reflect. Nidoking has to stall out until Reflect fades, also causing Noel to use up all of his Ultra Potions on Wigglytuff.

Noel sends out Porygon-Z, Nidoking gets switched out for Swampert. He tanks two Tri Attacks and 2HKO P-Z with Hammer Arm in return.

Minccino is kind of a pain; my only 'Mon faster than it is Krookodile, so I have to rely on Thunder Fang paralyzing it. (Or just flinching it repeatedly.)

Unfortunately it didn't get paralyzed, but Krook managed to deal enough damage so Mamoswine can knock it out with two Ice Shards.

Swellow is next up. Mamoswine tanks a Facade and then OHKO's it with Icicle Crash.

Girafarig; with Krookodile down I don't have anything to counter this one, so I just throw out whatever. Camerupt throws out one Earth Power, but gets 2HKO'd by Psychic.

Mamoswine is faster than Girafarig, but I forgot the Grassy Field weakens Earthquake so Girafarig manages to retaliate with Psychic.

Sandslash takes a hit while I Revive Mamoswine and heal Swampert.

Icicle Crash finishes it off.

That leaves only Clefable. Mamoswine deals some decent damage with Icicle Crash but then gets knocked out with Moonblast.

Swampert tries next. Rock Slide doesn't flinch this time, so Swampert goes down after three turns of Rock Slide vs Moonblast.

Nidoking gets to finish the battle with 2x Earth Power.

I feel like it's around this time that NPCs start referring to the protagonist with "they" much more often than before. I don't mind They as a gender-neutral 3rd person singular, but why the inconsistent usage?

This battle was actually somewhat tough, but only due to Minccino. Clefable was pretty much just a matter of wearing it down and Girafarig only managed to really do stuff because I got sloppy.

This victory earns us the Standard Badge, which raises the level cap to 60, as well as the TM for Hidden Power. I don't think anybody in my time has use for that though...

After the battle Noel asks us to go look around for Saphira, right when Team Meteor's base in the mountain explodes. Better hurry up.

We find Saphira on the west side of the mountain when she blasts right through a wall. Unsurprisingly it turns out she's the reason for the explosion earlier. She entrusts us with the Ruby Ring and Amethyst Pendant she manage to take back from Meteor, trusting us that we'll be able to fend off Team Meteor when they try to take them from us. She also tells us to split up from the group for now to minimize the risk on the kids and to meet them again at Calcenon City later on.

With that, she takes her leave and we're left to exit Tanzan Mountain and explore Route 1.

That concludes Chapter VII. We've been fighting Team Meteor for quite some time now, but from now on the plot revolving around them will really pick up.

An important note: Updates will be put on hold for the next about two weeks. Starting Friday I'll be busy playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild and I'll be away from home for most of the week after. Updates will resume on March 12th at the earliest, most likely one to three days after.

Until then, See Ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · April 16, 2017

I'm not dead! *cough*

Yeah, I, uh, underestimated how long an Open World-Zelda with 120 mini-Dungeons spread arounnd would take me to go through. And afterwards I got a bit sidetracked playing Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. Pretty great game, though at times depressing... Crushingly so. That Bad Ending, I swear.

Anyhow, I've got nothing better to do right now so time to finally get back to this. I dislike leaving things like this unfinished.

Chapter VIII: El's plan

So, more than a month ago we got done with the Tanzan Mountain Arc and now it's time to move on towards Route 1. The path leads through South ~~Aventurine Wood~~ HELL for a short bit, but we quickly reach the Route proper and are immediately greeted by Fern. He's apparentally pulled ahead of us in the Badges department somehow and now wants to show off his stuff again. Cue Battle

VS Swag Jockey Fern ~~(Why are there different colours in that dropdown now this is gonna make everything so much harder)~~

Spoiler

Krookodile leads this battle, facing off against Fraxure. Crunch puts it into red HP and Fern spends a few turns unsuccessfuly trying to keep it alive.

Next up is Krookodile, who falls to two Field Boosted Fire Fangs and throws out a Brick Break inbetween, whick Krookoshine takes rather well.

Ferrothorn doesn't stand a chance against Fire Fang. That poor thing just can't catch a break.

We mix things up a little and use Thunder Fang instead for once. Naturally, it's a OHKO

Roserade, that demonic thing, gets OHKO'd by Fire Fang. Quite satisfying after all those hard times it has given me in previous battles.

Serperior is last. Unfortunately it's faster than Krookodile, which means our Moxie streak ends here. Can't stand up to a Field Boosted Giga Drain.

Of course, the grassy Field here is just begging to be set on fire, so it's Camerupt's turn now. She easily tanks a Dragon Pulse and then OHKO's her enemy with Flame Burst. She also sets the Field on fire, but that doesn't really matter anymore.

On 7.2.2017 at 10:03 PM, Waynolt said:

said the Grass specialist after losing to the Ground monorunner

as has been foretold.

Took me long enough to get here.

It's been some time but I'm pretty sure this is the first time in this run that Fern received such a thorough defeat. We sure have come a long way since Mud Slapping things to survive and complaining about low Speed stats.

Fern kindly, via his gloating, informs us that there's a Gym towards the east, so time to move there. He also tells us that Agate City is apparentally closed off by sleeping people -okay- and that he's going to track down Noel. (Good luck with that; I'm sure Saphira would react really well to some random ass tracking their group.)

While making our way east Sandslash learns Earthquake. We also come across some mysterious red-haired lady who totally isn't having suspicious dealings with Team Meteor, but still decides to not tell us what she's doing.

"I don't know what sort of hero-complex you've got ingrained into your head that you feel the need to jump into anyone else's business." I was literally passing through, not my fault you're doing your little conspiracies in a public forest. Besides, my hero-complex is currently saving this region so, in your words, "get over it."

We eventually reach the gym located here - Vanhanen Castle. That name ring a bell? It should, because inside we are immediately greeted by Luna. Remember Luna? That girl that adopted herself into Serra's household along with a Gardevoir and then one day just up and vanished. The one that Bennett sold out to El. Uh-oh. Turns out she adopted herself into this place as well.

The Gym Leader here is Radomus, an... eccentric fellow. His partner is that talking Gardevoir from the TV. They're a weird pair.

Soon enough Cain shows up, also planning on a Gym Battle. He also informs us that he's managed to find Heather, who apparentally has been adopted by some guy named Blake up in Ametrine City. We totally don't know that name from Meteor-related affairs, so I'm sure she'll be fine.

Anyhow, Radomus doesn't quite feel like Double Battling Cain and us so we end up having a battle to decide who gets first turn. I guess "first come first served" doesn't count? Cue Battle

VS Pretty Boy Cain

Spoiler

His team has been stocked up with some non-Poison Types, so our type advantage against him is reduced a little.

The Chess Arena here would be beneficial to me, if I had any Psychic Type attacks. But I don't, so I guess it might as well just not exist.

Muk gets OHKO'd by Earthquake, a nice start.

I don't have anything that can counter Samurott, so Swampert gets to take it on. Samurott uses Sword Dance and proves to be surprisingly resilient, able to survive two Earthquakes. Swampert falls to Night Slash and Aqua Tail. Bummer.

So I just remembered that Krookodile knows Thunder Fang... It's not enough for a OHKO anyway, so it works out. I apparentally forgot to screenshot him however.

I decide to take a little gamble by having Sandslash go against Nidoking, because otherwise it probably wouldn't get to do anything here. Due to the wonky AI I was counting on it works out; Nidoking used Poison Tail rather than going straigh for Earthquake so Sandslash could boost with Swords Dance and then OHKO his enemy with Earthquake in turn.

Galvantula is next and finishes off Sandslash with Hidden Power. I expected as much, not sure why I still wanted to try it out.

One Eruption later Galvantula is no more.

Gengar is up next, the counter here is pretty obvious. *Crunch*

It still worries me that he has an Absol of all things. The game makes a point of having Absol show up before Bad Things™ happen, so how am I supposed to feel about Cain having one in his team...?

Eartquake+Ice Shard finish this fight pretty easily, winning us this battle.

We could've, like, drawn straws or something. If you want to battle just ask. At least as long as I'm not currently embroiled in world savery things, ya know.

Pretty easy battle overall. Krookodile could have probably swept this thing if I had let him.

Turns out that while we were distracted with that battle somebody went ahead and abducted Gardevoir and is now holding her for ransom - the ransom in question being Luna. Cain immediately decides that we're going to have to rescue her while Radomus insists that that isn't neccessary.

Cain, rather understandably, declares that Radomus isn't making any sense and goes off to rescue Gardevoir. Luna attempts to follow behind, but is stopped by Radomus explaining that she shouldn't put herself in danger when she's the one the enemy is after and then announces that he'll be going himself. He also changes into some sort of Sherlock costume.

We follow after, leaving the in-very-high-danger-of-being-abducted Luna behind alone.

Radomus deduces that the only place the monnapper could have fled to is Reborn City, meaning we get to cross Route 1 all the way to its western end.

I somehow managed to miss the guy with a Lv. 60 Luxray on the way despite looking around for trainers. That means I probably missed a bunch more and that's going to be bugging me for hours.

We're the first to arrive at the city's still sealed gates and thus witness El disappearing somewhere into the huge city wall.

After a rather amusing scene we follow the rapidly descending Cain down into the cave system Below The Grand Staircase.

Eventually we find ourselves on the other side of that huge sealed door where we first met Solaris. A bit further in is a large tower-like structure with a weird name. Citae d'arc da-something. There we run into some Adrienn person and Gossip Gardevoir, who apparentally now hates Radomus's guts. (Everybody who has watched their interview knows that that's just about the opposite of the truth.) No shifty things going on here, no sir.

Apparentally we're also now thieves who stole the Ruby Ring and Amethyst Pendant from El. Something's shifty here and it ain't us.

"Guardevoir" then proceeds to mug us for the Pendant and only doesn't manage to get the Ring too because Cain intervenes.

Our newly gained adversaries retreat into the tower and we follow after, solving "some of these guys are lying"-kinda puzzles. I hate those. Somehow still have the answers memorized tho, there's a pattern.

Halfway up we run into Adrienn who has now begun questioning this whole situation. We all decide to go further up to the top to get our answers from El.

Up there we find El which leads into an outrageously long cutscene with no movements whatsoever.

Turns out Arceus is supposedly resting behind the door up here, which requires all four keys to unseal and El is planning on doing just that. Radomus also continues making no sense to everybody out of the loop.

Eventually we're presented with a choice: we can side with either El or Radomus in this whole deal. Let's consider this for a bit:

Radomus has so far been acting rather suspicious, callous and uncaring. He didn't feel any need to go rescue Gardevoir and has been very nonchalant about her apparent surfaced hatred towards him. He also made no efforts to explain himself in any way, constantly leaving everyone in the dark about his thoughts. Doesn't look too good for him, huh?

On the other hand we have El - some sort of religious fanatic, works with Team Meteor, wants to end this world. Claims to be the owner of the keys, but we know better. Overall has Bad Guy stampled all over him.

Turns out things actually are looking good for Radomud; we have essentially no idea what's his deal, but we know for a fact that El is bad news and Radomous couldn't possibly be worse, so the answer is clear. We side with Radomus.

And, unsurprisingly, we picked right. That "Gardevoir" right there was actually El's Ditto. Which somehow managed to talk. Suddenly his behaviour makes a whole lot more sense.

El doesn't particularly like that we saw through him *cough* and has his Ditto use the energy surrounding this place to Transform into Arceus. Uh-oh. Cue Battle.

VS ~~Dittoceus~~ Parson El

Spoiler

My team can't outspeed this thing but also can't really take its attacks. Brute Force just plain doesn't work. Paralyzing it with Thunder Fang also won't really work, since El carries Full Heals and hoping to paralyze it several turns in succession would be pretty desperate. retty much the only way to get anywhere here is to use Bulldoze to slow it down.

Nothing in my team knows Bulldoze so I went and picked up that Sturdy Graveler from the box again. Graveler successfully gets on Bulldoze out before getting Focus Blastes into Oblivion.

It's enough to make Krookodile go first, allowing him to safely get in one Earthquake before getting Focus Blasted as well.

Mamoswine goes first as well and finally manages to have the Cave Field cave in on the area, resulting in a Double KO.

ergh

I've actually never before had so much trouble with this battle. My teams before were either strong enough to brute force it or had the neccessary move to cripple it ready. This was the first time I actually had to go back and switch out one of my team members to go grab something with a particular attack.

After the battle the question of "but where is Gardevoir" gets answered by Radomus having her Teleport in and Hypnosis El to sleep. So, in the end, this whole trip was somewhat pointless. But we got plot out of it, I suppose.

As we leave the Citae's cave some (presumably) creepy child voice calls out for that "it was fun" and to "come back and play again" sometime.

As soon as we get out of the cave system we notice something off: The Grand Gate is open

Adrienn also notes that the city is in a decidedly more sorry state than before they fell down into those caves "a few hours ago". After a bit of confused questions on all sides they rush off to check on their Gym at Coral Ward. We already came across that one earlier; it's abandoned and quite destroyed.

Adrienn continues insisting that their Gym, as well as the city as a whole, was still fine "this morning", which has Radomus deduce that they must have been frozen in time for more than a decade. ~~The hell is Dialga doing?~~

Rather dejected at the state Reborn City is in now our new friend declares their intent to fix it. Yes, the whole city. Cain directs them to Ame at Grand Hall and the rest of the group returns to Vanhanen Castle. We do still have a Gym Battle to win.

Back at the Gym we find Luna still there waiting for us. She's pretty happy everything worked out. Radomus then brings in El, who has apparentall been brainwashed into being the Castle's butler. Sure Radomus, you just go ahead and be as suspicious as you possibly can. Luna is, quite understandably, perturbed und proceeds to get the hell away from him. El then hands the Amethyst Pendant over to Radomus who announces that he will be keeping it for some time. Suspicions.

That was quite a lot of plot; I promise the following parts will be less wordy but all of this was fairly important and I want all these happenings to have some context, even if we all already know it.

With all that out of the way it's finally time for our next gym challenge.

The puzzle here is chess-based, which makes me really want to play some chess again.

Once we've solved the puzzles and beaten the trainers it's time for Radomus himself. Cue Gym Battle

VS Grandmaster Radomus

Spoiler

We start off with Sandslash and Mamoswine against Gallade and Reuniclus. Icicle Crash+Shadow Claw takes care of Reuniclus before it can set up Trick Room. Mamoswine then survives Gallade's Close Combat thanks to the beryy he's holding.

Another Icicle Crash OHKO's Gallade. Sandslash boosts himself with Sword Dance while Metagross misses a Meteor Mash that would have knocked out Mamoswine.

Malamar likes boosting itself with Superpower. Mamoswine softens it up with Icicle Crash before Sandslash takes out everything else on the field with Earthquake. Metagross might have survived if it wasn't a crit.

Krookodile's Thunder Fang softens Slowking up a bit before Sandslash, after taking a Psychic from Gardevoir, knocks it out with Shadow Claw.

Gardevoir is all alone now. Crunch takes of about half her HP before she delays her inevitable defeat a bit by finishing off Sandslash.

Another Crunch and the battle is over. [Somehow I find this image to be rather amusing. Krook and Nidoking are both going kinda grabby handsy and Gardevoir's just slightly unnerved.]

In the end you never got to make the first move like you announced, huh?

This battle wasn't particularly challenging, but I did need a few tries to find an initial setup that takes care of Reuniclus without sacrificing Krookodile, Nidoking or Camerupt to Gallade and Metagross. Turns out Sandslash can do really well if he's faster than his foe which, unfortunately, doesn't happen very often. Anyhow, this has still reaffirmed my decision to keep him around.

This battle earns us the Millenium Badge, raising the Level cap to 65, as well as the TM Trick Room. I might end up building a secondary team around that one, depending on how grindy I feel.

Luna announces that she wants to battle us next and goes into a little spiel about darkness, before someone turns off the lights. There's a bit of general confusion following and everyone quickly decides to go look what's up here.

That's it for today. The next part will follow tomorrow, if nothing else comes up.

See ya!

Gentleman Jaggi · April 16, 2017

We move back through the darkened Gym and promptly walk into a trap that El had set up for us. Surprise!

Seems Luna has been kidnapped this time and El planned to take care of us while we're softened up from the previous Gym Battle. Cain will be having none of that and holds El up so we can get out of there.

The garden maze outside is already blocked off by Meteor Grunts, but Radomus is there to show us a secret passage. Namely to just run around up on the walls where the Grunts can neither see nor reach us, because periphery vision does not exist in a 2D world. Radomus leaves us with a bunch more cryptic words, as well as a new destination: Reborn City's 7th Street. Apparentally the city's underworld can lead us there, so we go hit up Maxwell's Magma Gang, who arranges for us to gain entry.

7th Street is a hellhole of criminals and drug addicts, but the person we run into down here happens to be Bennett. He rather helpfully agrees to let us enter their cult's base where we immediately walk into a trap and get stuffed behind bars.

Bennett: "You actually thought I was that dumb, didn't you?" Yes.

The guy in the cell next to us somehow managed to sneak in his Klefki and graciously has it open our cell, leaving us to roam about. After sneaking past a bunch of cultists we beat up some more of them and then puzzle our way through a door to get to an altar where El is planning to do some sort of ritual on Luna. Totally doesn't look like he's going to sacrifice her.

Normally this would be the point where we wreck some faces, but El has Cain as hostage. Fortunately, Radomus is already here in disguise and has Gardevoir pop in and Teleport out all those cultist goons while he personally restrains El. The following scene is pretty hilarious; there's like three separate conversations going on at the same time which just doesn't translate well into dialogue fields.

Anyhow, El takes the Emerald Brooch away from Luna and our group Teleports out. Radomus announces that he has something to attend to and Teleports away with Gardevoir (rip Cain's gym battle), while Luna hands us the Crystal Key so we can come challenge her in ~~Backtrack~~ Iolia Valley. Cain leaves to maybe wake up those guys at Agate City.

Iolia Valley is pretty uneventful, being mainly a trek back and forth to get more pieces for the Crystal Key so we can progress through. Bennett shows up here though and apparentally wants to apologize to Luna. He also wants us to stay away and leave the two alone.

No.

Eventually we find Luna, but unfortunately Bennett is still stalking us. Luna doesn't want to hear his confessions and runs away to her arena, prompting Bennett to attack us so he can get the Crystal Keys from us. Cue Battle.

VS Lepidopterist Bennett

Spoiler

Sandslash destroys the Dark Crystal Cavern with Earthquake. With no second STAB or coverage against Bug/Flying that's also just about the only thing he can do in this battle, though he does use up some of Bennetts Moomoo Milks before KO'ing Larvesta.

Rock Slide is unsurprisingly a OHKO, although Yanmega's Ancient Power did pretty high damage.

Scyther boosts with Swords Dance and manages to just barely survive an Icicle Crash, but Ice Shard finishes it off before it can do anything.

Another Bug/Flying. Mamoswine takes a Signal Beam and then OHKO's it with Icicle Crash.

Bug/Poison this time. It's somewhat tanky, but can't really do anything against Nidoking. Three Earth Powers take it out without Nidoking taking much damage.

Another Bug/Poison. This one actually tries to set up with Quiver Dance, but still doesn't deal much damage because it apparentally lacks Psybeam/Psychic. Since Quiver Dance also boosts SpDef I go for Shadow Claw instead of Earth Power for a chance to crit. It takes some turns, but Venomoth eventually goes down.

Using a Pokémon protagonist as a measure for your skill doesn't really do you any favors.

I'm not gonna lie, this guy always manage to be a lot stronger than I'd expect a team half made out of common Bugs to expect, but he's still got many weaknesses. Yanmega is the main threat, get that out of the way and it's pretty much over. Still, there's always that low chance he might decide to go Sleep Powder=>Quiver Dance with any of his two Pokémon who can do that, but I guess unless he gets hardcoded to do so the chances of his AI being that smart are pretty low.

Bennett calls himself stupid a few times and then leaves, but announces that he's still planning to go for the top and that next time we meet "things will be different." Just one more person out for our blood, I guess. No biggie.

With that out of the way it's time for Luna. Cue Gym Battle

VS Dark Dreamer Luna

Spoiler

Pretty nice of her to start with something I can use Earthquake against. It's a OHKO and turns the Dark Crystal Cavern into an ordinary Cave.

Another Earthquake, another OHKO.

Two Moxie Boosts aren't enough to OHKO Malamar with Crunch and I want to keep Krookodile around for Umbreon, so Sandslash sacrifices himself by making the Field cave in.

Icicle Crash is another OHKO.

Sableye is annoying. Will-O-Wisp misses it gets Hyper Potions spammed on itself, until it finally uses Confuse Ray and Krookodile can collect a Moxie Boost from it.

From here on out it's pretty much just a matter of spamming whatever hits the hardest. Umbreon still has one more Hyper Potion plus however many PP Moonlight has, but after Krookodile runs out of Earthquakes it gets paralyzed by Thunder Fang. The two spend quite a number of turns weakly wailing on each other until Krookodile eventually goes down.

Two more Earthquakes and it's over.

"... tarnished, your soul shines with hope. I pray you farewell."

What do you mean my soul is tarnished? what?

I initially tried to go through this fight without abusing Moxie or the cave in mechanic, but kept running into problems with Tyranitar and Malamar. Eventually I ran out of patience...

This took way too many tries, but I feel like that was just because I overlooked something that would have made it easier. Definitely had a number of strategically weak moments in these battles.

This victory earns us the Eclipse Badge, raising the Level Cap to 70, as well as the TM Dark Pulse. Which is pretty useless for this team.

Luna decides that it's probably safer for here to stay in Iolia Valley for now. She also reminds us that Cain wanted to go to Agate City, so I guess that's where we're going next as well.

That's it for today, next update will likely take some time. I want to prepare some more before crossing the point of no return; breed and train two or three Pokémon to put into rotation, maybe fiddle with my current team's EV if I can be bothered to do the South Hell Woods puzzle.

Until next time, see ya!

Jess · April 18, 2017

Really great work! I really enjoy the screenshots, imagining how much of a pain it must've been to collect them and save them (taking under consideration the failed tries in each big battle too). I'd do same for my Bug Monorun, but I have no screenshots, so I'll stick to narration of plot/battles and team/movesets...

Gentleman Jaggi · April 18, 2017

Hey, thank you!

Screenshotting everything actually isn't hard at all since pressing F8 automatically saves one to the Reborn folder and I know a good uploading site. Still, sometimes when I have to restart a battle a lot I end up forgetting to screencap more often. Luckily enough I don't think I've ever forgotten to screenshot any key points in battle, only random in-between things.

Bug Monorun sounds like it would be pretty difficult in early and midgame. I'd like to do one myself some time ~~in the far off future~~, so I'll definitely keep my eyes peeled for your thread.

Gentleman Jaggi · April 22, 2017

Alright, I've bred and trained some new Pokémon so this is how our core team will look from now on:

Spoiler

Starter Pokémon Privileges: Always be at least one level higher than everyone else

Remember Baltoy from way back when? It finally gets its time to shine. Trick Room will its main job.

I don't really know what in particular the EV spread does; my Bro recommended it and he knows more about this stuff than I do. I usually just max out stuff.

Trick Room will make this girl so much more powerful. Finally Eruption will see some use.

No, I don't know why he still has Ancient Power...

These guys are in rotation for whenever they'll be usefull:

Spoiler

Sandstorm setter, obviously.

I wanted to keep him in the main team, but couldn't really justify it over Claydol or anyone else from the team. (Other than "I want to", of course.)

Sand Rush Fun whenever the opportunity arises.

Stealth Rock Setter and will probably also show up whenever my battle strategy revolves around Trick Room.

Gyro Ball is only there because I didn't feel like breeding for Heavy Slam and Iron Tail is too unreliable. Shee Force will likely at some point be switched out for Sturdy once I need it.

I also debated about training a Flygon, but decided against it because I'm already using one on my main run. Krookodile already plays a similar role anyway.

Grinding the new guys also maxed out my money, so I went and bought a lot of Berries, Gems and Hold Items that might come in useful at some point.

With that done it's time to meet up with Cain at Agate City.

The guards at the entry point are still asleep, so Cain has his Nidoking crash the door. The city itself is pretty much dead; completely silent and nobody's to be seen.

Well, except for Aya and Hardy just sleeping right on the street. As well as this Meteor Grunt that quickly retreats out of the screen:

Aya and Hardy won't wake up and Cain notes that he feels tired as well. Just as we're about to fall asleep forever as well we are saved by the timely arrival of Reborn's worst character.

Spoiler

I hate Terra. She disregards physics and reason with no explanation whatsoever other than "She just does that" and is extremely obnoxious. I'm the type of player that reads every piece of dialogue no matter how often I've played a game, but Terra makes me skip any scene she appears in.

She's also the Ground Type Leader, so at least I'll get to prove myself the better Ground Type Master later on.

Anyhow, There's something putting everybody in the city to sleep (obviously), so Terra sends the two sleepers flying for miles with a giant mallet she pulled out of hammerspace; Cain decides he'd rather walk out of the City.

After exiting the city (the normal way) we find ourselves in

Chapter IX: Circus of no Return

Agate Circus has become kind of a refuge for everyone stranded by Agate City being impassable. Aya apparentally crashed down somewhere around here and sure enough, we find her in the biggest tent around here, already having been taken care of by the other two Gym Leaders here - Samson (Fighting) and Ciel (Flying).

Hardy didn't have as much luck - he soared right over the circus and probably landed somewhere on ~~Route 2~~ Crustle Hell. Cain wants to catch up with Aya for a bit, so it's up to us to find Hardy - ~~not because Aya misses him or anything like that, b-baka!~~

Before leaving the Circus we buy a shit ton of Cotton Candy to Revive team members and get the HM Dive so we don't have to do so later.

Route 2 is, well, Crustle Hell. I like Reborn, just not the overly blown-up puzzles.

After shoving about a dozen Crustles into holes in the ground so we can trample over them we finally reach the end of Route 2. There's a giant waterfall, the Celestinine Cascade, as well as a house. Amaria, the Water Type Leader from way back when lives here, together with her girlfriend Titania, that pointlessly angry lady from Route 1.

Remember how Amaria took a Superpower from a freaking Tyranitar? She's still recovering from that one.

Hardy is here as well, still sleeping. Titania is his sister and she wakes him up by beating the crap out of him. You know, just in case you didn't yet know what kinda person she is.

As we're about to leave our attention is brought to a news report on the TV. Remember how our friends from the Orphanage Raid were headed to Calcenon City? Turns out Team Meteor took over Labradorra City right next to it and now they're basically at war. We, obviously, want to help our friends so we'll have to get there, but to do so we'll need the HM Surf. Luckily, T&A have that one lying around somewhere and they'll give it to us if we go beat Samson, since we're gonna need another Badge to use it anyway. Time to backtrack all the way to the Circus! Once we're there, we pretty quickly get to face Samson. Cue Gym Battle

VS Strongman Samson

Spoiler

Hariyama's a dick with its massive HP.

The High Striker Field Effect here, for some reason, seems to always favor the enemy no matter how high my Pokémon's Attack is. My Pokémon usually get at most a "NICE" while Hariyama keeps getting "POWERFUL" or "OVER 9000" (kill that meme, please). Even if an "OK" Earthquake would be enough to 2HKO, there's always a high chance to get screwed over by getting the "WEAK" result. Just what is this field expecting? Not everybody can have Guts. :I

Claydol's Extrasensory deals about half of Hariyama's HP damage; Samson uses one Hyper Potion on it before apparentally giving up and letting it get 2HKO'd.

This thing is ridiculously fast. It once annihilated my entire Flying Type Team because I got cocky having a massive Type Advantage.

Nidoking resists everything it has except Acrobatics, so of course that's the attack it decides to use, OHKO'ing him.

Krookodile is the fastest thing I have and he's still slower. He manages to just barely hold on after U-Turn and Earthquakes Lucario, who survives thanks to its Focus Sash.

Another Hyper Potion, another Earthquake, OHKO.

Mienshao is back up, hopefully Mamoswine can take a hit.

He indeed barely survives one Acrobatics and then OHKO's Mienshao with a "NICE" Earthquake.

Earthquake, OHKO.

I'm gonna need Mamoswine for this one, so Camerupt gets sacrificed to a crit Acrobatics while I Hyper Potion Mamoswine.

He takes one Acrobatics, but doesn't manage to OHKO with an "...OK" Icicle Crash. Ice Shard fixes that next turn.

Fuck this guy. I had him down to almost dead the previous try and then he went all "OVER 9000 crit Drain Punch OHKO" on Swampert. Dick.

I go for Icicle Crash hoping for the flinch, but no luck. It does about a third of HP damage, half of which then gets healed by Drain Punch and Leftovers.

Earthquake ends up "WEAK", doing barely anything. Of course.

Extrasensory does some nice damage before Claydol gets knocked out with Knock Off. Yay, no Draining this time.

This exact same situation again... Muddy Water once again puts Conkeldurr down into critical HP, but this time it uses Knock Off, which Swampert survives.

A "POWERFUL" Earthquake seals the deal.

Pretty sure that's the highest number of screenshots any battle got so far.

Anyhow, this one took about half a dozen tries. The first ones were all just trying various ways to get past Hariyama without having all my best 'Mons taken out. Then I had one where I ended up with almost exactly the same situation (minus Krookodile and Claydol, plus Nidoking, Mamoswine didn't need to get healed) once Conkeldurr came out. I lost at the last second that time, but now I won. Okay.

Screw the High Striker Effect though. At one point Mamoswine, who has higher Base Atk than Hariyama, got two "WEAK" in a row. What's that thing's idea of a "high" Attack stat?

This victory earns us the Fury Badge (long overdue) which doesn't raise the Level Cap (it's at 70 right now anyway), but does boost the Attack stat a bit, as well as the TM Brick Break. Fighting Attacks are useful for coverage, so this is nice. Nidoking learns it.

After the battle we meet up with everyone in the Big Top's back room again, where Terra's giant computer has apparentally identified the sleeping signal over Agate as coming from Ametrine City. Another new destination, and we'll need Surf to get there as well. We decide to meet up with Cain, Aya and Hardy at Calcenon and continue on from there.

That's it for today! Until next time

See ya!

Edited April 22, 2017 by Gentleman Jaggi
typos

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Jaggi's Ground Monotype Run [Amaria down - see you again in Ep18!]

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