Day 4- Goldenrod City Gym 

I was not ready for this battle.

Even with all the training, level grinding, plus all my years of experience battling against the third gym leader in Johto, I wasn’t prepared for what would happen.

She starts off with a Clefairy, level 18. I respond with my own Cyndy, who is at 18 by this point as well. Clefairy’s doubleslaps do more damage than Cyndy’s tackles and ember, so with 9 HP left, I take Cyndy out and replace her with Sandy, who scratches out the competition easily.

Now comes trouble in the form of a level 20 milktank. These things are a tank- literally. With high HP, high defense, high speed and the dreadful rollout on its side, this thing is scary for a moocow. I leave Sandy in to get one Sand attack at our opponent, lowering its accuracy, which turns out to be vital in the turns to come. This sets up Greg, who is level 23 now. He knows magnitude, which is going to be our bread and butter in this match.

In all the times I’ve ever faced Whitney, Miltank’s rollout is close to impossible to beat if you let it work all five turns in a row (thus why sand attack was so important). I trained Greg up because he’s a rock type with excellent defense that should be able to withstand the power and dish out some of its own.

I wasn’t expecting milktank to use attract.

Whenever I think of attract, I think most of emolga from black and white, who loves to use it especially in the anime.

Greg’s a guy rock, apparently.. And Milktank’s obviously a girl, so…

My geodude Greg fell in love with a moocow.

Yeah.

This really happened.

It was horrible.

The struggle became Greg fighting his infatuation to throw some magnitudes out there while milktank alternated between stomping his HP away slowly and using milk drink to replenish her HP.

It was the most frustrating 15 minutes of battle. Every time we got within a few HP, “Milktank used Milk drink!” and boooooop! Her health would go back up. Meanwhile Greg’s got hearts floating around his head.

It took a lot of patience, and one super potion, but we finally pulled it off. somehow.

And made Whitney cry.

It took her a moment, but she finally awarded us the Plain Badge and TM 45 Attract for our troubles. Which means…

We get to move on to a new city now!

Day 4- National Park 

Can we talk about psyduck for a second?

Yes? Good. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Back up.

In order to prepare for Whitney and her milktank, I headed north to route 35 where there are plenty of trainers around. Here, we met a new friend

I started to name it doctor who but instead opted for just “the doctor.” that makes the pun funnier somehow. cause hoothoot is an owl. and owls say who… ahahhh.

Moving on, we did some good level grinding and a certain egg hatched. of course professor wanted to see it, so we had to go ALL the way back to NEW BARK to show him. Since we have cut now, it was quicker and I was able to pick up things I couldn’t before, like the TM for roar from this gentleman

How nice.

I dropped Pi pi pi (like what pickachu calls togepi in the anime) at the daycare center and was given another Odd Egg. I think it’s a lottery for what ends up hatching from it. I hope it’s something good!

Back north on route 35, we fought some policemen and their growlithes and headed inside the National park. Got the quick claw among other things inside. Other things being this little beauty.

‘Course I ran around the house like this

when it happened. I FREAKING LOVE PSYDUCKS. It’s the one pokemon who perfectly reflects my personality. (I’m not sure if I mentioned that before. lol) So I’m happy. Plus, now we have a water type for our team. YAY!

Greg’s looking nice and strong and sporting a quick claw, so I think it’s time to earn our Plain Badge!

Day 4- Routes 5, 6, & S.S. Anne 

A lot happened but i’m lumping all together because, as I mentioned before, I lost a member of my team during this run so I’ve been pretty upset.

After beating the Rocket Grunt in Cerulean City and picking up TM 28 (Dig), which I plan on teaching to Sandy later, I headed out towards Route 5. There isn’t much on this route, but there is the daycare. I visited there to drop off Bobby for some leveling on his own, that way I could train the other 6 in rotation to be ready for our next gym battle- Lt Surge. Also on this route, I caught a new friend

BELLSPROUT. This is my go-to grass pokemon in every Gen I & II game I’ve played. The only thing that annoys me is how few PP vine whip has. I named her Vicki after my softball coach who whips us into shape. Yes. one for me for horrible puns. But seriously, check this sucker out

Yeah. Don’t fuck with Vicki the Bellsprout.

Then through the underground path, since the guard to saffron is thirsty and won’t let me through. Coming out on the other side to Route 6, there’s only one pokemon here that I don’t have registered in my pokedex- Meowth. I want one because as Persian, which it evolves at level 28, I can teach it bubblebeam- Gen I is the only generation this is possible. It can also learn thundershock, so Meowth is definitely worthy of a spot on my team.

(In case you didn’t notice, I’m a little embarrassed- I clicked B once too many times and didn’t get a chance to officially nickname her Jessi. The Name Rater is in Lavender Town, though..)

Ricky went into the PC to make room for Meowth, and yes, you guess it, I named it after my favorite member of team Rocket. I mean, come on! You can’t name a Meowth anything other than Meowth- or Meowsy. But I still have hurt feelings about that pussy..

After beating all the trainers on the route, I headed over to the Pokemon Fan Club to chat with the president and get my bike voucher before going on the S.S. Anne. I had planned on doing some training here, specifically Meowth and Sandy to get the latter prepared for the big leagues. What I hadn’t expected was how hard these trainers were.

It didn’t help that my pokemon were constantly getting confused and poisoned. Accuracy lowered once and they couldn’t hit the barn side of a broad. On top of that, every since opponent pokemon had at least one critical hit in each battle. I managed to survive the first floor- almost. The fourth and final trainer on the first floor was a youngster with a single Nidoran. Level 21. My team was growing tired, but I had faith in Sam that she could take out the poison-type. And, well, two water guns did a lot less damage than I thought it would. So, I looked down my team, trying to find someone I could trust to finish the job. Everyone had three-fourths or lower health left, but the healthiest with proven strength was Jessi. I called her out without even a thought that something could go wrong.

Something did. Something horrible.

As she was called out, Nidoran attacked with a horn attack, taking her down to 23 HP. it had only done about 14 damage, so I thought I could get an attack in before healing her up. Peck brought her opponent down to his finally 5 HP, and then he attacked with his horn once more. I had to watch in horror as Jessi’s health bar decreased rapidly with a critical hint. Then the words flashed across the screen

“Spearow fainted!”

And my heart sunk. The duo of Megan the pidgeotto and Jessi the spearow won many key victories for me along the way, especially getting through Mt Moon. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them I called out Megan next and she struck with a vengeance, taking down the pokemon who had killed her best friend with a single gust.

Healing up quickly at the PKMC, I puttered around Vermilion City trying to figure out  what to do with myself. I hadn’t released Jessi’s body yet- I just didn’t have it in me… Upon entering one house, a woman offered to trade her Farfetch’d for a Spearow. Technically it would be the first pokemon I caught in this city and it’s not a duplicate of one I have.. So I thanked Jessi one last time and passed her deceased self along. With that, Dux joined the family.

With that, I killed two bi—.. Oh. :|

Anywho, I went back to the S.S. Anne, full of the desire for revenge. A one point or another, every member of my party (except Dux, who I haven’t used in battle yet) came within seconds of being lost for good. Somehow, though, we survived, just like Jessi would want us do. Healed up one last time before heading towards the captain’s office when AMBUSH

It wasn’t too difficult. Sam took out his pidgeotto (18) easy enough, then Megan took out his raticate (16). I thought his Kadabra (19) would give me some trouble, but Sandy took him down with two slashes. Finally, he evolved his bulbasaur into an ivysaur, but Megan took care of it just as easy as the raticate.

And after Gary insisting that he wanted to smell me again… >.> … I grabbed HM01 Cut from the captain- but it came at a price…

was it worth it? Only time will tell….

~~

Gearing up to face Lt Surge and his Raichu, the team is as follows

Sam, level 26: Bite, Tail Whip, Bubble, Water Gun

Megan, level 23: Gust, Sand-Attack, Quick Attack, Whirlwind

Meowth, level 14: Scratch, Growl, Bite

Vicki, level 18: Vine Whip, Sleep Powder, Wrap, Poison Powder (will learn Cut)

Sandy, level 18: Scratch, Sand-Attack, Slash, Dig (to be learned)

Dux, level 18: Peck, Sand-Attack, Leer, Fury Attack

RIP, Jessi. Spearow. level 18.

Day 4- Cerulean City 

Took on Misty of the Cerulean City Gym. She doesn’t have any potions, but does have two X Defends she uses as soon as she sends each pokemon out, making defeating them that much more of a difficulty.

Put Megan up again a level 18 Staryu and gusted the crap out of it, making it faint with only 17 HP left.

(only staryu.)

Next up came level 21 Starmie. In other games, this pokemon always gave me a lot of trouble, and while both Megan (20) and Jessi (18) are strong, one bubblebeam would knock them out. So it was Sam’s time to shine again. At level 22, she outleveled Misty’s beast, but wasn’t faster. So I had to rely on another tactic. Tail Whip. Yes, Tail. Whip. As here demostrated by Psyduck.

Somehow, this move lowers defense, therefore negating the X Defend she just used. Sam used this move about 5 times until Starmie had her health in the red. I used the next three turns to heal her up and then three tackles later, Starmie was no more. Got the Cascade Badge and the TM for Bubblebeam. Checkyeah!

Day 4- Route 24/Nugget Bridge & Route 25 

I knew that before I took on Misty that I would need to level up a bit, so I headed north to the Nugget bridge, where none other than Gary fucking Oak ambushed me.

It was tougher than before, but I got some good EXP for my mates from it. Went ahead and defeated the Nugget Gang, including a very persistent Rocket Runt at the end. Seriously, there was like 8 pages of “Are you sure?” when I kept rejecting his offer to join Team Rocket. By the end of that and battling the trainer in the nearby grass,

Boo. yah. mon. At level 18, Megan evolved into a pidgeotto, which means my team is almost ready for Misty. So I headed east to route 25 to do training there as well. I left the fourth trainer on this route alone because i’m planning on attempting the Mew glitch later (mostly for shits n gigs). Beat all the other trainers though and got the S.S. Ticket from Bill after I separated from him a pokemon (cause apparently he has the technology to combine himself with a pokemon. yeah..)

One thing with these routes is I failed to catch a pokemon on either- with route 24, Jessi 1-hit KOed a level 9 metapod and on route 25, an abra escaped via teleport after I threw a pokeball at it. sigh.

With all that done, I’m heading to Misty! Current team:

Ricky- level 13

Sam - level 22

Sandy- level 11 (not her gym anyway)

Jessi- level 15

Bobby- level 11 (not his gym either)

Megan- level 18

Next time, I take on Misty.