Woohoo!
I got my whole team up to Lv. 30 by doing the double battles with the Twins and the Pa and Belle just outside Solaceon Town. ;) Headed back to Veilstone City and took on Maylene!
I sent out Luxray first, and used Bite to hopefully take out her psychic/fighting Meditite. However, the little thing held on, and Maylene used a Hyper Potion on him! Luxray used Spark next, taking it down into the red. A Shock Wave later, and Meditite was out of it!
My original plan was to have Ponyta go against Lucario as she is a fire type which is super effective against steel types. However, my attention was distracted and I sent out Staravia instead, who I was saving for Machoke! Anyway, I used Aerial Ace and Wing Attack, but the Lucario was just too strong for my poor Staravia. :( He fainted after recieving a couple of Drain Punches. Out came Ponyta, desperately using Fire Blast to defeat him!
Maylene's last Pokemon was a Machoke. I sent out Shadow, hoping her Psychic moves would do the trick. HOWEVER. She had recently leveled up to Lv. 31 when I was battling Maylene's gym trainers, and she refused to battle! Angry and desperate, I turned to see my Pokemon so far. Ponyta was in the yellow from the fight with Lucario, and Staravia had fainted. Luxray was still quite healthy, as was Grotle. I chose Luxray, hoping his powerful Thunder would finish off Machoke...and it did! I was so happy that I had won the Cobble Badge. :)
As I left the Gym as a winner, Dawn approached me! Team Galactic had stolen her Pokemon and so we had to head over to Storage to defeat them! On the way, I healed up my team at the PokeCenter, and then Dawn and I started the battle! She chose Clefairy, whilst I chose my Grotle. However, the Grunt's Beautifly and Dustox both decided to Gust my Grotle, knocking him out before he had even had a chance to attack! Man, my team had taken a severe beating today! Out came Staravia, determined to make up for his defeat in the Gym. He used Aerial Ace to defeat Dustox easily. The Grunt then sent out Croagunk, which Staravia defeated using Wing Attack! Clefairy put Beautifly to sleep. Staravia did his magic again, then Stunky was unleashed! Staravia used Steel Wing to finally finish off the Grunts. Our team prevailed in the end! However, Staravia was brutally poisoned. :( But overall, my team did AMAZING today!