The Naturelocke Challenge

My name is Sylvie, and im a girl who lives in the sleepy little town of New bark, i thought today was going to be like any other - lounge around in the grass and watch my best friend Ethan play with his marill, but it just so happened that the resident professor wanted to ask a favor of me. Turns out he wanted to give me a pokemon for research reasons! I felt thrilled, i didn't even mind that he wanted me to run an errand for him afterwards. I was given a choice of three pokemon to choose between, but i honestly had no idea which one would suit me best. In the end i used a RNG and Neon the Gentle totodile became my partner he seemed to suit me perfectly, because he liked to relax too! One of Elm's aides gave me a couple of potions on the way out, which i was very grateful for, i'd feel terrible if i got my Neon killed.

Before we set off on the dangerous path to Cherrygrove, Ethan reminded me it would be a good idea to let my mum know what was going on, and it was a good thing i did, my pokegear had come back from repair, wouldn't want to travel without it. I have to admit diary, it took me a good few seconds to work up the courage to leave the town, pokemon could be viscious and i was terrified that i wouldnt be good enough to protect Neon, i didnt even mind when Elm ran out to give me his phone number - it allowed for me to mentally prepare myself some more.

It was a short trip to cherrygrove, and to my surprise we didn't encounter many pokemon, although we did get into just enough battles for Neon to hit lvl 6, every little lvl helps, right diary? Especially since he learnt water gun as a result. Both Neon and i were a little confused however,when the moment we stepped into town and elderly man pulled us aside and gave us the speediest tour i had ever been on, i had to hold little Neon in my arms just so he could keep up! Though he did give me a free pair of running shoes for following him so i suppose it wasn't too bad, and i learnt alot as a trainer. I took Neon to the pokemoncentre for a check-up just incase before the two of us went to browse the wares at the mart. We brought a couple more potions, a few paralyze heals and some antidotes to keep us in good shape, but disapointingly they had no pokeballs left in stock.

We encountered quite a few pokemon on route 30, and even got to witness part of a battle between a boys ratatta and another's pidgey. I felt pretty bad about making my totodile fight, since he oozed kindness and he was obviously pained by harming others in combat, But he fought willingly, knowing it was life or death. On the way to see Mr.pokemon i met a man who was overjoyed that i hadn't mistaken him for the man i was supposed to be visiting, he was so happy i decided it was best to keep it quiet that i had infact entered into his abode looking for the man in question. Regardless, he gave me an apricorn box as thanks, so i just accepted it with a smile, bid him good day and left to continue my quest.

By the time we reached Mr.pokemon's house, Neon and i had grasped the basics of fighting safely. there had been one incident where he had contracted poison from a particularily viscious weedle but thankfully i'd had the forsight to stock up on antidotes back in Cherrygrove and the problem was quickly resolved. As it turns out, Elm had been right on the mark, I was given an egg to transport back home, but on the plus side i got to meet world famous prof.oak who thought i was qualified enough to have a pokedex! Great! now Neon and i have an excuse to go travelling together!

At this point Diary i think its safe to say the elation of travelling with my own pokemon had clouded my thinking process, this decision i had made would surely lead to pain and suffering, but thats a realisation for later. anyway, Mr.pokemon let us stay the night to rest up for the trip back home

let me now make a note to never let Elm have my number again, he phoned me up shortly after i left Mr.pokemon's house and it was the vaguest, most frantic call i had ever heard. No explanation, just a jumble of words among which i just about made out a 'come back here asap' or something along those lines. Neon and i gave each other a look, and i could see he was worried about his pokemon friends in the lab, so we headed back with all haste, still taking care not to get murdered along the way. We stopped for a short rest in Cherrygrove, but this is where fate becomes extremely cruel for Neon.

We ran into a cocky red headed trainer, and we ended up getting into a fight. He sent out a chikorita, and i thought nothing of it until Neon cried out in despair, it was his friend from the lab, and we were forcing them to fight to the death. He fought back to defend himself, because clearly chikorita had been brainwashed to look down on every pokemon that wasnt itself. We won the battle, but the trainer ran off before Neon was able to land a definitive killing blow, i was just glad that Chikorita hadn't learnt any grass type moves.

After trying to console Neon, we contined heading back to New bark to see what was going on, that trainer and the frantic call had to have been connected. When we returned we could already see police swarming the area like it was a crime scene, and the investigator had the nerve to accuse me of the crime the moment i set foot inside the lab! thankfully Ethan was there to give him an earful, but i dont understand why Elm didnt try to defend me, although hearing Ethan's description fo the culprit reminded me of the battle i'd just had, so i informed the police that the guy was named Mike (incase you were wondering if i'm psychic diary, i just happened to pick up the trainer card he dropped when he was fleeing)

I have decided to take the pokemon gym challenge and aim to be the champion! Big dream i know, but im sure Neon and i can pull it off. I spent a couple of days mulling it over, and Neon seems to like the idea of travelling the region at the very least, Mum said she'd help me save up some money, and Ethan taught me the trick to capturing pokemon,and then gave me a few pokeballs so i'm pretty sure theres nothing else stopping me.

The first pokemon we saw on route 29 was a pidgey, whom we managed to catch, I named him Rufus, and it turned out he had a rather impish nature and a habit of dozing off. i headed to the lab to heal him up a bit and try to train him, since he was bound to die if i left him at lvl 2. Neon and rufus actually worked pretty well together in battle, Neon would often jump into the fray to protect Rufus if his health got too low, knowing that he himself was tough enough to take the hits. Even if Rufus decided to play a prank on him, Neon was good natured enough to let it slide

Anyway diary, We're planning to camp just outside of New bark town to train Rufus up a bit, so i'll write again when the situation changes!

Today i noticed that Rufus was very good at dishing out critical hits, not a lot of information i know, but it's the little things that make up a person, or in this case, pokemon. Anyway, person sneaking a peek at my diary, you're here to read about my adventure, not the little things i notice about my friends am i right? Well alright then, as our next port call, my team and i stopped off on the very bottom end of route 46 because i'd heard you could catch different kinds of pokemon, which is always good. Not sure how true the rumours were however, because the first thing we bumped into was a rattata, so by law i had to try and catch it, and im pretty sure i spotted one of these back on route 29, but i guess beggars cannot be choosers. I was afraid i'd knock it out and be left with nothing for this route, but i didnt want to risk anyone dieing in the capture process, so i chose Neon, and used his rage move, knowing it shouldn't do too much damage. Neon scared the life out of me when he got a critical hit and for a second it looked like the Rattata was going to die, but thankfully it somehow managed to endure it, albeit with 1 hp and i was able to throw a ball and capture it.

I named our new friend Yasmin and it turned out that just like Rufus, she too was impish with a tendency to doze off. It was a very good thing that Neon had a gentle temperment or he might have gone mad living with these two in the party.

With Neon protecting the party from harm, we headed over to Cherrygrove to make use of the pokemon centre there, before starting another training session.

Life is cruel. Our brand new friend, Yasmin, was knocked out by a critical hit during her second training battle so clearly it wasnt meant to be,although it was partialy my fault i feel, as i ignored that nagging gut instinct to switch her out. R.I.P. Rufus mourned the loss of his new partner in crime, and took revenge upon the offending sentret

With Yasmin's passing fresh in my mind, i decided we should train with in a change of scenery and moved to route 30, but e avoided the trainer battles for now, clearly we werent ready for them. The first pokemon we encountered on this route was a kakuna, and while this was very easy to capture, i quickly realised training it was going to be difficult. I named the Kakuna Xena, in the hopes she would become a strong beedrill. Xena shared her nature with Neon, which was rather nice, now i had two gentle pokemon able to tolerate Rufus's shenanigans.

Training Xena was a bit of a pain, with the only move she knew being harden, and her lack of ability to move by herself, but thankfully Rufus and Neon were willing to take care of the actual battling part of a battle, allowing Xena to only make an appearance at the start, like a queen commanding her knights.

Its amazing what you'll do when your broke isn't it? when i discovered i had no more cash i worked up the guts to finally challenge trainers. I cant get my head around it though, we kill peoples pokemon and then take their money? Am i the bad guy?

Anyway, i finally made it onto route 31 where i met my first encounter, a bellsprout, like a fool i very nearly thought to use Neon and his rage like with Yasmin, but then i remembered type differences, so i went for Rufus intead and hoped tackle was weak enough. Luckily enough it was, and after promptly reminding myself i needed to buy more pokeballs, i caught Krem. Krem turned out to be quite the character, he was particularily Adamant and strongly defiant of anything that didnt match his beliefs. My only hope was that i could keep him alive long enough for him to fulfill his potential. although considering his level, his nature, and the pokemon around us i had a bad feeling...

i decided that the best place to train Krem to a more reliable lvl was to take him to route 46 where geodudes had a tendency to make an appearance, with his only move being vine whip it seemed like a sound idea, except the first thing we encountered was a spearow, whose only move was peck. The mad thing utterly refused to switch out. we managed to defeat it somehow, although it involved alot of potions and i realised Krem was someone who was going to be extremely expensive to train. and stubborn. and had a death wish.

Our second encounter was exactly the same, except this one growled so much we ran out of pp. At this point i decided to call it a day and try elsewhere. I found it to be far cheaper to return home and train on the outskirts like i had with Neon, atleast here the flying types didn't actually know any flying moves

So diary, even i can be wrong at times, while difficult in the beginning, as he got stronger Krem became a little more reliable, of course hes still pretty expensive at times, such as now find myself completely broke, and with only 3 pokeballs, 2 antidotes 3 paralyze heals and a single potion left in my bag. Once Krems lvl had joined the rest of the team i stumbled into Dark Cave, where i tripped over Rumble the hasty geodude and subsequently caught him, now i had yet another party member to grind with but with any luck he shouldnt die unless i happen across bellsprout.

Why is it that i own a rock with a wish to be fast? short of picking him up and throwing him Rumble is perpetually slow, but hes so into his dream hes sacrificing his defence for it. at lvl 7, even lvl 3 pidgeys are faster than him, so he doesnt have the chance to heal or switch out if he tries. That was until he learnt rock polish, guess its not such a stupid nature afterall huh diary?

Oh oh! Diary! Xena finally evolved today! that big shell of hers cracked open and out popped a beedrill, now she can finally fend for herself, i hope i dont get her killed, we invested so many hours to get to this point. I wont really be using her or Krem at the first gym though since i've recently learned Falkner is a flying type trainer, guess i'll just have to lvl up rumble some more then!

Our first encounter on route 32 was a rattata, and since Yasmin is in Heaven, i technically do not have one, but Rumble killed it by mistake anyway so no encounter here. Although we did catch E the brave unknown in the ruins of alph. this will be..an interesting partnership, though it helps that its hidden ablity is super effective against psychic types and i suppose it was amusing to interact with it while in the ruins i caught it in, it sung alot.

As a side note Diary, Neon found a shiny leaf on route 32 today, i dont know what it is exactly but he seemed rpoud of it, so i put it on him like a badge of honor

The monks inside of sprout tower were sort of a joke, did they even try to train any of them? Krem seemed to have fun swaying and dancing around the pillar, and i saw Mike on the top floor muttering about beating everyone, i was fully expecting another fight but he used an escape rope instead, i suppose that was for the best, from what i overheard the head monk saying it didnt sound like he treated his pokemon very well. Elder Li's pokemon were a little better trained but unfortunately for his bellsprout, Rufus was in the mood to battle.

It was only after defeated Elder Li and getting the Flash TM that i had my first encounter inside the tower area, a rattata, maybe this time we'll succeed in capturing it. We succeeded, and Dave the rattata went to warm the pc bench

Falkner - Pidgey:
Naturally rumble started off by increasing his speed with rock polish, instantly making him faster than falkner's birds, and just to be on the safe side we used a defense curl aswell, though while we spent time rasing our stats, Falkner's pidgey spent time making sure our accuracy was reduced, causing our trump card 'rock throw' to miss, it was all we could do to alternate between rock throw and tackle until something hit, which eventually paid off, and atleast we hardly took damage in the process.

- Pidgeotto
Decided to stick with Rumble for this tougher form, since we were already benefitted from our stat inreases, the lack of accuracy we would just have to deal with once again we used rock polish to ensure we were the fastest pokemon on the field before once again switching between rock throw and tackle. although we did have to use a potion one because all of Falkner's gust spams were chipping away at Rumble's health.

Rumble finished the match with 14 health after lvling up to 14, and thanks to his efforts we got the Zephry badge

Elm wanted me to hatch the egg i got him from mr.pokemon. phew that was a mouthful. it was a little random too, he phoned me up out of the blue, and his assistant was already here in violet city waiting for me so i couldnt exactly refuse. Of course it meant i had to free up a space in my team for it, so i sent E to keep Dave company in the box. As much as im enjoying using it (neever thought i would say that about an unknown) it doesnt have any learning capacity so while its alright in the team an egg would probably do better.

And we finally had money again! i say had because i just spent it all on pokeballs and potions and generally the stuff Krem made me lose when training him. We started towards Azalea town, the team in dire need of training to keep with with that winning edge when some guy gave me a miracle seed, said he liked the look of my pokemon. I decided to give it to Krem, since he was the only grass type user in the party, but of course Rufus chose this exact moment to swoop down and steal it from him as an elaborate prank! Krem seemed a little annoyed at it, but decided not to pursue it, probably thinking it would just please the impish bird more if he made a scene, besides he had been managing just fine up until now without it.

After a couple of trainer battles Rufus seemed to get bored with carrying around something he couldnt eat,and Krem's lack of reaction to his prank, so gave it back, probably so he could plan his next game.

We travelled through Union cave to Azalea town today, ourfirst encounter inside that cave was a zubat, whom we caught without dealing it any damage luckily. It's a pretty low lvl though, so i think i'll name her Faron and sit her in the pc for now. Once we had made it out to route 33, our first encounter was an Ekins, whom we also caught and named Kripke, many of my pokemon (except Rumble) seemed to enjoy the rain in this area so we decided to train here for a short time

Our egg hatched when we visited Azalea town to rest up! a healthy togepi came out, I named her Sue. As soon as sue hatched Elm asked me to go and show it to him, but i wasnt confident i'd be able to keep it alive for the journey, Sue seemed quite timid. After a lot of consideration i decided to put Sue safely inside the box and take out Dave to train. Whike training most of my team caught Pokerus! which actually sort of left me torn over who to train.

As per his request, we travelled back home to show the proffessor Sue. It was good training for Dave (Switched Dave and Sue at cherrygrove, and then swapped them back again on the way back to azalea)He gave me an everstone for showing him, and Sue lvled up a little bit between new bark and cherrygrove, despite the fact that she was too timid to use any of her three moves in battle. (with the exception of growl but standing around growling at everthing would just get her killed) On the plus side though she did catch Pokerus during her short time outside the pc and was able to take it with her into the pc for storage in the event my current team got wiped.

When we returned to Azalea i decided to visit ilex forest first for a little more training and a pokemon hunt, however we didnt have a first encounter here yet as the only pokemon who greeted us were weedle and kakuna, if we're lucky diary that's all we'll find until we learn to headbutt trees

Anyway, we finally went to visit Kurt only for him to tell us about team rocket and their abuse of slowpokes at the well, so i followed him there. Kurt injured himself getting us past the guard so it was up to my team and i to stop team rocket. We defeated Proton easily enough, although Xena had to swap with Neon halfway through his koffing because her fury attack just wasnt doing damage. After kurt took me to his home and thanked me by being my pokeball making slave i returned to slowpoke well because i hadn't actually had an encounter there yet. Tried my hand at fishing with an old rod i was given as soon as i found water in the well and landed myself a magikarp, i had krem use poison poweder on it, and after missing somehow the first 5 times it finally hit. So we caught ourselves Valerie the Magikarp. I'm sure she'll be a fine gyarados one day.

Bugsy was a bug type trainer as his name implied, so Rufus was star player in this gym, and no offense to Xena but i found the method of getting to Bugsy a little creepy

Amazingly Rufus evolved into a pidgeotto after a fight with one of bugsy's apprentices

Bugsy:
- Scyther
After giving itself focus energy this pokemon spent most of its time spamming quick attack and taking surprisingly little damage from Rufus's gust attacks. Also it unnerved me how close to our own level this pokemon was, making me consider grinding longer as soon as i get the chance. I didn't have as many potions as i wanted either making this an tense battle. our Sand attacks hardly seemed to work either, and i seriously began to fear for my pokemons life. Thankfully scyther started missing giving me opportunity to actually attack instead of waste precious potions. Annoyingly bugsy also wanted his Scyther to live after Rufus narrowly failed to kill it with a Gust attack and we had to begin whittling it down yet again after dishing out a few more Sand attacks we decided to switch over to Rumble in the hopes his defense would help us last longer. Having rufus at such low health on the gyms first pokemon did not bode well for this battle.

As soon as Rumble was in battle scyther began spamming Leer, and we, forgetting it was part flying type, attempted to use magnitude like a fool before returning to our usual rock polish tactics. amazingly, just a single rock throw 1 hit KO'd the pesky scyther causing me to seriously rethink my know-how on pokemon battles., sort of makes Rufu's long struggle and near death experience kinda pointless.

- Metapod
I chose to switch over to Neon for this battle, still remembering that Rumble's defense had been compromised, and that rufus still needed healing. For the first move we fixed that, giving Rufus one of our last few super potions, before having Neon take down the opponant, as its tackles were very easy to withstand, and it didnt think to harden at all.

- Kakuna
Apparently, Scyther was Bugsy's only strong pokemon, as KAkuna was as easy to take down as Metapod had been, i had wanted to let Rumble take this one as he was so close to lvling up, but once he saw that kakuna was part poison type he refused. so Neon stayed in, unfortunately he got poisoned by the first poison sting, so i opted to finish this match asap. after nearly killing kakuna with bite, i thought it was a good time to top Neon's hp back up with a potion before finishing the opponant with one last bite attack.

As a result of the battle, not only did we get a badge but Neon lvled up and evolved into a croconaw! I made sure to use an antidote on him before stopping off at the pokemon centre to fix the team up and stock up on potions. also antidotes considering what roams ilex forest. Also, bugsy gave us the move 'U-turn' Which i'll be sure to keep handy for any timid pokemon that join the main team.

As soon as we stepped outside of the gym, Rufus swipped Rumble's shell bell. the poor thing took a minute to realise what was going on before rock polishing himself up to chase Rufus around, unfortunately for him, Rufus actually took a great interest in his stolen prize this time and decides to keep it for himself.We were just about to leave town when we bumped into Mike. I wasnt expecting to see him again, and we got into another fight.
-Gastly
Dave was my lead at the time and my weakest so i worried, alot. but Mike sent out a ghastly first, and dave had just so happened to learn Bite down in the slowpoke well, and after a lucky crit hit we took care of it in one hit.
-Zubat
a part poison type came out next, which meant Rumble refused to fight despite tactical advantage, so Neon came out to play, taking it down despite getting confused by it.
- Bayleef
i wasnt mean enough to keep Neon out for the fight, instead sending out rufus to take care of it. Neon had just evoved i wasnt losing him to a grass type, and an old friend at that. Although once again Rufus proved to be a bit weak on the gust side of things so the impish pokemon spammed sand attack instead. though he got poisoned in the process.Bayleef was tough, as strong as Neon in lvl, almost as strong as rufus, once again i was reminded that i needed to spend more time training. disappointingly the shell bell Rufus stole from rumble only restored 1 hp per hit. However Rufus managed to redeem himself by killing Bayleef with a critical hit when
it was at half health, so he wasnt a complete lost cause
-
We ventured into Ilex forest to look for a woodcutters farfetched and his apprentice, hoping to learn the Cut move as a result. It didnt take long to find him, but it did take a while to corner the runaway pokemon! We were given Cut for our trouble, and Dave volenteered to learn it. Considering all pokemon we had encountered in this forest so far were forms of Xena, i taught Rumble headbutt in the place of tackle and started attacing trees for my first encounter. the first got us yet another weedle, our second attempt however landed us a lvl 7 noctowl of all things. I had Dave take a look at its moveset by using a few focus energies to make sure it had nothing too dangerous, before switching in Krem for the capture routine. while i had it poisoned, it put me to sleep and then used a few growls, so it seemed eager to join my party. We eventually managed to catch it, and Vale the adamant noctowl joined the PC gang.

After Krem helped show a kimono girl out of the forst we decided to stick around to train him for a while, taking advantage of his poison type to stop weedle's giving us problems.

We finally emerged onto route 34 where we met Erin the Quirky drowzee who joined the PC club, and seeing that the pokemon here were lvl 10-14 as opposed to the lvl 3-7 in the forest thought we would train here for a while instead, though it wasnt easy trying to push everyone past lvl 20 on these lvls, especially when tainers cut so close to our own lvls. Anyway, i learned that my neighbour was the grandchild of the day care couple and got everyones numbers while i was here.

once he hit lvl 20, Dave evolved for me, it was a happy moment and so we moved on into goldenrod city, where we got ourselves a radio card and met whitney. i decided however, with how close bugsy's scyther was to our own in lvl, that we werent going to face this gym until everyone was lvl 25 minimun, so we moved on to route 35 and Neon fought its way through the trainers there until we found grass, where we encountered Zen the Yanma. We almost didnt catch him, he was poisoned and wrapped and escaped 2 pokeballs, he nearly died before he finally submitted.

On route 36 we met a male Nidoran named King, found a dancing tree and returned to town to get a watering can to remove it, only to find i needed to defeat whitney for it. so we went back to training, this time we looked around the national park, where we caught Sun the sunkern. Shortly after this, Krem evolved into a weepingbell.

Rumble evolved into a graveller! and then after learning that both golem and gravellers moveset were the same, a Sylvie in a different dimension helped me evolve Rumble into a golem!

After 4 team members hit lvl 25 and the other two 23, i finally gave into boredom and challenged whitney

We finally worked up the courage to challenge Whitney, and boy was i glad for the extra training we put in, it was probably the only thing that saved Xena's life

- Clefairy
Since Xena was the only member with a fighting move (Rock smash) i thought it would be wise to start off with her. We put her newly learned toxic spike move to use straight away since i was aware that Whitney had a tough Miltank in her arsenal, Of course, clefairy's metranome attack just happened to pull a wing attack out of the bag. Luckily though Xena was lvled up enough to withstand it very easily. We followed toxic spike up with Twin needle, succesfully poisoning the foe. Finally we threw out rock smash, confident that clefairy's health was low enough for it to be effective.

- Miltank
Kept Xena in battle since she was off to a good start, as planned the toxic spikes poisoned miltank right away, unfortunately though we weren't expecting the Lum berry it was holding, which instantly canceled out the poison. Our twin needle failed to repoison the target, and its defense was too tough to be damaged by rock smash. Our second Twin needle did poison it again, but With absolute horror, i watched a stomp attack crit hit. Xena's hp dropped like a stone and for an instant i was crushed, certain she was going to die. Barely, just barely did she manage to hold on with 5 hp. I immediately switched her out for Rumble, he may be hasty but he was still a golem.
Unfortunately he was hit by attract instantly, becoming unable to use rock polish to speed up, leaving us in the dire situation of being unable to heal or switch out. Nothing we did got past attract, so we had to count on our defense to hold out while we weaited for Xena's poison to finish the job. After what felt like an agonising wait, Miltank finally fell.

I felt bad, whitney was bawling her eyes out at the loss of her pokemon, but she gave us the plain badge anyway.

Rufus tried one of his tricks again, on Xena this time, but soon lost interest when he realised she had nothing for him to steal.

We stopped off at the flower shop after visiting the pokemon centre to treat the wounded warriors, and was given a squirtbottle so i could remove the pesky dancing tree on route 36. Turned out it was a static pokemon. A sudowoodo visable on the field, but i was unable to catch it. It escaped the ball i threw at it and ended up making it too dangerous for my team to keep trying, knocking 3 of them down to half hp before Neon finally gave up and water gunned it down to save the rest of the gang. We healed up once more before starting towards Ecruteak city.

Dave accidently killed the stantler we encountered on route 37 so nothing for us on the way to town

Once we arrived we explored a little, over on route 42 a hiker gave us the Strength HM, once again Dave the hardy raticate volenteered to learn it, i felt guilty about making him a semi HM slave but there was little other choice. Inside mt,morter we met Lee the machop. Back outside on route 42 we met Neal the mareep before deciding to turn back towards town, saving the trainers for later

Next we explored route 38 towards olivine where we caught Etim the magnemite. Felling satisfied with what we had achieved we got on with training.

On route 39 Lanna the Meowth joined the PC Gang

I decided to start growing oran berries in order to heal the miltank at moomoo farms, and met Mike in Olivine, thankfully we didnt get into a fight this time and on his advice i went to the lighthouse to train. Upon reaching the top i agreed to get some medicine from Cianwood town to heal the sick ampharos. We returned to Ecruteak city hearing rumours that someone in town was giving away the HM surf, and wandered into the burned tower out of curiosity. It was there we met Amy the koffing who also joined the PC gang.

It was while we were exploring there that i met Morty the towns gym leader, and Eusine a suicune fanatic. I also spied the three legendary dogs through a huge hole in the floor! I wanted a closer look but for some reason, Mike was here too!? He really got on my nerves! where does he get off spouting so much crap after my team and i constantly kick his butt?! Anyway, we got into yet another fight.

- Gastly
Rufus was still in front when the battle happened so i immediately switched out for Dave, normal types werent affected by ghost moves and he had Bite on hand, i couldnt have had a better plan, we'll consider this practice for Morty. He tried and succeeded to confuse us, but Dave hit him with a crunch anyway, one hit-KOing the beast.

- Bayleef
We swapped Xena in for this fight, as i still remembered how weak Rufus's flying attacks had been last time. We littered the ground with Toxic spikes for future advantage before attacking with Twin needle and getting a powerful critical hit that almost killed it. Unfortunately it survived the attack but its own hardly scratched us, so we finished it with Pursuit, clearly Mike wasnt into keeping his pokemon alive

- Zubat
I allowed Neon tot ake the stage here, planning to make good use of his Ice beam, unfortuantely Zubat was immune to the toxic spikes, but it made little difference since ice beam killed it in one hit anyway

- Magnemite
For the finisher i sent in Rumble, Toxic spikes didnt seem to work here either, making my plan moot, but one magitude 6 made it drop like the steel ball it was, for someone who spouts a lot of crap about strong and weak, Mike was super weak.

Anyway, after i defeated Mike i snuck downstairs to take a closer look at the pokemon, but the noticed me and fled, although for a while it felt like suicune was staring at me intently

After a little more training, Neon evolved into feraligator! i was shocked, i didnt realise he would evolve this soon. We had wandered over to mahogany town and route 43 where we caught a girafarig but without surf there was little else we could do here

The only place i hadnt looked for HM surf was inside the dance hall, where i witnessed a rocket grunt making a fool of himself, Krem and i defeated him easily and was given surf for our troubles, which i taught to Neon. now it was time to take on the gym leader.

I went through all of the apprentices with just Dave, infact Morty went very much the same way

- Gastly
Dave one shot it with crunch

- Haunter
Dave one shot it with crunch

- Gengar
Dave one shot it with crunch

- Haunter
Dave one shot it with crunch

We earnt the Fog badge from Morty, and overall it was the least life threatening battle i had ever been in. Then again, Dave WAS lvl 30

Shortly after, as expected Rufus looked like he was gearing up for a prank, but he seemed a little confused as to who he was going to target, and so didnt do anything at all.

On mortys suggestion we headed back over to Olivine, passing through to Cianwood, making good use of our new surf move. it was while surfing over route 40 to cianwood we met Sally the tentacool who joined the PC gang, Inchou the chinchou followed shortly after, when we went fishing on route 41.

We finally arrived in Cianwood town it was smaller than i had expected, before we did anything else we went straight to the pharmacy and got ourselves a secret potion for ampharos. Next we visited the houses learing legends and rumours about a legendary pokemon of the see, it felt a bit like ecruteak and their rainbow pokemon of the sky. In one house i met a guy who was terrified out of his whits, from the sounds of it he had been harrassed by Mike(i cant believe he has sunk to theft), he asked me if i would take care of his other pokemon, so i accepted to give him some piece of mind, so Shuckie the relaxed shuckle joined the pc gang. After this we wandered up North of town, where i broke a bolder of curiosity. Out popped a krabby! Now since this area counted as Cianwood, and not route 41 i was pretty sure i was allowed to try and catch it. I gave it a shot and somehow caught Kripke the Adamant Krabby!

Now diary this might sound a little crazy, but after we caught Kripke, i noticed something, Suicune was standing over near the cliff, just watching me the same way it had in the burned tower. I didn't realise pokemon could be stalkers. Just kidding. When i approached it out of curiosity im pretty sure it was trying to tell me something before it fled. Probably because Eusine appeared out of nowhere. He forced me to battle him, thinking he could earn Suiune's respect. I'm not even sure what I'VE done to gain its attention, but there was no way i was going to let him win, my team is precious to me!


I know i should have returned to olivine instantly, but i was promised by a nice lady to be given HM fly if i defeated the gym leader here, which would quicken my return, rather than the long surf.In preparation for the fighting gym, i worked on training Rufus.

And i've reached the conclusion that Rufus's STAB moves are really weak. or maybe its just Gust. regardless it did little more to the apprentices fighting types than russle its hair. We continued to train Rufus regardless however... one of the apprentices Hitmonchan smacked him hard with an Ice punch on their first move....and Rufus fell in battle.I was..shocked..he was my Fly ticket home.. the first pokemon i had ever caught. In a teary eyed moment of revenge i sent out Neon to finish him. But he very nearly took out Neon too! so we switched to Dave (i wasnt thinking straight) Neon had whittled it down, so i sent Dave in to finish it with Cut, and he very nearly died doing so. After the battle ended we fled back to the pokemon centre to send Rufus to heaven :( I took his shell bell as a memento.

I spent a very long time infront of the PC debating over who would take Rufus's place. Ideally it would be a flying type, so i could zip around wherever i needed, but that would leave me with Vale the lvl 7 adamant noctowl or Zen the lvl 12 impish yanma (who i wasnt sure i could even fly on) I could have also opted for Erin the lvl 10 quirky drowzee or daisy the lvl 15 rash girafarig to take revenge on the gym psychicly. They would all need training. Hek i could even opt for Faron the timid zubat to fly with but its nature would leave us lacking. I realised erin would be a terrible choice, being unable to use STAB moves thanks to her nature made her useless in this gym.

After a long decision process, i decided to take out Daisy in Rufus's place

Dear diary. today while training Daisy, i stumbled across Entei. I have no words, i allowed it to escape as i myself ran away, it was strong, i could feel its pressure, and it was in an area i had already captured a pokemon. I spent a long time training Daisy so she was the same lvl as the rest of the gang. I gave Neon the shell bell Rufus used, and he took it gladly, it took some time, but Daisy was finally settling in nicely with the guys.

We finally re-challenged the Gym that claimed the life of Rufus, the newly trained Daisy playing as our trump card

Gym leader Chuck:
- Primeape
it was scary that Chuck was the same lvl as us. he started out with a double team, but Daisy's Psybeam hit and nearly knocked it out right away, i had her follow up with confusion, knowing that Chuck would heal. Lucky for us we got a ritical hit and finished this foe without taking damage

- Poliwrath
A part water type was up next, so i swapped Daisy for Krem, enduring he opponants Body slam so we had a chance to use poison powder. We healed up right away afterwards and somehow avoided the incoming hypnosis attack. With that out of the way we endured another body slam, aiming to hit it with the all important vine whip, but we ended up being struck by paralysis! I immediately healed the status condition, only for the same thing to happen with the next body slam. That said as long as i could keep Krem alive all we had to do was wait for the poison to eat away at it. For some reason i panicked when Poliwrath whiped out surf (must have been the crit hit) but we couldnt seem to keep our health up, and it turns out the enemy had a sitrus berry, and we still hadnt managed to heal paralysis, or get an attack in since poison powder. It wasnt good, Krems nature made it impossible to switch him out, was i going t lose two preious partners to this gym!?

We finally got lucky and had a chance to remove paralysis instead of healing, i had made the mistake of not buying all the potions i could before we started this fight. But once again poliwrath hit us with a body slam and the cycle began again paralysis included. Chuck healed his pokemon again. I had no choice, i had to attack without removing paralysis, but once again it orevented us from utilizing vine whip. After another two trie we finally got through, only to find it didnt do as much damage as i had hoped, still it was enough to keep us going and so i took another turn to heal, he wouldnt use surf forever. 4 super potions left. Another vine whip got through the status condition, thankfully, and the opponant finally fell. Chuck was defeated, and Krem got a hard earned rest

With our new badge safely tucked away, we left the gym and recieved HM Fly from the lady who promised it to me. I visited the pokecentre to heal up, temporarily swapped out Neon for Vale and taught him Fly before returning to Olivine and swapping my party back over.

We finally delivered the medicine and healed the ampharos of the lighthouse, after which jasmine announced she was returning to the Gym. I am aware that she is a steel type trainer, and here lies my problem diary. I lack a fire type among my pc gang, and steel itself has the potential to be especially effective against rok types like rumble, making it dangerous to attempt to use his magnitude ability, i may have to onsider making a temporary team, diary, specially desinged for challenging this gym, possibly one that can handle an ice gym over in mahogony town as well.

While that struck me as a good idea, i decided to just stick with my team and do some more grinding, after a look through my pc gang i hadnt fund 6 pokemon suiting that ideal. Sheer power it was!

We recieved a call saying the safari park was ready so my team and i headed over there for the chance of more training and pokemon, no encounter for us on route 47 however, as Daisy was nabbed with a critical hit, meaning she automatically struck back and killed the staryu we encountered.

I enountered a vulpix on route 48, despite knowing the risks i switched in Krem. I really really wanted to catch one! it would be a great advantage against the steel gym! Krem hit t with poison powder, then all we had to do was wait and stay healthy, but in the end all we had to do was throw a single fast ball after our first attack and we caught her! I named her Nina and shall pick her up from a pc to train as soon as i find one. I swapped Rumble out for nina, since he had a weakness to steel and began my training, turns out she had a hardy nature like Dave.

Entered the safari zone and shortly realised what a waste this was! my first encounter was a taurus, but it escaped from me! guess it was time to leave the safari zone an get on with training.

My god Diary! Today we caught someone special on route 48. Now i know your thinking 'wait didnt you already get Nina on 48?' and yes i did but Lucas the taurus is special. He is the first shiny pokemon i have ever met in my entire lifetime!

Apparently having nina as my trump card worked! i trained her to level 30 before i challenged Jasmine

- Magnemite:
Nina one shot it with Flamethrower

- Steelix:
Used Neon's Ice fang, but found it less effective than i had anticipated, so instead we took advantage of its ground sub-type and killed it wiht Surf instead

- Magnemite:
Nina re-entered and once again one shot it with flamethrower

Battle over, we earned badge number 6!

I knew the next gym was an ice type so i decided to keep nina in the team for now, and would have rumble re-take his place afterwards, so i made my way back to -- town and over to the lake of rage, able to actually explore it now that Neon could surf. Turns out there was a shiny gyarados rampaging in the lake, so Dave and i defeated it and calmed it down. It was shortly after this where we met Lance and his dragonite ( i want one! ). He asked me to help hm investigate some strange radio waves, which i agreed to, chance of encountering bad guys and winning battles? yes please i'll take te experience before the next gym!

We found a secret base behind an ugly looking golden wardrobe inside a shady looking shop. Honestly i dont know how they got away with it for so long, the place stood out like a sore thumb, the tree next to the shop looked wrong somehow, the prices of the goods were extortion and the golden wardrobe thing stood out way to much to be anything but suspicious!

We battled through the guards, and while there found a wild voltorn who we caught and named Orben, Once we deactivated surveillance and reached the lower floor, we met up with Lance, who helpfully healed my team for me.

After battling trough grunts and finally learning the passwords to the boss's room, my team and i prepared to take on the head honcho, and surprise surprise Mike showed up, spewed some angry rubbish at me before leaving...why was he even here? Anyway we confonted some guy named Petrel and defeated him in battle, but he ran away! the door that was locking us out of the radio control room would only open with his voice! For just a second i was at a loss diary, but then the Murkrow in the room, clever pokemon it was, started mimicking petrels voice and the password, he ran all over the building screaming it and having a whale of a time!

Unfortunately as soon as the door opened, i was ambushed by Ariana and a goon. It didnt look good, my team was strong but i didnt know if i could handle the both of them without a casualty, thankfully though Lance showed up and evened the odds, i'll tell you now diary, fighting alongside a dragonite was amazing! We defeated Ariana and deduced that to turn off the machine the electrode had to faint. I really wished i had Rumble in my team at that moment. After we defeateed them all Lance gave me the HM whirlpool, i had to have a long think over who i was going to teach it too - Neon already had surf, Eventually decided to teach it to Sally the bashful tentacooll before returning her to the pc...for now.

Nina was the front of the party from the moment we set foot inside this freezing gym, an d we fought our way to Pryce by alternating between Nina and Neon, thankfully none of the apprentices thought to make their ice/water types use water moves, but better safe than sorry

to be honest i dont remember much about the battle with Pryce but i do remember that i was too scared to actually use Nina for the battle, Dave almost died and got frozen, Neon nearly died too but was healed up, and surprisingly Daisy did the most work and defeated his final pokemon, Dewgong.

Sorry that wasnt as detailed as before diary!

Anyway, after earning badge number 7, i got a phonecall from Elm saying something about team rocket and the radiotower, so i turned on my radio and sure enough they were all over it. We healed up at a pokemoncentre, swapped Nina back for rumble and went back to golden rod to confront them. But it turns out i couldnt gt past the guard at the radiotower, so i looked around for a way in until i finally heard they were hiring people for this job! perfect! i borrowed a uniform and snuck in, it was all proceeding to plan until Mike came in and ruined it. We didnt get into a fight atleast, but i lost my disguise, oh well least we got rid of the guard!

On the way up the radiotower, we enountered a rocket with a koffing. I was training Krem at the time, and despite being hit with numerous smokescreens he refused to leave the battle field. None of our moves hit while Krem himself was buffetted. He was down to one hp..and diary it was all my fault! i was going to heal him, i had the hyper potion ready and everything, but when i went to applied it i slipped! my stupid hand slipped and ended up wasting the much needed potion on Dave, who had only taken 7 hp damage! Krem fell in tht battle because of my mistake. Daisy finished off the battle, and we left to send Krem to heaven, but im having a hard time deciding who his replacement will be. In the end i chose Nina since she already had the training.

We battled our way up to the 5th floor to find our old friend Petrel, it was a tough and grueling battle, unfortunately we lost Dave and my beloved Xena to self destructing koffings :( Lucus and Orben step up to the plate, time to go training before we save the director and face the rocket boss.

Orben passed away during training, it just wasnt a good match, since she knew whirlpool i had Sally take his place. We had a very long training session in weaker places, as i was growing scared of how many friends i had been losing lately.

We got a little bored of training and decided it couldn't hurt to charge in guns blazing with Neon...was challenged by mike during my rescue of the director. defeated him with Neon, Nina and Daisy, no casualties on our side either :)
--
Well that escalated quickly, rescued the director only for him to tell me the entire pokemon world is in danger if rocket controls the transmitter, guess i have no choice but to remove them if i want to keep my friends safe. We fought carefully through the executives again, training Sally while taking advantage of the teams attack diversity and type strengths...although Rumble was only any use against Raticates as the rest of team rockets pokemon were either dark or poison. Still, ...being able to easily resist a hyper fang was very handy too!

With team rocket disbanded, and some kind of silver feather wing in hand. It was time to return to our training, i hear the next gym is full of dragon types, so i shall focus on those who can learn ice type attacks (pretty much just neon then, maybe sally if i beg her enough?) probably wont give Rumble as much training as i should since i know he will refuse to fight.
We caught Newt the poliwag when we passed back through Ecruteak and decided to fish there, i always forget there are pokemon to find inside towns too!

Damn you entei! He appeared as our first encounter on route 44, this is the second time legendaries have thwarted me...oh well.

After a bit of grinding with Sally we eventually got back on route and headed through Ice cave where we met Ellie the Delibird, we also found the HM wasterfall and a frozen kimono girl whom we helped out. Oh! and Sally finally evolved into a tentacruel, the team is becoming a powerhouse once more! ..Now if i can just find a fire stone....

After making it to blackthorn city, finally, we rested up and went straight down to route 35 for...you guessed it, more training, there we caught Joey the teddiursa to add to the PC bench warmers and we plan on hanging out and around the route (even if we have to go to the bottom and fly back up a few times) just to make sure we get all the trainers. This should also allow time for rematches too. i'll write again when we try to challenge the gym leader!

We challenged the dragon gym, charging through all the grunts using only Neon, hopefully we can keep this up with Clair herself...

=She began with a gyarados, which was typical i suppose, since it more like an honorary dragon than an actual one, Neon still managed to make short work of it with a crunch, ice fang and a slash, reaching lvl 45 for his troubles
=Gyarados was followed by dragonaire, and this was where our ice fang move could really do some damage, we took it down in two shots, though the thunderwave clair pulled off was cruel ( luckily we were only paralyzed for one turn)
= With another dragonaire in the line-up i decided to keep on blazing through and after using my one and only full restore we were ready to go. Annoyingly this dragonaire used the same trick but we werent affected at all because Neon is so pro! It was knocked out immediately.
=For her final pokemon kingdra i decided to risk it and stick with the reigning champ, taking the first turn to remove paralyses, though it turns out kingdra is a really hard hitter, the second turn had to be used on a hyper potion...Orben would be really handy to have right now. Kingdra started spamming smokescreen which became worrying, i was tempted to switch out, but slash seemed to be hitting well, and as long as we healed every turn or two Neon was managing.

After some patience Neon finally defeated kingdra officially soloing the eigth gym of Johto!

Despite losing to us, Claire refuses to give us a gym badge, which naturally infuriated Neon and myself, afterall, we (most importantly he) had worked so hard to get here! But now she wants us to take some sort of...dragon challenge int heir sacred cave? Well fine we have no choice if we want our badge but i sincerly hope there is someone inside who i can give a piece of my mind to!

Turns out the challenge was just a few quiz questions from an elderly man. and i passed with flying colours, he made sure Claie gave me the Rising badge, on the way out i encountered a dratini among a sea of magikarp, but i couldnt capture it, it was too stubborn and i ended up knoking it out jut before i ran out of pokeballs...such a shame :( . Oh but it looks like elm has something for me, so we're going to head by his office next!

Turns out Elm wanted to gift me a master ball, then informed me all 5 kimono girls were waiting for me in ecruteak dance theatre, on arrival Mike appeared looking angry he lost, but admitted he thought i was going to win (he didnt look happy about that either!) So i allowed Neon to take the lead and we challenged all 5 in a row, thanks to neon's shell bell and move variety it wasnt too difficult. The only exception was when we faced Jolteon, i allowed Rumble to take stage for that one.

After defeating all five i was given a Tidal bell, then informed that a Lugia shaped shadow was spotted over whirl islands. Guess i'm heading there next

Amazing! i just encountered my second shiny, a magnemite, heading down to ecruteak, managed to capture it in an ultra ball and named it Duncan. I've gone from never seeing a shiny ever, to finding two in the same year! *ahem* anyway, we made our way to whirl islands.

Caught Iza the seel in whirl islands, also turned out we were in the wrong cave, ran around till we found the right one (hih took a while, we didnt have anyone who could sue flash with us.

We met and caught Lugia and named it Ace, went to go and show prof.elm and he suggested i challenge the elite 4, so we headed over the border into kanto to trek to victory road, will hang around this little cottage training, the person there doesnt mind giving us bed and board