I finished off all the additional quirks I needed to do in Veilstone City and headed back along the southern route towards Pastoria City. Because of my constant returning to Veilstone, I ended up beating all the trainers, so it was more or less a straight run, excluding random encounters and items; particularly along the last leg, which turns west after the Valor Lake Resort. (I hadn't beaten those trainers)
Anyway, finally arriving in Pastoria, I decided to hit the Safari Zone/Great Marsh first and managed to capture three Wooper and a Quagsire, as well as a Yanma, after a tricky ordeal with them running away, no matter what I did... x.x;; Interestingly enough, I caught an equal number of them that had both abilities the Wooper/Quagsire can have, but opted to go with a Water Absorb Wooper, instead. (the Quagsire was rather Damp, hehehe... ^^;; )
Much of the time after the Great Marsh was spent levelling up Wooper so that it could both learn Earthquake early on (if Level 33 is considered early) and evolve into Quagsire; it can surprisingly evolve at Level 20, where I thought it was much like Slugma and Swablu, in that it evolves much later on... regardless, I succeeded... eventually and finally obtained team member #5!
After obtaining Quagsire, I decided it was time to take on Crasher Wake, but this time, I bought some Revives! I defeated my rival rather quickly and went back to the Pokemon Center to recover, having forgotten from my Japanese version that he battles you in Pastoria earlier... anyway, I took out all of Wake's Gym Trainers and proceeded to challenge Wake, not at all surprised to see nothing had changed with him... him sending out Gyarados and my sending Luxray. I decided Gardevoir could take on Wake's own Quagsire, while I left my Quagsire to defeat Floatzel, which was aided by his insistence to use Water type attacks. (makes me glad I opted for Water Absorb~ )
Anyway, having completed that hassle, it was up to me to chase down the nasty Galactic Grunt that caused an explosion in the Great Marsh, but as usual, he plondered off, passing Cynthia as he went. Now equipped with the SecretPotion, I proceeded to Route 210, where I would not be able to get rid of those Psyduck and obtain the 6th and final Pokemon for my team! But before that, I progressed along the western route from Pastoria, back to Hearthome.
After cleaning up along the west, and then heading north back to Hearthome City, I paid a quick visit to the Pokemon Center, then went to clear out those chronically suffering Psyduck. After a quick scene with Cynthia 'suddenly' appearing again, I got the Old Charm and progressed along the northern section of Route 210 to Celestic Town, picking up a couple Swablu along the way. The battles from here to Canalave City all involved me training Swablu to the point of its evolution, which didn't happen before Monferno finally evolved into Infernape, leaving Swablu as the only Pokemon not to evolve in my proposed team.
In Celestic Town, I took out the Galactic Invasion; including their leader and obtained the HM Surf from Cynthia's grandma. I personally think Cynthia is much more of a stalker in Platinum, because she appeared again to let me know that there is a library in Canalave City, to the West of Jubilife City.
Ignoring this for now, I went to Route 207 to complete the cave where you find the young girl and help her out of the cave, since I had not done so, earlier. It was mostly to train Swablu some more, but the battles only progressed Swablu's level by one. (Sing hit a surprisingly high number of times, too...)
Anyway, having completed that little side-quest, I progressed to Jubilife and across to the west towards Canalave, where I battled a few trainers and my rival, once again. Interestingly enough, his Staraptor and Rapidash killed themselves with Take Down... but Quagsire was for the win, dealing a healthy pair of Earthquakes on his Steel-typed Empoleon. Thankfully, this also marked the time where Swablu's training had finally paid off, and it evolved into Altaria, completing my proposed team!
At current, I am attempting to travel through Iron Island with Riley, to claim a Riolu Egg before I take on Byron. ^^
Current Pokemon: - Proposed team Complete~
Infernape @ Level 36 - Sassy | Mach Punch|Flame Wheel|Close Combat|Taunt
Luxray @ Level 36 - Docile | Thunder Fang|Bite|Charge|Spark
Glaceon @ Level 36 - Modest | Ice Beam|Helping Hand|Ice Shard|Sand-Attack
Gardevoir @ Level 36 - Bold | Confusion|Psychic|Magical Leaf|Calm Mind
Quagsire @ Level 36 - Relaxed | Surf|Yawn|Earthquake|Amnesia
Altaria @ Level 35 - Careful | Sing|DragonBreath|Safeguard|Fly
